Stepping on transgender territory? Or just defying gender stereotypes?

[femfortheday]

This article on Jayden Smith in the independent just cropped up in my news feed. Is it satire? Because if I think my eyes might fall out from rolling too hard.
Man defies gender stereotypes and is accused of making life harder for transwomen? Because without the props of gender clothing, how will they express their womanhood? It's almost like gender is utter nonsense

Link: www.independent.co.uk/voices/will-smiths-son-as-the-new-face-of-louis-vuitton-womenswear-might-seem-progressive-but-its-a6797461.html

The author of the article says

The danger for trans women is that if wearing what are traditionally women’s clothes becomes the norm for men too, then trans women will no longer be able to rely on these props to help them display a female gender identity - and for many, that could be a serious problem.

They then ask 'Where does that leave [trans people]?'.

The answer is - Realising that genderism is built on sand. That in fact 'gender' isn't innate and certainly isn't within the control of an individual. Instead it's an experience co-created in the interaction between an individual's experience of themselves and the responses of others around them to their external presentation, as mediated through culturally widespread stereotypes around gender.

In other words, 'being' female gendered depends on others 'recognising' you as a woman. It's not just something you 'feel'. This is only possible in any way for someone with great hairy ham hands and five o'clock shadow by invoking stereotypical 'female' dress, ie putting a skirt and lipstick on. So, then, when someone else disrupts those clothing rules by putting a skirt and lipstick on but - shock horror - still seeming quite happy to think of themselves as male - then it reveals that 'being' female gendered in the sense that trans people depend on is ephemeral, imaginary and lacking any basis in fact. Worse yet, it reveals that the locus of this 'being' female gendered is not, in fact, the feels of the trans person claiming it but the field of culture, social stereotype and ideology - exactly where the feminists said it was. Oh, wait, unless 'being' a woman actually depends on, y'know, having female biology. Which you insisted had nothing to do with being female gendered, right?

So because you can't possibly allow behaviour that reveals 'being female gendered' to be pantomime, socially constructed and vulnerable to parody and disruption, it must be suppressed. I wouldn't be surprised to see trans activists campaigning to stop people like Jaden Smith and Eddie Izzard wearing what they like, because men-wearing-skirts-without-being-trans is 'transphobic' Indeed, the NUS has already banned cross-dressing for 'shock value'. So, in other words, the trans lobby must campaign for tighter enforcement of stereotypical clothing for men and women, so that 'gender' can be foregrounded at the expense of sex or comfort, or choice, or sanity, or anything really.

slugs she obviously thinks a woman is a person who wants to wear skirts and dresses and makeup. I can't be a woman then .
What strikes me is how she thinks that how to present ourselves as male/female is the first thing we think about when we wake up in the morning. Err no. Hand on heart, I don't honestly think that thought has ever occurred to me.
One of my boys was very much into 'girly' things when he was younger. He loved pink sparkly things, playing with dolls, wearing my and his sisters clothes (not in a mastubatory way, I hasten to add).Did that mean he was actually a girl 'trapped in a boys body'? .Well, that's what some people would argue. In the USA that seems enough reason for some parents to give a kid puberty blockers and to tell them they're now a girl.
Thankfully I had enough common sense to realise that my little boy was just a little boy who liked 'girly' things, and I think he's quite thankful for that nowadays.

It would be so much simpler if the author if the author just wrote what they would prefer us all to do.
Women, wear the goddamn dresses and heels and lipstick and stand still for a minute so we can parody you. It's the only sodding thing we have in common.
Men, stick to your trousers and shun any of the 'feminine' shit we like so much.

I'm waiting for the article that implores liberal minded women everywhere to exaggerate their femininity through sparkly dresses and hairspray in order to reinforce the idea that this is compulsory female uniform for women and transwomen (who are exactly like us, see?) whilst simultaneously criticising us for looking female more successfully and putting transwomen at a disadvantage. So it is every woman's obligation to look as much as possible like an unwomanly woman. But in a dress.

I think we're almost there.

Hairy

I'm wearing trousers today. That's transphobic I will immediately go and put a bodycon dress and 6in heels on so I can broadcast my female 'gender' to the cats world.

Noeffing: when I was in primary school I was a 'tomboy'. I had short hair and looked just like a boy. I didn't like being forced to do and wear and like all the things girls are supposed to and I liked being able to fool people into thinking I was a boy. I have a gender-neutral name so people often would think of me, and crucially, treat me as a boy. Since I got to experience aspects of life as both 'boy' and 'girl', I found that you could get away with more stuff if people thought you were a boy, and also that people paid more attention to what you said.

However, it wasn't that I wanted to be a boy or thought that my body was wrong. Looking back, I think it was more that I realised how bloody unfair patriarchal society is but, being a kid, I didn't have the knowledge or the vocabulary to do more than perform boy rather than girl and resent the crappy roles expected of me as a girl (I protested against the expectation that girls looked after the younger children during wet playtimes and cleaned classrooms for the staff while the boys went out to play, for example). It would have been absolutely horrific if my parents had decided to march me to the GP so I could be put on hormones and such like, rather than just leaving me to it.

I think that's what worries me most about all this defending the gender binary and looking to have those who don't conform 'transition'. I'm not convinced that it's right for very many people, especially for those who just think gender is a load of bollocks and have no body dysphoria whatsoever. It's not good for individuals and it's really bad for society, when we could simply just accept that gender is largely meaningless and it doesn't matter what people wear and so on.

The Guardian article was barely more coherent than the Independent and betrayed a total lack of understanding of the RadFem position on gender.

Is it really so wrong to want to just slap them?

(writers of such utter shite)

StepAway - I could have written your post almost word for word. And it wasn't ever that I was trans, it was (as you say) that I could see all the advantages that acrued to being a boy, but lacked the vocabulary and theoretical framework to express what was actually a kind of instinctive 9-year-old feminist rebellion against being forced into a little gender-based box.

I'm now a happily heterosexual adult female mother who mostly doesn't bother much with performing feminity but occasionally finds it amusing to do so when the mood takes me.

I think Hully's response has a lot to recommend it.

I'm waiting for the article that implores liberal minded women everywhere to exaggerate their femininity through sparkly dresses and hairspray in order to reinforce the idea that this is compulsory female uniform for women and transwomen (who are exactly like us, see?) whilst simultaneously criticising us for looking female more successfully and putting transwomen at a disadvantage. So it is every woman's obligation to look as much as possible like an unwomanly woman. But in a dress.

Bwah ha Hairy

They could just cut and paste the entire article into Private Eye as it completely reads as satire.

yes! they could have a regular trans feature! plenty of material...

I was less struck by the poverty of the argument than the solipsism. Clearly, the overwhelming majority of humankind MUST confine themselves to traditional gender-based aesthetics and dress so the tiny minority of trans people can know what to transition into. Proportionate, reasonable position with which only an evil TERF would disagree.

In fact, this is often my reaction to trans issues posted on here. Not to agree or disagree with any particular argument but to be astonished by the toddler-beating narcissism of people expecting the entire world to make changes, however painful, based on their preferences.

I agree MyFavourite. It is unbelievably egocentric as a political position, and it says so much about female socialisation that so many liberal feminists have totally bowed to it and even adopted it as the most important cause.

"So, to help make it plain for anyone to see which gender you are, you put on a uniform. Men put on trousers and have men’s haircuts, and women put on dresses and skirts, feminine tops and tights and women’s shoes to show their femininity and declare to the world that they are female."

Have you ever read anything so anti-feminist and deluded? (A bit like the wider transgender agenda.) Here's hoping Katie Glover becomes a popular spokesperson for the transgender community and gives the whole game away...

As a trans activist (as in, someone fighting for equal rights for trans people) I find that article to be bullshit. And I know lots of trans people would agree with me.
I think the trouble is that our current legal and medical processes around trans encourage people who want to transition to act out stereotypes, ie it's easier to be 'signed off' as trans if you act out regressive stereotypes than if you say you'd just prefer to change your name and get some surgery because it feels right for you but doesn't change the fact that you're a complex person with a range of different interests. I think that's why some people during transition find gender stereotyping 'helpful' in that way, but many trans people they relax into their new selves without the stereotypes as they get older.

Someone like Bethany Black is a good example of someone who has transitioned but doesn't feel the need to enact stereotypes of femininity (please don't say anything mean about her here because I'll feel dreadful about posting her photos. Seriously, she's a human being and I'll be devestated if someone says something nasty).

She looks good, vashta.

She looks like a woman actually, not a grotesque parody of femininity. She's doing it well.

A lot of transwomen do Obsidian but the media doesn't find them as interesting unsurprisingly... (Although it's obviously fine if transwomen do want to wear 'feminine' clothes too).

But Vashta, what about all the TWs who think it's enough to say "I'm female and so is my penis"?

Not sure Empress. I suppose I'm less worried about the words people use to describe themselves and more concerned about the implications. So if someone wants to be called "she" and has a penis it doesn't bother me in the slightest. If it's used by someone predatory as a reason to access 'female only' spaces that's obviously a different issue. In all honesty I think it's complicated.

I also don't see how you can possibly tell the difference.

Besides, which is really more oppressive and reactionary, the idea that people have sexes defined by their genitals (and toilets, prisons etc are divided accordingly) but that has nothing whatsoever to do with how they feel / act / present, or the idea that there's some nebulous difference between male and female brains, as promoted for a long time to uphold the concept of the "little woman" who shouldn't be troubling her pretty head?

Still a biological male performing womanface, just a more subtle version than usual.