Is fancying a particular sex and not a particular gender bigoted?

[ArcheryAnnie]

Changed name for obvious reasons.

Provoked by this article - which is getting a depressing amount of traction, by a blogger on twitter called stavvers: www.donotlink.com/framed?43198

Short version: if your sexual preferences are linked in any way to the shape of your potential partner's genitals, then you are a bigot. So, eg, if you are straight, you should be attracted to men who have vulvas, and if you are a lesbian, you should be attracted to women with penises. (This isn't saying "it's totes ok to fancy trans lesbians or transmen", which would be cool, it's saying "if you pay any attention to the shape of someone's genitals at all, you are a bigot".) Any way of Doing Sexuality apart from stavvers' way is creepy and weird, and also cissexist and bigoted.

Most of this was aimed at women, naturally. Men's preferences were an afterthought.

In the twitter storm that followed, stavvers and her allies spent a lot of time tee-heeing about how any woman who disagreed with her was probably crap in bed, and all these lesbians who objected it this were prudes who didn't know how to have sex, were probably just holding hands in the dark, and .....dear god it was like a timewarp into the 1950s. Lesbians who choose not to sleep with people - men or women - who have penises are prudish and frigid! How hilarious! How new!

This would all be irrelevant if stavvers was seen as what she is (one of those tedious people who thrive on being "shocking" and "edgy"), but she's got a depressing amount of support for it.

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

I am not sure if it is common or uncommon for women with penises in porn to still be capable of fertilising an egg, but there's one difference, along with possible STD transmission for the next difference.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

What got me about the Lily Cade thing is, the transactivist argument is always 'oh, no-one is being told they have to actually have sex with someone they don't want to, it's just that it's transphobic to call yourself a lesbian if you're not prepared to sleep with transwomen'.
However. One of the tweets actually accuses her of being transphobic for refusing to film with a particular transwoman performer.
I don't see how the transallies can keep on and on with their claim of 'no-one is being told to have sex with anyone they don't want to' when it is so clearly happening and you can see it there in black-and-white.
Laurie Penny has really dropped the ball on this one, I think.

[FloraFox]

I agree when there really is nothing further that needs to be said.

tunip that's probably why Laurie Penny has run away from this. It's getting old to say these things. "Transwomen demanding women have sex with them never happens", "transwomen don't threaten women", "transwomen never rape women". We're expected to pretend these things don't happen.

[Raskova]

I'm not sure if my attraction is to men or penises penae/peni now

[EmpressOfJurisfiction]

Strapons also come off and can be shared. They seem to have forgotten about that.

[FloraFox]

I'm no fan of porn, lesbian, "feminist" or otherwise but I certainly admire Lily Cade's stance on this. That whole twitter fight is such an example of male entitlement - demanding to be "booked" or "cast" and paid to be in porn as a matter of discrimination? Can you imagine a disabled or old woman demanding to be included in and paid for filmed sex?

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

I assume that, as far as porn goes, that which is filmed is that which is likely to attract the largest audience?

[FloraFox]

Bill as far as I can gather watching this twitter fight unfold, Lily Cade doesn't want to have sex with transwomen at all and doesn't want to produce films involving transwomen because she doesn't find that appealing. Other producers of lesbian porn who have been involved in this are also saying there is no market for it in lesbian porn although there is a niche for it elsewhere (presumably male consumers rather than lesbians). This seems to be what is causing the rage - the denial of validation by lesbians, either the specific women making the decisions or the general population of lesbian consumers who don't want to watch transwomen having sex. This is where the accusations of transphobia comes from - the refusal of lesbians to validate the "lesbianism" of transwomen.

There is a noticable tendency for transwomen who participate in these types of discussions online to see themselves as "hotter" than women and to seek validation of that from everyone else. Women become well aware as they are growing up of their place in the pecking order of the male gaze (evidenced by the scoring system used by PUAs and their rage at having to accept someone less than a 7). Straight men would have no hesitation in telling a transwoman she is too ugly for them. Women on the other hand won't come out and say this. Lily Cade for example has made only very veiled references to the fact that the transwomen who are actually putting themselves forward to be "cast" are way too ugly to act onscreen in any capacity as women. The vast majority of women know they are not pretty enough for Hollywood or fame of any type, given the standards applied to women. They're not harrassing film producers to include them in movies on the basis of discrimination. Why is that, I wonder?

[BriarRainbowshimmer]

Wants to be validated through sex with women, feels entitled enough to demand sex from women...hmm where have I seen this attitude before?

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

Sorry, I should have been clearer, mine was a general point not specifically about Lily.

It seems (which is good) that lily has a fair degree of choice about who she performs with.

I assume, unfortunately, there are women (straight, bi or lesbian) working in porn who have less choice about who they work with. I assume those targeting lily are also targeting mainstream producers of porn (plenty of which includes two females having sex) and such producers mostly have an eye on what will sell when considering such representations.

Or perhaps this isn't the case and it's all Lily's fault for stating and sticking to a preference?

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

"Even if we're totally opposed to it, presumably we would all go to the wall for the rights of the women who do it to choose who they want to perform with. "

• agree.

[FloraFox]

I also agree Chunder .

Bill as far as I can see, they are not attacking mainstream producers, just lesbians. What a surprise.

The comment that originally seemed to get Lily Cade engaged in this was her comment that she is a gold star lesbian. Questioned whether she would work with a transwoman, she replied that she would never suck a dick. This was the transphobic statement, apparently, because ruling out all transwomen is a denial of their womanhood and their lesbianism.

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

Colour me shocked, Flora.

[DenzelWashington]

Despite all the assertions of great principles being at stake, there is something so petulant in the transactivist stance on this (which is not to minimise how worrying it is).

To demand to be accepted is one thing. To demand to be desired quite another. You can imagine how scornful the reaction would be if mainstream women did this.

[WestWingFan1966]

This whole Lily Cade thing is still going on. I'm really impressed by her candor and the way that she stands strong against this.

therealpornwikileaks.com/lily-cade-gender-warfare-sexual-entitlement/

www.lilycade.com/2014/06/why-i-went-to-war/

Vs the tumblr blog ChelseaPoe.tumblr.com which seems out of touch with reality

[DenzelWashington]

One link is no longer working, but on the other Lily Cade says:

What Chelsea asked me to do was to spend my capital, my energy, the trust of my fanbase that I have built up over six years in porn, to fight for her cause: her cause of proving she is attractive

[FloraFox]

There is a huge amount of these battles that are about validation of womanhood and/or attractiveness (usually very pornified or male gaze oriented). I'm not sure if this is the autogynophiliac aspect or a general lack of awareness of how life is for women who don't meet the required beauty standards. One aspect of lying to children that they are the opposite sex because they are gender non-conforming is how are they going to deal with their sexuality as they become adults. If a girl grows up being told she is a boy, how hard will it be to come to terms with the fact that very few girls will want to have a relationship with her? I think these poor children have a great deal of trouble ahead of them.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

Yes Flora.
It's reminding me of that thing where Julie Burchill got it in the neck for saying women were being encouraged to have an unattainable bodyshape, that of a 'Brazilian transsexual'.
I was thinking about it recently in terms of how much shit is said by men about women and how little crap they get for it, compared with the almighty row over Burchill. Women's speech is so much more policed than men's. It's fascinating.
However, in the light of what you've said, I wonder if she was also not allowed to say it because it was a reminder that there is still a physical difference between women and transwomen, when we're supposed to pretend there's no difference at all.

[UptheChimney]

One aspect of lying to children that they are the opposite sex because they are gender non-conforming is how are they going to deal with their sexuality as they become adults

Thanks for a really interesting thread. I came to it because I've seen quite a bit of TERF-outing and criticism on my Twitter, and it's such a new thing to me (old 1970s/80s Women's Lib feminist -- hell, I was even in a consciousness-raising group in the late 70s, I'm that old). I guess in my extreme moments, I'd identify with radical feminist aspects of feminism/s. But I'm also very much aware of the Butler stuff (gender as performative, and sex not necessarily fixed).

I've worked with a couple of MtF people, when they've been both pre & post-op. Both identified as lesbian, but both had a gender-reassignment operation. The new emerging difference between the terms transgender & transsexual is interesting in this respect.

A lot of the TERF stuff is actually a misunderstanding of the complexity of BUtler's arguments, and also an emptying out of queer theory of any kind of politics. It gives few tools for analysing patriarchy as a STRUCTURE and sees gender as a set of personal choices a la neo-liberal post-modernism. All these young 20 somethings thinking they're being political and radical, hmmmmm

It seems to me that what we have is a lot of rather privileged young people (oh writing that makes me feel old) with a fundamental misunderstanding of theory around the DIFFERENCE or distinction between the terms "sex" and "gender" who've been educated in a post-neoliberal world (Fredric Jameson's good on po-mo as a symptom and tool of late global capitalism, not its destruction) and who think that if they want to break out of the socialisation of masculinity or femininity then they have to claim the opposite sex identity, rather than collectively work to destabilise gender identities which seem to coerce people into particular lives, styles, and behaviours.

And the fact that a number of vocal transgender activists seem to want to keep certain attributes of both male sex and masculine gendered behaviour (basic misunderstandings about women's rights over their own bodies, anyone?) I find very unsettling.

It all seems like another version of mansplaining to me.

[UptheChimney]

Oh sorry, meant to add ... (as if I hadn't written enough of an essay) that isn't there an identified radfem (now vilified as a TERF) who argues that a lot of people who identify as transgender (as opposed to transsexual) actually just want NOT to conform to the embedded and socialised gendered stereotypes of required masculine & feminine behaviour.

This seems to me to make sense: just because a boy plays with dolls or likes wearing a dress does not mean he has gender dysphoria/or is transsexual.

Is that a viable point?

[UptheChimney]

Oh, I'm not an expert on that! I've personally used the term "transsexual" to refer to people who have or are undergoing sex reassignment (pre- and post-operatively). I gather from one acquaintance who did this that she had to live as a woman successfully for a period of time, plus hormone therapy, plus undergo extensive psychological testing & therapy, plus wait for ages for the actual surgery to be available.

Not for the faint-hearted at all, and a bit differnt, so it seems to me, from the current queer activists who I gather use the term "transgender."

But my point about the current debates (in addition to all the points made on this thread already about the same old same old woman-blaming, woman-silencing stuff) is that it seems to me that you can be a non-stereotypical non-masculine man, without having to become a woman, with or without a penis.

Maybe I'm hopelessly idealistic & naive.

I also know that the anecdotes of a couple of MtF friends are not data.