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9 comments
July 2, 2015 at 1:12 pm
Reneta Scian
While she does have a point in one regards, Sheila Jeffreys is the last person I’d ever quote on anything. Her blatant transphobia being the primary reason of that scrutiny. But, as is with all things, a person can be right about one thing in the Nth degree in context, and be wrong about the whole issue on other things in tragically detrimental ways, as is the case in this instance.
To be honest, in this context, this comment is a bit misleading and incomplete, and perhaps even a bit myopic. Queer theory doesn’t necessary mean that it is in any way anti-feminism, and in fact I know quite a few queer thought feminists. This is especially true if it’s Queerness and Gender discussions happen in a feminist forum. Also, why some feminists and queer advocates had to rescue gender for the likes of those like Sheila Jeffreys and other similar ideologues, is because they weren’t actually abolishing gender, rather setting up new tautologies that spur from reality as much as misogyny and patriarchy do. We have to extricate the fact that we do in fact experience gender, from the fact that gender as a cultural concept is constructed and often distorted from reality. Whether a construct exists or not, we still experience a sense of it. It’s not about whether something that could be defined as “Gender” exists, but whether that concept is in fact reasonably accurate.
The most common socially predicated Gender Definitions and Roles clearly aren’t, but this doesn’t mean that all definitions are wrong, only that the socially predominant ones are.
That’s a valid discussion to be had, and far from “throwing the baby out with the bath water”, like Jeffreys does. Feminists like Jeffreys make the mistake of discarding gender, but setting up what they see as clear, definable sexual dimorphism as the new tautology, and that is just as flawed as a way of thinking, and is the antithesis of feminism. There is the hints of that contained in very this comment. She is correct in one part, but flows her flawed thinking into her conclusions, and we need to call that out. Sex is also a construct, as far as the socially dominant handling and discourse about human sexuality and gender (which is far messier than anyone likes to admit because of those concepts), and it too needs to be deconstructed. People aren’t just oppressed because of reproductive organs, and any assertion that sounds like “Universal Womanhood” is little more than logical fallacy. If she missed something so by such a distance, why should we quote her when she seems right?
I think if we are to live in a better future, that is more equal for all people, we need to borrow the verbiage of better role models that those of feminists who liberate themselves, while throwing everyone they don’t like under the bus. Her reputation singularly stands as more than enough reason to rebuke her write in its entirety, because it’s impossible to separate her conclusions from her flawed perspectives.
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July 2, 2015 at 6:03 pm
House Mouse Queen
Yeah, no. Calling Jeffreys a ‘twanzphobe’ only makes you look like an idiot.
You’re just another gender worshipper that points to other shit to try and reinforce it.
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July 3, 2015 at 11:02 am
Reneta Scian
Thank you for making a further point about why you don’t quote Jeffreys. It invites hostility from people who only know how to defend Jeffreys with ad hominems and vitriolic commentary. Plus, in this particular instance, Jeffreys is actually wrong and making a broad, generalizing and incorrect conclusion. Her lack of insight and critical analysis in this instance perfectly demonstrates this, (poignantly highlighted by our transphobic commenter). You invite people who make the environment hostile for your transgender, gender non-conforming readership and any allied feminist who realizes that trans-exclusionary feminism does us all a great injustice.
We should not further, tout, or promote the message of Sheila Jeffreys, precisely because she makes those errors (unless it is our intention to point those out). Lest it is your desire to invite a rabid readerships who lack any semblance of respect for dissenters, who have valid reasons for their dissent. The destruction and overthrow of the patriarchy, rape culture, and cultural misogyny are of tantamount importance. Which means we need to be able to think critically and address dissent when it’s valid. We need to get it right, without inadvertently giving power back to our oppressors, or being guilty of the same thing to do to all of us. So please, do not trod on the backs of others for the sake of that cause.
That said, I will say, certainly there are always going to be people who support the status quo, regardless of how wrong their reasons are, and we should be having discussions about that. Some people, because of the precarious position the intersectional oppressions they face place them (or internalization), will end up supporting ideas that at least appear to benefit them in the interim, while they are actually supporting their own oppression or the oppression of others in the long run. It is a responsibility I feel, as good feminists, to make sure we aren’t unfairly throwing someone else under the bus for the sake of our cause. Being forward thinking in one area, as with feminism, doesn’t prevent one from being wrong elsewhere, or for being guilty of great deals of prejudice.
(As is with Jeffreys, Greer, and many others. Blind loyalty will get us no where, we must be critical of even ourselves, and of the ideas and fallacies we commit.)
People do experience gender, in the simplest way, through bodily integrity, or the lack there of. This doesn’t mean there is a brain gender, because there really isn’t. Even if the science on this is correct, and that a small subsection of the Bed Stria Terminalis does codify our sense of Gender, this doesn’t involve any biological essentialism, or any defense for Social Gender Constructs. Most of the brain that matters for talents, capacity, empathy, emotions and skills is neuroplastic. This doesn’t render gender identity, or the dissonance it can create with misalignment, any less important on an individual level. Even with Gender Dysphoria, it is not predestination.
transgender person can be queer, bigender, agender, gender queer, butch, femme, androgynous, or any other category available cisgender, queer, or gender non-conforming women, men and others. Gender is complicated, messy, and anything but the neat little constructs society deems for it, transgender, and other gender non-conforming people demonstrate to us, every day by virtue of just existing in some cases.
http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/02/trans-inclusive-feminist-movement/
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July 4, 2015 at 8:23 am
The Arbourist
@Reneta
I’m not seeing the problem here. Humans are, in large part, a sexually dimorphic species. Describing people as male or female is accurate and logical way to deal with the world.
Er, no. Sex isn’t something willowy and diaphanous that changes in the breeze. It has definable terms with observable underpinnings in the real world that cannot be deconstructed or distilled any further (at least in a way that enhances clarity).
Ummm…that is precisely why half the population has been oppressed throughout history. It has been sex based oppression almost since day one, accelerating with the discovery agriculture and the patriarchal notions that started there.
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July 4, 2015 at 8:37 am
The Arbourist
@Reneta
Second wave feminists are the repositories of feminist theory and have been/are leading the charge for the liberation of women in our society.
Steering clear of arguments because they make people uncomfortable or they are controversial is an intellectual disservice to all those involved.
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July 5, 2015 at 9:16 am
Reneta Scian
Sex is a construct, a way of applying something socially understood to bodies, and as we know this has the psychological capacity to contour our thoughts about people defined by it or attributed to it. The fact that sex can be used to define someone who later comes to reject that label as incorrect, either because of gender dysphoria, or because of an intersexed condition causing medical complications is quite telling. Sex is overly simplistic, if nothing else. It’s not one thing, but a collection of traits that we use to socially define the sex of a body, and therefore the role of that body, either reproductively or otherwise. And in most cases, which trait gains the greatest weight is an entirely subjectively judgement. And those categories are highly divergent, and fall everywhere in-between (making “Dimorphic” seem a little off to me. And outside of contexts where it’s specifically necessary, like talking about sexual function, abortion rights, et cetera, it is functioning within the realm of social construction.
Trans women still do and have throughout history, experienced misogyny and oppression generally directed at women. They don’t have uteri, sometimes they don’t even have vulva (often not by choice).
Simply because it works sometimes, for some or even most people, also doesn’t make it correct. Just because it defines things that can be medically or scientifically measured doesn’t make it any less a construct. Does this mean sexual traits are willowy and don’t matter as your rebuttal suggested of my critique, no. No one that I’ve personally read argues that sexual traits don’t matter (either in a feminist or a wider social context). Only that sex is too simple for the collection of actual traits, complexity and complications therein which it describes, lending itself to the conclusion that “SEX” is a social construct. My point in that, is if we are to fully dismantle this oppressive system we have to acknowledge that as well. It’s demonstrated every time “Sex” fails to define a persons’ actual experience or the biology involved. Sex Traits, would be more accurate. Also, it doesn’t matter if those feminists are “foundational” or not, wrong is wrong is wrong. In this case, Jeffreys is painting with a broad brush, a group of people which are as ideologically diverse as “Atheists”, or “Stamp Collectors”.
What is important in my critique, is that it is her bigotry driving her conclusion, not facts or reasoned logic. Moreover, her entire slant, is one defined by her desire to defame an entire class of people with fear mongering, lies, distortions, and hate. All of which has real-world consequences that are dire, and deeply troubling.
The argument of some queer theorists and feminists like me isn’t for preserving the patriarchal framework of gender against feminism and feminists who agree with Jeffreys as she is implying, but rather because they are trying to use feminist rhetoric to harm an entire class of people by failing to acknowledge the flaws in their line of thinking. The argument is for a deeper understanding of the semiotic relationship that lead to the creation of words, like gender. We’re not damselflies. We’re human beings, and that makes everything we try to categorize subject to that quality, not only to our overwhelming desire for simplifications and discrete categories (sometimes oversimplifying), but also to the complexity of gender and sexuality as seen through the experiences of intelligent beings with the means to articulate those experiences.
None of that messiness conforms to patriarchy, or reinforces gender or sexual constructs, nor does acknowledging trans experiences set forth any sort of destiny. Far from it. It does the exact opposite, and says that there is no one trait that defines us, or sets forth for us what we must or mustn’t be. It demonstrates that we are the arbiters or that experience, and that there is a need to reclaim it from the status quo, and establishments of power (The Patriarchy).
http://skepchick.org/2011/12/bilaterally-gynandromorphic-chickens-and-why-im-not-scientifically-male/
It is my firm opinion, that if you’re going to quote that, you need to aware of the context and message this quote and it’s originator are furthering. As well, to be prepared to discuss those flaws. I feel there is more than enough reason to feel that Jeffreys is trying to paint the entire queer and trans-inclusive feminist movement (in one brush stroke) as anti-feminist because they don’t exercise her blatant and bigoted point of view with regards to transgender and transsexual people. I feel it’s problematic to quote her, and any of those like her. I feel you invite people to read her work which further invites those people prone her fear tactics to engage in transphobia just like she does. The actions and behaviors in line with those beliefs are morally reprehensible and should be condemned.
Maybe you don’t see why her transphobia is reason to rebuke her, and I suppose that’s fair. Maybe you just wanted a thought invoking piece for conversations like this. Mission accomplished. I agree that we should be talking about people trying to reclaim and protect oppressive social paradigms, whether they be queer theorists, or feminists. It is my opinion is that when our ideas and advocates fail to change with the progression of knowledge, that it is our duty to to point that out, and reject their conclusions where there is inaccuracy. I don’t promote any of her work on the grounds I’ve mentioned, and I urge this of others. But you’re fully entitled to your opinion. As well, I feel there is more than enough better information, from coherent and progressive feminist thinkers out there, that we don’t need to quote her, or those like her.
As a final point, Sheila Jeffreys brand of feminism looks an awful lot like Christian Fundamentalism with regards to her attitudes about trans women. I think that’s cause for concern.
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July 5, 2015 at 10:36 am
The Arbourist
@Reneta
Sex is not a construct, it is a biological fact. Human beings are a species that are for, the most part, sexually dimorphic.
One can reject the label of one’s sex, but that does not change one’s sex. Nor does the existence of intersex people invalidate this distinction – some people are born without feet does that make the bipedal classification of humans invalid?
Definitions are important, words are important. This is functionally how the male/female sex are defined. There is nothing ‘social constructed’ about possessing ova, or spermatozoa (or such capacities even if they are infertile).
Woman: An adult female person.
Female: Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.
Man: An adult male person.
Male: Of or denoting the sex that produces gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.
I’m not seeing any problem with defining biological fact. Complexity arises from the gendered expectations, which are a social construct, that are assigned to people because of their biological sex.
Then the onus is on you to delineate your specific disagreements with Jeffreys; this entails more than just calling her ‘transphobic’.
You say this next: ” I feel there is more than enough reason to feel that Jeffreys is trying to paint the entire queer and trans-inclusive feminist movement (in one brush stroke) as anti-feminist because they don’t exercise her blatant and bigoted point of view with regards to transgender and transsexual people.”
Saying is one thing, demonstrating is another. So your endeavour, preferably with direction quotations from her, is to demonstrate that:
a) broad-strokes are being used to paint the trans/trans inclusive community as anti feminist.
b) her point of view is bigoted toward transgender and transsexual people.
Gender critical feminists would disagree with your proposition. They say a very different thing. Thus, providing the facts of the matter is important, and feelings must be secondary when making judgments.
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July 5, 2015 at 11:38 am
The Arbourist
@Reneta
July 6, 2015 at 9:47 am
Reneta Scian
I can not support you or your blog on this point any further, and I will be taking my leave of it as of this final comment. You’re supporting transphobia with the works of transphobic feminists, and you don’t see where this is an issue. I don’t know when this shift took place, but you have become a supporter of transphobia, giving space to logic that is driven by fear, sometimes only making sense within the straw-man of gender they paint trans people into. Sex traits exist, but sex as a determination that is subjective and is a constructed part of this concept, because ultimately it is us that decides which trait to which we give preference to. Also, this was never about there needing to be conversations about uncomfortable topics, this was about the fact you quoted without dissection a transphobic feminist, illustrating a problematic issue that needed to be addressed.
I feel very deeply, that you’re defending the indefensible. But, that’s just my opinion, but I have very good reason to feel that way
Now, obviously only certain combinations of traits are reproductively viable, and even though those are functions of our body, it would be wrong to confine us to those functions or define us arbitrarily and non-consensually by any one of them. Further, “Di” means two, and there is more than 2 outcomes for all sexual traits that pertain to human beings. All dichotomies are false dichotomies. But, in all cases, the means by which we determine “Sex” are most absolutely constructed. Also, this opposing point of view would also be antithetical to feminism as far as I’ve come to understand it in my time, experiences with and thought processes around feminism. You have let yourself succumb to what appears to be “reasoned and well thought out”, which is little more than fearful people trying to rationalize the irrational emotions and fears of transsexuals, and you have thus made your space hostile and unsafe for people like me.
Read what the opposition has said in reference to transphobic feminism, because we as human beings suffer severe confirmation biases, and have a tendency to read the things that confirm those biases, and reinforce those biases through repetition. You could be missing critical pieces of information and the things other feminists have debunked many times over. I’m sure you could accuse me of the same, but I have lots of resources telling me the same thing as my experiences are telling me, as well as the advice of licensed professionals, and the efficacy of the medical community behind me. Also, remember that our society mandates these sexual and gender assignments for no other reason than as a mechanism to maintain it’s own control.
The reason we struggle with that system so much, is we upend the mechanism by which that system maintains power, and because for trans woman, our value as women who can not produce offspring for the passage of patriarchal and capitalist wealth reduces our value as people. Moreover, many of us have attained great wealth or influence, prior to shedding the illusion they have about us. It’s hard to separate patriarchal and capitalism, because it is capital that supports this construct, which is also deeply intertwined with Americanize Christianity. If you ever wondered why the religious right is so anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-trans, look no further than the nature by which they and those like them maintain power in the systems we occupy every day. Women are commodities specifically because they are the means of wealth staying in the hands of the wealthy, furthered by reproductive control over said women (can’t have them altering their own value in that system by any form of biological or physical autonomy).
Reproductive autonomy is the one unique form of oppression those who are sexually viable as females suffer that trans women do not, but that does not mean that we are any more autonomous under such system. Men feel this right to be attracted to, and pursue women who are not trans, which is where trans panic comes into play with the assault and murder of people like me. And despite what TERFs say, a world free of gender roles will not be free of people who physically alter their gender, or those who would otherwise be identified as “Transgender”. This is an illusion they support with has absolutely “ZERO” evidence supporting it. By the nature of human beings, we’ll naturally gravitate to the physical, and personal spaces with which we feel most comfortable, regardless of social paradigms or lack there of. And remember, their perception of us, our genders, and our medical needs is a caricature of reality.
So, when I say I feel as though I’m “not male”, it’s not because I’m performing gender, or because of any loosely “Social Gender” sort of way, it’s because functioning physically as such causes extreme duress which I’ve only found relief of through transition therapies, which are tried and tested as effective at that role. And of course people who fear me or find what I am “Icky” are going to disagree with me, like your ambiguous group of “Gender Critical Feminists”. Their disagreement here is manufactured by their own failure to understand, and it’s the main problem with point of view you’re forwarding. It’s usually what’s driving their logic, whether expressly or not. It’s “Transsexuals Scare Me” apologetics. That’s all it is, and all it ever has been, and feminists have been calling them out for it for over a decade now. They’ll find any reason to justify this fear. They’ll claim that calling their transphobia “hate speech” is “silencing”, while intentionally disregarding the safety of others.
They have no qualms about going out of their way to endanger our personal safety in the name of their cause. Remember, people like me are murder, raped and killed every day just for existing. Some of these transphobes wish that upon us, or expose us on purpose, to that risk, for any attempt to call out their hatred for what it is.
Remember, the status quo on gender and sex with regards to trans people is actually on their side, which should also raise a few more eyebrows, because it’s that same status quo we as feminist are calling out. But you can’t appeal to opinion on this. You can’t appeal to the patrons of transphobia for proof either, nor can you sort peoples genders and sexes with philosophical musings or sophistry either. The science just doesn’t hold that their conclusions about transsexuals are true, because if they were things would most likely look very different. The medical community, by and large, doesn’t agree and these people are the professionals and subject matter experts. Now, this doesn’t mean professionals can’t be wrong, but in this case treatment of trans people that is now widely accepted is counter-intuitive. They also didn’t just come to those conclusions lightly, they have to use evidence to support all decisions they make about the treatments they prescribe and the procedural methods they approve. They’d get sued into oblivion if they didn’t.
The treatment of transition therapy is the culmination of decades of clinical research, not the vapid musings of armchair experts or bigots.
The debate (even though there really isn’t one), about trans people is about causation and the implication of transgender people. The TERFs claim it’s socially constructed (some say it’s some kind of “New Patriarchy”, which is a load of bullshite), or some form of mental illness. The doctors and professionals who have been treating trans people for decades know it’s not, and will stake their credentials on that claim. The doctors have years of experience and specified training in those fields, and many decades of knowledge of those treatments and their effectiveness with regards to transition over conversion. Time, and time again, conversion fails. Moreover, queer trans people are coming out everywhere and breaking the “Gender Paradigm” TERFs and Gender Critical Feminist say we’re somehow, almost magically maintaining in spite of evidence to the contrary.
Clinical research and practical application all points to one conclusion. And all the TERFs and “Gender Critical” have is their sophistry and quixotic musings based on a straw-man of trans peoples genders and experiences based on rampant cultural misrepresentation, sensationalistic parodies of transsexuals in the media. Who are you going to believe? They don’t even have a single reputable scientific study supporting their position or cause, that can be found last I researched this topic. Also, gender critical feminist are basically the “Softer Side” of transphobia in the feminist and queer movement, and really it’s not at all surprising or ironic. It’s the same bullshit, all repackaged for the same sort of nauseating consumption. Hate is Hate, regardless of the form in which it’s packaged.
http://www.autostraddle.com/its-time-for-people-to-stop-using-the-social-construct-of-biological-sex-to-defend-their-transmisogyny-240284/
Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism and the “Gender Critical” is not radical, or in any way “New”. It’s the same cultural and social knee jerk reaction that people who support a gender binary or some other form of biological essentialistic point of view have had in response to those “Icky Trans People” for centuries now. The idea of altering genitals is profane to a genital centric simplification of humanity, gender and sexuality, and that is at the heart of all of these arguments. The true arrogance of some breeds of this paradoxical feminism is the suggestion that my entire life or those of other trans people, and every medical choice I’ve made for the improvement and preservation of my very existence is somehow about other people (usually them, or as they call themselves, “Real” women or “Womyn”). That is deeply and truly arrogant, if nothing else.
Sounds a awful lot like a lot of other bigoted perspectives that privileged groups have about oppressed people. Again, conversion therapy or other “corrective attempts” don’t work on gays and lesbians any more than it does on trans people. We’re not talking hypothetically here.
TERFs and their confederates want you to believe that my gender is about something other than my own comfort inside my own skin. Some even pervert it as an invasion of womanhood, even appropriating my body and calling it “Rape”. They paint it as support for patriarchal gender (which it simply isn’t and can’t be demonstrated to be). Gender Identity is not gender presentation or expression, how I feel about my genitals has nothing to do with what I wear (even when I’m clearly not wearing “women’s” clothing). As a pragmatic person, I have a lot of “non female” clothing. Trans people transition and adopt all manner of gender expressions and identities which contradict this paradoxical line of thinking. Many of them believe, on some level, that we’re a threat to “Real” women and girls by their assertions, even though there is no evidence that supports this conclusion.
They hold the biologically essentialist bullet to our heads, and claim arbitration over what “Sex” we are, and the claim the need legally and socially impede our rights and bodily autonomy without consent, or consultation with our physicians or medically licensed professionals. Beyond that, they claim themselves arbiters of womanhood in a fashion that is even insulting to cis women and other cisgender feminists. This assertion is beyond asinine. We just want safe places to relieve our bodily functions, and access to care that is tried and tested to relieve the conditions we experience, just like everyone else. The act to impede our medical needs, while providing no solution to the duress and pain we suffer that can and does lead to our actual deaths.
Our gender isn’t about anyone other than ourselves, in any way, and it never has been nor is it about what society thinks about gender. Remember, many of us are quite educated, and anything but invalids who lack the ability to understand things rationally, as they assume of us. That’s the true arrogance of this philosophy… the assertion that they know whats good for us, and intend to force it on us without consent and without the same scientific rigor that such seals of credulity require. And in light of those attitudes, that if we are to be acceptable to them, that we should cave to them and jeopardize ourselves because of their knee jerk, gross-out driven false equivocations, reactions and responses. The attitude that because we “scare them”, that we’re suppose to sacrifice our safety and well-being for their piece of mind and their “FEMINISM”. And it’s utter bullshite.
___________________________________________________________
Their point is utterly absurd before I even mention that every legitimate researcher and clinician who studies and manages the care of trans people like me admit that gender dysphoria does not exhibit itself as a mental illness, or show any pathology as a mental illness or a state of mental dysfunction. When treated, it does not preclude the individual normal interpersonal or daily social function as it is with many forms of mental illness. When many other conditions are effectively treated through therapy, medication, or combinations there of or through other cognitive therapy practices, gender dysphoria remains non-responsive to such techniques. The physicians professional opinion is that the person is not delusional, or deeply convinced of something which they themselves can not or do not understand. Because they understand that their biology as seen in a socially predominant sense and gender identity are not in sync. They are fully aware of the conflict within the social paradigm of gender and sex.
Initially, many aren’t sure what to do about it, or are deeply fearful of treatment methods, or of what being transgender will mean for the rest of their lives. They realize, usually before any form of clinical treatments, that this is condition of being has been persistent and unavoidable (sometimes for years or decades prior to consultation), some even having spent years prior trying to deny it to no avail. When realizing the efficacy and relative safety of modern transition therapies, many who were previously resistant will change in light of new knowledge and experience, and come to embrace that treatment and what it means for their lives. Transition doesn’t happen over night, and the degree of treatment needed varies from patient to patient. Among doctors and clinicians, the evidence is incredibly clear, that transition solves the conflict in ways that no other form of therapy can or has demonstrated. Moreover, many physicians realize people’s transitions are not in any way about gender presentation, or a perception of socially attribution to gender or social gender stereotypes.
Gender dysphoria, is all but a modern issue, though the surgical practices are technologically new. All realize the dangers they are facing to pursue transition, both medically, financially and socially. With this informed consent, trans people still transition and the vast majority find these treatments to be alleviating of the fundamental conflict. Also, other mammals show similarities when studied in laboratory conditions. Though the exact pathways that the condition occurs on are under studied, there is clear medical evidence for the efficacy of modern treatments. Trans people come from all walks of life, and family backgrounds, from Evangelical Christian to Atheist. They come in all forms of presentation, sizes, gender identities, and they each just seek a natural state by which to be themselves, whatever that may be. There is no common thread or pathology that links all these people, as they exist in all cultures, in every nation on this planet, with evidence this has been so throughout all of human history.
To the professionals that manage our care, the evidence leads to a pretty clear conclusion, which is that transition therapy has been demonstrated to be the only viable and effective long-term treatment of gender dysphoria, and that those treatment is medically necessary. Failure to treat it has been demonstrated to endanger the lives of the patients with the condition, usually because of suicidal ideation as a result of intense states of psychological and emotion duress, and sometimes intense sexual or social dysfunction while in that state. If you don’t believe me, you don’t have to take my word for it. You can figure this out for yourself.
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In a strange way, or maybe not, this reminds me of climate change deniers. That in spite of nearly unanimous consensus among scientists, that there are still people who believe it’s hotly contested, or some form of conspiracy. It is in some ways, understandable, as there is massive misrepresentation in some large media outlets that like to put forth the illusion that the facts are contested, via numerical misrepresentation and other distortions. Similarly, misinformation is propagated about trans people as well via the same mechanisms. Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist groups have been identified as hate groups by many, and tend to engage in similar fear-mongering, misrepresentation, and under-handed sometimes illegal or ethically questionable practices to further their goals.
To me, it seems in no way ironic that Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism (and Gender Critical Feminism alike) believe that transgender people (almost exclusively directed at trans women), suffer from mass delusion, or that they are all in some sort of massive patriarchal agenda to invade and undermine their goals. That our entire lives are centered around a delusion, which educated professionals know simply is not true. Or believing that we transition out of some twisted desire to get into their spaces, some even believing that we do it just to get into their pants (not mattering if we’re asexual or not). And I don’t care how feminist as space is, I’m not going to want to be there if I am not, or do not feel welcome. Moreover, I avoid transphobes like the plague.
How arrogant and self-centric do you have to be to believe that an entire class of people delusional just because you don’t understand them, or because they scare you. How deeply narcissistic do you have to be to believe that tens to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide would jeopardize their lives, families, careers, and sometimes health just to fuck with your head, to fight against you and undermine your cause? Mind you, they don’t all exercise the same breed of delusion, but they are all usually a surprisingly powerful and vocal minority. They actively seek legislation that hurts people like me. Moreover, how myopic does that make those people for believing the misrepresentations in the media, and their own fear-conjured “Scarecrows”, while largely maintaining ignorance of trans experience? It’s absolutely nonsensical trash-talk and bigotry.
It’s because of stuff like this that is why I stopped blogging about trans issues. I got tired of fighting with people who are too delusional to see their own arrogance. I got tired of making reasonable and evidence supported cases for why their fears are irrational, only to be told “You’re Part of the Conspiracy… CONSPIRACY!”. Or, to otherwise be brow-beat, name-called, and shamed by people who don’t have rational positions supported by anything other than the sayings of other transphobes. Most of us, in some way or another, defy patriarchal gender roles not for performance or entertainment, but simply by our nature. I got tired of being insulted at every turn by people who entertain irrational fears as factual premises. People for which, exercise fear and shame tactics as a way to silence me.
And sadly, it works. I’m a sufferer of rather severe generalized anxiety disorder (among a list of other disabilities), probably thanks to military service. Which means dealing with those people takes an extraordinarily large toll on my body. When people entertain this form of feminism, in any way, I feel that anxiety clamber back into my chest. I lack the emotional bandwidth to deal with it anymore, after years of dealing with it in the blogosphere. Because these people truly terrify me, because they unite with other bigots (like the religious right) to undermine my rights as a person. Spaces that give voice and support to Gender Critical or TERF Leaning Logic are inherently hostile and unsafe spaces for me. As such, I refuse to participate in them.
I will no longer be subscribed to your blogs, posts or comment feeds. I no longer support your position with regards to the phobic breed of feminism you’ve become a part of. It flies in the fact of logic and evidence, and ignores or erases trans experiences, voices and identities.
This will be my final statement of dissent. I’ll leave the future job of unpacking your fallacious responses, and those of the transphobic feminists you support to someone who is more articulate with more energy, and mental stamina than I can afford. I can find transphobia anywhere on the web, I don’t need your blog to find it. All I have to do is type “transsexuals are ______” into a search engine and I’ll find more transphobia than I can stomach. I understand it’s essential to review knowledge we don’t agree with on some level, and I do it where I can. But sometimes, we can inadvertently let our perceptions become distorted by repetition. The material you read and absorb the most has a very powerful influence on your mind and the manner in which you think about things, mostly in a way in which most of us are not fully aware.
You aren’t trans. You have no experiences of gender dysphoria, nor are you a medical professional as far as I know (nor are those people whose influences and materials you site). You don’t have to live with the bullshit people like those you’re supporting put people like me through. You don’t have to live with the consequences of their hate, or their legacies of legislation that makes it hard for me to exist. I feel I’ve provided all the reasons I can for why your position is not true and why the quote you posted is in error. I also noticed that you’ve been reading, “And Liking”, a lot of transphobic feminist rhetoric recently. What that tells me is that I have little chance of convincing you otherwise, and trying to do so further would be a waste of both of our time.
You repeat them, without substantiating them elsewhere, sighting the same biased sources as justification for those positions. I’ve seen this happen before, countless times. And when that happens, the only thing I can do as a person, is point them out and move along. And as I said, I do not have the emotional bandwidth to waste any more time explaining my position to you. Especially, if your fall back is to resort to the opinion of the exact sort of feminists I’m calling out because of their blatant transphobia and transmisogyny. It’s also a big logically flawed.
Videos just as food for thought. All that said, I wish you wellness and good health. For what it’s worth, until this point I enjoyed my time on your blog, and felt that my voice was welcome. I no longer feel that is true, and I simply can no longer support your perspective or this space. Which, I’m well within my right to do. Take care.
Sincerely,
Reneta
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