Bi-gendered
2007-08-04 15:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexibeastBeing bi-gendered can make life tricky.
There have been a few occasions recently where i've read about "women-only" events. And every time, being gendered as i am, i have to ask: "Would i be welcome?" i identify as a woman; but there are many people who not only feel that i'm not a woman, but that i'm raping the identity 'woman' (which, iirc, is Germaine Greer's position). So when an event is described as "woman-only", i'm forced to speculate on the politics of the event organisers and whether they'd be hostile towards me attending. And not only the event organisers, but event attendees as well: the organisers might be fine with it, but that's not going to help much if other attendees are hostile towards me.
Now the above is the case for any trans woman. But since i also identify as a man, things become more complicated. One of the "women-only" events that recently came to my attention noted that trans women were welcome - a wonderful policy. Yet i still had to wonder whether or not that meant i could attend, because i'm not only a trans woman, but a trans man as well. As i wrote in an email recently:
There have been a few occasions recently where i've read about "women-only" events. And every time, being gendered as i am, i have to ask: "Would i be welcome?" i identify as a woman; but there are many people who not only feel that i'm not a woman, but that i'm raping the identity 'woman' (which, iirc, is Germaine Greer's position). So when an event is described as "woman-only", i'm forced to speculate on the politics of the event organisers and whether they'd be hostile towards me attending. And not only the event organisers, but event attendees as well: the organisers might be fine with it, but that's not going to help much if other attendees are hostile towards me.
Now the above is the case for any trans woman. But since i also identify as a man, things become more complicated. One of the "women-only" events that recently came to my attention noted that trans women were welcome - a wonderful policy. Yet i still had to wonder whether or not that meant i could attend, because i'm not only a trans woman, but a trans man as well. As i wrote in an email recently:
Personally, i feel /far/ more at home amongst a group of women (whether cis or trans) than amongst men; but i'm also conscious of the fact that at least some women will feel i'm male enough to make them feel uncomfortable and to warrant my exclusion.Cisgendered people get many privileges that trans people don't, many of which are described in the non-trans privilege checklist (itself based on the 'white privilege checklist' first described in Peggy McIntosh's influential essay "White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack"). The issue i've discussed here is point 4 in that list.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 08:19 (UTC)But I know what you mean to an extent. Some women's only events have welcomed me, others...not so.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 08:42 (UTC)*laugh*
When i read recently that she was critical of Lady Di's sense of fashion, i thought, "Yeah, that's very feminist of you - criticising a woman's failure to be conscious of fashion." :-P
*sad nod* :-/
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 08:28 (UTC)At least mono-gendered transwomen are welcome, which is I suppose an improvement on many events.
And...very many of the same people are at mixed functions there.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 08:40 (UTC)*nod* Which is what i thought was probably the case. Which would clearly mean that some trans women are more welcome than others. :-P
*nod* Indeed.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 09:03 (UTC)Oh well :-/
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 09:19 (UTC)I hope the following doesn't seem ignorant - it's the most truthful explanation of my understanding and reactions that I can come up with.
People who identify as transgendered or bi-gendered still confuse me, to an extent, because it's a position I find really difficult to mentally put myself in. Most of this, I think, is because of the way I see gender. I don't feel particularly "female" normally, and those parts of myself I recognise as female I prefer to think of in terms of having been conditioned, taught and reinforced through continual performance rather than innate. For example, I dislike confrontation and prefer to smooth over differences rather than "win" arguments, a typically "female" trait, but I attribute this to the ways it has been subtly encouraged throughout my lifetime, and see the opposite in some of my male acquaintances' behaviour as being because they were allowed to get away with acting so (from my perspective) rudely. When people talk about being naturally/inherently a certain way, usually, it's something I like challenge because such a perspective has been used to legitimate the status quo, which I see as limiting and often disadvantaging to women (e.g. we are less allowed to be angry, and this is often reinterpreted as bitchiness or moodiness) as well as men (e.g. it isn't as acceptable for them to express their feelings openly, indulge in lovely scented things, etc). It's all very acceptable to challenge the "people are as they are" argument in this context... but when it's coming from someone who is obviously disadvantaged by the identification then it becomes much less acceptable to question (i.e. don't hassle the underdog, because that is mean).
When someone says to me "I was born in a male body, but I'm actually a female", I often want to say "but don't you realise that our ideas of "male" and "female" are things that people have constructed? Are you saying the majority of your characteristics fit with what we consider "female"? Is this, plus your identification based on these, enough to make you "really" female? It just seems... "ideologically incompatible with my normal worldview" would probably be the best description. There are so many things that I just don't understand, like, at what point do people make the jump from thinking "heh, I'm a lot like a guy" to "I'm actually a man"? How would people allow themselves to, given that it is a path that only seems to lead to a lot of difficulty? It just doesn't... make sense to me.
But at the same time, I'm completely aware that my own understanding is limited and could very well be wrong. I certainly don't see trans or bi-gendered people as deliberately choosing to identify as such, since it seems such a difficult path and from what I've seen this isn't their own experience of what happened. I don't want to think of them as deluded, as that simply smacks of ideological arrogance of the most repulsive kind. And I know so many of my arguments could be met with "well, that's because you're cisgendered and haven't had the experience".
But at the same time, when I'm in my female-only space and a transgendered person comes in, I can't help but think "Ok, I won't put up a fuss about you being here because I might be wrong and would always err on the side of acceptance... but you're not like the rest of us". I certainly would be uncomfortable with an unknown transgendered person in a female changing room, for example, because the automatic "that is really a woman" interpretation just... isn't there. The status isn't "man pretending to be a woman", but remains "I really don't know". And hence the feeling of discomfort and uncertainty when it comes to things that I would generally only accept from women.
I hope this seemed relevant to someone. And any responses, aside from "you ignorant git, be quiet!", would be welcome. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 10:21 (UTC)A couple of comments . . . .
*nod* i understand where you're coming from there, because in general, i agree with you, and have done so for many years (even if hadn't also majored in Women's Studies at uni :-) ). As a consequence, i also spent many years trying to convince myself that i was merely a male who happened to have certain characteristics that our society often tends to associate with being female. Yet . . . . there was still that sense, within myself, that i was female, that i just knew that was the case. It simply feels 'right' to describe myself as female. And being the stubborn person that i am, incidents such as this (http://hierodule.livejournal.com/31406.html) hardly work to change my mind in this regard. :-)
The thing is, biological sex doesn't simply involve external physical characteristics. It also involves less-than-visible things, such as the workings of one's endocrine system. And identity itself involves much more than one's physical body: it seems reasonable to suggest that far more of what we consider to be the characteristics of a particular person resides in the mind than in the body, such that, if we could separate mind and body, and two people swapped their minds, we would communicate with a given body based on the mind that's currently inhabiting it, not its 'real' mind.
But here's an analogy. Many (most?) lesbians and gay men say that they just 'know', within themselves, that they're lesbian / gay. But could it not be argued that really what's happening is that for some reason, they unconsciously feel that they can't be attracted to people of a gender different to themselves - because of certain events and societal pressures - and so end up same-gender attracted as an attempt to resolve that issue? And thus, perhaps we should then convince them that it's okay to be differing-gender attracted? If that sounds a bit odd, or indeed, out of line, then why is it not so when an analagous argument is made to trans people regarding their own identities?
*nod* Yeah, i definitely understand where you're coming from there (intellectually, at least, if not viscerally). The difficulty for me is that, well, let's take your changing room example. i understand why many women would feel uncomfortable with me sharing a changing room with them; so, okay, where, then, should i get changed? In the men's changing room? Er, i'd rather not, thanks - i would be concerned for my safety. As it is, i often use male bathrooms, to avoid making women feel uncomfortable - but at the price of feeling very uncomfortable myself.
i support women-only spaces - and yet, i can't take advantage of them myself, to be in an environment where i'm not subjected to the male gaze. It's rather frustrating . . . .
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 18:01 (UTC)Oh, do I wish that sounded more "out of line". I mean, it does to me, but I'm continually astonished at how many people (conservative Christians here in the US) still think that being gay can be "cured".
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 18:02 (UTC)Assuming you know the person's trans, which is sometimes a rather large assumption.
(pt.I)
Date: 2007-08-09 19:48 (UTC)Your point being? When a cisgendered person says "I was born in a ___ body, and I actually am a ___" how is that anywise different when it comes to the fact that gender is socially constructed?
Just because something is socially constructed doesn't mean it isn't real. The majority of all human behavior is socially constructed, and yet when you try to take that away from people —try to tell them that no $DEITY isn't real, that no there's no afterlife where you'll be rewarded for doing x over y, that no it really doesn't matter if you hold your utensils just so, that no it's not important to carry on the family line or traditions, that no it doesn't matter if you coöpt others' cultures or abandon your own, that no your name really is a meaningless identifier and there's no reason to maintain it, that no your emotions aren't special they're simply a chemical interaction, that no there is no one English language and yes you can split infinitives— they get very upset.
And justifiably so. While it's important to realize that things are socially constructed so that we don't all get too full of ourselves and our wacky notions, it's also important to realize those selfsame things are what give meaning and structure to our existences. And perhaps more importantly, whether such things are "real" or not, they are the lenses through which we interact with and understand our surroundings, and so they are inexorably bound to our emotions and to our very identities. Does it matter if someone is "really" a man or a woman if that is how they manage to comprehend the conflicting conflation of experiences they call "me"?
(pt.II)
Date: 2007-08-09 19:49 (UTC)In what sense can any cisgendered woman claim to be "really female"? Do you personally fit with the majority of characteristics of what we consider female? And who are "we"? If you moved to another country —in Africa, in the Middle East, in Polynesia, in the Arctic Circle— would you still be really a female?
There are at least two countervailing forces at work here. In descriptivist terms "female" and "male" are archetypes describing categories to which we ascribe people based on which they more closely resemble. There is no perfect "male" nor perfect "female", these ideas are caricatures, exaggerated, larger and lesser than life, and also the target of much ideological debate about what the archetypes ought to be. No woman or man is exactly the one described by those terms, if for no other reason than that the archetypes are contradictory. Women are submissive and meek, and yet they're moody and argumentative. Men are strong and competent, and yet they can't take care of themselves.
But gender is more than simply boxes for putting people into, there is an essential nature to gender. As a cisgendered person, prior to having encountered trans- or bi-gendered folks or women's studies or queer studies, have you ever questioned that you are female? Or is it something that's just there, something you know without asking, something that is so ingrained and natural you would never even think to ask? Gender, especially when it comes to transgender, is about more than just how someone behaves. If I'm a guy, it's one thing to say to myself, "Self, I think it feels more natural to be in a supportive social role and interested in things like textiles and home care"; it's something else to feel an acute sensation of loss when I take off my underwear. If I'm a doll, it's one thing to have lots of male friends and like sports or cars or; it's something else to be one of the guys.
Yes, you're right of course. A trans man will never really be a man, a trans woman will never really be a woman, if that's the way you want to put it. By definition of the fact of their being trans their experiences will be different than those of a cisgendered person. If you're raised as a boy, even if you've always known it was wrong, you'll never know from experience what it was like to have been raised as a girl. If you've matured as a woman you'll never know what it's like to have your voice crack around your older friends or cute girls or what it's like to grow a beard and learn to shave; sure, women have analogous experiences, and yet they're not the same either in deed or in meaning.
But then again, no person ever really knows what it is to be any other person. Try as I might and imaginative as I may be, I can never understand what it means to be short, or black, or Australian. I will never really know what it is like to have been raised poor, and yet I can comprehend poverty, I can identify it when I see it, I can understand how it works, I would be able to identify it in myself regardless of my parents' wealth and I would know with whom I belonged. I will never be able to look at the world through my brother's eyes nor my sisters' eyes. And yet I do not deny that they are my family. Even though two of them did not grow up with me, I do not question that they understand what it is like to have been raised by my family.
(pt.III)
Date: 2007-08-09 19:49 (UTC)I'm sure everyone makes the jump differently. As for how they can allow themselves to, you could also ask how can they allow themselves not to; not everyone who identifies as trans opts to transition, or if they do they don't always opt to do so completely.
If there're a lot of ways in which I think or feel like a woman, would there not be a lot of difficulty for ignoring that and pretending I'm still just a guy? Would not that path also lead to a lot of pain and hardship? What do I do when all the guys think I'm a sissy and all the girls think I'm gay, do I pretend to act macho when I find machismo despicable, do I pretend I don't like sewing and cooking and sappy romantic stories, do I act like an asshole so I can join the boys' club and lay claim to male privilege, what if I don't do it right and get found out?
The tragic thing about transdom is that you're screwed either way. All paths are difficult, but some are more fruitful than others. Whether to try passing or not, whether to have gender confirmation surgeries or not, whether to admit to being trans or whether to go in deep cover or stay closeted, all of these and many other questions are ones which do not have solid answers and yet they are questions which every single trans person must answer. And each person will find that different answers are the ones they're most comfortable with, the ones that will lead to the least difficult or most fruitful path for them.
It's fine to be uncertain. It's fine not to understand. And it's understandable to feel discomfort. I'm uncertain. I don't understand how one can live a life without questioning these sorts of things. It's uncomfortable to bring it up with strangers and it's uncomfortable not to. The important thing is to be open, to be accepting, to be kind.
My view
Date: 2007-08-04 15:10 (UTC)I don't know, maybe it's because I'm bisexual and I still get the "you're confused" crap, but I don't buy for a second that a cisgendered person is just at a women's only event to ogle or at a men's event to gather secrets.
Re: My view
Date: 2007-08-04 18:05 (UTC)Heh, amen to that. I also have a degree in Women's Studies (*waves to
Admittedly, I personally have a hard time conceptualizing someone being bi-gendered, but that's my problem, not anyone else's.