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'm glad to see lots of reasonable answers.

What I wanted to ask was a bit different:

1. Does anyone talk about this stuff off of mumsnet/twitter/blogosphere? Do you have these discussions IRL (or even Facebook or some other online venue where your real identity is apparent)?

1. If so, how do you get anyone at all to listen?

Yes, I've had similar conversations, both with people who know that I'm a feminist and with comparative strangers. I've never brought the subject up, but have said my piece when it's been raised by others.

I "speak my truth", if people listen, they listen, if they don't they don't. People who know me know that I don't tend to speak forthrightly on topics I know nothing about and are therefore more likely to listen. Strangers might listen or not.

This has been such an informative thread and I've read the whole thing.

It's really helped me to analyse and unpick my (private, of course) thoughts regarding an old friend from university making the announcement that they have started to transition and are living as a woman. Now, this came as no surprise because I knew she dressed as a woman back at uni, and more recently we've been chatting about being trans and trans issues. I've been so torn between being a positive and supportive friend (and I am supportive, as two faced as I may come across as my post goes on) and my own feelings of... unease about her motivations for wanting to transition.

I mean, autogynephilia is a term I came across for the first time on the feminism boards, and that sort of typifies my friend. In fact, discovering this term helped me put a name to the thoughts I'd been having, and was chastising myself for. Let's just say her version of femininity learns towards the Perspex stripper shoe, highly sexualised, Paris Lees worshipping kind of unrealism. I'm being unfair, because clearly one doesnt choose to live the complicated and difficult life as a transwoman purely because they get off on the idea of being one, but there's an element of that I'm sure.

And she said something really interesting to me a while back, about wishing there was no T in LGBT, because as a transwoman her ideal is to not BE a transwoman hanging out with other trans people in trans bars, but rather to simply "pass" and hang out with cis friends in "regular" bars and being, for want of a better word, normal. Which makes sense, as an absolute ideal, but is it not basically impossible?

Anyway, sorry for derailing the political with the personal. I guess I'm still wrangling with my fundamental belief that people should be able to live the life they wish to live, alongside another fundamental belief, which is that how can a person born and raised male want to become a woman when they cannot (and neither, arguably, can cis women) define what "being a woman" is?

I know a trans woman quite well and, lovely as they are, going out to a bar with them is not easy. It's actually quite awkward. There's always an elephant in the room.

I've been reading this thread since it was bumped and am finding it very thought-provoking - I actually thought of it this morning - last day of term and a group of mothers, myself included went for coffee after school drop off. The conversation ranged from periods (one of our DDs has just started hers), sex ed in schools (or the appalling lack of it - we're all Catholic), contraception, hormones, IVF, infertility, miscarriage - it sounds v. serious but was actually very funny, honest and open.

This conversation would not have happened had one of the male parents come with us. It just wouldn't. Women do act differently when men aren't around, and although we would probably have had just as good a conversation had some of the dads joined us, it would not have gone into the detail and the amount of sharing of experience that it did. Women talk differently among women and the inclusion of trans women into such a conversation would have altered it, if only because they couldn't have joined in with talk about their first period, how they dealt with contraception etc.

I don't think to say this is bigoted or phobic, it just is how it is.

You can never know how they would be if you weren't there though can you Kim? That must cross your mind?

*Which makes sense, as an absolute ideal, but is it not basically impossible?

It's pretty easy, really.*

My point being, kim (and forgive me for making vast generalisations) is that it's not always that easy to "pass" and therefore have an easy, relaxed night out. A bit like what Lovecat alluded to. I mean not everyone is as fortunate as Paris Lees or Laverne Cox, and probably has the disadvantage of a certain facial or body shape, or was very hirsute as a man, etc.

I would imagine that the differences between women's and men's usual subjects for conversation and the way they interact differently are down to socialisation rather than anything inherent.

Mind you, some of the things you've talked about such as IVF, miscarriage, infertility won't have been experienced by some women as well

The barrier isn't based on whether an individual woman has personal experience of any or all of these things. Most women will still relate on these subjects because of the assumptions about women's bodies and the stigma about what they do/what happens to them and how unmentionable these things are in mixed company. So an infertile woman will understand the types of examination that a pregnant woman will undergo and that it's not something you routinely speak openly about. Because men don't want to hear much about the inner workings and often find it repulsive.

I think that some of this comes down to there being a difference between being a woman, and being feminine. I'm definitely a woman, I have all the equipment and experiences, but I'm not feminine at all, I strongly believe that it's biology that makes me female, and therefore as an adult, human female a woman and my head and behaviour isn't involved at all.

But, of the 2 transwomen I've been friends with, they've both equated being a woman with being feminine - shoes, hair, makeup etc. It's all been about passing as a woman (because until medical science progresses it isn't possible for men to have the more visceral bits of being a woman - periods, birth etc.), which causes a disconnect with me, because none of those external things are me, and yet I am a woman.

I agree with that ChunkyPickle I saw someone on twitter saying something along the lines of: biology determines your sex but your sex does not determine your personality. I agree with that.

I think there are a lot of problems caused by using the word "gender" as a euphemism for "sex". The WHO definition is by far the most sensible:

www.who.int/gender/whatisgender/en/

I think I can sort of squint a bit, tilt it a bit and maybe see where this is coming from. The general practice for counselling people who have some form of gender dissassotiation of some kind, is quite rightly to allow the individual to explore their own feelings and how to define themselves.

This is all right and good, but perhaps after some people reach the end of that journey of self discovery and identity, it leaves some people with the drive and desire to see that internal reality imprinted externally in the outside world.

Now upto a point that's fine. I would rather live in a world where there was no discrimination or hate crimes et al, but I think the point where we are all expected to redefine what a woman is (which of course for women requires more). Is a bizarre way of going about things.

I think it's gone beyond redefining what a woman is to the stage where otherwise sensible people are seriously suggesting that there is no definition of "woman" and, even worse, that there is no need for one. That's a huge problem for all women.

Well the bit that has me exceedingly confused, is that say I identified with and wanted to be a woman, ok that I can understand, but then if my becoming a woman necessitates a complete redefintion of what women are, then what exactly do I want to be? Gah this literally makes my brain hurt!!

For what it's worth I think maybe trans is a bit of a misleading label. My suspicion is that there is more than one way to arrive at the same place. I am for example aware that it is not unheard of for some victims of abuse to start identifying with the other gender in an unconscious urge to not be the that was abused in the first place.

I'm also aware of research that would indicate neurological similitarites for some trans people with the gender they identify with. Although with the caveat we are talking about an area we simply don't have the scientific body of data to say with certainty.

Broad point is: is it possible there are multiple causes?

Flora this isn't me disagreeing with you, but if the argument to effectively obliterate the definition of a woman is required to allow some people who identify with being one to be one. Surely therefore the thing they so desperately want is therefore illusory anyway?

I really am going to stop now, and go back to lurking. I really haven't the foggiest what I am on about, and wouldn't want to inadvertently offend.

There's nothing illusory about being a woman (or not) whatever transactivists would have us believe. It's a hard biological fact.

It's a hard biological fact that women all over the world are killed for, enslaved for and discriminated against for. Nothing illusory about that.

Exactly, and saying that it is possible to become a woman by adopting a "feminine" style of dress, and possibly having genital surgery does tend to trivialise that really.

Indeed. You'd imagine that people who believe they identify so strongly with women would not struggle so much to understand it.

I'm another who has no problem with how people wish to identify, will happily and without any level of rancour use whichever pronouns a person wishes.

When I start to have a problem is when people tell me how I have to identify (cis?), what pronouns I am allowed to use and sees fit to threaten me because I am able to see the difference between being a woman (biology) and performing femininity (socialisation).