eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (Default)
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posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 05:25am on 2010-01-21

"There are still women who believe this, and these women often call themselves 'radical feminists.' Because queer-bashing and misogyny are just so fucking threatening to the Patriarchy, apparently." -- Sady, "Acts of Contrition: Feminism, Privilege, and the Legacy of Mary Daly", 2010-01-07

There are 4 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
metahacker: A picture of white-socked feet, as of a person with their legs crossed. (feet)
posted by [personal profile] metahacker at 12:59pm on 2010-01-21
Wow, I have a friend who badly needs to read that essay. Except it'll go right over hir head, insulated by years of programming by Gods and fathers. Thanks for the link.
 
posted by [identity profile] realinterrobang.livejournal.com at 04:58pm on 2010-01-21
It would be nice if trans-poz feminists didn't, oh, say, completely misrepresent radfems' point of view on transpeople, in order to bash a strawfeminist.

Do I think a transperson, who wasn't raised as a person of their eventual gender, is going to be as indoctrinated as someone who was? Hell no. Which pretty much puts me completely in line with radfem thinking, and may strike some people as being transphobic, but tellya a secret -- I'm disabled, and wasn't raised entirely "as a girl" either, and I'm definitely on the outside of a lot of female discourse even now. Don't like it? Tough bananas; there is no way to change that.

Do I think transpeople are somehow "not real" people or something? Hell no again.

My major complaint in terms of trans issues is that I do wish some transpeople would not embrace gender stereotypes with the ferocity I have observed in some instances, namely because I personally want gender to go away entirely, and because every person who comes in to femininity from the outside and performs it better than a WBW raises the bar for performative femininity on every other woman, but that's basically an entirely other kettle of ruthlessly-gendered fish...
eftychia: Female (Venus) symbol, with a transistor symbol inside the circle part (TransSister)
posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 05:35pm on 2010-01-21
"It would be nice if trans-poz feminists didn't, oh, say, completely misrepresent radfems' point of view on transpeople, in order to bash a strawfeminist."

Well, most of the stuff I've been reading objecting to the harm these women have done has been pretty clear about the problem being certain influential self-identifed radfems who do consider trans people "not real"; only a few of the essays I've read have painted all radfems as such (though a few have also pointed out more common if less acutely toxic undercurrents of transmisogyny in mainstream feminism, mostly attributed to the influence of said influential radfems).

"I do wish some transpeople would not embrace gender stereotypes with the ferocity I have observed in some instances"

Another complaint I've been seeing is about anti-trans feminists (again, specifically anti-trans ones, not all) accusing trans women of reinforcing the gender binary and rigid gender rôles while ignoring the great many trans women who do not embrace gender stereotypes, who actively work to break down such rigidity -- and the large number who are required by the medical establishment to adopt a hyperfeminine presentation at least temporarily in order to get approval for treatment, even when it is not how they want to present. Yeah, there are a few trans women who do embrace gender stereotypes, just as there are some cis women who go all-out in that direction; a larger number just want to be, and be perceived as, ordinary women without having to emphasize performative femininity in order to get there.

This evening I'll try to dig up some of the online arguments where this has played out. But the short version is that the notion that trans people as a whole somehow reinforce gender rigidity instead of helping to wear it down -- that on that particular point trans women aren't effecting the same social change that feminists (which many -- probably most -- trans women are) want -- is itself based on proclaiming a small minority of visible trans women as representative even when they're not being representative of themselves, but rather conforming to rigid gender-performance standards imposed by cis doctors in order to get an approval letter to go on to the next stage of treatment.
 
posted by (anonymous) at 05:09am on 2010-01-22

Janice Raymond has been perhaps the most vociferous of these feminist critics. Sigh.

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