Any appetite for further discussion on 'trans-feminism'?

[CrewElla]

I made the mistake this morning of reading the comments on an article on the Guardian website re Kellie Maloney being 'outed' in the tabloids which led to me googling trans-feminism and coming across this article from the New Yorker: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2

I haven't considered myself radical in the past and, at times, even (naively) said I had no need of feminism. Reading the New Yorker article I felt they so missed the point and tried to marginalise a view (woman have a need for spaces free from penises, whether the penis belongs to a man or a transwoman) that I don't think is that radical.

Am I being naive? Does anyone have the time/interest to read the article and share their views on it?

I'd think a black man was being ridiculous for accepting a white man as black because he "felt like a black man". I'd expect him to feel insulted and to comment but that's because I expect men to not put up with that sort of thing.

I've actually had the 'I'm black really' thing said to me a few times by white people. It made me murderously angry. I would tend to just walk off immediately. Similarly 'The Irish are the blacks of Europe'. No, you really really aren't, horrific history notwithstanding. Most black men I've come across would probably do the same, albeit with a bit of swearing. It evokes a real sense of contempt that someone is so desperate for an identity and some cultural kudos that they would come up with such a risible statement.

But after being married to a black man for half a century plus, my mother says when people talk about race in binary black/white terms, she doesn't identify with white any more. She doesn't think she is black, if you asked her she'd say she was white, but also she doesn't identify or have any affinity with anything set up in opposition to black.

There may be something in there that could shed light on the trans debate but I am too tired to find it.

I've actually had the 'I'm black really' thing said to me a few times by white people

OH MY GOD.

I agree with your mother, Abbie. She might be around my age, and I think our values were formed at a time when our culture was very open to ideas of spectrum/flexible - not binary - individual identities.

The idea of 'white' (which we are not, unless pure albino) as the default skin colour, with 'black' (which we are not) meaning everything else is bonkers, anyway. Much like the idea of 'male' as default, with everything else being 'female', and the 'heterosexual male' default.

Okay, male/female is more like a binary but it's still only something like 80% definite. Since the default male generally means fully heterosexual male, in cultural terms, that leaves an enormous proportion of the population defaulting to 'roughly female'.

Bonkers!

I don't know Garlic. She was a wartime baby. I think the thinking on race was pretty fixed white/other.

Oh yes, gin. Mostly men, often in the context of being a massive (twatty) fan of black music. You know the type: fixate on an obscure musical style that ceased to be popular before you were born, become a Mastermind type bore on the subject and then claim some belonging with its oppressed practitioners.

It was the first time I'd been forced to comprehend myself as an organism rather than a personality carried in a body, if that makes any sense...

This is such an interesting point and I totally get what you mean. I don't remember when my mindset shifted but I do definitely see myself as an organism now - as an animal, in fact - and there was a time when I didn't see myself that way at all. I can remember sort of feeling that my body was... incidental to me? I'm not sure if that's the right word. I suppose I felt like "I" was separate from "my body," as if they were two separate entities that just happened to have to go everywhere together. I'm wondering now how this relates to the dissatisfaction with our bodies which seems to be almost ubiquitous (although it varies widely in intensity and in how it manifests), and the many many ways in which we disregard and mistreat our bodies. I certainly listen to my body in a way that I never used to, and treat it waaaaay better than I previously did, and appreciate everything it does, now that I feel like I am my body.

Ahhh, yes, she broke her cultural bounds, then :)

fixate on an obscure musical style that ceased to be popular before you were born, become a Mastermind type bore on the subject and then claim some belonging with its oppressed practitioners.

For some reason, this made me think of pointed stilettoes, backcombed hair and blue eyeshadow ...

I wanted to be black as a kid/young teen. Now I am a grown up I realise this is completely bonkers/pretty insulting and also that I was totally underestimating the shit parts of being non-white because I hadn't experienced them for myself.

I am actually intrigued because it came about after my wanting to be a boy bit, neither of which I really thought were possible but just reflected my very strong unhappiness with being female/an immigrant.

So I confess I find the fact that transethnic is a thing fascinating and also quite worrying. I needed time to deal with my stuff (and yes that included therapy) and I hope others who feel they are really the complete opposite of what they are are getting help they clearly need.

This is an amazing thread. I feel both educated and as though I've finally found some people who are thinking the same way as me about trans.
I don't feel I have anything to add but please do continue, it is an eduction.

(also please be careful which sites you link to, as they can see where their visitors come from. It would be a shame to spoil this 'safe space', there are so few these days)

Gin - I can get that experience. I know there was a long time when I didn't feel like my body was mine, and as I've mentioned I think I definitely had some sort of dissociative thing going on. And that certainly could explain why other supposedly rational atheistic men believe themselves to have some sort of identity which exists in opposition to their actual bodies.

“I can't go on. You are arguing in order to have the pleasure of triumphing over me. At best you win an argument. At worst you lose an argument. I am arguing to preserve my existence” Laing - Divided Self

Thread on AIBU about 'blacking up' right now. Some interesting and terrifying thoughts. The considered opinion seems to be that cultural appropriation is offensive and racist. Is gender appropriation even discussed?

Is gender appropriation even discussed?

OP is asked about drag in the first few responses and makes a very carefully worded objection to it, but I stopped reading because I was pissed off with the way it was going.

Just visited the AIBU thread. Whata bag of shite. Not going back.

Why are many of you using the very terms that you don't agree with like "cis" or "born women"?

Also forgot to mention that you have to be a bit careful so as to stay with in the MN guidelines. Callling a trans woman a man or He will get you deleted I believe.

I will call anyone by whatever pronoun they wish to be called - he, she, or it (not unheard of, apparently) - because that is the polite thing to do.

However, I am not about to call an XY-chromosomed hairy adult male with a functional penis and testicles dangling between his legs a "woman". Sure, I won't call her "a man" if she doesn't want to be called one, because that would be unnecessarily hurtful, but she is not a woman. She is a transwoman.

If anyone has a problem with the above, I would be interested to hear what that might be.

Yeah Buffy or should I say Ms. Pankhurst? I think anyone that thinks that name is an insult really doesn't need to be indulged.

Most people respect the fraught history of race relations so cultural appropriation in that context is more likely to be seen as unacceptable. That level of respect isn't given to gender relations

oops said gender relations unthinkingly as it's the established phrase

Assuming gender roles, as well as other forms of stereotyping, is not the same as assuming identity - that is a valid point imo. (I don't know if that is the point being made though as haven't read the other thread)

"Yes, and the difference between this and transsexuality is that your body was indeed made for 'performing' (i.e. making babies),"

I don't want to go on about infertility because this is a very sensitive area in itself.

But - and this is not to take away from the emotional impact on anyone who is struggling with infertility - I profoundly disagree with the "it should work" that someone said earlier, and the "made for" position expressed above. Women's bodies are not all made for the same things, or even in fact made for, in a literal sense, anything instrumental.

This touches on my heartfelt and unfashionable position of the innate ok-ness, however odd, however difficult, of every person. I wrote "perfection" and then deleted it. I don't think every person is perfect, but I think every person is exactly as ok as the next, and also sacred.

Part of this sacredness is that none of us is "for" anything. It is using women as being essentially "for" other things that is the deep, deep violation at the heart of the patriarchy; it is what I feel in my heart that makes me angry and makes me a feminist; and what makes me long for justice for all humans.

I love your outlook Vezzie

I agree with that vezzie, wholeheartedly. Like the Quaker idea of something of God in everyone. Worth is intrinsic, it is not linked to form or function, or purpose. We are not 'for' anything, we simply are, in all our infinite variation.

i absolutely agree with you vezzie

Oh wow that AIBU thread is something else. Only read the first 100 odd posts but CaptainSinker is doing a fine job! And YY to gender appropriation being even more acceptable. I'm shocked by those who think it's a harmless bit of fun. I really thought it was a no-brainer.