somespace

Last year JK Rowling personally funded a group called Sex Matters to amend UK law so that trans women *overnight* went from legally women to legally men. This has resulted in mass exclusion of the trans community from numerous organizations, along with ongoing violent assaults on both trans and cis women alike.

is it crazy to say that the only reason people make jokes like "i bet (conservative male politician) has a grindr account 🤣" or other jokes about republicans being closeted homosexuals is that they think being secretly gay or being a hypocrite is more shameful and worthy of mockery than holding homophobic beliefs

As trans people begin to organize politically, it is tempting to adopt the essentialist notion of gender identity. The cliché popularized by the mass media is that trans people are "women trapped in men's bodies" or vice versa. The attractiveness of such a strategy is clear, as the general population is more likely to become supportive of us if we could convince them that we are somehow born with a biological error over which we have no control over it. It is also often in tune with our own sense of who we are, which feels very deep and fundamental to us. However, as transfeminists, we resist such temptations because of their implications. Trans people have often been described as those whose physical sex does not match the gender of their mind or soul. This explanation might make sense intuitively, but it is nonetheless problematic for transfeminism. To say that one has a female mind or soul would mean there are male and female minds that are different from each other in some identifiable way, which in turn may be used to justify discrimination against women. Essentializing our gender identity can be just as dangerous as resorting to biological essentialism. Transfeminism believes that we construct our own gender identities based on what feels genuine, comfortable and sincere to us as we live and relate to others within given social and cultural constraint. This holds true for those whose gender identity is in congruence with their birth sex, as well as for trans people. Our demand for recognition and respect shall in no way be weakened by this acknowledgement. Instead of justifying our existence through the reverse essentialism, transfeminism dismantles the essentialist assumption of the normativity of the sex/gender congruence.

Social construction of biological sex is more than an abstract observation: it is a physical reality that many intersex people go through. Because society makes no provision for the existence of people whose anatomical characteristics do not neatly fit into male or female, they are routinely mutilated by medical professionals and manipulated into living as their assigned sex. Intersex people are usually not given an opportunity to decide for themselves how they wish to live and whether or not they want surgical or hormonal “correction.” Many intersex people find it appalling that they had no say in such a major life decision, whether or not their gender identity happen to match their assigned sex. We believe that genital mutilation of intersex children is inherently abusive because it unnecessarily violates the integrity of their bodies without proper consent. The issue is not even whether or not the sex one was assigned matches her or his gender identity; it is whether or not intersex people are given real choice over what happens to their bodies. Trans people feel dissatisfied with the sex assigned to them without their consent according to the simplistic medical standard. Trans people are diverse: some identify and live as members of the sex different from what was assigned to them by medical authorities, either with or without medical intervention, while others identify with neither or both of male and female sexes. Trans liberation is about taking back the right to define ourselves from medical, religious and political authorities. Transfeminism views any method of assigning sex to be socially and politically constructed, and advocates a social arrangement where one is free to assign her or his own sex (or non-sex, for that matter).

While the second wave of feminism popularized the idea that one's gender is distinct from her or his physiological sex and is socially and culturally constructed, it largely left unquestioned the belief that there was such a thing as true physical sex. The separation of gender from sex was a powerful rhetoric used to break down compulsory gender roles, but allowed feminists to question only half of the problem, leaving the naturalness of essential female and male sexes until recently. Transfeminism holds that sex and gender are both socially constructed; furthermore, the distinction between sex and gender is artificially drawn as a matter of convenience. While the concept of gender as a social construct has proven to be a powerful tool in dismantling traditional attitudes toward women's capabilities, it left room for one to justify certain discriminatory policies or structures as having a biological basis. It also failed to address the realities of trans experiences in which physical sex is felt more artificial and changeable than their inner sense of who they are.

Primary principles of transfeminism are simple. First, it is our belief that each individual has the right to define her or his own identities and to expect society to respect them. This also includes the right to express our gender without fear of discrimination or violence. Second, we hold that we have the sole right to make decisions regarding our own bodies, and that no political, medical or religious authority shall violate the integrity of our bodies against our will or impede our decisions regarding what we do with them. [...] Transfeminism holds that nobody shall be coerced into or out of personal decisions regarding her or his gender identity or expression in order to be a "real" woman or a “real” man. We also believe that nobody should be coerced into or out of these personal decisions in order to qualify as a "real" feminist.

It was in response to this climate [feminist hostility to trans women] I wrote the piece “The Transfeminist Manifesto,” which was later published in the anthology Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century edited by Rory Dicker and Alison Piepmeier. The manifesto addressed various feminist concerns, such as reproductive choice and health and violence against women, and discussed how transsexual women share many of the concerns of other women. I wanted to write a feminist theory that counter the argument that transsexual women were so different from all other women that there is no place for transsexual women within feminism (or that feminism has no use for transsexual women). I wanted to provide easy-to-repeat arguments that pro-trans feminists can use to confront blatant bigotry and falsehoods against transsexual women. And to these ends, I think “Manifesto” was successful. But there was something unsettling about the “Manifesto.” In an effort to forge an alliance between transsexual and non-transsexual women, the piece neglected the struggles of transsexual men and other transgender or genderqueer people who do not identify as “women” unless it was convenient to include them. The piece was also weak on intersectional analysis–that is, how anti-trans sentiments and oppressions compound and complicate oppressions other than sexism, including and especially racism and classism. It borrowed from the work of women of color when it was useful–for example, to point out that transsexual women’s unique experiences should not be the basis for their exclusion because to do so would presuppose a singular universal female experience, which is obviously false–without contributing any insights as to how the inclusion of trans sensibility helps to fight racism and other oppressions. The fact is, I had only been living in my new home town for three months or so when I wrote this piece, and I was not fully in touch with my own discomfort with the white feminism that filled nine out of ten weeks of the Introduction to Women’s Studies, nor did I feel confident enough to challenge the view that feminism is simply about advocating for women and fighting sexism–and nothing more. In short, what I had written was a version of white feminism that was modified just enough to include transsexual women. At the time, I felt that it was the only safe way to write a feminist theory that advanced transsexual women’s place within feminism. I spent next couple of years meeting more people with a common commitment for justice for all, slowly building the self-confidence it takes to “transform silence into language and action,” as Audre famously stated.

Hot take but rigid divisions between queer identities and heavily-policed labels that are treated like diagnoses are really, really bad.

Does anyone else remember Mack Beggs, the trans guy wrestler who was forced to compete in his high school’s girls team and the only people mad about it were transphobes while the rest of us understood he would rather have been on the boy’s team? Why is it back then we could understand “oh, he’s on the girls team because he has no other choice” but now it’s “why is this MAN on the WOMEN’S team? Clearly he’s stealing a spot meant for a trans woman!” Or uh. Or he wants to play soccer. And he’s a trans man. And he’s not allowed on the men’s team. Because the United Soccer League’s rules state you have to join the team that corresponds to your assigned sex at birth.

I don’t say this to be inflammatory. This is something I wholeheartedly believe because I see it myself all the time. Violence and transphobic rhetoric about transgender men is so normalized that it doesn’t even register to people and often gets repeated.