Cisgender Lesbians & Trans Women

[kellyandthecat]

www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/02/16/cisgender_lesbians_and_trans_women_how_to_mend_the_rift.html

I am a straight 'cisgender' woman but a friend of mine in America posted this article and I thought it was really interesting to think about 'other' kinds of women. I cant say I know very much about it or feminism with a capital F since I left university but this article definitely makes what it calls TERFS - 'trans-exclusionary radical feminists' look quite bad so I was wondering if anyone on MN had read it and had any thoughts. No one in my house ever wants to have a chat about this stuff

Ah ok. Thanks for clearing up. But yy only google if you're the sort of person who voluntarily watches spots being popped etc.

Afaik, most transwomen don't have what is coyly termed 'bottom surgery'.
Which is understandable given the risks and the results.

Yes it makes perfect sense rosie.

To make a parallel for a minute - although it's not really the same, but it's similar.

If a person of either gender is not usually attracted to people of a certain ethnic group, does that make them racist? Of course it doesn't. I mean, yes, the lack of attraction may be caused by racism. And then it would be a problem - the racism. Not the lack of attraction. But the fact that somebody has a sexual preference for people of the same ethnicity as themselves does not make them racist. And a person of another ethnic origin does not have the right to insist that they "just consider" sleeping with them, even if the person is a racist.

Wondering now - I assume there must be some homophobic straight people who are turned off or even disgusted at the idea of sleeping with a bisexual person. Is the LGBT movement also talking about/concerned about this?

if

I agree, I think if DH transitioned fully although I would be happy to stay married I wouldn't want to have sex with her, but the assumption has definitely been made in this case that they are still having a sexual relationship...whether they are or not

super

It's supposed to be really expensive as well isn't it

Just realised that my last post implies that DH may be trans gender

He isn't....

So a transgender person is uncomfortable with their body being masculine. Wants a relationship with a lesbian, unhappy that the lesbian is uncomfortable with their body, therefore TERF?

Surely when it comes to adult personal relationships and you are about to enter into a sexual relationship with that person then it's about a negotiation of a relationship between two individuals?

Why does it have to 'mean' something to wider society? Surely using identity politics to 'police' relationships is wrong? It's an intrusion.

That quite from the trans woman about how her penis is different to a man's penis is...wow. I cannot understand the sense of entitlement there. I get that it's really hard for trans people to find sexual partners, and I have sympathy. But sex organs are sex organs. I recently met a trans man who told our mutual friend he fancied me. I thought about it for a second, and realised I could never have sexual contact with another vagina, regardless of who it was attached to. Actually I didn't find him attractive because he looks quite female in presentation. Oddly enough I have found butch lesbians attractive before (notwithstanding caveat about vaginas) so that's a look that can attract me but on him, because he identifies as a man, it was off putting.

I think the point to that ramble was that gender presentation, sexual organs and attraction are complicated, and we have the right to be inconsistent!

Does anyone have reliable source/figures for FTM compared to MTF? Seems FTM are a very quiet group of people.

Yes, sexual attraction is a strange and complex thing. I find short men attractive, but I still wouldn't sleep with Tom Cruise.

Someone said upthread that there was no mention in the article of male violence. The author is actually in the comments saying she finds it silly (or something like that) that women feel safer in women only spaces because women can be violent towards women. It is the theatre of the absurd.

On the point of transmen, I think on a superficial level they pass better than many transwomen so they keep their heads down and get on with life. A huge elephant in the room is that many "lesbian" transwomen don't pass at all and have had no surgery and if they did, there would not be so much of an issue. The reality is that lesbians are being presented with people who clearly look like men in dresses and being told it is transphobic to reject them as sexual partners. I am no lesbian, but if I was, I think I could do better than my DH in a dress. That makes me a horrible bigot, apparently.

Bair - there's about a 6:1 ratio between trans women and trans men, in terms of who applies for a gender recognition certificate (i.e. having your birth certificate etc. changed) - www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/218506/grp-statistics-july-sept-11.pdf

(follow up)
Those figures are a bit old, there may be better ones out there!

I think this point (as made by QueenStromba) is a very telling one:

I've never heard of any transwomen trying to bully men into having sex with them by claiming that they are bigoted for not being attracted to them. Strange that.

Nobody would dream of an accusation of bigotry to pressure a man into having sex with someone he's not attracted to. But when it's a woman, oh yes, women are fair game. Tossing that at the transactivists might shut some of them up for a little while.

Probably pointless point, but I had to tell my English class the difference between Transsexual and Transvestite today, and I said that a transvestite is a person who dresses as the opposite gender and a transsexual is a person who has or wants to change gender. But then I wondered do you get female transvestites? Do women who dress as men as a thing exist? Do they have false beards, shoulder padding etc like male transvestites wear padded bras? Sorry if this is an insensitive question, it's just when I was explaining it I was careful to use the word "person" and then I suddenly wondered well, wait...

My DH was wearing a skirt when we got married and he looked hot.

Transwomen don't hassle men for sex for the same reason women don't - they are afraid men will kill them.

Yes, I believe there are female transvestites but society doesn't tend to get its knickers in a twist about them as it's "ok" for women to want to look like men (ripe for a good old mocking, but not seen as so transgressive and threatening to the status quo).

Butch lesbians, for example, might be considered transvestite in that they are wearing what might be considered men's clothing.

Having said that, I'm sitting here wearing men's clothing (boots, jeans, checked shirt) and I wouldn't consider myself a transvestite, just dressed in comfy, low effort clothing. Does there need to be a sexual fetish element to it? I don't know.

Yes, definitely Bertie. There are women who don't identify as trans but who wear sports bras and fake penises in their pants, as well as wearing 'male' clothing and haircuts. They are a subculture (possibly not the right word as it's more a gender identity than a culture) of lesbians.
There was a 4od short series recently about black lesbian culture and the 'studs' are like this. Interestingly there was one woman who said she would never ever 'take' from a woman wearing a strap on but she had done so from a man to see how they do it. That must have been weird for her.

Oddly, and maybe hypocritically, I find the 'masculine' lesbian identities to be heartening as a feminist as it's almost reinventing the notion of what a woman is and can be, and legitimising the idea of being very 'masculine' and having higher testosterone levels etc as being a perfectly acceptable way to be a woman, rather than being 'a man trapped in a woman's body'

I have no issue with how anyone wants to gender identify or present, but I do believe it's all a performance really and I don't believe in essential 'male and female brains'

There is a niche genre of entertainment where women take on male attributes (is that reasonable wording?) and of course they're called "drag kings". Alison Bechdel had one of her characters do it, and you can certainly find plenty of stuff with a quick web search.

Ehric, I don't think it is hypocritical. I am wholly supportive of men expressing "feminine" attributes. I would love it if they would say "I want to wear dresses, present as a woman, etc even though I am a man". The problem is that "even though I am a man" becomes "therefore I am a woman".

I didn't like that article. I don't like the idea that if we all just get over our cultural conditioning, sexual attraction to people who are not not within our starting criteria would follow.

There seems to be a growing acceptance at the moment, that we absolutely have to 100% agree that someone is what they claim to be or be shouted down as 'phobic' or 'TERF'. I can't get onboard with that when I don't truly believe it.

This to me is distinct from treating people as they wish to present, using the preferred pronouns etc. which of course I do.

I tend to avoid discussing this in real life though or on Facebook as from experience it tends to degenerate into privilege olympics and shouting.

Buggers, I think that's pretty much how we all are, if we're honest. We are, after all well socialised women and we don't want to offend or upset anyone, it's not about cookies or playing along, it's about basic respect for other human beings. It doesn't mean that I am going to believe that they are actual elves/cats/women/me/whateverthehelltheycallthemselves, however, if that's how they wish to act their part in the human drama, and they aren't hurting anyone in the process, they can knock themselves out.