Complaining about groupthink in your own fan forum is peak 2018
June 27, 2018 4:41 PM Subscribe
The fact that they never did suggests that the group’s members—400 prominent, influential figures in academia, media, and publishing—would rather keep trans people at a safe, anthropological remove where they can talk about trans people without speaking to trans people directly.Harron Walker: Private Messages Reveal the Cis Journalist Groupthink Behind Trans Media Narratives
Some background on Jesse Singal, a very serious public intellectual/journalist who is very concerned about trans people:
If you must know one thing about journalist Jesse Singal, it’s that he loves reporting on trans issues—trans kids, in particular. If you must know another thing, it’s that a lot of trans people, myself included, loathe his coverage of trans issues with a once-fiery passion that has since cooled into a dormant rage.Harron Walker: What's Jesse Singal's Fucking Deal?
That’s the detransition genre—stories about kids who thought they were trans at first, but then realized, with more or less trauma, that they weren’t. It’s the story of how trans acceptance has gone too far, how trans activists are not victims but aggressors, and how courageous cis writers like Singal need to put the brakes on for the good of cis children everywhere.Noah Berlatsky: The Trans People Are Coming, Lock Up Your Children
Rather than write a short pithy critique or rebuttal of the latest “children are at risk!” or “activists are out of hand!” article-du-jour, I decided to write this lengthy nuanced piece. It is intended to be a step-by-step guide for anyone interested, one that fills in all the holes, reads between the lines, and unpacks the many assumptions that riddle the typical op-ed or think-piece about transgender children.Julia Serano: Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates, follow-up post.
Also of interest by Julia Serano: Reframing “Transgender Desistance” Debates, tackling the myth that 80% of trans children ultimately detransition.
Incidentally, Singal does not reveal that Delta’s mom, “Jenny,” is a part of 4thWaveNow, one of the anti-trans parent groups. On Twitter, she described the site as her “lifeline in supporting my dysphoric teen” and expressed disappointment that he didn’t mention the group in the story.Zack Ford: Atlantic cover story is a loud dog whistle for anti-transgender parents.
"Detransition" has always rubbed me up the wrong way, somehow. It's like it implies that "transition" is the process of 'becoming trans' rather than a movement in social gender. So to me, a person who transitions would then transition again. The term "detransition" makes about as much sense as saying you decommute home after work, and untravel back from your holidays. It positions trans as a thing you become, rather than something you are.
It's mad how people like Singal manage to persuade themselves that they're just following the science! and that therefore there cannot be any bias in play. As if the science weren't constantly evolving, as if any clear or overwhelming consensus existed about damn near anything even now. They convince themselves that everyone else is in an echo chamber and bound by groupthink while they actively exclude any voices that might disagree with them in their very one-sided conversations. And of course they get taken seriously by editors and media people - they're cis, they're at a remove from the situation, they're fundamentally impartial in a way that trans people can never be. Obviously, they're not. But somehow they all manage to not see it, and then congratulate each other for being so brave to speak truth to the oh-so-powerful trans lobby.
posted by Dysk at 5:00 PM on June 27, 2018 [52 favorites]
It's mad how people like Singal manage to persuade themselves that they're just following the science! and that therefore there cannot be any bias in play. As if the science weren't constantly evolving, as if any clear or overwhelming consensus existed about damn near anything even now. They convince themselves that everyone else is in an echo chamber and bound by groupthink while they actively exclude any voices that might disagree with them in their very one-sided conversations. And of course they get taken seriously by editors and media people - they're cis, they're at a remove from the situation, they're fundamentally impartial in a way that trans people can never be. Obviously, they're not. But somehow they all manage to not see it, and then congratulate each other for being so brave to speak truth to the oh-so-powerful trans lobby.
posted by Dysk at 5:00 PM on June 27, 2018 [52 favorites]
I very much need to not read these articles (I quickly read the first one and regretted it) and I'm going to leave the thread. But, cis people, please ask yourselves as you read and comment if you're opining about what trans people need.
posted by hoyland at 5:22 PM on June 27, 2018 [20 favorites]
posted by hoyland at 5:22 PM on June 27, 2018 [20 favorites]
Even as a cis person, I imagine it will be pretty uncontroversial for me to say that one of the things trans people need is for newspapers and magazines to stop publishing articles by Jesse Fucking Singal.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:30 PM on June 27, 2018 [23 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 5:30 PM on June 27, 2018 [23 favorites]
Didn't a mod delete the previous post here on Singal's article?
posted by PhineasGage at 6:01 PM on June 27, 2018
posted by PhineasGage at 6:01 PM on June 27, 2018
"Detransitioned" is such a weird (read: awful) word. I could see "re-transitioning" being valid, but the "de" reminds me of those disgusting de-gayification camps that have thankfully become less accepted.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:22 PM on June 27, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 6:22 PM on June 27, 2018 [7 favorites]
Julia Serano's "Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation" article in particular was a spectacular breakdown of the issues.
posted by cui bono at 6:24 PM on June 27, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by cui bono at 6:24 PM on June 27, 2018 [12 favorites]
Monogamous Cisgender Heterosexuality is a form of totalitarianism which seeks to reinforce the total power of European whiteness and fuckers like Jesse Singal are the Cultural Ministers in this dictatorship of social norms.
posted by nikaspark at 6:35 PM on June 27, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by nikaspark at 6:35 PM on June 27, 2018 [10 favorites]
I’ve been following this on twitter and yes, I’d like to know what Jesse Singal’s fucking deal is, too. (He was bragging on twitter about how blocking people made him feel like a “petty child dictator” and that’s how I think of him now.)
posted by octobersurprise at 7:19 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by octobersurprise at 7:19 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
Semirelated: a journalist I follow on twitter posted about the “detransition” mythos from another perspective and wanted to talk w people who this resonated with:
“A lot of those people who "never transition" are queer: they're nonbinary, they're agender, they're asexual, they're gay or bi or pan. They're still in the community.
I'm someone who "never transitioned" and even though I identify as a straight cis woman today I also identify as queer because of that history of deeply felt gender dysphoria.
The idea that GNC kids who don't medically transition go on to melt into the straight world is just ignorant. Instead, the queer/trans community is expanding, not always without a struggle, to *include* them.
If you look at the trans community, you will see that the "nontransitioning" "desisters" are still here.”
posted by moonlight on vermont at 7:30 PM on June 27, 2018 [19 favorites]
“A lot of those people who "never transition" are queer: they're nonbinary, they're agender, they're asexual, they're gay or bi or pan. They're still in the community.
I'm someone who "never transitioned" and even though I identify as a straight cis woman today I also identify as queer because of that history of deeply felt gender dysphoria.
The idea that GNC kids who don't medically transition go on to melt into the straight world is just ignorant. Instead, the queer/trans community is expanding, not always without a struggle, to *include* them.
If you look at the trans community, you will see that the "nontransitioning" "desisters" are still here.”
posted by moonlight on vermont at 7:30 PM on June 27, 2018 [19 favorites]
It's about other media figures, at best, saying NOTHING as this happens and at worst being complicit in it for the "controversial" click bait that every. single. article written about us ends up being.
I note here that The Atlantic had a passel of response articles ready to go up after Singal's, like the very next day. Which, ok, at least they're not letting Singal's article stand uncontested... But it does read like they decided to run this deliberately inflammatory transphobic bullshit just so they could also print the response articles and reap a bunch of clicks both coming and going.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:33 PM on June 27, 2018 [24 favorites]
I note here that The Atlantic had a passel of response articles ready to go up after Singal's, like the very next day. Which, ok, at least they're not letting Singal's article stand uncontested... But it does read like they decided to run this deliberately inflammatory transphobic bullshit just so they could also print the response articles and reap a bunch of clicks both coming and going.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:33 PM on June 27, 2018 [24 favorites]
The worst part of that Jezebel piece, tho, is all the rhetorical high-fiving Singal got from so-called progressive journalists. Metafilter’s own Choire remarked that he’d like to know who they all are, and frankly, so would I.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:38 PM on June 27, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by octobersurprise at 7:38 PM on June 27, 2018 [15 favorites]
What is it about Google Groups and journalists? JournoList, GameJournoPros and this.
The Adam Smith quote about meeting to conspire against the public comes to mind again.
posted by dragoon at 8:05 PM on June 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
The Adam Smith quote about meeting to conspire against the public comes to mind again.
posted by dragoon at 8:05 PM on June 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
For instance, I experienced intense gender dysphoria as a child. But living in a transphobic world with no gender-affirming options whatsoever, I learned to deeply repress those feelings in order to survive. If some researcher were to have carried out a follow up exam on me when I was eighteen, or twenty-one, or twenty-four, I probably would have described myself as a “happy cisgender male” (except for the fact that nobody was using the word “cisgender” back then). But repression only holds for so long, and I eventually had to come to terms with my gender dysphoria.
Bingo!
I didn't have the dire dysphoria, but a sense of feminine aspects of identity from an early age. I was going to be a mermaid when I grew up! But that was eroded by the gentle corrections of "that's for girls" and relentless, subliminal messaging from society about gender expectations.
I was a sensitive, unhappy, misfit boy. Whether there's a correlation there, I don't know.
Some of the gender mystery came back in adolescence, and it was vexing and felt kind of shameful. Eventually I started to frame it as a sort of mystical/spiritual thing; the idea that I could be trans, or that gender is something other than the binary, did not occur to me.
At age 40 I encountered the idea of nonbinary gender stated plainly, and communities of people with a diverse set of gender identities and experiences. Thank you, internet.
I wonder, if I'd been born into a society and household that permitted childhood gender nonconformity, how things would have turned out for me. I expect I would have encountered a lot of malicious transphobia. (But it's not like I didn't experience bullying on the path that I took.) Maybe I'd have had some support for the way I was, too -- and I might feel more confident and free to express myself than I do now and be better at self-expression.
posted by Foosnark at 8:19 PM on June 27, 2018 [21 favorites]
Bingo!
I didn't have the dire dysphoria, but a sense of feminine aspects of identity from an early age. I was going to be a mermaid when I grew up! But that was eroded by the gentle corrections of "that's for girls" and relentless, subliminal messaging from society about gender expectations.
I was a sensitive, unhappy, misfit boy. Whether there's a correlation there, I don't know.
Some of the gender mystery came back in adolescence, and it was vexing and felt kind of shameful. Eventually I started to frame it as a sort of mystical/spiritual thing; the idea that I could be trans, or that gender is something other than the binary, did not occur to me.
At age 40 I encountered the idea of nonbinary gender stated plainly, and communities of people with a diverse set of gender identities and experiences. Thank you, internet.
I wonder, if I'd been born into a society and household that permitted childhood gender nonconformity, how things would have turned out for me. I expect I would have encountered a lot of malicious transphobia. (But it's not like I didn't experience bullying on the path that I took.) Maybe I'd have had some support for the way I was, too -- and I might feel more confident and free to express myself than I do now and be better at self-expression.
posted by Foosnark at 8:19 PM on June 27, 2018 [21 favorites]
The idea that GNC kids who don't medically transition go on to melt into the straight world is just ignorant. Instead, the queer/trans community is expanding, not always without a struggle, to *include* them.
I was GNC and never transitioned because (though I'm bi) my primary attraction was to boys and I faced a ton of homophobia and gender policing from boys and so I deeply and unhappily closeted myself because I feared (probably rightfully) that I'd both never be accepted among boys as one of them nor ever get laid by them if I was myself. I also wasn't an active part in queer spaces, though I hung around at the fringes as a curiously overinformed ally. But if you'd asked me at thirtyish, a young mom who was doing a better job of performing femininity than I had in years, how I identified, I would have said I was cis.
I would have also been lying, to both myself and to you.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:40 PM on June 27, 2018 [25 favorites]
I was GNC and never transitioned because (though I'm bi) my primary attraction was to boys and I faced a ton of homophobia and gender policing from boys and so I deeply and unhappily closeted myself because I feared (probably rightfully) that I'd both never be accepted among boys as one of them nor ever get laid by them if I was myself. I also wasn't an active part in queer spaces, though I hung around at the fringes as a curiously overinformed ally. But if you'd asked me at thirtyish, a young mom who was doing a better job of performing femininity than I had in years, how I identified, I would have said I was cis.
I would have also been lying, to both myself and to you.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:40 PM on June 27, 2018 [25 favorites]
i've been trying to figure out a classier post to make on this thread than "lmao fuck cis people who think they know shit" but, you know, sometimes you just gotta shoot from the hip
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 8:40 PM on June 27, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 8:40 PM on June 27, 2018 [13 favorites]
also just kind of a note here that being gender nonconforming is not the same thing as wanting to change your gender - being a masculine woman or a feminine man or otherwise mixing it up with the presentation is not the same thing as wanting to change your gender
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 8:42 PM on June 27, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 8:42 PM on June 27, 2018 [6 favorites]
Had a (dead accurate) feeling who this was gonna be about before I clicked through...
posted by atoxyl at 8:50 PM on June 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by atoxyl at 8:50 PM on June 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
Julia Serano addresses that belief, nixon's meatloaf: "Instead, they create a false dichotomy between 'transgender children' (i.e., those who maybe should/will ultimately transition) and 'gender non-conforming cisgender children' (who they fear are being misled into gender transition, and who they believe would lead happier lives not transitioning)."
I really do think the dichotomy is false and the reality is much more complicated than that and seems increasingly more complicated the more trans and non-binary people I encounter. There are plenty of people who are interested in medical transitions not necessarily because of bodily dysphoria because of social dysphoria, because other people assume that people with a certain type of body shouldn't act or shouldn't be treated in specific ways. No body exists in a vacuum.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:53 PM on June 27, 2018 [17 favorites]
I really do think the dichotomy is false and the reality is much more complicated than that and seems increasingly more complicated the more trans and non-binary people I encounter. There are plenty of people who are interested in medical transitions not necessarily because of bodily dysphoria because of social dysphoria, because other people assume that people with a certain type of body shouldn't act or shouldn't be treated in specific ways. No body exists in a vacuum.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:53 PM on June 27, 2018 [17 favorites]
tobascodagama - do they even intend to run the responses even make the print edition?
posted by Artw at 9:25 PM on June 27, 2018
posted by Artw at 9:25 PM on June 27, 2018
i'm saying the thing i said upthread as someone who is trans and is pretty well fine with people transitioning to or from whatever to whatever for whatever reason. i understand the rhetorical deployment of "GNC cis" as a fake ass alternative to transition. folks tried to roll people fuckin' about with gender presentation into the trans umbrella back in the late 90s early oughts and it didn't really work out
i agree with you that the boundaries between "trans" and "gender nonconforming" are fluid - they're highly dependent on context, both the context of the person doing their gender and how it's received in the communities they inhabit
and really, in the context of this article, i'm disgusted that the cis seem to think that it's so easy to transition and they need to make it harder, like i just finally went through with shit the last couple years because it's still expensive and destabilizing and these knuckleheads are like "oh goodness, the children are transing as a hot new trend" like in the blessed name of the christ child kiss my entire ass hole
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 9:29 PM on June 27, 2018 [7 favorites]
i agree with you that the boundaries between "trans" and "gender nonconforming" are fluid - they're highly dependent on context, both the context of the person doing their gender and how it's received in the communities they inhabit
and really, in the context of this article, i'm disgusted that the cis seem to think that it's so easy to transition and they need to make it harder, like i just finally went through with shit the last couple years because it's still expensive and destabilizing and these knuckleheads are like "oh goodness, the children are transing as a hot new trend" like in the blessed name of the christ child kiss my entire ass hole
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 9:29 PM on June 27, 2018 [7 favorites]
lmao (?) at this narcissistic piece of shit comparing trans writers and journalists to Israel/the IDF. I wish Harrow had leaked names.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 9:32 PM on June 27, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by moonlight on vermont at 9:32 PM on June 27, 2018 [6 favorites]
folks tried to roll people fuckin' about with gender presentation into the trans umbrella back in the late 90s early oughts and it didn't really work out
I'm a little scratching my head at this tbh bc I know plenty of people who identify in non-binary ways who say they're doing just that--that they're queering gender or having girl days or boy days or whatnot. Who call themselves not trans as in transitioning but trans as in "I don't identify how I was assigned." Which I feel like is one of the sticky wickets with the "detransitioning" crowd. That someone rolls back a medical transition doesn't mean they're cis.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:02 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm a little scratching my head at this tbh bc I know plenty of people who identify in non-binary ways who say they're doing just that--that they're queering gender or having girl days or boy days or whatnot. Who call themselves not trans as in transitioning but trans as in "I don't identify how I was assigned." Which I feel like is one of the sticky wickets with the "detransitioning" crowd. That someone rolls back a medical transition doesn't mean they're cis.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:02 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
There’s the gender you are, the gender you are assumed to be and the gender you aspire to be.
Sometimes all three line up.
posted by nikaspark at 10:12 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
Sometimes all three line up.
posted by nikaspark at 10:12 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
The only reason trans is even a thing is because cis people are conditioned to assume they are the the most correct gender.
posted by nikaspark at 10:13 PM on June 27, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by nikaspark at 10:13 PM on June 27, 2018 [7 favorites]
yeah also like, people regret nose jobs and hair plugs and shit more often than gender surg and yet somehow there's no moral panic around those interventions, almost as though there's intense cultural baggage around these medical interventions or something lol weird
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 10:29 PM on June 27, 2018 [17 favorites]
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 10:29 PM on June 27, 2018 [17 favorites]
I don't actually think the dichotomy between 'trans' and 'gender non-conforming' children is a false one, at least in the context of 'desistance' research because of the history and framing of the GID(C) diagnosis, which lumped "has clear opinions about their gender" together with "likes to play with trucks and that makes the parents uncomfortable", along with everything in between. No one in their right mind would ever have expected some of the "desisters" to transition and, lo and behold, they didn't.
I feared (probably rightfully) that I'd both never be accepted among boys as one of them nor ever get laid by them if I was myself.
I know you're speaking about your own experience, but, hi, I exist as a queer trans man attracted to men/man-adjacent people.
posted by hoyland at 3:21 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
I feared (probably rightfully) that I'd both never be accepted among boys as one of them nor ever get laid by them if I was myself.
I know you're speaking about your own experience, but, hi, I exist as a queer trans man attracted to men/man-adjacent people.
posted by hoyland at 3:21 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
It's like... I don't really know how to say this. I grew up to be trans*, but I feel intensely for the alternate universe cis me. That girl has every right to be the only Brownie who wears trousers and plays "boys'" baseball while being firmly a girl. No one's saying otherwise, but I feel a bit like we're so deeply wrapped in our own experiences that we've forgotten that kid exists.
*I'm in fact a tediously narrative-conforming trans person. Were I five today, someone would probably guess I was trans.
posted by hoyland at 3:34 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
*I'm in fact a tediously narrative-conforming trans person. Were I five today, someone would probably guess I was trans.
posted by hoyland at 3:34 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
There wasn't a word for me when I was growing up (genderfluid, non binary) and I still don't love those words. And I don't love the fight over my body, because I don't feel like I should use trans, because I'm not going from anything, to anything. Mostly my body is fine but incomplete, and I don't think hormones or surgery would help my body match the gender in my mind.
But I especially don't love motherfuckers like Jesse Singal taking advantage of the fact that a) some people stop pursuing transition because it's fucking hard to live in this world and b) people like me exist in this world, outside the binary and accepting the fact that my body will never be what my brain thinks it should be.
My wife is 100% so completely trans, and I saw her transformation from day 1 of the hormones. Before anything even started working-- she instantly relaxed. It was like she'd been walking on a bed of nails her whole life, and that shot helped her step off. But I also see her misery when she is accidentally misgendered, and her despair when she is *deliberately* misgendered. And I share her panic when one company stops producing the medications she needs and we have to scramble to find another one (with the aid of helpful pharmacists on Twitter, no less, because the pharmacists in person, in Indiana, are no use.)
She's in several support groups; the ages range from 15 to 75. Trans kids KNOW what they're getting into, better than anyone. They know how hard they are going to have to fight, their whole lives, to be who they really are. It's not a fad, and insurance (and lack of insurance) doesn't make this a lightswitch decision. Nobody wakes up one morning with a whim to transition. And even if they did, the medical barriers force a whim to become a long and careful consideration.
Nonbinary people exist; transgender people who are emotionally exhausted with all the trauma piled on them when they try to live their reality exist. And cisgender fuckwits like Jesse Singal using that against transgender people is an act of violence. I spit on his feet.
posted by headspace at 5:14 AM on June 28, 2018 [23 favorites]
But I especially don't love motherfuckers like Jesse Singal taking advantage of the fact that a) some people stop pursuing transition because it's fucking hard to live in this world and b) people like me exist in this world, outside the binary and accepting the fact that my body will never be what my brain thinks it should be.
My wife is 100% so completely trans, and I saw her transformation from day 1 of the hormones. Before anything even started working-- she instantly relaxed. It was like she'd been walking on a bed of nails her whole life, and that shot helped her step off. But I also see her misery when she is accidentally misgendered, and her despair when she is *deliberately* misgendered. And I share her panic when one company stops producing the medications she needs and we have to scramble to find another one (with the aid of helpful pharmacists on Twitter, no less, because the pharmacists in person, in Indiana, are no use.)
She's in several support groups; the ages range from 15 to 75. Trans kids KNOW what they're getting into, better than anyone. They know how hard they are going to have to fight, their whole lives, to be who they really are. It's not a fad, and insurance (and lack of insurance) doesn't make this a lightswitch decision. Nobody wakes up one morning with a whim to transition. And even if they did, the medical barriers force a whim to become a long and careful consideration.
Nonbinary people exist; transgender people who are emotionally exhausted with all the trauma piled on them when they try to live their reality exist. And cisgender fuckwits like Jesse Singal using that against transgender people is an act of violence. I spit on his feet.
posted by headspace at 5:14 AM on June 28, 2018 [23 favorites]
I didn’t mean to threadjack wih the nb stuff, but the point of the tweets I quoted wasn’t to say that every GNC cis kid is in the trans umbrella (which hasn’t actually been canceled?) or that cis kids should have stereotypical gendered behavior to qualify as cis. It was that transphobes like Singal are mislabeling nonbinary populations as cis and gender-nonconforming because they aren’t interested in binary legal/medical/social transition, or they try HRT and it isn’t right for them, or any other behavior that gets categorized as “desisting.” These nonbinary people are pissed that their experience of gender is being weaponized against binary trans people as a way to prop up medical gatekeeping, especially against binary trans children.
Back to the main topic—, the language that listserv is really chilling, not just because of the transphobia but also because of how predictable it is. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen this pattern of a majority population dismissing the preeminent writer or scholar in a minority field as some kind of stubborn radical crank, the way these people are constantly rolling their eyes and copping an attitude about Julia Serano. And that dismissal is usually for the same reason: not only do they not think minority populations they despise are qualified to write about themselves, but they can sense that the person is writing for their community, not for the cis/white/male/hegemonic gaze or for their approval. And of course that has to be squashed. Again, I really wish Harron hadn’t blacked out those names.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 5:20 AM on June 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
Back to the main topic—, the language that listserv is really chilling, not just because of the transphobia but also because of how predictable it is. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen this pattern of a majority population dismissing the preeminent writer or scholar in a minority field as some kind of stubborn radical crank, the way these people are constantly rolling their eyes and copping an attitude about Julia Serano. And that dismissal is usually for the same reason: not only do they not think minority populations they despise are qualified to write about themselves, but they can sense that the person is writing for their community, not for the cis/white/male/hegemonic gaze or for their approval. And of course that has to be squashed. Again, I really wish Harron hadn’t blacked out those names.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 5:20 AM on June 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
The Julia Serano article is excellent, very informative and well laid out.
I'd also highly recommend ContraPoints videos on trans/gender stuff. Thanks Metafilter!
posted by Erberus at 5:27 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'd also highly recommend ContraPoints videos on trans/gender stuff. Thanks Metafilter!
posted by Erberus at 5:27 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
The listserv, per its “About” page, aims to provide an “off-the-record discussion forum for left-of-center journalists, authors, academics and wonks.” It has been around for at least eight years (I found discussion posts dating back as far as 2010), and has just over 400 members (403 at the time of this writing). These members include New York Times best-selling authors, Ivy League academics, magazine editors, and other public intellectuals—in short, a lot of important people who influence public discourse through their written work."I wonder if this is the Cabalist list. While the topics are different, the comfortably-blinkered status-quo apologism described in the link reminds me of the way Doug Henwood has described that list (e.g. here).
posted by enn at 5:39 AM on June 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
(I want to add a little more stuff to a previous comment in case it’s not clear)
When I said “trans is only a thing because cis people think they are the most correct gender” I am talking about the contemporary narrative of trans people in relation to dominant cis power. I myself squarely fall into that trans definition, I also fall into a non binary definition. And when I go months and months without being misgendered then I fall into the cis definition.
There are two important things here: what makes me fall into the trans label is not solely relational to cis people existing. There are parts of who I am which fall under the trans label that exist absolutely, regardless of the label that fundamentally required GRS and HRT as a basic human right. The name and gender marker and pronoun changes etc had to be made because how cis people assume everyone is cis at birth and try to indelibly stamp you with some fixed state. For as long as cis people do that, name changes, gender marker changes, etc are a fundamental human right. Maybe in a world where cis people didn’t assume everyone was cis at birth we could have a world where we viewed self determination of gender and pronouns as a basic human right for everyone. But let’s get real that’s hundreds of years away if ever.
The fundamental aspect of my relationship with my body that requires the medical care I received would be required in any culture with any gender construct, because my body simply doesn’t match up right with itself.
The medical care I require to live has fuck all to do with gender politics, misogyny or cis people being so afraid of NOT being the most correct form of gender that they gatekeep the fuck out of who can be “trans” or not.
Secondly: what I had to go through to get the label “trans” applied to me so that I could get the care and help I needed was and is still dictated by cis people. And that was a whole other layer of shit my words had to peal through in order to be heard. And it still, 5 years after first coming out, sucks.
So that’s a little more nuance behind my previous comment.
posted by nikaspark at 6:05 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
When I said “trans is only a thing because cis people think they are the most correct gender” I am talking about the contemporary narrative of trans people in relation to dominant cis power. I myself squarely fall into that trans definition, I also fall into a non binary definition. And when I go months and months without being misgendered then I fall into the cis definition.
There are two important things here: what makes me fall into the trans label is not solely relational to cis people existing. There are parts of who I am which fall under the trans label that exist absolutely, regardless of the label that fundamentally required GRS and HRT as a basic human right. The name and gender marker and pronoun changes etc had to be made because how cis people assume everyone is cis at birth and try to indelibly stamp you with some fixed state. For as long as cis people do that, name changes, gender marker changes, etc are a fundamental human right. Maybe in a world where cis people didn’t assume everyone was cis at birth we could have a world where we viewed self determination of gender and pronouns as a basic human right for everyone. But let’s get real that’s hundreds of years away if ever.
The fundamental aspect of my relationship with my body that requires the medical care I received would be required in any culture with any gender construct, because my body simply doesn’t match up right with itself.
The medical care I require to live has fuck all to do with gender politics, misogyny or cis people being so afraid of NOT being the most correct form of gender that they gatekeep the fuck out of who can be “trans” or not.
Secondly: what I had to go through to get the label “trans” applied to me so that I could get the care and help I needed was and is still dictated by cis people. And that was a whole other layer of shit my words had to peal through in order to be heard. And it still, 5 years after first coming out, sucks.
So that’s a little more nuance behind my previous comment.
posted by nikaspark at 6:05 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
There’s the gender you are, the gender you are assumed to be and the gender you aspire to be.
Sometimes there's not even that. I've long wondered if some of these detransition narratives are people who just don't have strong gender identities in any direction who are hoping that if they don't feel anything about being what they're presumed to be that they'll have something more like a traditional gender identity if they identify as something else. Even "nonbinary" does not feel like the right box to be in for this sort of thing. I won't rule out that I might have feelings about this sort of thing at some point in my life, but I haven't so far. The presumption that there ought to be an identity of some kind that you have feelings about, I think, does not help this kind of thing for young people, but that doesn't invalidate at all doing something for the ones who really do have stronger opinions on the matter.
posted by Sequence at 6:06 AM on June 28, 2018 [8 favorites]
Sometimes there's not even that. I've long wondered if some of these detransition narratives are people who just don't have strong gender identities in any direction who are hoping that if they don't feel anything about being what they're presumed to be that they'll have something more like a traditional gender identity if they identify as something else. Even "nonbinary" does not feel like the right box to be in for this sort of thing. I won't rule out that I might have feelings about this sort of thing at some point in my life, but I haven't so far. The presumption that there ought to be an identity of some kind that you have feelings about, I think, does not help this kind of thing for young people, but that doesn't invalidate at all doing something for the ones who really do have stronger opinions on the matter.
posted by Sequence at 6:06 AM on June 28, 2018 [8 favorites]
Well sequence, for me those three are:
The gender I am: I have no idea
The gender I am assumed to be: woman
The gender I aspire to be: no gender at all
So I think I may be somewhat nearly the person you are describing.
posted by nikaspark at 6:09 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
The gender I am: I have no idea
The gender I am assumed to be: woman
The gender I aspire to be: no gender at all
So I think I may be somewhat nearly the person you are describing.
posted by nikaspark at 6:09 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
And that dismissal is usually for the same reason: not only do they not think minority populations they despise are qualified to write about themselves, but they can sense that the person is writing for their community, not for the cis/white/male/hegemonic gaze or for their approval.
Somewhat apropos, I've been reading The Celluoid Closet, Vito Russo's 1987 book on the history of same-sex desire in Hollywood films and I'm continuing to be struck by the degree to which all the narratives of contempt and fear and condescension written around gays and lesbians through the 20th century sound like the current cishet discourse around trans identities.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:17 AM on June 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
Somewhat apropos, I've been reading The Celluoid Closet, Vito Russo's 1987 book on the history of same-sex desire in Hollywood films and I'm continuing to be struck by the degree to which all the narratives of contempt and fear and condescension written around gays and lesbians through the 20th century sound like the current cishet discourse around trans identities.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:17 AM on June 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
I know you're speaking about your own experience, but, hi, I exist as a queer trans man attracted to men/man-adjacent people.
Yes, I was talking about my own experience, and particularly my own experience as, like, a fourteen year old. I know that this perspective as wrong, but it certainly didn't feel it when I was immersed in straight society. Or really, honestly, in gay male society, either, which could be super duper phallocentric.
(Ironically my marriage to a cis, straight-identifying guy has been pretty great across gender changes. You wouldn't think it would work, since I'm basically an alpha top and so is he, but somehow, it does.)
Sometimes there's not even that. I've long wondered if some of these detransition narratives are people who just don't have strong gender identities in any direction who are hoping that if they don't feel anything about being what they're presumed to be that they'll have something more like a traditional gender identity if they identify as something else.
There are enough detransition stories on youtube to show that it's a diverse experience. Some people are now conservative Christians, so that's simple enough, but some people were unhappy with their outcomes on T/as people who never quite passed for male and some are people who believe gender is a complete social construct and so that identifying as male was just playing into that construct and some have social dysphoria because of our misogynistic society that wasn't alleviated by becoming male either. None of these seem like "cis" narratives to me though and it's extra shitty that they're being used to prop up transphobic frameworks.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:20 AM on June 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
Yes, I was talking about my own experience, and particularly my own experience as, like, a fourteen year old. I know that this perspective as wrong, but it certainly didn't feel it when I was immersed in straight society. Or really, honestly, in gay male society, either, which could be super duper phallocentric.
(Ironically my marriage to a cis, straight-identifying guy has been pretty great across gender changes. You wouldn't think it would work, since I'm basically an alpha top and so is he, but somehow, it does.)
Sometimes there's not even that. I've long wondered if some of these detransition narratives are people who just don't have strong gender identities in any direction who are hoping that if they don't feel anything about being what they're presumed to be that they'll have something more like a traditional gender identity if they identify as something else.
There are enough detransition stories on youtube to show that it's a diverse experience. Some people are now conservative Christians, so that's simple enough, but some people were unhappy with their outcomes on T/as people who never quite passed for male and some are people who believe gender is a complete social construct and so that identifying as male was just playing into that construct and some have social dysphoria because of our misogynistic society that wasn't alleviated by becoming male either. None of these seem like "cis" narratives to me though and it's extra shitty that they're being used to prop up transphobic frameworks.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:20 AM on June 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
That made it clear to me that The Atlantic is just as brogressive as the NYT.
I've been reading The Atlantic off and on for 30 years and it's always been devoted to a certain kind of socially liberal-meets-center/right/status-quo consensus. They've published some fine writers and insightful work, but they've always in my lifetime been practically the embodiment of "the establishment." Which, fine, there's a place for that. What I think is a shame is how, over the last decade or so, they've cultivated more of a #slatepitchy, clickbaity style of "intellectual" tabloidism. Singal and his work is of a piece with all that.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:08 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
I've been reading The Atlantic off and on for 30 years and it's always been devoted to a certain kind of socially liberal-meets-center/right/status-quo consensus. They've published some fine writers and insightful work, but they've always in my lifetime been practically the embodiment of "the establishment." Which, fine, there's a place for that. What I think is a shame is how, over the last decade or so, they've cultivated more of a #slatepitchy, clickbaity style of "intellectual" tabloidism. Singal and his work is of a piece with all that.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:08 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
I wonder if this is the Cabalist list.
Timeline makes sense, because that started around 2010 after its predecessor "Journolist" (started by Ezra Klein I believe) was "exposed" - at the time the controversy being that they were too rough on right-wingers.
posted by atoxyl at 8:47 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Timeline makes sense, because that started around 2010 after its predecessor "Journolist" (started by Ezra Klein I believe) was "exposed" - at the time the controversy being that they were too rough on right-wingers.
posted by atoxyl at 8:47 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Probably not even really a single kind of person, nikaspark, and I hope you didn't take that as some kind of disagreement, more just adding to make it affirmatively clear that not only are all these things variable about "what" but also about "how much".
posted by Sequence at 8:52 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Sequence at 8:52 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Couple comments removed, I have zero patience for this shit today.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:08 AM on June 28, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:08 AM on June 28, 2018 [13 favorites]
Jesse, trans people can be scientifically literate. They can go to college, get masters degrees in public policy, become journalists (or even *gasp* scientists themselves!) They can read, interpret, analyze, and synthesize scientific works. Unlike cis journalists, they can speak about the trans experience BOTH personally and scientifically (if those two things even are different.)
Also, I am unpleasantly surprised by the deafening silence from people I *know* used to be on Journolist and I *thought* were trans allies.
posted by muddgirl at 9:32 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
Also, I am unpleasantly surprised by the deafening silence from people I *know* used to be on Journolist and I *thought* were trans allies.
posted by muddgirl at 9:32 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
the circumstances of our lives are cocktail party speculation material to them.
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 9:45 AM on June 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 9:45 AM on June 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
I love this part of one of his emails to the listserv:
"At the end of the day, the piece relays a genuine clinical controversy and presents, in a
positive light, (properly diagnosed) 16-year-olds getting top surgery. This is a position far
to the left of most of the American public on this issue, and I adopted it not out of some
misguided desire to be seen as a trans ally, but because I think it's humane and supported by the research. If people view this sort of approach as a stalking horse for transphobia I don't know what to tell them."
Where do you even start with this (maybe with the "properly diagnosed" dog-whistle?)? Note, for one, his complete devotion to a presumed-cis publikum. Second, the claim that he adopted his position "not out of some misguided desire to be seen as a trans ally"; he lays himself bare here, so bare he's almost pitifully naked. Yes, it would be so awful to have a desire to be an ally to a marginalized class of people without the affirmation of the discourse of science. Someone please tell him about Adorno and Horkheimer. Or Foucault. Or something. Just give this guy a fucking book written by a cis white dude and let him sort this out himself - of course he never will; he'll just keep getting paid to write this passivity-machine-drivel.
Later, in another email, he writes this:
"I'm KNOWN as someone who 'harasses trans women,' despite a lack of a single
screenshot, anywhere, showing me actually harassing a trans woman (as opposed to,
like, disagreeing with them about something online). As someone who has far more
bizarre and awful and malicious shit spread about you online than I ever will, [name
redacted], I hope you can empathize a little with how that feels."
He might ostensibly be directing his comments to one person here, but it's oh-so-obvious the rest of the listserv is supposed to read this and chuckle along.
Oh, and there is this gem:
"There is a dearth of good information about gender dysphoria out there."
What do you even say to that? Oh, I know: fuck right off!
posted by lilies.lilies at 10:00 AM on June 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
"At the end of the day, the piece relays a genuine clinical controversy and presents, in a
positive light, (properly diagnosed) 16-year-olds getting top surgery. This is a position far
to the left of most of the American public on this issue, and I adopted it not out of some
misguided desire to be seen as a trans ally, but because I think it's humane and supported by the research. If people view this sort of approach as a stalking horse for transphobia I don't know what to tell them."
Where do you even start with this (maybe with the "properly diagnosed" dog-whistle?)? Note, for one, his complete devotion to a presumed-cis publikum. Second, the claim that he adopted his position "not out of some misguided desire to be seen as a trans ally"; he lays himself bare here, so bare he's almost pitifully naked. Yes, it would be so awful to have a desire to be an ally to a marginalized class of people without the affirmation of the discourse of science. Someone please tell him about Adorno and Horkheimer. Or Foucault. Or something. Just give this guy a fucking book written by a cis white dude and let him sort this out himself - of course he never will; he'll just keep getting paid to write this passivity-machine-drivel.
Later, in another email, he writes this:
"I'm KNOWN as someone who 'harasses trans women,' despite a lack of a single
screenshot, anywhere, showing me actually harassing a trans woman (as opposed to,
like, disagreeing with them about something online). As someone who has far more
bizarre and awful and malicious shit spread about you online than I ever will, [name
redacted], I hope you can empathize a little with how that feels."
He might ostensibly be directing his comments to one person here, but it's oh-so-obvious the rest of the listserv is supposed to read this and chuckle along.
Oh, and there is this gem:
"There is a dearth of good information about gender dysphoria out there."
What do you even say to that? Oh, I know: fuck right off!
posted by lilies.lilies at 10:00 AM on June 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
Oh, and the idea that trans people's lives - policed and gatekept as they are - are a "beat" is horrific and demeaning, even infantilizing.
posted by lilies.lilies at 10:10 AM on June 28, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by lilies.lilies at 10:10 AM on June 28, 2018 [12 favorites]
Yeah, that's some "the author and his pygmy friends" bullshit, right there.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:33 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by octobersurprise at 10:33 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
I get the impression from twitter that a lot of independent journos are legitimately afraid of criticizing Singal because he has a lot of industry contacts, zero chill, and no boundaries. But that just leaves trans voices to face the brunt of his silencing techniques.
posted by muddgirl at 11:42 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 11:42 AM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
I identify as a cis bi male. I think. I've definitely questioned whether I'm suppressing something gender-wise, especially given how severely I policed my mannerisms, tone of voice, etc, as a closeted gay-identified adolescent growing up in a very homophobic environment. Discovering I'm pretty darn bi -- after having only occasionally suspected it for about 2 decades -- has definitely given me pause in this regard.
But for the moment, I think I land on the cis side of things and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate what I've learned from this thread. Thank you so much for having this conversation here.
And, yeah, fuck that guy and his fucking "beat".
posted by treepour at 11:56 AM on June 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
But for the moment, I think I land on the cis side of things and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate what I've learned from this thread. Thank you so much for having this conversation here.
And, yeah, fuck that guy and his fucking "beat".
posted by treepour at 11:56 AM on June 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
(Also instead of writing my first comment I should have elevated this twitter thread from Julia Serano, PhD. Biology where she makes the same point, but better.)
posted by muddgirl at 11:56 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 11:56 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
I want a new word to describe me because “trans” is becoming loaded hot garbage for cis people to use against us.
posted by nikaspark at 12:56 PM on June 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by nikaspark at 12:56 PM on June 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
I still can't get over the fact that this guy has a career writing about trans people and his sole credential is "I am really shit at writing about trans people."
"I really want this to be my Thing and you can't stop me, god damn it!"
posted by atoxyl at 1:37 PM on June 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
"I really want this to be my Thing and you can't stop me, god damn it!"
posted by atoxyl at 1:37 PM on June 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
I still can't get over the fact that this guy has a career writing about trans people and his sole credential is "I am really shit at writing about trans people."
I suspect that's considered more a feature than a bug by a lot of these authors and the outlets which publish them. It's an easily exploitable topic, good for clicks, and one that lends itself to all kinds of posturing and hand-wringing over an array of issues. And to largely cishet audiences it's possible to do all this and still pretend to be "reasonable" and "liberal" merely by approaching the topic at all.
Honestly, all these people, the Singals, Linehans, Friedersdorfs, et al., are the Joseph Epsteins of our day. And by 2063, should any of them still be around, they'll be writing like Epstein did
posted by octobersurprise at 6:58 AM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I suspect that's considered more a feature than a bug by a lot of these authors and the outlets which publish them. It's an easily exploitable topic, good for clicks, and one that lends itself to all kinds of posturing and hand-wringing over an array of issues. And to largely cishet audiences it's possible to do all this and still pretend to be "reasonable" and "liberal" merely by approaching the topic at all.
Honestly, all these people, the Singals, Linehans, Friedersdorfs, et al., are the Joseph Epsteins of our day. And by 2063, should any of them still be around, they'll be writing like Epstein did
" ... My only hope now is that, on my gravestone, the words Notedand congratulating themselves on their good sense.HomoTransphobe aren’t carved."
posted by octobersurprise at 6:58 AM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
(And it's interesting, apropos Epstein, that he coined the word "virtucrat"—I once had a professor who loved using that word—which he apparently used in the same way that "SJW" is used today. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.)
posted by octobersurprise at 7:12 AM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by octobersurprise at 7:12 AM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
people who believe gender is a complete social construct and so that identifying as male was just playing into that construct and some have social dysphoria because of our misogynistic society that wasn't alleviated by becoming male either. None of these seem like "cis" narratives to me though and it's extra shitty that they're being used to prop up transphobic frameworks.
Serious question. I am a woman and the above statement basically touches on something I've felt. I've always been sexually attracted to men so I just kind of thought that was cis, but as far as friendships and interest and hobbies and how i carry myself and how i felt like i fit in society, and interact i never really felt like I fit the girl mold, but i also didn't fit the boy mode, nor did i have any desire to fit either or any mold of gender things to be honest. So if i am happy with my physical body, attracted to others with the male physical body, but gender constructs, stereotypes, molds, whatever don't matter to me and I aspire to be free of them, what is the current term for that? It seems that gender terms have grown and gotten more cerebral and away from the physical body aspect since i last gave it deep thought.
posted by WeekendJen at 1:29 PM on June 29, 2018
Serious question. I am a woman and the above statement basically touches on something I've felt. I've always been sexually attracted to men so I just kind of thought that was cis, but as far as friendships and interest and hobbies and how i carry myself and how i felt like i fit in society, and interact i never really felt like I fit the girl mold, but i also didn't fit the boy mode, nor did i have any desire to fit either or any mold of gender things to be honest. So if i am happy with my physical body, attracted to others with the male physical body, but gender constructs, stereotypes, molds, whatever don't matter to me and I aspire to be free of them, what is the current term for that? It seems that gender terms have grown and gotten more cerebral and away from the physical body aspect since i last gave it deep thought.
posted by WeekendJen at 1:29 PM on June 29, 2018
Under my three ways of putting it i see it as:
Gender you are: non binary
Gender you are assumed to be: cis woman
Gender you aspire to be: ?
I’d say “cis presenting non binary” is a thing that’s allowed to be a thing.
posted by nikaspark at 2:09 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
Gender you are: non binary
Gender you are assumed to be: cis woman
Gender you aspire to be: ?
I’d say “cis presenting non binary” is a thing that’s allowed to be a thing.
posted by nikaspark at 2:09 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
(Also agender is a thing too and I think I may aspire to be that?)
posted by nikaspark at 2:31 PM on June 29, 2018
posted by nikaspark at 2:31 PM on June 29, 2018
So if i am happy with my physical body, attracted to others with the male physical body, but gender constructs, stereotypes, molds, whatever don't matter to me and I aspire to be free of them, what is the current term for that?
Honestly? I think that might be called being a cis person who has thought about how gender functions in society. The further I become removed from transition, the less I strongly I feel about my gender, which leads me to suspect that's the experience of many cis people.
However, "what is about my actual gender and what is about society" is something that plagues afab people in particular and something that is very hard to articulate. You've written a single paragraph that I've read as "I think gendered expectations of me are bullshit", and I could easily be wrong in my reading. Of course, one could argue that if binary/non-binary is a false binary (and is kind of what I'm inclined to do, as neither group seems to want me), then so is trans/cis.
posted by hoyland at 3:36 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
Honestly? I think that might be called being a cis person who has thought about how gender functions in society. The further I become removed from transition, the less I strongly I feel about my gender, which leads me to suspect that's the experience of many cis people.
However, "what is about my actual gender and what is about society" is something that plagues afab people in particular and something that is very hard to articulate. You've written a single paragraph that I've read as "I think gendered expectations of me are bullshit", and I could easily be wrong in my reading. Of course, one could argue that if binary/non-binary is a false binary (and is kind of what I'm inclined to do, as neither group seems to want me), then so is trans/cis.
posted by hoyland at 3:36 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I believe trans/cis is a required binary so long as cis people think being cis is some biological fact and trans people are identifying as something.
After enough cis people figure out their gender is just as constructed as anything else and the entire structure of civilization begins to reflect that awareness then yeah, the cis/trans binary can be retired.
That will happen in eleventy-thousand years or so.
posted by nikaspark at 4:22 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
After enough cis people figure out their gender is just as constructed as anything else and the entire structure of civilization begins to reflect that awareness then yeah, the cis/trans binary can be retired.
That will happen in eleventy-thousand years or so.
posted by nikaspark at 4:22 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
I think I mean mostly that I don't know if it's a particularly helpful framework through which to discuss experiences of gender. (I don't actually know what I mean.) I identify very strongly as trans, but, at the same time, a lot of the things people use to define/explain 'trans-ness' no longer apply to me and yet my experience is fundamentally not that of a cis person.
posted by hoyland at 4:50 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by hoyland at 4:50 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
I totally get what you mean, I’m pretty much assumed to be a cis person everywhere I go these days. I’ve started trying resolve that tension inside me by thinking of gender as not fixed, that our lived gender experience orbits an external perception and an internal feeling that never quite lines up with how you are expected to “be”, motivated by a neverending yearning to get those two states closer aligned. That to me is something everyone feels in more or less degrees in some examined or unexamined capacity and cis/trans is an easy and pretty damn surprisingly effective shorthand for a lot of trans and non binary people, but like all shorthands go, the terms fail to completely enumerate the space people like you and I move in.
I have no idea how to work more nuance into it and I’m pretty much resolved to be a kind of occulted identity, walking the earth like a living ghost, mostly imagined and largely unseen.
posted by nikaspark at 5:14 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have no idea how to work more nuance into it and I’m pretty much resolved to be a kind of occulted identity, walking the earth like a living ghost, mostly imagined and largely unseen.
posted by nikaspark at 5:14 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I am a woman and the above statement basically touches on something I've felt [...]So if i am happy with my physical body, attracted to others with the male physical body, but gender constructs, stereotypes, molds, whatever don't matter to me and I aspire to be free of them, what is the current term for that?
tentatively feminist heterosexual. tfh woman, specifically. there isn't a catchy one-word specialty term for it because it's like 60-70 percent of the women in my fairly typical major metropolitan area. cis women and trans women alike.
I am not part of that vast majority because stereotypes matter to me a lot (because they are oppressive and offensive to all people in stereotyped groups, whether they individually appear to exhibit stereotyped traits or not.) speaking of that:
but as far as friendships and interest and hobbies
not having the same interests and hobbies as certain other women -- not feeling like one imagines other women might feel -- is an entirely distinct thing from not feeling like (not being) a woman. of course a person can feel both ways simultaneously, and only you know whether you do. but being a freethinking disliker of stereotypes is not indicative of any particular gender identity unless you are prepared to be really radically sexist in a way I think you are not.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:17 PM on June 29, 2018
tentatively feminist heterosexual. tfh woman, specifically. there isn't a catchy one-word specialty term for it because it's like 60-70 percent of the women in my fairly typical major metropolitan area. cis women and trans women alike.
I am not part of that vast majority because stereotypes matter to me a lot (because they are oppressive and offensive to all people in stereotyped groups, whether they individually appear to exhibit stereotyped traits or not.) speaking of that:
but as far as friendships and interest and hobbies
not having the same interests and hobbies as certain other women -- not feeling like one imagines other women might feel -- is an entirely distinct thing from not feeling like (not being) a woman. of course a person can feel both ways simultaneously, and only you know whether you do. but being a freethinking disliker of stereotypes is not indicative of any particular gender identity unless you are prepared to be really radically sexist in a way I think you are not.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:17 PM on June 29, 2018
I would the media to have a commitment to having more trans people involved in the production of works on trans people. “No discussion of us without us” seems like a reasonable guideline for all marginalized groups.
posted by shothotbot at 8:12 AM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by shothotbot at 8:12 AM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
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I haven't read this stuff yet but good fucking luck with that, because trans people are absolutely everywhere and it's not as if they're always super obvious. You're speaking to them directly whether you like it or not, deal with it.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:49 PM on June 27, 2018 [24 favorites]