First of all, the post you're responding to wasn't addressed at you. I'd say it wasn't necessarily addressed at any one person in particular.
Do go on, I'm super keen for you to tell me more about my female shared experiences.
I provided a link above to a list of such experiences as written by a woman.
That list isn't filtered to exclude experiences specific to any one culture, though it shouldn't be hard to do so. Furthermore, you can zoom into any society, and within the context of that society, there would be experiences shared by every biologically female --or more precisely, to include intersex women, born female-looking and therefore brought up as a "girl"-- person.
Whether you're considered a woman, politically, is defined by feminist social analysis as far as I'm concerned. Were you assigned into the social class female/girl/woman after birth? If not, you should never demand women to accept you as one of their own. Doing so is, in my eyes, equivalent to a white person demanding black people to accept him/her as one of their own.
(Oftentimes, "assigned to the female class after birth" is shortened to "being female" because there's like 99% overlap. Well, a tiny Twitter poll I started suggests that about 75% of the women in the radfem/gender-critical Twitter bubble I exist in include intersex women in their definition. I honestly don't know why 25% think otherwise; maybe getting to know an intersex woman or reading up on intersex conditions would change their mind, or maybe they know something I/others don't, or maybe I worded the poll badly...)
Or maybe I just have a deeply felt metaphysical connection to the (masculine-presenting) feminine?
I think you misunderstood; that line of thinking is what I was opposing. (You're being sarcastic also, right?)
please do point me to where I've called any women hateful bigots
Not you, but yesterday I woke up to Autostraddle Senior Editor Heather Hogan, comparing separatist lesbians who distance themselves from "queer" communities and exclude biological males and bisexual women, to actual, literal, neo-Nazis (the "alt-right"). It was not hyperbole, not a silly joke. It was a long series of tweets in which she seriously drew parallels between separatist lesbians and the alt-right. Many people liked and retweeted it, some responding "you're talking about TERFs, right?"
And all that she did while saying "queer doesn't really exclude lesbians." Yeah, doesn't "exclude", just implicitly calls them literal Nazis upon a strong disagreement. In many cases it's proper for me to stay out of disputes among women, but some things cross the line. I would also oppose, say, a woman who suggests that women shouldn't be able to vote. I hope being male doesn't make that categorically wrong.
P.S.: I don't take part in imzy's /feminism anymore; just responding to posts addressed at me.
I don't see any hypocrisy because be it a white person claiming black or another ethnic identity, a male person claiming female identity, or a straight person claiming LGBT identity are all more or less the same issue, unless of course you disagree with this so much that you register the mention of the other two as off-topic. That's an ideological position of yours affecting moderation-related decision making.
Your claim that I've done nothing but stir gender identity related controversy is ridiculous; the only reason I had to post so much on that topic in /feminism was that my first and still ONLY share of a related article caused the whole community to bombard me with insults. The thread about the new feminist community was also related to that, in case you didn't notice. There was also at least one more thread in another community (Fempire) in which I was insulted behind my back. I don't remember whether I did or didn't retaliate in that thread.
To claim that my mention of Deep Green Resistance must have been related to gender identity is similarly a baseless assertion that you probably put forth because you dislike DGR. My share there had absolutely nothing to do with gender whatsoever; it was purely about bright green vs. Deep green ecology.
It's clear to me that as a moderator your intent is not to uphold the quality of discourse or community values here, but to make sure that only certain ideologies are represented. People literally telling me to go fuck myself get a pass, but expressing the wrong opinions get a moderator to become paranoid about my intentions.
Your "final warning" is well understood: change your political opinions or leave the community. In particular, "radical feminism not allowed here."
I don't want to be part of an anti-feminist community. Bye.
Thanks for admitting that your post was a mere statement of hostility.
You sure showed me with that rational, objective argument that disproves what I said. Take your misogyny elsewhere?
I find it hypocritical not to allow white people to identify as a member of an oppressed race, but to allow men to identify as women. Neither should be allowed. Both is colonization of the oppressed people's identity, with negative material implications for them.
Sadly, it's questionable whether solar or other "renewables" actually help with the environment much in the big picture. I mean they help in the sense of being less bad, but they are still bad insofar they depend on the global industrial complex mining, transporting, and processing many rare and toxic materials to deploy all the required devices, and it does that at an unimaginably massive scale, and will have to do it ever more if we're turning away from coal and nuclear. (Ironically, some calculations show nuclear to be healthier for the environment in total. Go figure.)
For a while now I've been fearful that Deep Green Resistance is essentially right in their analysis; collapse of civilization as we know it is inevitable, it's only a matter of time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Green_Resistance
The website seems down right now but here's the link:
OK, this is getting complicated, so I understand if you're not motivated to go on, but some of my thoughts in response, just to get it out there:
The hypothetical "signs" that man-appearing transwomen give off sound very similar to what a feminine and/or gay man may experience. So does the feeling of suffocation you describe; having to uphold an acceptably "masculine" mask at all times is soul-wrenching and unhealthy --ever more so I think when you convince yourself for years that it's your true self and not just a mask you put on to avoid discrimination-- and I know this experience myself.
But if this is an experience unique to AMAB people, and shared among them regardless of whether they're trans, feminine, or gay... and if AFAB people in turn have their own unique experiences, that they share regardless of whether they're trans, feminine, masculine, lesbian, or anything else (AFAB oppression such as abortion rights, sexual harassment, and pay gap are unavoidable regardless of gender identity and expression from what I can tell), then aren't these two clearly separate groups in terms of oppression? Or at least, isn't it one meaningful axis (among others) along which people could form separate political groups? (One group for trans/feminine/gay AMAB, another for all AFAB.) Why the claims of exclusivity towards AFAB-only groups who focus on AFAB-only issues?
Moreover, what are the shared experiences of oppression of AMAB people who identify as female but pass as male, and AFAB people? If they are both female, they must have some shared experiences under patriarchy, no?
If there are none, if they only begin to share some experiences when they transition, then what is the qualitative/material difference between the experiences of these AMAB people who identify and present female, and AMAB people who don't identify as female but have stereotypically feminine tastes and prefer to wear dresses and whatnot, and maybe even take some hormones to feminize their body? (There's a subcommunity doing that who call themselves femboys if I remember correctly.) They basically present female at that point, despite not identifying as such. If there's no material difference in experiences between these two AMAB groups, why is it justified for one of them to be politically considered female/women, but not the other?
Furthermore, though I think this is rewording a previous question: if an AMAB person identifies as female, but is comfortable with masculine expression, and furthermore doesn't suffer body dysphoria, in what way does that person suffer oppression of any kind in general, or female oppression in particular?
In the same vein, what about an AFAB person, comfortable with feminine expression, suffering no dysphoria, but identifying as male? Is that person's experience not going to overlap 99% with that of cis women? (You spoke of transmen "trying to assert their masculinity," but being a transman and having a masculine personality are unrelated, no?)
OK, all of this was from just reading your first paragraph, so I'm going to cut short. Sorry about the length of my posts. One more thing though:
We 99% agree (even when I put back on my pro-radfem hat that is) about the thing with wishing for female and male as categories not existing. Key difference: I don't see how the categories themselves are the problem, it rather seems like it's all the social meaning put on them. The categories of female and male (as defined in biology) are medically/biologically useful while being politically neutral: for instance, about 99% of people who have a vulva also have a uterus, low levels of testosterone, XX chromosomes, etc. That means observing that one aspect of the body gives one a very strong heuristic guess about many other aspects of the body. Of course, when resources are available, a physician should check if those assumptions hold true, but wouldn't it be silly if we all pretended that those things aren't connected? If whenever the biological aspects of an organism are asked, we listed 5-10 different detailed criterion (has XX chromosomes with no SRY gene, has testosterone levels fluctuating between A and B, has ovaries, fallopian tubes, a uterus, a cervix, ... ad nauseam) instead of simply abbreviating it all to one word: "female"? Likewise with "male"? Wouldn't it be more sensible, purely from a linguistic point of view, to use those abbreviations and save lengthy explanations for the exceptional cases? This is how I normally use those words: pure biology. Like I use the word "tree" for the collection of things with a wooden stump, roots below the ground, body splitting off into branches, and usually flat or needle-like colorful appendages growing out of the branches, I use the word "male" to describe the category of humans with [insert lengthy list of anatomical and physiological features]. Exceptions always exist; my description of "tree" was probably very very simplistic, yet the word is still useful! I don't really understand why, even if gender identity is real, but is not connected to any of the above criterion (that make up the female/male categories), why then we even use the words "female" and "male" for any gender identities, instead of inventing new words for this new discovery?..
Anyway. Regardless of whether you've read all the above, thanks for being patient. I would just like to point out on a closing remark that this isn't really the first time I've asked all the questions I've asked, neither myself nor others... The day I get a good answer to them, I may switch to queer feminism. So far, doesn't look like it will happen any time soon. :-\ The open issues (dare I say logical inconsistencies), coupled with the hostility displayed at scrutiny, is really off-putting, and something I haven't seen in radical feminism. Thanks for the conversation.
OK, I'll leave this thread of the discussion, and my motivation to take part in the larger community has been majorly hampered at this point anyway. (Though I'd love to continue the other thread, re. agender.)
But also, please, I just want honesty and openness about this, at least for the sake of every woman I've known who's pissed off at being demonized, insulted, and outcast for having the wrong opinions, and not even being given the charitable assumption of good faith or a chance to defend her position in rational debate: if the community is unwelcoming to feminists who don't believe in the theory of gender identity and don't see transwomen as literally women, why claim in bold all-caps that it supports ALL feminists? :-\
OK hold on, we might be getting somewhere but I have questions that need to be answered. If these are questions that are answered elsewhere then please redirect me; I don't want to waste your time and be the typical asshat demanding others to teach them the basics. But I don't think I've ever seen people talk about these... If you only have time/motivation to answer only one or few of these, I would also still be happy. Here goes:
Firstly, can you please tell me that if I'm indeed not male, and have never been, would that mean that I also have never had and don't have male privilege? Because that seems like quite a stretch, and I'm saying that despite having suffered extensively from gender norms. I.e. I know I've partially gotten the short end of the stick w.r.t. male privilege because I've more fought with than adopted masculinity and reaped its benefits, but it nevertheless seems like a stretch to say that I didn't/don't have any male privilege at all.
I can see you say something like: as an agender, I haven't had male privilege, but I also didn't suffer female oppression, and that's why I'm in the middle so to say. But being spared from a kind of oppression is privilege, so do I then have agender privilege, or "non-female" privilege? Or is being spared from oppression not equal to a kind of privilege?
And then, how does it work for people with a body deemed female by society? If they are also agender, it would have to mean we have the same fate, as far as gendered oppression/privilege goes? But I'm pretty sure that being agender in a male-deemed body and being agender in a female-deemed body are vastly different experiences, or am I mistaken? If an agender person with a male-deemed body has advantages over an agender person with a female-deemed body, what do we call the privileges the person with the male-deemed body has, and the under-privilege/oppression faced by the person with the female-deemed body?
Trying to think further along this line... what I just said comes eerily close to saying that being male is being a natural fit for masculinity. (I.e. agenders lacking male privilege because they can't usurp masculinity because, the logic would go, they aren't natural fits for masculinity, like, the logic would go, males are.) But that seems like a regressive idea? Indeed in the past, whenever I criticized transgender politics on the basis that they reinforce, I suggested, sex role stereotypes (because, from what I could tell, they said that being a woman is being stereotypically feminine and being a man is being stereotypically masculine), I've been told that that's not the case; that one can identify as any gender and still have any gender expression and that transgender politics don't say that men are inherently masculine or women are inherently feminine. That would mean that what makes me agender isn't my conflict with masculinity; that I could as well be agender yet masculine. If I were agender on the inside, visibly what people see as male, and adopted masculine behavior and reaped its benefits, what would my difference be from a regular man?
To be honest, I can see all the above questions being answered by saying: yes, there are privileges associated with having a male-deemed body, and oppression associated with having a female-deemed body. But that amounts to saying that trans women have a certain privilege over cis women (at least until they visibly transition), so... ???
Exclude transwomen from what? The definition of / political class "woman"?
Please be honest about your intentions: your community intentionally excludes any feminist, who does not see people who lived with male privilege for 20+ years, as truly a woman, in terms of political class. Correct?
By the way (sorry for double-posting), radical feminist is a male-exclusionary category, so I can't identify as one. I do support pretty much all of their ideals though.
As for "trans exclusionary", you'll have to be more precise on which trans people I'm excluding from what?
TheTERFs.com defines "TERF" as RFs who exclude trans people from housing, employment, and health care. To say that about me would be absurd; I don't hold such power in first place. If I did have the power, I would provide those things to trans people. To say it about most radical feminists is equally absurd, for exactly the same reasons.
I'm being 100% genuine. If neither biology textbooks and dictionaries, nor the analysis of who gets power under patriarchy are the arbiter of who is male/man, then there is no reason for me to call myself male. Ergo, I am not male. I don't know what I am, maybe "agender", but I'm certainly not male.
The use of TERF as a slur has been well-documented (see below). I've also received a comment in this very community that read like "the only thing worse than a TERF is a male TERF", which clearly is incitement of hatred. I could care less about being the target of it myself; the main concern is that a whole category of women are being made targets of hatred for having the wrong politics, and that according to a group of people who embrace people born into male privilege as central members of their community.
- http://terfisaslur.com
- http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.de/p/7-swerf-and-terf.html
- http://mirandayardley.com/tag/terf-is-a-slur/ (Yardley is an MtF transsexual)
- http://www.feministcurrent.com/2014/07/29/how-terf-works/
- https://rebeccarc.com/2016/11/01/the-word-terf/
- https://glosswatch.com/2014/02/11/on-swerfs-terfs-and-good-girls/
- http://thefifthcolumnnews.com/2016/02/analyzing-the-terms-terf-and-swerf/
It's a relative, not a friend. I think it tells something about you that you cannot see empathy in my words and just go on to assume that I mean to condescend and "use" her to win anything. If that's your mode of thinking, that's not my problem, sorry.
You know, you just made me change my mind. If biology textbooks and dictionaries aren't what determine me as male, then I obviously am not a male. I always just accepted it because it's what the dictionary/biology definition is, but if that's not it, then I must be something different. Does this mean that I never have had and currently don't have male privilege?
I have literally never heard anyone ever say something in the vein of "libfems deserve to die" or other incitement of hatred against them. That seems to go strictly in one way.
So the community isn't for all feminists, understood.
That would mean that calling other feminists "TERF" and insulting them isn't allowed? Or is that not considered hateful, while saying that people born into male privilege can't be women is considered hate speech?
I don't see FtM trans people as male or men. Don't know what gave you that impression. The only FtM I know is someone who seems to suffer extremely from internalized misogyny, and suddenly displays an extremely exaggerated masculine persona as what I have to assume is a coping mechanism. I'm saying all this with empathy, no disdain. It's a relative of mine and she's always been a very kind person; being androgynous and considered conventionally unattractive must have screwed with her mind.
I'm not saying this holds for all FtM, but I have been told it's common...
Also, today I learned that sharing a radical feminist article from Feminist Current and defending it is "steamrolling" over a feminist community. >_>
This makes no sense. What we are is unaffected by what we think we are. No racist identifies as a racist. No sexist identifies as a sexist. What makes me white isn't that I identify as white; it's the color of my skin, or my ancestry. What makes me male isn't that I identify as such, it's my genes having led to my body being masculinized.
How is it not my understanding of basic biology (and the English language) that makes me say I'm a man, but something else?
Going on a tangent: I'm a man who doesn't "identify as" a man. Why the hell would I ever identify with the oppressor class?
I'm biologically male, so patriarchy has given me male privilege: I've been brought up as a "boy", made to become a "man". This is a material fact, nothing spiritual or subjective in my mind. I can "refuse to be a man" in the sense of refusing to obey the rules of masculinity, refusing to revel in the unjust power given to me --in fact I would expect that of every single man who isn't scum-- but nothing will change the fact that I've been given that power, that I am now a man.
To deny that I'm a man would be to deny male privilege, to deny basic feminist analysis, and therefore to support male supremacy.
Am I making sense? If not, please tell me how.
This is kind of a weird situation but, even as a male person, I don't understand why ever FEMinism shouldn't be a movement whose central purpose is to liberate FEMale people from male supremacy.
Intersex men, effeminate men, gay men, etc. surely suffer collateral damage from patriarchy, which is why political coalition could always flourish (the Gay Liberation Front comes to mind), but why this urge to include everyone and everything in FEMinism instead of letting women have a movement by women, for women?
Any male person who has suffered under male supremacy, who cares to read into feminist ideology, should understand that it's something to support, without expecting the movement to pay care to issues affecting him specifically. To expect that seems narcissistic, if not typical male entitlement. (This is not directed at you of course, as you're not male as far as I can tell.)
Does "support for ALL feminists" include radical feminist women who are derisively called "TERF" in a lot feminist-identifying communities, or are people free to hatefully call them "TERF" in /feminists too without fear of retaliation?
This is a genuine question, although I sadly know what the more likely answer is.
judging trans women by how much you might want to fuck them
That's a pretty vicious accusation. It goes directly against my morals. It's literally false as there are MtF transsexuals like Miranda Yardley (radfem supporter) who are conventionally unattractive yet to me amazing people for the integrity of their politics, and MtF transsexuals like Blaire White (MRA) who are conventionally attractive yet terrible people for the hatred in their politics.
I made one very big mistake here. I thought that mentioning that I would even consider a relationship with a transsexual person would be a statement of how much I accept them as normal people. After all, I only consider relationships with people to whom I feel a deep, sincere emotional connection, based on mutual respect. I forgot that this isn't the case for most men, and that others would likely misinterpret my words. I don't mean this paragraph in a sarcastic way; it was genuinely stupid of me. You have every right not to believe my defense.
Unpopular opinion: banning women (female people) for saying that people who were born male and lived with male privilege for 20+ years cannot be women is supporting male supremacy by erasing women's (female-born people's) lived experiences beginning from early childhood.
http://radfemminnie.tumblr.com/post/145297961972/craftykryptonitealpaca-things-which-have-made
I oppose the vilification and incitement of hatred towards women who express ideas such as in the tumblr link above. If you think it's acceptable to bully a woman into silence by calling her a hateful bigot for expressing such ideas, namely defining her identity as a woman based on experiences associated with being born in a female body --most of which are shared globally by all people born in a female body, and not by any people born in a male body-- rather than a deeply felt metaphysical connection to the feminine, then please take a hard look at yourself and reconsider to what degree you support women's rights and self-determination. Thank you.
Why don't you link to my Twitter and Medium and let people decide whether I'm a "troll trying to goad feminists into infighting" instead of making a baseless accusation?



FeminismLet's talk about everything you hate about me and thisDec 31, 2016 at 3:31 AM