Gender and Sexual Identity
I would like to open for discussion the following.
Gender and Sexual Identityhttp://takingsteps.blogspot.com/2009/03/fair.htmlRead more... )
Gender and Sexual Identityhttp://takingsteps.blogspot.com/2009/03/fair.htmlRead more... )
Maybe it does, but we don't know. After all, that's what they said about gay and trans people not very long ago.
Hell, for all we know, asexuality could be another evolutionary attempt to curb our dangerously large human population. (There are theories that in societies in which the population explodes to near-unsustainable levels, more individuals begin to be born homosexual or differently-sexed in some other way; there was a study done of this on rats, but I'll have to look it up to give you the exact details)
About the original post:
I think it's sad that any feminists (of which I consider myself one!) are lashing out like this against other oppressed populations. It's making snap judgements from the other side of the fence with no attempt to understand the other individual(s). Not only do I disagree with the person who originally posted the quoted text in that ONLY females in this world are socialized with a destructive view of gender roles, but I disagree that a born male who feels female is not somehow "as" oppressed as a born female. That's just ridiculous. There are so many factors that such gross generalizations can't even begin to account for: the person's social status as far as class, education, racial heritage, political atmosphere, etc. I would defy her (the quoted author) to tell me that a wealthy white female raised in a loving, supportive family is more oppressed than an underprivileged minority MTF person whose life is threatened daily by her identity. (For example).
To me the saddest thing is that while people like this talk of "liberation" and "revolution" and "equality," that they are so concerned with defining just who is in need of those things that they become just as divisive and angry and bigoted as the mainstream society that they hate. I particularly seethe at the quotation:
"...appropriating it for their own pathetic purposes," as though the original writer of that quote alone was in a position to decide whose liberation is "pathetic" and whose is not.
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It made me very sad when I read "My peace is dependent upon not having the female (ie, not male, never male) experience trampled on an appropriated." Their peace depends on focusing only on one group of people as worthy? That doesn't seem like any textbook definition of peace. That and this person's total disregard for the first-linked-OP's gender identity (making sure to call them "he" and "male") really got me in the dumps (prompting this topic). There is a lot of disrespect and ignorance in those two links.
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That comment didn't really offend me too much, being as it was said in a spirit of understanding and acceptance at least, but it's still ridiculous to me that people categorize so much as to think that I'm "straight" right now. If that were the case, I'd just be a straight female and there would be no need to transition! Obviously, that's not the case. Obviously, I'm not "female" (the meanings of these terms, male and female, being a whole new can of worms), because if I were, there would be no problem!
Even more spiteful refusal to use the right pronouns, especially coming from a supposedly oppressed female feminist who is up in arms about her own rights (and rightly so, in general), is just disgusting to me. Divisive, mean, and hypocritical. I know what you mean; that sort of thing depresses me, coming from a corner of society from which we'd expect more openness and acceptance.
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I have recently been rather disappointed at the lack of universality among minorities, the need to still 'be better than' another group. It is something I began to really become honed toward at the AVEN (asexuality visibility and education network) website in recent months. Despite being a largely unknown minority and despite all the deprecating reactions we tend to get from many people, the same thread of bias and ostracizing the Others is prevalent. For example, it is common there (AVEN message boards) for people to classify any woman or man that enjoys or engages in sexual activity quite often as a "slut" or "whore" or some other such term. They fail to realize that as they are complaining about people making crass blanket statements about asexuals they are doing the same thing themselves.
One might hope that a person with a challenge to their lives might become more sensitive to the plight of others. Somehow this infrequently comes to fruition.
One of my co-workers is one of those folks that degrade transgendered people by using the incorrect pronouns. As we are in a work environment together, and no more, I tend to let it go. But one day she brought up the pre-op transman that is carrying a child to raise with his husband; she loudly declared how "disgusting" and "unnatural" it is, with self-righteous indignation. She wrapped up her rant with, "You can't have it both ways!" I lost it at that, "says who?" And she said in a calm, condescending tone, "GOD says." Of course, I responded back with a larger array of information than she was willing to cope with (mostly regarding intersexed and ambiguous gendered people), so she just gave me an appraising look, one of those up-and-down, "I'm thinking about what you have under there and forming my respect levels accordingly" looks. If I hadn't been at work, I might have completely lost my temper then and done something I would later regret... as it was at work, I backed off from the argument and went back to my job. Ummm... point. My point was, she had repeatedly called the transman "she" with high emphasis to make her perspective clear -- she is a woman and she likes men and any other way is false and needs no thought or consideration. This encounter has been buzzing around my head ever since. Without conclusion, it simply adds to my frustration at how people refuse to accept each other for who they are.
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It must be incredibly frustrating to continually have people assume there's something wrong with you, or feel "sorry" for you for who you are.
It's one thing to feel sorry for someone if they are saying, "I desperately miss the presence of sexual attraction and sex in my life, and I wish it were different," but to look at a self-aware person who honestly does not feel the need to engage with people on a sexual level and feel that there's "just something wrong with them," is so narrow-minded it's laughable.
I just can't wrap my mind around why it MATTERS so much to other people what their fellow humans are doing sexually, as long as it's not injuring or hurting someone. We live in a society as ridiculously obsessed with sex as it is condemning of it. It all just seems so.....un-evolved.
As to the transgendered pregnant man, I also see that as a wonderful broadening of the human experience. Why people get so up in arms about it is beyond me, because it has nothing to do with them except that it's forcing them to think that maybe men aren't all Clark Gable and women aren't all Myrna Loy, or whichever more modern stereotypes you'd like. HEAVEN FORFEND! I know my own bias comes in, as I am frankly really fascinated with anything that blurs the lines between one thing and another (must be the Celt in me...) and anything that seems to be a new evolution for our society. Some of those things might turn out to be destructive, some might not, but I scarcely think that a person's gender or lack thereof, sexuality or lack thereof, is going to bring about the end of the world.
But the original point, yes...I think it's really tragic how the disenfranchised seem just as likely to turn on each other as those in power are to turn on them. We've seen it happen so many heart-breaking times throughout history. (the women's rights/abolitionist movement in 19th-C America, the Free Staters/socialists/separatists of the Irish Republic in the early 20th C, the oppression and betrayal of the Jewish population of Warsaw by the oppressed and occupied Poles in WW2...)
People are altogether too concerned with what separates and defines them, and too subjective about their own struggles and misery.
I read the whole thread about the transgendered woman you posted the link to above, and some of those comments were just...astounding in their vitriol. Why is it always a matter of "more oppressed than thou?" Why do we get so angry at people who bring up the very valid facts about their own oppression? I think maybe a lot of it is internalized guilt: we know we are complicit in some way, maybe just by our silence or by the fact that we've never thought about that person or minority's struggle before, and instead of admitting that and moving forward with a greater understanding, we lash out by playing what one commenter called "the Oppression Olympics." (fitting).
Whatever it is, it's depressing and ridiculous, and hopefully the majority of people will eventually come to see it that way.
Or maybe it will take an armed revolution. ;)
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