List of things everyone has to do
Oh look, another sighting of “womxn” already – this time in a piece at Vice explaining what “cis people” have to do to be allowed to live helpful to trans people.
Kai Isaiah-Jamal begins briskly.
Let’s cut the shit – there’s no positive way a cis person can dictate or speak on a life that you do not live and a world you do not have to navigate as a trans person.
Well, if that’s true, then nobody can say anything about anything, right? We can all come up with labels to brandish at the rest of the world by way of saying “don’t you dare disagree with me or dispute anything I say no matter how stupidly and irrationally and dogmatically I say it.” Nobody lives my life except me, and that’s a sentence that every human can say. It’s true, and obvious, and otiose. We all live our own lives, but most of us don’t want to live them entirely solipsistically, so we do our best to talk across the barrier of Self in order to communicate with others.
Isaiah-Jamal’s point is presumably that people who have “cis privilege” mustn’t dispute anything trans people say about trans rights, because the formers’ privilege blinds them to the reality of the latters’ experiences and needs, just as white people can be blind to the reality of racism. One problem with that is that the “just as” isn’t. Racism is not analogous to skepticism about some/much/all of the dogma around being trans.
In a world where misconstrued ideas about trans folk – what we need, what we deserve, how we should live – fall from the lips of so many cis people, we need to end the debate on whether trans womxn are womxn, whether we should be able to use the correct bathrooms and changing rooms, and whether we should be parents or teachers. Because it’s not a debate. We are entitled to our human rights just as much as everyone else.
Only the second paragraph, and already so confused.
There’s the “womxn” again.
Do women get this same “you don’t get to question me” privilege too? Are we denied it because we’re “cis”? Does being cis cancel out being female? Are women no longer an oppressed class, because we are “cis”? Is it only “womxn” who belong to the oppressed female class?
And why are we told to end the debate on whether trans womxn are womxn but not to end the debate on whether trans men are men? Or should that be whether trans mxn are mxn?
And do women get a say about whether or not we want to lose the word “women” and have to use “womxn” instead?
And what are the criteria for “the correct bathrooms and changing rooms”? What makes a bathroom or changing room “correct” and who gets to decide?
And who has suggested taking away the rights of trans people? And what rights exactly are we talking about? And is there any difference between familiar, well-described, clearly delineated rights, and brand new rights that apply to brand new categories and concepts, that many people haven’t even heard of yet? And is there a “right” to be a teacher, or does being a teacher rather depend on meeting certain criteria?
And so on. I could go on this way all day. In just the first two paragraphs Isaiah-Jamal assumes an enormous amount that is not in evidence, and proceeds as if there were no need to explain further. That’s characteristic of much of this type of “activism” and it doesn’t inspire confidence. I feel only a faint curiosity about the rest of Isaiah-Jamal’s demands, which go on for a very long way.
Well, there was the time that PZ talked all about cis-woman’s privilege…when he was disputing an article (which you had talked about here) about cervical cancer. He mansplained the author of the article, who is an expert on her topic (and is a woman), about why she didn’t get to claim that cervical cancer was something women get.
I found it ironic that cis-women are called privileged in reference to a disease that only women get – cervical cancer. Yeah, we’re privileged enough that we get to get cervical cancer.
And where is the screaming and hollering about the women that can get prostate cancer? But that’s a man’s issue, and therefore not problematic. Why? Because men aren’t privileged like women are? Because it’s becoming increasing clear that when someone just says “cis” they mean “woman”…but will cover the misogyny occasionally by mentioning cis-men.
And PZ always uses an example of trans-men to “prove” his point…I suspect at some deep level, he is uncomfortable with his position, but he has to maintain that cool, hip-to-the-jive professor status by showing the younger set he is as woke as they are (and yes, I realize that the phrase hip-to-the-jive just dated me. I am not ashamed of my age. It’s not like I can do anything about it).
OK, sure, you can be womxn, and if you see a womxn’s bathroom feel free to use it…
Let’s cut the shit – there’s no positive way a
cis persontrans woman can dictate or speak on a life that you do not live and a world you do not have to navigate as atrans personwoman.These things cut both ways.
Ah, another ally list that makes me think, “I don’t want to be your ally, I’d say you can go fuck yourself, but you already did that all over this poor, innocent page.”
Okay, then the author shouldn’t expect “cis people” to speak out in his defense either.
After all, if you can’t speak on a life that you do not live, then you can’t exactly speak in defense of that life.
Is it just me or does a lot of this woke bullshit come off as being, how shall we say, adolescent?
Oh, it’s definitely not just you.
I was about to comment on here but Skeletor @2 and Acolyte of Sagan @3 just said everything I was going to say.
Semi relevant, but I thought I’d post this because I found it revealing–excerpts from the Parliamentary debate before the Gender Recognition Act of 2004:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1049289194370002945.html
Three takeaways for me: First, the act was passed to circumvent same-sex marriage. Second, those in favour argued that it would be relevant to only an infinitesimally small number of people (one speaker says 5,000). Third, some MPs pointed out at the time the ramifications of ‘gender identity’ that we’re attempting to cope with now.
Let’s just say there’s a few reasons I object to anyone referring to me as an “ally”…
I for one believe that transwomen are womxn… Whatever the hell a womxn is…
Is it some sort of marsupial? Hey, there are Australians in here…perhaps you could tell me.
For relief from the List of 100: there are a lot of very funny reactions on this thread:
https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1049724949492092929
iknklast, that’s a wombxt you’re thinking of (no pouch but identifies as, etc).
One of the things that has occurred to me is that trans-women thought that the male privileges they enjoyed in their former lives were going to follow them into their new lives. They seem to be perfectly comfortable bullying everyone (especially women who have been women for all our lives) in order to get their own way and woe betide anyone who speaks out against it. In the end, it’s rather ironic. They wanted to be women but are now astounded that they are being treated as women, i.e. they are being oppressed for lack of a better word. Welcome to the world of women. Be careful what you wish for, eh?
#1
Don’t worry, your lingo is totally tubular. Cowabunga!
#3
Aos, you transphobic meanie, don’t you realise trans women get to speak on what it is like to be women and also trans women? (They also get to speak on what it is to be a man too, but don’t you dare say or even imply that trans women might have been socialised as males!) Trans women are the ur-gender, who have surveyed all and can speak to all gender experience… lo, your tiny mind is trammeled within its tiny valley and cannot gainsay those that have seen from above all. Speak not, only listen.
#11
Aos, are you a Strayan? All this time I thought you were a damp, mildewy Briton.
Holms, I am a damp, mildewy Brit. I’ve got a book about Aussie animals, though :-)
Damnit AoS @11, you NINJA’D me.
By… er… about a day.
#2-3 have hit the core absurdity.
How the hell can actual trans-women get respect for their experience and problems if a deranged minority systematically invalidate the experience of EVERYONE ON EARTH besides themselves?
Pink ribbon gender essentialism…but only for brains. Surgery for everything else? Or just self-declaration.
iknklast, #1
I think you have been neglecting your trans-studies, else why would you make such a basic error as to suggest women can get prostate cancer?
Right, let’s go through this together. Trans-Studies 101, pp1, rule 1. ‘When the male-bodied, assigned male at birth person decides to transition, saying the phrase “I am a woman” is sufficient to effect the desired change and remove all vestiges of maleness from the newly minted woman. Although nothing will appear to have changed physically, the magic contained within those four words will wipe away the male aura making everything previously masculine naturally feminine. So strong is the magic that, as well as the penis becoming a super-sized clitoris, the new woman has a special bonus since the prostate gland is now a secret second clitoris’.
So you see, iknklast, because a transwoman is not a prostate-carrying man with aspirations of womanhood, but is in fact a genuine, honest-to-goodness, one-hundred and one percent (that extra one per cent is the bonus clitoris) woman, then she cannot contract prostate cancer.
Any qualified physician who tells you otherwise is a transphobic quack. We will require the quack’s name, of course, in order to
begin a social media hate campaign with the aim of getting the homophobic, genocidal quack’s licence to practice revokedgently re-educate him/TERFher. Thank you for your cooperation.