Guest post: We should all be free to be ourselves
Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Funny kind of public engagement.
One of the signs in that picture really pisses me the fuck off, as it perfectly encapsulates the doublethink involved in this whole goddamn process. It reads, “Don’t look for society to give you permission to be yourself.”
You know what? That’s what feminists have been saying since the beginning. A woman should not need to fight for social license to study physics, be a doctor, drive a race car, have short hair, or wear goddamn pants. A man should not need to fight for social license to study dance, be a nurse, do interior decoration, have long hair, or wear frilly, lacy sleeves. We should all be free to be ourselves, regardless of our bodies’ reproductive functions.
Daniel Kaufman’s article “Feeling Like a Man” reminded me of a book, record, and VHS tape I had as a child—and watched quite a bit—called “Free To Be You And Me”. Apparently I’m not the only one who grew up with that message so thoroughly ingrained in my brain that the very notion that someone would face negative social repercussions for having girlish/boyish interests is hard to grok. It is so obviously retrograde that I have difficulty accepting that other people don’t share that perspective. Have you ever talked to a “moderate” or “liberal” Christian who simply refuses to believe how widespread literalist/fundamentalist beliefs actually are? I often feel like I’m the Christian when it comes to the gender thing. I suspect that many people supporting the transgender movement have a similar problem when it comes to engaging with potential causes of gender identity disorder.
And that’s the thing: for some number of transgender teens, their cross-sex identity arises from the belief that certain behaviors, thought patterns, preferences, etc. are all the exclusive/proper domain of the other sex. Do you like trucks and MMA and watching football with the boys? You must be a boy. Do you like cooking and musical theater and pink unicorns? You must be a girl. Time to change your name, start dressing differently, taking those hormone blockers, binding your chest, and surgically altering your body—all so that your outward appearance matches your inner self.
This is not freedom to be yourself. This is freedom to undergo a “transition” that gives social license—that is, permission—to be (some subset of) yourself. Truly not needing society’s permission to be yourself would mean that a boy should feel utterly free to play with dolls and have magical tea parties, and his sister should feel utterly free to play in the mud then come back inside and code, solder, and troubleshoot a Raspberry Pi-powered robot. They should both be able to do that without any sort of strange looks or comments from anyone, and they should not have to go through a transition in order to reach that point of default, background, banal, unremarkable acceptance.
The sign nominally supports personal freedom while in fact perpetuating a system that unjustly curtails freedom. But whoever wrote and proudly carried that sign will never recognize the problem, and that saddens me on behalf of all the young people who are being and will be told that they can’t just be themselves. On behalf of my little nieces and nephews who will have to navigate this nonsense:
Fuck you, sign writer. Fuck you, I say.
Beautifully said, Nullius!
I had that album, Free To Be…You and Me. Played it to death. Still think of it fondly, and remember bits by heart.
Though it was aimed at much younger kids, me n’ my (same age) cousin Mary Beth loved it.
Free to Be You and Me is so… sensible, reasonable, humane.
What kind of reception would it have today?
I was not free to be, or allowed to be, so I have the opposite issue as Nullius, and yet…even being raised in a family where women and men were severely circumscribed in their roles, where I was required to take HomeEc and not allowed to take Economics, I still have trouble wrapping my mind around all of this. Somehow I never drank the Kool-Aid, and would look at my family as strangers when they started their gender nonsense. Why? I don’t know. But I do know one thing: it wasn’t because I believed gender roles were set into stone, and to do one thing or the other you might have to change gender.
And then there are those of us who like cooking and watching football, who have no interest in trucks or pink unicorns. I.e., the majority that doesn’t fit neatly into either box.
Yet I do not consider myself “gender fluid”. For better or worse, I’m a man. So my biology tells me.
We should make a checklist. Check all the things that define you, so you’ll know what gender you are.
Cooking? Check.
Football? Not on your life
Science? Check
Theatre? Check
Wine? Sweet
Veggies? Absolutely love ’em
Matching colors? Nope, can’t do it well at all
Pink? I prefer blacks and browns
Putting furniture together? Pretty damn good at it.
Oooohhhh, I must be gender fluid – or non-binary – or…something…maybe…I’m a female person who likes what I like? Wow, what a strange concept. I wonder why feminists didn’t think of that?
@Lady Mondegreen: Thanks! I’m tempted to order the FTBYAM DVD, because seriously.
@Ben: I really don’t know, what with the rampant trans-ing of gender nonconforming kids. The genderqueer nonsense has reached the same level of folk psychology acceptance as the equally bunk wolf-pack alpha/beta/omega thing.
@iknklast: Well, here’s a list of tumblr genders. I don’t know when it was last updated, so I’m sure it’s missing several hundred new, completely legitimate genders. Maybe you’ll find yours! Some people on youtube apparently turned it into a drinking game. If you cringe, groan, or otherwise give up on the species, you drink.
Or take this quiz! Here’s another, but … It’s nearly 150 questions, and there ain’t no way I’m wasting my time on that, even out of morbid curiosity.
I recently saw a (screenshot of a) tweet which said “Straight privilege doesn’t mean your life isn’t hard, it means your sexuality doesn’t make it worse; white privilege doesn’t mean your life isn’t hard, it means your race doesn’t make it worse; cis privilege doesn’t mean your life isn’t hard, it means your gender doesn’t make it worse” with an addendum (by someone else) that “abled privilege doesn’t mean your life isn’t bad, it just means you don’t have mental or physical strains impeding your daily functioning and making it worse”
By these metrics, almost nobody has any of these “privileges”, most especially “cis privilege”. And it gives the game away–it asserts that nobody is harmed by the underlying structures at play, only their failure to conform to those structures.
This is plainly not true. Being a woman does, in fact, make your life worse, whether you conform or don’t conform.
They just spout this stuff as though trans is comparable with being black, minority, disabled, gay, etc. They don’t have evidence to support that, but they don’t need evidence, because they are riding on the LGB part of the equation and the work they’ve done, throwing racism and ableism into the stew, and letting everyone connect things in their head that aren’t really connected, but people are unwilling to question that because they don’t want to be bigoted.
At this point, I consider the epithet “cis” to be fundamentally misogynistic (along, of course, with the epithet “TERF.”) I don’t think there’s any way to use the epithet “cis” without explicitly or implicitly demeaning women. The primary use of “cis” is to try to tell women that their struggles are less than the struggles of men pretending to be women. “Cis privilege” is just an excuse to put down women for being women.
It’s like the term “reverse racism.” There is no way to say “reverse racism” without saying something racist. Like, “Obama got into Harvard because of reverse racism.” Nope, that’s the real racism right there.
“Reverse racism” perpetuates racism, and “cis” perpetuates sexism.
Quite. I’ve considered it that all along, or almost all along. It’s basically a feminism-canceling stamp. Imagine white people using cis-racial that way – it would not go down well. But when all it cancels is women’s rights? Pff, go right ahead.
I am right now imagining Rachel Dolezal calling a black woman “cis-racial.” I am not imagining it going well.
Well, I for one have never used the term cis-otter to refer to those otters that have webbed feet, and swim well (both of which I lack). The problems of otters are unique to otters, and I cannot fully experience those problems because I was not born and raised an otter.
I won’t use “cis” either, though I might talk about “ natal women” or “ biological women” to contrast with “trans woman.” And I don’t use “ real women” or “ actual women,” because that would be too blunt and perceived as rude. It will derail the discussion from topic.
Iknklast@
We cannot know how otter folks really think and feel.
Yes but that’s part of the problem, isn’t it – that saying “actual women” is perceived as too blunt. It forces us into playing along with the fantasy – it forces women into playing along with men’s fantasy that they are women. Again, imagine if it were white people trying this on – imagine if black people were saying it’s perceived as too blunt to say “actual black people” in contrast to Rachel Dolezal.
Utilizing the cis- prefix endorses the validity of the cis/trans binary. Saying cis[wo]man automatically cedes rights to the category [wo]man. That has to be a strategic mistake. That’s why I do say “actual women”, cries of impolitic bluntness be damned.
But then, I long ago jumped off the euphemism treadmill, so maybe I’m just used to seeing offended looks.
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I’ve personally always hated the term “reverse racism” from a purely semantic perspective. Either the thing being described is racism, in which case “reverse” is redundant and merely confusing, or it is not racism, in which case the phrase is paradoxical. That is, by the common understanding of racism, if P hates or discriminates against Q in virtue of Q’s race, the P is being racist, regardless of P’s own race.
I use the term “cis-otter” to refer to those otters who were privileged to be born with webbed feet and a streamlined, hirsute profile. I have undergone multiple surgeries and bathe in Rogaine to achieve the totally exactly same thing, and I am no less an otter. Suggesting I am is like clubbing a whole island full of baby seals right in front of me.
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Nullius, have you encountered the idea that racism can’t be separated from the dynamic of power? That racist speech is thus only the verbalization of power relations involving subjugation of some groups by others, rather than all appeals to race-based assumptions? In that analysis, a statement such as “white men can’t jump” cannot be considered racist, whereas a statement like “black men are lazy” can be. Off-topic, I know, but I find the argument compelling.
Papito – I saw a similar argument recently from the trans lobby. Trans women cannot rape “cis” women, because the “cis” women have more power. Therefore, when a trans woman forces a “cis” woman to have sex (the very definition of rape), it is not rape. Because power.
Yeah. Putting aside the argument that “cis” women have more power, which is questionable at best, this is the reason I have a problem with that power argument. It has been distorted. The reality is that most racists I know are not about power (many of them have little to none) but about race (hating those who are differently pigmented for being different).
Ikn, that first argument is breathtakingly twisted. I can’t even address that.
Secondly, I get why the distortion of the racism/power analysis would turn a person off. But I do think it can explain the exercise of racism by relatively powerless people. Some people may be relatively powerless in almost all regards – weak, poor, stupid, unemployed – but if they have one last opportunity to exercise power, won’t they reach for it? In this day and age, successful white people rarely take recourse to racism overtly. Those who do are mostly the failures who have nothing else to brag about. As they say, “this is your master race?” And, of course, those whose fortunes are tied to the gullibility of said schlubs will also fire up der wurlitzer.
Yes, that’s why I referred to the common understanding of racism. The power-based definition of racism is a separate one, much as the feminist definition of gender (i.e., norms for the sexes) is not the common sense (i.e., euphemism for sex). The power-based sense is useful for describing systems; that is, in fact, its genesis. It is important to remember that this sense was not intended to supplant the vernacular one. It’s a typical mistake, though, to forget that terms of art are context-limited. For example, “When we’re talking about systems of oppression, we use racism to mean …” That qualifier is crucial.
Most academic disciplines have their own new or modified senses for common words. The difference is that we don’t make the mistake of taking the term of art’s meaning as the only valid one. For instance, I don’t correct people when they call a problem hard even though it can be solved in O(1) time. Because I’m not a sophomoric ass.