Link Farm, Replacement Tongue Edition
| August 24th, 2009This 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.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Rahm?
[Fixed! Thanks. --Amp]
This comment was written by chingona.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2009 at 9:39 am
I love the fixed PETA billboard!
An essay up at my place about blaming myself for my own attempted rape.
This comment was written by groggette (formerly Ali).Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2009 at 10:08 am
I wrote a short post about the Sigg water bottle company’s recent disclosure that its older type of bottle liners contain the potentially dangerous bisphenol A:
http://francescollier.blogspot.com/2009/08/sigg-scandal.html
This comment was written by Madeline.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Re: racist bric-a-brac - I am trying to think of the black comedian who came on to the Tonight Show - back when Johnny Carson was the host - and told Johnny a story about one of the first things he did when he became wealthy was to buy one of those black jockey lawn ornaments and put it on his lawn. After painting the face and hands white. Pretty funny the way he told it. I wonder if it’s on YouTube?
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August 24th, 2009 at 10:27 am
That Migra Matters post comes to the wrong conclusion.
As a citizen of the U.S., I want the country to be selective about who it lets in, in an effort to make the country improve, prosper, and thrive. I don’t see the selectivity as being a bad thing; I see it as being a good thing.
In fact, it is arguably an obligation. The U.S. government isn’t an individual: it is a creature of paper, whose sole job is to protect the interests of its various citizens. There is no room for personal preference of the government; it has no mind. Its obligations to noncitizen residents are fairly limited. And its obligations to nonresident noncitizens are even more so.
I personally may have obligations which are worldwide, and I personally may have the desire to help people who are outside the U.S. But the government acquires those obligations only as a secondary source: it acquires them only if helping noncitizens, in the end, benefits its citizens.
And that’s existing citizens, not potential citizens. If the citizens of the U.S. would benefit from the influx of a large number of unskilled immigrants, then the U.S. should admit them. If the U.S. would benefit more from restricting immigration to those with certain skills, then the U.S. should restrict them.
The effects of this selectivity are only the concern of the U.S. government to the extent that they effect U.S. citizens, directly or indirectly. Any argument regarding immigration which fails to address the “benefit to citizens” part that underlies the M.O. of the government is inherently a flawed argument.
It is also flawed in its choice of language. The thing that makes castes so problematic is the immutability of the caste system. Education, and skills and knowledge are highly malleable traits; just the opposite of race, or gender, or country of origin.
To distinguish between potential immigrants based on race would be immoral. But to distinguish between them based on their knowledge, so long as that knowledge is reasonably related to a goal and is not merely a deliberate proxy for a protected class, is not immoral.
So:
This division of the immigrant population into two distinct castes, one actively recruited and provided with an easy path to permanency, another “allowed” to enter under temporary visas or “tolerated” as agricultural guests workers, sets up a dichotomy that is not only morally vacant ..But contrary to a common sense approach to immigration reform.
What about that thing termed “wages?”
What you earn is at least somewhat related to the value placed on you by society. in fact, money is such a popular proxy for that value, and money is generally so god at creating more value, that quite a few countries allow you to immigrate based primarily on a cash payment.
Is this rhetorical? Or are you suggesting that the worth to the country as a whole of (to use an extreme example) a neurosurgeon is equivalent to the worth to the country as a whole of a landscaper?
There is no need to conclude such impossible-to-argue things as “real” worth. It says nothing about human value, or whether you’re a good person, or a good parent, or any of that. In the context of U.S. government policy, what we are talking about is worth to the COUNTRY.
I’m not so sure about that.
Their ideals were to build a great country, as they interpreted that to mean. It’s not as if they volunteered to take everyone’s prisoners; they were at least somewhat selective.
In the early days of the U.S., the actions in service to that ideal, as interpreted by those in charge, included (for example) “Grow really fast by allowing lots of immigration,” and “kill most of the N.A.s”
But it is basic insight to realize that just because something was a good idea then does not mean it is a good idea now. Just as the idea of “hey, let’s cut down all the trees we want, to help industry; we’ll never run out of trees!” looked like a far better idea 100 years ago.
Unless the author is arguing for UNLIMITED immigration, we need to be selective somehow. So the question is, should we select randomly? Or should we select on skill? The movement for non-skilled selection doesn’t have much to defend it.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Gah — can you put an NSFW warning on #30, and also the one that points to the realadultsex.com site? I’m lucky enough to have my own office so nobody saw the naked chick on my monitor, and I *probably* don’t work for an organization that monitors my browsing and will think I just looked at pr0n, but not sure.
This comment was written by nojojojo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Cool on that first photo. Also, FYI for people who aren’t avid track fans like me, 3 seconds off of the world champion’s time is not slow. Sanitoa beat 2 other athletes by running 14.23 seconds for 100 meters. Time yourself running one quarter of a lap on a track to get a sense of how fast that is.
This comment was written by Jessica.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
It’s not slow, exactly, but it’s not fast for a serious runner: US high school athletes routinely break 13 seconds, and the girl’s high school record is well under 12 seconds. I believe that most states have multiple high school girls who can break 12 seconds in many years.
Actually, the amazing thing is how close all the elite level athletes are. A random Google search shows that this year, not one but two girls ran the 100 in Wisconsin, at a time of 11.76. The fact that this is only 0.54 slower than the heat winner at the worlds is amazing to me.
To put things in perspective, the world record is FloJo’s record of 10.49.
They’d all beat me, though :)
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Substantially agree with Sailorman @5. Frankly, I found this:
to border on offensive. Immigrants who show up with “education, skills, English language proficiency” ALSO have a yearning to make a better life. My dad grew up on a farm and was so poor he got his first pair of shoes, a pair of sandals, when he was 12. His family labeled him the “smart one,” and the most they could do for him was excuse him from some of the work the other kids did, so he could spend a little more time studying. When he won a scholarship after high school, he sent most of the money home to his family and graduated from medical school weighing 98 lbs. because he’d been living on rice and pickle. (Given how tall my paternal grandfather is, my dad almost certainly had his growth stunted by malnutrition at the end of his teen growth years.)
He had “education, skills, English language proficiency” because he’d worked really hard for them so he could someday go to America and make a better life. He learned English as a third language; my paternal grandparents know no English. When my mother was pregnant with me (while she already had my older sibling to look after as well), and was three weeks past her due date and going into false labor every night, she had to get herself to the hospital because my dad was moonlighting in the ER after working as a resident all day, so he could have some extra money to send home to his parents and siblings, whom he felt he owed because they’d sacrificed their own potential advancement so he could be the “educated son.”
It is offensive to use the word caste to describe a distinction between immigrants based on “education, skills, English language proficiency.” The Hindu caste system was always morally problematic because it assigns people to certain societal roles based on their birth, (and it became morally reprehensible as it degenerated into valuing human beings based on those roles). The pre-1960s immigration system, in which Europeans were welcome but brown people — Asians, Africans, South Americans — were limited by quota, was a caste system. No matter how talented or intelligent or hard-working a brown person was, he’d always be in line behind any white person. He was condemned by his birth to be treated as lesser.
How the hell is distinguishing among people based on their “education, skills, English language proficiency, or financial resources,” particularly the first three, a “caste system”? All four are achievable through work, and you can’t be born with the first two. (Technically you can’t be born with English language proficiency, but I’ll concede that someone raised in an English-speaking home may as well be.)
Those from regions too poor, rural, or politically unstable to provide world class educations … they’d be shit outa luck.
What are these regions, exactly? Again, my dad grew up on a farm in India in the 1950s and 1960s. He was born just a couple years after Partition in an area deeply divided between Hindus and Muslims, and during his childhood the political boundaries of his state were redrawn due to battles over linguistic identity that often turned to bloodshed. He grew up during three wars fought on his country’s territory, including one with China, and he was struggling to get to America during Indira Gandhi’s emergency. The fact that he managed to get an education (although not one considered sufficiently “world class” by the U.S. that he could go into medical practice immediately — he had to re-do three years of education and training he’d already done in India) doesn’t mean that it was easy.
I seriously do not understand why Migra Matters is touting “an essentially hemispheric migration model that favored family reunification” (which hemisphere and family you’re born into are matters of pure luck — that sounds a lot more caste-like to me) over “a global model that favored high skilled immigrants.”
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
The movement for non-skilled selection doesn’t have much to defend it.
Not sure if you mean non-skilled selection as in selecting non-skilled immigrants or selecting in a way that simply disregards skill.
An immigration system that only allows in educated, skilled immigrants ignores some of the economic facts around immigration, particularly illegal immigration. I wouldn’t call it a caste system and I agree with you that we don’t have an obligation to think of the greatest good for all humanity in our immigration policy (and with PG that Migra Matters sets up a false dichotomy). But nonetheless, one of the major drivers of illegal immigration is the availability of jobs in certain, low-paying-by-U.S.-standards, low-skill sectors of the economy. So if you think the government has an inherent interest in knowing who is in the country and controlling the levels of immigration, it would behoove us to have a mechanism for legal immigration for the people who work those kinds of jobs. As it stands, family reunification is just about the only legal way for uneducated people to come, and that’s one reason we have such high levels of illegal immigration.
Again, I’m not sure if you are limiting your argument to the idea that a preference for educated immigrants does not actually constitute a caste system or actually advocating for a system that limits immigration to people in certain professions and with certain education levels. So I apologize in advance if I’m misreading you or arguing with a position you don’t take.
This is an issue that I’m really torn about because I don’t think it should be the job of our government to supply low-wage workers to make sure our strawberries don’t cost three cents a pound more than they do today. And the evidence is pretty strong that while the NET impact of immigration on our society might be good, there are plenty of people who are hurt by it. The presence of undocumented workers does drive down wages in certain sectors, particularly people in low-skill manual labor with limited education.
At the same time, the mechanisms by which people come here illegally, particularly from Mexico and Central America, are very well-established and nearly impossible to shut down. I see a pretty strong public interest in creating a way for people in these sectors of the economy to come here legally (though I have qualms about the form of a lot of the guest worker programs - I’d rather just see more work visas made available).
This comment was written by chingona.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Thanks for the not one but two links, the one about gender conformity and “gaydar” and the one about Canada’s backwards proposal to “protect” sex-workers and nannies by deporting them or barring them from immigrating!
Thanks also for noting that my posts are occasionally not safe for work. While Real Adult Sex isn’t porn I do blog about the sociology and politics of relationships, gender, and sex. I don’t think there are any photos of undressed women (there might be a couple way back in my archives.) I explain why I post undressed photos of myself here.
figleaf
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August 24th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
No credit for formula but pet food okay is a post I wrote about a proposal for pet care to be tax deductible in response to the refusal of the IRS to allow formula to be deducted for a woman who could not breast feed.
The interesting thing is that there was virtually no response to the first story but mention pets and people get all pissy.
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August 24th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Here’s a Pratchett-only copy of #4, if you’d rather not link to the Daily Fail.
This comment was written by Thene.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2009 at 12:39 am
That sucks about Conan, one of my favorite comedians is the warm up comic for it. Don’t watch it that much however.
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August 25th, 2009 at 6:17 am
thanks; you got it pretty well!
I certainly take the position that the preference is not a caste system.
I also think it would be acceptable to limit immigration to people in certain professions and with certain education levels, IF that happens to be what the country needs. But I don’t know the specifics, because I’m not an economist.
So I’m not advocating for “11% civil engineers,” because I don’t have the knowledge to know what we need. It’s more that I’m advocating for our right and obligation to select 11% civil engineers, if that is what we need or want. It is basically an argument against immigration-as-entitlement, though like most people I would allow for a strong exception for refugees.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2009 at 10:18 am
There’s already been some reporting this year about the Rubber Rooms, but this New Yorker article spells it out in greater detail.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2009 at 10:34 am
At the same time, the mechanisms by which people come here illegally, particularly from Mexico and Central America, are very well-established and nearly impossible to shut down. I see a pretty strong public interest in creating a way for people in these sectors of the economy to come here legally (though I have qualms about the form of a lot of the guest worker programs - I’d rather just see more work visas made available).
I think people would stop coming illegally if we
(1) cracked down on employers who hire illegal immigrants in the first place (thereby eliminating the incentive that drives 99% of illegal immigrants, which is the desire to work hard and make some money);
(2) made illegal immigrants and their children ineligible for any federal, state or local aid aside from public education for minors and emergency medical services for both children and adults (thereby eliminating the incentive for the remaining 1% who are trying to obtain better government services than those available in their home countries); and
(3) increased the number of unskilled work visas. I know a lot of people who are in the U.S. on work visas, albeit skilled ones (mostly as engineers), and they seem to be treated fairly for the most part by their employers, though of course abuses can occur anywhere. My husband is an American, but he used to work in the UK at a small start-up, and at one point the company was late in paying its employees by 2 months (despite being generally opposed to unions, he actually began the process of forming one of the company, because it was the only way employees could bring a complaint before the government). Some of his co-workers left for other jobs, but he was tied to his employer by his work visa. Possibly we should consider loosening the red tape on work visas so people can move more freely from one employer to another, while still requiring people on work visas to be employed in order to remain in the U.S.
Employers of unskilled workers have basically been able to free-ride on the existence of illegal immigration. Unlike employers of skilled workers like Microsoft, the meat processors don’t have to beg Congress for more work visas or threaten to move operations overseas in order to get enough skilled labor. Pilgrim’s Pride can just send agents to Mexico and Central America, promising jobs and smuggling people over the border.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2009 at 11:35 am
The NYTimes purports to write about the calm, reasoned people who oppose health care reform proposals, but I am suspicious that they cherry-picked people who are still too ignorant to fairly represent the anti-reform side.
If that’s seriously the best the anti-reform side has to offer — people who expect all of their own care, including experimental cancer treatment, to be covered, but oppose extending even basic coverage to others whom they deem unworthy — then I’m inching toward those who say Obama should give up on trying to find a compromise. There is no way to make decent public policy with people who regard their own needs as paramount and everyone else as “lazy and irresponsible people who play the system.” I wonder how much charity care Emory Healthcare couldn’t afford to do because it had written off Ms. Collier’s treatment. That kind of subsidy to the middle-class is always invisible to folks like this; they’re smugly certain that *they* are paying what they owe, but others are “lazy and irresponsible people who play the system.”
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
(2) made illegal immigrants and their children ineligible for any federal, state or local aid aside from public education for minors and emergency medical services for both children and adults (thereby eliminating the incentive for the remaining 1% who are trying to obtain better government services than those available in their home countries); and
This is already, for the most part, the case.
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August 25th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I’ve been getting there through conversations with my coworkers who go on & on about the evils of government & the blah, blah, blah and then follow immediately with how horrible and expensive their employer supplied health insurance is.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
@19,
It’s true that the law technically doesn’t allow illegal immigrants to obtain others services, but the verification required to obtain state benefits like Medicaid and CHIP — simply a name and matching SSN — isn’t very strict. There’s no requirement that one show proof of U.S. birth and naturalization, for example. One can obtain the name and SSN of a U.S. citizen fairly easily on the black market.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
PG,
The states that have started requiring people to present their birth certificates to obtain Medicaid have found the people most inconvenienced by this are older Americans born in rural areas and/or at home. And the number of people they’ve dropped from the roles has been truly negligible. Most illegal immigrants aren’t using their black-market SSNs to get Medicaid. They’re using them to work.
And if an employer runs a SSN and gets a match, he’s exempt from any prosecution under employer sanctions laws. If they get caught, the employee gets brought up on identity theft and the employer is off the hook.
Meanwhile, if they get sick, yes, they go to the emergency room like all other uninsured people, with all the attendant burdens on our health care system. Including women with no pre-natal care showing up in ERs in premature labor and giving birth to babies that spend a month in the NICU. Let’s just say I’m not at all convinced it saves us money to not allow illegal immigrants to get Medicaid, but as it stands, the number of them on it illegally is pretty small.
I’m kind of baffled why you’d put this issue at number 2 given how tangential it really is.
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August 26th, 2009 at 6:44 am
They’re not achievable through work for many people. The kids I teach now would be completely out of luck without a rare subsidy. They would have to work as scavengers during all their waking hours. They would have no access to teachers or books. They would have no options at all. And they–like their families–come in thin and painfully thin even when they don’t live by Erasmus’ adage. Malnutrition isn’t a Hobson’s choice for them.
No disrespect to your father or the enormous amount of work he had to do to attain his position, but the circumstances of your birth can determine your chances at ever getting the first two advantages. Even the circumstances of your father’s life might with small alteration have prevented him from ever leaving his home country. This would not have been any judgment on his ability or commitment. Our immigration laws are not a caste system, but they do build their criteria on a population whose positions are not meritocratic. Our responsibility is an open question–as is our ability to fix whatever disparities exist–but we are not necessarily valuing hard work above good fortune now.
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August 26th, 2009 at 7:05 am
chingona,
The states that have started requiring people to present their birth certificates to obtain Medicaid have found the people most inconvenienced by this are older Americans born in rural areas and/or at home.
Most of those people (i.e. those born before the baby boomer generation, pre-1945) should be on Medicare now, and with the addition of a prescription benefit to Medicare, there’s no longer much need to be enrolled in both programs in order to cover one’s health care needs.
Most illegal immigrants aren’t using their black-market SSNs to get Medicaid. They’re using them to work.
As I said @ 17, 99% are here to work hard, not for benefits. Not sure how to make that clearer.
However, as you point out with regard to employers’ not going beyond SSN-name matches, their black-market SSNs make it more difficult for the government to enforce sanctions on employers who are recruiting illegal immigrants. It’s a full set-up: have an agent, whose connection back to Tyson Foods will be almost impossible to trace, recruit the immigrants and set them up with false identifications information. Have those immigrants show up to the plant and present that info to become employed. Have the employer go through the motions of running the match. When the government reaches that once-in-a-blue-moon moment of checking up on them, the employer is Totally Shocked that his employees are not legally in the country.
I’m kind of baffled why you’d put this issue at number 2 given how tangential it really is.
I was going in the order of what I think would minimize the draw of entering the U.S. illegally. Not being able to get a job is #1, because as I said that is the draw for 99%. Not being able to obtain services is #2, to eliminate the incentive for the remaining 1%. Being able to get a certain number of jobs legally, by applying for work visas, is #3.
I see #3 as having less ability to minimize illegal immigration because there simply aren’t as many potential employers who will be asking to get visas for their workers, as there are people who currently enter illegally and find jobs. So Tyson Foods type places — the large corporations with fairly well-defined labor needs — may be doing what the tech employers were doing with H1 visas and saying “We need X number of work visas each year,” but the million other places that employ illegal immigrants — the individual homes that employ someone to watch the kids, clean the house, mow the yard; the individual restaurants that employ busboys and deliverymen; etc. — won’t be. They’ll just do what those of us who are wary of breaking the law already do, which is go through an agency that takes the responsibility of verifying a worker’s right to work in the U.S., and charges us 50% more than if we were contracting directly with the worker. Wages and administrative costs will increase, but the number of people employed will decrease, so there won’t be nearly as many people entering. If we haven’t done #1 — increased sanctions and enforcement on people who employ illegal immigrants int he first place — then #3 will be practically useless in decreasing illegal immigration.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2009 at 7:14 am
piny,
I agree that there are people living in places so poor and obscure that either there are no schools at all near them, or the schools are out of their reach financially. But I’m not sure how such people would get the money together to pay a human trafficker to get them over the border into the U.S. Where are you teaching?
No disrespect to your father or the enormous amount of work he had to do to attain his position, but the circumstances of your birth can determine your chances at ever getting the first two advantages. Even the circumstances of your father’s life might with small alteration have prevented him from ever leaving his home country. This would not have been any judgment on his ability or commitment. Our immigration laws are not a caste system, but they do build their criteria on a population whose positions are not meritocratic. Our responsibility is an open question–as is our ability to fix whatever disparities exist–but we are not necessarily valuing hard work above good fortune now.
Agreed, but how is giving an advantage to people from the Western hemisphere in immigration, rather than selecting people for their education, skills and English proficiency on a global basis, going to increase the role of hard work and decrease the role of good fortune at all? And what do you think would be a better system than the one we have now, to be able to value hard work above good fortune? How is a policy based on family reunification, for example, valuing hard work over good fortune?
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2009 at 5:53 am
My very first self-link — I’m cited in the New York Times!
Ok, I’m in a blog sponsored by the Times.
Oh, and I misspelled my name.
After all, nobody really would call himself noDoddy.really. Really!
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August 27th, 2009 at 7:26 am
I see #3 as having less ability to minimize illegal immigration because there simply aren’t as many potential employers who will be asking to get visas for their workers, as there are people who currently enter illegally and find jobs.
The effectiveness of expanding work visas is pretty closely tied in with a program that truly makes it punitive for employers to hire undocumented workers. Employers would need to be motivated to lobby for the visas. What I’ve seen in Arizona is that businesses lobby strongly to water down the laws such that the sanctions will not be enough to change their practices. Also, there is a legitimate concern from Latino advocacy groups and civil rights groups that if you put the onus on the employer to spot fake documents, they’ll respond by simply not hiring Latinos, or at least Latinos with accents. Now, in some sectors, particularly given Arizona’s demographics, I’m not sure they could actually do that and still have enough workers. But I don’t think the concern is too out there.
So, yes, it’s difficult. But as for services, to the extent that services are a draw for people coming here, probably the single biggest one is elementary and secondary education. And personally, I’m not willing to punish the children brought here by their parents by keeping them out of school, nor do I want to face the social consequences of having millions of children grow up here with no education and no future. But then, I’d also rather that the people I share this city with have access to basic health care. Some of this is my bleeding heart speaking, but it’s also self-interest.
How is a policy based on family reunification, for example, valuing hard work over good fortune?
I never thought that it was supposed to. I thought the motivations behind family reunification were basically humane.
This comment was written by chingona.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2009 at 8:05 am
I never thought that it was supposed to. I thought the motivations behind family reunification were basically humane.
If someone immigrates, he is making the difficult choice that it is more important to him to go to America than to stay with his family. I am not sure why we must, in order to be humane, then eliminate the hardship of the choice he made by allowing him to both go to America and have his family (which in family reunification policy includes adult children and adult siblings) with him in the U.S.
People coming through family reunification make up almost 2/3 of all permanent immigrants to the U.S. It’s basic decency to include spouses (we shouldn’t break up marriages) and minor children (we shouldn’t leave children quasi-orphaned) when visas, green cards and citizenship are offered. But people live far away from their adult children and siblings all the time — why do we have to offer reunification of such relationships through immigration in order to be humane?
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2009 at 8:11 am
I’m not suggesting you can’t change family reunification policies. I just think the argument against them that it’s somehow less fair than a purely merit-based approach is, well, not arguing against the policy on its merits. I don’t think it’s supposed to be “fair,” so saying that it’s not fair is beside the point.
This comment was written by chingona.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2009 at 8:42 am
chingona,
Inasmuch as this discussion is a response to the Migra Matters piece that Amp linked, it seems to me that fairness is very much as issue, because that blog was claiming that there is something unfair or unjust about going from a hemispheric-oriented family-reunification-based system to one based on the applicant’s education, skills and English proficiency.
The basis of the blog’s argument was that it’s unfair to people from poor parts of the world and/or whose families were poor to expect them to be able to compete on such metrics of merit. My counter-argument is that it far more unfair to base the decision of whom to accept as an immigrant on the immigrant’s being from the “right” hemisphere and being related to the “right” people (i.e. family members who have already immigrated).
In the scale of what is achievable, I absolutely cannot change where I was born or to whom I am related (with the exception of being able to choose a marriage partner); at least in theory, I can change my educational attainment, my skills, my English proficiency and my wealth. Generally that which is unchangeable (race, sex, national origin) strikes people as a more unfair basis for discrimination than that which is at least theoretically changeable even if a particular individual’s circumstance doesn’t allow for change.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I’m having a bee hive (filled with hybridized African/European bees which are common in my area) removed from under the red tiles on my garage roof where they formed a weird horizontal rather than vertical hive so I’ve been home catching up on blogging.
The police commission banned minority reports because the majority didn’t agree with their content so they got rid of them. Which makes no sense b/c if the majority agreed with the content of a minority report, then there probably wouldn’t be a minority report. It was a meeting where a lot of people were stunned and some, arrogant.
Oh, and they cut public comment speaking time down because one commissioner who’s been badmouthing my blog all over the Westside, didn’t like what I wrote in it. But local blogging, still cool, because you get to talk one on one with people about blogs and blogging. And I get lots of interesting emails on things.
Beneath the commission stuff on this posting I included an article link on the highest ranking gay male sworn employee in the Sheriff’s Department.
Unfortunately, it attracted some homophobic comments including those I posted.
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August 27th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Here’s what I don’t understand. A eulogy is, to quote from many sources:
“a commendatory oration or writing especially in honor of one deceased”
Why do we feel the need to bring up the bad things about the subject of a eulogy in the comments of the eulogy itself? What’s wrong with using an open thread or your own blog? Do people really expect the crimes of the subject of a eulogy to be brought up in a piece in honor of that person? I think that is an unreasonable expectation.
Sure, you have strong emotions about Kennedy. I get that. I, myself, have strongly mixed feelings about him. The guy did some unquestionably horrible things in his life. I find his actions at the Willie Smith rape trial to be reprehensible. His course of action during and following the accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne is unquestionably criminal. But I can talk about that here or on my blog or on any of the multitude of posts on the web summarizing, analyzing or excoriating the man.
If you think that, because this is a feminist blog, those things need to be brought up here, why not use this open thread? Or request a thread be made for that purpose? You read this, people will read your comments about Kennedy.
What is so bad about showing some basic level of respect for the author of the eulogy and those who have strong positive emotions about Kennedy in the thread of the eulogy?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Moving from the eulogy post:
recursive @42,
Hmm –perhaps this is just a generational/ new media thing. What I have read from George Will, from the NYT editorial page, from other professional journalists whose job it is to know stuff, has all adverted to the accident. The NYT even met Daisy’s standards (aside from their technical, legalistic failure to call Kennedy an evil murderer): “He was pronounced finished 40 years ago after Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in a car the senator drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island off Martha’s Vineyard.” (Oh, and they also fail to attribute Kennedy’s failure to become president solely to his role in Kopechne’s death; they seem to think his literal inability to articulate why he wanted to be president might have had something to do with it too.) I read only 4 political blogs regularly, and no political Twitter feeds, so I may overestimate the level of historical political knowledge among very young people (i.e. 18-25 year olds) who only started following politics around 2000.
With regard to ENDA, Kennedy’s legislative record was achievable only because of his willingness to compromise in order to get *something* passed, even if that something would need to be changed later. For example, he was a moving force behind the Americans with Disabilities Act, which in its first version was certainly imperfect, but established a political, legal and social norm that it was wrong to discriminate against the disabled. From there, the ADA has since been revised to provide broader protections.
If any given piece of legislation clearly has the votes to pass in its stronger form, then I would agree that a legislator who drops the stronger for the weaker has sold us out. If a legislator weakens the legislation in order to get the votes to put it over the top to passage, and does so in such a way that leaves the door open to future amendments that will bring it back to its stronger form, that is a matter of discretion and judgment. Establishing a norm in which people cannot be fired for their sexual orientation (which often is perceived as a failure to adhere to gender norms — the “effeminate” man or the “masculine” woman — and not because of actual knowledge of the person’s relational preferences) brings us closer to accepting a norm in which people also cannot be fired for their gender identity. Being willing to accept a half-loaf today if one can still get the other half tomorrow is pragmatism. We don’t want too many pragmatists, but I think we need a few. It’s a balance between those who dream and those who write the estimates on how much of the dream can be accomplished immediately.
Then again, I think Equality California is probably smart to wait for 2012 to make its grand push to get Prop. 8 out of the state constitution, and I doubt that Ted Olson’s lawsuit to overturn Prop. 8 will succeed in the federal courts given the current composition of the Supreme Court. In other words, I am the sort, when quoting MLK’s famous remark, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” to emphasize the word long.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
An FYI for the open thread, I am working on my documentary A Past, Denied: The Invisible History of Slavery in Canada and just recently posted a short teaser clip. Come by, take a look and add your comments to the new companion blog. I am interested in getting other people’s perspectives and experiences included!
This comment was written by Mike Barber.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 10:59 am
@recursive,
I think the health care derail of what you were talking about was my fault; sorry about that.
But to the extent that an sexual-orientation-only ENDA leaves trans people no worse off than they are with the status quo — and to the extent that trans identity overlaps with homosexual or bisexual orientation (most of the trans-women I know also are lesbians), they are better off — I guess I don’t understand why you think Kennedy’s decision resulted in suffering that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. It seems to me that sticking with a bill that cannot pass, instead of passing the bill that can succeed, would have been the choice that resulted in more suffering. If. Rep. Barney Frank gets hit by a bus tomorrow and someone posts about his being an LGBT champion, will you say that’s also wrong because Frank was willing to drop trans protections from ENDA in 2007?
Your standard for Machiavellian (a term not normally synonymous with “utility-maximizing”) seems pretty low. I don’t consider legislators Machiavellian if they put forward a hate crimes law that includes sexual orientation but not gender, so long as their choice was motivated by practical considerations about what can pass; hey, we’ll pick gender up the next time. Or maybe we won’t, if we don’t do enough to push for it. But I won’t begrudge the years in which sexual orientation was protected simply because gender wasn’t, and I will still consider a legislator to be a champion of women’s rights even if he makes a Sophie’s Choice between saving one now versus losing both now.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Sad news — “Reading Rainbow” is airing for the last time today.
Like one of the ThinkProgress commenters said, the show was really great for those of us whose parents were immigrants and not familiar with English-language children’s lit. My parents made sure we knew how to read; I remember that when I was recalcitrant in learning to read, I had to to sit in the living room by myself until I had finished a book, even if it meant that I was late to get dinner. But they themselves aren’t particularly fond of reading fiction (they prefer newspapers and magazines), so a show like “Reading Rainbow” filled that gap for my siblings and me.
Public television should be playing a role in helping the newest Americans connect with what’s good in our culture. It’s unfortunate that there’s no longer room in PBS’s budget for that kind of programming.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 11:45 am
It seems to me that where there is no longer room is in the political ideology that controls PBS’ budget.
I miss the days when PBS was truly a service to the public.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 11:51 am
@PG:
Actually there’s a pretty good mix of trans people of all orientations (including heterosexual). And keep in mind, a lot of seemingly homophobic actions are actually directed to the gay or lesbian or bi person’s gender expression. So really, shaving the trans inclusive elements out of that leaves gender expression atypical gay folk in the cold too.
To be entirely honest, the jury is still out on whether or not Kennedy operated under cost benefit analysis or was literally a roadblock to our rights. The jury may even still be out about Barney Frank (who has cut us out of things far more). But the fact is, the status quo for trans people is utterly abhorrent. The insane murder rates, the assaults, the beatings, the denial of healthcare by insurance companies despite the AMA’s assessment of GID, and the fact that we are very visble (whereas gay folk are not as visible) makes the words “just keeping the status quo” a bit of an understatement for the kind of crap we go through.
No, he didn’t make things worse. But the sheer level of suffering we deal with normally, just on a social basis makes the dispassionate mention of the “status quo” fit the claim of Machiavelli’s reasoning far better than you’d think. It certainly smacks of a lack of empathy for the community at large. You’d be surprised too, just how destructive a few more years of intensely high murder, rape and denial of resource rates can be for any small group of people. Many of us will be spending decades to recover (or won’t recover at all)
And really, I can’t and won’t attribute that derth of empathy that you just showed to Kennedy. By all respects, he could have been completely torn up about the fact that he felt he had to drop us. You don’t seem very torn up about it though and that troubles me far more than even this whitewashing of Kennedy.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
It takes 60 votes to pass ENDA in the Senate. Your argument implicitly assumes that because it is now (probably) possible to get 60 votes for inclusive (LGBT) ENDA, it would also now be possible to get 60 votes for a trans-only ENDA if the rest was already law. I don’t think that assumption is realistic, at all.
So yes, passing the trans-excluding ENDA in 2007 very likely would have precluded including trans people in ENDA in 2009.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
With all due respect, I don’t think that you can correctly assume how much feeling someone has, based on how emotive their writing style on a particular day is.
I completely agree with you on ENDA — and that Kennedy and Frank both made a shameful, wrong decision on ENDA.
But because I have a fairly legalistic, dry writing style (unless I work very hard at expressing emotion), I’ve always been subject to “you don’t seem torn up about it” type criticisms. Even about stuff that I am, actually, very fucking torn up about.
I can’t speak for PG, of course. But in general, not everyone has an emotive writing style. Not everyone can access it as easily, or even has the ability. And you really can’t tell what’s in someone’s heart by accessing how “torn up” they seem to be in their writing style.
So, on this blog at least, could we please try not to engage in criticism of people for dry writing?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
reclusive,
I realize there’s a mix of orientations for trans people just like for cis people; I’m pointing out that protection for LGB also can make some trans people’s lives better as well. My closest trans friend is a woman married to another woman. Their marriage is not recognized in the state where they live, and the state protects against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity only for state employees, which they are not. To the extent that someone has a problem with homosexuality but not with trans-sexuality (and Iran demonstrates you can have a whole country like that), my friend would be better off with a federal law that protects her from those who would discriminate on the basis of her being a lesbian, but who would not discriminate on the basis of her being trans (either because they’re OK with transsexuality or because they simply don’t realize that she is trans).
And keep in mind, a lot of seemingly homophobic actions are actually directed to the gay or lesbian or bi person’s gender expression. So really, shaving the trans inclusive elements out of that leaves gender expression atypical gay folk in the cold too.
How would that not be covered by existing prohibitions against discriminating on the basis of gender in employment? Courts have already held that discriminating against a woman because she acted “too masculine” violates the law. The same logic would apply to discriminating against a man because he presented as too feminine. “In forbidding employers to discriminate against individuals because of their sex, Congress intended to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women resulting from sex stereotypes.”
But the fact is, the status quo for trans people is utterly abhorrent. The insane murder rates, the assaults, the beatings, the denial of healthcare by insurance companies despite the AMA’s assessment of GID, and the fact that we are very visble (whereas gay folk are not as visible) makes the words “just keeping the status quo” a bit of an understatement for the kind of crap we go through.
And these things would be avoided by a trans-inclusive ENDA that fails to become law … how? That’s what I don’t understand about your reasoning here. You haven’t even tried to show that a trans-inclusive ENDA could have passed both houses of Congress and survived Bush’s veto in 2007. So why is Kennedy to blame for the murders, assaults, denial of health care, employment discrimination and educational discrimination? simply because he tried to pass a version of ENDA that seemed to have a better shot at becoming law than a trans-inclusive version did?
(Incidentally, ENDA wouldn’t do anything about crimes committed against trans people. Nada. Squat. It’s about discrimination, not crime. You might be thinking of including gender identity in federal hate crimes law, which would put federal resources and interest, as well as heightened penalties, behind the investigation and prosecution of people who murder, assault and otherwise criminally victimize trans people, and thus might lead to more convictions and higher penalties in places where local authorities and juries are unsympathetic to trans victims, and in turn lead potential assailants to think twice before thinking of a trans person as an easy or expendable target. Of course, those are already common law crimes regardless of whether gender identity is included in federal hate crime statutes, but the theory behind all increased penalties is that a higher sentence will cause some people who otherwise might have committed the crime not to do so.)
Also, the “visibility” of trans-folk seems quite variable to me. I have met several trans people who I didn’t realize were trans until they or someone else mentioned it to me. I’ve probably encountered more trans people than I even realize, because it’s not like every person I see in NYC is going to tell me whether the gender they appear to be (especially with their clothes on, which is how I generally meet people) matches the one they were assigned at birth. In contrast, sexual orientation can be unknown only so long as one is willing to lie or be silent about one’s most intimate relationships.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
It takes 60 votes to pass ENDA in the Senate. Your argument implicitly assumes that because it is now (probably) possible to get 60 votes for inclusive (LGBT) ENDA, it would also now be possible to get 60 votes for a trans-only ENDA if the rest was already law. I don’t think that assumption is realistic, at all.
Why? In 2007, we had a president threatening veto even for a trans-excluding ENDA, which means both houses needed a super-majority. In 2009, we have a president who is happy to sign a trans-including ENDA, which means we just need 50%+1 in each house (unless you believe Republican Senators would waste a filibuster on this issue and necessitate a filibuster-proof 60 votes). So just in practical terms, you don’t need as many votes for the trans-inclusive ENDA today as you needed for even a trans-exclusive ENDA in 2007. Hurrah for having the veto power rest with a non-bigoted president.
I am confused as to which members of Congress you think are sufficiently committed to LGB rights that they will feel obligated to vote for a bill that is trans-inclusive even if they don’t believe in trans rights. It seems to me that those folks on the margin — the ones on board up to the LGB but balking at the T — are the generally the ones who will suffer no electoral repercussions even if they do vote against the trans-inclusive ENDA.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
PG, Senator Merkeley, who is the Senator most responsible for steering EDNA through the Senate this year, believes that the Republicans will filibuster. Even if you don’t agree with his view, I think you have to admit that it’s plausible that he has information about this that you lack.
Also, the Republicans don’t think of it as “wasting” a filibuster, because there is no limit on how many filibusters they can do. They’ve been routinely filibustering any even slightly controversial legislation; why do you think ENDA would be an exception?
Do I think that Democratic Senators — and also, the Republican Senators from Maine — would feel more pushback from their constituents for voting against a LGBT ENDA than they would for voting against a trans-only ENDA? Yes, I do, and I’m bewildered that you don’t.
If you were right, and if there were no Senators “on board u to the LGB but balking at the T,” then the whole issue of inclusive versus non-inclusive would never have come up in 2007.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Amp @ 68:
A “filibuster” isn’t just a regular cloture vote. A filibuster is when they can’t actually get the votes for cloture and debate drags ON AND ON AND ON.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
RP @ 61:
I dunno. You didn’t complain about my use of “dyke” and “queer”, both of which are slurs. Is there some reason I can’t use “tranny” but I can use “dyke” and “queer”? And might that have some bearing on the LGB / T tension that exists?
White people are really lucky I’m not Black, because there are some fantastically colorful Black slurs I would totally LOVE to add to my daily vocabulary.
Reclaim them all, I say. Force the bigots to make up new slurs, which we’ll promptly co-opt the moment they do.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
@PG:
Point taken on some TG folk benefiting from the first ENDA. I don’t think it’s a very relevant point (GLB protections are a drop in the bucket of the things gay trans folk face) but it’s a point nevertheless.
And really, you’re basing your assessment on your personal experiences with a few trans people you know? As opposed to, you know, a trans person who has been in contact with a wide range of trans folk working together in activism? Seems a little ineffective to me.
As for the sexism law covering it, that’s pretty doubtable. The employer only has to establish that they thought the person was trans to escape that, because then it isn’t based on one’s sex anymore but on a perceived trans state. It’s been done.
And these things would be avoided by a trans-inclusive ENDA that fails to become law … how?
I’m fairly certain (I could be wrong) that the GLB ENDA failed to pass back then too. Even with stripping us out.
But really, in the end, it’s very possible that he made the right political choice. If he was torn up about having to make the choice, if it was a dilemma between principles and reality, then I’d call him a decent guy. If he wasn’t, I would call him cold and Machiavellian. You really need to stop confusing blame and distaste.
I find being abandoned distasteful. Kennedy did not personally go out and rough up some trans folk. He did not encourage people to do anything. He simply decided (for valid or invalid reasons) to engage in inaction on our needs. And that sucks. Even if he had valid reasons, it still very badly sucks. And it strips him of any claim of being our champion. That isn’t blame for our woes. But it sure is hell is stripping him of fake credit for helping us.
(I’m aware of the ENDA not affecting crime, there was separate hate crime legislature that I’m fairly certain we were dropped from too. I can’t recall if Kennedy was involved in that. I was merely giving you an idea that the “status quo” as you put it, is a very serious very nasty state of affairs that the words “status quo” don’t really do justice to.)
You realize that there are more than mid physical transition, binary trans folk right? Non binary, non op, pre hormones, all sorts of trans folk who have all these little tells as to their history. Voice, facial hair, the swell of unwanted breasts underneath a t-shirt or a bulge behind a skirt. In the end, for all of the trans folk you meet who you can’t tell, there are hundreds more who are exposed for the world to see no matter how hard they try not to be.
Once again, you can’t make assumptions about the issues of a marginalized people that you aren’t a part of based on your small set of experiences with them. And it’s pretty clear that you haven’t done the research necessary to be informed on the sheer variation among trans folk.
And that visibility, that is known as soon as you meet that person. As soon as you hear a voice or see a movement. That exposure comes up way faster than sharing relationship things. And it makes you a target to strangers.
@Amp:
Fair enough. Even I can be dry sometimes. Next time I’ll ask people’s actual feelings instead of assuming.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
@Julie:
I didn’t question it because I know that there are efforts to reclaim “dyke” and “queer” within the GLB side and you already made it clear you identify as a lesbian (and I personally don’t find the word dyke offensive in regards to my own sexual attraction to women, nor do I find the word queer offensive to me)
At this point, I can’t say if any attempts have been made to reclaim the word “tranny” yet in the T side. For me personally, it’s the context more than the word that is painful, which is why I didn’t take offense on my own behalf when you used it (I also had a sense you were using it in reference to the HRC’s voice)
I’m a big fan of reclamation myself, but not at such a speed that we end up triggering or hurting members of the affected communities. It’ll be a while before I can hear the word “shemale” without twitching, even if it is reclaimed. Hence why I warned you about it.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
RP @ 71:
I’ve known in excess of 500 transsexuals (not “transgenders” of all stripes, but bona-fide transsexuals) and have worked (usually very quietly) on the subject for pushing 14 years. In addition to knowing a boat load (large boat) of the transsexual variety of trannies, I’ve known G-d only knows how many zillions more of the non-transsexual variety. If we’re going to engage in “I’m a better authority”, you should be prepared for running into someone with better credentials.
Nothing I’ve seen PG write on the subject of ENDA is anything I’d disagree with, and PG will gladly tell you that I’d disagree with her pretty much just because I could.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
PG, Senator Merkeley, who is the Senator most responsible for steering EDNA through the Senate this year, believes that the Republicans will filibuster.
Where has he said that? I can’t find anything in Google News quoting him to that effect. Everything about a filibuster’s likelihood is from unnamed “political observers.” Democratic leaders say they need 60 votes in case of a filibuster, and because the Democratic leadership has begun requiring 60 votes for any legislation. I can’t find any Republican senators who have committed themselves to a filibuster.
Republicans theoretically can filibuster every single bill that otherwise would be coming to a vote in the Senate, but it would be politically suicidal for them to do so. A filibuster blocks the Senate from being able to move forward on any other legislation, and needs to have broad support in the party to be effective. Moving forward on a filibuster that doesn’t have your party’s full support leaves you looking like a fool, as Kerry did in his unsuccessful attempt to filibuster Alito (Obama at the time tried to play it both ways: supporting the filibuster in theory, but talking it down on the Sunday morning news shows).
In any case, the 66 (2/3 of 100 senators) votes needed in the Senate to supersede a presidential veto is still larger than the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. Rep. Frank includes the difference between the 2007 veto again vs. the 2009 signature for in his explanation of why he thinks a trans-inclusive ENDA will pass this year but would not have in 2007.
If you were right, and if there were no Senators “on board up to the LGB but balking at the T,” then the whole issue of inclusive versus non-inclusive would never have come up in 2007.
Huh? I said that there were such Senators, but that I believed most of them were folks who would not be penalized by their constituents for voting against ENDA. Collins and Snowe don’t work as examples of LGB-yes-but-T-no, considering that they’re both co-sponsor of the current trans-inclusive ENDA bill.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
@Julie:
So you’re claiming that the majority of trans folk blend in? Really now? Like chameleons? I find that a bit ridiculous. And you’re basing your viewpoint on transsexuals, which tend to be binary leaning and have a far easier time blending then transgendered folk of non binary leaning (and are also less common).
Really? Really now? Or maybe you didn’t read everything that me and PG disagreed upon. I could imagine misunderstandings cropping up. They already have between me and PG.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
RP @ 72:
The entire point of reclaiming the words is to stop the twitching. It’s to take the power FROM the word that is taking so much power FROM you and give the power back to you. Depending where you are in the entire sex-change-two-step (or not) process, have a convo with your shrink (or a survivor of Really Ugly Experiences) and learn to embrace all the ugly words people used against you. Then you can mix them up in your daily vocabulary and freak out the normals. Too many people don’t know that queer kids are routinely beaten within an inch of our lives all in the name of making sure we grow up perfectly hetero-normative boys and girls. I’ve made it my mission in life to help ruin their day.
One of the many sources of the PTSD I so love and enjoy was being called a queer and then being beaten the crap out of. These days I love the word “queer” and make sure to use it as much as possible.
PTSD doing lots better, I must say.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
The AP story I quoted said “Merkley believes it has a good chance of obtaining the 60 votes that likely will be needed to pass the Senate.”
And actually, it’s not currently hard to filibuster, because the Democrats give in anytime they don’t have 60 votes necessary to overturn a filibuster; they don’t force business to come to a halt, contrary to what you seem to think.
And the Republicans in the Senate have fantastic unity — there’s every reason to think they could get 38 votes to sustain a filibuster. If just one* Democrat joins them (or abstains), then the Democrats have only 59 votes for closure, so they’ll give in to the Republicans and move on to other business.
That’s how things have been working for many months now, and there’s no reason to think this bill would be any different.
I do stand corrected on the Republicans from Maine, however.
[*Change this to "just 2" once there's a new Senator from Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy's seat.]
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August 28th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
RP @ 75:
Well, I didn’t say that, but I’d have to agree with that statement. Yes, the vast majority of trans-people are otherwise indistinguishable. Not that I think Civil Rights have squat to do with whatever point you’re trying to make with that.
And nope, pretty much read what PG wrote. Like I said — ask her. If I found a way to disagree with her, I’d probably do it just because I could. PG and I have a history. Like cats and dogs have a history …
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August 28th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
As for the sexism law covering it, that’s pretty doubtable. The employer only has to establish that they thought the person was trans to escape that, because then it isn’t based on one’s sex anymore but on a perceived trans state. It’s been done.
Are you saying that there have been cases in states where sexual orientation but not gender identity is protected against employment discrimination under the state law, where employees brought claims alleging that they were being discriminated against on the basis of sex because they were “too feminine” men or “too masculine” women, and the employee proved that that was the basis of the discrimination, but the employer successfully defended by claiming that she thought the employee was trans and that was why she discriminated against him? Despite your belief in my ignorance, I actually do follow the law in this area somewhat (my aforementioned friend who is married is a lawyer specializing in LGBT issues, and I edited the gender & law journal at my law school), and I don’t think I’ve heard of such a case. Do you know in which state it was?
And it’s pretty clear that you haven’t done the research necessary to be informed on the sheer variation among trans folk.
I am surprised that you think you need to inform me about the sheer variation among trans folk when the exact sentence you quoted from me was, “Also, the ‘visibility’ of trans-folk seems quite variable to me.”
That is, @63 you generalized, “the fact that we [trans people] are very visble,” and @ 66 I disagreed with this as a generalization and pointed out that some (not all) trans folk’s status was not very visible, at least to me. (Being a rather hairy little brown woman myself, I don’t associate hairiness with masculinity as much as people of Northern and Western European or East Asian descent may do.) And again, I am in NYC, so I’m probably encountering more trans people and in greater variety than the average person does. Moreover, with regard to non-binary folks, I generally think of them as “queer” rather than as “trans,” since “trans” has the implication of “going from one side to the other” (as in trans-Atlantic, trans-continental, etc.), and non-binary folks have rejected the “one side to the other” concept. It seems more in keeping with my gender-queer friends’ understanding of their gender identity not to label them as trans.
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August 28th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
PG @ 54:
“Queer” isn’t into the LGBT alphabet soup mix as much as “Trans” is, so there is long history of lumping gender benders into “Trans” if they aren’t already in L, G or B.
There’s also the ambiguity of “What is ‘Trans’?” as well — it’s more than just “across” or “sex change”. The opposite of my gender is probably my gender, and there are a lot of people inside the LGBT world for whom that’s true.
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August 28th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
@Julie:
That was the essential element of what PG said. That trans folk don’t have visibility. Just because they tend to be seen as “queer” (which doesn’t necessarily cover just gay or lesbian or bi) because they are gender nonconforming or have a nonbinary identity doesn’t change their visibility.
Which is why I responded as I did. Because PG used her experience as a means to claim that trans folk blend in like wild. As a trans person who looks pretty damn good (and has been undetectable in many situations) I’ve still been noticed as trans by folks in a good 40 or so isolated incidents over the two years+ of my transition so far.
One may not recognize every trans person they meet, but chances are that trans person who walked past you undetected has been “clocked” at least once in the last year.
@PG
More that the employer just let them go under suspicious circumstances (gender nonconformity, some rumors that people thought they were trans) using poorly constructed reasons for dropping them (like how most bigotry firings go nowadays). Most of the people I talked to didn’t bring suit because they’re poor and couldn’t afford (or couldn’t find free or sliding scale) legal help.
But that comes down to more of a class issue (and a lack of education about legal resources for poor folk, which I’m sure you’re aware of being involved in law)
Okay, I misunderstood then. I thought you were claiming that the visibility was not there because the way trans folk are seen or are is variable. That doesn’t change the fact that we are visible minorities, it just changes what slurs are shouted at us when people try to kick the shit out of us.
Oh, I guess I didn’t misunderstand you after all. It isn’t an improper generalization because it isn’t meant to apply to every member of the group. It is a general statement regarding a strong majority within the group in question.
This strong majority is visible. This strong majority is mistreated due that visibility. Some trans folk blending in does not change this fact. Some trans folk blending in does not mean we ought to not address or take into account this fact when discussing activism and legislation.
Trans isn’t really transsexual specific. Generally it covered folks who moved from one point in the binary to another (or outside it entirely) in self conceptualization, body structure and/or social interaction and expression and people who haven’t moved anywhere at all but wish to. There’s been some attempts to make it inclusive to folks like drag queens/kings, political genderqueer and gender deconstructionalists and hobbyist crossdressers too.
But it certainly isn’t based on “movement”. It’s actually based (etymology wise) on the alignment word trans in the chemical sense (which is why non trans people are referred to as cis, cis is the opposite chemist declaration).
Basically, trans and cis described the alignment of hydrogen bonds on a carbon chain. Trans alignment was where the hydrogens were on opposite sides of the chain. Cis alignment was where they were on the same side.
So trans, at it’s most basic, describes someone who’s body and gender (whatever gender might mean in the context of the person) does not align. Cis folk are ones where they do align.
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August 28th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
RP,
I’ve gone back and read a good many of your posts, this time for comprehension (as my high school teachers would say …)
Most of your arguments about “trans” aren’t at all about “trans”, as an entire grouping or collection of people, but rather about a fairly narrow subset of “trans” people who walk out the door intending to present / convince / persuade / whatever people that they are of the sex other than the one assigned at birth. And that’s fine — yes, someone who decided last month or last week that they are going to present as “the other sex” may be highly visible.
But the problems don’t simply extend to sex changlings. They include people who’s part-time, off-hours, weekend wearing of the “wrong” clothes create problems in their lives. Because there are many more of “those” people — the casual cross-dresser who lives in utter fear that their boss might find out and fire them — than sex changlings.
For others, it isn’t even that they are trans-anything — if they’d been born whatever sex it is they are this week, they’d still be the targets of discrimination. I show up on volunteer job sites with a trunk full of power tools. Do you think people’s reaction to me depends on whether I was dressed in blue or pink when I was an infant? I’m a woman, I own and use power tools, I do blue collar construction for fun. That alone makes me a queer in the eyes of many (My motorcycle and sports cars don’t help — and I’ve not even touched on face-suckage with the same sex. Still just focusing on the visible).
As you slice further and further into the entire set of “people who are trans”, there are fewer and fewer left who fit the “decided last week to change sex” category and can’t pass in the dark to someone with their eyes closed.
This is where so much of the “Would the trans-people PLEASE just shut up already?” attitude comes from. Because there are literally millions of lesbians and gay men out there who can’t hide their sexual orientation from anyone. Except, perhaps, themselves. Trans-people aren’t the only ones who can’t “hide”. I’m a woman — you think I can hide from sexist attitudes? PG is a woman of color — you think she can hide? But what we get is this Oppression Olympics thing.
There’s also the issue of situating oneself at the center of the entire trans-universe. I changed sex a while back, but if I don’t say “I changed sex a while back”, I get lectured on my “cisgender privilege” and told that I just “don’t know about trans-people and our oppression!” My transition at my former employer’s was so horrible the company changed, in part because of what I experienced, their policies. Believe me — I know “oppression”.
But I also know that 14 years (almost) after I started running around town with breasts, that 99.99% of the oppression I experience is because I’m a woman. If I don’t say “Butch women make me hot” or “my ex- wife/girlfriend”, the clock doesn’t even start running on the remaining 0.01%. But let’s say that’s common knowledge — I tell people I’m a dyke. Well, when I walk away from that group of people, it’s right back to 99.99% of the oppression I experience being on account of I’m a woman. And the same thing happens because I’m a Woman of Transsexual Experience.
Would health insurance be nice? Sure, but I’ve not had trouble getting health insurance. Or life insurance. I hear about all these “problems” and I’m wanting to know what the heck people are doing out there that they can’t get insurance. I was going to roll-up some policies I have and asked about coverage. The worst I was told was “you need to quit smoking”. “You need to un-change sex” wasn’t in there.
Employment? I’m 47. Think I’m having much luck finding a job at age 47? My little sex change doesn’t even get into the mix. Instead, I’m trying to start a business and running into problems because … I’m a woman.
I could keep going on, but the point is this — you are not the only person out there who needs an umbrella in a rainstorm, and acting like you are, or acting like your an authority on rain, creates problems. And, judging from the fact that your blog still focuses on sex-changlings, you’re probably one of those people who I talk about behind their back and tell others to ignore you and wait until you’ve got a lot more experience.
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August 28th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
@Julie:
Of course. It’s just that reclaiming the word takes a little bit (for me at least). Using it in certain situations. Building up that tolerance. It doesn’t happen overnight.
I’ve gotten better about some words. I can even use the word “trap” in jest with people now. It just seems to take me longer than it takes you.
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August 28th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
@Julie:
Um… what? Since when did I play oppression olympics? I never said trans folk invariably had it worse than anyone else. I didn’t even mention anyone else for comparison. Trans folk are visible. I never said gay people were invisible, simply that PG was wrong in assuming that trans people could escape scrutiny.
I was talking about how Kennedy screwed us. Maybe for valid reasons but screwed we remained.
You’re putting an awful lot of intent into my posts that simply isn’t there.
And for real, my blog concentrates on trans folk because my blog is based on my experiences as a “changeling”. Not because I seek to exclude people. How the hell am I, a white person, equipped to write on experiences of POC? Yeah. Not easily. Not well.
I stick to what I’ve experienced and in no way am I ever claiming or implying that others don’t need umbrellas or that I am the foremost authority on rain.
Oh wow, but I guess concentrating on a few things (specializing if you will) must make me a voice to ignore because I’m so very competitive about who’s oppressed more. Please.
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August 28th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
RP –
Yes, and my blog is based on my life as a queer Jewish woman.
And yes, it was the 2009 Summer Oppression Olympics Games.
And no, the Status Quo for trans-people is middle to upper middle class heterosexual white male cross-dresser. He’s probably a registered Republican and bashes gays and women to divert attention from himself as a cross-dresser. Which is more of why trans-people are left out in the cold by LGB folk.
Since you claim you’re a heterosexual woman, please don’t co-opt queers. Lesbians and gays can speak for ourselves without having someone decide that we’re discriminated against because of our “gender expression”.
Do you understand, one tiny little bit, that the vast and overwhelming people who are “trans” don’t ever get clocked? “Clocked” is a transsexual thing, for the most part. The average trans-person will not EVER change sex, start to change sex, contemplate changing sex, blog about changing sex, or anything else of the sort. Only 1 in 20 people who ever even START to think about changing sex will change their public gender, and of those, 1 in 5 will actually change sex. A minority of a minority of a minority and they scream bloody hell like the entire world should just STOP until they get what they want.
The “T” in LGBT does NOT NOT NOT mean transitioning transsexuals. And I get so very tired of people who assume it does. And that’s ANOTHER reason LGB people have bones to pick with trannies.
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August 28th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
PG brought up a comparison and I answered it. It had virtually no importance to the point in play and was nothing more than a footnote. Furthermore, it was such a slight difference pointed out as to be entirely irrelevant to most of what we discussed further (which centered entirely on whether trans folk were visible and not on gay folk at all)
Wow, I really went for that gold, didn’t I? Sporty. Totally trashed the gay folk. Gosh I’m so awful. I’m glad you helped me see the light there.
I’m not really sure what you mean by this nonsense. I almost want to say it’s transphobic garbage, but I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or sarcastic or think you’re imitating me or something.
I guess you’ll have to explain the joke.
I guess you didn’t read my blog after all. I’m lesbian identified. And the fact is, this is based on the assessments of a whole lot more queer identified folk than myself, all who noticed the trend of their expression being attacked, not the fact that they lip lock or held hands with a partner of the same gender.
Well shit. Rough how assumptions go, huh?
In fact, a lot of this theorizing by gay/les/bi folk on the things that make them a heavy target (and why straight cis people with different expression are labeled as gay and attacked by bigots on the streets) is part of the reason why GLBT is a community at all (instead of a separate GLB and a separate T). And why feminists get heavily involved in GLBT affairs.
Because a lot of this keeps on seeming to come down to gender expression and expectations by society.
But hey, no, it’s all me, being all str8, speaking for gays. Gosh, I’m such a mean little heterosexual, apparently.
Clocked is the best way I have for articulating: “holy shit, you do not fit the gender norm”. I thought I was speaking to an audience that was only familiar with transsexuals (PG mostly) so I used that language the most, hoping to be able to explain it in less words.
One does not have to transition to be trans and one does not have to transition for their transness to be noticeable to others through their expression, look, interactions and requests for pronouns, naming or otherwise mentioning their worldview. Fuck, one doesn’t even have to be trans to get nailed with transphobic comments and actions. Gay, straight, cisgendered folk get hit with transphobia for not fitting our ideas of what male and female (and man and woman) are.
For fuck’s sake I raised this point several times with PG when she kept on raising the idea of transsexuals blending and ergo T is doing just fine. Did you seriously fail to comprehend any of that?
You know what I have a problem with? People who don’t read before they criticize.
But hey, assume that I (who continued to point out several times to PG about nonbinary folk, non transitioners, gender nonconformists and a mess of other non transsexual folk) believe firmly that transsexuals are the only T in GLBT.
And hey, continue to assume that just because I was trying to make the concept of being noted for being a gender transgressor more clear to someone who only seemed familiar with TS folk and TS terminology, I’m clearly TS centric in all my viewpoints and subscribe to the belief mentioned above.
Good times.
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August 28th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
RP @ 61:
My apologies for confusing you for a straight woman. Happens to me all the time. I know how it feels …
You used Kennedy’s failure to forcibly advance — with the most likely outcome being “failure” — a trans-inclusive ENDA as proof of some major character flaws. I have a hard time accepting that it was a “minor footnote”. You also used the very dire situation of a very small minority of all trans-people as justification for that assessment that Kennedy had that character flaw. Again — I have a very hard time accepting that the oppression of this very small minority of people within the larger trans-population wasn’t intended as some kind of Oppression Olympics, and likewise this minor footnote.
Perhaps if you don’t want people reading your text as “significant factors” and “my oppression is worse than your oppression” you’ll be more careful? Because Authorial Intent is very dead and buried.
It’s not a joke — it’s an incontrovertible demographic fact. “Transgender”, “Trans-People”, “Trans-*”, etc. all cover the full range of “people whose experience of their internal gender is not consistent with their biological / assigned sex”. Inside that range are just a HUGE collection of people, with “People who will make a public gender transition” being a small fraction. The proof of this can be found all around the world where heterosexual male cross-dressers alone make up the vast majority of that population.
All the studies I’m aware of show that heterosexual male cross-dressers are, on average, more homophobic and more misogynistic than average non-transgender males. The most common explanation is that it’s a means of diverting attention from themselves, or overcompensation.
You’ll have to excuse me, but I think supporting “gender expression” as a concept is a nice sexist way of saying “No, really — women do act like that, when they are acting properly”.
My chainsaw belongs to a woman. It’s a woman’s chainsaw. And when I cut down a friend’s tree later this weekend (most likely), I’m not going to be performing “masculine gender expression” because I’m a woman and in my universe it’s perfectly normal for women to use chainsaws, have buzz cuts, wear men’s clothes and go by names like “Spike” and “Butch” and be called “handsome” in preference to “pretty”. I’m pretty. I like my women handsome. And in a feminist universe, that’s just peachy. Pretending me and my chainsaw is “masculine gender expression” hurts women
On which planet? “Clocked” refers to having ones “true” sex determined, not ones non-conformance to patriarchal gender norms. No one says a gay man was “clocked” because someone realized he’s a gay man. No one says I’m “clocked” when I roll up in a Corvette and haul out my Husquevarna chainsaw. I get a lot more “Wow!” than “It’s a man! Run and hide!”
Here — have a definition or four:
Those are all “sex” related terms. None of them have to do with masculinity in women or femininity in men. It’s all about perception of “sex”.
No, when I’m attacked for being into women, I’m not attacked for being “trans”. I’m attacked for being a dyke. Co-opting anti-lesbian and anti-gay experiences and sucking them under some “transgender” umbrella is just plain rude. It’s also inaccurate.
Trust me — I read your posts.
Your writing pretty much makes it clear that YOU believe that. Someone who is “non-binary” doesn’t get in trouble with a life insurance agency because the go by “zie” and “hir” and wear non-traditional clothing. By and large, the problems you’ve mentioned are transsexual problems. They just are.
I’ve read your posts, and blog, well enough to know that I’m old enough to be your mother. I also think you’re speaking out of school and assuming that someone who transitioned during the last presidential administration should be counted as an “expert”.
Just because you finally go around to transitioning doesn’t mean you discovered a previously undiscovered universe that you have to explain to everyone. Really — there’s just nothing wrong with what PG wrote. There are half a dozen or more transsexual men and women on this blog and if she were speaking out her backside, there’d be a lot of people coming down on her.
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August 29th, 2009 at 6:23 am
@Julie:
I’m still trying to figure out why you confused me for one. Especially when I specifically mentioned, in response to you, that I didn’t find the word dyke offensive in regards to my attraction to women.
Explicitly said it. In response to you. Yet you still thought I was straight. Wow.
Not really. The situation with Kopechne and the rape trial situation are being used as evidence of major character flaws. A lack of a trans-inclusive ENDA is simply evidence for seeing calling him a champion of the GLBT as whitewashing. I said several times that he may have had perfectly valid reasons for it. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck and it certainly means he wasn’t my champion.
Yeah, except that I referenced non transsexuals more than I did transsexuals because PG was under the impression all trans folk can blend because all trans folk are binarist. Or at the very least, implied that she was under that impression. Which is why I kept on bringing up nonbinaries, gender nonconformists, cross dressers, etc etc etc.
But hey, I guess I was only talking about transsexuals after all, apparently.
Certainly. I’m well aware that text is a poor capture of intent and even small missteps (like using clocked down below) can give a horrible and untrue impression.
Next time, when someone draws a comparison, I’ll ignore it completely and instead point out, “trans folk have visibility too” and leave it at that.
They probably could avoid visibility, but as you said about transsexuals (and funnily enough, as I also said about transsexuals) they do not make up all of the community and those other zones need legal protections. (Really, despite their bigotry, the male crossdressers ought to have those protections too. If I met a racist gay man, I wouldn’t think he didn’t still deserve legal protections to prevent bigotry against his sexuality just because he’s racist.)
Hey guess what. I’m not white, I’m Irish heritage American. White is just limiting me to a color based place in society and resent the damage you do to Irish heritage Americans by lumping us into white people.
…Oh wait. These terms are based on how and why society treats us badly. Gender expression should be self expression, gender shouldn’t come into it unless a person feels that such is how they express their gender. The reason why it is called gender expression is because self expression is seen as tied to gender and is used as a reason for harm.
So much like we call all sorts of a hodge podge of people white t0 enable discourse on marginalization (not because there is any good reason for them to be called white for the purposes of day to day living) we use the word gender expression to denote society’s mistreatment and actions related to self expression vs. perceived gender role.
This is pretty basic stuff.
On the definitions: Source? I had a different impression of both clock and passing, but if those definitions are from a trustworthy source (hint: dictionary.com is a shitty dictionary. Merriam-webster is not) then I will definitely say that my use of clocked was wrong and confusing.
Because clearly, I said that all GLB experiences go back to gender expression. Only some of them do.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “looks gay?” or “looks like a dyke?” Gee, I wonder what being into women makes someone look like. Is it automatic that someone who’s attracted to women will have short hair? Wear baggy clothing? God I sure hope not, it means I’m doing it wrong on the hair part (I’ve got the baggy clothing down.)
There is no way to look gay. Gay is an identity and a orientation of attraction. One’s self expression, if it does not match the expectations of the world, may come under attack but equating self expression with gayness is an error of the outside world. And attacking for self expression and how it doesn’t match with gender expression is also 100% the root of around 80 to 90% of the attacks on trans folk (including to a lesser extent transsexuals, who seem to be a bit scarier due to that surgery thing).
This doesn’t shift anti gay actions under a trans umbrella. It does demark the situations in which anti gay action and ant trans action comes from the same root issue. I thought I was damn clear on this. Apparently not.
Not very well, apparently.
Don’t know a whole lot of nonbinaries do you? On the trans site I worked on for a while, that catered specifically to nonbinaries, these issues came up. Business folk lost clients, nonbinary folk got harassed (even by binary transsexuals, gasp horror), and jobs were lost. There is no hiding for nonbinary folk. Pronouns are often different, clothing is often different, all of these are distinct things that come up regularly.
Goddamn, transsexuals are lucky compared to non binaries. If you’re a transitioning nonbinary, you’re pretty much screwed. Even if you’re not a transitioning nonbinary, people will just give you the googly eyes and act like you’ve lost your mind when you tell them what pronouns you prefer. Transsexuals have the luck at least of having a pronoun that is already set into the consciousness of our culture.
Oh but hey, it’s just transsexuals who get fired. Everyone loves nonbinaries, right?
Could you show me where I called myself an expert? The most I did was mention that PG can’t expect a small exposure to speak for a large group or to dismiss the needs of a trans person she’s speaking to.
I guess clearly that makes me the head honcho librarian of trans issues. Clearly.
The things wrong with what PG wrote were simple, small things. Nothing glaring, nothing bigoted, nothing obtuse. We disagreed that a lack of an ENDA was all fine and good because yay status quo, at least it isn’t worse right? We disagreed on the exposure of trans people. And you’ll notice (well no, you didn’t notice, but other people would) that I spoke mostly of people who couldn’t blend. Namely, not transsexuals.
And let’s face it, there’s a good chunk of transsexuals out there that forget that nonbinaries stick out, that gender deconstructionists stick out, that androgynes and neutrois/agendered stick out. This is pretty well evidenced by how many trans sites forget or fail to cater to the needs of nonbinary folk too and only discuss transitioning, blending/passing and medical stuff. It’s part of the reason the site I worked on was made.
So just because someone is transsexual, doesn’t mean they’re going to pick up on or realize inaccuracies in someone’s discussion when those apply to nonbinaries, non ops and gender nonconformers.
But hey, clearly because I was the only one speaking, I must be wrong. Clearly.
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August 29th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
RP @ 63:
Just because people make up new names, doesn’t mean these are “new things”.
People have been bending gender to hell and back just about forever. And those people STILL aren’t the majority of the transgender universe and they STILL don’t have the right to hold everyone elses Civil Rights hostage while society catches up.
And many people who think they are oh-so-gender-trendy just AREN’T. Gender is SOCIALLY constructed, it’s not a word someone makes up and says “Oh, I’m a XXX today!”. Gender exists within SOCIETY, not within the head of anyone. When SOCIETY decides there is a third, fourth or fifth gender, SOCIETY will be the one telling people what gender they are, because SOCIETY is what originated “gender” (and “race” and “sexual orientation” and “…”) in the first place.
If you showed up my my LGBT group and took the posture you’re taking now, I’d invite you to leave. Before you respond, give that some thought. You’re not just wrong, you’re rude and wrong. Your behavior hurts women, queers, and most of all, it hurts the people you claim to be helping.
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August 30th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Julie @ 64:
Because I totally said they were brand new, right? Right.
One does not need to be in the majority to still make up a sizeable statistical number of a group. Furthermore, you’ve yet to establish your claim that the heterosexual male crossdresser is the majority in the trans community.
Even more furthermore I never once said that anyone is holding anyone’s Civil Rights hostage. I said, in probably around 5 different post responses combined to PG and you (amazing that you’re forgetting this) that I really hope (and that it certainly is likely) that there was no malice here. That he honest to god thought it would pass and a small victory is better than no victory.
All I’ve said, in reference to that, is that it sucks that we were dropped. Even if he had valid reasons. It still sucks that we remain in water while the rescue craft pulls other people up. I’m not going to say, “bah! Drown those other people!” I understand the concept of triage. It still doesn’t make it suck any less and it still means that he is not a champion of the T, only the GLB.
Now, where in that did you get the “hostage” BS you’re spouting? Or did you just skim my posts? Did you make up some wonderful little strawman argument in your head as though I was demanding that Kennedy fuck over the GLB side of the community and that better we all lose? Despite the fact that I pointed out that even though it sucks for us, the pragmatic viewpoint would fit his actions? Did you forget the parts of my posts where I specifically stated (to the people who asked and didn’t just assume, like you did) that the things that stain his character was the situation with Kopechne and his actions during that rape trial? And that the ENDA was simply an example of people whitewashing him by attributing things to him he didn’t do? (like being a champion of the GLBT, T included community, instead of just the GLB end of the community?)
Did you miss all of that? And you said you read my posts. I wonder if we have a different definition of “read”.
And there are people, within that system, that do not function well within it. So they do everything they can to break out (or break the system itself down). Nonbinaries are included here.
It isn’t trendiness. It isn’t “omg I’m an outlaw”. It’s “this male/female thing is broken as shit and doesn’t work for me, let’s try something else”.
Regarding that as trendy is just binarist, cissexist and cis/bin privileged garbage, in the end. Good job dismissing a huge mess of people who are working to get out of the broken system of gender for their own well being.
Odd, I haven’t gotten a single iota of such a response from other LGBT groups I’ve been a part of. Maybe it’s because they actually listen to and/or read what I say instead of making up wild stories about my views and statements based on one mistaken use of one word (oops, I used clocked, must mean I hate gay folk and nonbinaries). Maybe it’s because the other LGBT groups I’m a part of give a shit about trans folk and specifically nonbinaries.
And I can bet you, if you took that attitude to a nonbinary inclusive LGBT group, you’d be the one tossed on your ass into the rain. Trendy huh? You still have little to no idea what I said, pulled a bunch of misconstrued bs out of what I didn’t say and then decided I was wrong based on that. And to top it all off, you insult an entire subset of the trans community. And you call me rude and wrong. Amazing.
Just amazing.
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August 30th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
RP @ 65:
A fairly large number of feminists have been working on that problem for decades. The difference, in my experience, is that they don’t make up new names, like “nonbinaries”.
The gender system is broken — admitted by most feminists prior to the 3rd wave. The solution isn’t ever more clever and refined kinds of “genders”, it’s getting people to realize that “gender”, like “race” is an illusion. A social construct. Something invented to keep one (or more) gender down and another (usually just one) up. Increasing the number of “genders” doesn’t fix the system. The only thing that will fix the system is reducing the number of “genders” to zero.
A really smart woman I used to know said that the cure for transgenderism and transsexuality (and the new and trendy genders being invented all over the place these days) is Radical Feminism. I agree with her. Sadly, too many radical feminists are also stark raving loon anti-trans bigots.
Where I grew up “Black” was subdivided into all sorts of “racial” categories, and it certainly wasn’t to create a more equal or more just society. What I see folks like you doing is subdividing people into more “gender” categories, and that’s not going to work out any better.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2009 at 2:27 am
Feminists, like all other groups of humans, make up new words for what they want to talk about all the time. There was a time when “sexism” was a new word. Ditto for “patriarchy,” and, for that matter, for “feminist” and “lesbian.” All of these were new words (although, like nearly all new words, they were adapted from already existing words).
People make up new words for what they want to talk about. It’s inevitable - it is, in fact, how the English language works — so objecting to the process is like yelling at the tides. Yell all you want, it won’t stop anything.
If enough people find the word “non-binary” useful, then it’ll keep on being used. It’s a waste of time to say “I think it would be a better strategy if humans stopped making up new words to describe the concepts they encounter in their lives,” because you can’t argue humans out of making up new vocabulary, any more than you can argue humans out of breathing.
And since you’re not, as far as I know, non-binary, I find it more than a little arrogant of you to lecture non-binary people on what term they ought use to describe themselves and their lives.
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August 31st, 2009 at 6:11 am
Julie @ 66:
Wow. Massive bigotry against nonbinaries and attempts to dictate identity too (through insults like the word trendy). You know, I can’t think of many LGBT groups that would be cool with insulting identity and attacking it. I truly feel sorry for any group run by you when you have this kind of attitude.
On your statements about the illusion of gender: so you suggest that people don’t adopt various methods to function now, before we beat gender? Didn’t you transition? Isn’t that a method of dealing with the now instead of eliminating gender altogether? Are you aware of your phenomenal hypocrisy here?
You want to know why rad fems often have transphobic bigots? Because those bigots look at the construct of gender and apply the same reasoning to “women of transsexual history” that you applied to nonbinaries. That transsexual folk are encouraging gender and that by transitioning we aren’t eliminating gender but simply working within it. Using your same reasoning (We should eliminate gender not work within it and by golly we can’t use methods to get by in the now while we work on it!). And of course they get just as insulting as you (instead of “trendy”, they just use words like “infiltrator” and “patriarchy tool” or my personal favorite: “female impersonator”).
Yep, the hypocrisy is just a bright shiny beacon right here. Kind of remarkable.
As for new words and whatnot: Ampersand basically said everything I wanted to say to you on new words being devised and your seriously arrogant identity attacking bigotry against nonbinaries, if a bit less angrily.
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August 31st, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Amp @ 67:
No, but it can be pointed out that “non-binary”, as a social concept, is going to be a long road to hoe. Like, “First, abolish Patriarchy” because the entire concept of “gender” exists as a way to make sure everyone gets into a box. I’m too busy to drag out MacKinnon today, but perhaps a Radical Feminist can explain it to you.
And if there’s one experience that is pretty common for transsexuals, it’s people doing their damnedest to figure our your sex or gender, and that doesn’t bode well for anyone who wants to get “non-binary” accepted as anything other than a shell game.
Define “non-binary”, then we’ll talk.
I’m also unclear on when examining words and their meanings and implications became off-limits in Feminist discussions. If “non-binary” means some kind of medicalized / surgicalized gender refusenik, what the heck does that make all of the feminist men and women who reject binary gender as a Patriarchal construct? And doesn’t arguing for the validity of a word like “non-binary” mean one is arguing that “gender” really exists outside its Patriarchal construction?
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August 31st, 2009 at 2:51 pm
RP @ 68:
Little “r” radical feminists are transphobic bigots because they think that transsexuals exist to serve their desire to deconstruct gender, rather than that we exist live our lives.
In a Radical Feminist utopia, I’d have been left the hell alone and had a life that was meaningful and rewarding as it was. We don’t live in that Radical Feminist utopia (may we soon and in our days …), so I made my life livable. The energy I save NOT dealing with that crap has given me a lot more energy to attack the hell out of that crap. Which I have to think of as a net win in the Universe.
Was it hypocritical? Sure. But changing sex dramatically improved my quality of life and liberated me from a bunch of crap I didn’t want to have to put up with in the first place. And — I get to attack the heck out of the Gender Police, in all their many disguises, just for fun.
When, G-d willing, humanity evolves into a Radical Feminist utopia, transsexuality and the rest of the body changing kinds of things that go along with it, or follow along in the wings, will end and people will just be people living in their own bodies. Not gender constructs trying to reconstruct their body to fit a different gender construct.
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August 31st, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Julie @ 70:
This too. But out of that viewpoint comes the same old tired argument of, “you shouldn’t do this because gender is a social construct”. Nevermind that people are out there suffering (including nonbinaries), nevermind that we won’t get a world free of gender related kyriarchy and free of the constructs of gender for a looooong time, nevermind that doing what you can to survive in this society doesn’t mean that you aren’t doing your part to fight the gender norms, gender as a broken concept and the patriarchy. Just like you and me, nonbinaries do not exist to further an agenda or to meet their lives to a principle instead of directing their lives in a way that won’t hurt them.
Their lives come first.
Exactly. Same in my world. So why are you not giving the nonbinaries that same courtesy? They’re only making their lives livable, not trying to deconstruct feminism or be “trendy”.
I wouldn’t quite agree on the hypocrisy. There’s a justified argument for surviving. You can’t do your part to work towards that utopia if you end up killing yourself or, I dunno, becoming a drug addict to escape from the pain. And really, any movement that justifies letting a whole bunch of people die and suffer for a cause that they haven’t necessarily consented to dying or suffering for is a fucked up movement. Feminism, at its heart, is about reducing the fucked up shit society puts us all through (in terms of gender). So I really can’t believe that feminism done right would say, “don’t do what you need to do to live and survive now because dammit the principle of the matter is more important than your life!”
What was hypocritical was when you didn’t give them the same value as yourself and allow them to do what they needed to survive, but instead challenged that as damaging to feminism and trendy.
Sounds like a great future. But in the meantime, people gotta survive. I’m sure you realize that. Now you just need to apply it to nonbinaries too.
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August 31st, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Julie @ 69:
Non-binary may be a tough thing to articulate/describe, but in the end it has all the same justifications as binary transsexuals. And in the end, I will always default to the survival argument. Our bodies, our lives as trans people (and this includes nonbinaries) are not to be used for agendas and not to be made to suffer based on one’s principles.
Lives come first. Any feminist willing to argue against that isn’t really a feminist because she’ll have already failed the humanist litmus test for preventing suffering at her hands (or his or hir if you believe folk who aren’t women can be considered feminists).
I don’t think any group has just sat down and gave up because it would be hard. They know it’s hard. It’s worse for them to try to fit in man or woman boxes, though.
A transgendered person who does not identify with male or female body structure or a person who does not identify with man or woman in terms of sociological identity. This isn’t inclusive to people who are just simply indifferent or doing it for political reasons only (sans social or physical dysphoria), because there’s no specific sense of identity involved (and indifferent/political people don’t have dysphoria, whereas both sets in the definition do)
Agendered/neutrois folk literally feel like their bodies should be without sexed traits and are dysphoric as a result. Whereas a gender indifferent or gender rejecting feminist person just refuses the construct. One is based on pain and distress and the other is an oppositional stance (or complete gender apathy).
It’s why there is a genderqueer TG version (which is nonbinary trans) and a political genderqueer version (which is not trans at all, but seemingly found more in the GLB side of the community and just oppositional to gender as a concept).
If you had just discussed the word, instead of insulting the entire group (with words like trendy), I’m sure it would have been fine. I certainly wouldn’t have complained. Having read my blog, you know how much I like to make words and put them on screens. I would have gladly talked your ear off about nonbinaries, feminism, gender constructs and what have you.
Those feminist men and women are, quite simply, men and women. Also they aren’t dysphoric and their identities don’t relate to gender.
Gender isn’t a patriarchal construction. That would imply that patriarchy created it instead of just using it. In and of itself, it’s just a general social construction that shows itself in matriarchal systems too (and in some neutral systems). The patriarchy just uses it very deftly to hurt a lot of people, but the same would go for a matriarchy.
It still should be eliminated or at the very least, its social impact reduced to almost nihl. That doesn’t really hinge on what created it, only that it is intensely damaging and usually used to harm.
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August 31st, 2009 at 4:21 pm
RP,
I’d suggest that “non-binary” is the wrong term. I utterly reject the “gender binary” — does that make me a “non-binary”? I doubt it, because I so thorough reject the gender binary that concepts like “non-binary” are just going to provoke me to say “I also reject non-binary as a gender”.
I’d also suggest that coming up with new terms for already existing things — every heard of “gender queer”? — is counter-productive and harmful to making progress.
“Non-binaries” aren’t new and much of the way it is presented, including on your board, isn’t at all about rejecting the gender binary. It’s about ways to take a little from here and a little from there and calling it “non-binary”. That’s as much “non-gender” as Tabouilli is non-salad. Which is to say that the “non-binary” I found reading your website is STILL all about gender.
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August 31st, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Julie:
You still refer to yourself and self identify as a woman though, right? That would automatically make you not a nonbinary. You went from m to f right? If you were nonbinary you would have went from m to something not m or f.
From what I understand, genderqueer doesn’t actually denote an umbrella term for people who literally identify with a certain body type not of male or female. Lots of genderqueers I’ve met (and I’m willing to bet the ones you know too) are just fine with their bodies and either are fine with their identity marker or eschew one entirely.
I suppose in some ways one could call me a political genderqueer, because for me, the word woman is an afterthought. I handled my bodily dysphoria (not fully, still need some genital surgery) and it was more a practicality issue to take on the word woman and her than an identity issue. But because I went from m to f, I wouldn’t be nonbinary.
Honestly, coming up with new terms for old things isn’t actually harmful. If it reflects the motion of society and the steps taken are in the right direction, new terminology is actually a necessity.
And in my estimation, nonbinaries coming into play weakens the M/F dichotomy, which in turn weakens the power of the patriarchy. It may be a lateral move in wiping out gender entirely, but it does make binarism (which is a firm weapon of the patriarchy) less functional.
It’s the neutrois/agendered and the trans genderqueers that slash and burn gender entirely (but are still subject to dysphoria, especially evidenced by the neutrois who have gotten sex nullification surgery). Bigendered folk, certain types of mixed androgynes, fluid gendered folk and two spirits are much like binary trans folk, in that they still usually operate within gender. Just not within the binary.
Which is rejecting the gender binary. It just isn’t rejecting gender purely (So we agree there). And like I said before, their survival comes above the principles of others. In a genderless world, they would be free and happy too.
But we aren’t there yet. So just like us, they need room to breathe in this world. Even if it makes the feminist in you flinch.
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August 31st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
RP,
The feminist in me flinches every time someone insists that prettying up “gender” is feminism.
I went from M to F because being M just plain sucked. If I look at my personal happiness, interpersonal relationships, professional achievements, from when I was an “M”, there’s just no comparison (take THAT, you evil people with your ‘you did too have male privilege!’ nonsense).
Now, if I have to say “Hi, I’m a woman” to get society to stop thinking I’m a weirdo (people do, but a different, not-harmful-to-me kind), I’ll say that. But I’m very clear that I’m a “woman” because the kind of “man” I was just wasn’t acceptable to society. The kind of “woman” I am is a bit threatening, but no one has raped or beaten me in decades, and the last time anyone tried killing me was almost 12 years ago, so I think I’m really doing well. And, gee, all because now I “show up” as a “woman” to other people. Go figure.
Now, you want me to accept that gender is “real” enough that you can claim there is this “non-binary” thing out there? To me, “gender” is just what determines how much people want to screw with me, and what groups I can hang out with under what terms and conditions. Is my “gender” “woman”, or is “woman” for me an artifact of the Gender Police? And if my being a “woman” is a consequent of the Gender Police, what does that make people who want to come up with more kinds of genders that are going to be policed in some other kind of way — like how you’ve decided I can’t be “non-binary” because I decided to go for “having a real life”?
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August 31st, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Just wanted to mention that many people of color find the idea of trying to label race “an illusion” fairly offensive - it may be far more socially constructed than genetic, but it has very real effects, and trying to zero-out race (aka the “colorblind” approach) is pretty problematic for an awful lot of people who live with those effects as a daily reality.
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September 1st, 2009 at 6:48 am
I’m not sure where I said that. Nonbinary is, just like binary trans, a survival technique.
The same thing applies to those who go from M to whatever (but not F). They’re better off, they’re happier, they’re more functional.
I would say that technically you were treated by society as most males were (which includes male privilege), however because of your self expression and whatnot, it (society) negated any positive benefits of male privilege through cissexist attacks on you.
I generally refer to that as the trans lens. That one wouldn’t get much out of male privilege because those crossgender feelings (or self expression issues, or bodily dysphoria) just makes all the actions towards the MtEtc a reminder of dysphoria or an act of transphobia. It tends to work similarly with other realms of intersectionality in the kyriarchy: One may have privilege in one regard but that privilege gets kicked to dust by marginalization in another regard. This especially applies when cis privilege vs. trans marginalization is entirely contingent on the concept of gender and sex (so male privilege is directly hit by it)
I’m not disputing your right to survive and to make your life easier. I’m asking you why you insist on saying that nonbinaries lack that same right. Why do their bodies and existences have to be a feminist principled agenda booster and not yours?
Many of them are doing the same thing you and I are. Those that aren’t may not be all that feminist, but that isn’t a part of being nonbinary, lots of cis and trans folk shy away from gender deconstruction. So it isn’t characteristic of nonbinaries to do that, it’s something that depends more on how one personally views gender.
See, this makes the scientist in me cringe. Gender is real because constructs are real. Social constructs exist. Existing is all that is necessary to make something real. If it wasn’t real then there would be no gender marginalization. What you ought to be saying is that gender is not naturalistic. It is a social construct and therefore does not apply biologically. Saying it isn’t real is either a complete lack of understanding of what the word real means or potent self delusion.
No, it’s certainly an artifact of the social construction that is currently used as a weapon. You still use it because you need to function, you need to have a life.
It makes those people the same as you. People who weren’t happy or functional as males (or females) and then discovered that they wouldn’t be happy or functional as females (or males). So they went in a different direction so that they can function and be happy. It really is literally the same. You invoke the gender construct by using the socially constructed word woman for yourself. They invoke the gender construct by using the socially constructed nonbinary zones for themselves.
There is no difference.
Are you implying that the life of a woman is real but the life of a nonbinary is not real? Or is this further misuse of the word “real”? Are you instead implying that living as a woman is naturalistic and not living as either is constructed? Just after talking about how constructed women as a concept are?
If so you are being inconsistent. If not then I would like some clarification on what you meant.
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September 1st, 2009 at 2:23 pm
RP @ 77:
The Rape Culture is both real and a social construct. Should we abandon working to abolish that?
“Woman” does not exist in the domain of science. “Woman” exists within the human social universe. Gender is a system of difference, and differences produce dominance. “Woman” isn’t different from “Man” because “female” is different from “male”. “Woman” is different from “Man” as a means of enforcing the supposed inferiority of “Woman” with respect to “Man”.
You say these “non-binaries” don’t want to be “Women”. Okay, neither do a lot of “Women”. That’s half the point of Raymond’s book “The Transsexual Empire”. That used to be the point of Feminism. It’s the opening question in the introduction of “The Second Sex” — “What is a Woman?”
There are essentially only two genders — Capt. Kirk, and everyone else. Men who aren’t Capt. Kirk are further down the monkey pile than men who come close, and women are at the bottom of the pile, but it’s still a pile, and Capt. Kirk is still at the top.
Given that Feminism used to be about studying such things, why should I support yet another system that wants to figure out where on the pile of monkeys some other collection of bodies get placed?
And more to the point, why should I support people who want to figure out where on the pile they want to be? I’d much rather attack the problem than shuffle bodies around.
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September 1st, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Why do you assume that something being real doesn’t mean we should eliminate it?
E bola is real (and deadly) but clearly it being real means it should continue to infect people unfettered. Clearly.
Please don’t put words in my mouth.
It exists in sociology, which is a science of how society works. XD
Difference in and of itself does not produce dominance. Even systems of difference don’t necessarily produce dominance. What produces dominance is groups seeking advantage, that encourage and create social subtexts that establish advantage and engage in violence to protect it.
That doesn’t mean gender shouldn’t be eliminated, because after all it’s a broken system to begin with (and its weaponization is further strikes against it) but calling it “not real” does nothing to help the cause of eliminating it. It just makes you look like you don’t understand what real means.
Actually the main problem is that woman isn’t different from man at all. And even female and male are broken language because of the sheer spectrum of variation in bodies that break that m/f box code.
If they don’t want to be women, and refuse to call themselves women and identify and self conceptualize as something else, then they would be trans and likely nonbinary (if they didn’t want to be men either).
But and I think this is the case, if they didn’t want to be women or men or any self conceptualization related to anything at all genderwise, then they would be postgendered.
And postgender isn’t trans or cis, it just drops the question and moves on past gender. Of course, if they still use the word feminism then they’ve failed at postgender.
And the mass majority of feminists I encounter still call themselves women and identify and self conceptualize as women. In fact, the very word feminism itself is built around the concept of femininity as it pertains to women, which is just as much of a social construct as woman and gender is (hence failing at postgender by using feminism as a term).
The very use of the word feminism implies an attachment to gender that ought to be removed. Which states to me that we have a long way to go, all of us.
Why do you call it feminism?
Then you shouldn’t have transitioned. After all, that’s shuffling your body around.
…wait. You did transition. Hmm. So, why again (I keep asking this question and never getting an answer), why is your survival and well being more important than that of nonbinaries?
You’re expecting a level of dedication from them that you didn’t show and that you continue to fail to show now (by using the word feminism and calling yourself a woman). You continue to dodge this question and I’m getting tired of it. Every single argument you’ve raised so far can be used against your transition and even your use of the word woman at all (as well as the name of feminism) yet you persist in using these terms and in defending your transition.
Why are their bodies subject to the agenda of feminism but yours isn’t? Why are their lives less important than an ideal level of dedication but yours isn’t less important?
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September 1st, 2009 at 9:51 pm
RP –
You asking questions that aren’t even the questions I want to address. What is “Non-binary”, anyway?
I went to your website and “Non-Binary” is clothing, hairstyle, medical interventions. That’s not “Non-Binary”, that’s Gender Buffet.
But also, you make assertions that are trans-centric, and that’s one of the dangers of engaging in TransSpeak. It all only even makes senses in a trans-centric world in which “Hair” or “Clothes” are gender. If “Dissatisfaction with being a Woman” means a trip to a gender clinic.
What, exactly, is a day in the life of a Non-Binary? How would myself or someone else know they are interacting with a Non-Binary?
As for your incessant questions about my life, long after you were given the answers, you were given the answer. You don’t seem to like my answer, but in my experience, people who engage in TransSpeak aren’t satisfied until they get more TransSpeak in return.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:36 am
Julie:
I already answered what non-binary was. The questions I am asking is relating to your own hypocrisy. Sure you may not want to address them but they directly impact your treatment of nonbinaries.
Remarkably like the transition of a woman of transsexual history, right?
I’ve never once disputed that trans situations are centered in a gendered world. I’m asking why you seem to think your referral to yourself as a woman, your use of the word feminism and your own transition is held on a different standard than theirs.
And honestly, if you were just a cisgendered feminist, not a whit of “transsexual history”, I would still ask you why people’s bodies and their survival is less important than one’s social principles. A question you continue to fail to answer (ironically after complaining how many feminists try to use transsexual bodies as agenda boosters)
Pretty similar to a day in the life of a woman or a man, only the gender shit they deal with is different. You would know you are interacting with a nonbinary the same way you would know you were interacting with a man or a woman.
As in, you may not know at all if you’re interacting with a man, woman or nonbinary. Only some men, women and nonbinaries are specifically recognizable externally, as the variation in self expression and body type are encouraged to be visible (instead of suppressed or hidden) more and more.
Actually, if you’ve already answered the question I’m asking, I don’t remember the answer. Could you perhaps give me the comment number of your answer? Because the only answer I remember getting was that your transition was a bit hypocritical.
Not why or whether you’re okay with that hypocrisy, not why you’re okay with the hypocrisy of calling yourself a woman and calling for nonbinaries to not to the same things you do. Just that you are aware of your own hypocrisy.
I tend to be one who dismisses the words of unjustified hypocrites, because I find if someone is unwilling to explain why something that they’re allowed to do is not allowed someone else, that means they don’t fully comprehend or aren’t willing to comprehend the meaning behind the words they impart.
If it is so intensely important that we all eschew gendered words, to the point that even if it hurts us, even if our survival is badly impacted, then you would be doing that too.
Yet you do not. We all already know that makes you a hypocrite. What I want to know is: “what is your justification for it?” Why do you do it? Why do you hold this double standard? That’s all.
So if you’ve answered that question in the past, then I sincerely apologize for forgetting/not comprehending and ask that you give me a link or a comment number so I can go back and check.
But if you haven’t answered that question, I ask that you do and stop dodging it. Because in the end, your actions speak louder than your words.
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September 2nd, 2009 at 4:25 pm
RP @ 81:
Only for FemmeBots. And I thought it was pretty obvious by now that I’m not a FemmeBot.
Whenever I run into “gender is all about clothes!” people I’m forced to immediately disclose my present attire. Two articles of men’s clothing (pants, shoes), two articles of women’s (underwear …), one that’s neither (t-shirt). I’m wearing no makeup. My “jewelry” consists of glasses (bifocals, because I’m old), plain gold wedding band (right hand, I’m a widow).
Last vehicle driven: motorcycle. Last non-work task: repaired my lawn-mower. Last haircut: Above the collar. Shorter than my son’s, I think.
Yeah, definitely all about clothes for me.
So, wanna try again with “they are just like you”, because if they were “just like me”, they’d be doing a lot LESS.
LOL! See, I don’t have to “call” myself a woman. Women aren’t women because women “call” themselves women. I’ve made the offer before, if you get off calling me a man for some strange and twisted reason — have at it! It’s been a while, so I forgot this part — If you gotta call me a man, call me “Bob”. It’s less confusing to me if you call me Bob than if you make up your own name for me and I think you’re talking to / about someone else.
For some reason the only people who seem to much get all excited and angsty about being called the wrong gender are men and trannies. Given that women tend to occupy the bottom rungs of the gender heap, I can understand why. Just means that “calling” oneself a gender ain’t what does it.
On which planet is that true? Because here on Planet Earth, gender recognition, as well as “birth sex recognition”, works accurately far greater than 99% of the time.
Want to try again — I meet a “non-binary.” I recognize this HOW?
Sorry — I don’t play “Have you stopped beating your wife?” games. You were given your answer, you didn’t like the answer, you’re not getting another answer, and I’m not going to play your game.
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September 2nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Elusius @ 76:
When I talk about abolishing things like gender and race, I’m referring to abolishing the class aspects. I’m all for preserving / promoting / celebrating cultural and ethnic history. Just not all for trying to figure out which group of people based on skin color, straightness of hair, color of eyes, geographical origin of ancestors, etc. (or clothes, genitals, etc.) is placed where on the giant monkey pile that is “Racism”.
If you know People of Color who want to keep the giant monkey pile going, I’m just not going to be all that supportive.
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September 2nd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Julie:
Odd, you still changed your body structure. That sounds an awful lot like transition to me. Which sounds an awful lot like not operating within the worldview of gender deconstruction.
I generally point out that same things, but I’m also smart enough to realize that some people have different ways of coping (especially when they can’t change physicality) and I know well enough not to put my feminist principles above the lives of others.
And that in the end, gender isn’t about bodies either. But you and I changed our bodies. So we contribute to this too.
As a note, it’s creepy how similar our clothing styles are. Minus the glasses. o_O
Oh, you mean like the nonbinaries that refer to what they wear and do as self expression, not gender expression? Or the nonbinary that argued for three pages that feminism itself is a gender enabling system, due to the fact that it was named feminism?
The fact is, you talk all about encouraging gender or playing the monkey pile game, when you have played it through physical alteration and continue to play it by referring to yourself as a woman. Just that alone. That’s all it takes to qualify.
Pretending (and that’s what it is, because the nonbinaries there vary quite a bit) that it’s all about the clothes for them doesn’t free you from that.
You have no credibility to tell others how to live their lives when you don’t live it yourself. That’s pretty much all I have to say there.
And yet, you don’t call yourself a man. Or something else. Or eschew gender entirely. You still persist in calling yourself a woman. And no matter what name I make up for you, even if I just call you a Visterole (my favorite meaningless word), you will continue to refer to yourself as a woman when self describing.
Not really. As variation widens and more and more androgyny comes into the mix, there are more and more men and women who are quite simply men and women only because they self conceptualize that way or because of a sociological technicality.
And then, with how broken and arbitrary male/female is as a labeling system, most of gendering people you meet is an exercise in arbitrary subjective judgment, not actual objective categorization. There are certain cues that people use to determine Man and determine woman. A lack or a mixture of these cues is what leads one to go “wtf?” And there is how most nonbinaries look.
These cues are, for the most part, bullshit as you should be readily aware. Which is why I said, the same as men and women. Because in the end, the bullshit reasons you will recognize a nonbinary are largely based upon a lack or mixture of the bullshit reasons you will recognize a binary person.
Gender recognition in the end comes down to bullshit and changes between cultures. So I suppose when you say, “I meet a non binary, I know this how?” I say, “I meet a man/woman, I know this how? Oh wait, that’s an irrelevant question when gender is an arbitrary social construct”.
Like I said, you should (as a gender deconstructionist) already know this.
So… you’re not going to link me back or even give me the comment number where you gave the answer? I left that option open. In no way is the only choice here give a second answer.
Of course, if you’re bullshitting me and you didn’t actually answer my question (and are taking advantage of my poor memory) then this insistence that you won’t direct me back to where the answer was would make a lot of sense. I’d also be a bit miffed. I hate it when people bullshit me.
I can go back and look, but it may take a while. Because there are a lot of comments between us now. And if I don’t find it, well, I’ll guess I’ll just have to conclude that you are an unjustified hypocrite, with absolutely no credibility in telling nonbinaries that they must abandon gender entirely.
I think that’s fair.
(Hint: Even if you were cis and lived the life of a gender deconstructionalist to its fullest degree without a whit of gender hypocrisy, I would still tell you that you had no right to claim your principles came above the lives and suffering of others. In the end nonbinaries are just as justified as binary transsexuals and transgendered folk in doing what they need to cope. Even if that’s wearing various types of clothing. XD)
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
RP @ 84:
I don’t “self-describe”.
Like I said, you want to call me a man? Enjoy! You have my permission. My blessings, even. Call me Bob. It doesn’t change the fact that where I’m =classed=, not “self-described”, but “classified within Patriarchy by the overwhelming majority of people I meet and know” is “Woman”. Someone can “self-describe” all they want, but it just doesn’t make a lick of difference.
Blame me for Patriarchy all you want. I’m just the messenger here, and like most trans-identified, trans-centric, TransSpeak-practicing folk, you want “gender” to work some other kind of way than how it works. You want “ineffable gender identities” and “self-described gender” and the rest of what goes on in the TransUniverse.
Elusius mentioned “race” — you think People of Color can stop being “People of Color” just by saying “I’m white”. How many “self-described White Person” People of Color do you think there are in this world, and how well do you think THAT works?
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:16 am
That’s nice for you, that you have the privilege to decide whether or not to lend your “support” to the strongly-held and well-reasoned opinions of POC on the subject of race and racial classifications.
I’m telling you that for many POC, saying “I’m not going to look at how racial characteristics cause people to be privileged or marginalized” is offensive, it erases their experience, and it smacks of white-washing. It supports institutional racism.
But I’m tired of watching you define other people’s experience for them. You say things like
that clearly show you have no understanding of the history of racial passing, and
that shows you have no concept of what it’s like to be a young girl who is mis-labeled a boy (the one fight I ever got into in school prior to middle school) or an athlete subjected to gender testing or a woman working in a non-traditional field who feels terribly conflicted about how to simultaneously be “one of the boys” and yet retain her sense of herself as a woman (a dilemma, it seems, you would hold in no small contempt as you seem to have managed that experience differently).
This whole exchange reads as though you’re trying to impose your understanding of gender, gender identity, and gender signifiers on others (and as a femme, your invocation of “FemmeBots” didn’t go unnoticed by me as it carried a lovely whiff of anti-femme contempt). I’ve seen you elsewhere show contempt for non-stealth transsexuals, transvestites, and otherly-gendered people who don’t occupy the kind of clearly-defined category you have chosen for yourself. I’ve seen you show contempt for people who have transitioned who still identify as transgender.
It’s tiresome and infuriating.
This comment was written by Elusis.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:16 am
Elusis @ 86:
Do you INTENTIONALLY misread what I write, or do you just managed to get it horribly wrong?
Eradicating RACE means dismantling the very systems that CREATE racism. And contrary to what RP has decided “dismantling gender” means, it doesn’t mean stopping calling people “men” or “women”, or using gendered pronouns, or changing the name of “Feminism”.
Eradicating racism is not about blindly ignoring “Race” — the argument made in the video. It is about changing society so that when we are fully aware of race, it has no consequence. Which is to say, that the problems have been FIXED and not just swept under the rug. “Deconstructing Race” is not about intellectualizing over the social constructedness of race and then pretending to be blind to race. It also involves tearing down the structures that create and/or maintain that social constructedness.
If you don’t understand what I write, please — ask. And if you don’t know what a term like “FemmeBot” (and it has nothing to do with =being= femme) means, ask or look it up on Google. A “FemmeBot” is to femmes as “Barbie” is to women. More better?
Most of the people who are “fed up” reading what I write were fed up before they ever read anything I wrote because they usually aren’t even understanding what’s been said on the subject countless times before.
A “FemmeBot” is NOT NOT NOT a femme, the same as a “Stepford Wife” is NOT NOT NOT a “wife”.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:32 am
You referred to yourself, at least once, as a woman of transsexual history. That’s self description.
Maybe I should buy you a dictionary.
And any nonbinary that is visibly in between or lacking in the cues for men or women is a “wtf?” not a woman or a man.
For someone who gets so enraged when people misread her, you sure do misread other people a lot.
I haven’t said a thing about how I want gender to work or if I even want it to exist at all. All I have done is pointed out the inconsistancies in how you live and what you say and your hypocrisy. I’ve also pointed out that other people’s survival comes above your and my principles.
You can bleat all you want about how gender is just a construct and nonbinaries are fucking it all up, but it won’t matter in comparison to their survival. Literally, it will not matter. Their bodies are not your plaything. Their lives are not your case lesson.
It just comes down to that in the end.
Race is based mostly on arbitrary lines of appearance. Gender is based on arbitrary lines of behavior and self inflicted appearance (clothing, makeup, whatever). The two aren’t really comparable.
Now sex and race, on the other hand. Very comparable. And that’s where physical nonbinary transition comes in. One person I know (an agendered/neutrois individual, essentially MtoN) has already undergone low level hormone therapy and surgical alteration. And if they grow any bit of extra breast tissue from the hormones, they’ll likely get that removed surgically too.
That person? Totally scrambles the instincts of people who search for male/female physical cues.
Another nonbinary I know (FtA or female to androgyne/genderqueer) has undergone very weak T dosage and will obtain top surgery but no bottom surgery.
In fact, a lot of nonbinaries tend to shoot for partial MtF or FtM transition because that achieves of the mixture of traits they want physically (and the agendered just work to nullify everything). So your analogy sort of fails even there, because there are nonbinary transitional surgeries and treatments now.
So I’m sure if a POC got some surgical adjustment and skin color changing, they would be treated as white until they revealed their history.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:43 am
RP –
This discussion is over. I joined this discussion because you were lecturing PG about transsexuality, despite having a very, very, very limited amount of experience.
Now you’re lecturing me about things I experienced while you were in elementary school.
I went to this website you’re all about — http://www.whatisgender.net/phpBB3/index.php — and it’s the same Gender Buffet of dealing with “ineffable gender identity” that every other gender website on the entire Internet is all about.
If you think “Gender” is about this –
we’re never going to reach a common ground for discussion. To me, that’s gender gibberish. It’s “TransSpeak”. It only makes sense if one drinks the Transgender Kool-Aid.
And if you think race is about
you’ve never actually experience anything that resembles “racism” because “racism” isn’t about skin color, hair color, straightness of hair, eye color, parents geographical region of origin. It’s about keeping the “wrong” people down, and the right people up, and no amount of Porcelana fade cream, hair straightener or flat irons is going to change that.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:34 am
You still haven’t established that my lack of experience yielded a tainting of content. At best one word slip using a poorly applicable term is the only thing I messed up due to my lack of experience.
Experiencing something doesn’t necessarily mean you comprehend it.
I guess you didn’t read very deeply.
There are a lot of folks there that fit that unfortunate zone, just like there’s a lot of folks in the binary trans community that do and a lot of cis men and women that do. Most of them aren’t very into gender deconstructionism or disagree that gender needs to be abolished to end the systems of gender oppression.
You’ll find that many feminists operate that way and that gender deconstructionism itself is actually more of a minority. My own viewpoints are more mixed: I believe that it isn’t necessary to abolish gender, just the systems of oppression that weaponize it, however, I feel that a world that lacked gender entirely would largely be a better world in general.
But the point of giving you that site was to show that one being nonbinary trans does not inherently mean that one is not a gender deconstructionist and stuck in the gender “Matrix”. Like the one person who argued that feminism itself is a poor term for gender deconstructionism.
And yet, no rebuttal. Just claims of gibberish.
I’m sorry, but I never take someone seriously if they can’t present a logically justified argument for why something is gibberish. So clearly, I can not take you seriously any longer. I guess its good that our conversation is over.
If you think that the actual system of difference itself is the actual system of oppression then you’ve lost your marbles. Race is a collection of traits that are used to define and classify people. Racism is a system of trained social behaviors and viral privilege defended and concealed ideology that uses race as a structure by which to determine where such things go based on the power dynamic as it stands.
I mean seriously. There is a huge difference between being made into a weapon and being the person who forged the sword. Gender did not make inequity. Nor did race. They were forged into weapons by those with power who wanted to retain power (and in some cases by those without power who used that weaponization to gain it and then hold onto it).
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September 3rd, 2009 at 11:28 am
RP @ 90:
“TransSpeak” — the use of transgender-originated language and defininitions — is “gibberish” because it only exists and is comprehensible within transgender discussions, and only so long as one ignores what everyone else knows to be true.
“TransSpeak” is saying that body parts, clothing, mannerisms, behavior, etc. are the “Gender” which is central to Feminism, when what is central to Feminism is the class structures.
“Gender” is not “I am oppressed by my breasts / beard / hair / vagina / penis”, “Gender” is the actual oppression itself. “Gender” is “Sex Discrimination” and “Rape Culture”. “Gender” is not wearing pink or blue.
Nor does “Gender Identity” exist outside of “TransSpeak.” Implying that “Women” are oppressed because women “Self-Identify” as “Women”, rather than because “Women” are socially classed power-down relative to “Men” within a Patriarchy Society, means that women could just “Self-Identify” as “Men” and then magically cease to be oppressed as women.
Okay, from now until I get back from a bit of shopping, I hereby “Self-Identify” as a “Man”. In fact, from now until whenever I decide I’ve proven my point, I hereby “Self-Identify” as a “Man” named “Bob”. And furthermore, because I am now “Self-Identifying” as a “Man” named “Bob”, I hereby declare that I will no longer be subjected to the “Male Gaze”, I will no longer be viewed as something to be f*cked, and I hereby declare that I no longer have to worry about violence. Because I am now a “Self-Identified” “Man”.
It is because that previous paragraph is so completely out of touch with reality that what you are saying, what you are advocating, what you are advancing, and probably just about everything you say and do about “Gender” is a smouldering pile of gibberish.
But I’m going to give it my best effort. I am, after all, a “Self-Identified” “Man”, and as a “Man” the entire world is my proverbial Oyster.
Here goes!
– Bob.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Much better. Well, better in that you actually put the effort in. Not better in that you actually presented something coherent.
Actually this is entirely untrue. Transgender related discourse largely ties into the methodologies and systems of oppression orientated around gender in general. It’s part of why there’s a lot more violence against MtF folk then there is among FtM folk, because much of transphobia arises from sexism.
Nonbinaries aren’t just an identity marker, the specific forms of oppression they face goes beyond the standard oppression trans folks face (and operates differently than transmisogyny). They are literally a giant red flag to the forces of sexism because anything that moves outside of the gender classification system’s categories as they stand suggests that said system doesn’t function. And this includes physical cues, which is why the response is so violent, because they can’t even default to the basic physical structure to make a gender classification.
The discussion of actual identity itself may be gibberish to a gender deconstructionist (it is as simple as psychological self conceptualization that is based within the gender classification paradigm), but it is no more gibberish than referring to oneself as a woman. So it isn’t really transspeak. It’s gender speak. Folks that are caught up in classification system as though it worked, made sense and was functional. Calling it transspeak when cis folk do it is pretty hopelessly transphobic.
Really now? Feminism (in pretty much every bit of current lit I can get my hands on) treats gender as the simple classification system it is and the weaponization of it as per sexism as the means of oppression.
Body parts, clothing, mannerisms, behavior etc are what is used to determine where in that classification system you fall, and while such a system is weaponized, where in the marginalization intersections you fall.
The funny part about this is how many cis people use this same terminology. It seems a little transphobic to ascribe it to just trans folk.
You are exactly and completely the first and only person who has ever told me (out of hundreds of feminists and gender deconstructionists of all ages ranging from 50 to 17) that gender (the word used for the system of classification) actually means the same thing as sexism (the word used for the system of weaponization of gender, marginalization of certain groups that fit that system’s types, marginalization of groups that fail to fit that system’s types and the perpetuation of the viral ideologies and social trainings within.)
No one has even implied that gender was the word for the oppression system, sexism has always been put forward as the word for the oppression system. Hell, even the lit I’ve looked into hasn’t done that. Much the same with racism. Much the same with cissexism. Much the same with ableism. In every single one of those cases of oppression systems, the name of the classification system that is weaponized is not equated with the actual oppression system itself.
Mostly because that’s stupid and unwarranted to claim that a simple system of classification is the prime source of the oppression (when one can clearly study how it is weaponized by general power structures, dominance and greed) but also because we already have the -ism words to represent the source of the oppression.
It implies no such thing. Gender sociologically is a collection of traits (sometimes physical, sometimes social, sometimes psychological) that is used to label. Gender identity is simply a rejection of that labeling only within the single context of an individual and moving to another labeling. It would be, for most, a pretty solid indicator that the labeling system itself is badly broken. Gender identity can also denote simple bodily dysphoria as it relates to certain structures (normally associated with the sex labeling system which is used as a default for gender when social cues fail) but it’s also a piss poor word for that, so I almost never use it for that.
But in any case, it’s a vast (and silly) oversimplification to just put it in terms of women and men. Those that do not easily fit the classifications that society uses to determine if one is a man or woman faces different sets of oppression than a woman does.
I can understand feminism concentrating on just the one particular social class because the transgender movement concentrates on the others. What I can’t understand is how you’re able to confuse the classification system for the system of oppression itself. At the very best, it is nothing more than a component of the system of oppression. A gear in the machine. It is not the machine.
If a girl does not in any way “look like” a girl, if she does not in any way “sound” like a girl, if she does not in any way have any of the social markers (name pronouns etc) of a girl, but instead has all the traits the classification of men have, she will have male privilege until such point as her female status is revealed.
And then that’s only if she classifies fully as female at all, considering how broken that classification system is. And then she could end up being a he to society, if she’s closer to male after all. if she’s far enough in the middle that the assessment can’t be made, she’s treated differently from both men and women.
You’re free to, although it won’t prove anything because I haven’t once said that self identification changes social interactions. You actually have to make visible changes that fit the social classifications of something else to change those interactions.
So if you bind hella tight, pack a fake penis in there, bulk up your body, train your voice to drop, you won’t fit the classifications for women as well. Some people will treat you differently.
This whole time you seem to think that I’m claiming that sexism (the system of oppression) is determined by self identity. When I’m claiming that you’re incorrectly ascribing the meaning of sexism to gender.
Well, come back when your reading comprehension improves a bit and we can tackle what I actually said. Gotta love the strawman fallacies. Really ironic strawman fallacies.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
RP @ whatever
Then you’ve never read a Feminist text and you’ve never met a Feminist.
The INTRODUCTION. Not even the first chapter or second chapter, the INTRODUCTION of “The Second Sex” starts with the question (after some basic intro about the book) “What is a Woman?” de Beauvouir then goes on to describe SEXISM. Nor is the book titled “The Female Sex”, but “The SECOND Sex”. Not the “Can’t see my breast!” or “Self-Identified Man!” Sex.
Not “Self-Idenfied Woman” or “Walks some way” or “Wears some clothes”. But a discussion, 200 years ago, about how “Women” are maintained in a second CLASS position, with men being superior and women being inferior.
Gender is a CLASS structure, it is not what clothes I wear. It is not my chainsaw or my “Gender Expression” (whatever the hell that is) or “Gender Identity” (dittos). “Male” is a CLASS, just as “White”, “Heterosexual”, “Christian” are classes. “Able-Bodied”, “Wealthy”, “Attractive” — classes. Class study and analysis is central to much of Progressive politics. Equality between classes is a major goal. Not “Self-Identification” or “Changing body parts” or “Bind your breasts and lower your voice.”
By the way — being a “Self-Identified Man” seems to be working out well for me. I had some man check out my obviously superior chest muscles. And another man deferred to my self-identification as an “Alpha Male” by opening the door in a completely servile manner.
– Bob.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
And this says that gender as a term equals the definition of sexism as a term?
You just completely and irrevocable proved me correct, right here, that gender is not the term used to describe the system of oppression.
I am seriously wondering if you just have no capacity to comprehend things at all in any viable way.
Which is, shock and awe, sexism. Not gender. Gender is a classification system. Sexism is the system by which that classification is turned into a weapon of control. You can’t be a second class just by being named. Something actually has to put you into a pyramid or a hierarchy first.
I bolded the important part. Classes and classification does not in any way automatically imply inequality or create it. The very fact that the social sciences dealing with this spot an opportunity to equalize classes shows pretty solidly that class is not the oppression system but a system that oppression systems use.
The funny part here is, you are in this class because of traits. Traits that are used to put you into that class. The combination of traits used to classify someone is a part of the system of classification called gender. And not a single thing you’ve quoted here has changed that, disputed it or even run close to it.
You’ve managed to show that oh snap, the word sexism is used to describe a system of oppression (like I said before).
Maybe you don’t remember what you said? Maybe you didn’t comprehend what I said? Because you seem to think that all of these things you’ve brought up actually affect the primary things we’ve discussed:
1: Gender is a system of classification
2: Sexism, not gender, is the system of oppression
3: You have absolutely no good reason to deny the self determination of nonbinaries in acting within the paradigm of a similar classification system of gender to the one that exists.
4: You are a hypocrite for expecting them to live their lives exactly according to your agenda when you engaged in bodily modification to more closely resemble what is commonly referred to as the female body type.
You have failed to address point 1, by bringing up quotes that only prove point 2 to be true. Which clearly invalidates pretty much any logic brought against point 2 (if you had even bothered to do so). Point 3 you continually dodge, mostly through mockery, insults, sarcasm and repetition fallacies (and occasionally strawman fallacies. Point 4 you outright dodge by simply refusing to address it. The most you have done (I did some back searching) is agree it is hypocritical. Yet you still speak as though you have any right to tell them what to do, while being a hypocrite.
I really hope that by summing up what was discussed in easy to digest numbered points, you might actually, you know, address the damn points. Or even possibly comprehend them.
Of course, you could continue to be a snide, infantile “child trapped in an adult’s body”, and spend your time making more binarist, transphobic and generally stupid quips, while not addressing any of my points (or addressing phantom points that you created in your mind and attributed to me: i.e. strawman fallacy). Because at this point I really can’t see you digging yourself any deeper. And I’ve learned well enough from your behavior that you really aren’t anyone to take seriously or regard with any level of credibility and respect.
Which would be a shame if you were someone normally worth respect.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 4th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
RP @ whatever,
Gender is to Sexism as Race is to Racism.
There is no word “Genderism”.
The members of the set of all known genders are labels to identify “the members of the set of all Genders”. “Man” and “Woman” are nothing more than labels within the “Gender” class classification system.
If I was talking about any other classification system you wouldn’t be 1/10th as jiggy about it, but because most trans people desperately need to believe that “Gender” is something that exists outside a top-down hierarchy, most transpeople react VERY PROFOUNDLY negative when they are told that “Man” and “Woman” are just the names of positions on a giant pile of monkeys.
And that, RP, is what real “gender deconstruction” looks like.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 4th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I’ve been following this discussion with great interest, even though I haven’t been participating.
On the whole, I’ve found RP’s arguments more persuasive. (To me, anyway). Begrudging people what they need to live, in an area like this, just seems too unkind to be part of any feminism I want to be part of. (Ditto, of course, for transphobic feminists.)
However, I think the discussion has been a bit heated, and the “treat other posters with respect” thing hasn’t been totally followed by either Julie or RP. I’d appreciate it if you could both try to tone it down a couple of notches.
Julie and RP, do you think it would be profitable to continue this discussion? It feels to me like we’re going in circles. But if you both think you’d find it worthwhile to continue, then that’s fine.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
September 4th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Amp,
I’m not begrudging anyone anything. That’s why I kept telling RP that I wasn’t going to play the “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” game. She’s kept up the allegations that I’m making “binarist, transphobic and generally stupid quips”, and based on what you wrote, has been successful with the propaganda campaign.
RP hasn’t bothered explaining what “Non-Binary” is, except in terms of clothing or body changes, and that’s not a Feminist conceptualization of “Gender” anyway — “Women” aren’t women because women have breasts, long hair and wear skirts. Women with small breasts, short hair or wearing pants are still women.
Nor has RP explained how asserting one is of a specific gendered class even works. This is the greatest flaw in all of Transgender Theory. While it’s certainly “nice” to regard someone as a member of their preferred gender class, if people see me and think I’m male, people WILL put me into “Class, Man”. If I’m bending gender, I might get classed differently, but it would still be a subset of “Man, as a class”. And that’s where “Internal Gender Identity”, as a concept, is out of touch with reality.
“Man” is not going to yield to assertions that it somehow lower itself down the hierarchy. That pretty much means that “Non-Binary” is somewhere between “Man” and “Woman” in the hierarchy. I don’t remember if Char ever posted here, but one of her complaints about Transgender (and related concepts) is that it doesn’t do anything to deconstruct “Man”. I definitely agree with that, and I see more of the same with “Non-Binary”.
Now, why would I support inventing a new gender classification if it doesn’t solve women’s problems with occupying the bottom rung of the gender hierarchy? And if we open up the binary a bit and say “Men = 10″ and “Women = 0″ (instead of “Men = 1″ and “Women = 0″ — a real binary!), where between 10 and 0 is “Non-Binary”? And does “Non-Binary” become the vampiric suckage on the resources of lesbian and gay groups that transgender has evolved into? And since I’m a Conservative (heh), does the incessant bleating of Political Correctness further reduce G&L resources from lesbians? Are lesbians ONCE AGAIN going to get screwed?
I just don’t see “Non-Binary” as any kind of win for anyone. It hurts women (for sure — male-socialized “Non-Binaries” aren’t going to yield their male privilege willingly, and I fear that will raise the level of expectations for female-socialized non-binaries) and almost certainly lesbians and gays, who will be expected to “Make Room” for yet another group.
Gender classification is based on perceived sex, and while medical technologies can be somewhat successful at changing sex perception, the body can’t be as finely tuned as many might expect. Testosterone has cumulative effects that are difficult to reverse non-medically, and estrogen seems to work in a “Step-Function” fashion — not enough and it does very little, then cross a threshold and it dramatically changes the body. That leaves the surgeon’s knife, with all of it’s complications, classism, and health risks.
Most sex recognition is based on facial planes and structures, with (believe it or not) less emphasis on breasts (or not). As a cartoonist, surely you know that drawing a “V” and putting some hair, eyes, nose and mouth is more likely to produce “Female” for the recognition than doing the same with a “U” which is more likely to produce “Male”. Vocal frequency for sex recognition is right about 155Hz, +/-, and there are other markers for sex as well. Lip thinness, brow-forehead distance, eye inset, cheekbones — these are all sex indicators. As with vocal frequency, there is so much overlap between “male” and “female” ranges than the question “Where is ‘Non-Binary’ going to fit in terms of sex recognition?” It’s that overlap which means that it’ll be easier to abolish Patriarchy than get everyone on board with “Non-Binary” as a gender.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 4th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
@Julie
(I am dropping the heat on this post as per request by Amp. I won’t drop the discussion unless you want to.)
And…?
…you realize that’s what I’ve been saying for the last few posts right? Right after you explicitly called gender the oppression system, right?
Erm, actually whenever there’s flaws in a classification system, I tend to take them on. I don’t know how that works out to being “…jiggy”? The only place I’ve seen that in was a Will Smith song and I’m pretty sure it was a euphemism for sex, so I don’t know how me poking flaws in a system and also pointing out that people living out their lives as best as they can in a system is not a bad thing constutues “having sex” with the gender system.
But really, one doesn’t need to be essentialist to be trans. I’m not essentialist. I don’t regard gender as anything more than an entirely sociological phenomenon. I changed my body because my body was being painful and sucky to my brain. And I made a few small concessions to society for practicality: I changed my name to a name that socially fit the realm of woman so I wouldn’t get the weird looks nonbinaries get and I referred to myself as a woman around people that saw me as one.
And there are a bunch of nonbinaries that do the same thing.
Furthermore, you still have absolutely no justification for applying your agenda to the bodies of others. I’ve written about how any movement that subsumes and destroys the self determination of others for what they do to their bodies is a bad movement that deserves no credibility.
Like Ampersand said, a feminism that takes away my right to do with my body as I will and live as I need to in order to survive is not a feminism I believe deserves to exist.
For it is just as bad as the patriarchy.
And that’s what it comes down to. Don’t be like the patriarchy. Don’t subsume the self determination and bodily domain of others.
Making transphobic comments is gender deconstruction? Yeah, I’m not inclined to believe that. Parts of what you said are certainly gender deconstruction (about the social nature of gender and the relative meaninglessness of the labels) but attributing essentialism and attacking trans folk? That’s just good ol transphobia.
And that’s all I really need to say to you in the end.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 4th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Small breasts are still breasts.
You know, I already went over this, yet you still misrepresent the discussion.
A nonbinary is one who self conceptualizes more with an area outside of the given expectations for gender (if they’re thinking within the paradigm) or self conceptualizes with a body type that does not match the male or female development paths.
And the fact is gender classes are determined by cues. One isn’t a woman because the magical patriarchy fairies deem her so. She’s a woman because certain traits are used as a means to classify her that way.
This is entirely and completely false. You are not a subset of Man, as a class, because no one perceives you as such.
There is no magical patriarchy fairies. It is based on social perception. Entirely on social perception. What society perceives you as is what you are genderwise in a gender deconstruction viewpoint. If people perceive you as a given class, then there is no magical field underneath your clothes that make you another class.
Because everything is about women and gender variation of any kind, from anyone, that doesn’t involve womanhood but still involves marginalization is clearly not important.
Where are you getting this silly slippery slope nonsense?
This too, is utterly nonsensical. Part of how the patriarchy retains its power is through keeping the classification system as sound as possible. Gender deconstructionalists have their hands full with cis folks who are perfectly content in the gender paradigm and the feminists who are only working to chip away male power and not actually get rid of gender.
The patriarchy specifically works to keep those arbitrary lines together, to the point of actually pushing the medicalization of IS folk.
Trying to make nonbinaries go away doesn’t help anything (and really lends plenty of credence to my statements that you are Transphobic with a capital T, because all of your rhetoric literally speaks out against allowing nonbinaries to live their lives as they do).
And nonbinaries are an active dedicated force that destablize those arbitrary gender lines and dilute the categories. Diluted categories make things tougher to keep crystal clear. It’s harder to have that us and them mentality if there’s us and sort of us and similar to us and almost us and similar to them and sort of them and them and omg who are those people?
Diluting the classification system robs it of its function and in turn saps its weaponization, which cripples the patriarchy’s power.
But hey, I’m sure, with two very distinct (and arbitrary) gender lines that a huge majority are very content to sit on, you’ll do just fine without the nonbinary dilution of gender.
Good luck!
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 4th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
RP,
I never started beating my wife, so asking if I’ve stopped beating my wife isn’t going to get you an answer. But I will keep notifying the moderators each time you lie about me, insult me, intentionally misrepresent me, or anything else of the sort that’s provocative.
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2009 at 12:54 am
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.
This comment was written by Elusis.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
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.)
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2009 at 9:08 am
@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.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2009 at 10:57 am
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.”
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 6th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
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.’
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 7th, 2009 at 7:34 am
@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.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 7th, 2009 at 8:04 am
@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.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 7th, 2009 at 9:18 am
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.)
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 7th, 2009 at 9:56 am
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
?
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
September 7th, 2009 at 11:08 am
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.)
This comment was written by Julie Herds Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
September 7th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
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.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
September 8th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
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.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
September 9th, 2009 at 4:51 am
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.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
September 9th, 2009 at 8:03 am
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?
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 9th, 2009 at 8:06 am
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.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
September 9th, 2009 at 8:08 am
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.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 9th, 2009 at 8:19 am
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.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 9th, 2009 at 8:22 am
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.
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 11th, 2009 at 2:39 am
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.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
September 11th, 2009 at 5:57 am
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.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
September 11th, 2009 at 6:57 am
@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?
This comment was written by recursiveparadox.Report this comment to the moderators
September 11th, 2009 at 8:01 am
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.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
September 11th, 2009 at 11:45 am
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.
This comment was written by Elusis.Report this comment to the moderators
September 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
@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.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
September 11th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
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…?
This comment was written by Daisy Bond.Report this comment to the moderators
September 12th, 2009 at 2:32 am
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.”
This comment was written by Elusis.Report this comment to the moderators
September 12th, 2009 at 6:16 am
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?
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
September 14th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
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.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
September 21st, 2009 at 11:17 pm
[...] today I was responding to a commenter on Alas a Blog regarding Sarah Kohen’s piece on trans folk and feminism. It’s a bit of a transphobic piece, like most feminist material is but that’s not [...]
This comment was written by How To Abolish Gender 101: Perpendicular Force « Genderbitch: An Angry Trans Girl's Blog.Report this comment to the moderators