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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Consquences of self-identification

1000 replies

MrsKCastle · 17/09/2016 14:37

Sorry if this has already been done. I've been doing a lot of thinking about current trans thinking in the media.

As far as I understand it, this is the predominant view:
Anyone can be man or woman, male, female or neither. It doesn't depend on your genes, appearance or potential ability to hear young. What's important is how you identify. We should always treat people as they identify, with regard to how we speak about and treat them, and what spaces/roles we allow them to access.

What I'm interested in, is how this self-identification will or could change society. I'd love to hear your thoughts as I think it will help me to get things straight in my head.

So far I'm thinking:
No more single-sex schools
No more single-sex hospital wards
No more single-sex clubs, whether that's Brownies or exclusive golf clubs
Anyone can apply for any scholarship or award, regardless of sex

What else?

OP posts:
ATransMum · 27/09/2016 22:17

Nope, not at odds with being a TA at all. Freedom of gender expression is a massive thing for me. It also paves the way for greater acceptance of gender.

CharlieSierra · 27/09/2016 22:18

Now I believe that biological sex and gender are different things (as is gender expression). But of course some people don't understand that

I think you'll find that most people here fully understand that you believe that. They just don't agree.

WankingMonkey · 27/09/2016 22:25

www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/54nynf/am_i_agender/

Mix of 'masculine' and 'feminine' interests and such. A lot of the post reads as pretty usual hating ones body. Which at some stage most of us will have in some form. I also don't think curiosity about having a mans body means anything, and as a teen I did think sometimes what it would be like to switch bodies with my best mate, who was male.

The thing is, when I'm alone in my bedroom I do not think of myself as "a woman sitting at a desk" but as "a person (a genderless blob) sitting on my desk." Is this what being agender means?

Consensus...'agender'

So...by this reckoning this is me. How many others on here would 'identify' as agender based on this meaning of it?

Am I right in thinking all 'transwomen' would see themselves as a 'woman sitting at a desk' and all (or most) biological women see themselves as a 'person sitting at a desk' (that happens to be female)

WankingMonkey · 27/09/2016 22:28

Consensus...'agender' or genderqueer that should have said..

According to one...this means I am actually trans?! An agender person is technically also transgender according to common definitions.

Felascloak · 27/09/2016 22:30

No other species has done anything like what humans have done - so using biology as a simple comparison seems flawed as it erases the one thing that separates us from the other animals - our minds.
Errrr I don't follow your line of thinking. How does using biology to assess whether someone is male or female erase their minds? They are still human. Just a male human (with a penis) or a female human (with a vulva).
There is a difference between "feminine" traits and "female" traits. Feminine traits vary between people of both sexes and are often stereotypes. For example although "helping people" is a feminine trait plenty of men like helping people and I'd be very surprised if there was any evidence that helping people was more commonly a female than male trait. I think its an expectation on females and therefore a stereotype.
Female traits are universally expected in human females, if they aren't there its cause for concern and medical investigation. Periods, breasts, vaginas and all that jazz.
Why would you want to minimise a universal marker of being a woman (biology) in favour of something that can't be proven to exist? (Brain sex).
Oh and btw there is evidence that several animal species have intelligence and intellect so not even sure that part of your argument stands up.

ErrolTheDragon · 27/09/2016 22:45

Does 'freedom of gender expression' equate to 'freedom from gender stereotypes'? They sound like opposites but maybe the latter allows for the former? Just that feminists might term it 'being yourself'.

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 27/09/2016 23:09

I was wondering about the brave/admiring part of cross gender dressing following an interview with Boy George and Marilyn

I am not including transwomen in this, just men that enjoy wearing clothes and hair seen as feminine and makeup

So a man wears a skirt, or wears makeup, or paints nails, or has long styled hair and they are brave , breaking the gender barrier, something to be admired

On the other hand a woman who wears jeans and a t shirt, has short hair she doesn't bother with and doesnt wear makeup is either a lesbian and /or has let herself go

I probably havent expressed myself very well but as much as i was sitting there agreeing that BG and M were brave and gender barrier breaking...

I was thinking that women who dress and present as "men" get no kudos at all

WankingMonkey · 27/09/2016 23:15

I was thinking that women who dress and present as "men" get no kudos at all

This is possibly because it is so...normal for women to just be themselves. It doesn't get as much attention as women fought for years and years for the rights to NOT fit into their 'gender' boxes. Men then use the 'let themselves go' thing to try and shove them right back into their pretty little boxes.

Men seem quite happy with their boxes..so the second someone is a bit different there needs to be a fanfare about it?

Something along those lines anyway.

ErrolTheDragon · 27/09/2016 23:42

Maybe its just the old men are the default sex, male clothing is normal? And its generally practical versus the decorative feminine.

Barcoo · 28/09/2016 00:11

Rufus I think that's an excellent point and one I ruminate on myself.

But there is also an economic aspect.

Women are expected to groom, and advanced capitalism has convinced them they need to buy products to help do it. So now we have the idea that body hair is 'disgusting' or 'unfeminine' because of the constant drivelling shaving ads we are confronted with everywhere.

Now they've moved on to men, who need a 'men's dandruff shampoo' and so forth because they are somehow mystiquingly different, and men are encouraged to shave their legs because it makes them more aerodynamic on their Saturday afternoon bike rides or something. Soon all people in polite, post industrial, urban, clean societies will need to remove all vestiges of body hair.

Cross dressers are admired and feted by empty headed media types because they are 'clean and hairless' with neat, polished make up. They have become a mainstream culturally acceptable novelty (not saying they shouldn't be accepted at all - if women have to endure high heels I want to see as many men tottering around on the useless bastards as well).

At the end of the day perhaps everyone is moving away from a natural 'acceptable male' way of dressing (like me, who've 'let myself go' as a woman because I wear trousers, no make up and have scruffy hair) and towards an overtly groomed type thing.

ATransMum · 28/09/2016 00:47

Look at Miley Cyrus or Ruby Rose - strong icons who are expressing their gender in non-conforming ways. There are plenty of other examples out there.

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 28/09/2016 01:08

So a man wears a skirt, or wears makeup, or paints nails, or has long styled hair and they are brave , breaking the gender barrier, something to be admired

I don't know about breaking the gender barrier but you can't deny that in many situations a man doing that will get at best funny looks or worse.

On the other hand a woman who wears jeans and a t shirt, has short hair she doesn't bother with and doesnt wear makeup is either a lesbian and /or has let herself go

This is what I hate about FWR- that is such an exaggeration. Look around you in any shop, office or high street and you will see women doing exactly that.

I probably havent expressed myself very well but as much as i was sitting there agreeing that BG and M were brave and gender barrier breaking...

It certainly must have taken a strong will to go out in public looking like that. Easier in metropolitan areas but still not problem free.

I was thinking that women who dress and present as "men" get no kudos at all

It really isn't the same. If you want to you can buy all your clothes from the men's section and people would not even notice it was men's clothes.

ATransMum · 28/09/2016 02:27

transgenderuniverse.com/2016/09/19/transgender-fetishism-and-the-culture-of-chasers/

Speaking of trans porn and the 'chaser' - this is an article about trans chasers (almost exclusively men) and us.

GarlicMist · 28/09/2016 02:31

If you want to you can buy all your clothes from the men's section and people would not even notice

See, this has changed since I Were A Lass. Little fashionista iconoclast that I was, I wore whatever made the outfit I wanted - often incorporating garments meant for men. People would notice the buttons/zips were the wrong way round (and various other style markers) and would point it out, with derision. "People" meaning other women, in general; the guys were too busy working out if I'd be up for a shag.

During my times, it's been unthinkable for women to go to work without a full face of makeup - and shock horror if you left the house with wet hair instead of blowing & styling it!

Every tiny bloody detail of women's liberation from gender strictures has been a looong, slow battle. I'm already fucked off about young women throwing much of it away by taking it for granted. I'm sure as hell unhappy about men who "feel like women" ratcheting the gender business tighter.

The only times I've felt like a woman are during a particular kind of good sex.
Other women tell me they've felt like women during childbirth and/or breastfeeding.
All of the rest of the time we feel like people with messy female bodies.

I have yet to hear what this feeling feels like, and why it justifies the caricaturisation of feminine stereotypes or the appropriation of women's lived experience.

ATG, you've accused posters here of "erasing bisexuality" twice now, iirc. Where the hell do you get that from? Are you aware that some of the posters are themselves bisexual?

ATransMum · 28/09/2016 04:36

Bisexual erasure is when you see the world as straight or gay. Sillyolme used this in her androphillia/gynephillic view of trans people and someone else used it in trans men just being lesbians.

The simple fact is that trans people come from all sexualities - and your gender identity has bugger all to do with it. A significant portion of them express being bi or pansexual (probably more than non-trans people, but I don't have any stats to back that claim other than personal experience)

I get that there are people on this forum who are bi - I am (I prefer pansexual but that's like a category of bi to me). We need more people coming out as bi :)

WinchesterWoman · 28/09/2016 06:31

Bar coo I'm guilty of what you're talking about. I was watching the labour conference and thinking they could all do with a shower and a bit more. All of them, not just women, but more the women. In my new state of self awareness, though, I recognised it and self shamed myself - but it's just decades of conditioning that needs to be erased.

WinchesterWoman · 28/09/2016 06:33

Obviously I'm super shallow as well

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 28/09/2016 08:16

lass

I think You misunderstand me (i did say i wasnt expressing very well Smile)

I think men like boy george and marylyn are fantastic, i sat there admiring them and agreeing with the interviewer. Used to be called gender benders in my youth...

absolutely they are brave and would get funny looks but it woukd be wonderful if they didnt

I happened to be talking about two famous men, i agree that walking down the high street you get plenty of "dressing down" women but when they are famous they are critissed in the media. I have seen comments about lesbian and letting themselves go and crisis in the media. I should ybe have clarified "women in the public eye"

And even in the everyday world i have been called a lesbian over my hair and heard comments about other people about how ill someone looks or how they are letting themselves go (probably from the same people who would take the piss out of a man wearing a skirt )

And i havent seen an article about how brave a woman has been for not wearing makeup (actually i lie...i have seen one) but i have seen a few about various men

And i agree a women wearing mens clothes isn't the same as men wearing womans clothes (although i am sure i have heard anecdata about it)

But my point is that we are never going to be brave and gender benders

And i resent the FWR exaggeration bit. I have heard and seen comments about lesbian hair and women not making an effort. I think most of my friends would say the same

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 28/09/2016 08:17

Garlic

I used to wear a cravat Grin

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 28/09/2016 08:23

transmum

Sorry i am not accepting your example

Both of those women wear full slap and style their hair

Smile
ErrolTheDragon · 28/09/2016 08:23

Warning! Exaggerations and simplifications and omissions in posts happen.

Leaves on the line of trains of thought, liable to cause stoppages and the occasional derail. Grin

Felascloak · 28/09/2016 08:31

How is Miley Cyrus GNC exactly??!! I'm totally baffled. Even Googled in case I was missing something

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 28/09/2016 08:38

Maybe its also because folowing the haircutting of the 20's and trouser wearing of the 30's we have already done it for women

Royal we...not just me, although i did rock a cravat

WitchingHour666 · 28/09/2016 09:04

By the DSM V's own admission, the vast majority of those who "transition" late in life (and are not gay); have transvestic fetish disorder, or originally had it, and it has progressed into autogynephillia. For these men the main motivation is being around women, and being accepted as woman, especially by women. This is why they force themselves into women's spaces, and hassle lesbians to date them. This needs to be revealed to women, as the ideologies behind it (pomo and queer theory) are based on sexual libertarianism for men. Basically it says all men should respect other mens sexual desires, and women should just go along with it or they are mean.

Under transvestic disorder the DSM V states: "Autogynephilic fantasies and behaviors may focus on the idea of exhibiting female phys­iological functions (e.g., lactation, menstruation), engaging in stereotypically feminine be­havior (e.g., knitting), or possessing female anatomy (e.g., breasts)." Many of these men will take hormones, as it is part of their fetish i.e. they think doing so makes them more "womanly". Which is one of the reasons the "living as a woman" for x amount of time is a misnomer. And obtaining a GRC under those conditions, is not a million miles away from what has been proposed. I also think it is futile to argue that men with body dysmorphia, are different from these men. Because men with these fetishes also often desire to change their bodies, due to their fetish. The underlying cause is a fetish that should be treated, not indulged in.

Some of these men may consider themselves bisexual (or another fancy word for it) as they think it is "womanly" to sleep with other men, again this is all part of their fetish. It is not new that men think sleeping with other men makes them "womanly". If ones reads case histories and accounts by gay men. They will find gay men often talk about how they worry about their voices getting higher, if they sleep with men etc. This is simply due to misogyny.

I also think other explanations for their suicide claims should be investigated, because the DSM V says under "comorbidity": "Transvestism (and thus transvestic disorder) is often found in association with other paraphilias. The most frequently co-occurring paraphilias are fetishism and masochism. Oneparticularly dangerous form of masochism, autoerotic asphyxia, is associated with transves­tism in a substantial proportion of fatal cases."

Whatever ones personal feelings about the fetishes transvestic disorder or autogynephilia. Females should not be legally forced to participate in a mans fetish against our will. I do not believe that is a "civil right" men should have. And despite TA's putting some gay male Mtt's up as their spokesmen, and a few Ftt's. The vast majority do fit the description of late transitioning autogynephilies. Women have a right to know this, as most think mtt's are innocuous gay men, and nothing could be further from the truth.

WitchingHour666 · 28/09/2016 09:05

"Gender atypicality is biological. We know this because it is highly correlated with sexual orientation in adulthood."

We do NOT know that "gender atypicality is biological", that is misogynistic "brain sex", which is pseudo-science. It is very difficult for people to resist sex roles, those that do are often call homophobic names by their peers. This does have an affect on a child's self perception, especially in their teenage years, or just before, which is why many start to conform at that time. Those that still refuse to conform usually go on to be homosexual, there are many possible explanations for this that do not involve biological causes.

We do know that gay men in the victorian era thought if they said they were "born this way", they could reduce legal punishments. They also used cliched stereotypes and claimed to have a "female psyche". This led to trying to prove women had inferior brains. And homosexuality being pathologised, and a host of "cures" for it being invented, including in the 20th century "transsexualism".

We also know that gay men, due to the public mood following the aids crisis, used "born this way" also to try and gain public acceptance. Despite both het and gay men trying hard to find (create) "scientific evidence" to prove sexuality is innate, they could not. All their experiments were deeply flawed, and can easily be debunked. (This also paved the way for a resurgence of "brain sex".)

Regardless of whether one thinks sexuality is inborn or not, I believe gay men by propagating "born this way" sowed the seeds of the inevitable. It was obvious it would lead to some kind of manufactured "cure". And the resurgence of "brain sex". Just as it did when it was first used in the victorian era. By taking up postmodernism and creating queer theory, gay men actively encouraged this conversion therapy. In essence sacrificing "camp" gay men, the young, many lesbians, and women rights, so that they could enjoy sexual liberation.

This has led to people who once would have "identified" as gay or lesbian (or sometimes even bisexual) to "identify" as "trans" instead. And to subjecting themselves to needless hormones and surgeries, I do not believe this is ethically acceptable. Therefore I oppose "born this way", just as much as pomo and queer theory, as I think it invariably leads to what it has done. And eugenic "cures"; like the sterilisation of children suspected of growing up to be homosexual.

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