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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Pro-Trans article "Women *Can* Have Penises" , Katherine Jenkins Nottingham University

93 replies

theOtherPamAyres · 28/08/2018 15:36

theconversation.com/can-a-woman-have-a-penis-how-to-understand-disagreements-about-gender-recognition-101991?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1535457048

The article finishes with the conclusion:

what does it mean for the Liverpool ReSisters’s claim that “women don’t have penises”? Well, since gender identity is not determined by what kind of genitals someone has, a person with a female gender identity might well have a penis. In other words, yes, some women do have penises.

Katherine Jenkins, assistant Professor of Philosophy, Nottingham University

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 28/08/2018 16:48

SO ARE WOMEN AND GIRLS. Forced to navigate society in a way that is deeply harmful to them as ACTUAL REAL PEOPLE NOT SEX OBJECTS FOR CONSUMPTION.

YY.

IAmSproutycus · 28/08/2018 16:49

browndog, but if they could just recognise that they’re not really mice in the first place, it’s just that society forced the assignment of mice upon them at birth, then they can just identify as cats and they’ll be safe forever. I’m not at risk because of my female sexed body, it’s my silly girly thinking that makes me at greater risk of DA and sexual assault (duh). Which is bizarre, because I’m the most stereotypically gendered male characteristic woman I know. Still a woman. Still taking shite since the 70’s. Snort.

BiologyIsReal · 28/08/2018 16:50

They let anyone into universities these days don't they?

BiologyIsReal · 28/08/2018 16:51

The semantic gymnastics employed to arrive at her conclusion are mind boggling.

nauticant · 28/08/2018 16:56

In my head these words were read in the voice of Philomena Cunk:

Members of a small women’s rights group, Liverpool ReSisters, have declared that “women don’t have penises”. They seem to be very confident of this point, having gone as far as to paste stickers claiming as much onto the genital areas of some of the statues that make up Anthony Gormley’s artwork Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool. It’s an attention-grabbing stunt. But are they right?

saville936 · 28/08/2018 16:57

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

(Cicero)

AwakeCantSleep · 28/08/2018 17:00

She also published "Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman" (Link) where she writes:

"The proposition that trans gender identities are entirely valid—that trans women are women and trans men are men—is a foundational premise of my argument, which I will not discuss further. Failure to respect the gender identifications of trans people is a serious harm and is conceptually linked to forms of transphobic oppression and even violence.6 It follows from this that an important desideratum of a feminist analysis of gender concepts is that it respect these identifications by including trans people within the gender categories with which they identify and not including them within any categories with which they do not identify."

"foundational premise", right....

GenderApostate · 28/08/2018 17:00

That’s nothing , a Geneticist was arguing for a biological component to being transgender on twitter last week and comparing it to intersex - she got her arse handed to her by mrkhtake2. So even ‘proper’ scientists aren’t immune to codswallop.

CertainHalfDesertedStreets · 28/08/2018 17:12

The proposition that trans gender identities are entirely valid—that trans women are women and trans men are men—is a foundational premise of my argument, which I will not discuss further.

Well that's not very philosophy is it?

Sartre reduces all possible human knowledge to Cogito Ergo Sum but Katherine is prepared to state that menz is women without any fucking argument just because it suits her.

It's almost like she should, indeed, stick to singing because she's shit at philosophy.

FermatsTheorem · 28/08/2018 17:14

Hmm, well I suppose premises are beyond dispute in one sense... but (if Katherine had paid any attention whatsoever in her first year logic classes), she would know that if your premises result in a logical system from which a contradiction can be derived (and trans arguments don't seem high on internal consistency to me), then your premises are a pile of shit.

But hey, what would I know? I only used to teach mathematical logic, up to and including Goedel's theorem.

Katherine, honey, women do not have penises. The word you are looking for is "men".

CertainHalfDesertedStreets · 28/08/2018 17:14

It follows from this that an important desideratum of a feminist analysis of gender concepts is that it respect these identifications by including trans people within the gender categories with which they identify and not including them within any categories with which they do not identify.

And no, it doesn't. How does that follow?? 'Desideratum' my arse.

CertainHalfDesertedStreets · 28/08/2018 17:14

What a total fucking bellend.

arranfan · 28/08/2018 17:14

Katherine teaches 'Issues in Feminist Philosophy' (1st year) and 'Philosophy and Sex' (3rd year).

Perhaps Prof Jenkins might want to rename that 2nd course, Philosophy and Gender as it seems more accurate.

gendercritter · 28/08/2018 17:15

What an utter twit

heresyandwitchcraft · 28/08/2018 17:20

Urgh.
Queer theory - where reality is just optional.

IAmLurkacus · 28/08/2018 17:23

Is she OK? When as a society did we decide not to treat people suffering from that level of delusion? It really is mind boggling!

Surely at some point people who have paid 9k a year are going to start suing for refunds over what they’ve been ‘taught’?

DodoPatrol · 28/08/2018 17:23

Members of a small women’s rights group

Rights for Small Women! That's the group for me.

FermatsTheorem · 28/08/2018 17:24

I wondered at the term "professor" for one so young, arran, so I checked Nottingham's webpage. It looks like they've gone down the American route for academic titles, and I'm guessing (with the grand total of 4 publications listed, and having come to the job from a junior research fellowship) she's what in old money would have been a junior lecturer, i.e. untenured. On the other hand, she talks a good word salad, so she may make it in the groves of academe if she's sufficiently ruthless.

(Google the abstract of her "Rape Myths and Domestic Abuse Myths as Hermeneutical Injustices" if you want to see po-mo word salad at its most dense and obscure. I think the TL:DR version is "women in sexually abusive relationships are so screwed over by the prevalence of rape myths they lack the language to describe their experiences as rape, hence face an extra barrier to reporting to the police/escaping the abusive relationship." Which is fair enough, but kind of ironic given that her other work seems dedicated to introducing obscurantism in language - "women have penises" - which will leave women unable to even talk about the reality of sex-based oppression.)

WeeBisom · 28/08/2018 17:25

Jenkins is to at least be commended for coming up with a definition of 'gender identity' that is not hopelessly circular, but by her own lights this is not enough to justify males being in female spaces.

Jenkins defines 'gender identity' as the sex role which you feel most comfortable in when navigating our "gendered society". For women, I think most of us would just like to be treated like fucking human beings in our "gendered society", but I digress. This means that a male who feels 'most comfortable' being treated and regarded as a woman will have a female gender identity.

Jenkins argues that we should respect people's subjective gender identities because it is very uncomfortable and distressing for people to be treated differently from the gender they feel. The harm these people can suffer, and their feelings of discomfort, is enough to justify opening up women's spaces to males who 'feel more comfortable' acting as women.

But what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It could plausibly be argued that a large feature of the 'woman gender role' is the freedom to gather away from biological males. What it means to occupy the 'woman gender role' is to be able to get naked, or go to the bathroom, away from humans with male bodies. That is, I have an expectation navigating this 'gendered world' is that I will not have dick waving in my face - that is just part of what it is to be 'gendered' as a woman.

In short, it's a violation of my 'woman gender identity' for me to be forced to change and share spaces with male bodied people, because what it means to play the 'woman' gender role is to be free to socialise away from males. It thus makes me deeply uncomfortable and distressed to be sharing spaces with males. And if women are deeply uncomfortable and distressed with sharing spaces with males, then trans women cannot just straightforwardly gain access to women's spaces because Jenkins has made psychological comfort the most important thing to focus on.

If comfort and psychological contentment is all that matters, then both trans women and women will be equally uncomfortable and so the best solution is for trans women to have separate trans spaces.

FermatsTheorem · 28/08/2018 17:34

*Jenkins defines 'gender identity' as the sex role which you feel most comfortable in when navigating our "gendered society". For women, I think most of us would just like to be treated like fucking human beings in our "gendered society", but I digress. This means that a male who feels 'most comfortable' being treated and regarded as a woman will have a female gender identity.
*

That's it in a nutshell, WeeBisom. Based on current gender identity politics, about 99% of the women I know would have to be counted as "agender", because actually we don't want to be treated as women, we would rather like to be treated as full members of the human race (something historically denied to us). Of course we don't go round bleating that we're "agender" because we know that biologically we're female, and that's just an accident of birth. What we'd like to have recognised (by men) is that we're just as bright, competent, politically astute, morally valuable and worthy of respect as they are.

paintedwingsandgiantrings · 28/08/2018 17:41

Comments are open at the bottom of the article, anyone fancy joining me in leaving a comment?

theconversation.com/can-a-woman-have-a-penis-how-to-understand-disagreements-about-gender-recognition-101991?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1535457048

frazzled1 · 28/08/2018 17:42

The one comment is so so eloquent. Will be lifting some of it to write to my MP. Absolutely nails it. Star

You make a lot of good points about how society treats men and women differently, then make the leap to saying that men should be able to self define as women without consideration of three crucial points:

We’re not yet in a society where men and women are treated equally. Men who ID as women are not treated by society as women, they are still afforded privilege in many areas. They are being afforded privilege right now, for being allowed to trample over the legitimate concerns of women, to validate their feelings and demanding that they want to be treated as women. That no impact assessment on the effect on women and girls is happening, and that the message that women don’t even need to be consulted about the change of the very definition of the word woman, shows how little society regards women, still.

We’re not yet in a society where men and women behave in the same way, nor one where gendered patterns of violence don’t exist.

Men for example demonstrate behaviour based on experience of male privilege. Men also have male patterns of violence which are VERY different from the offending profile of women, as a group.

98% of sex crimes are committed by men in the UK, for example. And 1 in 5 women have been the victims of sex assault since they were 16. (The figure rises if you include assaults that happened when they were children.

The question is “does transition / IDing as the opposite sex change the offending behaviour of people with male bodies to match female crime levels?” and the evidence seems to be - no it doesn’t. Looking at UK prison stats as an example, 60 transwomen are there for sex crimes (this is possibly nearly 50% of them). This compares to only 3% of women (120), and 19% in the general prison population.

You’re completely ignoring the impact on other people, especially the rights of woman and children to draw their own boundaries.
You say:

“If we wanted to divide people into those who can perform care work well and those who cannot, then no aspect of gender/sex would help us do this, because the skills necessary for care work don’t have anything to do with gender/sex.”

And this goes to the crux of the problem. Nowhere in this statement did you consider the feelings, dignity, autonomy or safety of the person receiving the care.

Women have a right to be able to demand female carers. Particularly where we are vulnerable or in a state of undress. An elderly woman in a care home, for example, should be able to ask for a female carer, and not expect a “woman” with a penis to be helping her get dressed, or doing intimate care like washing her genitals.

A women asking for a smear test should be able to request a female carer and not have to have a “women” with a penis appear. Widening out beyond care, women traumatised by rape should be able to expect to not have to share a bedroom with a stranger with a penis in a hostel, refuge or crisis centre. Women should not have to share cells with criminals with pensis. Women and children should not have to come across penises in changing rooms or in hospital wards.

We should be able to have our dignity and boundaries respected.

Also - it is people with penises who harass, sexually abuse, sexually intimidate and rape women, as well as low level stuff like voyeurism and persistent, inappropriate sexual comments. If you call some of these people “women” and demand women allow them into our spaces, women and children will suffer. Transactivists like to counter this with “you’re saying all transwomen are predators, you’re a transphobe!”. But no, this is simply saying “transwomen show male pattern violence”. Nothing special, not all of them - but as a group, much more like men that woman as far as crime is concerned,

I agree with the points in your article that we need to distinguish between gender and sex and be clear we mean when we are talking about gender. We shouldn’t shy away from using the word sex when this is what we mean.

It seems to me that most of the modern wave of transwomen (that is, those who are transgender, not transsexuals with dysphoria) are identifying with femininity, not actual womanhood. They are identifying with an idea of what it means to be a “woman” gained from society, media, advertising and porn. We need a new word for this in my opinion. Not the word woman - it has a meaning already. It means adult human female. This does not include any person with a penis.

heresyandwitchcraft · 28/08/2018 17:52

I thought gender identity is a core belief of who you ARE (internally). The outward interactions are part of gender expression, right? The argument cannot hold lots of water, because "trans" and "transition" are now such loose terms, with a potentially INFINITE number of gender identities according to these theories. So she is being disingenuous unless she thinks that society has a set role for treating "neutrois" individuals. And it really doesn't rebut the feminist argument that these ideas are actually re-enforcing the rules of the "gendered society." Saying that it's all about social roles and how society treats you does tacitly imply that it's all more about how you fit in to "gendered" ideas sexist stereotypes.
It still doesn't answer why we should prioritize gender identity over sex (and the drive to conflate the two).
Or why we can't use common dictionary definitions.
Separate sex and gender identity if you like, and we can brainstorm how to reconcile these two concepts.
But you cannot take my ability to think, my language, or the legal category of SEX without a protest from me.

The need for external validation being a key component here is showing.

MrsKCastle · 28/08/2018 17:55

Jenkins defines 'gender identity' as the sex role which you feel most comfortable in when navigating our "gendered society".

Well, I don't feel comfortable being put in the 'woman sex role' in our gendered society. I feel distinctly uncomfortable and would most like to see an end to our 'gendered society. As FormatsTheorem says, I guess that makes me agender, along with other GC folk. I do sometimes wonder what the consequences would be if we all started using and pushing the 'agender' identity.

heresyandwitchcraft · 28/08/2018 18:06

I do sometimes wonder what the consequences would be if we all started using and pushing the 'agender' identity.
I see the merit of that question, but my answer is NO. I don't buy into this ideology. I will not pretend I even have an "agender" identity.... I know that that's how I'd probably have to be defined in this lexicon of terms, but it's almost as frustrating as "cis" to me.
I am a gender atheist.
I have no "gender identity."
I do not need a "gender" qualifier.