Caitlyn Jenner is 'too good looking'...

[FeijoaSundae]

Is there already a thread on this? I've looked and don't see one, so apologies if I'm repeating.

I've just opened our Saturday paper down here at the bottom of the planet, and there's yet another article where a transgender woman is bemoaning the unfairness of Caitlyn's good looks versus her own less than amazing looks.

A couple of quotes from the article: "...the discussion has quickly zeroed in on her elegant femininity - a look far out of reach or most transgender women".

"Caitlyn's beauty makes it problematic for a fat old queen like myself who ... could never emulate Raquel Welsh or Michelle Pfieffer".

And ... "The discussion remained traumatically offending to transgender people whose own 'accident of birth' will never allow them to be a Caitlyn".

Um ... welcome to womanhood...? The looks of pretty much all women who feature of the cover of Vanity Fair are out of the reach of most regular women.

Is this genuinely surprising ... ? It's akin to Dustin Hoffman expressing dissatisfaction with his Tootsy make-over, and saying no, he wants to be a beautiful women. Not a plain one (to be fair, his subsequent epiphany was rather lovely). Well, don't we all, mate, don't we all.

I apologise in advance to any transgender people who think I'm making light of an issues facing their community. But this is an issue that has faced our community since, well, forever. It's part and parcel of being a woman. We are judged, first and foremost, in our looks. Not our ability, or intelligence, or kindness. We are judged on our looks. Welcome to our world!

I know you aren't trying to undermine it! The more extreme trans activists are, though. The complaint about FGM is real, similarly references to women having periods, giving birth, that sort of thing. Linking biology to the terms male / female / man / woman is what they are trying to move away from. So the terms are linked only to what your gender is, and biology is irrelevant.

Only of course biology is the basis for the oppression of females throughout the ages so we (society) will still need to find a way to identify that group, in the new order of things.

Can we just have a word that means what women used to mean please.

And then can we have a new set of conventions guaranteeing our rights like the old women's conventions did, when governments actually implement them, which of course they don't always do.

Because as well as FGM, nutrition in pregnancy, forced impregnantion of girls and all these other really serious issues women's human rights cover, they also allow me to go into the lab safely.

And we were kept out of those labs a generation ago. And it matters to me.

No it's not acceptable because you are saying that ovaries / womb / whatever the bits are they are referring to are female and that is out of line (according to the more vocal trans activists).

Anything that links the different reproductive systems with male / female / man / woman is out of line - this is the reason that some abortion services in the US have dropped words "woman" or "women" in their literature, as men can have the need of abortion services.

Oh and this has happened (abortion services removing the word woman) so that's not extreme at all, that's a mainstream development.

Uglyswan, no, it isn't acceptable because it isn't accurate.

here's an article about abortion

I am sure I saw another one where there was a service that had changed it's name... Can't find it right now.

My secret hope (and the only reason I'm actually invested in this), is that if transitioning becomes more widely accepted, then maybe this will undermine of linking perceived sex to gendered traits and using biology to legitimise the persecution of girls and women. If a woman can redefine herself as a man to escape persecution, and have this widely accepted on all societal levels, it undermines the entire basis of unequal treatment. Of course, if Caitlyn Jenner is anything to go by, I'd do well to not get my hopes too high...

almond - I'd replace that with "the chemicals can cause damage to female reproductive organs". Is that acceptable?

Not to mainstream transactivists who describe a penis as female organ if attached to an MTT.

They will also not accept another word to describe women that doesn't include MTTs. There's no point trying to compromise. We need to hold firm with our language so that we can name the problems women face.

So if there are no laws protecting women, so women aren't protected from hazardous chemicals (and in lots of places they still aren't), if I call myself a man, will the chemicals stop being hazardous to me?

Or if I'm sacked for being pregnant, and I call myself a man, will they not sack me?

If a woman is persecuted by being denied maternity care due to her sex and ethnicity, and she calls herself a man, will they provide her with maternity care?

uglyswan I can see where you're coming from but it's not a solution.

For example in Iran your suggestion is playing out - where it is punishable by death to be gay, but people can avoid that by transitioning. But it's not the answer is it, to submit to extensive surgery you don't want in order not to be murdered for what you are? This is an old old solution, it's not the way forward IMO.

And of course in most societies there is no option for a girl to say she's a boy and get an education or whatever - it's just not going to fly. It happens in some places sure - some areas of Afghanistan spring to mind where there are girls who grow as boys to start with. But it's not rosy it's a lot of very unhappy people.

I will link re iran and afghanistan in a mo, in case you haven't read about these things before (you might well have!).

iran

afghanistan

"The organs may be male, the person may be female."

Again, that is not possible because the words male and female are biological terms, NOT psychological.

What you want to say is that the person may be male but might feel like a woman.

Male = The sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.

Female = The sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes.

"the chemicals can cause damage to female reproductive organs."

There's no person in that sentence. There's no sense it is a risk to a person. I've been reduced to the person carrying around the female reproductive organs. They're now some separate, distinct thing to be protected.

The other trans favourites are the terms 'vagina havers' or 'uterus owners' as if they are things I bought off a shelf which we can now all discuss what should happen to in terms of reproductive rights, as if those things are separate from me, and can be discussed as if what happens to them is separate from what happens to me.

How about person with reproductive organs that are female. Prof. Can we replace women with profs and have a movement and laws to protect profs. Would that be okay?

"If a woman can redefine herself as a man to escape persecution"

I don't see that happening at all. Women are not persecuted because they feel feminine and like to have sex with men. They are persecuted because they are physically weaker than men and they have vaginas, which means they are boxed into the role of "provider of sexual pleasure"/mother/housekeeper/etc.

"We are now men" or whatever is not going to change these roles, because they are not going to change the fact that we have vaginas and we are physically weaker than males.

almondcakes true separating the biology from the person housing it would be a gift to the anti-abortion crowd.

It will make protecting my daughter from sexual assault or rape much easier

I shall just tell her "just scream...I'm a man, I'm a man..."

That'll work...he'll stop immediately

Oh actually hold that thought...she should YELL not scream...silly me

I truly think that in the future historians and social scientists will look back on this time with interest as our society matures in its views. This stage when trans is a novelty that we are just getting to grips with.

I think eventually the idea that we need to say that transwomen are women will be a quirk of our age, in the future the status of transwomen will be such that there is no need for them to share a name with women born biologically female (I'll use ciswomen for the sake of ease).

There is nothing wrong with being a transwoman (or a transman), it is perfectly okay status to have that shouldn't need another name to hide behind. Of course transwomen have things in common with ciswomen, it's a venn diagram with overlap but each is a valid identity - I'm not sure why wer feel we have a limit of two identities that everyone needs to squeeze into because that makes it seem like if you aren't one you must be the other - we haven't matured enough as a society yet to accept more groups.

This way of trying to hide the history of a transwoman is perpetuating the idea that it is something that needs to be covered up and hidden, something to be ashamed of and it isn't. My friends who have transitioned have had to show a strength that is to be proud of.

Good post, OddBoots.

Yes OddBoots, that's a great post - when I said gender didn't matter and an individual could choose, I of course totally neglected the practicalities of this - which are that since it doesn't matter, all the stuff falls back to biological realities (because that's the only real thing here)

So the word 'woman' stays as adult human female, women's issues are those which affect adult human females. Woman defines sex, not gender.

Which of course is the rub, because now the responsibility for ensuring transwomen are safe in the men's toilet falls back on the ones that make that toilet dangerous, rather than on making women share their facilities. And that's hard. Solving or reducing male violence it seems is harder than re-defining half the populations existence. How mad is that!

The word 'gender', as it is used in feminism, is NOT an identity. It is a hierarchy. Gender is a power structure, it is the means by which male humans (who cannot grow babies) exploit and control female humans (who can grow babies).

A person's gender is their sex role - and that sex role is defined by patriarchy, one could even say that sex roles are patriarchy. Sex roles are used to organize society as a strict binary hierarchy with boys and men awarded dominant/powerful/high status and girls and women awarded submissive/subjugated/low status.

Your sex is biological. Your sex role (gender) is socialized and neither is chosen by you according to what you 'identify with'.

Gender is a pure social construct that had to be invented because there is no natural justification for men oppressing women. Something had to be made up in order to make men's exploitation and control of women appear as 'the natural order'.

Gender is maintained and policed by male violence, often sexual violence. Which is why feminists are against it and seek to expose it for the destructive social construct it is. Gender and violence against women are inextricably linked. Gender is violence against girls and women.

Trans politics tell us that gender is a natural thing, a good thing - that it is who you are, it is your soul, your identity, your being. It is a feeling. And trans politics tell us that gender trumps sex, gender exists outwith society and sex does not. This is quite obviously utter bullshit and I cannot for the life of me work out why so many people are taken in by it. I can only think that gender/sex role/patriarchy is so all pervading that it is invisible to many people.

Transgenderism is the ultimate objectification of women. And is it is a narcissistic, misogynistic, homophobic, men's rights movement.

And we need all the progressive, right on, lefty, liberal, pomos to engage their brains and critical thinking abilities and stop thinking the worst thing in the world is to be called a transphobe or a TERF or bigot because you won't go along with the delusion that human beings can choose which sex they are and that penises are female sex organs and that the use of synthetic hormones and cosmetic surgery a woman make.

And I hope history will look back on this period with horror.

Especially the transing of children and butch lesbians.

I hate it. It makes me scared for my daughters like nothing else has so far.

Florafox re We need to hold firm with our language so that we can name the problems women face YES, 100%.

Beachcomber re And we need all the progressive, right on, lefty, liberal, pomos to engage their brains and critical thinking abilities and stop thinking the worst thing in the world is to be called a transphobe or a TERF or bigot because you won't go along with the delusion that human beings can choose which sex they are and that penises are female sex organs and that the use of synthetic hormones and cosmetic surgery a woman make.

That is so empowering. I got hinted at that I was getting a bit near transphobic for having a problem with any old man identifying as a woman. I felt quite upset. I hated the idea of being transphobic, I'm not phobic of anyone or anything, not even arachnophobia! But you said it so well. If what they are saying is crazy and to deny it is labelled transphobic then they can label me as that!

Just want to shout 'The emperor has no clothes on!' Someone said that on another thread and that is what I think when I hear crap like some of this!

I'm glad if what I posted helps you feel more powerful about this Italiangreyhound.

There are lots of women who frankly couldn't give a crap if they are called transphobic or TERF - these terms have lost their power because they are thrown around like confetti anytime anyone disagrees with anything to do with transpolitics. This has definitely been a case of crying wolf.

Which is a shame because transphobia does exist - of course it does. But it isn't saying that a penis is a male sex organ or that abortion is a women's rights issue.

All the women I know who get called transphobic, started out either sympathetic to transsexualism (and I mean transsexualism, not transgenderism) or not terribly bothered by it. Lots of us didn't really agree with aspects of it such as the surgery, as it seemed brutal and so final, but transsexualism wasn't really a feminist issue other than a basic skepticism as to how good an idea it is to tell someone that they can change their sex.

Then things began to change and transsexualism was hijacked by a new and different phenomenon - transgenderism.

Here is a good article on the subject thenewbacklash.blogspot.fr/p/new-2.html

In the past to be transphobic would be to verbally or physically attack a transsexual person or refuse to give them a job purely because of their transsexualism. Now, to be transphobic, is to not meekly agree that penises are female and that any man who decides he is a woman magically becomes female, and, belongs to the sexual, social and political class female. It is bullshit and it is anti-woman bullshit.

Transgenderism is a men's rights movement. It isn't transphobic to resist it - it is feminist.