Stoltenberg: Dworkin was a trans ally

[AntsInPenzance]

So after discovering a few days ago, much to my shock, that Catherine Mackinnon was a TWAW proponent, I did a bit more looking around and stumbled across this very thought-provoking article by Dworkin's husband, John Stoltenberg, saying that she was a trans ally and that if she were alive today, she would be railing against GC/trans-critical feminists, even in the light of current TRA issues.

Just for the record, I lean gender critical on the trans issue, so this thread is not meant to be an attack or attempt to discredit commonly held views on this board. It is genuinely a very interesting read.

bostonreview.net/gender-sexuality/john-stoltenberg-andrea-dworkin-was-trans-ally

John Stoltenberg is arguing against biological essentialism and claiming that GC feminists are proponents of biological essentialism.

For all I know Andrea Dworkin would have been a trans ally, but JS is misrepresenting/misunderstanding the GC argument, so the article doesn't make much sense.

Its reactionary insistence on a biological boundary around the category “real woman” plays right into the male-supremacist agenda that wants, more than anything, to secure the borders of the category “real man.” Most upsetting to me, the anti-trans obsession of this faction of radical feminism has become a corruption of the egalitarian ethic and humane vision that underlay Andrea’s life and work

I think he is arguing from the basis of a misunderstanding of what gender critical arguments are.

Being a 'real woman' equates to conformity to gendered stereotypes, as does being a 'real man'. What gender critical views are saying is that being a woman/female is based on the fact of the biological body, not on being a 'real woman'.

Andrea Dworkin was writing a long time ago now.....and at a time when women wanted and needed to break free of 'real womanhood'. I think that is where the tendency ( which persists) to suggest that there were not any differences between men and women came from. That we were all human beings, first and foremost.

In falsely framing the reality of male supremacy as being based in biological “fact” about “real womanhood,” it completely misses the point about how male supremacy actually functions to construct the category “real manhood.” That lethal reality happens transactionally, not anatomically

I think we've come far enough now, to acknowledge that there are general sex based differences...rooted in biology. Stoltenberg seems to be arguing for a form of transhumanism......which may all be well and good as some kind of futuristic ideal, but doesn't accord with lived reality.

Hmmn. Really not sure about that.

radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-does-john-stoltenberg-call-andrea.html?m=1

m.facebook.com/notes/nikki-craft/the-worst-kind-of-betrayal-what-john-stoltenberg-did-to-andrea-dworkin/162074477509339/

@Justhadathought

Its reactionary insistence on a biological boundary around the category “real woman” plays right into the male-supremacist agenda that wants, more than anything, to secure the borders of the category “real man.” Most upsetting to me, the anti-trans obsession of this faction of radical feminism has become a corruption of the egalitarian ethic and humane vision that underlay Andrea’s life and work

I think he is arguing from the basis of a misunderstanding of what gender critical arguments are.

Being a 'real woman' equates to conformity to gendered stereotypes, as does being a 'real man'. What gender critical views are saying is that being a woman/female is based on the fact of the biological body, not on being a 'real woman'.

Andrea Dworkin was writing a long time ago now.....and at a time when women wanted and needed to break free of 'real womanhood'. I think that is where the tendency ( which persists) to suggest that there were not any differences between men and women came from. That we were all human beings, first and foremost.

True, Dworkin was writing before the current TRA issues, but given that both MacKinnon and Stoltenberg currently hold a TWAW stance, it's not that big a leap to suppose Dworkin would as well.

I really hate it when people take dead peoples arguments, formed and presented years ago and try to apply it to what's happening today. Like 'transing' Kurt Cobain, we don't know Dworkin's position because we can't ask her because she's dead.

What difference would it make if she was? Sure it was be a massive disappointment for GC feminists today but she would just be added to the list. If she was alive and was TWAW we could ask her about sport, prisons, surgery and children and just as she could argue for Self ID we could engage with her to oppose it.

I'd need to hear it directly from Dworkin before I'm convinced. There's also a tendency for people to change their minds on the issue when they learn all the facts and arguments.
Many people on this board were trans allies at one point, including myself. But even back then I thought there needed to be strict rules and not any male self identifying as female, without an operation and other requirements, could go into female spaces.

There is something very distasteful about a man seeking to make capital from what his much more famous dead wife may have be,I ever had she still been alive

There is something very distasteful about a man seeking to make capital from what his much more famous dead wife may have be,I ever had she still been alive.

Amen. 9th rule of misogyny: 'men always know the "real" reasons for what women do and say'.

We see you.

@Wanderingstars4238

I'd need to hear it directly from Dworkin before I'm convinced. There's also a tendency for people to change their minds on the issue when they learn all the facts and arguments. Many people on this board were trans allies at one point, including myself. But even back then I thought there needed to be strict rules and not any male self identifying as female, without an operation and other requirements, could go into female spaces.

I used to disagree with the GC position on here as well, and my position also changed to becoming more GC, so I do understand that point. I think that the fact MacKinnon and Stoltenberg are both on the TWAW side, and that Stoltenberg, who knew her better than anyone, seems pretty sure that she would also be, is probably a good indication that she likely would be a trans ally.

I guess I never even considered the possibility that she or MacKinnon would be trans allies, it's just come as a bit of a shock to me. I just assumed, from the views posted on this board that GC/trans critical was a standard belief for '2nd wave/radfems'.

The Dworkin-MacKinnon Anti-Pornography Ordinance considers transsexuals as a separate category to women or men.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipornography_Civil_Rights_Ordinance

I'm not sure that 'transgender' was a term in very common use when Dworkin wrote?

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

There is something very distasteful about a man seeking to make capital from what his much more famous dead wife may have be,I ever had she still been alive.

Amen. 9th rule of misogyny: 'men always know the "real" reasons for what women do and say'.

We see you.

No one can know for sure what Dworkin would think, but I'm not sure I'd call it misogyny because her husband and fellow radical feminist felt he had a good idea of what she would have thought. Calling Stoltenberg a misogynist is certainly a bold move!

Husbands and wives tend to know each other's opinions quite well, especially opinions on shared interests/beliefs. It's pretty common to hear widows/widowers saying Edna would have loved this TV program, or Arthur would have hated this music, etc.

The other odd thing about CMK (and I was never that fond of her work) is that she is very much shaped by US law and legal thinking. Often her positions are directly relevant to that and to ideas of rights and subjectivity deriving directly from that. Reading her from outside this perspective as saying something more general about sex, gender and hierarchy is apt to give one a headache.

Husbands and wives tend to know each other's opinions quite well, especially opinions on shared interests/beliefs.

Granted. But in situations where this kind of shift in discourse happens so rapidly, and so radically, it can only ever be pure conjecture. 'Feminism' in itself has shifted significantly in meaning: i.e. the negative connotations now associated with radical feminism, as opposed to, say, 'intersectional' feminism. And interestingly enough, it's both sides accusing the other of misogyny depending upon which definition of 'woman' they accept.

Who is to say how someone from an entirely different era would have responded to such a seismic shift in women's rights and attitudes to women which seem to have truly galvanised over the past five years (interestingly enough in the wake of #MeToo). My own dear mum's been dead almost 20 years and had her own views about issues like this, but I have no idea how she would have reacted or responded. She's dead. Sounds very harsh to be sure, but baldly stating the words isn't going to make it any less a fact.

@OhHolyJesus

I really hate it when people take dead peoples arguments, formed and presented years ago and try to apply it to what's happening today. Like 'transing' Kurt Cobain, we don't know Dworkin's position because we can't ask her because she's dead.

What difference would it make if she was? Sure it was be a massive disappointment for GC feminists today but she would just be added to the list. If she was alive and was TWAW we could ask her about sport, prisons, surgery and children and just as she could argue for Self ID we could engage with her to oppose it.

I agree with OhHolyJesus. There's no guarantee that the people we like or admire will agree with us on every issue.

I know very little about Dworkin, but if she were alive and decided to go down the TWAW route, does that necessarily mean she would be correct in her thinking or the GC position necessarily wrong?
It would certainly be disappointing for many feminists, but ultimately the validity of any position depends on the sound arguments that underpin it, rather than being formed around 'celebrity' or famous figures. We would still be able to argue against gender ideology and put forward our criticisms.

The impression I've had over the years is that there was / is a strong sentiment in some feminist movements to deny or obscure any real and significant differences between men and women in an effort to transcend the rigid stereotypes associated with each sex. To escape the entrenched views that women and men had to be a certain way due to fixed biological causes, it seems like a swing to the other extreme was made - to downplay or deny any material differences between the sexes. Anything a man can do, a woman can also do and vice versa. Which is true, but up to a point.

These notions have filtered down to the general public as any conversation about acknowledging differences between women and men is considered impolite or even sexist.

I think some feminists are so terrified at the thought that there are some differences between the sexes that cannot be explained away by the magic wand of socialisation, that they are willing to jump to the complete opposite view even if it actually ends up doing more harm to women.

I think some feminists are so terrified at the thought that there are some differences between the sexes that cannot be explained away by the magic wand of socialisation, that they are willing to jump to the complete opposite view even if it actually ends up doing more harm to women

Dworkin tended to emphasise difference though - I tended to think of her as an essentialist.

My main concern with those who emphasise 'difference' is that the kinds of differences they highlight don't ring true to me - i.e. we'd 'rather' stay home and be housewives, we are not as ambitious, or we are naturally connected with nature and so on...

I’ve read all of Dworkin’s books and I think she mentions transgenderism once or twice. It’s not a topic of much concern for her are at all. I honestly don’t think in a million years would Dworkin have imagined how things would turn out. But in any case it doesn’t really matter. This doesn’t actually detract from what she wrote and from her unapologetically fierce focus on the oppression of women (which, less face it, is enough to qualify her as a TERF nowadays.)

’ve read all of Dworkin’s books and I think she mentions transgenderism once or twice

I only have two - Pornography and Intercourse and trans does not appear in the index in either.

Do you recall if she mentioned transsexualism or transgenderism?

@YetAnotherSpartacus

I think some feminists are so terrified at the thought that there are some differences between the sexes that cannot be explained away by the magic wand of socialisation, that they are willing to jump to the complete opposite view even if it actually ends up doing more harm to women

Dworkin tended to emphasise difference though - I tended to think of her as an essentialist.

My main concern with those who emphasise 'difference' is that the kinds of differences they highlight don't ring true to me - i.e. we'd 'rather' stay home and be housewives, we are not as ambitious, or we are naturally connected with nature and so on...

There are definitely people who would like to use any differences as evidence of men being 'naturally superior' to women or that women are 'naturally' more suited to home rather than the public sphere.

It should still be possible, though, to have more nuanced conversations around differences between the sexes without necessarily implying that one is inherently superior or inferior to the other.

It should still be possible, though, to have more nuanced conversations around differences between the sexes without necessarily implying that one is inherently superior or inferior to the other

Oh I agree - but my point was more about what rang true to me.

@YetAnotherSpartacus; from what I can gather she wrote about transsexualism in “Woman hating”. She said, roughly, that every transsexual has the right to survive on his or her terms, which means they should be entitled to sex change surgery. She sees it as an “emergency condition”. She thinks in a society which is less gendered transsexuals will be more welcomed and accepted- she notes that being outside the strict box of male or female is frowned upon. And she says an androgynous world “will mean the end of transexuality as we know it...as roles disappear the phenomenon of transexuality will disappear”.

What I can gather from this is she was deeply sympathetic for the traditional transexual, the “trapped in the wrong body type”. It’s certainly a dated take on trans issues. The suggestion that transexuality wouldn’t exist in a world free from gender roles is anathema nowadays because gender is considered to be innate. She would probably be accused of trans erasure and wanting to end trans existence. And she would also be called a “truscum” because of her focus on trans as a medical condition requiring surgery and dysphoria.

Dworkin also tinkered with the idea that there might be more than two biological sexes,due to the existence of intersex disorders. For her, though, the revolutionary potential of this idea is not so males can say they are females. Rather, she seemed to think that if there are multiple sexes then this can free us from the binary gender role system.

WeeBisom - that makes sense in terms of what I remember about Dworkin and what I know about the historical period (I was there) and what I know about the anti-porn ordinance. I can't see her buying the current TRA stuff because this is Womanhating. CMK is more likely to take a 'civil rights' and legalistic perspective.

[quote WeeBisom]@YetAnotherSpartacus; from what I can gather she wrote about transsexualism in “Woman hating”. She said, roughly, that every transsexual has the right to survive on his or her terms, which means they should be entitled to sex change surgery. She sees it as an “emergency condition”. She thinks in a society which is less gendered transsexuals will be more welcomed and accepted- she notes that being outside the strict box of male or female is frowned upon. And she says an androgynous world “will mean the end of transexuality as we know it...as roles disappear the phenomenon of transexuality will disappear”.

What I can gather from this is she was deeply sympathetic for the traditional transexual, the “trapped in the wrong body type”. It’s certainly a dated take on trans issues. The suggestion that transexuality wouldn’t exist in a world free from gender roles is anathema nowadays because gender is considered to be innate. She would probably be accused of trans erasure and wanting to end trans existence. And she would also be called a “truscum” because of her focus on trans as a medical condition requiring surgery and dysphoria.

Dworkin also tinkered with the idea that there might be more than two biological sexes,due to the existence of intersex disorders. For her, though, the revolutionary potential of this idea is not so males can say they are females. Rather, she seemed to think that if there are multiple sexes then this can free us from the binary gender role system.[/quote]
I think this is quite interesting, and it could well suggest that she might have been taken up into gender ideology.

More and more I think a lot of gender ideology is a sort of weird outgrowth of this idea that that it is possible to divorce the idea of gender from sex - that is, we can potentially, and should try, to "free us from the binary gender role system."

The problem is the ideal would mean somehow making human beings less interested in sexual differences, stopping them from noticing patterns of behaviour and social structures that evolved in response to sexual differences, stopping them from taking their interest in sex and that pattern recognition and expressing it through cultural mediums.

That's never going to happen, of course, you'd have to make humans inhuman to accomplish that. The only way, then, to explode the gender binary is to unmoor it from sex. Not that it can be really unmoored, but we can say it is, and pretend it is - we can pretend that there is only gender and sex is not related to it.

I think that really making a deep and sufficient answer to gender ideology is going to mean facing up to this problem in parts of second wave feminism, that somehow thought we could have biological sex as a fact without having sociological and cultural expression of that, or even a behaviourist or psychological element.

I think this is quite interesting, and it could well suggest that she might have been taken up into gender ideology

Doesn't read that way to me. It simply reads like old-fashioned second wave feminism.

Hahaha. I'm sure that Queen Elizabeth the 1st was Trans too. After all, never married, & "I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England too." Likewise, we could probably retrospestively trans half of history if we put our minds to it.

Or, we could accept that it's all just a load of bollocks really.