No ideas, please, we’re a university
Andrew Robinson, associate professor of Human Rights and Human Diversity at Wilfrid Laurier University, thinks their policy on [what they call] gendered violence needs urgent repair.
The public’s reaction to the treatment of a Wilfrid Laurier University grad student at the hands of two professors and a rep from the university’s Diversity and Equity Office (DEO) has been one of horror and outrage. The resounding opinion was that student, Lindsay Shepherd, was completely in the right when she offered both sides of a debate involving the use of non-gender pronouns.
And while the public has agreed Shepherd was right, she wasn’t. At least not according to a disturbing regulatory policy enforced by my university. In fact, in the meeting where Lindsay was subject to a verbal inquisition, Adria Joel, the DEO rep, cites the policy, known as Laurier’s gendered and sexual violence policy (GSVP) as justification for her claim that Lindsay was guilty of “spreading transphobia.”
Yes, I noticed that when I transcribed some of the inquisition. I wondered how they were defining their terms.
While Laurier’s president is avoiding talking about the Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy, I won’t.
The policy has its roots in government legislation. Ontario’s Bill 132, passed in 2016, required universities to have a policy on sexual violence. That law defined “sexual violence” in terms of assault and harassment “targeting a person’s sexuality, gender identity or gender expression.” This is laudable; harassment and assault are wrong (and I condemn in advance anyone who would use this letter as justification for harassing or threatening anyone).
Apparently not satisfied with a definition of sexual violence that was good enough for the Wynne Liberal government, Laurier’s board of governors approved a policy that innovated by creating the following definition of gendered violence:
“An act or actions that reinforce gender inequalities resulting in physical, sexual, emotional, economic or mental harm. This violence includes sexism, gender discrimination, gender harassment, biphobia, transphobia, homophobia and heterosexism, intimate partner violence, and forms of Sexual Violence.
UH oh. You can see the problem without any wrinkling of the brow, I’m sure. It’s in the fact that we know from repeated experience that any dissent from a long list of Revealed Truths will be called “transphobia.” Well there you go: you have performed sexual violence and you must be punished and ostracized. You can’t ask what it means to “identify as” a woman; you can’t ask what it “feels like” to be a woman or how anyone knows; you can’t even ask why people are demanding to know what you believe in the first place. You can’t do anything at all, in fact, if you don’t imitate the jargon exactly and fervently enough for beady-eyed observers.
So, yeah. It’s either march with the Virtuous, or be accused of gendered violence – yes you, a woman, a feminist woman, you are the most likely of all to be accused of gendered violence, because you’re supposed to be centering trans women (who are women), not talking about those hateful privileged cis women.
Unlike the Wynne Liberals’ definition, Laurier’s “gendered violence” doesn’t just prohibit harassment and assault, it prohibits ideas.
Quite. Been there, saw the T shirts.
No one should comfort themselves by thinking that these concerns are limited to Lindsay Shepherd. Every student who registers at Laurier in any of its programs, tacitly agrees to have their personal conduct regulated by the GSVP: in tutorial, in lecture, online, “when on University property or when off campus,” and regardless of the “time of the incident (e.g., evenings, weekends, and holidays).” The sanctions approved by Laurier’s board include disciplinary warning, behavioural contract, suspension, and expulsion.
As for respecting diversity, under the GSVP all views are welcome, so long as they are not all expressed, no matter how reasonably. Inclusion? Violate this orthodoxy, anywhere, anytime, and a fellow student may see that you are included in an investigation under the GSVP.
When Laurier announced the details of its task force on academic freedom last Thursday there was still no mention of the GSVP. The task force is only directed to recommend “a statement on freedom of expression.”
If Laurier really wants to make a statement about its commitment to freedom of expression it will remove its ideological definition of gendered violence from the GSVP, now.
Maybe Laurier merely identifies as making a statement about its commitment to freedom of expression.
It’s true that having a debate does not equate to violence. Least of all a debate about pronouns. In my lifetime, “he” and “she”, or even “he or she” are being replaced by “they”. “His” or “hers” by “their”. While I can cavil about the replacement of singular pronouns by plural ones on a grammatical level, I can understand why the change is happening, and it isn’t being driven by transgender concerns, it’s being driven by demands for gender inclusivity in ordinary language. “He or she” and “his or hers” are just clunky. So English usage changes, and there is little point in moaning about it. We don’t have an Academie Anglais to lay down the law about usage.
To address the wider point about trans activism, I understand where they are coming from. All my life I’ve lived with complaints that homosexuals have hijacked the word “Gay”, making it unusable in other contexts. Activism has been about forcing the concept of gay rights into the public sphere by all means available, because without that, it was never going to be considered.
So while I appreciate reaction to trans activism as being resistance to some attempt to erase the place of cis women, I don’t think that’s the real issue. I think trans activists are seizing on points of leverage to make their case, because there is bugger all other option. No-one has been there before, and what else can they do to get attention? Once trans folk have their place, the controversy will die down.
I think semantics are always worth debating because the debate can shed much light on why people use language the way they do, and even shed light on why they think language shouldn’t be used the way it currently is. So there is no doubt in my mind that Shepherd was abused unreasonably. Again, the ultimate point is our ability to come to terms with our own sexuality as we see it. Turmoil is an unavoidable part of that process. Gay people still aren’t all the way there. Trans folk are just at the start of the road. Let’s give them some slack.
“Once trans folk have their place” . . . in lesbian’s underpants, women’s changing rooms, rape shelters and sports?
Leszek, I could accept your assumptions better if the debate were more balanced. But it isn’t. It is almost always women who are targeted (a couple of male LGBTQ activists have been targeted, but it is almost always women). The language used is one of hatred and misogyny.
I grew up with the LGBTQ movement (I mean, it grew as I grew, not it was always there). I watched it evolve and grow, succeed and fail on many fronts. I have marched along side and worked alongside LGBTQ activists, colleagues, and friends. And never, never, never did I see anything like this.
When gay people “appropriated” the word gay, they didn’t spew bile and hate around the entire universe. They didn’t take debate as violence. Yes, people were oblivious and often less than helpful, but it didn’t lead to the sort of hatred and spite we are seeing now. We still don’t see that from gay activists. This is more than trying to carve out a space for themselves; this is trying to deny women a space. This is trying to dismiss any concerns that don’t adequately center trans rights (by their definition). This is so much more than gay activists ever engaged in, and it is extremely disturbing. The more so that they are usually targeting people who are essentially powerless. It is knocking down grandmothers, getting teaching assistants fired…they do not need to do that to “seize on points of leverage”.
I can disagree with the view of many in my community that gay people are abominations, but I don’t seek to destroy them (not that I could; I have no power). It is not necessary to launch verbal nukes and send out Twitter hordes to harass every young woman who doesn’t march exactly in step. For this, I will not cut them any slack, because frankly, women do have barriers to their voices, they are not particularly privileged, and they are not committing acts of violence by asking people what it means to “feel like a woman”.
Here’s how I see accomodationists in the push to enforce pronouns:
Imagine that the proportion and political influence of Muslims in Canada rises such that they as a group are in a position to start making demands that non- believers adhere to tenets of their faith. Many Muslim activists make quite extreme demands, for example, making it illegal to question the veracity of any claims in the Quran. Many Muslim activists balk at that, but request smaller tokens of concession from non believers, for example, making it legally obligatory to say “peace be upon him” every time the word “Muhammad” is uttered in reference to the prophet Muhammad, or write the acronym “PBUH” every time “Muhammad” is written.
Some people – let’s call them “accomodationists” – argue that it is just a very small concession, and will make Muslims feel respected and comfortable. In fact, say these people, in conceding to this small demand, you will be in a better position to argue against proposals to make it illegal to ever question the veracity of the Quran. You merely look petty and unkind in refusing to signal respect to Muhammad every time you mention his name, especially as it is just a small thing: it is just a matter of enunciating a few syllables or writing four letters! Why are you being so stubborn and ridiculous over such a small thing?
But what if some people deeply oppose this theocratic movement? Some of them might be atheists, some of them might be Christians, some might be secularist Muslims, and other people from other religious groups. Perhaps they do not respect Muhammad at all, and think he was a violent extremist? Perhaps they also think that people who react emotionally to speech that does not display deference to Muhammad have a problem that pandering to will only exacerbate? Perhaps every time they are forced to utter “peace be upon him” it feels like a profound violation of their integrity and of their most important beliefs? Perhaps they feel that participating in this behaviour will not make it easier for them to argue against more extreme demands, and will actually have the opposite effect because it will merely contribute to the normalisation of this new social reality? In sum, they deeply conscientiously object, and so they behave accordingly.
And, while the accomodationists try to make themselves look sensible, calm and rational, it actually turns out that they are apologists for this burgeoning social movement. They pretend that they are just asking for very small concessions, knowing full well they are participating in the normalisation of this new social reality. They might ask for just this small concession now, but when it is granted and becomes a new social norm, what will they ask for next?
That’s quite phobic. I’ve never been threatened by anyone trans, directly or indirectly. Still, I can understand where that is coming from. Trans is new. It’s unprecedented in historical terms. And there is the notion that men don’t change and can’t be trusted. I’ve known women I respect with that perspective. While some men are sexual predators, I think it’s absurd to apply that generalisation to genuinely transgendered individuals.
“Trans is new. It’s unprecedented in historical terms.”
That’s not what trans activists say.
And tell me, Leszek: do you think males (people “assigned male at birth”) should be allowed in all women’s spaces and events just on the basis of self identification as women?
If you answer that with anything less than an unqualified and resounding yes, congratulations, you are a transphobe.
Iknklast
I appreciate that women are victims of misogyny, and much remains to be done to redress that. I don’t rest on male privilege as my due.
My argument here has been to compare the struggle of transgender individuals, male to female, or female to male, to those of gay people. I can’t put myself in the shoes of a transgendered person, because I am not one. But I can try to understand what they feel in the face of societal prejudice, because I’ve been there too.
I don’t defend those who attack women who defend women as women. I’m voicing the view that gender is more fluid than we thought, and that we should give that some consideration. Not carte blanche, not additional male privilege. Just some slack till ideas sort themselves out.
beauvoir’s baby
Sorry, I don’t understand this bullshit about being assigned male at birth. Apparently you think that sex is exclusively about what’s between the legs. I think we know now it’s also about what’s between the ears.
I think women need their own spaces, as do men. And I think, unlike you, that transgendered individuals have a right to live freely. We haven’t figured out how yet, but perhaps you might consider how to be part of the solution rather than a huge part of the problem.
Do let us know what you think the solution to transgendered people is.
“Sorry, I don’t understand this bullshit about being assigned male at birth. Apparently you think that sex is exclusively about what’s between the legs. I think we know now it’s also about what’s between the ears.”
– Actually, sex has nothing to do with what’s “between the ears”. There is no such thing as a male or a female brain/mind: what makes a brain/mind male or female is that it exists in a male or female body. And it’s more than what’s between your legs, although what’s between your legs is part of it.
“I think women need their own spaces, as do men. And I think, unlike you, that transgendered individuals have a right to live freely.”
– I did not say that transgendered people do not have a right to “live freely”. You just made that up, and it’s hyperbolic. I think you fail to see the conflict between “women having their own space” and “transgender people being able to live freely”. There is a bullet you have to bite: do trans women have total freedom to access all of women’s spaces or not? Is there any time that non trans women are allowed to define themselves as such and declare a space, an event, a politics, etc, just for them and them alone?
“We haven’t figured out how yet, but perhaps you might consider how to be part of the solution rather than a huge part of the problem. Do let us know what you think the solution to transgendered people is.”
– Here’s what I think: let’s do away with gender roles altogether. They are limiting to both men and women, they tend to subordinate women and they tend to marginalise perceived non conformists (like transgender people). The trans strategy of making gender some kind of sacred personal attribute is totally misguided and counter productive to the goal of liberating all people from gender based oppression.
Gender is “what’s between the ears”. We perform gender. We are taught if from a young age. We all choose how we perform it. There is a huge social penance for being gender non-conforming.
Sex is between the legs. It’s biology. Sex is not fluid.
I wish I friggin’ well had the right to live freely. But I don’t, because gender and society and male violence and patriarchy. I see feminism achieving pay and voting rights for all women. I see trans activism achieving the right for men to go into the changing room with women. That’s not progress.
Gender isn’t just between the ears either. It’s in how our material reality is structured, how resources are shared, how labour gets exploited . . .
Some of us claim to know this; others of us are not so dogmatic as to claim that we know exactly what gender is. But as for what’s between my ears, there is a mass of gray stuff with a lot of wrinkles, and that is not my gender.
I don’t even know what’s it’s like to “feel like a woman”, and I’ve been a woman all my life. It’s just something I do; it doesn’t feel anyway in particular, except when I am being treated like a woman – in other words, disrespected, paid more poorly, ignored, and looking for ear plugs in WalGreens and seeing that someone has come out with “earplugs for women” that are different only in that they are – you guessed it, I probably don’t have to tell anyone here – pink.
So, if I do not “feel like a woman”, does that mean I am not? I don’t feel like a man, either. Today, I feel rather like I might be an amoeba, sort of amorphous and blobby.
But my gender is neither between my legs (that’s my sex) nor between my ears. It is how society looks at me, treats me, and insists that I act. It is the fact that people ALWAYS tell me “you’re looking nice today” on those rare occasions (maybe twice a year) that I decide to wear a dress. It is the way my mother raised me to lack confidence and wash dishes. It is the way people look at me when they realize I allowed my ex to take custody of my son for a few years while I recovered from a devastating illness (men don’t get that look, because they are expected to let the kid go to the woman). It’s the way young males tell me what it’s like to be a female, what it was like to be a female before they were born (but not before I was born), how they support women’s rights, but “not when they go too far” or “hate men”. It’s a whole set of baggage that I didn’t ask for, that has nothing to do with who I am, but has everything to do with how society perceives me. Yes, those perceptions have affected what is between my ears, but that is something else entirely. That is not what you’re talking about.
You seem to be talking about gender essentialism, one of the most pernicious ideas men came up with to control women. If you are not talking about that, it would be nice to explain exactly what you do mean, since “what’s between your ears” sounds like gender essentialism to me (and apparently to several others here).
The singular they has a much longer pedigree than you think, as merriam-webster.com reminds us:
#1
Singular ‘they’ has a history stretching back centuries, possibly even to the fourteenth century. Popular use might be rising within your life, but it is far from unprecedented. And the argument that english has at all lost they word gay, as if the old concept of gaiety has been reduced (or even eliminated), is so flimsy that I generally assume anyone making that argument is doing so in bad faith. That is, they are not arguing about the semantics of gay(=homosexual), but rather that they are opposed to the concept of homosexuality and will seize any old argument to that end.
And I view the war over words being waged by shouty trans and trendy feminist activists with similar suspicion. I actually agree with your statement “I think trans activists are seizing on points of leverage to make their case, because there is bugger all other option” though for different reasons to what you intend. What you have in mind (I believe) is that trans activists are adrift in a whirlpool and thus are clutching at anything they can to stay afloat; what I see is that they are seizing on semantics because they have no other way of defending an intellectually vacuous position.
And one reason I think this has already been touched on by previous commenters: why is this shouting only being directed at women and feminists, on behalf of male-to-female people? Why is there not even a peep from female-to-male trans people directed at men and men’s rights activists? This can be partly explained by the fact that female-to-male is by far the less common transition, but not completely. The very few trans male voices I have heard from have simply been going on with life as a man.
‘I can’t put myself in the shoes of a transgendered person, because I am not one. But I can try to understand what they feel in the face of societal prejudice, because I’ve been there too.’ That’s fantastic, it demonstrates that you care, and are attempting to be empathetic. Now see if you can try to understand what women feel.
#5
That belief is widespread amongst conservative scaremongers; it is not shared here. It is a common trope amongst shouty trans activists to lump all gender critical types with them under the broad brush of TERF, but it is not an honest characterisation.
#8
And I think, unlike you, that transgendered individuals have a right to live freely.
Ah, but I see that you are not especially interested in honest characterisations. Either that, or you have been misinformed about this blog, perhaps by trans activists?
Regardless, while I can’t speak for the others here, my impression of the B&W denizens is that we too believe trans people have every right to live freely, having the exact same rights as everyone else. And I don’t mean that in the facetious ‘trans people have the same right we do – to live in the bodies we were born with heh heh’ way; a person that is distressed by their own body gets to remedy that situation by various ways, including modifying their own body.
Where we part ways however was alluded to in #6 by beauvoir’s baby: what is gender, and how does it differ from sex in terms that are not circular and which differentiate it from sex. As noted there, differing in treatment of those two concepts from the orthodoxy will cause you to be lumped in with the conservative anti-LGBTI who don’t wan’t trans people to have rights at all and who regard them all as sexual predators and paedophiles.
So, the same dismissive and insulting characterisation that you are employing.
Eh, it was a bold move. :P
Morning all.
Leszek @ 8 – What do you mean by “And I think, unlike you, that transgendered individuals have a right to live freely”? Who is the “you” in that sentence? What is the source of your claim that the “you” does not believe that transgendered individuals have a right to live freely? Who here has said anything like that?
I am quite prepared to think that the policy was badly written and even more badly administered, but it also seems there is a bit more information behind the use of the Peterson debate in what seems to be a basic grammar class (taught by a TA who did not write the syllabus or assignments, i.e. was following a common syllabus by a faculty member) and how the class discussion involved making fun of pronoun requests.
https://medium.com/@thylacinereport/the-wlu-lindsay-shepherd-controversy-was-never-about-free-speech-9fe3442da3c3
Yes, by all means, let’s have a non-ideological definition of gendered violence. Which would be? Bueller?
This knuklehead apparently is unaware that gender is a social construct, and that all definitions of gendered anything are necessarily “ideological”. Sounds like another Peterson fanboy. Post-modernist cultural marxism!!eleventy!!what shall we do about the end of white supremacist civilization!!!
Personally, I’m unable to take “not enough unfettered shitting on minorities” as a serious social problem.
robin reid @ 19 – Interesting; thanks for the link. I can’t know (of course) how much leeway there is in a course on writing skills for TAs to use examples, including video clips. I would think there would be some, but I don’t know. On the other hand, the writer says
That does not describe the three person tribunal that accused Shepherd of “targeting” students.
Following robin reid’s link gets to this:
https://www.hercampus.com/school/wilfrid-laurier/debate-free-speech-wilfrid-laurier-university?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork
If this is an accurate/honest representation of what happened, then I fail to see the difference in Lindsay Shepherd’s decision to “engage students in critical thinking” during a unit on pronouns in a grammar course, and a TA’s decision to “teach the controversy” by presenting creationist materials during a unit on evolution in an intro-biology course. Both wreak of ulterior motive.
#20
For starters, remembering words are not violence. And before you wilfully mischaracterise me, that does not mean that I think words can never be harmful, only that e.g. verbal abuse does not constitute violence.
I don’t suppose you have a link to anything the article author said that even remotely resembles that drivel, do you? Bueller?
If the course is CS101, what I’ve been able to find of a syllabus indicates the course involves politics, popular culture, and other topics of current relevance in Canada; that is, it’s not strictly about grammar and writing skills.
Kevin @ 22 – I followed that link too. I had the same reservation about the student’s comment that you suggest with “If this is an accurate/honest representation of what happened” – we can’t tell how accurate and/or honest it is. “it felt as if” doesn’t inspire much confidence – anything can “feel as if,” especially to people who are primed to feel that way.
There’s a lot of rhetorical overkill when it comes to pronouns, so a lot of people have been thoroughly primed to see “violence” harm abuse targeting etc over any disagreement at all. That’s kind of the problem.
Hmm. Following up on Sackbut’s suggestion, I find the page for Communication Studies (BA) at WLU. It really doesn’t look as if it would be offering any remedial writing courses – which is what a university course that taught basic grammar would be. University students are expected to already have basic writing skills, learned in their 12 or 13 years of schooling pre-university. If they don’t, they have to waste some of their first year catching up, and I think those courses are the problem of the English department, not Comms. Maybe it’s different in Canada, but my guess would be it’s different mostly in doing a better job of K-12.
From the CS page:
Iknklast#12
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by gender essentialism. My notion is that what people feel about their gender is a product of biological, developmental, psychological, sociological and historical processes. It doesn’t appear to be anything fixed in time, place or person, let alone anything that should be dictated by anyone’s dogma.
Ophelia #18
I’m just wondering what transgendered people are supposed to do in practical terms. Meaning which toilets or changing rooms they are supposed to use? I don’t much care myself, but there does seem to be a lot of angst amongst the general public about it. I haven’t argued anyone claims they have no right to exist, but given that every single contributor on this blog accepts they do, it might be helpful to have some clarity where these individuals can go and what they can or cannot do.
Now your previous posts critiquing the dogma of some transgendered activists, issues of no-platforming traditional feminists, have a point. I haven’t disputed the legitimacy of that critique. I just think, to repeat, that there is more going on here than dogmatic bombast by activists. As I said previously, where else are they to go?
It’s just that when I see unthinking remarks implying trans folk are heading for lesbian underpants, women’s changing rooms, rape shelters and sports, to quote beauvoirs baby#2, I can see we have a ways to go to figure this one out.
A couple of thoughts:
First, it’s not unusual, in my experience, for a (non-remedial) college course to involve discussions of grammar or other writing issues. As an undergraduate, I took an elective course from the English department on science fiction and fantasy literature. The first two hours of my T.A.-led seminar had nothing to do with the first assigned novel, the professor’s first lecture, or, really, science fiction or fantasy literature. Instead, they were a discussion of the English Department’s policies for written work, including the use of pronouns. This was in the 90s, and I don’t recall any discussion of trans issues, it was mostly things like “don’t use masculine pronouns by default,” and “phrases like ‘blackballed’ are racist.”
So it seems understandable to me that any course where the students will be writing and/or analyzing the writing of others — and I assume that Communication Studies would involve both — might involve a discussion of how something as seemingly (to some) simple as pronoun choice can have a big impact on an audience.
Second, I don’t work in academia, but I’ve never been under the impression that a syllabus is supposed to be some kind of iron-clad contract that limits the content of a course or of any individual lecture. In the example I gave above, I thought at the time that the T.A.’s two-hour digression on “inclusive language” was excessive and preachy and in some aspects just plain stupid, and certainly not what I expected from the course description, but it never would have occurred to me to complain to the administration that there had been some deviation from the syllabus. It also doesn’t sound like the T.A. was initially reprimanded for deviating from the holy syllabus in any event. Having said that, even if we accept the student’s characterization of the lesson as having been about “grammar,” surely that would include pronouns, so I don’t even really understand the accusation there.
Leszek – But this post isn’t about toilets or changing rooms. I don’t have to address every issue in every post – in fact it would be a nightmare if I did. I slice things up quite narrowly in posts.
Your first comment (which bb responded to with sarcasm) basically ignored the post and addressed the entire subject of trans rights as if from the beginning. That’s kind of a derail. We’re not at the beginning.
Leszak, this is an issue that has been discussed a lot – where do they go? And it is going to come to problems sooner or later. This is why (forgive me for those of you who have heard this before). While it is reasonable to accept that trans people exist, and that they are who they say they are, it is also true that some trans women are choosing to be women while not changing their appearance, so most people (cultured by society, yes of course) would think they are men if they do not know otherwise.
It is also a fact that there are women who have been mistreated by men, and who may even have PTSD because of lifelong verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse by men. They may be scared of unknown men, even in situations where rationality tells them they are perfectly safe.
A public bathroom is not an area where a person feels perfectly safe. I find it difficult to use a public bathroom in the best of circumstances. When a woman is in a public bathroom, there is a vulnerability that few other places have. The sight of a male-bodied individual in the same bathroom can be, to put it mildly, terrifying. If you know this person is a transwoman, that might mitigate the fear a bit, but if you do not know this individual, the default assumption is going to be male. And that rings danger bells, even if a person is not a bigot or transphobic.
Meanwhile, colleges that are struggling to deal with the accurate perception that they don’t do enough to protect female students from sexual predators are also being pressured to deal with the bathroom issue. So they might take the same tack that my school took – you simply say nothing if you see a person in the “wrong” bathroom.
That puts the woman with the PTSD or the intense emotional reaction in an impossible spot. She cannot respond appropriately. If she stays there, she makes herself vulnerable, especially if this person really is a male and not a transwoman. If she says anything, or makes her escape, she runs the risk of being tagged a bigot. If she happens to be staff or faculty and she takes this response, she might end up being reprimanded or worse, depending on who got involved.
In short, the simple explanation of “use whatever bathroom you feel most comfortable with” is not as simple as it sounds. It runs up against very real concerns of ordinary women who simply can’t feel safe because they have reason to distrust men. To act for their own preservation from a (real or perceived) threat is to run into consequences that could be life-changing in a bad way.
This is a complicated, difficult issue, and while you may find the snarky comments of beauvoirs baby upleasant and dismissive, there is a lot of baggage lying underneath that comment. Yes, we have a ways to go to figure that one out, but I think we have to figure out the direction we need to go first. We should protect the rights of trans individuals, but we cannot sacrifice the safety or the rights of women in general to do so, because we don’t want to have to ask someone their gender.
I suspect there is absolutely no answer that will satisfy everyone, and right now, it seems the direction we have chosen to go is branding all women who have justifiable doubts about their safety around men as bigots and transphobes, no matter what the rest of their life and work might show.
Holms#14
Just out of curiosity, how many trans folk do you know? Candidly, I don’t know any personally, but given social prejudice against them, that may not be surprising. I know several gay and out people in my workplace personally, and know of one transgendered person, but that’s it.
Now, you accuse trans activists of defending an intellectually vacuous position. In terms of some of them attacking “terfs” I’d agree, up to a point. Nothing but notoriety is to be gained from attacking traditional feminists. The problem comes with the trans exclusionary bit. I think there are radical feminists who would include trans people. There are others who would not. Now, while I understand their point of view, I wonder what they expect these transgendered individuals to do?
@Leszek
Trans identity isn’t a sexuality.
And trans activism is about a great deal more than individuals being allowed to “come to terms” with anything. It’s about insisting that others accept trans ontology–“Trans women are women!”; “Misgendering is violence” etc. It’s about insisting that medical professionals treating gender dysphoric kids use the affirmation model and nothing else. It’s about coordinated attacks on dissenting scientists. It’s about redefining the words “man” and (especially) “woman” and labeling any disagreement transphobia and hate.
You’re lucky. Many have been.
Leszek @31,
Not sure if this is a rhetorical question, since you say that you understand their point of view. But if you really are curious, perhaps you should go ask them?
Ophelia#29
You may not be at the beginning of this particular discussion, but as an elderly gay man, I am. It’s not my intent to derail discussion. But I do have a learning curve, and haven’t agreed with all your views. If you prefer I leave, I certainly will.
Innklast#30
I appreciate your points. Many women have ample reason to distrust men. Let’s just hope at some point intelligent folk figure it out.
@Holms #14
I don’t think that’s even true any more.
But to answer your question, I have a few ideas. Funny, isn’t it, how you never hear of trans men insisting on being housed in men’s prisons, or being allowed to compete against men in sports.
Gender recognition laws in the UK, I’m told, allow males under primogeniture inheritance laws to inherit even if they transition–but females who transition are still out of luck.
Gee, I wonder why. *ponders*
Screechy Monkey @28: blackballed is racist?
Oh, and iknklast
Your point that it is wrong to label women who have doubts about men as transphobes and bigots is well taken. I made the same one in comments on a previous post. There is no simple transition in social attitudes here. It’s going to take a lot of time.
Ben @36,
I’m going on memories from 20-plus years ago, but yeah. It was part of a broader point about a tendency to use black for negative purposes (a black mark on your record, Black Tuesday, etc.) and what implications it might have, which in retrospect I think has some legitimacy. But yeah, there were aspects of those lectures that I think my younger self was quite correct to regard as silly. The 1990s film “PCU” didn’t come out of nowhere — there really was some silliness going on at the time, which is one of the things that helps me not take some of today’s campus excesses too seriously. (Of course, that’s easy for me to say as someone whose livelihood isn’t threatened by activists.)
Leszek, no no, I don’t want you to leave. Just, don’t expect every post to deal with issues from root to crown. I bite off pieces.
Ironically (or not), I do think the claim that using “black” as a pejorative is not a great idea has merit. I remember it from the 70s, and I remember first cringing and then realizing oh wait, there is a lot of that kind of thing, isn’t there, and yes that would make a difference, wouldn’t it. I decided to try to avoid it and still do.
It’s also used to mean “covert” though – black market, black ops, blackmail, that kind of thing. That’s different. Black=dark=secret.
Speaking of women having good reasons to be wary of men or people who appear to be men (whether they’re wearing dresses or not). The more trans- or pro-trans activists threaten, bully, shout at, mistreat or even physically attack women, the more actual reasons women have to distrust transwomen in spaces traditionally reserved for women.
Of course you’re not supposed to point this out, lest you be branded a transphobe or a TERF.
That was never my impression, either. I was informed this summer that it is, indeed, an iron clad contract, and anything not included in the syllabus will not be supported by the administration. Needless to say, my syllabus is now 14 pages long!?!
Yes, there’s certainly an association between black and bad. But that’s not necessarily about black people. (Maybe “we” were more likely to call black people “black” in the first place because of these associations?)
I remember in a field methods (linguistics) class in college, we were learning about Zulu from a native speaker. We happened to learn the word umhlophe (or something like that?). It meant or was related to “white” and was also related to meanings like “all clear,” “innocent,” etc. Had Zulu speakers internalized racist ideas about whiteness and goodness?
These associations between white/good and black/bad go way back, and they’re certainly not all racial.
I’m interested in Silent Bob’s claim that any talk of socially constructed phenomena is necessarily ideological. He speaks as though this is perfectly obvious, but It’s not at all. Explanation and justification is required.
Leszek, if I may recommend some reading, here is an excellent essay that I think you might find helpful: The word TERF by Rebecca Reilly-Cooper. There are many others, but that’s a good starting point.
I also found extremely helpful the book End of Patriarchy: Radical Feminism for Men by Robert Jensen. It’s an excellent introduction to Radical Feminism, and it deals in part with the transgender conflict. I believe there are excerpts floating around, if you want to take a look. I liked it in part because it did not presuppose previous exposure to feminist literature, and it provided a decent summary of the history of the feminist movement.
Leszek, I’m sorry I was so impatient with you. Others have been more helpful in their responses than me. I’ve been arguing and thinking about this for a couple of years now, and you’ve just begun.
#31 Leszek
I know zero personally, and have only met a small number through a friend who is big in the LGBTI scene of my city; I don’t know the number though. From your response, I think that you may be under the impression that I regard all trans issues/people as being intellectually bankrupt; if so, that is entirely due to my hasty wording.
There is a certain strain of trans activist that will declare ‘trans women are women period,’ and further that there is zero difference between a trans woman and one that was always anatomically female. Worse still is that the definition for trans woman these activists endorse is simply ‘any person that declares themselves a woman.’ This leads to some utterly ludicrous results, which beauvior’s baby referenced in her first reply…:
– Lesbians ought to be just as physically attracted to a trans woman as they are to a genetic woman, even if the trans woman has not physically transitions at all (i.e. still has a penis). Failing to be attracted both equally is considered anti-trans bigotry. This includes failing to have sex with them, too.
– Similarly, heterosexual men ought to be just as physically attracted to (and have sex with) a trans woman, penis and all, or be declared a bigot. Note however that almost all of the opprobrium is reserved for the lesbians that don’t want to touch a penis; as far as I have seen, men are not yelled at to nearly the same degree as women.
– A shelter for women fleeing abusive marriages and similar needs to include trans women as readily as a genetic woman, even if that trans woman – just as above – still quite visibly appears to be male. Pointing out that such shelters are intended to provide safe harbour for women that live in fear of men is considered bigotry, and the same goes for any battered woman that is distressed by male-seeming people in their shelter.
These examples have been seen in arguments across feminism and trans activist blogs, they were not invented spur of the moment. It is the refusal of some trans activists to have a more reasonable / less circular definition of what a trans woman is that leads them to these absurd (to my view) positions, and they are the ones I was referring to in #14 as having an “intellectually vacuous position.”
Luckily, they are only a subset of all trans people.
Sackbut#45
Thanks for the link about terfs, it looks informative about the feminist view and I’ll go through it before coming back.
Beauvoir’s baby #46
I’m content to let bygones be gone. Trans folk are more challenging even than gay folk, because they really break down long established classes and preconceptions, and we haven’t figured out how to deal with them. Still and all, I think they pose a problem for all of us, men, women, gay, straight, who aren’t trans. My gut feeling, though, is it’s more our problem than it should be theirs. More, perhaps for a later discussion.
Holms #47
I understand, at least to some extent though obviously I can’t walk in their shoes, the attitude of women who have been abused by men towards trans men, and I think trans activists need to take that on board. If they don’t, then they are being wilfully blind and deserve criticism. Also I agree that the experience of being a cis man or woman and a trans man or woman are completely different, so any demand that we accept someone’s gender at face value, on their own recognizances, is, to fudge words, problematic.
But if it’s a problem, even a legitimate one, where does the solution lie? I don’t have an answer, and I appreciate why there is resistance to the answer proposed by trans activists.
I grew up in a time when gay sex was illegal, because homosexuality was seen as a threat to everything good and decent. Especially those nasty queer men poisoning our precious bodily fluids. It affected me in a way I wouldn’t wish on anyone today. I can’t compare that to the experience of women in the same time, because it’s obviously different. I am not saying one was easier than the other, but I think we can agree each road deserves its own recognition.
I’ve no doubt you see where I am going with this. Taking into account the tone deafness and historical disregard of recent trans activisism criticised here, they have a point. They aren’t correct in demanding feminists accept male to female transsexuals as identically the same as themselves. But they do have a reasonable expectation that we treat them the way we want to be treated ourselves… men, women, gay, straight. Trans folk aren’t men or women in the traditional sense, any more than gay men are men in the traditional sense. But it’s going to take a while to figure out where they fit, now we’ve noticed they exist.
I’m not sure where the answer lies either, but arriving at an answer surely begins with being able to discuss the the topic with some degree of freedom and frankness. Part of this may even include questioning the views of others, something most will agree is to be expected in an adult conversation on something as tricky to pin down as ‘what is gender (as opposed to sex).’ But this is greatly hampered when a subset of trans people, and the subset of feminists that agree with them on this issue (aka ‘intersectional’ feminists), declares such questioning anathema, and considers it equivalent to questioning the right for trans people to even exist.
I wish that was an exaggeration, but it isn’t. This blog has seen quite a bit of that absurdly hyperbolic denunciation of fellow feminists from the inside, and there is no discussing nuance with that type.
Leszek –
No, they really don’t. They enforce and harden those long established classes and preconceptions. It’s feminism that breaks down long established classes and preconceptions. It’s feminism that says your sex tells you NOTHING about your character or personality, talents and interests, goals and ambitions: you get to figure all that out for yourself without heeding any Rules about what people of your sex are and do. It’s current trans politics that says you like dresses therefore you are female.
Also, Leszek – please don’t use the word “cis” here (unless ironically).
Also –
Can you point to anything said here that suggests otherwise?