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.

I don't need to know, in general, what somebody's biological sex is. It really isn't my business. By the same token, in general, other people don't need to know what my internal gender identity is (or even if I have one). It really isn't their business.

I don't need people to justify why their internal gender identity feelings are important to them (although I do think if the feelings are that important they could describe what a female internal identity is comprised of).

I don't think other people need me to justify to them why my feelings that my physical female body is an an integral part of who I am is important to me.

Not really your business to doubt me. And it shouldn't really be anybody's right to tell me that I can't self define and belong to a group of other people who feel that our biological sex is important to us and part of our identity.

I'm not asking you to understand my feelings. I'm just asking you to respect my right to a group identity that isn't based on your feelings rather than my own.

The big difference (for me anyway) between biological sex and gender identity, is that one is objectively factual, and one is subjective (and changeable).

Biological sex is a certainty in this day and age (as in it can always be verified if not immediately obvious).

Going by my previous analogy (again not a comparison), its a bit like meningitis being medical fact and verifiable (usually this can be done from visible signs, but if not then medical testing reveals the reality). Just because it can sometimes look ambiguous, does not mean it is ambiguous*

People who are intersex are intersex, and not "something between male and female", which many intersex persons find offensive. They are their own biological sex category (although not one commonly yet accepted).

A person's biological sex may not be relevant to them, and they do not have to identify as such (and don't). But some people want to group themselves by biological sex and identify themselves this way.

I am one that prefers to identify myself biologically because I don't feel male or female, I feel like an individual. Plus, I prefer objective classifications, thats just my preference.

I respect the rights of others to express their own preferences, but not to deny that mine is invalid. I am happy to call a person who is transgendered by their gender preference (man or woman), but not to say that they are the biological sex they are not (because this is simply untrue).

Bah, "deny that mine is valid" that should have been... too much typing. :)

Indeed bell jar, and post patriarchy it won't matter. However this isn't all about individual definitions and feelings. We live in a patriarchal society that labels us and treats us differently according to our sex. Socially constructed ideas of gender are used to decide who gets to do what, who gets to have power. To fight that we need to name it and challenge it. As much as we want to live in a society where it's all fluid and we get to just be who we are, we don't live in it. Pretending we do and reducing patriarchal power structures to individual feeling and choice doesn't tackle the problem.

Larry is there a test for chemicals in the brains of trans that demonstrate that they are in fact trans?

What you've quoted there is pure speculation and demonstrates nothing about the brains of men who are claiming to be women.

Even if it did - why would we decide that what happens in the brain is more important than genitalia, which are the main sex difference.

Also, Larry are you an academic working in this area. Because if you aren't, I'm not understanding why you're dismissing people who disagree with you as non-academic.

Academia doens't have the last word on what is a woman either. It's a patriarchal institution so it's always going to uphold patriarchal values and look after men's interests.

Baron Cohen is also a controversial academic that lots of other academics disagree with. It's what academics do, they disagree. They don't create neutral eternal facts, nor are they devoid if politics. Surely anyone trying to argue from a post modern perspective would be very aware of this.

I have read all the posts and this thread has really moved on from last night.

Given that many feminists here do not see a clash regarding transgender people, is it just Radical feminism that does not view transgender as compatible with feminism?

I don't know myself DioneTheDiabolist and its not really my place to say as I don't identify anywhere firmly yet.

But based on my observation and understanding (and I would be very glad for clarification from anyone else), it appears there is that there is often a difference between the ideology itself, and self-identified proponents of that ideology.

To me, it looks almost the same as the argument (for example) that Catholicism does not agree with contraception... cue many Catholic people saying that this is wrong and they in fact do take contraception. However 'Catholicism' (the institutional consensus, not the individuals) does not agree with it.

While individuals may differ from the ideology/institution, this does not mean the ideology/institution itself does not hold certain fixed beliefs. People who agree with the majority (or 100%) of an ideology's beliefs often take issue with those who want to pick and choose, whilst retaining the banner of the ideology.

I meant to add that one of the reasons I can see for taking issue with "less strict" adherents (for any ideology, not just feminism) is not simply to be elitist or exclusive.

Its because a definition needs boundaries to be meaningful, otherwise anything can be described as anything.

Whiteshores, following on from your analogy, there are Christians and there are Fundamental Christians. They often disagree on what Christianity means.

But are they not all Christians?

I would say (and this is just my personal opinion, open to altering) that it depends on the ideological/institutional majority consensus.

This is such an interesting discussion. I'm working my way through the thread, so apologies if anyone's already mentioned this - have you discussed the very sad case of Brian/ Brenda Reimer yet?

I recall from the documentary that scientists later discovered in lab rats and humans that a part of the brain represents gender. It can be presumed that Brian's brain would have had the male version of this. I wish I could remember what it's called! But presumably in transgender people this 'brain bit' doesn't match their genitals.

Again, apols if this has already been discussed, and I'll catch up with the rest of the thread now!

That makes sense.

I have to say that the majority of feminists that I know have no problem with transgendered people. In fact I didn't know any did until this thread.

On a personal note, I will not be trading in my feminist idenity because of my belief in the existence and validity of transgendered people in our society. For me, feminism is about equality regardless of gender, not narrow definitions of what gender means.

I think the David Reimer tale is a terribly sad one. I don't think it really illustrates much about the brain. I think it illustrates a lot about how unhappy it must make a child if they are told a lie about their own body, and then have the discomfort of seeing everyone else's body develop into something theirs never will. I also think there is the damaging nature of having the ongoing intervention and monitoring by all these 'specialists' with their own agenda.

I think it is perhaps more important to the issues faced by intersex people, who seem to have had to fight against specialist's attempts to make them 'normal' or to make them try and have their bodies changed because that is what the specialist wants, rather than what they want.

Meaningful evidence really requires a reasonably substantial body of research, peer-reviewed, and at least a general consensus of what the findings mean (as research inevitably has confounding variables).

As far as I am aware (again, glad for any correction and references), there really is only a handful of studies on the subject (nowhere near enough), nor do the findings of the studies necessarily mean the conclusions of the studies are correct (this is where peer review comes in).

They are a start though. :)

DioneTheDiabolist

I do not see any similarity between discussing the possible reality of a man or woman trapped in the wrong body (eg. meaning their biological sex is wrong), and "having a problem with transgendered people".

I have absolutely no problem with people who are transgendered myself, wish them a full and happy life, and respect their request to be gender-identified as they wish.

However, gender-identity is not the same as biological sex, and many people (self included) do wish to self-identify by biological sex and require the language to do so.

I'm getting distracted here from reading up on the thread! Found an article which discusses brain differences starting in the womb. More on the brain and gender

SeaHouses - yes, I think you're right to an extent - obviously David Reimer's case was unique (we hope). And the abusive 'medical treatment' they endured could only have screwed him and his brother up further. But there still exists the question of why David identified specifically as male from early on, as opposed to having a generally disoriented and disconnected sense of identity.

Transgender people similarly identify with the 'opposite' sex, as opposed to, say, people who are victims of childhood abuse which has left them with a generalised sense of disorientation.

Sorry, I should say that that's a web page from a general website, but they're summarising research.

Maya, he began to question his gender at about the time of puberty, when it must have been obvious to him he didn't actually have a girl's body (made more obvious by the fact they were giving him hormones!) and he was suicidal by 13. So I think it is really, really difficult to draw any conclusions from this case other than don't try and lie to children about their bodies, don't modify their bodies and don't abuse them.

It doesn't seem to me that his behaviour was similar to that of children with gender identity disorder, but then I am going on the documentary about him which I saw quite a long time ago, and also because I found it very distressing so didn't think about it at the time with a critical/political frame of mind.

The trouble is that as you rightfully say, they are summarising the research and essentially conglommerating their own conclusions about what the studies mean.

However, there are no links/references to the actual studies (except studies regarding difference in single-sex/mixed-sex schooling).

This is why proper peer-reviews and meta-analyses are really necessary, because anybody can take bits and pieces of the pool of literature to try to prove almost any point.

By mixing up unreferenced statements like this "It is impossible to change a boy's brain into a girl's, even through drastic methods such as castration." and then using anecdotal examples rather than scientific conclusions to back up the statement of fact, the whole article becomes a bit misleading and suspect (because many people will understandably and forseeably assume the whole thing is in fact research-based).

Apologies, I have found one full reference to a relevant study after some more hunting around.

"The NIH/NIMH study, entitled "Sexual dimorphism of brain developmental trajectories during childhood and adolescence," is reprinted by permission of Elsevier from the journal NeuroImage, volume 36, number 4, pages 165-173, July 15 2007."

Their statement regarding this study is: "The most profound difference between girls and boys is not in any brain structure per se, but rather in the sequence of development of the various brain regions. The different regions of the brain develop in a different SEQUENCE in girls compared with boys."

Again, if they are using this study to indicate that 'girl brains' are different from 'boy brains' then that conclusion is heartily debatable. For example, the difference may be due to testosterone exposure (which tends to correlate with being a boy, but is not 'being a boy').

It also demonstrates that many of their statements of fact are not necessarily backed up by the studies quoted (even if they believe thats what the studies are saying); it takes peer review/consensus to show this.

In David Reimer's case, there were many, many confounding variables.

He was raised as a girl, but did not have a female body (just no external penis/testicles). His chromosomes were male (XY), and he did not even have reconstructive surgery to have female genitalia (he urinated through a hole in his abdomen into his teenage years).

Lack of a vagina and menustration will have started to make him feel somewhat different quite aside from all of the following: being forced to perform a female sexual roleplay with his brother, being forced to wear frilly dresses even in winter, etc.

If he was forced into those sterotypical feminine acts, then one can only imagine what other constant artificial pressure was on him to 'be a girl'.

From what I can read, it also says he threatened to commit suicide if he was made to keep seeing the doctor (the one who made him sexually roleplay and undress), and not because of gender dysphoria.

Even a person born biologically female might not want to identify as such after a childhood like that.

WhiteShores - the brain lateralisation part of that summary is well-established, I believe. I read about that several years ago, I think in the New Scientist.

SeaHouses, as far as I recall his behaviour was always in conflict with his 'new' gender. Before age 13.

Anyway the point I was making with Reimer was not that he was the same as a transgender person, but that his case was later connected to research into the gender differences in the brain, i.e. the male/ female brain stuff is what I was pointing to.

I'm off to bed now but will check in on this convo tomorrow.

Baby is up. So I am up.

Just a thought: perhaps it's more useful to think of the structure of our gender identity as being held in three places: biological brain, biological body, and socialised brain.

'Night.