Reminder that transmisogyny (especially of the TERF variety) is rooted in bioessentialism (the pseudoscientific belief that your physical body determines traits like interests, behaviors, and skills that are not physically linked) and gender essentialism (that âbiologicalâ gender specifically dictates behavior). ie women are âbiologicallyâ better caregivers or more naturally compassionate or men are âbiologicallyâ more aggressive or dominant.
To be somewhat hyperbolic, itâs a belief that males and females are fundamentally different animals somehowâ this often accompanies a belief that people with different skin pigmentation are also fundamentally different animals, unsurprisingly, which is why so many transmisogynists are also staggeringly racist.
I point out the TERF connection specifically because that ideology is deeply rooted in the belief that women are inherently physically inferior and inherently morally superior to men. Men are natural predators, women are natural victims, but also if women ruled the world thereâd be no war because theyâre biologically better at statecraft I guess.
Human beings are some of the least sexually dimorphic mammals on the planet. There is next to no actual physical difference between the traditional sexes that cannot be linked to cultureâ ie girls are widely discouraged from doing sports, especially sports which require upper body strength, and thus have less upper body strength on average. But female athletes who spend time developing upper body strength close the gap created by cultural upbringing and will have the same upper body strength as men.
There is no skill where the least skilled male will still match or exceed the most skilled female. There is no âbiological advantage.â Just different skill levels and weight classes. Thatâs why feminists were arguing so hard for getting rid of gender segregation in sports back in the 90âs, before transmisogyny (and especially transmisogynoir) dragged the conversation back to the 50âs.
The few differences there actually are between a male sexed and a female sexed body can be almost totally reversed by influencing ONE hormone. Our bodies are so similar and so ready to switch sides on a dime that people sexed as female can straight up grow a phallus. Itâs so easy to develop breast tissue that 35% of men experience gynocomastiaâ people sexed as male developing breastsâ at some point in their lives, and estimates show 70% of adolescent boys will experience it during puberty.
We have no idea how prevalent most intersex conditions really are because they generally have so little influence on the personâs life or health that unless some other condition causes them to get a full body mri or similar, they will never know! The mortician embalming your dead body may be the only person who ever knows you had fully developed ovaries or internal testes.
We are the same animal! Our bodies are the same!Our brains are the same! Our bones are the same! Even our organs are largely the same!
Any road that starts from the assumption that you are fundamentally, biologically distinct from another nearly identical member of the same species will lead you nowhere but pseudo scientific justification for bigotry.
Once you have accepted the premise that your own opposite sexed sibling is a different kind of animal than you, you are primed to accept that explanation for any other demographic group that it has historically benefited someone for you to despise.
Bioessentialism is bullshit pseudoscience.
