If I see a transwoman (so a guy who dresses as a girl), I sometimes feel pity for them. If they feel like they want to be a girl, being in a guys body is a big setback to that!
But if I see a transman, as a guy, I'm offended that they're trying to present themselves as MY GENDER. They don't have a right to pretend to be a man as far as I'm concerned.
Is that "transphobic?" Or just an instinctual reaction to an imposter?
It's borderline transphobia, for sure. If you can feel pity for a transwoman, why not a transman? Surely being in a woman's body is a bigger setback for someone who identifies as a man, but has a uterus that can bring forth kids - not to keep score on either side. Also, why is one an imposter, but the other legitimate? Is this a historical thing - because seeing men in drag is a lot more visible and widely acknowledged in society than it is for women?
The personal aspect that you attach to it, the personal attack you feel, makes no sense because their choices about their gender don't threaten your masculinity in any way. And they don't threaten the concept of masculinity as a whole because we all know that everyone possesses both fem. and mas. traits.
Also, just as a side note, please don't speak for feminists unless you are one. I'm one and I take no issue with transpeople, not that I should have to defend that point because whether I did or didn't would have no relation to my feminism. Please, just don't speak for us. You clearly don't know any feminists by the way you speak about us, and the internet few is not representative of the whole.
Also, just as a side note, please don't speak for feminists unless you are one.
Well said, as usual.
shareI understand where you're coming from.
I do think that sex, as opposed to gender, should definitely be taken into account when transwomen are entering spheres typically occupied by biological women, particularly professional spheres. I don't think you can purport to be a transwoman and a biological woman. Because gender and sex are not the same thing it isn't possible to argue that they are. But I don't see transactivism being completely incompatible with feminism, given what Butler has written about the performative nature of gender. We're all reinforcing stereotypes or working against them all the time.
Are there disadvantages to women by transwomen? Sure, but just like with feminists, all transpeople can't be lumped together to represent an entire movement. Within that movement, there are people making some pretty stupid decisions that don't really help their movement. Welcome to movements in general. What's really wrong in these instances are the responses to these decisions. Why wouldn't a cervical cancer brochure use the word woman unless a person with a cervix complains about it?
I'm not saying I'm a real feminist and others are fakes. I'm just done hearing about people's so-called experiences with feminists and what they think and how they act and feel when it doesn't appear to me that anyone who makes such statements has ever spoken to a feminist on feminist issues - all this information is second or third hand and diluted or simply assumed based on very loose evidence. Feminists aren't coming out and saying this stuff - people who "know" feminists are, but they don't actually seem to know any.
As a male feminist I see no issue with transgenderism. Let men be women and women be men. Now, the difference between a transwoman and a transman? Well we go back to the age old question; would you rather have sex with a chick with a dick or a man with a flange?
So like you have to introduce one of them to your friends like "oh hiya guys this is amy...she used to be a man (and still has a juicy hot penis in her pants)" or with the trans man like "oh hiya guys this is harry...he used to be a woman (and still has her uterus and vagina)" and harry's voice is all gruff and he has a mustache but is biologically a woman.
So the question is how superficial are you? Would you choose the chick with a dick just so your mates don't make fun of you for dating someone called "Harry". Cos that's pretty gay anyway you look at it.
But if you choose the chick with a dick then, at some point in your relationship, you're gonna get fucked by a man in a wig.
People who are easily offended offend me.
shareI love trans women. Honestly more than I do real women. But I can't take trans men seriously at all. And I kind of see them as drug addicts. You wanna dress and act like a dude, go crazy. But they start taking the testosterone and what not so they can feel more like man, and basically they're just high on what they're pumping into themselves.
share