feminism and transsexuel people

[sparky159]

ive started this thread as the other thread[reccomend a book]has now finished!
why do some feminists find it so hard to even think that transsexuel people exist?
and why cant they see that transsexuelism is a femminist issue?

I have been following the various trans threads recently with avid fascination (initially out of the Dr Pepper issue). I can't remember the last time I saw such interesting and well-argued (by some) threads on MN - fascinating stuff!

So my understanding of the argument is that dittany, Sakura etc have been putting the case that XY MTF trans-women, whilst deserving the same human rights etc as anybody else, cannot or should not be able to claim to be equivalent or the same as XX women becasue they have been born and brought up, initially at least, as men, and therefore have had access to all the patriachal advantages that we, as XX women, have not. Their experience is that of trans-women, not women. Shouldn't they be trying to make society broaden it's definition/acceptance of
being a man/maleness rather than trying to become stereotypical women? (or more acceptance of a third gender for intersex people?) I agree with this, I think.

I have been thinking a lot about this over the past few days and one thing that occurred to me is that possibly we are missing some of the science on this issue. We are saying that in the vast majority of cases, presence of a Y chromosome is male-determining and that this means that most XY trans-women, no matter how "feminine" they feel/want to live, are still males and should not be able to call themeselves women as they have not had the same experience of being repressed (for being women) that XX women have had. What about the cases of people born with full CAIS though (complete androgen insensitivity syndrome)? In these cases, they are XY babies who genetically would have been male but due to other mutations they do not respond to the testosterone generated from having an SRY gene on a y chromosome so the male secondary characteristics do not develop and the baby continues to develop along the default female pathway. These babies are often born looking exactly like girls, are tretaed as such, grow up as women and only discover that they are XY individuals, i.e male sex when they have investigations for infertility problems as adults. I know this must be incredibly rare but is this a case for allowing an XY individual to legitimately call themeselves women/female whatever when they have been bought up as women with the same shit to deal with re: body image, discrimination, pregnancy, rape, abortion etc as XX women?

Not sure about this, just playing devils advocate to an extent and wondering what other people think? Also, isn't it possible that at least some MTF trans-women might have sone of the myriad of other rare chromososmal disorders that give rise to genotypes other than the 2 usual ones of XY male and XX female? Might this give more legitimacy to claims of being female? (I am amazed more people with gender issues or intersex conditions don't get themeselves tested to see - I know genes don't explain everything but I think it would help me in those circumstances to understand why I was having such a different experience??)

Anyway, have really enjoyed these discussions, largely. As a dormant feminist latterly bogged down with trying to have a career, be respected at work and also have and raise children I think you have awakened the slumbering beast within! I have found posters such as Dittany and Sakura and others to be inspirational in the way they have argued their points logically and respectfully even in the face of apalling and unecessary abuse from poster like earwicga whose behaviour, imo, has done much to damage the causes of MTF trans-women. I had no idea that such a dischord even existed, though I do know a pre-op MTF trans quite well so am aware of the issues, but now I feel quite angry that, in some circles, I am no longer considered a woman with all the crap that has entailed but merely a bog-standard cis-woman!

I also think SalaciousCrumb and Nancy66, in contrast, did much to positively represent intersex individuals and chidren with gender identity disorders. I think you are both very brave.

Honestly i don't see transwomen as women or transmen as men and i am pretty sure most people don't care too much as long as it does not involve them. I can imagine a situation where a transwoman tells a man she is with that she used to be a man that will not go down well at all...

As for medical conditions yes problems can and do occur with there genetic anomalies where XY, XX do not suffice in determining a persons sex. However these cases are no where near the norm or even that common. But genes alone are not what solely determines a persons sex there are also hormonal differences, bone structure, strength and endurance even the way the brains were differ slightly. Just changing the outside layer does not suddenly make someone something else.

In fact the outside layer is the most inconsequential part when it comes to the sex of a person most of it is determined internally and that is what matters the most and also cannot be changed on a whim. Although i know that transsexual constantly have to take drugs in order to force their hormonal balance to resemble that of the sex they wish to become.

mrsrisotto, that was my point. Frikonastick seemed to be saying that the motivation of someone born a man but becoming a woman was "not feeling like a man" but not knowing what else to do with that feeling except become a woman. I have not studied the issue but any accounts I have heard have referred to the feeling that the person actually is female, not just that s/he is "not male".

FWIW, I am not comfortable with this "you can't be a woman if you haven't had the same experience of repression, sexism, etc, etc, etc,". I have experienced life as me and am not that interested in dissecting what bits are about me being female and what are about me being the unique individual I am, the only one who has my specific collection of experiences. I wouldn't lay claim to having been repressed and have no wish to appropriate a victimhood that is not mine. I thought that dittany and Sakura, among others, were unnecessarily disparaging of fellow human beings. I actually found that I was on more or less in agreement with SGB (which shook me a bit).

If I were an XY trans woman, I doubt I'd want to feel like I had the responsibility of "trying to make society broaden it's definition/acceptance of
being a man/maleness rather than trying to become stereotypical women" - I imagine I'd want to do what I thought would let me live the happiest life I was capable of. Isn't that what most of us want?

I recently learned that an acquaintance of mine has become a MTF trans woman (pre-op). She works for the same employer as me and has moved into the building I work in though I haven't met her yet. It has been much talked about and the commonest question has been "What toilet?". I've had to bite my tongue to avoid asking if any of them really think she did it to perv at women in the loos!

that is what i am saying.

if a man doesnt 'feel' like a man, what other sex can he possibly think he feels like? its not like there are infinite options.

either you are a male or you are female.

thats the two options available.

which is why, most feminists support the breaking down of gender sterotypes so that if you dont feel like a 'man' the default conclusion isnt 'oh well, then i must be a woman". but rather, i was born a male, and therefore HOWEVER i feel is male.

but frikonastick, you seem to assume that a MTF trans woman has taken this path because it is the "default option" as a result of "not feeling like a man". I am suggesting that this is not correct. Any time I have ever heard or read the account of a MTF trans woman about what motivated the decision, they spoke of feeling as though their true gender identity is female.

What would your explanation be for why a FTM trans man would chooses to change sex?

mshighwater, i dont agree that a man can possibly know how it feels to be a woman. anymore than i can possibly konw how it feels to be a man.

i think that a MTF trans feels like themselves, as an individual, and how they feel doesnt fit into how they or society percieves men are supposed to feel like. that is why they say they feel like their true identity is female as that is the farthest thing away from feeling male.

that doesnt mean they actually feel like women, only that they think they do. as per what their perception of what a woman is, what a woman wants, how a woman feels.

i think it is exactly the same for FTM trans.

None of us knows how another person feels whether that person is the same sex or the opposite. And yet, frikonastick, you are quite happy to dismiss even the possibility that what a MTF trans woman feels could be genuine.

Surely it's not what the MTF feels, but how they know that that is what being a woman feels like?

I don't think anybody is denying that trans people have genuine feelings. Of course they do. The difficulty seems to arise with the interpretation of those feelings by the trans person and those around them. Often a trans person starts with a discontented feeling that there is something not right (gender dysphoria) and it is only further down their path that they come to interpret/understand that feeling as "feeling like a woman". Others seem to be certain from day one. Like most human experience, variation in this shouldn't be unexpected.

I'm not convinced that we do know how it feels to be someone else. I worked in disability advice for many years, and I thought I had a good understanding of how it feels to be disabled. Then my husband became disabled and I realised that I had no idea. I would say, without exaggerating, that I was traumatised by the way he was subsequently treated following his disability. ANd even though I now no more about what it means to be disabled in our society, I can't come close to knowing how he feels every day.

I don't think I understand what it feels like to not be a woman. I certainly don't feel that I know what it is like to be a trans person of any gender, and I don't think there has been much articulation of what trans feels like, although I think there has been a good explanation of how it feels to be intersex for a specific individual.

That should have said 'I now know more'

I don't think anybody knows what it likes to be another person. If they've got a good imagination, they can empathize with what it's like to be another person.
I've never lost a child but I can empathize with a mother who has in the sense that I know it must be one of the most awful feelings in the world. But I can't know unless I've gone through it myself.
If a person is in a male body then they're not a woman, however much they want to be, however much they believe they are.
It just means that there's a problem with the way masculinity has been constructed in that so many males don't identitfy with what it is to be a man.
But they're still male. Their body and their life experiences are male.
The fact that some go through gender reassignment to get rid of their penis actually tells me how little they know about being a woman, because all women know that a man without a penis is not a woman. But some people with gender dysphoria believe this means they 'are' women. That displays a shocking lack of empathy of what it actually really is like to be a woman.
I have found this lack of empathy towards women a recurring theme in dialogues I've had with trans activists. The fact that they are trying to 'shut women up' so that they can be the 'real' women basically confirmed to me that they're not women. Women just don't behave in quite that way.

please forgive my unusual way of getting this from where i saw this to here[i had to write it out then write it again on here]

Background:
some gray and white matter regions of the brain are sexually dimorphic.
the best MRI techniqe for identifying subtle
diffrences in white matter is diffusion tensor imaging[DTI].

the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether white matter patterns in female to male[ftm]transsexuels before commencing cross-sex hormone treatement are more simmilar to that of their biological sex or that to their gender identity.

Method:DTI was performed in 18 ftm transsexuels and 24 male and 19 female hetrosexuel controls scanned with a 3 t trio tim magneton.

fractional anisotrophy[fa] was performed on white matter fibres of the whole brain
which was spatially analyzed using tract-based spatial statistics.

results:
in controls-males have a significantly higher fa values than females in the medial and posterior parts of the right superior longitudinal fasciculas[slf]-the forceps minor and the corticospinal tract.

compared to control females-ftm showed higher fa values in posterior part of the right slf-the forceps minor and corticospinal tract.

conclusion:
our results show that the white matter microstructure pattern in untreated ftm transsexuels is closer to the pattern of subjects who share their gender identity[males]than those who share their biological sex[females]

our results provide evidence for a inherant diffrence in the brain structure of ftm transsexuels.

.......................
i believe this came out in may 2010

sparky159 wrote - "18 ftm transsexuels and 24 male and 19 female hetrosexuel controls scanned with a 3 t trio tim magneton."

The sample size in this study and many others is so small. It's bound to generate controversy when conclusions are attempted with small sample sizes.

Interesting result, though. As a minimum, it does not close the door on the idea that there is a biological explanation for what trans people feel. Worthy of more research, I feel.

MsHighwater-
ive seen what youve been saying-and im so glad youve got youre own mind
as for the above-yes indeed
just cos its a small research-it does not close the door-
but some wont see this as them frightened[or transphobic]

Thanks, sparky159. I'd have to say that radical feminism is not an area I've given much thought to though I would definitely count myself a feminist. I can't remember who said it or on what thread but someone said "if you think women should be paid the same as men for the same work then you are a feminist" (or words very much to that effect).

I'm undecided - mostly on the grounds of not knowing much about it - on the question of what is truly going on with someone who decides that they need to change sex. I can see both arguments and the research you describe, sparky, sounds intriguing.

I don't know what to do with statements like Sakura's "The fact that some go through gender reassignment to get rid of their penis actually tells me how little they know about being a woman, because all women know that a man without a penis is not a woman." This strikes me as a false argument. The person going through the surgery feels (rightly or wrongly) that s/he is already a woman. The surgery is merely to make the physical being match what the person feels.

I don't know who it was who first (on these threads) that a person cannot be a woman who has not experienced the repression that goes with being a woman. Does it then follow that, as the feminimist movement achieves its objective of eradicating that repression, we will all cease to become women? Where would feminism be then?

ms highwater-
youre welcome-
oh im a feminist cos i believe in equality
but im not sure where i stand with this radical stuff-interesting though-
yeah but how can a radical feminist [or anyone else]decide about us if they dont know what it like to be us?
[......like sakuras-the fact that some go through gender reagsignment to get rid of their penis........
giggling and a bit coy-well not all of us-
im still trying to find mine[sorry]
yep-youre right-its just trying to match the pysacal to whats inside-
[does it follow that-.............we will all cease to be women...]
terrific point-
in the way of not accepting-everyone might end up being the non person instead!

Transsexuality is an issue of gender stereotyping more than one of biological gender. The man that 'feels like a woman' is really saying that they feel uncomfortable conforming to the gender stereotype of a male and prefer the gender stereotype of a female. Few women would be able to say how it 'feels' to be a woman, because we have no other point of reference.

I would therefore say it is a feminist issue - a movement dedicated to breaking down female gender stereotypes. Removal or addition of sex organs may make the patient feel better psychologically but it does not turn a man into a woman or vice versa. Accepting and celebrating men and women who are wildly different from the gender stereotype is the solution.... not changing a birth certificate.