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.

I wonder what would happen if all women elected to identify as male or agender, from this point onwards. Would this end our oppression on the basis of sex, I wonder...

Buffy, I don't think so.

And that is because the biological reality on which women's oppression is based would remain. You would still have a class of persons who can gestate and bear children, and a class of persons who cannot, and this would continue to shape social reality and power dynamics between men and women. The material conditions (female reproductive capacity, and male control of such) on which 'gender' is built can't be identified away. And for feminism to have any hope of succeeding, these conditions need to be understood in relation to the ideological structure (gender) which naturalises and justifies this control.

What's actually happening with the trans/queer/postmodernist takeover of feminism is that sex is being disappeared as a meaningful concept, and gender reified as eternal and natural. Which is why I disagree with the OP that trans politics will lead to the eventual breakdown of gender. What is actually happening is the material basis for women's oppression (biological sex) is becoming obscured and unnamable.

buffy, I've often wondered that. In the face of a rapist, would shouting "I'm a man!" work as a form of defence?

I've also wondered about transitioning trans men and what constitutes living as their preferred gender (ugh at the sex/gender ambiguity AGAIN). I spend a portion of the year a bit off piste, in that I am living largely outwith my normal life. (deliberately vague) When I am doing that, I entirely cast off my usual trappings. No make up, no hair removal, head hair tied up in the main (and if I were doing it full time, I would cut it short), clothes to suit the environment (so usually shorts or trousers). In a sense, I live as a man. What more would I have to do to get a great certificate?

I don't know where I'm going with this, tbh, but I feel that there's a point in there somewhere!

DonkeySkin, that quote gives me goosebumps.

Right-Wing Women should be on the syllabus of every Women's (or gender!) Studies course in the world. Had it been written by a man, it would probably have won a Nobel prize or other manly gong.

It should be considered a major work of socio-political analysis and of searing intellect and a major contribution to humanity, similar to the Communist Manifesto. An amazing book in its incisive clarity and incredible pace.

But of course it is radical feminism and Dworkin. And therefore taboo.

Can't recommend it enough to the women here. If you like a feminist lightbulb, this book will blow you away.

Oh, that was an odd autocorrect! I meant a gender recognition certificate.

Surely I could get one? Because it would be a societal recognition that I performed as a different gender than I have been assigned. I don't (yet do:-)) have a problem with that. But given that I am oppressed because of my sex, that doesn't move me on much, does it?

Waffling now...

Buffy

In total agreement with what Donkey and Flora say in answer to Buffy's question re women not identifying as the oppressed sex and attempting to transgress gender thereby.

If only!

I think it is the job of trans activists to explain what transsexualism is. I am still waiting for a link to a mainstream trans activism site where all will presumably explained...

inappropriate cross-post. directed at buffy's previous post.

Buffy I think your understanding of post-structuralism and post-modernism goes far far beyond most people's (including me, obv). My problem with it is that without the right level of understanding, it is used as "anything can mean anything, nothing has a meaning, there is no truth". From a sociological perspective, I can almost get my head around that and I do think there is a reality of sociology, certainly in how it affects, shapes, limits people's lives. However, there are surely some things that are materially true and not warranting equal scrutiny (e.g. the sun rises in the east and sets in the west). I would put biological sex in that category. It is demonstrably true that a person with a vagina is not capable of impregnating any other person and is most likely capable of being penetrated with a penis and a person with a penis is not capable of being impregnated and is most likely capable of penetrating another person with the penis. There may be intersex or other sexual or physical dysfunctions that may mean a person with a vagina cannot gestate or a person with a penis cannot impregnate but the reverse will never be true. A person with a penis is either male or intersex and a person with a vagina is either female or intersex.

It's hard to believe we are actually having these discussions. It seems so blindingly obvious that it's almost hard to find the words to express something so basic. However we do seem to be in a position, brought about by post-modernist theory, that we have to have this discussion.

kim I'm not engaging in those questions. You will take the answers too personally and will not engage in an open discussion. I agree with you that it's hypocritical of you to ask.

"Why has there been a massive increase in referrals?"

On no more solid evidence than "my opinion", I'm going to go with "it's become more widely known and somewhat more easily discussed".

"Why would someone go from the most privileged class there is to being oppressed?"

Again, my opinion - but I am not sure how many MtoF trans think about that. Many people with penises and many with vaginas don't, after all.

"What do people think transsexuality actually is?"

I don't know. I thought I did, but it seems I do not.

What do people think transsexuality actually is?
Not a bloody clue.

Why has there been a massive increase in referrals?
No idea.

Do you think there's a medical reason or a social reason?
No idea.

well, transsexuality suggests a change of sex, so of the physical condition of being a particular class of person. Which brings it back to the bodily change identified with medication and surgery.

I've not thought this through in detail, but I think that in our postmodern world many of us have become accustomed to the idea of identity as play and performance. So perhaps for some trans people it's about being attracted to the idea of performing their identity differently and seeing the opportunity to do that both in depth and in public. Thus a social reason. That would fit with the trans people who say that for them it's not about dysmorphia.

When did the shortened form of 'trans' start to be used / become popular, can anyone tell me?

I believe that dysphoria about the appearance of the body is very real. There are lots of kinds of body dysphoria.

I don't understand what that has to do with anyone else other than the person suffering from it. I can see why it would be alleviated by surgery; I don't see why it would be alleviated by social validation, name changes, believing you have a male or female brain and so do I etc. Surely a trans woman has a brain that tells her her body should be female. Nothing about that at all is a shared experience with women as a group.

So yes to observable physical genital arrangements, but no to the immutable truth of what these mean in terms of gender and roles.

I agree with this entirely. How do you think Butler came to the conclusion that biological sex itself is a construct? This is becoming a more prominent part of the trans narrative so that a man is biologically female with female body parts because he describes his gender identity as female. I know you don't agree with this but I'm interested in your insight into how that theory is constructed.

Ok then.

I did think that a transsexual was a person taking steps as far as the medical profession would allow or support, to alter their primary and secondary sexual characteristics, by hormones, surgery, hair removal etc to be as close as possible to those of the opposite sex, on the basis that the person felt very strongly that their body's appearance did not match their "mental world view" of themselves as far as sexual characteristics were concerned.

I have used language as carefully as I can above. My understanding is that the definition of trans (transgender and transsexual) by those who self-define as trans is much broader than the above.