Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

Hearos

they should have flames on them or at least some sort of ribbed metal surface come on

boys apparently protectionist

I'll bet that blue color doesn't run, either.

holy shit the world is so. fucked. up. this is a catastrophe mother of fuck you bastards, you devious little shits. .. you had to do it... you had to make the pink hearo. you won't stop until you have it all will you hearo. smug pricks.

Lol

https://i.imgur.com/EuLQGdO.png

'special needs'

designed for women's tiny ears

Delicate fluttering hair cells

Did anyone else see She's Beautiful When She's Angry? A bit too Second Wave Feminism 101 for my liking, but the interviews with numerous key figures of the era (Rita Mae Brown, Kate Millett, Susan Griffin etc, including Ellen Willis in what I'm assuming was footage taped not too long before her death) make it worth a look.

New interview with Judith Butler, addressing (though not limited to) the mainstreaming of Gender Trouble.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C4PGL5yW8AAQ2pY.jpg

more power to em

Oh cool, I'm an Alpha Woman now!!!

thank the lord

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/16/why-this-pastor-believes-american-girls-boy-doll-is-a-trick-of-the-enemy/

The Rev. Keith Ogden, who is a pastor at Hill Street Baptist Church in Asheville, N.C., said he heard about the boy doll earlier this week on a segment of “Good Morning America.” He then sent a message to his parishioners titled “KILLING THE MINDS OF MALE BABIES.” “This is nothing more than a trick of the enemy to (emasculate little boys) and confuse their role to become men,” he wrote in a statement, which he later sent to The Washington Post. “There are those in this world who want to alter God’s creation of the male and female. The devil wants to kill, steal and destroy the minds of our children and grandchildren by perverting, distorting and twisting to TRUTH of WHO GOD created them to be.”

bit melodramatic imho

"the enemy" is pastorspeak for Satan

So he... wants male dolls to have penises?

no, he wants them to have guns (though I guess a doll with a camouflaged penis that fired nerf darts would meet his standards for acceptable masculine playtime)

A new addition to the feminist canon launches on 10 March:

Join Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel launch their new book, WE: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere.

Imagine a sisterhood spanning all creeds and cultures – an unspoken agreement that women will support and encourage one another. So begins WE, an inspiring, empowering and provocative manifesto for change.

Change which provides a crucial and timely antidote to the have-it-all Superwoman culture, and instead focuses on what will make each woman happier and more free. Change which we can all effect, one woman at a time.

https://d2csxpduxe849s.cloudfront.net/media/9116038B-1451-4FB6-90B39305790096A6/02ED6F11-F2A3-42A0-9ED6939AB4335450/Hero1600x630-83a46e98-0a1e-4fa5-b4b6-1e3e5f899936.jpg

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/03/05/im-never-reenlisting-marine-corps-rocked-by-nude-photo-scandal/?utm_term=.fb674e79ebee

The War Horse’s report focuses on one Facebook group with more than 30,000 members called Marines United. In January, a link to a shared hard drive containing photos of numerous female Marines in various states of undress was posted to the group, according to the War Horse’s report. The hard drive contained images, as well as the names and units of the women pictured. Many of the photos were accompanied by derogatory and harassing comments.

This is a truly excellent reason to start a rock band. https://t.co/bYoFldhcAZ pic.twitter.com/x0YmPPURrp

— Sassa (@astridoverthere) October 19, 2017

So I've been more involved with left activism/organizing of late which means I've been more exposed to more flavors of The Left than I was previously. This has been mostly rewarding and rad but I have encountered a strain of what I'd consider to be on the extreme end of radical idpol, where a couple of trans comrades have outright stated that 1. sexual preference for certain/specific types of genitals are inherently transphobic and 2. because cisgender folks uphold cisnormativity, their cisness / "being" cis is itself a form of oppression against trans folks. I struggle with these ideas and I don't think it's *just* cause I'm a cishet dude (albeit one who's not uh "active" in any meaningful sense and not planning to be again anytime soon), but I also really don't think it's appropriate to ask them about it directly for a whole lot of reasons. So I'm throwing it out to Feminist Theory ILX: are these super common notions of late? How do we feel about them? Am I hopelessly square for bristling at them?

*michael bolton voice* how can we be lovers if we can’t be cis

2 sounds like a very serious evolution of something that probably started off as a joke

1 i don’t really have any comment on

1. sexual preference for certain/specific types of genitals are inherently transphobic and 2. because cisgender folks uphold cisnormativity, their cisness / "being" cis is itself a form of oppression against trans folks. I struggle with these ideas

what is there to struggle with? they're irrational and wrong

I feel like #1 leaves a lot more questions than it provides answers

"being" cis is itself a form of oppression against trans folks

My basic reaction to this is that, even if there is some grain of truth hiding in there, the obvious solution is to expand what is normal to include being trans, rather than, let's say, trans folks setting up intensive deprogramming sessions to 'fix' cis people, much like those evangelicals use for 'fixing' gays. because the oppression does not really reside in "being cis".

expand what is normal to include being trans

i feel like this is what both ideas are getting at, albeit extremely

everyone join me in flagging that sleepingbag post

yeahhhh that was the type of language I was explicitly trying to avoid

i feel like this is what both ideas are getting at, albeit extremely

yeah this makes a bit of sense to me, like an extreme way of leveling the playing field

It's sad that sleepingbag can't keep a girlfriend for more than a few months.

can we keep to a generally respectful tone in this thread even if some
malcontents feel like disrupting it?

yeahhhh that was the type of language I was explicitly trying to avoid

― Simon H., Thursday, November 23, 2017 2:08 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so you were thinking something similar but you wouldn't just come out and say it? what is wrong with saying that ideas like those are absurd?

Diplomacy.

i'm not at all well informed but i do see people expressing both 1 and 2 with apparent sincerity, which i suppose means that they're not too uncommon (if i could take notice of them).

both seem prima facie coherent as moral/political stances but liable to harbor all manner of confusions/distortions of the relevant moral and political concepts (which if interpreted charitably could mean challenging, radical revisions of them in the direction of justice, the good, etc.).

for instance on 1, a similar view about homophobia would probably be met with skepticism. yet it seems to be a consistent implication of a trans-positive ethic that if one accepts the gender self-identifications of others, for instance not at all denying trans women any status, role, etc. one assigns cis women, then one must accept them in sexual activity as well. even as a cis het man, for instance. if in response to the imputation of transphobia a cis het man who had some inclination to prefer cis women to trans women as sexual partners appealed to his desires as on some level a brute fact, or as something that falls under the exercise of his own autonomy (on a par with the self-identifications of others), the idea that our desires are educable, correctable, and often deeply in need of education and correction, would seem to undermine that appeal. but it seems like it would be a bit of a feat to appeal to autonomy and authenticity or legitimacy of desires on the one side and, out of a moral/political critique (what the use of the term 'transphobia' earmarks), to question or deny them on the other in the name of a more enlightened desire, without putting enormous pressure on all those concepts to change significantly. in effect, it's a critique that sees most contemporary behavior around gender and sex as thoroughly unradicalized, and validates itself by resting on a vision of a thoroughly transformed society.

I'm heading off to a party in a moment, so I can't get deep into discourse, but I would say (speaking as a queer trans woman in a relationship with another trans woman):

Regarding 1), genital preferences are not necessarily transphobic, but the people who feel the need to publicly articulate their sexuality in terms of attraction to specific kinds of genitals are usually also making a whole lot of cissexist assumptions about trans people and their bodies. Patterns of attraction are conditioned by systems of power, but that doesn't mean they can be reshaped at will; at the same time, though, statements about who one can find desirable can often serve as a way of policing the boundaries to a given community (think of what "No fats, no fems, no Asians" implies as part of an online dating profile).

Regarding 2), this seems mostly like a hyperbolic way to express frustration with transphobia, and shouldn't be taken too literally.

Xp

yes, op made it sound like these ideas were axiomatic in this leftist group when it sounds much more likely that these things were said in exasperation or to blow off steam... either way i don't understand the point of struggling with the ideas and/or self-flagellating for not being a proper ally unless you've completely lost the ability to evaluate things for yourself tbh?

there are certain ideas that are more useful in an academic rather than practical sense and these (partic #1) are good examples

j, well put

also appreciate and find agreeable OWS’s perspective

yeah same, great posts j. and one way street

genital preferences are not necessarily transphobic, but the people who feel the need to publicly articulate their sexuality in terms of attraction to specific kinds of genitals are usually also making a whole lot of cissexist assumptions about trans people and their bodies

Shortly after I posted here, another trans comrade reponded to the original post and made this distinction

op made it sound like these ideas were axiomatic in this leftist group when it sounds much more likely that these things were said in exasperation or to blow off steam

Somewhere in between.

great posts j. and one way street

Co-sign, thanks y'all's

apologies in advance if this is addressed upthread

i don't recall growing up having any conflicts about my gender identity, but for the last several months, i have had recurring bouts of dysphoria where ive fixated on wanting to have a feminine body/be a woman. ive mostly put these notions to the side, but theyve grown in intensity the last couple of days and im starting to think there's *something* and im really struggling with it. like i dont know what to do with these feelings. i dont feel like "a woman trapped in a man's body" per se although ive never really cared for how my body looks at any size (my weight has fluctuated over the last 15 years). i think the fact that im married and have a child is whats making me the most terrified. what if i go down this path and wreck what i have? will my child understand? will my wife? will she still want to be with me? are there any trans/NB folks or anyone else here who can speak to this? i am in my early 30s and i havent so much as given 2nd thought to this until the last few months, is this weird?

Good luck to you, m bison. What you're dealing with isn't weird or wrong. I don't think it's uncommon for trans and NB people to come to an understanding of theirselves gradually or at irregular intervals, or to be aware of dysphoria before they know exactly what it means in terms of their identity.

In my own case: I'm a trans woman in my mid-thirties, and while I was intensely aware of my dysphoria as a teenager, I spent most of my twenties trying not to think about my gender or how alienated I felt by my body, until I kind of realized at thirty that trying to ignore it was becoming unbearable. My partner, who transitioned in her later thirties, had a similar trajectory, and neither of us have ever thought of ourselves as "women trapped in men's bodies": that's a nineteenth-century soundbite formulated to explain male homosexuality that has stuck around mostly because it flatters straight, cisnormative assumptions.

I would just try to be lucid about these feelings and find a space (whether it's the practice of a therapist who works with queer and trans clients, a trans support group, a queer community space that isn't primarily focused on hooking up, or wherever) where you feel safe to work out these feelings and how you want to deal with them. Your concerns are definitely reasonable: a lot of relationships don't survive one partner transitioning, although some do. All you can really do is try to be honest with yourself and your partner and explore your options patiently, whatever you choose to do.

m bison, this is going to appear like it goes against everything I've espoused recently, because I am a big believer in "people's experiences are real; people are who they say they are".

Over the past few years, I've been doing a lot of talking to non-binary and trans people, trying to compare experiences, and a lot of reading on the subject.

One thing that strikes me in common, with most of the non-binary and trans people I've encountered is how deep-seated these feelings are, and how early they first appear, and how long *something* has been going on. It's a sensation that usually occurs first in childhood, or adolescence at the latest, a sensation of being "different" or not-fitting or something being *off*, which may not initially even be recognised as *gender* being the thing that is off. Now, for people like myself, who did 'pop out' in middle-age, it was a question of 'not having a word for it', or 'being told it was impossible' and suppressing and repressing and squishing those feelings down and overcompensating for them. But it's a lifelong thing. Mine was a thing that came up in childhood. It came up in adolescence. My friends used to *joke* about it when I was in my 20s. It was something I did not have a proper *name* for until I was in my 40s, but the thoughts were always there.

Now, forgive me if this sounds disrespectful, or if it sounds like I am invalidating your experiences and feelings - your feelings are real, and powerful. It's worth addressing them and working out what they are, and how to cope with them.

But I want to ask. Do you have, either in yourself, or in your family, any history of OCD or anxiety disorders? Because something that *does* come on suddenly and abruptly (within the 'couple of months' timeframe you describe) is a variant of OCD called Pure-OCD or P-OCD. It comes on *fast*. It tends to take the form of really overpowering and overwhelming intrusive thoughts, which often snowball and accelerate in intensity. These thoughts often take the form of intense doubts about one's identity, one's sexuality, one's orientation (for example a straight woman, who had always been straight and knew she was straight experienced P-OCD episodes where she could not stop having intrusive thoughts of pornographic imagery which developed into an OCD pattern that took the form of obsessive, incessant, unstoppable thoughts of questioning whether she might be a lesbian - even though she had never previously experienced any desire that way). Like many other forms of OCD, it involves an irresistible hook of how *harm* might come, to the self, or more usually, one's loved ones.

It often comes on a little like 'medical students' disease' where, if you are studying something or investigating something, the OCD will latch onto the thing you've been researching. It can also result in response to intense periods of stress which aren't connected to the OCD pattern itself.

It's so hard to tell, because it's an OCD loop that hijacks a real thing, over which it is totally normal to have doubt and uncertainty and self-interrogation over. However, it doesn't ever *resolve* to an answer, a "phew, I'm actually x", it just goes round and round in an unfinished loop of fear and anxiety.

It's entirely possible you may have had thoughts and desires and feelings in childhood that you have forgotten, or more likely repressed? In which case, if you have trusted people who have known you since childhood, it's worth asking "did my behaviour ever make you wonder?" Or if you have old diaries, or even childhood schoolwork type stuff? Something which puts you back in that mindset and reminds you who you were then. Maybe it was there, and you've squished it down. I wouldn't say it's weird, but it i's atypical for this stuff to appear so suddenly, out of nowhere, having never wondered about it pre- or around adolescence.

But if it really wasn't there, and this is a sudden thing that has "come out of nowhere"? Especially if it takes the form of incessant rumination and intrusive thoughts and *worry* about how it will damage people you love? And especially if you have any history of OCD or anxiety disorders. Do some reading on P-OCD, even if just to discount the possibility.

Honestly, I'm not discounting your *feelings*. Your feelings are real, and *need* to be addressed and looked at and dealt with and maybe acted upon. Talk it over with a professional, find out what the options are. Investigate your own history. Conduct it like an experiment of "what would I do, if this were the case" and see if that makes things better, worse, no change.

To add to the above post, it might be worth searching articles about gender confusion OCD or sexual orientation OCD, because even if the fears you're reading about aren't the specific fears you have, you might recognise some of the same patterns and habits. Search a few different terms that might describe what you're afraid of and add "pure OCD".

branwell that is extraordinarily helpful and I am grateful for you taking the time and care to share that. I have had a history of anxiety. and I am a sponsor for an lgbt club at my school and I interact with trans and nb kids every day.

the intrusive and obsessive worrying feels very much in line with what I've been experiencing the last couple of days which is evident in the panic from my initial post. thank you again.

I feel really touchy and difficult discussing this kind of stuff, because one of the biggest Trans Issues is how difficult it often is for trans and non-binary and questioning people to get others to *believe* them. This kind of "Are you sure it's not... (other psychological issue)?!" is a huge derailing and time-wasting and de-legitimising technique.

I am, however, someone who is both non-binary (and has gone through all the questioning that entailed) but ALSO has had episodes of near-crippling OCD.

Both things involve the experience of 'recurring thoughts and feelings' and it's quite difficult, unless you've had both, to describe the ways in which they are both similar and different.

Trans-ness, or gender dysphoria, or (preferred term?) is a long-term, persistent sense of *mismatch* between one's body, and/or others' sets of expectations about what one's body should *mean*; and one's own sense of self, sense of internal compass reports that one's self and one's body *ought* to be. I don't want to use the phrase "wrongness" because wrong implies a moral judgement. It's just this repeated feeling of "this doesn't fit"; "this doesn't feel right"; "something's not working here". Now this, obviously, involves recurring thoughts, because every time that mismatch becomes apparent or becomes highlighted it's going to generate a twinge. Like every step you take in ill-fitting shoes rubs or pinches somewhere.

It can become *acutely* intense, at times where the mismatch is continually and painfully highlighted. I generally thought I had reached a level of peace with my identity and my dysphoria - until a couple of weeks ago, I had to go and do a 24/7 on-site training course, involving 5 brogrammers and me, and it was just unrelenting. There was the expected fury and strangled exasperation of dealing with 7 days of relentless casual sexism and exclusion. Like, this stuff is unjust for anyone to deal with. I'm used to dealing with sexism and even hostile work environments. But what I was not prepared for, was the *wave* of dysphoria that followed closely on its heels. The sense of "no one deserves sexism because misogyny is unjust" followed by "you assholes have completely misread and misunderstood who *I* am. I'm not uninterested in your toxic masculinity stew of 'cars, sport, the military' because I am 'feminine'; it's because this is not the *kind* of 'masculine' I am." (If the environment had been 'music, real ale, trains' I could have performed *that* kind of masculinity just fine.)

But in this environment, the level of dysphoria reached such a crescendo that it become unavoidable, intrusive, dominating my thoughts, leaving me unable to function. But it was the stress of that environment that pushed it to that level of intrusiveness. Something that was normally traffic noise, suddenly became a jet engine. But it *can* become that intrusive, do you understand what I'm saying? It can become *like* the intensity of OCD, but it's an exaggeration of a thing which has recurred persistently for a long time.

OCD, on the other hand, is like... I've always called them Thoughtworms. "It comes on like a thought, and stays just like a disease." Something intrudes upon your mind, and you believe it's an urgent, important thought, so you just start thinking it. Except it is not an actual thought, it's a recurring, looping computer-virus-like thing, which starts taking over all the other circuits of your brain and just shuts other processes down, so that the only thought you are able to think is the Thoughtworm. It's not an environmental response, like dysphoria feels like a pinch or an ache from an ill-fitting shoe. (Except the shoe is your body, and you can't take it off.) It's a virus that quite quickly takes control of your entire brain. THIS IS THE ONLY THOUGHT THAT WE CAN THINK NOW.

And these thoughtworms are... you know, they are brainweasels. They are worries, fears, the things you care *most* about, your worst impulses, things that feel really really *urgent*. They would not be able to cannibalise your mind with intrusive and obsessive worrying if they weren't things that meant something to you in the first place. Pure OCD is *agony*. It starts with urgency and escalates into panic, and if unchecked, leads to feeling like you are losing your mind.

Does that make more sense, the way that they are both recurring, they can both be *intrusive*, but that the way these feelings recur, and the way that the thoughts intrude are different? I just really hope that that helps you to tease apart what you are experiencing right now, and how to proceed with it. Because it doesn't sound much fun, where you are right now.

If you're working with trans and nonbinary kids, it's entirely possible that you are recognising something of yourself in them, and them in yourself. That's empathy, and that's good. And it's also possible that you do have curiosity and questioning raised by this empathy, which is perfectly natural and normal. OR it could be, because you are so engaged with these kids, and you start to care for and worry about them, that's exactly the kind of anxiety that OCD will latch onto. It could be either. It could also be both! I wish you peace, and clarity and greater self understanding.