When I talk about cis gay men being angry at trans women for existing, it's not the same thing as cis gay men being angry about being confused for transsexual women or transsexual women being angry about being confused for cis gay men.
No, it's not the same at all, but that element of having their identities discounted, rejected, and confused with yours by the mainstream is a struggle for them that IS still a part of their reaction.
And yeah, I once dated a lesbian who said I couldn't be bi because bi's don't exist--you're either one or the other--a discounting which really sucked at the time. But the place from which that monosexual template she was applying came from, as an oppressed minority member on the defensive, is still very different than one a straight person would apply. But I came from a lesbian identity to a bi one, and have seen attitudes in bi communities that I think a lesbian might need to be onguard for as well, so I had a certain investment in seeing that distinction--still thought she was a jerk overall though.
I do empathize and sympathize about bathroom policing, but the oppression olympics there is infuriating, because the anecdote is used to say that trans women have it easy and butch lesbians have it hard.
Yeah, it's a point at which they could have bonded with you over shared oppression where experiences intersected, and instead competed to one-up, and that stinks. *hugs if you do, or want, hugs* To tell you trans women have it easier is just stupid--why open your mouth to say something like that--except to be hateful. There's nothing to be gained in that game.
Could you clarify what you mean about not making a distinction between gender and sex?
I think the distinction is very important for trans people and intersex people both.
I do understand this, and do understand that my way of understanding the world on this is in direct opposition to the way some other people (trans, cis, and otherwise) see, and need to see the world--one of the ways in which identities impinge on each other again, because I think worldview does intersect with identity.
I no longer make a distinction between sex and gender, because the language we have to describe our concepts of the biological, as I understand them, are all socially impacted--there are no neutral terms, especially for a social concept as central as sexed bodies. So I will talk about chromosomes, body parts considered to be signifiers of the sexed body, and hormones and other chemicals, with the understanding that all the ideas we're bringing to the table on these are gendered. In other words, sex IS gender because language is social, and the language of biology is part of it. Yes, there is a "real" beyond language, but when humans set about to think about it and describe it, they bring social concepts to those objects--some objects being less socially fraught than others. Sexed bodies would be among the most fraught objects we have, as we are each subjects of one.
It's an understanding I've come to through studying feminist and gender theory, that gives language to and refines the problematic ways I noticed the idea of sex/gender being applied by others since I was a toddler. And I'm just adding this info on my experience so you don't think I just read a bunch of theory and came to an abstract conclusion, but that this understanding does accord with core identity issues of mine (at the risk again of sounding like I'm saying I'm a natural born constructivist :-P). And I knew I would take a long while trying to put this succinctly and still be understood--hope I was--which is why I'm being slow in replies here.
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Date: 2009-07-24 09:20 pm (UTC)No, it's not the same at all, but that element of having their identities discounted, rejected, and confused with yours by the mainstream is a struggle for them that IS still a part of their reaction.
And yeah, I once dated a lesbian who said I couldn't be bi because bi's don't exist--you're either one or the other--a discounting which really sucked at the time. But the place from which that monosexual template she was applying came from, as an oppressed minority member on the defensive, is still very different than one a straight person would apply. But I came from a lesbian identity to a bi one, and have seen attitudes in bi communities that I think a lesbian might need to be onguard for as well, so I had a certain investment in seeing that distinction--still thought she was a jerk overall though.
I do empathize and sympathize about bathroom policing, but the oppression olympics there is infuriating, because the anecdote is used to say that trans women have it easy and butch lesbians have it hard.
Yeah, it's a point at which they could have bonded with you over shared oppression where experiences intersected, and instead competed to one-up, and that stinks. *hugs if you do, or want, hugs* To tell you trans women have it easier is just stupid--why open your mouth to say something like that--except to be hateful. There's nothing to be gained in that game.
Could you clarify what you mean about not making a distinction between gender and sex?
I think the distinction is very important for trans people and intersex people both.
I do understand this, and do understand that my way of understanding the world on this is in direct opposition to the way some other people (trans, cis, and otherwise) see, and need to see the world--one of the ways in which identities impinge on each other again, because I think worldview does intersect with identity.
I no longer make a distinction between sex and gender, because the language we have to describe our concepts of the biological, as I understand them, are all socially impacted--there are no neutral terms, especially for a social concept as central as sexed bodies. So I will talk about chromosomes, body parts considered to be signifiers of the sexed body, and hormones and other chemicals, with the understanding that all the ideas we're bringing to the table on these are gendered. In other words, sex IS gender because language is social, and the language of biology is part of it. Yes, there is a "real" beyond language, but when humans set about to think about it and describe it, they bring social concepts to those objects--some objects being less socially fraught than others. Sexed bodies would be among the most fraught objects we have, as we are each subjects of one.
It's an understanding I've come to through studying feminist and gender theory, that gives language to and refines the problematic ways I noticed the idea of sex/gender being applied by others since I was a toddler. And I'm just adding this info on my experience so you don't think I just read a bunch of theory and came to an abstract conclusion, but that this understanding does accord with core identity issues of mine (at the risk again of sounding like I'm saying I'm a natural born constructivist :-P). And I knew I would take a long while trying to put this succinctly and still be understood--hope I was--which is why I'm being slow in replies here.