But what about trans women in Ukraine?
Yes yes yes apartment blocks and art museums and theaters full of people sheltering from the bombs are being smashed but let’s wring our hands about the trans women who aren’t being allowed to leave Ukraine.
As strange hands searched her body and pulled back her hair to check if it was a wig, Judis looked at the faces of the Ukrainian border guards and felt fear and despair.
…
Judis is a transgender woman whose birth certificate defines her as female.
Legally, there is no reason why she should not be allowed to pass with the thousands of women who are crossing Ukrainian borders to safety every day.
Yet, on 12 March at about 4am, after a long and humiliating search, border guards determined she was a man and prevented her passage into Poland.
…
When Ukraine imposed martial law on 24 February, all men aged between 18 and 60 were banned from leaving the country. Since then, it is estimated that hundreds of Ukrainian trans people have attempted to cross the border. The Guardian has been told by activists and aid workers that, despite their legal status as women, dozens have been mistreated and pushed back at the borders, with many fearing for their lives in the event that Russia’s transphobic regime takes over.
Russia’s transphobic regime. Yes, that’s definitely the standout thing about the Russian regime: its transphobia.
It’s extremely grim that men old enough and young enough to fight are not allowed to leave Ukraine; it’s one of the few ways female people have privilege compared to men. It’s horrible and, cosmically speaking, grossly unfair, but war is like that. War is unfair. I find it simply repulsive that the Guardian bothers to whine about trans women not being allowed to leave in these circumstances. Have sympathy for all the men by all means, but to single out the ones who like to wear skirts is revolting.
The Guardian even took the trouble to take a snap of the trans woman who Wasn’t Allowed To Leave.
Excellent snap. Captures how womany he is. How could the border guards be so cruel?
All those people in the background – they don’t matter, they’re just cis people.
Wasn’t there a whole row about transpeople being kicked out of the military? That there is nothing incompatible with being trans and military service?
Now there’s an 8 on the old headtiltometer, maybe a 9.
The head is so tilted it’s a wonder he didn’t stumble on the streetcar tracks…or maybe he did after the photo was taken.
I also saw a story about a “transman” who added nail polish so that he could escape into Poland. Seems like his gender ID failed when his country needed him.
Pronouns being used facetiously.
There’s an interesting conversation to be had about sex and war. Bob knows that women usually get the worst of it during occupation and men are usually bigger and stronger, so is it the case that allowing women and children to leave but not men is the rational decision? Assuming that such a decision is it itself a needed thing? There is also the issue of conscientious objection to conscription.
War is a failure of human interaction, by definition there can be no ‘perfect’ response. But a response is still necessary, and in time of war there is little room for ‘case by case’ decision making. So if I decide to ‘transition’ perhaps I should be informed beforehand that in case of aggressive war by a foreign power I won’t be allowed to claim the ‘privilege’ of leaving behind everything I know and own to escape death?
Our modern principles treat (or have treated) men and women as being morally equal with all that implies, and this is right and proper IMHO. But we are evolved social animals, and I suspect that war causes a feeling of threat, not just to oneself, but to the tribe, to the group; and it is women who perpetuate the existence of the group. I am not sure we are as a species able to resist the instinctive reaction to imminent group destruction. Thus the hierarchy of children, women, men; with the elderly and disabled taking perhaps different positions through time.
To be clear, I do not know if the guards mentioned in this piece have behaved respectfully or not, if they haven’t then they should of course be censured.
bascule
Didn’t work for Klinger either.
What an absolutely ridiculous photo. That’s a modeling shot, not a picture of someone who wishes to escape a war-torn country and is being prevented from doing so.
Maybe if he joined the Ukrainian women’s swimming team…
NLOB: Not like other boys. Cf.: https://4w.pub/non-binary-is-the-new-not-like-other-girls-and-its-deeply-rooted-in-misogyny/
Eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap. This is why males are expendable when the chips are down. Transwomen doubly so since they’re probably infertile. All he’s doing is pulling the lolly and propeller beanie act, and people tend not to like that.
That photo.
Imagine posing like that while your country is being invaded.
Now imagine people falling for it.
Good point, especially in a cannon-fodder war where fighters are valuable simply as shields, not for their brute strength. Terrible.
I wonder if this photo is indeed from now, or from before the invasion. The other people on the street don’t look particularly stressed out, either, and one is having fun on a skateboard.
That pose strikes me as someone wanting to give the impression of existential angst.
I wonder how many actual women had their hair pulled and their bodies searched to check if they really were women. Nah, I don’t really. I notice how the Guardian refers to “Russia’s transphobic regime” but stops short of calling the Ukrainian border guards transphobic. What, feeling a little bit reluctant to apply the entirely straightforward, factual adjective to members of a group of people currently enjoying near universal support, solidarity, and all the rest of it? Feels a bit wrong, does it, seeing a country invaded and calling the people defending the borders names?
Ohhh good point, I didn’t notice that telling omission.
“How can they deny I am a woman when I have such long pink hair!”
That head is so tilted I’m surprised it doesn’t disqualify him from military service on health grounds.
Cawhisperer:
That’s what stood out to me, too. I’ve been sitting here trying to write something about it but…. I think it’s going to take a lot more time than I have.