A history of oppressing a marginalized group
Oh dear, I thought that we “cis” people were not at fault for being “cis”; I thought it was just a fact about us, not a condemnation. How many times have I seen “Cis just means identifying with your assigned sex, that’s all it means”? Many. Many many. I’ve seen it a lot because I’ve seen a lot of conversations about the way “cis” is used as a pejorative, like “racist” or “misogynist”; orthodoxy-policers always rush to say no no no no it’s not a pejorative at all, it just means “not trans.”
Maybe there was a memo? Apparently that’s not the orthodoxy any more.
“Cis”, like “white” or “straight”, describes a privileged group with a history of oppressing a marginalized group.
Sometimes the marginalized will use the term in frustration: “White BS” “Cis nonsense”.
If you take it personally & get defensive, you need to ask yourself why.
— Amanda Jette Knox (@MavenOfMayhem) April 20, 2019
So now people who are not trans have a history of oppressing trans people? How? How do we oppress trans people? By not being trans? But we can’t help that, after all. There are probably lots of people in the world – “cis” people – who’ve never so much as heard of trans people, so how do they oppress them?
Needless to say, Amanda Jette Knox doesn’t explain.
If you get upset at “cis” sometimes being used negatively, maybe you don’t understand what’s at stake or what trans people have endured. You don’t know what micro-aggressions feel like or how often they occur.
Or maybe you’re just a bigot and you don’t want to admit it.
— Amanda Jette Knox (@MavenOfMayhem) April 20, 2019
Yeah, not explanatory. I am none the wiser as to how I, for instance, oppress Morgane Oger, for instance, simply by being cis.
Maybe further enlightenment will be forthcoming.
Equal rights in housing? Yes. In employment? Yes. In protection from violence? Yes. So oppressive! Such marginalization!
Pretending that people can change sex? No. Help! Help! You’re oppressing me by stating facts, not fantasy!
On the other hand, maybe I reject your framework of sex and gender, your moral blackmail, and your constant dishonesty.
As a matter of fact, I do. I just never had a “community” of the self-righteous and the reality-challenged behind me, telling me how brave and stunning I was, and assuring me that because I was hurting nobody had the right to challenge my ideas about women, sex, ontology, and politics.
Catch-22: It would appear that by merely existing, ‘cis people’ like say myself, are somehow ‘oppressing’ trans people. Or is it that by both existing and not 1. identifying, 2. following them around and 3. repeatedly asking if we can be of some assistance, we cises are somehow ‘oppressing’ the transes…?
Well, I have asked myself why. And the answer is that I have other priorities.
Omar, I think it’s because we insist on calling ourselves women (well, not you necessarily, but you might call adult female humans women).
Iknklast:
So much to learn, and only one lifetime in which to do it.
;-).
TRAs absolutely lost me and my support when they tried to claim the slogan “Die cis scum” was A-OK.
Anathema nevertheless to claim that
“If you get upset at “male-bodied” sometimes being used negatively, maybe you don’t understand what’s at stake or what female-bodied people have endured. You don’t know what micro-aggressions feel like or how often they occur.”
OK, here’s how I read this, as a member of one or more of the oppressing groups referenced:
White people, as a group, have a history of oppressing people of colour, as a group. That doesn’t mean that all white people have a history of personally contributing to the oppression of people of colour. Sometimes people of colour might exclaim “Pfffffff – white folks!” as a term of frustration, even though white people can’t help being who they are. But that’s OK, the frustration is understandable, and progressive white people do their best to pitch in and help fix the underlying oppression.
Men, as a group, have a history of oppressing women, as a group. That doesn’t mean that all men have a history of personally contributing to the oppression of women. Sometimes women might exlaim “Pffffffff – men!” as a term of frustration – even though men can’t help being who they are. But that’s OK, the frustration is understandable, and progressive men do their best to pitch in and help fix the underlying oppression.
Cis people, as a group, have a history of oppressing trans people, as a group. That doesn’t mean that all cis people have a history of personally contributing to the oppression of trans people. Sometimes trans people might exclaim “Pfffffff – cis people!” as a term of frustration – even though cis people can’t help being who they are. But that’s OK, the frustration is understandable, and progressive cis people do their best to pitch in and help fix the underlying oppression.
To other people who read that differently, why is one of those things not like the others?
There is no such class as “cis people”, any more than there is a class “trans people.” This is all nonsense deliberately built as a narcissistic identity project by people with unresolved mental issues.
Why should we accept this claim, #9?
It may not be the sum total of what we mean, but I generally read ‘oppression’ as ‘one group/class extracting resources from another group/class without fair compensation’. As an individual white person, I’ve never consciously forced a black person to carry my bag or make my dinner without paying them, but I continue to benefit from the fact that for generations white people have extracted resources for black people with no compensation–so now we have the resources, and they don’t. Men have extracted and continue to extract resources from women without fair compensation–in this case I’d suggest that every individual man benefits from a culture in which it’s the job of the women around him to make him feel comfortable and put his emotional needs first, though I’m sure the amount and quality of this service varies by man, and by situation. In what way do cis people extract resources from trans people without compensation? (It’s obvious some trans people believe this happens, as we’re familiar with trans people who expect cis people to give them money through Paypal or Kofi or some other app as some kind of compensation.)
Why is one of those things not like the others? Because of the no history of oppression.
guest, I think you can also read oppression as suppressing the rights or the voice of the other. This again you can make a case for white people oppressing non-white people and men oppressing women. I suspect this is what the trans people mean by oppression – taking away their rights and/or their voice. I do believe this has been done, and I do believe it is non-trans people (I will not use ‘cis’) who have done it; however, I do not believe it is the radfems who have done this. We have mostly supported the rights of LGBTQ people.
The real problem is that trans activists of a certain school of thought have begun to see those things that women are attempting to do to end their own oppressions as oppressing them. The mere existence of a place for women that does not include them in every way is seen as oppressing them by taking away their right to be considered a woman. The failure to see them exactly as they see themselves is seen as oppressing them by taking away their right to be seen as they wish to be seen. Neither of these rights exists; they were invented by the trans-movement, but they are believed fervently by those who see benefit to themselves in believing them.
If we took them at face value, then we would all have the right to demand that others see us the way we see ourselves. For some reason, trans activists seem to think that is happening; they think we have the privilege of being regarded by the rest of the world as we regard ourselves. Even in regards to gender, this is far from true; my mother always regarded me as a grotesque mutant, and that is not the way I see myself. I don’t know anybody who is constantly being validated that they are who they think they are. Most of us have to deal with the fact that people are constantly pointing out that we are not what we think we are, or at least that these people do not believe we are what we think we are. This is life.
So in this case, oppression means the taking away of rights that they believe exist, but that do not exist in reality, rights they are claiming that no one else on earth has. The claiming of these newly declared rights threatens the rights that other groups actually do, or should, have, such as the right to gather in groups of our own choosing without having to invite people in that we consider a threat to ourselves. They even hate the fact that lesbians have the right to choose who to have sex with, and may choose not to have sex with them because they are not interested in penises. The right to choose who we have sex with is a right that women fought long and hard for, and we don’t care to lose it to a group of people who want to force their penises into places where women gather. The right to have safe, woman-only spaces has also been fought long and hard for; ditto.
@Ophelia #12: wait – you think trans people aren’t oppressed, as a group? At all?
You think that they don’t get abuse shouted at them for being trans? They don’t get bullied for being different? That they don’t get called freaks? They don’t face invasive questions about their genitals from near strangers, or complete strangers? That sometimes when they’re out in public and need to go to the bathroom, they haven’t experienced the owners, or the cops, being called on them by other customers because no matter which bathroom they choose, someone with a stick up their ass is going to claim there’s a sex pest trying “up to something” when they’re just trying to take a piss? You think that they don’t experience being out in the world interacting with someone, and an old habit will resurface just for a second, and they’ll see that person literally do a double-take, and suddenly get treated a lot differently – even if not with outright hostility, then more stand-offishly and at a distance? Or they don’t get the double-take sometimes when they meet someone in person for the first time, like at a job interview, and what had seemed like a promising professional relationship suddenly goes cold.That they haven’t experienced the kinds of oppression gay people have about being able to marry the people they love?
Do you think that that doesn’t happen? Or that it does, but it’s not really oppression? Or that it is oppression, but it’s only started recently and there’s no history of it to speak of?
Karellen – I think trans people, like other non-conforming people, are subject to bullying and harassment and, at the extreme, violence. But I don’t think that fact = cis people have a history of oppression. At that rate we would have to categorize every bullying incident as part of a history of oppression by all 7+ billion people on the planet other than the bullied person. Or we would at least have to come up with a long list of other Identities who are oppressed by nearly all 7+ billion people on the planet. The funny hair identity, the acne-afflicted identity, the high voice identity, the boring talker identity, and so on.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to slice and dice oppressed groups into smaller and smaller units, because people have only so much time and attention to give. Maybe once women and people of color are no longer oppressed anywhere on the planet it will work better to slice and dice…but then again more likely the mass migrations and famines and floods will have made everything too horrendous even to think about it.
Karellen, It would seem to me, at least, that when trans people are socially sanctioned or attacked, it’s for being gender non-conforming, not for being trans per se. This attack on a “trans man”, for example, seems based on homophobia (e.g., for being a “dyke”), not transphobia.
Karellen,another point to add to the already excellent points made by OB and TheDudeDiogenes is that a lot of the oppression of trans people is based in sheer old fashioned misogyny. Much of what a trans-woman experiences could be more about being woman than being trans (and if they are male-bodied still and do not appear to be a woman, calling themselves a woman makes them seem inferior to macho dudes). Trans women have moved into an inferior sex; trans men are uppity enough to think they can move into the superior sex. If it wasn’t for hatred of women, then we could find out how much of trans oppression is really because their trans and not because in one way or other they are either women, call themselves women, or were once women.
As a person who does not always conform to gender expectations, I have experience much of what they have, including bathroom questioning even though I have an obviously female body. As a person who was born woman, when I behave in a manner that fits gender expectations, I have experience much of what they have (except bathroom questioning because woman, and I would never deliberately enter a men’s room where I do not feel safe). So, yeah, I’m not sure that oppression of trans is anything new, unique, or different from plain old oppression of women. And even if it is, oppressing women in new ways will not fix anything, except getting rid of the uppity women.
@TheDudeDiogenes #15:
So… when people who are happy with their gender abuse trans people, trans people should realise that it’s not because they want to be the gender they weren’t assigned, but because they don’t want to be the gender they were assigned?
The level of semantic hair splitting you’re engaging in there is completely fucking insane.
I mean, what are you even saying? Transphobia isn’t a thing, but gender-non-conformity-(of which transness is a subset)-phobia is a thing?
Who are these people who are “happy with their gender”? Do you know a lot of people like that? Do you think that everyone who is not trans or officially GNC is “happy with their gender”?
It’s more like the fact that women have not been happy with their stereotyped gender role, and wish trans women would respect that position, rather than prop up said stereotype by claiming women are defined by the gender role that’s been imposed upon them.
@Ophelia #18 – that’s the part of my comment you’re going to focus on and take issue with? Derailment much?
OK, whatever.
Karellen – assigned at birth? That is for intersex. People are not “assigned” sex at birth, their sex is observed. Unless it is ambiguous or unobservable, at which time doctors use all the tools at their disposal to attempt to make a reasonable assignment.
As for focusing on that part of your comment – happy with their gender – yeah, that’s not a derailment. That’s what we’re always being told by trans activists. Therefore, it is reasonable.
And I think you may be misreading a lot of what Ophelia has been saying if your comment at 17 is indicative of how you understand what she is saying. Her arguments are much more complex and nuanced than that.
The oppression of black people and women has been both systemic and systematic, to place men in a position of power in public and private life. Laws stopped black peoples and women from being educated, from owning property, from access to financial capital. The system is structured to produce oppression.
The oppression of homosexuals has been systematic; with laws punishing behaviour and community groups like churches barring membership. It is historical and long standing.
Trans people are a relatively new social phenomenon. They face the prejudice that all gender non-conforming people face, and experience the systematic punishments that homosexuals receive: but it’s not systemic in the way slavery was and racism and misogyny are. It’s certainly not historical. How can it be? It’s only been a thing since the very late sixties.
According to the definition of trans (being unhappy with your gender) I am trans. Are women like Kim Kardashian are oppressing me? Or is it that I feel oppressed by the unrelenting messaging about gender and what men and women are? As iknklast said, that’s the misogyny built into and produced on purpose by our society.
I’m really puzzled by the “people get upset when I go into a gendered toilet, it’s so unfair”. But everyone knows we have all been trained all our lives to be aware of danger from sex pests; and a sign of one is them being in the wrong place, particularly toilets. That’s systemic, but it’s not meant to oppress anyone, it’s meant to keep women safe.
Trans people want to feel safe going to the loo, but seem unable to understand that others want that, too.
In what way do cis people extract resources from trans people without compensation?
I would like to hear an answer to this.
What I think is that while trans-identified people often get bullied, the categories “trans” and “cis” are too incoherent to bear the weight put on them here.* Those words don’t define coherent classes of people.
Transsexual and gender nonconforming people are bullied due to homophobia and misogyny.
There is no history of “cis” people oppressing “trans” people.
* What is a trans person? Somebody who is gender dysphoric? No; many trans people aren’t gd, and many gd people aren’t trans. Is being trans a matter of gender performance, per Judith Butler, or a matter of inherent “identity,” per advocacy groups like Mermaids? It can’t be synonymous with “transsexual,” we’re told only bigoted “truscum” say that.
If we take Julia Serano’s definition from Whipping Girl as authoritative, hell, most of us here are “trans.”
Karellen, the report is very clear. The attackers were abusing the trans man for being a dyke, not being trans. The attack was homophobic and specifically an attack on someone the attackers believed to be a woman who was homosexual. Being trans didn’t come into it for the attackers. It’s effectively just more of the shit women have to put up with.
Reminds me of an argument I saw a few years ago where someone was saying that you shouldn’t expect someone to educate you about their oppression.
What kept going through my head with it was “If they don’t understand your oppression, how the flying fuck do you expect them to do something about it?”
Sure oppressed groups don’t have an obligation to play educator to the oppressive majority – but the oppressive majority don’t have an obligation to be psychic.
Further if we are to simply accept the claim of someone being oppressed without requiring them to even go so far as to say what the oppression actually is, then we end up opening the door to bullshit claims.
There is a need when complaining about stuff to substantiate it, and sure it is a hassle, sure actually supporting your case is difficult, but if you’re not prepared to do it, guess what? The other side is, and as a commenter pointed out here a few years ago, they’re going to be the ones making the better sense.
Karellen @ 20 – well you ignored my entire comment @ 14, so I don’t see why I can’t respond to one item in your brief reply to DudeDigogenes. And you didn’t answer the questions. You seem to be assuming that everyone who doesn’t self-define as trans is “happy with their gender,” which would eliminate feminism at a stroke, just for one thing. I mean…why are you so surprised? Have you not seen any of the many many arguments and explanations around this issue? Are you not aware that many “cis” people push back hard on being told they are “happy with their gender”?
Which of the following would most likely have a genuine claim of being oppressed?
a) A male-bodied, female-identifying person being told that, no, you cannot take a role of rape counselor to women and girls at this rape crisis centre. Women and girls tend not to want to share the most intimate details of their abuse with any stranger, but more-so with a male-bodied stranger. They are also understandably likely have a fear of male-bodied people, but fear and trust do not tend to go hand-in-hand, and a counselor must have the trust of the person being counseled in order to be effective.
b) Women and girls being told that, yes, they must accept a male-bodied, female-identifying person as their rape counselor at this rape crisis centre. It doesn’t matter that they’re unwilling to share intimate details of their abuse with a male-bodied stranger, and may not trust a male-bodied counselor sufficiently to be able to recieve effective counseling, because that attitude is just bigotry and genital hang-ups; they are the problem, not the male-bodied person wanting to counsel them when they’re at their most vulnerable.
Same question.
a) A male-bodied, female-identifying person being told that, no, you do not qualify for a place at this refuge for women suffering domestic abuse. There is a strict no men policy in place here because the women we shelter are, in general, scared to be in close proximity to men and this refuge is a safe-space for abused women.
b) Women fleeing domestic abuse being told that they must share this shelter with male-bodied people despite being scared to be in close proximity to men, and if they don’t accept that condition they must go elsewhere.
Karellen, your initial post equated trans people with women and with people of colour, but there is no equivalence between trans people and the latter two groups. Both women and people of colour are biologically and physically women and/or people of colour. Their status as women or people of colour are undeniable, well-defined and provable facts. A persons’ sex or colour is clearly identifiable at birth and is neither reliant on nor changeable by an individual’s sense of self. Transgender is solely a personal, psychological phenomenon, its existence being totally reliant on the individual’s sense of self and liable to change as the individual’s sense of self changes over time.
To conflate transgender people with women and with people of colour is a disingenuous tactic in the same vein as the conflation of transgender and intersex by the use of ‘assigned at birth’. It is only a superficially convincing argument, one that falls apart as soon as one gives it more than superficial thought.
Just as with religion, there’s a very good reason why trans activists do not welcome discussion and debate over their claims, demanding straightforward compliance instead, and that reason is that the claims tend not to stand up to scrutiny.
I despise and am infuriated by this shallow equation of “transphobia” with fucking racism. Racism, which it is an example of.
People who behaved as if they were the other sex–substitute your favorite definition of transness here–were never enslaved. They were never subjected to apartheid. They were not lynched.* They were not subjected to redlining.
* Were not and are not. Trans people are not being murdered at rates any higher than anybody else. The claim that they are is a lie.
[…] a comment by Acolyte of Sagan on A history of oppressing a marginalized […]
Hah. “Happy with their gender”, that’s a hoot.
@iknklast In my opinion your point ultimately boils down to mine. I’ve been thinking (and talking a little; I need to say this more) about this question in relation to the upcoming Peterloo anniversary. The story is that tens of thousands of people gathered in St Peter’s Square to peacefully demand representation, and representatives of the government violently broke up the gathering. But what, exactly, was it that these people were asking for? To what end? People want a voice…to say that they are oppressed, and to attempt to change this. Or to say that the ‘splash damage’ from a systemic structure of oppression causes them to be harassed, discriminated against, or unable to exercise their civil rights. I don’t think it’s helpful, or historically useful, to talk about people ‘demanding a voice’ (or possibly even ‘demanding rights’, though I’m less self-convinced about this) while simultaneously ignoring why the particular people doing the demanding have somehow, through random circumstance no doubt, found themselves without.
Historical note: these demands for political representation were salient in the early nineteenth century because culture and law were changing during this period to remove other avenues of influence the people had on the elite, largely because the English elite had seen what had happened in France (and heard it directly from aristocrats who’d escaped to England) and didn’t intend to take any chances that it might happen over here. This is one example of what I mean (linking to ‘working paper’ rather than the actual article because the former isn’t behind a paywall):
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/51066/298.pdf?sequence=1