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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Cisgender Lesbians & Trans Women

194 replies

kellyandthecat · 17/02/2015 16:38

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 Smile

OP posts:
FloraFox · 19/02/2015 18:39

dervel did they continue to insist you are a transphobe and bigot after that conversation?

ApocalypseThen · 19/02/2015 18:42

Umm, no it isn't. That's pretty much why I'm a lesbian

Interesting. I was thinking about this earlier on when I was supposed to be doing some work or other. It seems to me that part of the issue is that women aren't really supposed to have an innate sexuality. Women's sexuality isn't supposed to be based on women feeling desire or stimulation, and certainly not for just physical reasons.

I can see that having been brought up to think that women go for personality and pleasing people, hearing that you don't want sex with someone because they have a body type you don't find attractive is bound to be confusing and insulting.

It's just another example of binding women.

Hullygully · 19/02/2015 18:46

I've only read to the end of page 2 so far. But has someone/can someone rebut Owen Jones if they haven't? Too furious to do it.

Dervel · 19/02/2015 19:32

No Flora not since it came up.

DirtyPigeon · 19/02/2015 20:10

And to think that the situation we have now only came about because the politicians deemed society not accepting of same sex marriage at the time of the GRA. That it all passed me by and that I was not involved in feminist activism at the time because I was in the throes of an abusive relationship never fails to raise the wryest of wry smiles.

I wish everything about this battle (and it feels like it is) was out in the open and in the mainstream. Feminine penises, my arse.

BuggersMuddle · 19/02/2015 20:12

Actually Council I recently did see on a Facebook a request to recognise the masculinity of a transman's vagina.

I was Confused

HermioneWeasley · 19/02/2015 20:33

I am utterly boggled by this whole debate.

Surely this must be a vanishingly small (but evidently very vocal) number of transactivists. Who are actually delusional/mentally ill?

Dervel · 19/02/2015 20:38

This belief we're coming up against here. The general attitude for people with gender dysphoria, by the medical profession either general practice or psychology/psychiatry is patient led. I.E. the individual is encouraged to explore and work through the experience as it relates to them, and then to seek out treatments and or approaches that help them self actualise.

This in and of itself is great, but then we get some people whose internal reality is such that they do trully believe they are whichever gender, which again in and of itself is find and needs no correction. However having been through a lot of oftentimes painful self realisation there is the drive by some to make external reality match their internal one.

That's where we get this, and I am not sure I can say this politely; desire to minimise any and all elements of womanhood that relate to the parts a trans person will never have. Wombs, periods, menopause etc. Which leads me to believe the way we assist and help trans people work through the issues is very short-sighted and lacking, as its my belief that possibly a fundemental aspect of what they are railing against is basic biology that cannot be changed. However society can be changed so there is a drive to change what can be changed and ignore/minimise what they cannot.

Lots of people will turn to science, and to an extent this pertains to some feminists as well. However the brain is the most complex thing in the know universe, and our understanding of it is rudimentary to say the least. So qualified judgements on male/female brains is beyond our means currently, I've seen references that some transactivists point too, but the sample sizes are too small to make any real meaningful statement beyond more research is needed, but it is clung to like a life raft and now we end up with the bizarre feminine penis and masculine vagina. Which I agree is nonsensical.

Ubik1 · 19/02/2015 20:41

It takes navel gazing to a whole new level.

Dervel · 19/02/2015 20:44

I'm not sure I got this point across properly: if medical/counselling services ensured that one of the most crucial issues - cold, hard biological realities were accepted, integrated and moved beyond. We might not be having this problem right now.

Saying mental illness is probably a bit much, as lest we forget homosexuality was defined as mental illness up until very recently. The emotional issues and ramification this experience tosses up are huge however, and it is to that I am referring.

Dervel · 19/02/2015 20:46

Also I feel I should add I'm neither trans nor a woman, so take everything I say with a pinch of salt I'm merely trying to apply common sense and empathy as best I can here.

HermioneWeasley · 19/02/2015 21:17

Let me be really clear, I'm not saying being trans is a mental illness. I'm questioning the very small number is transactivists quoted here (who I have not personally experienced) who are saying that talking about issues linked to women's biology is excluding, and that lesbians are trans phobic for not wanting to have sex with male bodied trans women. And threatening violence to those who disagree. That behaviour is so far outside of normal and so delusional that i would consider some form of mental illness. And I don't normally say that about people who are just being twats.

Dervel · 19/02/2015 21:21

That's fair

DirtyPigeon · 19/02/2015 21:58

It's either about gender or it's about sex. If it's about throwing off the shackles of gender - determinism, welcome aboard. Fight the good fight and all that. But when it comes to sex, well I'm afraid you're dealt the hand you've got. The GRA confused the issue (and I have to ask where were all the "we fought for women's rights before you were even born" lot when this became law?) and allowed for a change in sex, not gender. Gender expression didnt need a change in the law. Official documents denoting sex did.

Being a woman is not a feeling. Not feeling like a man is not being a woman. And vice versa. What arrogance to think that it is otherwise.

PilchardPrincess · 19/02/2015 22:01

Nodding @ ApocalypseThen Thu 19-Feb-15 18:42:14 and CouncilOfLadies Thu 19-Feb-15 18:07:16 & loads of other people.

While I know that this is a small number of shouty people, they are gaining traction aren't they. The logical end-points of what is being argued are really concerning.

PilchardPrincess · 19/02/2015 22:02

Incidentally in the mainstream gender is now used more than sex (to mean sex) from what I can see so this conversation when it reaches the more mainstream is going to be incredibly difficult.

Majority of bogstandard people understand gender to mean what sex used to mean.

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 19/02/2015 22:05

I know. People think they are inter changeable. Every thread on here that mentions gender scans or guessing the gender leads me to post 'you mean sex' which tends to make people think I'm a weirdo.

PilchardPrincess · 19/02/2015 22:06

I said at work that something was sex not gender and baffled them, then explained that sex = male / female and gender = masculine / feminine and they looked at me like I was quite mad Grin

QueenStromba · 19/02/2015 22:12

I believe that the GRA was brought in quietly i.e. it was a done deal before most people had heard of it. I also doubt that anyone at the time realised that ten years down the line we'd have female penises.

TheCowThatLaughs · 19/02/2015 22:22

It's funny because at that time I would have been all for people being able to change their sex on documents as I'm all for tolerance and that, but now I'm finding myself a bit less sympathetic as transactivists attempt to chip away at womanhood as a whole.

BertieBotts · 19/02/2015 22:29

Honestly I can't really get my head around how sex is different from gender. Sex is biology, I get that part. But gender is, what? Nothing? Does it exist? You can't say it's masculine and feminine. Masculine and feminine are a cultural construct. I just thought that gender was a more modern word because it's now less taboo to talk about sex meaning intercourse and hence people got giggly about it and had to invent a new word Confused

I probably do use them wrong all the time. I can't get my head around it. Sorry Blush I've made a total hash of it in the following paragraph but I totally need to sleep and I can't work it out to check.

I think that I don't really mind (not that it's my decision to make or judgement to mind about or not but I'm supposed to be in bed and I can't think of better wording) if someone is trans, has lived as the opposite sex for some time, had hormone treatment, surgery and is now the opposite sex.Like naturalisation can change an American citizen into a Japanese citizen. I don't see why that shouldn't be an option if somebody feels so unhappy that they really think it would help. But it does seem really bizarre and quite alarming to skip that entire process and just be allowed to legally become the opposite sex. Is that what's actually happening or am I confused?

DirtyPigeon · 19/02/2015 22:42

I do not get the rise in supposed gender obscurity (queer theory) and the concurrent growth in transwomen activism. It seems arse about tit. Why on earth has this movement gone towards obscuring the reality of born women? Why did it not go to obliterating gender, which is what Feminism is all about? Or so it seems to me? Let's all live how we want, casting aside old fashioned notions of what we should be?

PilchardPrincess · 19/02/2015 22:43

"Sex is biology, I get that part. But gender is, what? Nothing? Does it exist? You can't say it's masculine and feminine. Masculine and feminine are a cultural construct. "

Yes, gender is the word used to describe the social constructs around expected male behavior, preferences etc and female ones. Masculine and feminine.

It is incorrect to use gender to mean male / female BUT words evolve and gender now means to most people what sex used to mean. And yes I think it was because gender was more "polite" than sex.

Many application forms for things now ask for gender rather than sex. I always want to write "none" or "don't know" or even "male" which according to my interests it is Grin

Amethyst24 · 19/02/2015 23:02

Can I just ask... I'm assuming there are people on this thread with far better and deeper understanding of all these issues than I have...

I've read any number of threads on here about this issue and any number of links about it, and I still can't get my head around it all.

As I understand it, gender reassignment surgery has massively positive outcomes for patients. Their mental health improves hugely, they're generally really positive about how they feel about their lives and bodies post-surgery, and so on. Of course the majority of people who undergo surgery are M to F, and I haven't seen any data about whether they identify as straight or lesbian.

But when this debate comes up, as it does over and over, is it not a tiny minority of people we're talking about, who identify as female and lesbian but don't seek to have gender reassignment surgery? How has it happened that they've come to dominate the conversation so? And mustn't it be massively upsetting for all the happy post-op transexuals who are just getting on with their lives and relationships?

Or is there a huge proportion of the trans community who haven't had surgery and don't intend to, and want to be women with penises?

There's so much knowledge on here and I know I'm coming across as terribly thick and uninformed, but I just can't fathom it.

BertieBotts · 19/02/2015 23:16

No I am with you in that corner, Amethyst!