If that means nails and dresses
This isn’t particularly terrible in the great scheme of things, but…
…but it irritates.
I have a couple of minor resolutions for 2019 (draw more, cook more) but my major one is to understand my own gender identity and expression better. If that means nails and dresses, fabulous; if something else, I'm excited to find out.
— Josh Spero (@joshspero) December 30, 2018
Why does it irritate? The public announcement of plans for self-absorption, for one thing. “My major resolution for 2019 is to spend more time contemplating the glory of me.” That and the fact that it’s presented as right-on and enlightened. That, to my mind, is one of the most glaring problems with the ideology of transitude: the way it flips narcissism into a progressive ideal. News flash, “folx”: narcissism is the opposite of progressive. Always. Obsessing over your very own Special Rose-scented Idennidee cannot possibly be progressive. Self-obsession takes you nowhere but to greed and self-dealing.
The other is the shallow brainless antifeminist idea that “gender identity” is All About Nails and Dresses. As many actual feminists responded, try instead doing all the domestic work and getting yelled at in the street and being talked over by the men at work – then you might begin to have a clue. Mister Nails and Dresses responded by blocking all those actual feminists. Of course he did.
Although I know what he means, for some reason my mind insists on putting the guy into a dress with nails run through it…my mind does strange things when I let it roam on its own.
We all know that every major change in social justice produces shock waves in society. Sometimes, when large segments of the population are involved (slavery, women’s rights), those waves are huge and have a great impact on almost everyone in society. We embrace (or at least accept) these disruptions because in the end, it’s right and our society becomes more and more inclusive and just. Sometimes the changes required are all about redressing arbitrary and unjust distinctions (a woman’s career options) and sometimes they are about recognizing real distinctions that must be accommodated in a just and fair society (ADA, maternal leave, Affirmative Action, etc.). Sometimes great changes require nothing more than to simply step aside, shut up, and live and let live (Gay marriage) and result in no real disruption to those not directly affected (or at least those not afflicted with terminal stickurnoseinotherpeoplesbusinessitis). And sometimes the problems are so big that we have to address them in highly disruptive steps. Women’s rights is a perfect example. Laws which reduce workplace discrimination elevate the societal value of a woman’s efforts, but do little to address the general problem of a woman’s safety or value as a person. #MeToo leads to further disruption but is long overdue. Boorish men may balk but #assholesasaprotectedclass isn’t something we should embrace. It’s a complicated business but all of these changes have something in common – if we are honest they don’t really require anyone or any group outside of the affected group to redefine themselves as persons – but to share power, be less of a prick, make some reasonable accommodations, etc.
This is my dilemma with the transgender movement. No doubt as in all societal readjustments there will be some disruption. But how much is warranted, how much is fair? And why does it seem to be predicated on forcing the majority of the population to accept someone else’s definition of who they are as a person?
Performative. I’ve said it before. These people are performing at being female. They fundamentally mistake societies norm of the image of women for what it is to actually be a women.
Particularly the female population. That seems to be their main target. They want to become females and carry with them all the respect and privileges they had as males, and assume that females get that (the obliviousness factor is strong in this one). So they interpret all negative responses as being anti-trans, not recognizing that most of what they experience is the day to day experience of females, with some added hatred because they don’t remain in the box in which they were born – the male box – which is for the most part based in misogyny as well.
iknklast, #1
Perfectly normal, in my opinion. Why go to the expense of having a dress altered for a perfect fit when a nail gun is at hand?
I could put on a kilt, but I would still be No True Scotsman. Wearing nails and dresses only means you like to wear nails and dresses. If people were free to wear whatever they wanted, without policing or enforcement, the nails and dresses would signify nothing but a particular fashion preference, without attachment of that preference to one sex or the other. Nobody would really care.
Are there rules for distinguishing between cross dressers and trans individuals? I see someone who’s into cross dressing as sort of a tourist who’s “just visiting, “whereas someone who is trans is wanting to “move” there to live permanently. Maybe this is misguided on my part to start with, but I’m confessedly behind the times or out of fashion with a lot of this. I’m still learning (and look for correction where I’m wrong, misguided or completely out to lunch) but I have my limits. I am not a Woman 1.0 ( or, as we used to say before the Dark Times, before the Empire, “woman”), so I have less personally at stake than the woman who are having to deal directly with trans extemists in defending women’s right to women only spaces, sports leagues, etc.. Nor am I trans, so I have less at stake personally than those who are dealing with whatever internal states they are facing and the difficulties that brings to their lives. But I know abusive behaviour when I see it. I can see how someone could be cowed or browbeaten into accepting some of the more questionable or fringe claims and demands just to avoid the ensuing shitstom. This space, as far as I’m concerned (for what that’s worth) is an island of reason and sanity in what at times appears to be a teeming sea of frothing insanity. But the sea is but a puddle, stirred by a few vocal individuals who wield more power and influence and whose voices are echoed and amplified more widely than their numbers would warrant.
(Cue curmudgeonly voice): “In the old days…”
Things seemed more straightforward when it was just “LGB.” This formula at least grouped people together with regard to sexual preference, and as such is “other” related or directed. Adding the “TQ etc., etc” (I can’t keep track of them all, as the list grows weekly) seems to be adding in people who are categorized or categorize themselves in a different manner, with the whole “identifies as” thing, which, to me at least, is more inner directed and self proclaimed. Sexual orientation has an external “goal” or “referent” to whom one is drawn, an ideal other with whom one wishes to engage with sexually. “Transness,” seems to me at least, to be something different and perhaps shouldn’t be lumped together with sexual preference or orientation. Gender identity seems to be an outward projection of some inner state which is not really open to study, interpretation or confirmation, and doesn’t seem to involve connection of any sort with others at all (apart from some sort of emulation or imitation of the target gender). The assertion that a penis is a female sex organ would also seem to show a rather tenuous connection to reality itself. Connecting these two disparate realms of orientation and identity seems to me like a category error. It’s like lumping together the idea of “handedness” (as in left and right) with palmistry.