Feminism and the idea of a man or woman trapped in the wrong body are contradictory ideas

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

This post is in response to another thread where posters wanted to discuss this, but didn't want to derail the thread. So I said I would start the thread here.

A basic element of feminism is that women and men are born as that sex - biologically men/women, but society socialises us to behave as our alloted gender. Gender is the idea that women and men behave in certain ways. And we are all socialised in this even if we reject it or try to as adults.

For example, research shows that people treat the same babies differently depending on whether they are told they are boys or girls. The media pumps images to our DCs about what a girl or a boy should be interested in, play with and wear. Teachers are more likely to allow boys to speak out to the whole class than girls - well researched.

Feminism challenges these gender constructs and says that girls and boys can enjoy doing the same things, etc. Transexuals talk about being born in the wrong body e.g. born in a male body, but feeling like they are really a girl/woman.

But this is obviously at odds with feminism. Sex is a biological fact. You are born in a male or female body. Behaving or feeling like a man/woman is supposed to feel, is an artificial construct. Because what does a man or woman feel like? We only feel like ourselves as individuals. So any idea of feeling a man or a woman or a boy or a girl is based on an artifacial idea of how a boy/girl is supposed to feel.

So the basic idea of being born in the wrong body, is contradictory to the basic ideas of feminism.

Didn't the OP make it clear in her opening post that she was opposed to gender essentialism?

As a point of clarity, a man can be raped, by penetration of a penis into his mouth or anus. (I think the anus case is, I know the mouth one is).

How is it a paradox? Lots and lots of things in life are neither a binary nor a spectrum. A coal fire isn't on a spectrum between a dog and ladder. A person with autism isn't on a spectrum between a blind person and a deaf person. They're all different things.

I'm not sure why feminism should have to change its name, or the group formerly called females should have to change their name. But if the options are claiming that we don't exist at all and should be allowed no name, and allowing us to choose a new word to describe ourselves, I will go for the latter.

Yes, I hope that nobody is arguing that men don't get raped.

yes, the offence of rape against a man also includes penetration of the anus.

yes Eats, had indicated recently above that legally men can't be raped.

Eclectic - Can't see NYAC's post and I have skim read the article, as I should really get on with stuff. But generally I agree with the basic points. Of course boys/men are raped and sexually assaulted, sometimes by women and sometimes by men. And of course effeminate boys experience a lot of homophobia.

I guess though I would want to say as this is a feminist thread, that I still think women are raped and sexually assaulted far more than men and we need to do more to tackle both some of the existing appalling attitudes around women deserving or asking for rape and the pitifully low prosecution rates

Legally men can't be raped by a woman - sorry I didn't make this clear. Still thinking of another thread where this was discussed

I think perhaps she is referring to the issue that legally a man can't be raped by a woman, unless that women either a. has her own penis or b. is acting in conjunction with a male rapist.

A lot of people think that a woman who doesn't have a penis forcing a man to have sex with her should be considered rape in law, or presume it already is considered rape in law.

No one is saying men can't be raped.

Sorry, Xpost.

I thought there had been at least one case where a woman ( a teenage girl I think) who was involved with a group of men who were carrying out a gang rape on another girl was convicted of rape.

Seahouses, not sure you got my joke there, it was quite subtle.

The argument, which I don't have a particular dog in, is that feminism shouldn't have to change its name, perhaps it should be inclusive enough to include all those who identify as female

I would have thought the logical conclusion of my thought process is that it doesn't really matter whether one is male, female, transsexual, etc, as we're all just people, in the same way, we now accept that there is no pure "african" race (I know the analogy isn't perfect)

What were you wanting to discuss then, Eclectic, from the article? The OP seemed to be starting a thread against gender essentialism.

Sea - If in England or Wales would have been sexual assault, although might have been reported differently. Don't know the legal position in SCotland or Ireland though

I think feminsim is a part saying that the presense or absense of a penis should not define how you are treated in society, transex is saying (in part) that i want to be treated a certain way so treat me as if I did not have a penis or vagina. This is the conflict

Bennifer, I don't feel a shared sense of identity with people on the basis of them feeling they belong to a group which can't be described. I don't know why people would feel they belong to a group which has no characteristics, but I don't feel any affinity for it.

It would be like saying I identify as a snarzwaggle and want to share snarzwaggle only spaces with the other snarzwaggle identified people.

i very briefly scanned this thread, and was really sickened by the antilesbian posts, slurring them, accusing them of doing nebulous 'things'...awful.

i really really hope that this is some kind of rhetorical device and not the hate speech it appears to be.

even so, i think if you can't make your point without resorting to hate speech, even if you are trying to do so ironically, then you might actually be an insensitive dickhead

Witch, I think feminists in general want the biological differences between men and women to be accommodated, not treated as if they don't matter.

I'm just thinking out aloud here, but I might wonder what it is about women that mean we have less privilege than men - one answer might be because we give birth to children - but then does that mean we have to exclude infertile women from feminism? Is it that women are more likely to be sexually assaulted - should gay men then be included in feminism? You might see where I'm going with this.

chibi - She has been called out on the anti lesbian posts. Please don't think other posters here supported that, because they didn't.

Right! I am a radical feminist and my academic specialities are Transgenderism and Gender Essentialism. People are putting across intellectual arguments that are actually very ignorant because they do not understand scientific facts about the sexed body.

Here are things to ponder:

1. When sex and sexuality are created in utero towards the end of the second trimester, the complexity of that process means that most of us are actually on a sliding scale of sex identity, with absolutely male or female not actually being a certainty.
2. Just over 50% of the world's population are technically hermaphrodital. This can mean something as trivial as having slightly more hormones of the opposite sex or a man having a tiny bit of useless fallopian tube inside him, or a woman having a ever-so-slightly larger clitoris. You would still feel 100% the sex you know yourself to be and it wouldn't affect your fertility or any aspect of your life, but male and female are not always biological absolutes.
3. There are several conditions that cause a person to have the body of a certain sex but if they are tested, they are actually the other sex. Klinefelter's Syndrome is one of these: people with this have XXY chromosomes. They have a male body, feel male, would never suspect they were anything other than male. They tend to have smaller penises than average, but that wouldn't make you suspect you have a disorder. People with this are also always infertile.
4. The sexing process of development creates brain sex. Brain scans performed on transsexuals consistently show that they have the brain sex of the sex they believe themselves to be, not their physical sex.
5. Brain sex is also incredibly fluid. A truly male or female brain is the exception, not the norm (and not necessarily a good thing, as a very male brain is Aspergic). This is why we all have characteristics, abilities, interests, etc., that are both feminine and masculine (as defined by our culture). It is also why gender is a load of societally-constructed bullshit, but that's another debate.
6. There have been cases of boys who, for various reasons, have suffered penile traumas as infants (botched circumcision being a major cause) and their parents have been advised to raise them as girls and they have had surgery to make their bodies more female and given female hormones to take and these 'girls' have grown up feeling that there is something wrong with them because they feel like they are boys. This is the opposite of most transgenderism, yet proves the brain sex factor.

I understand the ideology behind anti-trans feminist theory but I do not agree with it, as it is founded on the very assumptions that Feminism is suppoed to oppose. We know how fluid sexuality is, we know that gender is a social construct and yet people refuse to accept that biology is not fixed or a certainty. Anti-trans feminist theory is homophobic, narrow-minded, ignorant AND, ironically, sexist because of the paradigms it employs.

This theory is against TG females entering into female spheres. But look closely at what this is actually implying and it is not only illogical, but has, at its base, stereotypical and restrictive gender rigidity. What are these spheres that it wants to omit TG females from? They cannot menstruate, ovulate or procreate, so they are automatically barred from that sphere. So what other spheres are there? Motherhood? Because that would infer that only women can be parents (or nurture in a maternal fashion) - archaic, offensive nonsense. What other spheres, then? Pretty clothes, make-up, crafts, baking, housework? Again, all one-dimensional gender constructs that are stereotypical in the extreme. Good god, misogyny has been telling women what they can and can't be since the dawn of time, so why are we telling other people that their identity is wrong or offensive?! It smacks of how First-Wave Feminists used to dismiss the needs of non-white women for Feminism to examine and incorporate the experience of the dual oppression of sexism and racism.

And, at the end of all the talk on the subject, the only factor that should be important is basic, common human decency and respect. If someone believes they are male but were born female, then that is what they are. No-one else can be them, no-one else can say if they are right or wrong. It is no-one else's business. If someone in Canada, for example, believes themselves to have be born into the wrong body, how on earth does it affect us and WTF would anyone say that they are mistaken, that they are wrong in thinking and feeling what they do. TG and TS people have so much anguish in their life, not least internally; why add to that with wrong-thinking?

I could do an even bigger post about the critical theory of TG but it really would lose people.

but we not talking about snarzwaggle, we're talking about gender, something we do recoginse.

We could talk about nationality - let's say I'm welsh, someone else identifies as welsh, but I say they were born in London, they're not welsh. They say their parents were from Swansea and they feel welsh - who am I to exclude them from welshness?

well this feminst would rather have equal pay than someone giving her a hot water bottle during her period seahorses

Scorpette,

Thanks, I think you've expressed far better than I could some of the points I've been trying to make

Scorpette - I will respond to your post because some of the stuff about male and female brain for example is wrong. But I really must go and do stuff.

But can I say you are not a radical feminist. You may be a feminist, but words mean something. And your views don't fit any definition of radical feminism I have ever read