Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning Thread

That's great news about your student, m bison! Belatedly, I want to respond to a few points from your posts, Branwell, though I feel like doing so would be easier in the context of a conversation than in an asynchronous medium like ILX. (The questions you raise about the purpose of this thread and whether we need a separate trans politics/lamentation thread are also valid, but I'll leave them aside for now.)

...what I also want, is for Trans Women and femme of centre MAAB to interrogate the common or garden misogyny that they so often bring to the table! Our society is soaking in misogyny and sexism! That shit gets *everywhere*. Trans women are not exempt from internalising misogyny any more than cis women are! Trans women do *not* get some special 'get out of misogyny free' card if they add 'cis' before 'woman' when complaining about 'shit girls do' (that boys also do, but boys are never criticised for). And I do acknowledge that there are deep problems within feminism regarding trans women. That is a legitimate complaint! But! But, but, but!
But I am fucking *tired* of "Feminism" being held to standards that Cis Men are never held to! I am not even a Cis Woman, but I am still tired of criticisms of 'Cis Women' that are never, ever applied to 'Cis Men'.

I know you were speaking generally rather than in direct response to my posts or those TDoR articles, but I guess the notion of trans women being broadly hostile toward feminism is fairly alien to my experience (although, yeah, everybody living under patriarchy needs to struggle to recognize and undo their internalized misogyny). Most of the criticisms of TERF arguments I've seen distinguish between those fringe positions and feminism more generally. I generally tend to think that it's better not to engage TERFs when it's not necessary, but there are historical reasons (i.e. the 70s through the early 90s, when trans women were being purged from many lesbian communities and women's spaces with the approval of figures like Robin Morgan, Mary Daly, and Janice Raymond) why their claims, while no longer very relevant to feminism today, can't entirely be safely ignored, and TERF arguments are on a continuum with institutional violence against trans women even if they aren't at this point significant drivers of that violence. (Also, just speaking from my own experience: the trans women I know are way more likely to express frustration with men, or with cis people in general, than with cis women or with feminists. Most of the trans women I know consider themselves feminists, and my own situation would be considerably more difficult to deal without feminist critiques of misogyny and gender normativity, even if there was a time in my life when I was internalizing TERF discourses out of sheer self-loathing, and using TERF discourse to convince myself that transitioning would just be appropriating women's experience.)

Femme is devalued by everyone, because of the privileging of Masculinity. However, there is a difference between 'femme is devalued because: privileging of masculinity' and 'a masculine of centre FAAB person viewing 'femme' as a pink prison with which they have imprisoned against their will from birth and are actively rejecting in pursuit of an authentic life'. They are not the same thing at all, even if they may *appear* similar to trans women and femme of centre MAAB people looking from outside.

I think there are a lot of ways in which trans women and trans men or transmasculine people can speak past one another; part of that is the working of transmisogyny concurrent with the transphobia experienced by trans men and masculine FAAB people, and part of that has to do with the different ways masculinity and femininity signify and are visible under patriarchy. I'm aware my relationship to femme expression would be different if it had been forced on me growing up rather than presented as something debased or off-limits (there are obviously all sorts of ways in which normative gender socialization is painful and oppressive); I just bristle against cases in which masculinity is treated as generally "natural" or "desirable" in a way that's continuous with the systematic devaluing of women and femininity. I've read complaints about how this has played out in some queer circles--for example, Imogen Binnie, Julia Serano, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore have all written about transmisogyny among Bay Area queer spaces in the 2000s. (In Binnie's essay here, for example: http://www.keepyourbridgesburning.com/2013/09/we-see-through-you-18/.) As I've said, though, I haven't experienced that in my own town so far, and I want to avoid generalizing about queer spaces I haven't been part of. I'm also aware that masculine-of-center FAAB people are expressing themselves in the way most authentic to them, even if in my own experience there is nothing I see worth salvaging in masculinity. There's another irony here: my own presentation at this point tends to read as soft butch if I'm even perceived as a woman at all, and one of the hardest--and ongoing--parts of transition for me has been trying to work out what aspects of myself are, for lack of a better word, authentic, and which were learned on the basis of fear but have come to seem natural.

Anyway, this is all obviously endlessly complicated and often painful to talk about, but I felt like your posts deserved some response. (I want to come back to your point about how dysphoria is situated in relation to questions of social privilege at some point.)

That is cool, m bison, and he sounds awesome. :)

OWS, I think we got some wires crossed here. (Which is, admittedly, pretty easy when I'm on a tear.) It was never my intention to state anything like "trans women are hostile to feminism." Because the majority of trans women I've known or read are pretty pro-feminism; and they have had valid (and constructive) criticisms of feminism. It's just weird to read articles about TDoR which talk about trans women being murdered, followed by "feminism needs to change" rather than "men need to stop murdering women."

I've read that Imogen Binnie thing about 3 times and I'm sorry but I think it's a confused mess. But hey, LiveJournal is for being a confused mess.

She seems to feel kinda angry and disappointed that she moved to San Fran and the lesbian scene there was kinda... uh... butch? That the trans man scene was full of transmasculinity? If it's not for you, it's not for you, honey, but you don't seem to understand that trans men have had to fight for the same space to shout "I am trans and I AM a man!" from their jockstraps? That trans men might not be acting that way because masculinity is more ~natural~ or ~desirable~ but because expressing their masculinity is as important to them as femininity to a trans woman! (and also often denied to them, in oppressive and sometimes violent ways!)

I typed out more but I deleted it because I don't really feel like there's any point to hammering this stuff. There have been many, many (male-coded) Gay Spaces that have felt awful and exclusionary and humiliating for me to inhabit. But the difference is, I never felt like I had any right to feel entitled enough to ask that they be centred around *my* needs. I just read them as "not for me" and didn't stick around.

I need to not think about this for a while. It's starting to just feel like shitty in-fighting.

I think the point of Binnie's essay was pretty straightforward (that the queer spaces she was in in the bay seemed to marginalize her and other trans women while claiming to be OK with trans people), and I don't think she was asking for them to be centered around her needs so much as explaining why she found them alienating, but I won't belabor that. I'll be away from the internet for the next few days, so to continue this thread on a more conciliatory note, here are a couple of links on Feinberg and Stone Butch Blues, one on sex work and the other, more light-hearted, on casting a hypothetical adaptation:
http://titsandsass.com/remembering-stone-butch-blues-pledge-to-sex-workers/
http://the-toast.net/2014/07/30/casting-stone-butch-blues/

(I was also kinda gunnysacking in that post, when I was making that snipe about 'trans women need to address their own internalised misogyny' - like, that was in response to something unrelated, which wasn't posted on this thread, but had made me angry. I know from experience, should not post to ILX when I'm worked up. (I mean, really, I should know better than to post to ILX at all.) Because inside, I am reacting emotionally to a really angry-making thing, while trying to more calmly discuss a more ambivalent thing requiring more equanimity. I am sorry for doing that.)

And, no, I don't think that the point of Binnie's essay was that straightforward, but I am not going to argue it any more.

love this photo gallery
http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2015/02/24/photos-transgender-elders-show-us-meaning-survival

the former Bruce Jenner is a privileged attention whore/idiot who does not need to be 'supported'.

responding to ghost posters

I don't think I need to tell you where the flag post is.

No interest in her personal story or w/e but it's kind of a watershed moment for trans people + a huge step in making the USA in particular a safer place for transpeople, no?

don't be an asshole, bill.

always

i dig that jenner's celebrity / wealth / glamour makes her seem more untouchable and inexplicable than her gender ever could, but fgti basically otm.

I was talking to my 90 year old mom a few days ago and one way or another Orlando by Woolf came up in the conversation. As the subject meandered on from there I discovered that she was unaware of the name Christine Jorgensen, or the fact of sex reassignment surgery. So, she may be in a small minority, but the availability of such surgery is not universal knowledge and some publicity about it is not useless to those who may never have heard of it before.

for someone who already had a long career as a public figure to make this transition is a pretty huge cultural moment, imho. that said i wish that there was less attention & importance placed on the surgical aspect of her transition in terms of the media / the public accepting & recognizing her gender.

an actual trans athletc hero:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9e_Richards

but hey, every era gets the symbol it desrves i guess.

They look a lot alike! is my stupid contribution.

Fwiw I mostly agree with dr. Morbs re "privelaged attention whore" status. I mean, she certainly is that but something more interesting and progressive may result.

Or may not.

In other words that was a non post. But attention whoring has many levels and degrees.

can we be grown ups and stop using 'attention whore' it is the pits

We can also be grown up and say "attention whore" if it is apt. I mean on ILX anyway.

at the very least, i support C over K

i mean i dont think it is ever apt to use sry, least of all for someone who has undergone the most high profile transition in the US

xp

That's ok. Personally I find an aspect of that in this situation and will not use that phrase.

But will not use that phrase, rather.

morbs largely otm

m bison

attention bore

*takes your nerf ball and throws it over the fence where the mean dog lives*

i got renee richards' autograph when i was a kid

who has undergone the most high profile transition in the US

yes, riches always determine importance

I agree with Dr Morbs also overall but there's something about "the former Bruce Jenner" rather than Caitlyn Jenner or even just Bruce Jenner on its own that's unsavoiry.

considering a whole hell of a lot of ppl do not (think they) know a trans person, i think it's important. caitlyn's not going to snap her fingers and all transphobia will vanish, but it's a big deal! i guess i don't understand why that's a small thing for you.

well i grew up with him as Bruce, the World's Greatest Athlete who then plunged downward to the Village People Movie, so sue me. xp

THEY DON'T KNOW THIS ONE EITHER.

"the former Bruce Jenner" is enough to tell Morbs to fuck right off, without any other explanation needed.

I don't agree.

who has undergone the most high profile transition in the US

yes, riches always determine importance

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Thursday, June 4, 2015 3:39 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that's what's sad about it and why Morbs is right. Or, at least, why I agree with him to some extent.

Fuck it I don't know what to think.

i'll fuck right off then, em -- enjoy the Reality Show Politics of Everything

Fwiw I think your stance is legit and that you should not fuck off.

Unless you want to and that's also legit and I totally respect your rights to fuck off it may also be an important moment in fucking off on ILX and may have repercussions globally.

My overall feeling is who gives a fuck about Caitlyn jenner?

& that reality show bullshit is something we should all resist.

ilx, where we disown a moment of high-profile representation for a marginalized group because it's just a bit too gauche by 2004 standards

I hadn't heard of bruce jenner til maybe 2013 don't really have a good idea of the popular view I've seen photos online same with kardashians although I don't know that I've seen a video or heard any of them utter a word although not out of any deliberate avoidance or distaste or anything but I guess it's probably not really for me and I find it difficult imagine the reality of their various programmes and so on. I think ok you're caitlyn no prob. I also think it's fine for the most high profile transition in the US to be a person reviled by some for their perceived courting of publicity and superficiality of the persona they project or whatever. must be possible to celebrate the event so to speak without celebrating the person if you think you really don't like the person for some reason without refusing to call them by their chosen name or gender or suggesting an entirely cynical root to their having transitioned etc.

no i disagree morbs you should definitely fuck right off a cliff for reviving this thread to do nothing more than promote your cantankerous hobbyhorse opinions

Apologies myself for being cantankerous.

it's possible to lead into / ask for more thought on / raise a valid point a subject, like trans visibility, without using abusive language.

but where would one find the motivation to do so without the internalized codependence "whore" offers to so many previously or not-so-previously religious gay men.

http://vihart.com/vi-hart-weekly-june-5th/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Meat on the bones on Morbs' POV..

yes, some standard terf bs for morbs to nod along to

wow @ people whose hatred for celebrity culture is so strong that it overrides basic humanity, or perhaps just exposes their lack of it

caitlyn jenner's fame and career do not negate her story, and desiring to tell it is not attention-seeking, whatever you even mean by that

w/r/t that terrible nyt article, surely i will read nothing worse than the trans-as-blackface analogy this year