Feminist perspectives on transgendered people

[toboldlygo]

Excuse the random intrusion (haven't posted here before) but I've been watching My Transsexual Summer on C4 and it's raised some questions for me; basically, I was just wondering if there was any sort of feminist consensus on transgendered/transsexual individuals, whether there's any difference in opinions depending on whether they are FtM or MtF, pre or post surgery etc.

Not looking for a bunfight, just curious, if it helps any I am a cisgendered female these days but went through a phase in my late teens of being desperately uncomfortable in my own gender and wanting very much to be male.

The difficulty is none of us know what it is like to feel that we are in "the wrong body."

Mine isn't much use, and I don't have much use for it, but I can't imagine what it must be like to feel utterly convinced that I should have a penis and testicles. Or vice versa.

Where do those feelings come from? That seems to me to be the nub.

Yes, I am aware of my own body. What has that got to do with the more nuanced understanding of gender that you were referring to?

Yes, as I said earlier, I want to hear something about chemicals and hormones. They cannot be ignored in all this.

Sorry Hully, that was not to you, Xpost.

I got that!

Quite Hully. When I've seen it articulated in the media, it has been all about being "girly". Which is absurd to me, as I don't see pretty dresses and sparkly shit as being in any way fundamental to being female, or a lack of interest to being male.

Very happy to believe that is not truly representative, but have no idea how you can know yourself to be "in the wrong body" without it being all about gender expectations and styling.

"I don't think biological sciences got it wrong, as such, but i think like with most things in science, the reality is much more complicated and nuanced than that straightforward distinction."

Well science has managed to discover and understand hugely complicated realities like genetics and cellular sex.

On the other hand, trans activists argue that sex is a "feeling".

One of those understandings of sex is un-nuanced, but I don't think it's the biological sciences.

Manatee, I think the confusion arises because you keep writing gender when referring to sex.

Language is tres problematic. I imagine they write "feeling" because there isn't a way to articulate it?

But imagine. Imagine you are trapped in a body that you are utterly utterly convinced is the wrong one with a total unshakeable conviction. What would create that? Trans isn't anything anyone would wish for.

I don't think many trans people do feel like that though. Many consider their male bodies to be female. They don't all dislike their own bodies.

Wholly: I agree that the media's probably not representative, for example this interesting post by Max Zachs, one of the guys on My Transsexual Summer, sheds some light on the direction the show was edited. maxwellzachs.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-my-transsexual-summer-isnt-as-good.html He says "What I don?t see is anything that is going to make people think or feel any differently about what gender is or how it limits us all in one way or another. ... I wanted it to show the complexity of our gender identities so that people could start to see that it doesn?t have to be one or the other, that it isn?t one or the other."

Indeed, but it seems like surgery etc is treating symptoms rather than causes. I expect this is the right approach, I hope so.

Milly, I'm sorry that my posts don't seem clear to you.

As I said before, I suggested the idea that gender is a physical reality (sex), that this is reflected in individual embodied experience at a young age (what I called core gender identity) and then overlaid gradually with socially-constructed behaviours and expectations (gender role identity). That's the 'aware of own body' stuff, which I suggested starts to develop prior to (even if it's not, by the time we're adults, easily separable from) the 'pink for girls and blue for boys' type nonsense.

My proposal was that the gender role identity stuff that gets overlaid on the 'aware of own body' can be multiple, conflicting and complex for both men and women. Or in other words, someone could be aware of themselves as female-bodied but have a real love/hate relationship with the roles and norms and expectations that come with that.

This seemed, to me, a more nuanced way of looking at physical (observable) and experiential gender than the statement 'Male and female aren't identities, they are biological realities', which seemed to me to imply that 'male' and 'female' must necessarily be either an identity or a biological reality. My intention was simply to expand on the idea that it might be both, and to suggest some ways that this might be the case.

My personal experience of course doesn't prove anything, but I've gone through periods of feeling very male-identified and simultaneously very conflicted about that, whether on feminist grounds or simple 'this is nonsense, stop it' grounds. I've also gone through periods of feeling very invested in my identity as a woman (including a stint in an all-lesbian commune) but really resenting some of the stuff that seemed to come with being female-bodied. Sometimes I've felt both at the same time, which was a real headfuck. I've never questioned the fact that I'm physically female, but my gender identity has at times felt a lot more conflicted and complicated.

Though I don't expect you to agree with me, I hope I have now clarified what I meant.

This has moved on hugely since I've been out, but manatee may I ask something?

You mention children developing a 'core gender identity' at a certain age. My automatic reaction would be that this is exactly what you'd expect to happen in a society that recognizes gender as an important category. But I'm not conviced that, if we could experiment by placing children in a new society where gender wasn't an issue and instead we categorized children as 'pinks' and 'blues', we wouldn't talk about children developing a 'pink identity' at age two?

What I'm getting at is, it seems to me observing if and when children develop a sense of gender identity in human societies which (AFAIK) universally recognize the concept gender, is not really indicative of anything except that children develop identity in response to what they're told is important for identity. It doesn't seem to me to speak to the objective reality of gender as a concept at all.

No, sorry, I don't understand what you are talking about and I don't know why you are still referring to biological sex as gender. I don't see what continuously doing that adds to the debate, because it isn't part of either transactivism or feminism.

Perhaps another poster who does understand could summarise your main points.

LRD, now I'm further confused.

I thought Manatee was saying core gender identity meant understanding that you had a vulva - i.e. awareness of your own genitals.

I thought she was saying gender role to mean pink and blue stuff.

Oh, ok. I'm sorry, I probably need to back out then. Ignore.

I think the problem here is that some people believe feelings are more important than physical reality. Which is definitely a postmodernist point of view.

That's a fair point, LRD - I don't know the answer. You could well be right that a hypothetical society might be possible where gender wasn't an important part of identity, though my hunch is that the biological business of hormones and urges and reproduction might militate against this. But I guess my own approach is more pragmatic, in that as a psychotherapist I have to work with the society we live in.

Milly - I hope you didn't mean your last response to come across as rude. But in any case it seems that I can't explain what I mean in terms that make sense to you, so we'll just have to accept that our perspectives don't seem to meet and leave it at that.

I'd be happy for transgenderism to be its own thing. Unfortunately it isn't. Men can claim they feel like women and the government, law and medical profession will support them.

"Male and female aren't identities, they are biological realities', which seemed to me to imply that 'male' and 'female' must necessarily be either an identity or a biological reality. My intention was simply to expand on the idea that it might be both, and to suggest some ways that this might be the case."

It doesn't imply it Manatee, it states it. Male and female are biological categories. That's it. In fact it's what trans are referring to when they claim to be born in the "wrong" body because they recognise the reality of biological sex.

Just because trans and the medical and legal professions want to erase the biological reality of women, in favour of men's feelings, doesn't make those claims true.

LRD, my post about not understanding wasn't to you. I don't think you should back out. You discussing your points with Manatee might tease out some shared understanding which I don't get and so is missing from the discussion.