Why aren't transactivists gender-critical?

[oxcat1]

Please go easy on me if this is a stupid question.

If gender is simply the socially constructed expectations of how people should behave and dress, why isn't the trans movement gender critical? Surely to break down these societal expectations is in their interests (just as it is in the interest of women, feminists argue)?

Instead, the trans movement seeks to enshrine in law the very structure that makes living their own lives as they wish, free from constraints of societal expectations, so very difficult.

Why is that? Or have I totally misunderstood?

But it isn't, or most trans people wouldn't have to become lifelong medical patients to conform to what they believe the opposite sex body should be.

You mean the option that many of you keep pressuring that someone like me, who's feminine and a man who's transgender, should live as a masculine woman, when I'm not masculine in the slightest nor a woman?

Do you think that policing other people's perception of themselves and their societal position will change that? Like what's your goal here.

Keeping women's sex-based rights and stopping girls (especially lesbians) and boys having unnecessary surgery and drugs.

a self-defined trait of oneself usually in association with the gender of people around you

Please explain what the gender of people around you has to do with your own self-definition?

@Barheim

This is essentially my catchphrase. Femininity is not necessary nor sufficient to make someone female, and vice versa.

I'm trying very hard not to assume you're trying to point this to me, a feminine trans man, as a gotcha.

Can you just take my posts at face value? I tell you I strongly agree with a point and you try to make out I'm being rude or lying or something?

So, we agree.
If it's not bodies, and not masculinity or femininity that makes someone male or female, what is it? Sorry if I've missed you posting this upthread. I can't square this circle. Why are you a trans man and not "just" a man if bodies don't make someone a man or woman?

Please assume my Qs are genuine, I can't be arsed with mind games or gotchas or whatever you're assuming.

@Barheim

But it isn't, or most trans people wouldn't have to become lifelong medical patients to conform to what they believe the opposite sex body should be.

You mean the option that many of you keep pressuring that someone like me, who's feminine and a man who's transgender, should live as a masculine woman, when I'm not masculine in the slightest nor a woman?

What's your definition of woman?

If you're not human female, to me you're a woman. You obviously have a different definition, what is it?

Seems like the genderists have tied themselves in their own knot. On the one hand bodies don't matter because gender is what's important and gender isn't stereotypes and can be different for everyone, but on the other hand they can't just say "since bodies don't matter and stereotypes don't define us let's everyone just get on with being people" because that doesn't leave any place for the all-important gender.

The GC position is very simple. Bodies of different sexes exist. As far as possible we treat people the same, but for practical reasons, which can include the social impact of having that body in this society, sometimes we need to treat people differently depending on their body. That's all.

The Genderist (by which I mean not individual trans people but the Trans Orthodoxy that claims to speak for them) position seems to be... bodies exist but that doesn't mean anything outside the doctors' clinic. What is important is gender. It's so important that we must only group people by their self-identified gender but at the same time we can't tell you what those people have in common other than they choose to use the same label. Only you can perceive your gender and it's a core part of you but it can change and then the new one is a core part of you. No one can see your gender or will know if it changes unless you tell them but at the same time it's deeply offensive for someone to not know your gender because it's denying you exist. People can be men, women or something else. Which one you are has nothing whatsoever to do with your body but at the same time we absolutely have to include women-people in everything originally created for female-bodied people for reasons we can't tell you other by a guessing game in which anything you suggest is wrong. It is quite common for people to have the wrong set of undefinable attributes for your body sex, although we can't explain what that set of attributes is and why it's wrong for that body, and anyway it might be different for every person; these people are definitely trans and we need to accept they are the gender commonly associated with the other sex even though we can't tell you what that gender involves either.

Really tt shouldn't matter whether I understand it, any more than I mind about all the other belief systems I don't share. But unlike them, Gender Orthodoxy is demanding to redefine the legal and social status of everyone not just the people who share these beliefs. And for that reason, I think it's reasonable to expect that it's able to explain the objective basis on which these new definitions rest.

You mean the option that many of you keep pressuring that someone like me, who's feminine and a man who's transgender, should live as a masculine woman, when I'm not masculine in the slightest nor a woman?

What you do is up to you. I'm really not that interested. What I am in interested in: Why do people need to use hormones and often surgery to give themselves the body of the opposite sex, if body parts have nothing at all to do with it?

Who in the world are the people who in the vast number of cases are beating others to death.

The people who made the choice to call in those capable of beating a person to death are equally responsible, and those numbers don't seem to appear anywhere.

I do recall one person relatively recently calling for armed men to enter women's restrooms in defence of women and girls, though.

@Barheim

Because we had words to describe us as a group. The 50% of people in the world who have been oppressed by the other 50% for as far back as anyone can remember all over the world.

Do you think that policing other people's perception of themselves and their societal position will change that? Like what's your goal here.

I think the goal is to have everyone accept that we all have sex-based rights, and then are all left to be free to be as masculine or feminine or binary as we choose.

What you do is up to you. I'm really not that interested. What I am in interested in: Why do people need to use hormones and often surgery to give themselves the body of the opposite sex, if body parts have nothing at all to do with it?

I don't have the body of the opposite sex or any desire to have the 'body of the opposite sex' (of which there is no mold), I have my body.

Really tt shouldn't matter whether I understand it, any more than I mind about all the other belief systems I don't share. But unlike them, Gender Orthodoxy is demanding to redefine the legal and social status of everyone not just the people who share these beliefs. And for that reason, I think it's reasonable to expect that it's able to explain the objective basis on which these new definitions rest.

Yes

I think the goal is to have everyone accept that we all have sex-based rights, and then are all left to be free to be as masculine or feminine or binary as we choose.

Which sex-based rights are those?

And masculinity and femininity has nothing to do with it.

The GC position is very simple. Bodies of different sexes exist. As far as possible we treat people the same, but for practical reasons, which can include the social impact of having that body in this society, sometimes we need to treat people differently depending on their body. That's all.

Exactly. I mean, disagree, but it's quite a consistent, logical, scientific POV. Unlike ineffable essences which can't easily be explained without an essay or being paid for it.

The sex-based rights for people with female bodies to organise away from people with male bodies (if we haven't got to a place where all this language has become completely meaningless )

'Do you think that policing other people's perception of themselves and their societal position will change that?'

I'm not interested in policing anyone's perception of themselves. So that's cool.

Social position is an interesting term to use. The idea of feminism is to improve the social position of women and girls. Put a halt to the various ways that social position manifests and is enforced around the world.

I can't see what's wrong with that.

Why are you a trans man and not "just" a man if bodies don't make someone a man or woman?

Honestly I'd love a future where we can just throw the whole label of trans in a bin and a man's a man, a woman's a woman and a non-binary person is a non-binary person but until then I kind of need it to reflect on the fact that as a man born with a vagina I frequently get discriminated against on that basis.

I don't have the body of the opposite sex or any desire to have the 'body of the opposite sex' (of which there is no mold), I have my body.

Yes ok. Why do trans people take hormones to more closely approximate a stereotype of the opposite sex body? And yes, there is a "mould", if I as a woman do not have a vagina, ovaries and uterus, this is for medical reasons or because I've made the choice to have them removed.

There's no special category for males who like to live their lives in a stereotypically 'female' manner. No protection in law. They are treated as outsiders or underdogs in much of male society.

Compare their rights, legal position compared men or women in relation to hate crime, degree of sympathy from many quarters because they are so brave and pioneering. Their power. There's a lot to gain.

Woman, especially young ones, are petty much considered porn fodder. Or they could join the rainbow world which transcends the mere fact of womanness. It's got to be a rung or two higher up the ladder.

@Barheim

I think the goal is to have everyone accept that we all have sex-based rights, and then are all left to be free to be as masculine or feminine or binary as we choose.

Which sex-based rights are those?

And masculinity and femininity has nothing to do with it.

You literally described yourself as 'a feminine trans man' though?

I'm genuinely interested in your view on the use of words in my wxxm/fyrl example though - what do you think would happen if we divorced the word for biological XX people from cultural notions of what sex role stereotypes XX people might be seen to embody as a group? Would the two concepts stay separate? Are people (society in general) able to mentally separate bio sex from whatever gender is?

The sex-based rights for people with female bodies to organise away from people with male bodies (if we haven't got to a place where all this language has become completely meaningless confused)

By all means start a talk group or whatever you desire exclusively for cis women or 'natal women' or whatever 'no transes allowed' vocabulary exists today and trans women will be incredibly unlikely to show up.

... For that matter the odds of any trans woman showing up to anything are slim, but that doesn't seem to stop people from insisting they're 'taking up women's spaces'.

@Barheim

I think the goal is to have everyone accept that we all have sex-based rights, and then are all left to be free to be as masculine or feminine or binary as we choose.

Which sex-based rights are those?

And masculinity and femininity has nothing to do with it.

You genuinely don't already know the issues that GC people raise as illustrative examples of sex-based rights? Really? You are not debating in good faith in my opinion.

@Barheim

Who in the world are the people who in the vast number of cases are beating others to death.

The people who made the choice to call in those capable of beating a person to death are equally responsible, and those numbers don't seem to appear anywhere.

I do recall one person relatively recently calling for armed men to enter women's restrooms in defence of women and girls, though.

Hold on

You're saying that women are calling on men to beat trans people to death.

Really?

Is this s women are the root of all evil thing?

Because my observation is that the sort of men who beat people to death don't tend to need much encouragement. And that those sort of men - angry violent ones- are pretty interested in VAW as well.

Sooo... Angry violent men are the footsoldiers and women are the generals. Directing them. To kill.

I see.

By all means start a talk group or whatever you desire exclusively for cis women

What about women who are neither "cis" nor trans. Women who don't have a gender identity and don't subscribe to your ideology? Like most of us?

what do you think would happen if we divorced the word for biological XX people from cultural notions of what sex role stereotypes XX people might be seen to embody as a group? Would the two concepts stay separate? Are people (society in general) able to mentally separate bio sex from whatever gender is?

There already isn't a single unifying word for people with two X chromosomes beyong the nominer of 'people with XX chromosomes' as that includes men and women that are and aren't trans.

@Barheim

Why are you a trans man and not "just" a man if bodies don't make someone a man or woman?

Honestly I'd love a future where we can just throw the whole label of trans in a bin and a man's a man, a woman's a woman and a non-binary person is a non-binary person but until then I kind of need it to reflect on the fact that as a man born with a vagina I frequently get discriminated against on that basis.

'to reflect on' - that's interesting! So the discrimination you suffer has become inherent to the word you use to describe yourself - if I'm reading you right? (saying this with empathy, not to pick your posts apart) In general life, do you tend to call yourself a man or a trans man, or a bit of both depending on context?