Recommend me a book!

[RibenaBerry]

Right, reading these boards recently has given me a bit of a kick up the arse on my feminist principles. I've done a bit of 'light' reading in the area (think The Beauty Myth as a teenager) but think I need something a bit more serious without being so weighty I never pick it up. I'd rather have something published in, say, the last 15 years than any of the 'classics'.

Any ideas?

Who decided that ?non-trans? women must be called ?cis women? and why? I don?t think it was ?non-trans? women.

?Non-trans? is my new working definition of what I am, because my previous failed attempt at self-definition, "female-born", was unacceptable to the transfeminists on this thread, because they regard "trans women" as "female-born" too. Again, my new term is not intended to offend anyone. I am simply trying to describe myself. Why can?t I chose what I call myself? ?Trans women? have chosen their name ? which is wonderful as far as I am concerned. Men have chosen their name. Why can?t ?non-trans? women have a say in what "non-trans" women might want?

The scope of usage of ?cis woman? also confuses me. It appears to be used by some academics and "trans women" activists and that seems about all. Where is the evidence that it is widespread, "correct", or acceptable to "non-trans" women?

Should "cis woman" be used only when discussing ?trans woman?? Should "cis woman" be used in the biological issues like pregnancy, abortion etc. which cannot affect "trans women"?

Could "cis women" call themselves "trans women" if they felt like it, not because thay are trans, simply because they liked the name? Could such a name change lead, through sheer weight of numbers, to "non trans" women resetting the "trans woman" agenda to "non-trans" issues like pregnancy and abortion rather than "trans" issues such as gender reassignment acceptance or birth certificate issues?

We desperately need to have some intellectual rigour applied to this naming issue.

Yours truly,
Very confused and nameless of Internet-on-Thames

For background reading

Cisgender
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cisgender is an adjective used in the context of gender issues and counselling to refer to a class of gender identities formed by a match between an individual's gender identity and the behavior or role considered appropriate for one's sex. Cisgender is a neologism that means "someone who is comfortable in the gender they were assigned at birth", according to Calpernia Addams. "Cisgender" is used to contrast "transgender" on the gender spectrum.

A more popular term is "gender normative".

Language

The word has its origin in the Latin-derived prefix cis, meaning "on the same side" as in the cis-trans distinction in chemistry. In this case, "cis" refers to the alignment of gender identity with assigned gender.

Internet use
The word cisgender has been used on the internet since at least 1994, when it appeared in the alt.transgendered usenet group in a post by Dana Leland Defosse. Defosse does not define the term and seems to assume that readers are already familiar with it. It may also have been independently coined a year later: according to Donna Lynn Matthews, the charter maintainer of the alt.support.crossdressing usenet group, the word was coined in 1995 by Carl Buijs, a transsexual man from the Netherlands. In April 1996, Buijs said in a usenet posting, "As for the origin, I just made it up. I just kept running into the problem of what to call non-trans people in various discussions, and one day it just hit me: non-trans equals cis. Therefore, cisgendered."

Academic use
The term has more recently been used in publications, such as a 2006 article in the Journal of Lesbian Studies and Julia Serano's 2007 book Whipping Girl. Serano also uses the related terms cissexual, which she defines as "people who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their subconscious and physical sexes as being aligned", and cissexism, "which is the belief that transsexuals' identified genders are inferior to, or less authentic than, those of cissexuals." While having been used by transactivists for some time, the term cisgender privilege has recently appeared in the academic literature and is defined there as the "set of unearned advantages that individuals who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth accrue solely due to having a cisgender identity"

"BUT in your last few posts you seem to be saying something a little different - that you just want an acknowledgement from trans women that they are seeking to 'enter' a state that is historically linked with oppression, and that oppression is linked to the biological fact of femaleness (childbearing, etc)? And then it follows that the fact that they are seeking to be recognised as having the sexual and gender identity of women despite not having the chromosomal and genital makeup of women, and the chromosomal and genital makeup of women is the root cause of their oppression - that insistence is, in and of itself, ignoring the basis of women's oppression.

Is that right? I'm sorry to go on at length, I'm having trouble understanding. And am not succinct"

Yes, perfect. THat is the way I see it.

It's the dogged insistence that irks me. There is a law now that says they're women.
YOu'd think they could have asked cis females their opinion at least.

Should people born looking like girls but who later have gender reassignment to "trans men" be supported by the women's movement? Following from some transfeminist comments on this thread, the logic might to be "no, they were born male, are male and will always be male". I don't know, but I can understand how such a position could result.

Picture the scene. A child who looks like a girl (or is he a "trans man"?) is playing in a park and is seen by a heterosexual rapist. He rapes the child. Did he bother to check if the victim was a "trans man"? I don't think so. How should feminists react to such a human catastrophe? Do they say, "you're a female rape victim, use the feminist support network" or do they say, "go to your support network, son, i.e. the old boy network/patriarchy."?

I wasn't aware that being a feminist meant I had to restrict my support for rape victims to a certain category.

What a fucking ridiculous question. Male rape victims aren't supported by the patriarchy. And refusing to support a rape victim because of hir gender is just inhumane no matter what your politics.

Fucking hell.

SweetDreamerGirl

A child wouldn't be classified as a trans man as a trans man is an adult man.

tortoise - that's exactly one of the conclusions that trans people face from transphobic feminists. Totally 'fucking hell' and inhumane! That's what you get when you prioritise dogmatic theory over real life and reality.

tortoiseonthehalfshell, I agree completely with you.

I was trying to think of a hypothetical case to try and illustrate the gender/naming confusion and I lost sight of the bigger picture. I do regret very much posting that message. Very sorry.

I agree with tortoise, obviously.

But I get where you're coming from about trans-men. Trans-men, as far as I know, are not trampling and throwing their weight around on institutional patriarchy to any great effect. And they have no clash with the feminist movement. And they aren't trying to re-define females (maybe males, but cis males have enough power and an enormous sense of male entitlement so I don't think they're worried a bit about being re-defined by trans-men)

(I mean it'd be a good thing if they could throw their weight around and re-define men, but they obv don't have the power to even try)

How big a deal is this for feminism really? It seems to me that the big problem here is the obsession with dividing people up by gender/sex.Women are half the population - what percentage of people are transsexual? Because it seems to me that women could easily let trans women on board,as it were, without all the angst about how they are actually XY not XX - and if particularly vocal transsexuals express views about femininity/feminism that you disagree with ,why cannot discussion take place as you would discuss any disputed viewpoint?

Sakura,do you have actual examples of trans women trampling on feminism,and trying to redefine females?(that is what you are saying,isn't it?)I cannot see how a small group of people can impact feminism against its will - unless you are saying that possession of XY chromosomes gives you the automatic ability to bend females to your will,which I would dispute.

"I feel that trans women need to be very sensitive about this issue, because they must take into account the history of ongoing abuse and oppression that feminists have had to contend with. I think that is all I am asking for. Sensitivity."
Perhaps "despite" the fact that they were born XY not XX trans woman may have had enough to contend with themselves and sensitivity on both sides might be a better attitude?
Also,if transsexuals do not have the legal right to be regarded as their gender of choice that has great implications for how they can live - I agree with Tortoise that it is easy in the theory to lose sight of the individuals involved(hope I haven't misinterpreted you,Tortoise!)

I suppose I feel about trans issues the way I do about gay marriage. You know how the anti-gay marriage people argue that allowing gay marriage breaks down the definition of marriage to the point where it threatens its existence by rendering it meaningless? And that's actually not a bad analogy, because marriage is a social construct that is heavily predicated on ideas of property and procreation - these days it's less linked to reproductive control, but it does have its roots in hereditary/legitimacy issues, yes? So it's not a ridiculous argument by the antis; marriage is for the legitimisation of relationships intended to produce offspring so as to control the distribution of wealth.

But the thing is, gay marriage doesn't affect or threaten my heterosexual marriage at all. It makes no difference to me. The people to whom it does make a difference are the gay people who can now access the legal and social privileges afforded to heterosexuals.

That's how I feel about trans issues. I don't see it as an attack at all to have trans women included in the definition of women. I am no less of a woman because, legally, a person born of the male sex and female gender who has undergone gender reassignment surgery enjoys the same legal status as I do. If anything, I think the fact that it keeps open the discussion about the nexus between sex and gender, and the fluidity of those definitions, is a positive one.

I honestly, honestly don't see how my identity as a woman can be affected by the existence of women with penises.

X-posted, Poglesworth, but we're agreeing.

Yep!

But If you look like a man

are treated as a man/percieved as a man

benefit from male privilege

despite how you self identify

can you then lay claim to an authentic understanding of/belonging to what it is to be a woman

I guess the thing that makesme seize up is my perception that trans women are claiming to be more woman than me, to know as well as me if not more so what it is to be a woman, that their experience of being a woman is as authentic as mine

to me this is like a person deciding that they choose to identify as a different species of primate, they can self identify as whatever they like, and I don't doubt that feeling like a different primate can be painful and brings all kinds of discrimination

BUT that person is bringing decades if human experience and human perspectives to becoming an ape, how can their experience of ape-ness possibly be reconciled with that of a cis-ape?

I am not trying to offend I just really really don't understand, and if anyone can help me that would be great

To come back to the point where someone said I was defining what a woman is, I never used the term woman at all ( as SDG then pointed out). I defined what a female is and the implications that biological reality has for people who are female in societies all around the world. Female is a biological reality. Woman and femininity are social constructs.

The argument that trans issues are similar to gay marriage is absurd for two obvious reasons.

1. Heterosexual people are not a minority group. Females are a minority group.

1. Heterosexual people choose to get married. I did not choose to be labelled as a woman with all the nonsensical constructs that entails - society decided that for me. I want to be seen as a human being with specific reproductive choices.

The trans issue is reinforcing the misogynistic notion that gender rather than sex is somehow a biological reality - that people can have male or female brains and so a person innately feel like a woman so they must have non-functional breasts and vaginas to match.

That is damaging to females because it adds to the claims that femininity is more than a social construct, and adds to the idea that breasts are merely for looking at and vaginas are merely for putting penises in.

It is like if I said, well I'd like to be good at athletics, so I'll have my legs replaced with really muscular, athletic looking prosthetic limbs. I still won't be able to jump or run very fast, but I'll look like an athlete and should be allowed in the olympics.

I do not know any trans people,so could be way off on this.Surely if you feel and have always felt that you have been born in the wrong biological sex,you are going to want to take steps to match your external appearance to how you feel inside.I would have thought that feeling like a man ,but developing breasts etc at puberty would be hard to deal with.
Obviously breasts are not just for looking at and vaginas are not just for putting penises in - but they are still visible markers of biological femaleness,so someone wanting to live as a woman might well want to have them.(as do women who have lost their functional breasts to surgery.) Believing femininity is a social construct doen't necessarily mean you are not going to buy into it,and the same is true of masculinity.

That isn't the same,IMO, as defining what a women is entirely on external factors.

I didn't think the way a trans person feels is the standard female brain/male brain argument at all - but again I could be wrong,must go off and read some more.

I still don't see how I as a female am hurt by the existence of trans women,and I think that was part of Tortoise's point using gay marriage.

SDG for someone who claimed earlier in the thread to be pro-trans, you're certainly coming across as very anti-trans indeed.

Is anyone going to answer chibi's question then?

Pogleswood, I think if trans women have a longing to be female and have female reproductive organs, then that is not very clearly expressed in their arguments. Until that is clearly expressed, then they are reinforcing the idea that having a female body is first and foremost about how you appear to others.

I certainly do not feel threatened by trans women. I see it as having similarities to why some women become lap dancers. I can respect those women but still challenge the ideas in society that have led to such roles.

But if women are to be seen as a group determined solely by physical appearance, then I don't see there being much there in terms of common ground or shared experience of specific types of discrimination.

I can't help but wonder how females socially organise to fight to end discrimination if there is no socially constructed group like 'women' in existence that any longer just represents us.

Yes, Milly, I think that might be one of the things feminists are worried about: that diluting women makes them weaker as a group than they already are. The wiki article says that people should be just put on a continuum, which totally dismisses child-bearing as being significant or important (if it's possible to devalue it any more than it is already). And yet, if we make a special exception for women who do bear children, where does that leave all the women who can't bear children, or don't want to? Are they all to be relegated to a continuum of 'otherness'?

There are many reasons why a trans-woman cannot identify with a cis-woman. Apart from all the obvious reasons we've given above, including Prolesworth's point that the definition of a cis woman as being someone who is comfortable with the gender they've been assigned is simply absurd.

I keep thinking about how historically, and today too, cis women have been regarded as chattel to be bought and sold by men. Just the...irrational hatred displayed towards them which crosses most cultures, manifesting in ways such as more rapes being acted out on women (males can be raped too, but women get it more often) or gender specific torture, women forced to bear the babies of their masters etc. It continues to confound me.
Anyway, thanks to feminism women's status has improved somewhat over the years in Britain, the US and a specific amount of other countries.

But I do rather feel that if women were still in a state of pure slavery, as they were in the past, or if we go back that way again (stranger things have happened) trans-women have a get-out clause: they simply do not need to reveal their inner world, and they can then enjoy the male privilege and trappings of status, and can avoid a truly horrible fate. I mean where were all the trans-women 100 or so years ago when women's lot was miserably dire? What were they doing? Identifying with women? If so, and they had a male physique, couldn't they have used that to attempt to change patriarchy from within? A type of ninja-stealth-movement, whereby women could have been disguised as men to help women!!
Or is it possible that the men in the past who were in favour of the women's movement were possibly trans-women? IF so, that's a good sign
But Cis women don't have that option. So there is an essentialism about cis women that is wrapped up in their oppression and trans-women are not able to identify with that.

But, I've been thinking about this a lot:
earwicga, if you are still reading this. Are you a trans-woman? I'm sorry I can't tell by your writing obviously.
If you are, then I would be quite happy to put animosity aside and discuss on this thread a proposed solution for this dilemma. Let's call it a 'two-state solution'. cis women simply cannot accept being defined by anyone but themselves. It goes against everything feminists have fought for. But I think if trans-women approached cis-women and feminists with sensitivity regarding their gender history, then that would help a lot. cis-women are expected to defer to trans-women for fear of being labeleed bigots, but trans-women, as far as I can see, have no obligation to defer to cis-women's version of reality. It seems to be they don't even get feminist's version of reality. If trans-women began listening to cis-women's truth I think we could move on. Pogleswood, cis women are expected to be infinitely sensitive and yielding towards trans-men, and in general they have been, because cis-women in general are very reconciliatory and sensitive. But the sensitivity must come from trans-women now too. Were cis-women even consulted on whether it was ok for the law to be changed to accomodate XY people to part of them? Or was it a case of trans-women aligning with patriarchy to just do whatever they like?

But yes, we need to reach a solution. We all want to bring down patriarchy, right?

sensitive towards trans-women, I meant

Sakura, I must gently object to your statement that "cis women simply cannot accept being defined by anyone but themselves. It goes against everything feminists have fought for.". I know that's your view, I'm objecting to you presenting it as an essential and inherent feminist view when it's been acknowledged on this thread that it's a divisive issue amongst feminists.

I'm a cis woman and a feminist, and I see trans issues as obviously in alliance with feminist issues. I can accept being defined as cis, and it seems obvious to me that that definition (or at least terminology) had to come from non-cis thinkers (in the same way that it was women who pushed for "man" to stop becoming the default term - when you are the norm, the very fact of your privilege is often invisible to you). I think trans activists help advance the debate about the sex/gender nexus which is a feminist issue, as well as challenging social constructs and gender essentialism. I believe it strengthens us, not dilutes us.

That's the division. It's been ever thus.

Poor old RibenaBerry, she must be wondering WTF happened to her nice innocent thread!

I agree with Tortoise(again...)

The answer to chibi's question,IMO,is no - but I don't think that is relevant to whether trans women should be regarded legally as women or not.I think that your comment,Sakura,about feminists being concerned about women being diluted and thus weakened is telling - I think women are strong enough to cope with dilution by a relatively speaking very small group of trans women without it damaging them.Men don't seem too bothered as a group by this,do they? I think this view does both feminism and women in general a disservice.

I know you feel very strongly about the importance of childbearing - it is uniquely female.But as a woman I don't want to be defined entirely by that,and I certainly don't want to be defined all my life as the member of a threatened oppressed group - I don't see women like that in spite of our history.I assume that in the past,rather than enjoying the male privileges and trappings of status transsexuals were keeping very quiet about how they felt for fear of being ostracised,attacked,threatened with damnation...saying that they have the option to live as men if things get tough is belittling the issue I think.

"It seems to be they don't even get feminist's version of reality" - well that's true of plenty of non-trans women,isn't it? And what exactly is cis womens version of reality? We don't seem to be able to agree on a one size fits all version of reality here!

"when you are the norm, the very fact of your privilege is often invisible to you). "

You see, I apply that priciple to XY people. If earwicga is a trans-woman, then this entire thread is slowly beginning to make sense to me. I kept asking her very specific questions about the oppression of cis-women and she truly seemed to have no clue as to what I was banging on about. SHe had no clue about the argument that it is cis-women who are defined by society as 'the other', alongside trans-women.
The ability of trans-women to pass a law so easily without running it by cis-women first, tells me they are privileged in a way cis-women are not. If cis-women want a law they must run it by the opposite sex (patriarchy), where it is usually denied, then they have to take to the streets, then it is still denied, then in some cases they have to martyr themselves to prove that the law is necessary.
I think trans-women, therefore, are quite privileged, in ways they do not realise.
I accept that I cannot or do not know or understand the oppression that a trans-woman faces because I am not one. I wouldn't be so presumptious to pretend to understand what it's like.
And yet...and yet...why is it okay for trans-women to dismiss the very valid views of feminists, and accuse them of bigotry for questioning whether this way forward is going to be good for cis-women. Are cis-women not allowed any voice at all? WHy don't trans-women consider cis-women's opinions and provide counter-arguments (as I have been begging for on this thread) rather than trying to silence them?

I can see this going in the same way that "equality" did, whereby thesedays "equal rights" tends to favour men in that men are more quick to complain about sex disgrimination, and very quick to oppress a woman in the name of equal rights. I am very suspicious about erasing cis-women's common identity as a group. I believe there will be unforseen consequences that I can't articulate yet. When US women demanded the equal rights amendment, the government said that would mean that women who had had children weren't allowed access to maintenance on divorce, simply because it was the man who had earned the money, therefore it was his. If a woman wants to be equal, well then she should earn the money herself, right? It would also have meant that women would be forced to be drafted into the army and fight men's wars for them as cannon fodder. Those were the two main things patriarchy wanted to do with "equal rights". It led Betty Friedan to say that she was eventually glad the equal rights ammendment was turned down (for the eighth time)

"I believe it strengthens us, not dilutes us."
You may be right, I hope so. At any rate nobody is going to listen to feminists. NObody ever does. They have such a tiny platform in the grand scheme of things that it hardly matters what they say at all.

I would like trans-women to tell me that they have an inkling of understanding of what I am talking about when I say that from Napolean to Freud, women have been regarded as non-people, the non-sex, the other, the negative, in relation to the male. Because the way they are talking it sounds like they believe this only applies to them.
WHen I said: "cis women simply cannot accept being defined by anyone but themselves. It goes against everything feminists have fought for", I meant that cis-women have been told that they are XYZ since the year dot, and re-defined as 'the other'. NOw it appears that being born as a member of a sex that bears children doesn't count for much in feminists eyes. Try telling the cis-male and homosexual misogynysts that it doesn't count for much. They'll keep defining cis-women. (I hate to admit that homosexuals are misogynyst: in my experience they're not, but some are)

I would seriously like a dialogue with a trans-woman. As you can probably tell I am perhaps not a typical cis-women and I have a very high testosterone.