WEEK 3 THREAD IS UP!!

Let me know if I missed anyone!

I’ll probably have more to say later, but just wanted to throw it out there that I especially liked this chapter and its emphasis on solidarity. Some key quotes for me and brief thoughts:

The struggles of those of us at this conference also overlap with the struggles of the women’s liberation movement. We could gain strength by working together, along with all our allies, to fight for sex and gender freedom. That means the rights of people to define their sex, control their own body, and develop their gender expression free from violence, economic barriers, or discrimination — in employment, housing, health care, or any other sector of society.

None of us can ever be free while others are still in chains. That’s the truth underlying the need for solidarity. Trans liberation is inextricably linked to other movements for equality and justice.

Very relevant to excellent points brought up previously by awth13 regarding the suffragette movement in the context of trans rights, and ze lays it out pretty clearly. Highlights the ridiculousness of TERF attempts to claim “feminism” while also also seeking to restrict the rights of trans people.

But just because an individual is drawn into the vortex of a movement, it doesn’t mean that person will automatically be enlightened on every aspect of other peoples’ oppressions — particularly that which they do not directly experience. Each individual still needs to overcome the bigotry that has been instilled in us from an early age. A gay man does not necessarily see the need to fight sexism automatically; a white transperson doesn’t automatically see the need to fight racism. But the progressive momentum inherent in movements offers a greater potential for individuals to gain an understanding of the struggles of others-particularly in coalitions.

This (and the other examples in this section) to me highlights how important it is to continuously identify and purge the brainworms I might have that have thus far gone unexamined. In a strange way it also makes me think about the internalized transphobia programmed into me from a young age, having been raised in a conservative environment and in an era where media depictions of trans people were made to be ridiculed or gawked at, and the damage it did to me.

Why would we want to ask anyone to give up their own hard-fought-for place on the gender spectrum? There are no rights or wrongs in the ways people express their own gender style. No one’s lipstick or flattop is hurting us. No one’s gender expression is any more “liberated” than anyone else’s.

Gender freedom — isn’t that what we’re all fighting for with every breath we take? Well, how are we going to win it if we don’t support each other’s right to be different from us? Each person has the right to express their gender in any way that feels most comfortable — masculine or feminine, androgynous, bi- and tri-gender expression, gender fluidity, gender complexity, and gender contradiction. There are many shades of gender that are not even represented in language yet. One could argue that leather people and nuns are their own genders.

People don’t have to give up their individuality or their particular manner of gender expression in order to fight sex and gender oppression. It’s just the opposite. People won’t put their time, energy, and commitment into organizing unless they know that the movement they are building is defending their lives.

I’ve discussed this already in previous threads, but I again appreciate how ze highlights the importance of letting people identity as their true selves, as opposed to gatekeeping or forcing people into narrow categorizations. I also liked this related quote from Gary Bowen:

Once I figured out that “transgendered” was someone who transcended traditional stereotypes of “man” and “woman,” I saw that I was such a person. I then began a quest for finding words that described myself, and discovered that while psychiatric jargon dominated the discourse, there were many other words, both older and newer, that addressed these issues.

As I read this quote I think about some of the terms I see pop up on social media, like the “brick” thing which is just… Ugh. I feel like we should be continually challenging and refining the language and terms we use, and this is especially true for terms that are blatantly toxic.

“None of us can ever be free while others are still in chains.”

This is the heart and soul of this work, and Les hammers it in consistently and from different angles each time so as to develop a further and more complete view. It keeps this work extremely relevant and necessary for everyone, no matter your gender(s).

I also really loved the messages from Gary Bowen about “colonizing gender,” where white people try to steal the gender heritage of native peoples. This is an important lesson to take to heart, and is why gender liberation must also be alongside ethnic liberation, decolonization, and more. Each bit of intersectional experience develops a deeper understanding and represents to us the same beat Les hammers home; nobody is free until we all are. We need to look into our own history and make our own advancements in gender theory, without stealing from others, instead supporting them.

Thanks again for hosting this! Looking forward to seeing what others got out of this text.

Wow, what a chapter! Like Cowbee said, the majority of it was just Les hammering down again and again that solidarity is a necessity for a successful movement. But there were some parts that made me drop my jaw:

We must challenge the misconception that transmen are automatically typecast as masculine and so their partners must automatically be feminine women. The entire range of gender expression can be found in the transmale population, including androgynous and feminine men, and drag queens.

The idea that trans men can be feminine or even be drag queens is even today a really progressive view. The fact that this book was written in the 90s just amazes me over and over again.

If you take this entire part and just replace “women’s liberation” with “trans liberation”, “Schlaffley” with “Rowling” and “Bush” with “Trump”, it would perfectly describe our current situation. I’m not sure if Les wanted to play Nostradamus here, but it strongly reinforces the point sie makes that we absolutely need to have each other’s backs. “None of us can ever be free while others are still in chains.” is such a great quote.

The women’s movement is right — females are socialized very differently and unequally. But the trans movement reveals a more layered and complex socialization process. Does a masculine girl absorb social education about what it means to be a “girl” in the same way as a feminine girl? Does a feminine boy grow up identifying with, or fearing, the masculine boys learning to swagger and take up space? How does a transsexual child or adult absorb the messages of how a “real” man or woman is supposed to act and relate?

I was heartened, for example, to see that transmen and transwomen had created a workshop at this conference to deal with how to work with each other most sensitively. I have heard some non-trans people criticize transsexual women for taking up too much space or being too overbearing because they were socialized as males. It’s one thing for transwomen to discuss issues of socialization as an internal discussion in transsexual space. But it’s a prejudiced and dangerous formulation for non-transsexuals to make. It’s a fast and slippery slide from the rigidity of biological determinism to an equally narrow position of social determinism.

And it too closely parallels transphobic attacks that charge: “Once a man, always a man; once a woman, always a woman.” This line of reasoning flies in the face of the fact that consciousness is determined by being. When a man or woman comes out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, they become part of those communities. No one says “once a heterosexual, always a heterosexual.” The consciousness of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people changes and develops while living through the oppression, and working with others to fight back. That is true for transwomen, as well.

I wish lib fems would read those 3 paragraphs and really hammer them into their brains. Because it’s one thing if TERFs use it in an dishonest way to attack us, but it really grinds my gears when supposed allies copy this shit and use it to other us by forcing a male/female essence on us that just isn’t there.

I still have to read the portrait, but even without it this chapter has been the best read I’ve had in a really long time.

I finished reading this chapter late in the evening and I’m too tired to form my thoughts into coherent sentences, I’ll be back to post about it probably tomorrow, but my chapo/hexbear poisoned brain saw

Frederick Douglass

and I just have to say: he’s being recognized more and more

Okay I’m back with some thoughts

Others in the thread have already brought up the mentions of intersectionality, and I don’t have anything to add, so I won’t get into it. Though I would have liked it if Feinberg went more into detail explaining how the different “hierarchies” (race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic class, etc.) work to enforce the others, but I do also get that it’s a transcript of a speech about a broader subject.

I noticed that zie uses both words “transsexual” and “transgender”, which confused me until I realized that by “transsexual” zie was referring to those who had medically transitioned, and “transgender” to those who had only socially transitioned. I only really started learning about what being trans really is within the last 5 years, and mainly from talking to people online where the general consensus seems to be that “transsexual” is a slur with sexual connotations, and “transgender” is the respectful word to use to refer to trans people, with no distinction regarding medical or social transition. I’m curious about when this changed happened and why.

There isn’t any one specific section that gave me this idea, but the whole thing made me think about how the categorizations of masculine and feminine aren’t just polarizing, but in a way limiting, by which I mean there are personality traits and interests that fit into neither category. For example, my true personality is somewhat silly and playful (though of course I’m able to be serious when it’s needed), which falls outside the conventionally accepted masculine personality types of either being aggressive and dominant, or being reserved and stoic (this is what I often default to because it’s easier than the former). But it’s also not something conventionally accepted among women, and in some circles makes you immature or nerdy (pejorative). This exclusion of certain things isn’t something intrinsic to humans and therefore immutable since it’s socially constructed; in older generations playing video games as an adult is seen as childish and immature and would thus fall outside both masculine and feminine, but among people born after 1980 it’s fairly normal and accepted.

I liked Gary’s suggestion to look to trans history in other parts of the world, because he’s right that it’s something that people have been doing all over the world pretty much since the beginning of humanity. I’ve known about the historical class of trans people from the part of the world my parents came from, and how they were pretty much genocided by Spanish colonizers, but now I’m realizing there were probably also trans people in Spain being persecuted all the same, at the same time, by the same forces.