"What makes a women" NY Times article

[iisme]

Nothing very new here but it expresses most of my feelings around the trans debates very clearly and well. I want to put it on Facebook but I know it will kick off a shit-storm and I'm not sure I have the strength ...

mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html?referrer=&_r=0

Tying myself up in knots now!

'Not because I want to', doesn't mean I don't want to! It means, because we all deserve human rights regardless of our own thoughts and views on wider issues!

I guess what touched me about the story of these two people was their obvious devotion to their jobs, their love for each other. It is a real human interest story and I didn't want to lose the human part of the story in the wider debate.

Hope that makes sense!

Yes Italian, I understand what you mean :) I haven't read the article, I'll have a look.

'without their being aware that was privilege'

I think I have to accept that there may be some factors implicit in being raised as a girl which are a 'privilege' - especially from the POV of MTF trans yearning for full acceptance as a woman.

(If nothing else, maybe 'privileged' in intuitively understanding why many women do need safe spaces - iNickeds list is part of my formative experience, apart from the Yorkshires.)

But when you talk about privilege in this sense it means being systematically favoured. It's hard to see how women are systematically favoured. Sure there are things like the tradition of men having to pay for dinner on dates and women and children getting preference for lifeboats that could be seen as advantageous but they are to do with systematic infantilisation of women rather systematic privileging. Some women love this and I'm sure some (most?) MTF would love to be treated like this, but it's not the same as systematic privilege.

I don't think that women 'intuitively' understand why women need safe spaces - I think they understand this because of a lifetime of harassment and, in many cases, sexual assault and rape. Some women who have been lucky enough not to experience this don't really understand the need; others who haven't (and some men also), who listen to the experience of women who have, grow to understand that need even though they might not feel it themselves. None of this is privilege (I know you put that in quotation marks!)

I'm sure there are many aspects of girlhood that MTF yearn for, but that doesn't mean that those who did experience it had social privilege bestowed on them.

Intuitively wasn't quite the right word - it feels like I instinctively know but it's actually down to learned experience (as I sort of said).

I've been trying to think of an example of female privilege and can't find one which isn't full of holes (for me the achievability and acceptability of paid work:parenting balance genuinely is one, but it isn't for many women and derives from male privilege and values anyway).

But, I'm still willing to accept that I may have some privilege which I'm unaware of.

We need safe spaces for women, and we need safe spaces for trans women, though those spaces don't necessarily need to overlap.

Yes, absolutely.

Probably an overlapping Venn diagram of problems.

No one wins a pity competition. I don't think it helps anyone to look for who suffers most at the hands of society. I think we would all be better served by arguing for better treatment for both women and trans women as different groups of people.

"Nail polish does not a woman make."

HELL YES.

I actually found it ironic that Caitlyn decided that a restrictive corset was the best way to symbolise her gender. As if swapping one set of societal expectations and pressures (to appear masculine) for this one (which sets back the feminist movement by several decades). Fucking insulting IMO.

ErrolTheDragon I guess the word 'privilage' is very loaded, isn;t it.

I guess I would use the word 'fortunate' instead.

lightningsprite your post at 16:42:12 is spot on! Re Most trans women have gone through an immense amount of grief due to gender dysphoria. Many have suffered substantial bullying and rejection. They suffer workplace discrimination. I've seen it estimated that roughly 50% of self-identified transgender individuals have experienced sexual violence.

This is such a horrible and sad statistic.

I totally agree We need safe spaces for women, and we need safe spaces for trans women, though those spaces don't necessarily need to overlap.

I have found the Facebook page www.facebook.com/groups/genderdiscusssion/ really helpful.

Very interesting www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/18/is-there-a-right-age-to-change-ones-sex/transitioning-is-for-those-who-can-vote-and-drink

Just wonder what any one makes of this article, please?

I found it very odd and bizarre. Especially the idea .... "That the two sexes are physically different is obvious, but at the start of life, it is not. Five weeks into development, a human embryo has the potential to form both male and female anatomy."

I thought sex was determined at conception by the paternal genetic material in the sperm?

Any thoughts, anyone?

www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

Mmm, very interesting discussion but I basically wanted to say that I very much agree with the article.

My main problem with transgenders is the physical mutilation side of it, but since I read on mumsnet that most transgenders do not get operated, I have less of a problem with the issue.

I'm sure that if I had been offered an operation to become a man at the age of 13, in my innocence I would have jumped at it. As it is I love being a woman but cannot and will not conform to the female stereotype.

Isn't that bit just saying that they look as if they could go either way but the presence of the Y chromosome (or not) determines which way they'll develop.

Interesting article though.

Sorry going back to male privilege (just read this thread) someone posted this on another thread yesterday which I think gives a really clear explanation of what being socialised as a girl means: feministcurrent.com/12254/you-cant-feel-race-but-can-you-feel-female-on-rachel-dolezal-caitlyn-jenner-and-unspeakable-questions/

Also, most mttpeople I know haven't transitioned until at least their 30s, meaning that they have had many years of enjoying male privilege, even if they might not have wanted it.

Aargh didn't think you needed to do those brackets any more!
link

Thanks for the new york times link Italian.

The author is an interesting case. The idea of butch lesbians being socialised trans came up on one of the other trans threads and this is basically what happened to her (this is not misgendering, she's happy with male or female pronouns these days). She was a lesbian and a bodybuilder so people just assumed she was a transman. She started looking at trans sites on the internet and just got sucked into the whole thing - within six month she'd had a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy. This was a grown woman in her late 30s - you can just imagine how easily it takes hold in impressionable teenagers. This was 12 years ago and she's been a pretty prominent transactivist for most of this time but has recently woken up to the fact that it's all bullshit. She's now trying to put right some of the damage she's done as a transactivist, particularly to children.

There's more about it here if anyone's interested (she turns up in the comments): gendertrender.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/transgender-activists-campaign-against-puberty-blockers-for-transgender-children/

Here's her youtube channel: www.youtube.com/user/markangeloc/featured

I think you need brackets in some of the sections to avoid trolls or something

Five weeks into development, a human embryo has the potential to form both male and female anatomy.

From reading the article, it seems as if this may be technically true, in the sense that an embryo with XY chromosomes may be somehow blocked from these being expressed or vice versa. But this is an anomaly. It seems that we can say that an embryo with XY chromosomes will become typically male except in extremely rare cases where things essentially go wrong.

It seems to me a bit disingenuous to describe this as a spectrum. Sure, there are ways in which mutations and differences occur, and because it's a complicated process, these can occur in many different ways. But at least 99% of people (and far more by most definitions) are either on one end or the other. For the remaining inter-sex people, I guess its a spectrum.