Following on from the TERF thread...

[CailinDana]

Trying to get my head straight on this. Surely the whole malarkey around transwomen wanting to be recognised as women even though they have penises will eventually actually help to break down the idea of gender?

What I mean is, if a person with a penis can be labelled a woman simply because they want to be labelled in that way, surely gender becomes meaningless as it tells you nothing meaningful about a person except perhaps the clothes they like to wear?

This is a half-formed thought, feel free to develop/challenge.

[Bracquemond]

When I first saw this discussion I expected that it would be mostly about intersex people, rather than MtF and FtM transsexuals, which seems to be the focus. (The general public, by the way, use these, and related, terms very loosely.)

I found the discussion via a search for MRKH (Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser Syndrome), after seeing this week’s “Embarrassing Bodies”, on which one of the patients was a woman born without a womb and with “no vagina” (in fact, she had a very short – 2 cm – vagina). This is a genetic variant in XX women. There is usually full or partial ovarian development.

I was also aware of a syndrome known as Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS), in which a different genetic variation, the body’s inability to respond to androgens, causes the woman to be born with (often quite large) breasts, a clitoris, a vagina (sometimes short), extremely feminine facial features and very clear skin but no womb or ovaries: instead there are residual testes inside the body.

Both syndromes are known to cause gender identity problems and depression, but in accordance with the “biological reality” criteria, the CAIS person is called a “genetic male”, although to the average person, the idea of a feminine-looking “man” with luxuriant head hair, breasts, a vagina and a functioning clitoris might cause some cognitive dissonance at the very least. A CAIS woman – I choose to use the term “woman” – must feel as if she has been told that she has “male atoms”.

In addition, there is a wide range of Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome conditions, with, in some individuals, a small penis which looks like a large clitoris, and, in others, a large clitoris which looks like a small penis. It was mostly cases such as these which panicked doctors such as John Money into carrying out “gender reassignment” surgery, often with disastrous results for the individual later in life.

CAIS and PAIS intersex individuals report that they encounter difficulties in life which are similar to those suffered by gay and disabled people: prejudice, bullying, isolation, self-doubt, etc., and that, whether or not this is qualitatively or quantitatively analogous to misogyny/sexism, it is certainly similar in the sense that it diminishes their lives. The very least which might be expected is a little more sensitivity. A lot of pejorative comment seems to reflect the very “binary” sentiment the speaker or writer claims to oppose. If an intersex person has to conform unwillingly to one of the binary poles in terms of behaviour, appearance or anything else, that is an injustice. If it means a third bathroom, then so be it. Build it and they will go.

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

Fwr troll, Harold.

Please report, I will.

[HaroldsBishop]

Who let Ali G on?

[Beachcomber]

Sorry, I've just read that back and realized it looks like I've ignored what you said about (not talking about biological sex/acculturated gender here) because I've gone on about gender!

I should have said that I don't think you can really separate out the threads of sexuality/gender terribly easily in Queer Theory because they are linked and really part and parcel of the concept together. I do think that homosexuality, bisexuality and lesbianism challenge patriarchy - in particular lesbianism (hence why it is so marginalized).

However, I don't think lesbianism, bisexuality and homosexuality are a spectrum. What makes the spectrum are all the other bits which are about contesting rigid categories of gender and they are of course inextricably tied in up gender, gender identity and gender as an identity. Queer Theory didn't invent or name non heteronormative sexual orientations, they have existed since as long as anyone can remember and have always challenged oppressive patriarchal rules on sexuality or what feminists call 'compulsory heterosexuality'. We didn't and don't need Queer Theory in order to do that, it was being done already.

[Beachcomber]

It's a slightly different subject, but you might be interested in this article by Bindel, UptheChimney. It was linked to on another thread in a post by SevenZarkSeven.

Viewpoint: Should gay men and lesbians be bracketed together?

[Beachcomber]

I don't think there is anything wrong with a spectrum of sexuality (which I am using as in the sexual habits and desires of a person) but I don't think it is powerful for dismantling patriarchy (although it does challenge heteronormativity to some extent).

Queer theory isn't just about sexuality though - it is also about identity, in particular what gets called gender identity. I actually find the entire concept of gender identity hugely problematic but that is probably a subject of a different post to this one.

It seems that every person and their dog wants to endlessly go on about identity these days which IMO is a result of the trend of post-modernist thinking that appears to have taken a place as being 'the truth' in current thinking in an ironically non post-modernist/structuralist way.

Anyway, I digress.

OK so back to why I doubt the power of the spectrum in this particular instance. Gender is not an identity. Gender is a system. Gender is a hierarchy. And it is a binary hierarchy. It is a binary hierarchy because gender is sex based oppression and there are only two sexes; female and male. Females are oppressed and males oppress. There are only two places in the hierarchy; high status which is awarded to men and boys and low status which is awarded to women and girls. Gender is not a spectrum because sex is not a spectrum. As for gender identity, well yes, that can be a spectrum because anyone can call themselves anything they like. But gender identity is not powerful. It is not powerful because it is fragmented and individualized due to being....a spectrum. And gender identity as a concept does not challenge gender or the binary nature of gender, indeed it makes it stronger because it obfuscates things.

You mention binaries as thought they are a bad thing a couple of times in your posts. Rejection of binaries is post-modernist influenced and it is a notion that many people, particularly radical feminists, think is dangerous in terms of social justice as it can be used to disappear oppressed groups or the mechanisms by which they are oppressed. Some things are black and white. The sex based oppression of human females by human males for example.

I hope that goes some way to answering your question.

[UptheChimney]

I mean that using 'queer' as a blanket term in a blanket theory that anyone can make a claim on bothers me and I know it bothers plenty of lesbians

Ah, I see, and yes, agree with you on this. At a seminar on the weekend, I did get a bit sick of gay white men speaking for all "queers" as if they had no advantage from quite conventional forms of patriarchal masculinity. I tend to find gay men who haven't put feminism first a bit annoying and mansplaining.

I'd be interested to hear why you say this: I disagree with the idea that 'fluidity' or a 'spectrum' of sexuality is particularly powerful Surely, anything that doesn't put us in convenient and binary boxes (eg hetero/homo) is a useful and potentially powerful tool for analysing & dismantling patriarchy?

[Beachcomber]

I remember the protests of the 80s too and I don't mean to say that no-one can reclaim the word 'queer'.

I mean that using 'queer' as a blanket term in a blanket theory that anyone can make a claim on bothers me and I know it bothers plenty of lesbians.

I disagree with the idea that 'fluidity' or a 'spectrum' of sexuality is particularly powerful.

[UptheChimney]

But I remember marches & protests in the 1980s when my gay friends would chant "We're here, and we're queer" and it's a word gay friends use still. The AIDS activism of the 80s politicised a lot of gay men I think (who maybe started to realise at last that patriarchal masculinist attitudes to sex were connected with death -- something women have always known).

I think the powerful thing that is useful from 'queer theory' (which isn't the only use of the term "queer") is that it's a way of acknowledging the fluidity and spectrum of sexuality (not talking about biological sex/acculturated gender here) and a way of escaping potentially repressive binaries.

I don't think that putting people in boxes you're either HETERosexual or HOMOsexual, and that's it is any more 'liberated' than normative or assumed heterosexuality. But as I say, I was brought up with a wide range of types of people, and one of my best teenage friends was a drag queen-in-training!

[FloraFox]

I don't use the word "queer" IRL. I know too many people who have been abused by that word. If lesbians and gay men want to reclaim it, that's fine but I don't feel comfortable saying it. I hate it when young people use it when they are not actually lesbian or gay. It seems like they are trying too hard to be special and unique.

[Beachcomber]

Another thing about Dalygate on Shakesville was the number of comments (on SV and other places) about how Daly is clearly a violent genocidal psychopath because there are so many pictures around of her holding an axe.

I laughed for weeks about that. It's proof many who criticize her haven't read her though or they would understand the symbolism of the labrys.

[Beachcomber]

I liked the nod to lesbians too. Like you say, doesn't happen a lot...

I remember when I first came across queer theory and I was that it was called that. I think I see it more as a trendy word than a reclaimed word. I accept that language changes but current bandying around of queer troubles me. I also don't like how it is used as an umbrella term without people's permission. Lots of lesbians don't want to be called queer partly because of the historic slur element, partly because they don't want lesbianism to be disappeared into an amalgam and partly because they blimmin well reject queer theory and its pal post modernism.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

Yes indeed, that bit in the Savage interview struck me as well.
I'm rather touched that he noticed that the people who tend to object to 'queer' are the older lesbians.... who regularly get ignored.

[Beachcomber]

I think it is both BriarRainbowshimmer.

I wonder how many sex positive queer theory butlerite third wavers have read any Dworkin? Or Daly? Or Millett? Or even MacKinnon (who is relatively high profile given her status in the legal world and they should read in order to put Butler into a context). Partly some of them won't have read these women because their books are out of print/hard to get hold of/not taught in academia. Some of them won't read these brilliant political thinkers' books because they have been told that second wave radical feminism isn't very sexy/fun/navel gazing and that probably doesn't make them very appealing.

And of course they will have been told that these incredible women are racist/transphobic/menzhaterz/think all sexy is rape.

I think it takes a certain maturity of thinking (I don't mean age) to read and digest what these women have to say. In this day an age of social media, blogs, instant publishing of words on the net, self-identity politics, ultra liberalism and ultra sexy, I think a lot of people don't read books which require an intellectual commitment and which really make you think hard about hard stuff.

Then there is the backlash - and that is a much darker side to all this.

In relation to what UptheChimney says, a lot of the present generation don't know they are born, they simply don't know (care?) about the massive amount of work and thinking that has got us to where we are now and they aren't taught to respect older women and the wisdom of age and experience of those women.

I'm being reminded of a comment on Savage's website about cringing when you see the word queer being bandied about in 'queer theory'. Not everybody wants the word queer reclaimed and many of those who use it (in part I sometimes think because it sounds dead transgressive and original and can be a noun, verb and adjective!) aren't even aware that it was a dreadful slur. How the fuck do you reclaim a word that you don't understand the cultural implications and history of, and which you are too young to have had used against you in a hateful way?!

[UptheChimney]

It all smacks of "What about teh menz?" to me ...

[BriarRainbowshimmer]

Hm. I wonder if that's because of total ignorance of all the important work feminists did in the 70's or if there are darker motives.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

Well, the social justice warriors who call themselves intersectional don't usually seem that bothered about ageism.
Older women are irrelevant so they can't have done anything important.

[UptheChimney]

Interestingly, on Twitter, there is a stream of abuse about 70s feminists.

Let's just remember what 70s feminists did for us. I'll start the list:

Paid maternity leave
Equal pay (I remember seeing the news reports about that. Yes I'm an old 70s feminist)
Rape in marriage legislation

None of these battles is yet won, but oh my godness, what we owe these terrible 70s feminists!

[Beachcomber]

And it is another stick to bash feminists with.

These last few comments remind me of when Melissa of Shakesville dared to post a eulogy of Mary Daly on her death. Cue aggressive comments comparing Daly to Hitler and Polanski and accusing her of being responsible for the deaths and suicides of so many transpeople and having blood on her hands because she wrote books. Trans critical ones. The hate was quite something and despite Melissa and Shakesville being very trans friendly they were torn apart for their terrible transphobia in paying homage to Daly on her death.

Just look at all the important feminists who are persona non grata in so many liberal/progressive/feminist circles nowadays because they criticize gender and therefore transgenderism; Daly, Jeffreys, Greer, Morgan, Bindel, etc.

These are women who have done enormous service to women and women's rights. Let's put them and their work in the trash can because they think females exist.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

That was Flora

But basically, yes.
This is why the patriarchy doesn't seem to mind transgenderism much. It's no threat to the status quo.

[GarlicJunoWho]

Sorry, Flora, that was your quote.

[GarlicJunoWho]

"don't want gender to disappear, they want it to continue but for them to choose while stereotypes to play out"

Yes, yes, that's it exactly! That's what upsets me about this whole business. Thanks, Tunip.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

It's terribly naive as well, this idea that if we could choose we'd all be making a totally free choice.
As if there wouldn't be societal pressure, pressure from people who thought due to your behavioural characteristics you'd make a better boy or girl, pressure from the father who despises girls, etc.

There's a dystopian YA called Divergent where society is divided by personality and at 18 you get to pick whether you're a Dauntless, an Erudite, an Amity, etc. Obviously it is horrible because people don't fit into neat boxes, whether or not they get to pick them themselves! The idea that gender would be great as long as you can choose feels a bit like that.