A huge intellectual dead-end
Meghan Murphy has thoughts on Everyday Feminism’s ridiculous withdrawal of Alice Dreger’s article, calling it news from the modern day witch hunt.
I don’t use the term “witch” lightly here. The McCarthyist campaign against women, particularly, who fail to toe the party line when it comes to feminism and gender is very much comparable to the witch hunts that extended throughout much of the 20th century. Women are quite literally being silenced and persecuted for speaking out against a kind of dogma that naturalizes the idea that innate gender identity exists from birth, as well as for the crime of understanding that, historically, women’s oppression has been directly attached to their female biology.
As feminists and as critical thinkers, it is our responsibility to push back against the silencing and censorship of women’s voices. It is neither wrong, nor dangerous, to question the idea of innate gender identity or the existence of a gender binary, created and enforced through patriarchy. It is unacceptable that a purportedly feminist publication would buy into and support this kind of smearing, which only serves to further entrench a culture of fear, effectively discouraging their young readers from thinking for themselves and exploring ideas critically.
Damn right.
I think the culture of fear is starting to erode though. There are too many of us pushing back now for it to continue to thrive.
This is ridiculous & infuriating & a huge intellectual dead-end.
Women still have to fight so hard to be heard. I hate the idea that one controversial opinion gets you cast out.
It’s BS. It’s wrong but it’s also harmful: it makes journalism & debate & feminism itself more paranoid & narrower.
@evrydayfeminism is so wrong! A movement without room for @alicedreger is so much the poorer. @helenlewis
Mind you, there is a school of thought that says Everyday Feminism is just a long-form parody.
I hope you’re right about that erosion. Words cannot express how sick I am of this shit. As it is, most people recognise only two sides: conservative sex police (aided by their mercenaries, the alt right/channer bro crowd) vs. The Official Trans Gender Narrative, with all its unacknowledged anti-feminism.
At this point I’m just hoping Ken Zucker pursues and wins his lawsuit. It would also be lovely if Andrea James were publicly outed as a miserable excuse for a human being.
Yeah, I hope so too.
What lawsuit is this? A previous post I missed perhaps…?
It’s not just trans issues, either. There is a really nasty strain of dogmatism in social justice actvism at the moment. Maybe it’s always there to some degree. Every good cause has it’s arseholes plus people who mean well but get it badly wrong. I once agreed strongly with intersectionality. I suppose I still do but would hesitate to call myself an intersectional feminist as you only have to disagree on one little thing to be denounced. Provided the person you disagree with is in the more marginalized group.
Ugh.
Full disclosure: I’m generally in large agreement with the baseline trans theory. I don’t talk about it a lot here, because I know that it’s not a popular opinion among the commentariat (let alone our host) and being constantly and openly contrarian would feel too much like trolling. I come here because Ophelia writes about a ton of issues that I care about, and usually just glide past the trans discussions after a quick scan.
That said: This is bullshit. In addition to the accusation of Dreger’s transphobia being based on a guilt-by-association charge (she defended a colleague’s scientific reputation–even if I disagree with that scientist’s conclusions, I see no reason to lambaste her for a reasoned and rational position defending his ethics and credentials, and I’ve seen no evidence that she, herself, definitively agrees with his position), there’s also the simple fact that her article had NOTHING to do with this issue at all. It’s one thing for Everyday Feminism to push their own viewpoint; it’s another for them to go to such absurd lengths for the sake of ideological purity.
It’s disheartening, really.
@Holms, I’m sorry I wasn’t more clear.
Remember Kenneth Zucker, who was fired from Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, where he was Head of the Gender Identity Service? Ophelia did write about his firing. He was accused of doing “reparative therapy,” and all sorts of things were alleged. Long story short, he lost his job, his reputation was trashed…and allegations against him have since been retracted or shown to be false.
I had heard that he was pursuing a lawsuit against CAMH, but a quick Google search yields nothing but more transactivist accusations against him. So I don’t know if there really is a lawsuit pending.
Ophelia posted about this article, but it’s worth revisiting:
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html
@Myrhinne #4
This. We notice it most in the trans issue because that, for many of who are feminists, is where we encounter it most intensely but the whole dogma thing seems to me to be equally spread across left politics. It’s exhausting and it’s led me to be less active because of the sheer vitriol that you get confronted with if you dare to step outside the party line.
@Freemage #5
I get what you mean about being contrarian – some blogs have a clear stance on an issue and it’s both polite and sensible not to jump in every time if you disagree. That said, if you see something in the discussions you feel you can refute I, for one, would be happy to hear from you. Most of the time we don’t get to discuss trans issues either because we all agree or because any deviation from the aforementioned party line gets us blocked from blogs or roasted in the replies without the arguments being addressed. That’s as bad for us “social-constructivist” (from Cheryl Morgan) feminists as it is for trans people. We often can’t see the holes in our own arguments, or where we have fallen down on logic or understanding, without our ideas being challenged. And that is why this whole no-platforming, purity policing, virtue signalling movement is so dangerous. It prevents ideas being challenged and kicked around to find their weak points.
(Just to be clear: trans people are not ideas, trans people are real, they exist, they deserve support and protection, but the theories around the how and why of trans are ideas and that’s what needs pulling out into daylight and to be booted round the football pitch a few times).
Lady Mongren: Thanks for that.
I tend to accept the identity notion at relatively face value. What usually strikes me as off about media portayals of trans life is things like, “I knew I was a girl because I liked dresses and pretty shoes.” To me, this gets it exactly reversed. It would be more accurate to say, “Because I knew I was a girl, I learned to like dresses and pretty shoes.” This keeps the nature of society enforcement of gender roles more clear, without obliterating the validity of the trans identity. It also stresses that trans individuals are actually more vulnerable to that messaging, precisely because they lack the inherent biological traits that would make their identity ‘valid’ to society at large.
A cis man can reject at least some portion of society’s definitions of manhood and not be immediately considered feminine (how much pushback he gets is dependent, of course, on how strict the local culture is about enforcing the roles). A trans man, however, must fight every moment for that level of de facto acceptance–meaning that he must gender-conform to a degree that even most cis men would find restrictive.
Now, if I’m generally correct about this, “social-constructivist” feminism will, in fact, make life easier for trans individuals, because it will eliminate many of the hoops of having the base identity acknowledged (even as it makes such acknowledgement increasingly trivial in terms of how greatly it impacts their life).
Of course, the popular media prefers the “I knew because” narrative, because that plays directly to their function as enforcers and even originators of gender roles. So we get Caitlyn Jenner spouting inanities on TV while the vapid, smiling hosts nod and the audience obeys the applause sign.
Freemage – but what does it mean to say “I knew I was a girl [or boy]”?
That’s the part I have so much trouble understanding. To me the being a girl/woman thing seems to be all external: being always perceived as and named a girl/woman. That’s my experience and perception of it (as far as I can tell), and others’ experiences and perceptions clearly differ…but I wonder what the ontology of those experiences and perceptions is. I’m not convinced that this idea of an inner knowledge independent of being told and named refers to anything real.
Registering my opinion, again, that “cis” is not a word that tells us anything. It’s not useful shorthand, because it’s disputed what, exactly, “cis” is shortand for. No, “it means you conform to your gender” is not an answer. Literally. It’s a re-assertion. We have to do the work of unpacking—and being willing to modify or even discard—these terms or this isn’t a conversation.
Ophelia: If it’s not real, then why are there trans people at all? Children born with specific genetalia are told from birth that they are a particular sex. Where does the notion that they should set that aside arise from, if it’s not innate? That said, I’d certainly agree that the degree to which a person identifies as any gender at all is also on a sliding scale–some seem to have a distinct and overpowering tie to their gender, while others have none, or virtually none.
Which, in turn, leads to a conjecture related to Josh Spokes’ post. To-wit: Perhaps ‘cis’ and ‘trans’ are both results of having a strong gender-identification–which means that many people (and Ophelia, your prior self-descriptions would certainly seem to suggest you fall into that category) would not qualify as either. A large block of humanity would be more or less agender, if that fits.
And I’ll note–I’m by no means an expert at any of this; I’ve just read, and taken in good faith, a lot of different people’s accounting of their own personal experience.
Freemage, note that I didn’t say it’s not real, I said I’m not convinced it refers to anything real. I said it that way on purpose. I don’t in the least know that it’s not real, or claim that it’s not real, or even believe that it’s not real. I’m not convinced that it is real. These distinctions are not as small as they may look. I tried to explain this during the “do you believe, yes or no?” explosions last summer, only to see people claiming I was simply bullshitting. That’s immensely frustrating to me, because I think it matters what the differences are between knowing and believing and not knowing and not being convinced that.
But the idea of setting that aside, or rejecting it, or imagining an alternative to it, isn’t that strange or foreign or distant. I did it all the time as a kid, in play and fantasy. I think everyone who reads fiction does it for short intervals while reading. I think people do it while watching movies and tv.
It could be that for trans people it’s the same thing but vastly more so, or it could be that it’s quite different, or completely different. I don’t know…but I suspect it’s the first.
But also, people are suggestible. Being trans is more visible, and more people are declaring themselves trans. I don’t think that’s entirely random.
Freemage…also…where the notion that they should set that aside can, surely, come from very observable, common, ordinary experiences – of just not liking the expectations and rules and stereotypes and all the rest of the baggage of one’s sex. Note I’m not saying that is where it comes from, just that it’s one answer to your question.
This story on NPR is related:
http://www.npr.org/2016/06/01/480309305/when-the-kid-becomes-the-teacher-on-what-it-means-to-be-transgender
A few things strike me. The child was a boy who dressed like a girl, but that seemed to be a big problem in the perceptions of other children; somehow, being trans is easier for them to accept? The parents state unequivocally that they have no interest in the question of what trans means; I can sort of understand that, support your kid unconditionally, but no interest at all? And of course the way people “knew” this girl is trans is because of cross dressing; is there no room in the world for cross dressing children?
It may not even be the same for everyone. It’s completely consistent with what we know about the brain–to hypothesize that some people’s “body map” (cortical homunculous) are at odds with their sex.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_homunculus
There are other hypotheses. Autogynephilia is one; it’s been proposed for some but not all MTF transexuals. But it’s currently anathema. Forget I mentioned it.
Hell, if people can’t do science on the subject without being hounded and harassed for expressing opinions that challenge Approved Dogma, we’ll never know.
Yeah, in some circles, proclaiming trans “identity” seems…fashionable.
Ophelia: Sure, as more people declare themselves trans, and are accepted on that ground, it becomes more common for others to do. But that’s also what we saw with the shift on views in homosexuality in this country. Closeting (and thus, “coming out”) is at least as strong an explanation for more people announcing their trans status–as is simply the possibility that more folks are realizing that this narrative actually fits their own situation, giving a name to something they experienced without understanding it.
And given the outright hostility and danger faced by trans individuals, a shift away from closeting still seems to be a better explanation than simple popularity, for most folks. “Choosing to become part of an oppressed group” requires a much higher explanation as a phenomenon to me, just as it never really seemed to make sense when I’d hear people talking about folks ‘choosing to be gay’.
And I’ll acknowledge that, in certain areas, it’s possible that it’s perceived as ‘trendy’ enough that some young folks, in particular, decide to declare themselves trans or gender fluid, just as there’s a number of young women who now declare themselves ‘bi-curious’ for the approval of straight guys who want a threesome fantasy. And less incendiary, depending on the exact flow of the patriarchy in the local environment, there may be cases where living as trans might actually be easier in some respects than living as a non-gender-conforming individual; that would be a true problem, and I don’t dismiss the possibility out of hand, but I do think it’s a fringe case. (Most areas hostile to the latter seem just as hostile to the former.)
One final caveat: Kids are ignorant and impulsive. Those are pretty much the defining characteristics of adolescence. So yes, they can spout all sorts of nonsense and not comprehend just how painfully wrong it is. I do see a fair bit of the idiocy you talk about here, but it always seems to lead back to either youth or media, which makes me more cautious when attributing it to serious trans activists.
Sackbut: I think that’s an effect of the patriarchal media, honestly. Most of the actual trans folks I’ve read or talked to seem to stress that trans is NOT crossdressing, and the two are not interchangeable. Ideally, the notion of ‘crossdressing’ shouldn’t even exist, of course–people should just wear what they wear, and that’d be that.
Freemage, I agree with all of that. I do of course realize that uncloseting is one very likely explanation. I think both explanations work – some people are uncloseting and some are bandwagoning.
“Because I knew I was a girl, I learned to like dresses and pretty shoes.”
Except that plenty of actual girls have the reaction of “Because I knew I was a girl, I rejected dresses and pretty shoes because I realised pretty early on that girl things were seen as inferior”
The trans reading of that would be, well you must have thought you were a boy, but no, I knew I was a girl I just didn’t think girls should be treated like crap. What ever happened to “Girls can do anything?”
Kim: I’m simply referring to the well-established feminist principle that society codes messages by gender, and makes every attempt to coerce people to conform to those codes. Everything from the “Princess Mafia” (a phrase given to me by the mother of two young girls) to the decision by Nintendo to make video games a ‘boy’s toy’ in their adverts in the ’90s is an example of this. Our preferences for toys or clothing or speech patterns or fields of study or jobs are not purely innate; we’re social animals, and those choices are influenced heavily by what we’re told we ‘should’ want.
Now, some people are more resistant to that messaging than others, or receive less of it because the local culture is more tolerant of non-conformity. In these cases, yes, you get a girl who rejects the ‘girly’ stuff, or a boy who just likes to wear skirts. I’m saying that both exist. That’s why you also have butch trans women and effeminate trans men. What’s needed in the media is wresting them from the “I knew I was a girl because I liked girly things” narrative–they push that because it helps enforce gender conformity in a different way.
“Butch trans women”, you mean gender-conforming men who appropriate lesbian terms?
@ ^
“Lesbian”, you mean straight women who appropriate male sexuality?
(/sarcasm)
Yeah, the two are not the same no matter how you wish they were.