This is an open thread. You may post whatever you like here, including links to your own work, as long as you do so with a pure heart. After you press the post button, clap three times and place your left ankle over your right foot for a period of not less than four point three seconds.
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- Check out these photos of 210 lb Savannah Sanitoa running the 100 meter sprint at the world championships in Berlin. Yes, she ran three seconds slower than the world champion — but damn, is she cool.
- Good Immigrant-Bad Immigrant: codifying a caste system
- Andrea Dworkin on Transgender Not perfect (she wrote this in the 70s), but hugely more trans positive than you might expect.
- Create your own assisted suicide debate! Arguing in favor of legalizing doctor-assisted suicide, novelist Terry Pratchett, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. (ignore the Daily Mail’s opening paragraphs and skip to the part written by Pratchett).
- For the rebuttal, read this lengthy essay by medical ethicist Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of Raul Rahm). This is the same Ezekiel Emanuel who has lately been accused of plotting “death panels.”
- TransGriot on the gender policing of successful black female athletes. (Via.)
- On the same subject, see this post at the Gender Sociology Blog. “Maybe, at some point, these institutions could have a discussion pertaining to accepting the fact that there may be more than two genders or that the gender categories themselves have to be reconsidered.”
- Quote: “By now many readers are wondering why I am so concerned about the plague of graffiti in our cities. I am concerned because there is a close parallel between graffiti and same sex marriage. Both are warning signs that our society is very sick indeed, and may be entering its final crisis.” – Mike Heath, Maine Family Policy Council
- Dana Gioia pays tribute to fat male actors in classic movies, and in particular Sidney Greenstreet (1875-1954) and Eugene Pallette (1889-1954).
- The song “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” in convenient flowchart form. And be sure to watch the literal version of the video.
- The first commercial for marriage equality (aka gay marriage) in Maine is out, and it’s good.
- John C. Wright is recoiling in craven fear and trembling, and I don’t feel so good myself.
- On “fairness,” free markets and history. “The Verizons and AT&Ts of the world don’t get to start the analysis on a blank slate where the status quo magically transforms into a perfectly free market.”
- Free markets require government intervention to exist.
- The Obama Adminstration’s broken promise to make immigration reform a priority in the first year.
- French Muslim woman wearing ‘burkini’ banned from Paris swimming pool (via)
- I love historic photos. Case in point: filing clerks in The US Patent Office, 1925. Makes the huge filing room in “How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back” look small.
- Gender Conformity and “Gaydar” (Porn-sounding URL, although it’s not porn.)
- Anti-trans bigotry on the Conan O’Brien Show
- Bike dancing — or is it bike gymnastics? Anyhow, it’s cool.
- What has the world been like for the class of 2013? Women have always outnumbered men in college; “Womyn” and “waitperson” have always been in the dictionary. (Those two examples completely swiped from Ann Bartow.)
- “…being classified by others as White is associated with large and statistically significant advantages in health status, no matter how one self-identifies.”
- Heron61 discovers unconscious racism in his novel collection. (And he’s working to change that.)
- Curt Smith of Tears for Fears on “the value of musical sharing” (via)
- On white people who display “cute” little racist brik-a-brak
- The Risks Afghan Women Take to Vote (via)
- A great story about reducing the gender gap in higher ed
- The Best Way to Insure Worker Safety Probably Isn’t to Deport Workers. (Porn-sounding URL, although it’s not porn.)
- Senator Grassley takes a moment away from trying to destroy health care reform to do something genuinely useful: fight corporate ghostwriting of medical studies.
- Aging is not unnatural. Good post, great photos. (Nudity warning, might be nsfw.)
- Material Girls: Talking about Gender and Consumerism at the Islamic Society of North America
- Traffic laws, street markings, etc, don’t make the streets any safer. They just allow cars to go faster. And do watch the video.
- One woman takes on King Coal. And wins.
- “If people over 65 in each state made the laws, zero states would have gay marriage; if people under 30 made the laws, 38 states would have gay marriage.” (via)
- No, American does not have “the best health care in the world.”
- Three months in jail for possession of breath mints.
- Labor Department To Begin Enforcing Own Regulations. (Note to MRAs: This will do more genuine good for men, by preventing workplace injuries and death, than anything any MRA has done, ever. Maybe you folks should think of that before you overwhelmingly support Republican politicians.)
- 40 years ago today, Hiram Fong became the first Asian-American ever elected to the US Senate. (via)
- So what’s “replacement tongue” a reference to? To Cymothoa Exigua, a parasite that kills the tongues of fish — and then replaces the tongue. Here’s a photo.
40. PETA ad repaired, by Jessiedress.
It’s funny, JHC – to another commenter you write
But then to me you write
So my options are either 1) I’m a dishonest manipulative liar, or 2) I’m incredibly stupid?
Yeah, I guess I’ve stopped beating my wife.
Elusis,
Well, if that’s what you want to take away from that, fine. But RP has been told countless times that what he’s tking away from what I’m reading isn’t what I’m putting out there.
Here’s a list of things RP has made up —
1). I’m opposed to “Non-Binaries” doing whatever it is they want. That’s the biggest load of manure imaginable. What I hvae said is that “Gender” isn’t “haircuts”, “clothing” or “How I Walk”. Or my chainsaw, which is now working very well.
2). I’m somehow opposed to “Non-Binary” as a gender. No, what I’ve said is that “Gender” is based on social perception and external classification. RP agreed with that
If I write that, I’m considered to be a bigot. If RP writes that, I’m being corrected abot how wrong I am. As I said, it’s an intentional mis-reading of what I’ve written. The implication of that quote (being based on social perception) is that the Collective Human Conciousness is ging to have to be “educated” before gender ceases to be “binary”. Since RP agrees Patriarchy has a lot invested in “The Binary” —
assuming Patriachy is just going to “accept” non-binaries is truly, truly wishful thinking. Does it mean I don’t accept “non-binaries”? No, it means I don’t agree that wishful thinking is a good way to live ones life. It also means, not that I’ve written that here yet, that within the “Transgender Identified Community” the solution is usually doing more things, all in persuite of Wishful Thinking.
3). I’m just incredibly inconsistent, that my arguments are some kind of gibberish, or whatever other insults RP has tossed my way. And yet, when I say that “self-conceptualization” doesn’t work (see quoted text under (2) ), I’m told that I’m wrong, but RP later says external classification is what determines gendered class, and then says this —
On the external side, which is it? Society classes based on cues that can be seen, or society somehow knows that underneath the clothes there is a body type that doesn’t match the male or female development paths? As I wrote in my response to Amp, “sex” is determined almost entirely as a first approximation from facial bone structures and features (for adults).
What I personally think is going on here is something that a number of Radical Feminists have hinted at, and some written very directly about — once “Transphobic!” has been uttered, everyone of the Liberal or Progressive bent immediately falls into line and agrees that the target of the accusation is a “Transphobe”.
I could continue to debunk RP’s baseless, libelous, defamatory, inflamatory, and other such “Seh’s a big meanie!” insults, but what’s the point? I’ve made my argument, I’ve been labeled a “Transphobe”, and in Happy Transgender Land all that matters is the first person to scream “Transphobe!” Except that unlike Godwin’s Law, in Happy Transgender Land, the first person to yell “Transphobe” is considered the winner.
What is completely ironic about this entire discussion, particularly as it relates to RP’s libelous statements, is that my position towards “Transgender” is to ignore the Transgender Conventional Wisdom (hormones, polysurgery, re-training and re-education) and just stop doign all the “editing” of ones behavior. Man feels like wearing a dress? Wear the dress. Woman feels like buzzing her hair? Have at it. Want to wear pink? Make sure it doesn’t clash with yuor skin tones — no point wearing clothes that might not look good (I don’t wear eather tones) . Tell your friends to call you “Bob”? Please — I picked Bob first — try another name.
But what happens on, for example, “What Is Gender?” (the website RP pushes so hard) is all these discussions about … hormones, polysurgery, legal changes, re-training and re-education. In short, not being Ones Self, but becoming a paradoy / robot / FemmeBot / Stepford Wife / etc.
(Please forgive all typos — I gashed the hell out of my left wrist (and I’m a lefty) last night (working on my chainsaw, not trying to sluff off this mortal coil — please, no interventions!) and it’s really messing with my typing. And I’m getting blood all over my laptop now. So I have to stop.)
@Julie:
This comment right here states your dislike of the idea of a nonbinary gender category established and that it is even a bad thing.
Quote 1:
This further establishes the idea that you don’t agree with nonbinaries establishing themselves because you feel it would be easier to just wreck the patriarchy (which is once again, categorically untrue, but that’s not the point here)
Quote 2:
It is fairly established that you have a problem with nonbinaries existing at all. Now, I’m not accusing you of specifically standing in their way (and as you are only one person, you probably couldn’t even if you tried).
But I am accusing you of treating their existance, their self determination as less important than your agenda.
The very fact that it comes down in terms to “it would be easier to break the patriarchy than accept them” instead of “these people ought to do what they need to survive as we fight the patriarchy” is evidence enough that you are transphobic.
So when you say this:
You’re basically asking me when I started beating my wife. The question isn’t begged here. The fallacy hasn’t been invoked.
You have shown transphobia. It is there, clear as day. That’s pretty much all I’ve said so far (beyond side tangents of addressing some of your incorrect claims about gender as a term, the function of gender, what those classifications are based on and nonbinaries in general.
As for reporting me, I haven’t gotten one email yet, so clearly, your reports are made in error. Especially since I know (from others) how prompt the moderators are here.
I probably should be reporting you for your constant strawman fallacies and Elusis really should have reported you for this:
But really, I can handle your fallacies. And I know Amp’s got an eye on things and can (and has) let us both know when things go too far.
But hey, continue to make threats. It just shows me that you’re running out of rhetoric to throw.
You say tomaeto, I say tomaato. Right here, you misrepresent the nonbinary crew (that is well aware that acceptance will require dismantling a lot of patriarchy, which is largely positive as a goal) and furthermore you explicitly say that nonbinaries are living life poorly according to you.
I’m not sure how much more obvious it could get.
Could you show me where I told you that your arguments were gibberish? Quote & post link please, thanks. Because I’m pretty sure I’ve never beaten my wife and it would be awfully ironic for you to beg that question.
I did say they were inconsistent, but that was mostly in how you first claimed that gender is oppression, instead of just a classification system used for oppression. And then subsequently agreed with me that gender is just the classing system.
Which is very inconsistent.
Now who’s misrepresenting who?
Society uses external cues. I was responding to you claiming that even a nonbinary would still be part of the Man or Woman class. When in reality there is a third class, treated worse than Woman are, as sort of the protist kingdom of gender (the garbage bin we put anything we don’t comprehend into).
That self conceptualization comes out as dysphoria. It has nothing to do with external forces (beyond causation, which I can’t speak for due to the lack of research).
So in the end, the self conceptualization with a given body type is a dysphoric, personal characteristic and unrelated to external cues and gender application as a classification.
This ought to be clear considering I’ve regularly pointed out that self conceptualization causing pain is the disorder itself and that gender identity is a piss poor term for it.
But I guess you missed that.
Clearly, it must be a liberal kneejerk PC reaction and not actually my arguments being compelling.
Yanno, even though that was what Amp said (“RP makes a compelling argument” paraphrasing). But no, it must be the fact that I called you transphobic. I’m just so magical. I have the power to change people’s minds with one word.
It’s like Powerword Stun in DnD. Oh shoot, I think I just stunned myself when I said it.
You clearly aren’t reading all that deeply. A lot of these folks are actually grappling with whether or not their self expression should even be tied to self conceptualization at all. And even those that are still thinking in the gender paradigm still need to handle their shit. If that means articulating things that make the rad fem in you cringe, so be it. Get over it.
Also the fact that you assume the need for surgery only comes from role, gender placement, classification and external sources is probably quite a bit worse in its ignorance.
But hey, assumptions never hurt anyone, right?
And for christ’s sake, actually heal before you type again. o_O Internet arguments aren’t worth opening up actual wounds, you know.
RP @ 103:
I also have a problem with perpetual motion machines, and if you read my posts without having some hate-fest going on, you’d understand that 100% of my objections to “non-binaries” are of the exact — EXACTLY THE SAME — kind.
I doubt that very many Furries actually think they are the animals they dress up as. If it makes them feel good about themselves, I’m all for it. But telling someone who is “Cat Identified” that wearing a cat outfit makes them a cat is just not sane. My ability to have lengthy discussions with cats does not make me actually be a cat. That’s why I used to explain to people that I =herd= furry cats and I not a furry cat that herds things.
This discussion reminds me of the lyrics from a song I can barely barely — it’s like you’re a Post-Modern gangster: you’re making me an offer I can’t understand. What EXACTLY is this “Non-Binary Gender” and how does it ACTUALLY do a damned thing to binary gender? We’ve had Goths and Emos and all kinds of other strange ways people dress or alter their bodies and rebel against gender. What makes “Non-Binaries” think they are going to accomplish something? And that is absolutely NOT a rhetorical question, despite looking like one.
Likewise, the notion that shuffling around clothes, body parts, mannerisms, vocal pitch, facial hair (or not), breasts (or not), gonads (or not), genitals (or not), prescription drugs (or not) and then slapping “Non-Binary” on it as a label makes about as much sense as putting fake animal suits on and pretending one is an animal. But if it makes you feel good, great. Just don’t insist I fund public litter boxes for Cat-Identified people.
Sex is not determined with an either-or checklist. It’s more like a vote and the answer is going to be one or the other or “We’re going to figure this one out sooner or later, and we won’t stop until we do.” Ask all those “Non-binaries” how good they are at forestalling the conclusion.
But if it makes you feel good, and it makes people have better lives — ENJOY! Just don’t expect me to support it, just as I also don’t support people who try to invent perpetual motion machines.
And all that means is that I’ll still be here, explaining to the people whose lives your idiocy has trashed, that Patriachy isn’t going to just let them out of binary gender because you (personally) think it might be fun and you have a Post-Modern theory about gender that makes about as much sense as tits on a bull.
It had healed! But it’s 2″ long and EXACTLY on my wrist. Fortunately the pinkie side, not the thumb side or it could have been a bloody and squirty mess.
And, no — it’s not the Radical Feminist in me that cringes at these idiotic arguments, it’s the pragmatist, the practicalist, the realist. Its 14 years being around the “Transgender Community” and learning that “Collusion with Delusion” is like a religion with you people. Getting a female body to be perceived as male, or a male body to be perceived as female, on a reliable basis can be pretty daunting. And what you want is for people to go out into the world trying for neither? The boundary between “male” and “female” is thinner than razor thin.
And if you think the gender trash bin is below “Women” on the Patriarchal scale — I’m very sorry, but you’re very wrong. But that was one of the points I made previously that you insisted was “Transphobic”. You just keep forgetting that I’ve just been in these different “places” in my life. It’s like if I don’t keep telling trannies that I are one (Shrang, Class of ’97) you think you can just keep yelling “Transphobe!” and I’ll go away. And especially for someone like yourself, who’s all of about 26 years old. You think you woke up yesterday morning and invented all these things. Men really did use to wear dresses and wigs and makeup. Society adapted. It no longer freaks out when women wear pants. It will swallow whole everything you are trying to do with “Non-binaries”. It’ll be just another fad, with a trailed of mangled bodies littering the pathway of “Stupid Ideas We Just Had To Try.”
Perhaps this blast from the past is in order. It was written almost 10 years ago by a woman I used to chat with a bit before the Great Transgender Meltdown provoked by a certain person who also melted down the old NOW boards and most every other feminist board she ever touched.
Queuing For Beginners
By Sarah Kohen
Recently I wrote an allegorical piece “Queuing For Beginners” for the Trans list where I started out a feminist invader and have ended up a co-owner. I’ve slightly amended it for here but it rather describes this particular feminist’s view of the feminist/trans “interface”.
Let me start off by saying that I am a “woman”.
After making that statement, I’m going to deconstruct it.
In discussion here, I have already made the distinction between the non-analytical “I” who decides what to have for breakfast and the analytical “I” who ruminates on issues at another level. It is in the non-reflective sense that I make the statement “I am a woman.”
Sometimes I think life is like an endless first day at school, it’s just that we get better at dealing with the unknown and unpredictable. On the first day at school, Miss Murblestein says “Shimon, you go over there with the boys/Rachel, you go over there with the girls.” and you learn that life is like that, you ‘belong’ with a particular group. For some people, of course, this is the first day of hell, for others it becomes the basis of patterns and assumptions that you internalize and carry with you throughout life.
Unless, of course, shortly you have to move schools because somebody made a mistake on your registration form and, on the first day in that school, Miss Blurblestein, says “Sarah, you’re the new girl, go over there and one of the other girls will show you the ropes.” In that case, you’ve got a lot of learning to catch up on, lots of patterns and assumptions to internalize!
Now, I’ve internalized all these messages over the course of my lifetime and, let’s face it, at an instinctive level, I’ve been terribly conformist – I know where I ‘belong’ and what ‘belonging’ entails. I ‘do’ womanstuff, I ‘live’ womanstuff, I ‘do’ all the codes that go with it and I have considerable loyalty to my ‘Section’, this is where I belong and this where I’ll defend. In life’s eternal first day of school, I go “over there with the girls” whenever the binary situation demands. It is the afternoon of the first day, Miss Murblestein doesn’t have to give directions anymore; we know where we are.
It’s at that level then that I have an internalized ‘belief’ that I am a “woman”. Pushing the question beyond that, however, is where the problems start to arise.
Supposing that school has us lined up separately for going into lunch, after all, boys are loud, aggressive and pushing while we’re just gossipy and catty.
Then a boy emerges from the other queue and asks if he can join ours. Nice, inoffensive, boy, he says “I don’t think I belong in that queue, I think I belong with you, I’ll learn to behave, honest.” So we say “‘S OK, just don’t be intrusive or try to take over the conversation, stuff like that.” He does and, eventually, it seems that the ‘boy’ is just ‘one of the girls’ – one or two of the tomboys have gone over to the boys queue as well, so we’re starting to get used to the idea.
Then, one day, a guy comes over and says, “I’m a girlie and you better get used to the fact, sisters.” And we say . . . ? Then, one day, another guy comes over and says “You must believe I’m a girlie otherwise you’re mean and cruel and you’ve all got to sit and listen to why I’m just as much a girlie as any of you are, every lunchtime for eternity.” And we say . . . ?
Well, actually, what some of us ‘stuck-up’ ‘over-intellectualizing’ girlies say is “No you damn well are not because, in the sense that you mean it, there’s no such thing as a ‘girl'” What you are trying to get us to believe is that what we ‘do’ is a state of ‘be-ing’ and then accept your demand that your state of ‘be-ing’ is the same as ours, that’s just plain stupid! Notably, at this stage, after so long sharing the dinner queues, some of the nice, (by this time, ex-) boys, now quite indistinguishable from us in every way we can tell, seem to have quite a handle on the whole problem.
Do the last two guys go away and think about it? No they don’t, they keep coming over and insisting and insisting and insisting. Insisting on us accepting, firstly that there’s something ‘essential’ to being a “girl” and that their ‘essence’ is that of ‘girl’. When we suggest that, ‘if all you want is to join us in the girl queue, there were these boys (now ‘disappeared’ into the rest of us) who have done so but they did so by, well . . . we don’t know, but they just sort of merged in, so why don’t they you the same thing?’ We get told that we’re terrible harridans and have no idea of what being a girlie is anyway because being a girlie is ‘their’ experience and they know much more about modern girlie-thinking and, not only that, their girlfriends totally accept them as girlies.
Now quite a crowd of guys has arrived to support them, some of them say “I feel like a girlie from time to time, so you better accept us too.” Some of them say, “There’s no such thing as a girlie or a guy, a penis is just a large clitoris; this queue doesn’t even belong to you, girlspace is ourspace.”
Others start telling us we’re quite illogical because guys have done so much for us girlies that it’s pure prejudice on our part. Girlies are now fully equal, apparently. We find that a bit odd because, further down the line some of the guys have been beating up some of the girlies off and on for ages and, not only that, the guys get more lunch for their money than we do. Still, according to these more intellectual guys, saying that we don’t think we’re equal (if we’re actually allowed to get a sentence out without interruption) is just prejudice because we have no evidence to show that it’s the fault of guys, it’s not their individual faults, anyway so we must be wrong about guys in general.
‘Hang on a minute though,’ say some of us, ‘this is all getting away from the main point. There is no such thing as a “girlie” because it’s just a queue that Miss Murblestein told us to go into. You’ve got a queue, now you just want to take over ours as well.’
‘What do you mean there’s no such thing as a girlie?’ demand the guys.
At this point Sarah gets cross and says, “Because it’s just a social construct, I am a girlie because Miss Murblestein put me in this queue. Over time, us older girlies have inherited it from our predecessors. We’ve developed being a girlie a bit but it’s mainly what we inherited and were acculturated in. So, when we say we’re girlies, we mean we belong to ‘queue, girlie’, that’s all. We were not born with genes that made us wear dresses, lipstick and Big Hair, it’s just what we ‘do’. You wanna join ‘queue, girlie’, you better get it into your heads that ‘girlie’ is not something you believe yourself to be, it’s the name of the queue you want to join for some reason and you better learn the rules and stop lecturing/hectoring us. Shove off.’
@Julie:
So…? Disliking nonbinaries for the very state of being trans (really, this seems applicable to all trans people when you pulled out the gem of “transspeak”) is in and of itself transphobic.
Actually, being that gender is entirely socially constructed and based on cues, all one has to do is interefere with those cues and scramble the classification.
Species classification is based on some pretty set material structures. Gender, not so much. The first set of cues people look at are the externals: Clothing, movements, voice, presentation. The second set of cues that are looked at when people can’t figure it out based on the first set is the physicality. But physicality is not always accessible. People don’t walk around naked. So if you break the first set of cues and refuse to present the second set (through androgynous body modding or simply through concealing certain traits) people have a choice. They can either guess (which a lot hate doing because then, how do you know if you’re oppressing or elevating the right person? Oh noes!) or they assume that this person is just a freak and act accordingly.
That freak status is essentially a third gender, socially. Of course, in the liberal realm, there’s more and more acceptance for third/fourth/fifth genders.
Guess what the liberal realm is? It’s a social group. That means that a social group is accepting a given gender as real. Which means it is real. Because gender is social.
So already, because of the Left, nonbinaries exist in the classification system, not just as a dysphoric group.
Those are all cues. If you don’t fit the set number of cues (and trust me, it’s a set number) for either sex status, you are separated from both sexes.
God, you’re sounding more and more like an essentialist every time you talk.
“Gender is just a malleable social construct! Wait, nonbinaries don’t exist because there’s only man and woman! It’s like pretending to be animals, even though species isn’t a malleable social construct!”
Whaaaaat?
Your lack of support is, in and of itself, transphobic. XD You really are doing the tomaato/tomaeto thing here.
“I’m not transphobic, I just don’t support trans peoples’ stupid sex changing crap.”
Um… whaaaaaat?
And who’s lives have I trashed? These people try to move out of the binary because the binary hurts them.
Sure, it would have been totally awesome if they had went, “the binary hurts and I’ve got a good background in feminism, so I know the binary and gender itself is already bullshit. So fuck gender completely.”
But not everyone thinks outside the gender paradigm (and btw, lots of cis folk think in it too and use that so called “transspeak”. Which is why labeling it as transspeak is cissexist.)
And some folk have simple bodily dysphoria and so, their problems don’t really relate to social gender concerns. But hey, keep on oversimplifying and playing the tomaato/tomaeto game. It isn’t like it hurts you. Just them.
Oh and some clarification. I keep on asking you why your agenda is more important than their lives. When I say your agenda, I am discussing your view of feminism. Not your personal agenda (buy milk, avoid chainsaw injuries, figure out where those damn socks keep going to when they disappear from the dryer). Amp got it so I’m sort of amazed you didn’t, but hey, I do sometimes communicate poorly so I’ll just regard it as a misunderstanding. I was (rather explicitly on several comments actually) pointing out that any movement, any agenda that regards people doing what they want with their own bodies as broken, problematic or unsupportable is a flawed movement. Especially if that movement preaches bodily domain as being awfully grand, no matter what (abortion rights).
So if you are correct about rad fem, then that movement is hopelessly, unsalvagably broken. I don’t think you are, of course, but if you are, then rad fem is nonviable because it includes oppressive rhetoric.
@Julie:
Sarah Kohen’s piece is certainly an interesting and wonderful analogy (and addresses essentialism in general, which I like). Unfortunately, it, in the end, possesses a flaw.
“You wanna join ‘queue, girlie’, you better get it into your heads that ‘girlie’ is not something you believe yourself to be, it’s the name of the queue you want to join for some reason and you better learn the rules and stop lecturing/hectoring us.”
1: Believing that you are something is a reason to want to join the queue. Which really, in the end, is the primary inconsistency that seems to crop up in both rad fems and in the Neo HBS Separatists. None of them actually know why they let in who they let in. The rules are entirely arbitrary and often shift. “You want to join this queue for some unknown reasons, welcome!”, “you want to join this queue because you feel like you belong here? Fuck you!”, “you can’t fit in because you aren’t pretty enough.”, “You haven’t been doing this long enough.”
2: Basing your own movements on the rules and expecting others to follow them exactly. It’s a problem, largely because it acts to cement the roles and the gender classification itself. If everyone is fighting to keep these binary states intact, solid, rigid and the borders kept (including the so called gender deconstructionalist rad fems) then they are only succeeding in keeping gender intact.
How does she think those queues get dissolved? Does she think one day we’ll all wave a magic wand and suddenly everyone will be able to leave the cues, leave the school and go out and play in the sandbox?
If people keep shifting between queues, blurring the lines, or even standing in different queues, no matter how much people yell and tell them that they are dumb, this will dilute and distort gender. Social constructs have, always, depended upon the individuals of society to uphold their rules. Sarah continues to stand in her queue and uphold its rules, only allowing in the quiet, the similar. You continue to stand in your queue and uphold its rules, yelling at the ones standing in the third and fourth wavy queue that they’re fucking it all up and being stupid. Forgetting that you’re standing in a queue too. Even I’m standing in a queue.
Yet, I’m the only one that sees the potential here among the three of us (actually I don’t know about Sarah, this was written a while ago, she may have had a change of heart or something, whatevs). I see people standing in all sorts of queues. Violating social convention. Refusing to fit the norms. They are expanding out, diluting the construct, making it more difficult to create the us and them mentality, because the us and them depends on a binary. They also act as a point of interest. People see these folk, “leaving gender”. They aren’t actually leaving gender, they’re just expanding it, but cis and trans folk who think the gender paradigm often think in the binary paradigm too and tend to equate them. This is the somewhat ignorant majority you deal with. Nonbinaries act as a baby step. Something that seems like it breaks or moves outside gender.
Others follow suit in different ways. Girlies start stepping out of queue more. Guys start making the line into a zig zag. People shift around as the queues become more and more distorted (including the third and fourth and fifth new queues that upset you and presumably Sarah so much). Eventually the queues get overlaps, unconscious non purposeful overlaps. People suddenly realize that, “hey I’m kinda in the girlie cue now, weird… I don’t see myself as a girl.” And that prompts realizations. People start realizing that, not only are the queues arbitrary and built on silliness, but they barely exist at all anymore.
That is how you abolish gender. Not by standing in line and shouting, “HEY, WE SHOULD ALL GET OUT OF THIS LINE.” Because I can guarantee you, no one is going to step out of it when you stand in the line and shout about getting out of it.
The majority is not on your side, cis included. They need to be slowly, carefully, sneakily led into it. If you’re obvious, they’ll only shut you down.
How To Abolish Gender 101
Quiz on friday. Don’t be late.
RP,
I think what has become obvious is that you don’t understand the meaning of “Social Construct”.
THERE IS NO SPOON.
I’d studied a lot of philosophy and feminism before I saw the first “Matrix” moving, but “Gender” is so much like “The Matrix”. There just isn’t a “Spoon”. And the “Queues” Sarah is discussing really have squat to do with the “Gender” that is the fixation of “Transgender”.
I belong to an antique car group. Our group covers very specific models of very specific antique cars. When someone with a NEWER car wants to join, we try to remind them that our groups is for OUR models of cars.
Now, owning an antique is fairly weird, especially when it’s a very popular (among certain people) car to buy NEW. And those people like to tell us how much better their NEW car is. Like, I don’t have Anti-Lock Brakes in my car. Or 6 way power heated seats. Or OnStar. Or a LOT of newer features. But you know what? It’s my car, and our group is about that kind of car.
Deconstructing gender (and race) isn’t about abolishing the “queues”. Deconstructing gender is about exposing that the “queues” are just people being people. I don’t to join the “Loud And Noisy” queue, I’m perfectly happy in the queue I’ve been in for quite a while now. If there’s some person who wants to join that “Queue”, as with the car club I’m in, I expect them to follow the rules and not create a problem for everyone else.
After all, there is no such thing as a “Girlie”. There’s also no such thing as a “Boy”, or any other gender someone might want to invent. They are just names for collections of people who have common interests, common behaviors, common whatever it is the group wants to have. And as with the antique car club I belong to, it really isn’t up to you to tell a group that you know better.
As for whether or not I have to support the creation of some “Non-Binary Gender”, no, I really don’t. And I’d suggest that it’s your male socialization and sense of entitlement to women’s energies that driving your behavior. You aren’t entitled to my energy, and I’m just not going to give it to you. Doesn’t make me “Transphobic”, it just means you have a huge sense of entitlement and are a compulsive boundary violator.
(I’d also suggest that you watch how you insult and attack other feminist schools of thought. Radical Feminism is just fine by me. I personally think that of all the schools of thought it has the most going for it. And while I think that there are some people who claim to be Radical Feminists and are major asshats, that’s not the fault of Radical Feminism. So, kindly keep your insults and attacks against it to yourself.)
JHC,
When you said this:
Am I reading you correctly if I think you are stating a theory of gender in which all people are empowered in some sort of rough correlation to the “maleness” they possess? I.e. that:
-females are at the bottom,
-transpeople with mostly female characteristics next,
-transpeople with mostly male characteristics next,
-males at the top
?
RP —
Yup. That seems, experientially (for very large sample sizes and very long historical observation periods) to be correct.
Apropos this discussion, you think that a woman-indentified-woman (moi) is somehow obligated to people who will possess more male privilege than me, and simultaneously that precious few of the Alpha Male variety are going to deconstruct gender in a way that results in them losing power.
When responding, please keep in mind that I have actually lived within the system I’m describing, so “You’re Wrong” is not the correct answer. It’s the answer I sense you want to give, but it’s not the correct answer.
Here’s a quote from “Sex, Lies and Feminism” by Charlotte Croson (who is brilliant, tho has a huge chip on her shoulder mostly due to the same person who melted down the NOW boards) —
(I’ll see if I can go back and add emphasis, but the piece itself is brilliant as written, and extremely accurate based on my own experience.)
To tell you the truth, Julie, that quote reads pretty much like the usual gender essentialist, trans-hating, bigoted crap that I’ve objected to in the past. You know what I call bigotry dressed up in radical feminist theory and neutral-sounding academic language? “Bigotry.”
I wouldn’t call you a transbigot, because you’ve obviously got a story that’s much more complex than that. But what you advocate for (as in the Croson quote you quoted and praised) is bigotry.
Thanks very much for all your participation here in the past. However, I’d prefer that you not be a part of the “Alas” community any longer. Please don’t post any further comments on this blog.
* * *
Questioning Transphobia wrote a couple of posts responding to Croson’s essay, which I’m going to quote a bit of.
Responding specifically to the argument about Brandon, Lisa writes:
I highly recommend reading Lisa’s entire response: part one, and part two.
On another thread, Daran wrote:
I object to the implication that being female means being protected from violence; a more accurate view is that violence is gendered. Some types of violence (including murder) happen more commonly to men, other types of violence (including rape) happen more commonly to women. (There are exceptions, such as in a men’s prison.)
In an IM to me, Mandolin commented:
I’d add (and Mandolin agreed with this, in IM) that discussing it as if it were an “either/or” is a mistake.
Ampersand:
If your objection is that women are not absolutely protected from violence, then I agree. My statement is not intended (and cannot be reasonably construed) to claim otherwise. Nevertheless gender norms such as “Don’t hit women” do have a protective effect. Absent such norms, there would be more violence against women.
I agree that violence is gendered in the way you describe. I disagree that this is a “more accurate view”. Both views are valid. Nevertheless, there seems to be considerably more violence directed at men than at women. In the US, men are somewhat more likely to be subject to violence perceived by the victims to be criminal*, and overwhelmingly more likely to be subject to societally-accepted violence such as that perpetrated by the State or by state actors. The disparity is even more stark in war-torn countries.
*It’s worth pointing out that, contrary to the “combatancy” framing of (male on male) violence as “men attacking each other“, violence is overwhelmingly one-sided, and perpetrated from a position of relative strength of the attacker over the victim. One would expect therefore, that absent gender-normative effects, the on-average physically weaker and less aggressive sex would be victimised more.
That leaves one other category – violence, including sexual violence, which is neither socially sanctioned, nor perceived as criminal by the victim. This includes much domestic/intimate violence. I do not intend here to get into the debate about whether this kind of violence is largely perpetrated against women**, as feminists argue, or about equally, as claimed by MRAs, other than to note the dispute. I would argue however that male DV/IV against women (specifically. Different dynamics apply to DV/IV which is not man on woman) is by and large not societally-accepted these days, though there is a traditionalist sector of society which does accept it in some circumstances.
**I’m not here considering the violence against children.
Man on Woman DV/IV happens and is often not prevented or stopped, not because society accepts it, but because the circumstances (in a private home without independent witnesses) often coupled with the victim’s behaviour*** make it difficult for society to intervene. This contrasts with the forms of violence which indisputable victimise men more, which very often are accepted by society, or are less offensive to society that comparable victimisation of women.
***such as concealing the abuse, not reporting or not pressing charges, etc. I am not blaming the victim; no judgment of the victim is implied or should be inferred from this observation, which in any case is self-referential: I was subject to domestic abuse which I concealed.
In summary: gender norms do have a protective effect on (cis) women. That protection is least evident where the circumstances make a societal effort to protect women difficult, not because of any societal will to protect women.
Mandolin:
I doubt that they would conceptualise so explicitly.
This evades the question, rather that providing an alternative answer. Why are trans women viewed as acceptible targets? The comparison with prostitutes-as-acceptible-targets is an instructive one. Prostitutes are also “failed women”, in so far as they fail to adhere to gender-normative values of feminine sexual virtue.
I do not understand your objection. I’ve said nothing about chromosomes. Far from ignoring “inconvenient facts of trans gender presentation”, my point is based upon those facts. No trans is subject to transphobic violence if they successfully pass as their chosen sex. They are victimised when they do not pass.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here.
Neither of you have offered any other explanation other than the question-evading “acceptable target” theory. I agree that any as-yet-hypothetical alternative explanation may be in a both-and relationship with the “failed men” hypothesis, but this in no way undermines my point, which is that Aqueertheory’s argument contradicts Croson’s, and that Croson’s seem based more upon feminist dogma than empirical reality.
Just to clarify, I’m not Sailorman. Julie responded to him as though I was. o_O
Actually there is. It’s a question of what that spoon is. A social construct is real. You can quantify it, it follows rules, it functions within a system or several systems and it impacts lives.
Something that is not real is quite literally nonexistent. It affects nothing but the psychology of those who believe in it and only indirectly. Like someone who believes monsters are under their bed. All it does is make them scared. It doesn’t actually bite their toes.
You need to take some time to comprehend the metaphysics of reality.
You apparently studied the ones that didn’t understand the word, “real”.
And this is not the fixation of TG, this is the fixation of everyone in the gender paradigm. Not all TG folk are in that paradigm. Tons of cis folk are. Attributing this all to TG is what makes you transphobic.
You’re also not trying to eliminate the concept of new vs. antique. Poor analogy. XD
And here is where your logic breaks down. Expecting rules of the queues to be followed is still acting in accordance with the gender paradigm.
You are literally ignoring the concept that one doesn’t have to follow rules or involve themselves with queues at all. You are not truly a gender deconstructionist, because you still attempt to enforce these rules blindly, with no good reason to do so.
A gender deconstructionist not only deconstructs the queues, but deconstructs the rules within the queues. And that deconstruction should (if you aren’t apathetic and useless) lead to changing things.
If you figure out how and why it works a certain way (a bad way) and then Do Absolutely Nothing To Change That, then you are not a feminist. You are a poor deconstructionist. And furthermore, criticizing anyone, and I mean anyone, for doing anything within the gender paradigm when you are enforcing its rules without reason, is the height of hypocritical pseudofeminist garbage.
At first I thought you were simply misled. You thought abolishing gender required a head on approach. But you are literally an academic deconstructionist. Dispassionately seeing how gender works and then doing nothing to fix the problem.
So not only are you transphobic, you are a terrible feminist. Truly terrible.
Gender isn’t a hobby. They aren’t common interests. Very little of it comes down to your interests. It all comes down to cues. Some you can control and some you can’t.
Gender is an externally applied classification system and a poorly applied name for internalized self conceptualization that is related to that classification system fucking up.
It has nothing to do with your interests. What I want to know is why you’ve suddenly and abruptly changed your tune like this. This completely contradicts your previous statements of external application (when you actually agreed about gender class with me)
It’s like you aren’t quite sure what you’re talking about at all and are just trying to save face. Or you’re a troll. I can’t tell.
*snort*
Women’s energies? Now you’ve gone essentialist on me. Goooood job. You clearly have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Or alternately, are not truly a feminist at all, but grasping at a way that you can keep a comfortable binary intact.
I’m not sure exactly where I attacked and insulted Rad Fem based on a few fanatics. I’ll just assume you’re creating this out of nowhere.
I did raise some criticism of rad fems inconsistancies, inability to reconcile certain theories, inability to apply the word real correctly, tendency to attempt to keep gender intact while claiming to fight it and overall inefficiences in actually abolishing gender as a weaponized classification (or at the very least, deweaponizing it)
I also recall constantly stating that rad fem rhetoric has to be twisted (as you’re doing) to become transphobic.
But hey, strawman fallacies are a good time, right?
Ampersand:
I would say rather than normative women are normatively protected from violence. “Women are protected” fails for women who don’t adhere to feminine norms (such as prostitutes, and trans women). There can also be cases where normative protection doesn’t translate into actual protection.
The phrase “violence against women” is ambiguous. As a conceptual category, I consider it bogus, in much the same way as “diseases of the left half of the body” is a a bogus medical category. I consider legitimate, categories such as “domestic violence”, “sexual violence”, “street violence”, etc., which victimese both sexes, but which victimise one or the other more severely and/or in greater numbers.
In fact it is the feminist conceptual meta-categorisation of domestic and sexual violence as “violence against women” which makes the male victims of these types of violence invisible and dismisses them as not important. Similarly feminist claims that men are empowered and privileged by gender erase, dismiss, and deny the experiences of men who are disempowered and disprivileged by it.
An alternative construction of your use of the phrase “violence against women” is “incidents of violence in which the victims are female” in aggregate but not viewed as a category. I disagree that my analysis above “dismisses” them. Nor do I think my work, taken as a whole, erases or dismisses female victims. (And if it did, I am an individual with negligible influence who is representative of no group much larger than myself.)
In summary: Tu* quoque. I don’t quoque**, and even if I did, my quoquery would, unlike feminists’, be of no significance.
*Should be plural. You as an individual quoque less than most feminists.
**Yes I know quoque doesn’t mean this.
I disagree with your characterisation of my “hobby horse”, or what I was doing there. My comment was intended to rebut the claim that ‘men can always become “not men”’. This is clearly not a claim about cis men, who no interest in doing that. It is a claim solely about trans women (viewed as men by the author).
The main focus of my argument was the situation of trans women. A minor focus was that of one particular trans man. the only statement I made that could possibly fall under the rubrik of ““(cis) men” have it [worse] than “(cis) women” is this:
This empirically-founded statement operated as a premise to the trans-centric arguments. It had no other function.
I will, of course, comply with any restrictions you place me under, (or leave if I find them intolerable). However, I see no indication that my comments will not be”very welcoming to trans readers”. To the contrary, if Eva’s comment was a reference to our exchanges, then it appears that they are welcome to at least one. Rather it is comments which depart from feminist-accepted gender norms which are unwelcome by feminists. Claims that (cis) men in some ways have it worse than (cis) women, however well-founded and relevent to the discussion, fall into that unwelcome category. In contrast, unsupported (and often unsupportable) claims that women have it worse than men, in particular, in general, or in every way, are ubiquitious in feminist discourse, and I have yet to see any objection by feminists to them being made***. It is rare to see them even disputed factually by feminists.
***You objected to the Croson passage generally on the grounds of trans bigotry. You did not object to the specific claim at hand.
And Amp dealt with everything else just fine, citing Lisa, who’s a very good writer on the topic.
So I guess this concludes things.
Daran:
One of the things you need to remember about feminist discourse is that it operates in generalized social groups, not for individuals.
Trends are:
Women as a group possess more cases of certain kinds of violence, statistically (including trans women, who are subjected to more violence commonly than trans men) then Men do.
This is not to belittle men’s experiences. In fact, rape and DV against men is an extraordinary problem because of the lack of reporting, the lack of believing it’s even possible and other issues.
And that doesn’t change the fact that statistically the constructed group of “woman” is subjected to more violence than the constructed group of “men”.
I think the problem here is that feminism needs more clarification and base education stuff out there. There needs to be more feminism 101 everywhere, so that people don’t think that these are assessments made for individuals. After all intersectionality of the kyriarchy would make it impossible to determine which individuals have it worse based on looking at just one set of groups.
Certainly, at the very least, more resources should be made available to men who are victims of violence. But a big part of the problem is men. Men who refuse to believe its possible for men to be raped. Men who attack, belittle and mistreat other men who are subjected to violence and whatnot. Men who refuse to get help out of some toughness ideal.
Pinning it all on feminism is extraordinarily unfair and unrealistic. Feminism has its hands full with women. And now you expect feminism to force guys to seek out help? Why not have a masculinism to help out men in dealing with the kyriarchy?
Let me know if I’ve misunderstood the convo as I’m coming in way late and out of left field.
Erm also, trans women are not classifiable as men.
Quite literally, misogyny and sexism are the operative causes of the violence against us that isn’t specifically trans motivated. The violent acts are characteristically structured the way that violent acts against cis women are structured.
So grouping us with men distorts the statistics because the reasons and sources of the violence differ.
They are eminently classifiable as men, as women, or in any of a range of non-binary classifications. There are a large number of different criteria which could be used, singly or in combination, to produce just about any result imaginable.
Absent any compelling objective reason to prefer one classification system over another in general, other considerations apply: It’s important to trans people that they be classified according to their preference, while it is no personal skin off my nose either way. Also my advocacy position is one of gender anti-enforcement. Hence, for both humanitarian and political reasons (which aren’t really distinct) I classify trans women as women. (The term “trans woman” of course, begs that very question.) But that isn’t because its the only classification tenable.
So you say, with no supporting analysis beyond the following conclusionary statement:
In important respects this does not appear to be the case. My earlier claim that trans women are more often violently victimised than trans men does not appear to be disputed. Cis men are more often victimised than cis women. So the experience of trans women parallels that of cis men in that they are more likely to be victimised than the opposite gender. That discrepancy for both cis men and trans women becomes more marked when one looks at murder.
Me:
Indeed your own post here proposes four different ways to classify the population by sex, in the four paragraphs beginning “We could”. You also acknowledge the possibility of “other solutions I didn’t think of”.
My earlier claim was in fact that “murdered trans women … it is my strong impression, are the majority of trans murder victims.
I failed to note that, not merely failing to dispute it, you make this very claim yourself:
I’m willing to stipulate to this for the purpose of discussion, but I’ve seen no evidence that it is true, my “strong impression” notwithstanding.
@Daran:
Might be good to separate the quotes from me and Amp so people aren’t confused.
I actually misspoke, I meant to say that we are not classifiable as men when taking into account hate crimes, because of the structure of the hate crimes themselves (when not specifically orientated around trans related stuff, which tends to be more a statement on “breaking gender” and violating the rules)
Obviously classification in other contexts are possible, so sorry for the confusion there.
Because these individuals are attaining femininity, which is considered largely to be illegitimate as a path. Whereas trans men are obtaining masculinity, which is regarded by general society as something we should all strive towards. This is shown in general attitudes towards trans women and trans men. The concept of a female moving towards maleness is handled lightly or ignored. The concept of a male moving towards femaleness is seen as a serious infraction and subject to strong resistance. In fact, most of the material out there that is used to deface trans folk (like Bailey and Blanchard’s Autogynephilia theory) completely avoids trans men and only attacks trans women.
I’ve definitely attested that trans women are subjected to more violence than trans men (although I would need to search out statistics as I do not possess the loads of bookmarks on this computer that I normally use for these debates) but I feel that the context of the attacks suggests that much of the hate crimes involved stem from that response to treating femininity as something one would want to attain, instead of a indication of a general trend of greater hate crime violence against men then women.
On your source: There is a higher rate for general violent crime (property and theft motivated, fight motivated, etc) for men. However, sexual dominance related violence was shown in that source to be more common for women.
The theory goes: There’s the general level of violence within our society, perpetrated by greed, self interest and a lack of empathy. Women face violence motivated entirely by us being women, sexually structured violence, on top of the normal simple assault numbers (that are not significantly different between men and women).
To quote
Note that there’s really no explanation about the violent crime zone. Are these violent crimes based around greed and disputes, arguments or ideology? Or are they engaged in simply because the person is a man? Higher levels of robbery make a certain level of sense in a cold standpoint, men tend to have more of the resources then women do. It simply makes sense to rob a guy. But robbery is also a greed motivated crime, not a hate crime.
Simple assault is even statistically, which holds to feminist theory, and rape and sexual assault are higher for women, which holds to feminist theory.
And this source doesn’t include murder, which makes it a bit difficult to draw a full set of conclusions. Do you have a source that deals with the murder numbers? (I can search for one too, if necessary, it just might take a while.)
I really don’t think your source negates anything I or Amp have said in terms of the gender motivated crimes against women and just the presence of crimes against trans women being higher is explainable within a feminist lens.
Maybe it would help to present your theory on it. Why do you believe men have higher rates of crime? Do you think that there is gender related hate crime elements in this higher rate of crime, despite the greed orientated nature of the crimes perpetrated against men?
I do know from my previous experiences (pre transition) that there is a definable violent pack dynamic among many groups of guys, in which violent “male bonding” stuff is largely very common to establish a pecking order of the menz. Do you think perhaps that it arises from that?
RP
RP, are you saying that society as currently established in the west is an antisexist phenomenon, in that it values a single gender-norm (i.e. masculinity) to which it would have both biological sexes conform? That it punishes femininity in both sexes with the implication that biological sex is no excuse for behaving in accordance with feminine gender norms? Because my impression has been that society as presently established in the west by and large tends to punish males and females whose gender does not accord with their biological sex, and tends to reward men and women whose gender does accord with their biological sex. Which is to say that I believe that society is sexist.
Hm, I have known many androgenous/masculine women, particularly lesbians, who have been verbally abused, assaulted, or harassed/discriminated against in some other way (harangued about bathroom use, denied employment or advancement, etc.) due to their “inappropriately masculine” gender presentation.
@123,
I suppose it depends on what “moving towards maleness” means, which in turn is based on how polarized a view of gender one is taking. If you go for a highly polarized view, I’m super gender non-compliant: I’m wearing pants, no makeup, working in a job where I have an assistant rather than being the assistant, a job that entails being intellectually critical and aggressive, getting the same paycheck that my husband does and contributing an equal amount to household expenses, doing an equal amount of unpaid domestic labor … but that’s all within the socially-accepted bounds of female gender nowadays. I don’t know if I’ve ever lost a job opportunity because I don’t present as a particularly girly girl, but I certainly have never had my entrance to a bathroom marked “women’s” challenged.
In contrast, a man in a dress, wearing makeup, being the primary domestic laborer is going to meet a lot more resistance, even though he’s technically no further from the gender poles than I am.
PG: I strongly disagree that the hypothetical man you mention is no further from the gender poles than you are. I almost see what you mean in terms of a super polarized framework, but as you said, all the things you mentioned that you do are well within the bounds of acceptablilty for women today — i.e. that super polarized framework bears no relationship to reality.
When looking at where the poles actually are, you two are in totally different locations. (For example, when you say you’re wearing pants… Are they women’s pants?) It’s possible for women to be as far away from the ideal as your hypothetical man. They may take less abuse for it than a man is likely to, but significantly more than a woman who’s 100% normatively gendered by contemporary standards but, what — butch by early 1900s standards (which no one in her country of residence applies)?
All of which is to say, your examples are really asymmetrical. Of course a gender-nonconforming man is much less accepted than a gender-conforming woman.
Unless your point was just that the standards for women are broader…?
Pretty much what Daisy said. The options for women are broader now than they were 50 or 100 years ago, and have loosened up far more than they have for men. But it’s still possible for women to push the (new, broader) boundaries in a way that provokes backlash.
If you haven’t had your entry to a bathroom challenged due to your gender presentation, PG, I’m glad for your sake. But, you know, it happens (scroll down for an example of sex stereotyping leading to employment discrimination). One friend of mine won’t use the locker room at her gym any more, a locker room she pays for the use of along with her membership, because she’s tired of being challenged by staff when she heads off to change.
And sometimes it gets violent. I have a friend who still has gravel embedded in her scalp from having her head ground into the pavement by some guys who followed her for two blocks calling “c’mere butchy butchy!” until she turned around and told them to fuck off, at which point… yeah. I don’t think she considers the response to her “moving toward maleness” to be one which was handled “lightly, or ignored.”
Eluesis
I would have thought, if Recursiveparadoxe’s analysis is correct – it states, we remember, that the Kyriarchy is fiercely opposed to femininity in either sex, and that it is therefore only natural that transwomen are subjected to more violence, disapproval and oppression than transmen – that talking about a “loosening” of women’s bonds and the “broadening of their options” was quite the wrong way to frame the matter. Surely, if RP is right, the Kyriarchy is driving more and more biological females out of the femininity it despises and into the masculinity it values?
Not much here, just blogging on whether my city’s human resources board is being censored by City Hall and about what it might mean that a local officer charged with sexual assault had recordings disappear from his digital recorder.
What’s funny is that I was taking photos of the HR board meeting at City Hall which is totally public and some department heads tried to say I needed a signed release from everyone. No one’s ever been challenged for trying to take photos. I was finally able to, which is so utterly ridiculous.
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