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.
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.