When I wrote my response vis a vis religious freedom it was to concerning the first paragraph of your post. I did not see that this was just a stub — I thought it ended, after the rational party capslock — I later realised there was more full version in my email box. It was then a rebuttal to the idea that trans ideology is rational, on which I will expand on in the next comment. Here I will first address the points you raised.
“arguing that it’s trans women who are JUST LIKE MRAs while defending those posting hateful shit like that screencapped above”
What hateful shit are you referring to?
“when someone has the courage to speak publicly on a subject this intensely personal.”
Should someones writing because it is about something intensely personal, be automatically above critique regarding its accuracy? Should we defer to people’s feelings on any subject so as not to upset them? Is emotional fragility the new arbiter of truth?
Im not advocating telling a grieving Christian parent that their child isn’t going to heaven because God is dead and never existed in the first place. So long as their belief isnt’ hurting anyone Im more likely to say, well if it gives them comfort then what’s the harm. However if said parent started a religious inquisition to ensure adopted their faith or demanded all theme parks close immediatly because that’s where their child met an umtimely end, I think we should say something.
“ but for me, direct experience living with and among queer/trans people of many stripes has taught me that having the feelings the author describes here doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with a failure to appreciate the sheer absurdity of prescriptive gendering.”
I agree. Why then buy into the notion that gender is intrinsically bound to sex? Why claim that if there is a mismatch then the sex is wrong? Why not the concept of gender?
“ Would you take a cis woman to task for being “too female”? Do you see “lipstick lesbians” as counterrevolutionaries pandering to the Male Gaze?
No, I wouldn’t judge either for their decisions are understandable given the societal pressure they are living under to peform feminitity. Being gender non conforming in appearance is an effort, which picks you out for negative attention. Personally Ive done the shaved head, the armpit hair, the androgynous clothing and experienced the gender policing. Now instead of jeans I wear skirts and leggings — ever since I realised that leggings are a million times more comfortable.
“ I cannot tell what your specific objection to Queer Theory IS here; I cannot tell whether you are decrying OP for unconsciously enforcing an essentialist gender binary [e.g. “Yet you have also internalised the stereotypes and misandry; you didnt want to hang round with boys at school because…”], or whether you have become something of an apologist for it [e.g. “It’s like accusing someone of being a racist because they recognise that some people are black and some are white.”].”
In the first instance I was pointing out the incongruity of the OP in their assumption “Im not a boy because Im not like that” and then follow with “Its outrageous that women think boys are like that, because I wasnt and some other boys I know weren’t “This makes no sense. Some boys fit the stereotype and some don’t. Some boys are more traditionally ‘masculine’ and some traditionally ‘feminine’. Both are boys. Their behaviour does not dictate their sex.
With regards recognising people as black or white, if I say “I don’t see colour” in an attempt to demonstrate an unbiased treatment of all people, I will be rightly reprimanded by progressive anti-racists because my assertion of colour-blindness is both untrue — of course I do see colour and unhelpful. By pretending race doesnt exist I erase the reality of black people’s experience of racism.
Yet with sex, the tables are turned. If I say “I don’t see sex” [ instead I see gender identity] this is the correct progressive stance to take. Yet its equally false: I have eyes and senses. Telling the difference between men and womens for mate selection and threat detection has been evolutionararily programmed into us since before we were human. If I say sex doesnt exist then I erase the ability of women to meaningfully talk about sexism.
In the oft referred to Rachel Dolezul case we saw how everyone decried the trans racial identity argument. It seemed like appropriation of the grossest form, that the entitled white person thought anything was possible for them, even to be black. She reduced blackness to a cultural association, a medium brown spray tan and a weave. It was offensive to black people and even white people thought it a cheek.
Yet a man who may or may not don a dress and a wig, we must accept as the real deal, a bonafide woman all on the basis of him wanting a Tinkerbell costume as a child. How is this not seen as the grossest form of appropriation and entitlement? It’s like a rich upper class man with a trust fund claiming to be working class because he’s always loved the aesthetic of poverty. Telling us how he spent his childhood looking out of the window of a limo, nose pressed against the glass, longingly looking at homeless men in the street wishing he could too could wear rags and enjoy their comaraderie round an oil drum fire.
In his tale of woe he claims that he is worse off than those people born poor because at least people born poor were able to wear rags, where he could only dream of it, try them on in private for fear of being ridiculed. Those poor people don’t realise how lucky they are. He tells us how unfair it is for the poor people to complain about rich people — #notallstockbrokers. And how hurtfully they assume he is rich because he has a million dollars in hedge funds. Oh such is the agony of being a poor person trapped in a rich mans body. How he grieves for the chldhood he never had.
“Overall, in spite of what you’re telling OP about how their post comes off to “the audience” [speak for yourself!],”
I agree, I can only speak for myself, that was a sentence which I meant to edit.
“ I think many of us reading this find your perspective as abrasive you seem to find the OP’s”
‘speak for yourself!’ :) I don’t find the OP’s perspective abrasive, I find it self indulgent, self pitying and misogynist; It is women at whom the OP directs his anger, feminist women who are trying to break the very patriarchal oppression under which he has suffered. Yet he is completely unconcerned with the actual issues women face. The OP’s entire conception of womanhood is based the fetishisation of female attire.
if you find my perpective abrasive then if the previous analogy to the rich man demanding sympathy for his lost years of childhood poverty, hasn’t explained why then I hope that my second comment to your post will.
“trans women don’t get to talk over cis women about their experience but it’d be nice if we could stop denying the former the same.”
I am not talking over anyone. The OP had their say and then I had mine. But if we look at the larger context of this argument who is being silenced….at universities, at public talks, in activiist communities?. it is very much cis women. Cis men generally don’t bother getting involved because it is not their spaces, their communities, their rights to sexual choice that are being impinged upon. There are also some brave trans people who too are critical of the trans ideology.
The extent of McCartheyism is such that even trans people and gay activists standing up for free speech are now condemned as transphobes. Take Peter Tatchell, a life long UK gay and trans rights activist. He recently signed a letter calling for freedom of speech and the stopping of no platforming and was ironically immediately labelled a transphobe and no platformed himself.
“Consider that every trans person I’ve ever met is VERY, VERY AWARE of everything you’ve said here, and has still come to the conclusion that This Thing Still Best Describes My Identity, for various reasons. Consider that this isn’t an internal choice a rational person would make for themselves given an easier option that felt authentic, nor is it one that’s gaining them any more brownie points with Mainstream Society than it is in TERFland.”
If as you say every trans person is very very aware of everything I say then how can they continue to foist their reality upon us when doing so tramples on others rights? I agree it’s not a rational choice but then magical thinking rarely is. I was a ‘trans’ person before the term existed. After 20 years of believing myself a boy I had to accept the reality — i was nor never would be a boy and that to expect others to treat me as such was childish and self centred and lacking a theory of mind. It made as much sense as my 4 year old self playing hide and seek and thinking no one could see me because I had my eyes shut.
As to not gaining brownie points, au contraire, the trans meme is riding high. Woman of the year is now a biological man. There isnt a week in the mainstream news without parents taking their 5 year old to a gender specialist and being lauded for supporting the childs transition from a likely gay boy to a trans girl. In fact any parent doubting the validty of this theory is classed as a terribly negligent parent who is practically assuring their child’s suicide. The simple explanation of “ No my love you’re a boy and you are wonderful the way you are. It’s completely fine that you like things that some people think are girly, lots of boys do and as you grow up you will meet more of them” is now considered tantamount to chld abuse. The media attention is increidbly and almost exclusively positive. I’ll wager there’s a lot of lobbying going on behind the scenes.
It makes no odds to me whether its a choice, a sexual compulsion, a deeply helf belief or a fleeting feeling, people go forth and dress how you wish, call yourself what you want, only don’t insist the rest of the world to concur with your beliefs, especially when you try to legally undermine very hard won freedoms for women.
I have trans friends who have transitioned, and feel happier for it, but who are strong enough people to accept the reality of their condition — that they are men who live as a subsection of men who we call trans women. I admire their honesty and their bravery, for they along with women are often abused for daring to dissent from the accepted narrative. Here is a post by one of them: