In light of many recent studies, I don't think one can claim that gender roles/differences are a complete fabrication of societal conditioning. Sure society reinforces some roles (some which have little to no basis in biology), but there are biological differences in the brains and behaviors of men and women. As such, I don't see why it is hard to grasp that some people's mental state can be mismatched with their physical sex. We have all types of sexual mosaicisms rising from developmental factors after conception. Why would the brain be immune?
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What Is a Woman? The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism.
- Thread starter benjipwns
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From the little I can understand from these people, it seems their end game is to do away with "men" and "women" and have just genderless "persons", where having a vagina or a penis is treated no different than being right-handed or left-handed and everybody dresses, and behaves more or less like men currently do because feminine things are a construct to brand vagina-owners as a lower sub-caste.
It comes from the anthropocentric view that humans are not animals and the brain operates in a higher plane of existence, completely immune to biological imperatives. Some radical LGBT circles are also guilty of this when they propose that the majority of the population is heterosexual and cis-gendered solely because of society constructs. Which makes me wonder how did the human species even manage to reproduce when we didn't have all the social constructs that artificially push a large percentage of people to be attracted to the opposite sex.
Different women also had very, very different experiences growing up, i don't get this reasoning, beyond the mere (and empty) phylosophical angle.
Sure we can agree that as a rule of thumb, all women will get the short end of the stick all around the world, to varying degrees, because we live in a sexist world that priviledges men, but i also don't see a transgender person as having any real tangible priviledge over anyone, though maybe i live in a particularly transphobic place.
Either way, seems like a useless attempt at leveraging hate and conflict based on ignorance, instead of using empathy to better things for everyone.
Right basically they are just saying that you are not really female if you are transgendered, because you were born male and have lived part of your life as a male. Everything else in that article is mostly political - the idea of birth right male privilege etc. I can agree with with that. The opposite would also be true, a woman would never know what it's like to be a man. They can learn to live like a man based on societal norms, but to actually 'be' a man is totally different thing. I can partly also agree with female's not being comfortable sharing toilets with transgendered people. Although I think going forward in the future unisex public toilets will be the norm rather than the exception as it is now. So they will have to learn to accept any changes society throws at them good or bad.
I disagree with the argument of a female brain. I don't think trangendered people actually know what it's like to feel like other females, given that their bodies aren't naturally set up for it. Their bodies don't naturally produce the right chemicals in the correct quantities and they are also not set up for child birth which is a huge part of womanhood in most cultures in the world. That maternal instinct and the perceptual feeling of being a woman is a natural consequence of the body's inherent hormonal & chemical production and the body's natural biological make up. Unfortunately those are the things you cannot change.
I disagree with the argument of a female brain. I don't think trangendered people actually know what it's like to feel like other females, given that their bodies aren't naturally set up for it. Their bodies don't naturally produce the right chemicals in the correct quantities and they are also not set up for child birth which is a huge part of womanhood in most cultures in the world. That maternal instinct and the perceptual feeling of being a woman is a natural consequence of the body's inherent hormonal & chemical production and the body's natural biological make up. Unfortunately those are the things you cannot change.
Prime crotch
Banned
fuck tumblr, fuck modern society to where it got, where you have to make a sub-sub-sub-sub-genre out of self identity; this is not a taxonomy exercise. terfs?! TERFS?! and i thought it was dumb when there were more than a brand of skinheads
T
Transhuman
Unconfirmed Member
It's funny that they're trying to kick transgender women out of being able to call themselves women because they "don't suffer", because when it comes to social ostracism and suffering trans-people have it a whole fucking lot worse.
sixteen-bit
Member
Yep.
Turf wars broke out on Wikipedia over this. There's a set of trans advocates who refuse to believe there are transgendered people who have a fetish, and say that they're lying. The irony of them deciding who is and who is not a transsexual is pretty palpable.
The TERF thing is interesting insofar as I think they have some sound points but their conclusions are completely warped. Men are the problem and so everything has been filtered and concentrated through that--so they're attacking people you'd think would be their ally.
Very close to 'infertile women are not women'.
Edit: Also, someone like Buck Angel would make plenty of women more nervous than a thanswoman would.
Omegasquash
Member
Seems to me that one group of people doesn't want another group of people to associate with them for reasons that, at their core, are exclusionary for the sake of exclusivity.
That doesn't sit well with me.
That doesn't sit well with me.
HRT doesn't give you a natural balance. Progesterone and Oestrogen interact differently with the body when they are not produced naturally.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
This. I don't agree with it, but I understand how these women who feel that their womanhood is in large part defined by the way society has treated them now feel that that is being appropriated. Its absolutely insensitive to the realities of dysphoria, but its a bit more complicated then "trans people are icky"
First I've heard of this though. I thought the underpinning of transgenderism was dysphoria? Can someone more knowledgable enlighten me?
Infertile women have the biological make up to have children.
Jedeye Sniv
Banned
I want to understand and to be an ally to feminists and transfolk alike but jesus fuck that OP is complicated. I don't even know how to form a coherent thought about it. Terfs should stop being assholes is about as far as I got.
Being a woman sounds super complicated, I'm so happy I have male privilege.
Being a woman sounds super complicated, I'm so happy I have male privilege.
Cool ! I know more trans women than I imagined ! =D
OldAsUrSock
Banned
I am a dog. Pet me.
So they actually reject science.
http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ
Don't. Just don't.
ab.aeterno
Member
Well, since you just summarily dismissed the entire notion of transgenderism and its existence by equating biological sex with gender, then yes. Your view is incredibly troublesome.
What a thoroughly absurd position. It's as if all those years of suffering didn't teach them a single thing. Statements like this just give anti-feminists more ammunition. This is why I have trouble even debating with extremists. I will not legitimize their position by attempting to counter it.
The Elite
BOSS
A few years ago I assumed we would be moving towards a society with less labels and more fluidity between sexes and races. Yeah, that was stupid of me. I think we will still get there though, it's just going to take a few hundred years.
I think the current state of society is obsessed with labelling and compartmentalizing everything.
If someone wants to be a man, let them be a man, and vice versa. I honestly don't feel the need to go out of my way to shit on what they want.
I wouldn't take all of that as gospel - there are a lot of flaws when it comes to research of male and female brain differences and skills, and it's still a subject of contentious debate. I am particularly sceptical of ridiculous statements such as this:
I do think though that gender identity (one's personal, inner sense of being male, female or neither) and sexuality are mostly, if not entirely, innate, as I mentioned earlier. For instance, I did not make the choice to be bisexual any more than another person chose to be straight.
#notallscotsmen
My point was that there are differences between male + female brains. Some even occur during the development of the fetus. Which means saying that there are either no differences at all between male + female brains or saying that all differences are caused by "society" is simply silly and factually wrong.
You may call conclusions of researchers silly or ridiculous, but this doesn't make the physical differences go away.
That makes sense. But I would go further and ask why is that so. I mean: what exactly is different?
That's a different topic and also has nothing to do with brain differences between genders.
Anyway: Was there research done about brains of transgender people? I assume that a transgender male, who was born as a female (I hope that this is the proper way to say it) has a "female brain", because that was probably caused by sex hormones like the rest of the body differences. But who knows, maybe it's the other way. It would be quite interesting to know.
Radfems suck. They're basically feminists who completely missed the boat on queer theory, trans feminism, intersectionality, sex-positive feminism, and poststructuralist feminism, and now exist as a sort of frustrating confirmation bias-inducing version of the worst stereotypes of feminists.
Also, while there are differences in male and female brains (most notably size, which creates differences in structure as a large brain is not just a small brain scaled up), we know very little about how those differences translate to differences in behavior or thought processes or aptitudes. I made a topic about it last year, and the article is very good.
Also, while there are differences in male and female brains (most notably size, which creates differences in structure as a large brain is not just a small brain scaled up), we know very little about how those differences translate to differences in behavior or thought processes or aptitudes. I made a topic about it last year, and the article is very good.
It can't be true that both physical differences in the brains are a result of ritualized submission and trans women have a choice, because trans women, even prior to transitioning, have brains which have been observed to more closely resemble that of biological females, in terms of physical characteristics and neurological activity and responses to stimuli.
If trans women have a choice, then physical brain differences can't be a result of "ritualized submission," because they would have had male privilege, and not been subject to the "ritualized submission"
If physical brain differences are a result of ritualized submission, then trans women don't have a choice, but are males who have been victimized into a gender identity form of stockholm syndrome.
The views of these radical feminists have managed to be offensive and insulting to every human being, whether they be female, male, trans, cis, androgynous, or anything else. It takes quite a bit of talent to achieve that when you're trying to come off as nuanced.
But what of trans women who don't have those subtle differences of white matter in the brain other trans women do, does that disqualify their gender identity? This is the problem with essentialist arguments, particularly those of biology. A person's gender identity is a complex entity - it isn't based on or built from one single thing.
Brawly Likes to Brawl
Member
Its really depressing whenever someone who belongs to an oppressed minority tries to downplay the suffering of another for some reason. As a black gay man, I've seen my share of awkward conversations comparing the civil rights movements of the black and homosexual communities.
Edit: I'm guessing she considers FtMs "traitors"?
Edit: I'm guessing she considers FtMs "traitors"?
These so-called radical feminists are taking the easy way out by not facing the contradictions in their own beliefs.
As it happens, they are contradictions that I share. On the one hand, I'm a neuroskeptic. The idea that details of brain organization have predictable and consistent effects on behaviour or identity strikes me as backwards and facile. The concept of biologically-based gender dysmorphia seems to fall into the same category.
On the other hand, it is my default position to trust and believe people when they talk about their own feelings, and I absolutely trust and believe transgender people when they talk about something as deep and important to them as gender identity. It would be arrogant to just deny another person's feelings.
How do reasonable people resolve these kinds of contradiction? By adopting the default position of respecting and empathizing with people, even when they can't understand them. That's what I try to do. Not doing that, and just bashing the people who have exposed your contradiction, is emotionally immature and weak-minded.
As it happens, they are contradictions that I share. On the one hand, I'm a neuroskeptic. The idea that details of brain organization have predictable and consistent effects on behaviour or identity strikes me as backwards and facile. The concept of biologically-based gender dysmorphia seems to fall into the same category.
On the other hand, it is my default position to trust and believe people when they talk about their own feelings, and I absolutely trust and believe transgender people when they talk about something as deep and important to them as gender identity. It would be arrogant to just deny another person's feelings.
How do reasonable people resolve these kinds of contradiction? By adopting the default position of respecting and empathizing with people, even when they can't understand them. That's what I try to do. Not doing that, and just bashing the people who have exposed your contradiction, is emotionally immature and weak-minded.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
This is an interesting read at least from the standpoint of seeing two marginalized groups at complete odds over different interpretations of what superficially to an outside observer might be considered the same identity.
Personally I try to approach every situation remembering that everyone is a minority of one, you will never know what it's like to be anyone but yourself, and if you're actually interested in understanding what it's like to be someone else, ask them. People, even bigots, are too complicated to assume much of anything, at least if your goals are constructive.
Personally I try to approach every situation remembering that everyone is a minority of one, you will never know what it's like to be anyone but yourself, and if you're actually interested in understanding what it's like to be someone else, ask them. People, even bigots, are too complicated to assume much of anything, at least if your goals are constructive.
Regarding the existance of a "female brain" or not, I think that this horrific experiment is worth taking into account when talking about this debate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
Not everything in this life is a goddamn social construct, for crap's shake.
Yup, it is exactly that, but it isn't only due to Antropocentrism: Duality is one of the worst mistakes of western thinking and precisely what gave birth to the "everything is social" type of thinking, the belief that mind and body are not a continuum but separated entities.
I think that the post modern world and the general politically correct thinking places a disproportionately, absurdely huge value into identity, hence why the obsession with setting oneself appart from others trough labels and sub-sub-sub cathegorizations which are made, of course by opposition to other people, aka, the narcissism of the small differences. Girl nerds are not a true nerds but fake geeks, you are not a true woman but a mock-up trans man, Obama ain't black because he's not truthly ghetto, yadda, yadda.
I freaking hate this egomaniac bullshit dressed as "celebration of diversity". The whole "you don't know how truthly it is to be a woman / black / catholic / nerd / new yorker presumes a staggering lack of empathy and imagination, if not downright malice from the rest of your fellow humans beings. Universalism is a greater value than identity, I believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
Not everything in this life is a goddamn social construct, for crap's shake.
Yup, it is exactly that, but it isn't only due to Antropocentrism: Duality is one of the worst mistakes of western thinking and precisely what gave birth to the "everything is social" type of thinking, the belief that mind and body are not a continuum but separated entities.
I think that the post modern world and the general politically correct thinking places a disproportionately, absurdely huge value into identity, hence why the obsession with setting oneself appart from others trough labels and sub-sub-sub cathegorizations which are made, of course by opposition to other people, aka, the narcissism of the small differences. Girl nerds are not a true nerds but fake geeks, you are not a true woman but a mock-up trans man, Obama ain't black because he's not truthly ghetto, yadda, yadda.
I freaking hate this egomaniac bullshit dressed as "celebration of diversity". The whole "you don't know how truthly it is to be a woman / black / catholic / nerd / new yorker presumes a staggering lack of empathy and imagination, if not downright malice from the rest of your fellow humans beings. Universalism is a greater value than identity, I believe.
Having so much hate inside you has got to wear you down. It must.
I don't think they're regressive or malicious (you sound quite open minded, actually!) and a trans person might be able to fill in the blanks a bit more, but my general feeling with any kind of "is a trans(wo)man a real (wo)man or not?" discussion baffles me. Why does it matter to the questioner? I don't get it. If a transman or transwoman identifies as male or female, why should anybody care? Just accept that their experience is way different to yours, find something in common or don't and move on.
A couple of guidelines for this thread:
1) We have many transgendered members on this board. Reflexively denying who they are will be considered an insult, and moderated accordingly.
2) Many people are unfamiliar with the science, the history, and the cultural history of transgendered people, and my have what appear to be regressive ideas. Attempt to determine whether this is due to ignorance or malice. If the former, educate them. If the latter, send a PM to a mod and let them take care of it.
3) This is a serious issue, that deeply effects your fellow members, so treat it as such. If you want to make an argument, make an argument, but don't post a shitty one-liner. One of us has already gone on vacation for this, and I have a pocket full of bans for anyone else that thinks it's okay to come in here and post dismissively.
1) We have many transgendered members on this board. Reflexively denying who they are will be considered an insult, and moderated accordingly.
2) Many people are unfamiliar with the science, the history, and the cultural history of transgendered people, and my have what appear to be regressive ideas. Attempt to determine whether this is due to ignorance or malice. If the former, educate them. If the latter, send a PM to a mod and let them take care of it.
3) This is a serious issue, that deeply effects your fellow members, so treat it as such. If you want to make an argument, make an argument, but don't post a shitty one-liner. One of us has already gone on vacation for this, and I have a pocket full of bans for anyone else that thinks it's okay to come in here and post dismissively.
Noone wants to disqualify anyone. It's about being able to detect a mismatch between gender identity and gender assignment. Doctors could then possibly find a way to fix the assigned gender right from the start instead of waiting 15, 20 or even more years. Which would stop a lot of suffering of transgender people.
This argument as stated falls flat.
Once a transgender man reaches a point where it becomes difficult to see them as a former man without a confession then you run into the issue that they will be treated like a woman until outed.
The other problem is with transgender women. There will be men who will never look at such former women as men but there will be those that do. By their poor argument this means women also have the right to exercise their entitlement.
For this argument to stick they need to go one step further. One a transgender individual is known to be transgender can they go back to being NOT transgender?
If men have no problem regarding former transmen as men aside from casually joking on their waywardness then their argument would work that transmen can't be like women.
Quite apart from all the evidence pointing towards a biological basis for gender identity, ultimately I think the most important thing is to have basic respect, decency and compassion. When someone tells me that her core identity is female, I really have no reason at all to believe otherwise, and to intentionally refer to her using the wrong pronouns, or say that she's a man pretending to be a woman as part of some sexual fetish, would be incredibly dismissive and insulting.
Sure, but the conclusions of researchers may not always take into account social conditioning and neurological plasticity (or in some cases are methodologically flawed). The thread Mumei just linked to goes into more detail about the ways in which brain differences do not always correlate to behavioural differences. The idea that there is a four year gap between the "mental ages" of boys and girls when it comes to maths hasn't been rigorously confirmed, and stands at odds with numerous other studies, including this worldwide study which not only found very few gender differences in maths ability but also showed that when differences do occur they tend to correlate with disparities in opportunity and education between the sexes, which is hardly surprising. I don't really dispute that there are, on average, differences observed between male and female brains; that's pretty clear. But I'm very, very iffy about the claims that these are indicative of hard-wired sex-based differences in ability in maths, music, art, language, etc. That's the point I was really disputing (which is starting to go off topic from the subject of this thread).
To be honest, I don't know what in particular will lead to someone's unique gender identity, and I don't believe anyone does with 100% certainty at this stage. My guess is that the biological side of things doesn't come down to any one single factor, but would be the result of a rather more complex interplay between hormones and brain development. There was a study in 2008 by Swaab and Garcia-Falgueras that claimed to find a relationship between gender identity and the anterior hypothalamus, but this isn't the sole focus of research:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18980961
Sure, but the conclusions of researchers may not always take into account social conditioning and neurological plasticity (or in some cases are methodologically flawed). The thread Mumei just linked to goes into more detail about the ways in which brain differences do not always correlate to behavioural differences. The idea that there is a four year gap between the "mental ages" of boys and girls when it comes to maths hasn't been rigorously confirmed, and stands at odds with numerous other studies, including this worldwide study which not only found very few gender differences in maths ability but also showed that when differences do occur they tend to correlate with disparities in opportunity and education between the sexes, which is hardly surprising. I don't really dispute that there are, on average, differences observed between male and female brains; that's pretty clear. But I'm very, very iffy about the claims that these are indicative of hard-wired sex-based differences in ability in maths, music, art, language, etc. That's the point I was really disputing (which is starting to go off topic from the subject of this thread).
To be honest, I don't know what in particular will lead to someone's unique gender identity, and I don't believe anyone does with 100% certainty at this stage. My guess is that the biological side of things doesn't come down to any one single factor, but would be the result of a rather more complex interplay between hormones and brain development. There was a study in 2008 by Swaab and Garcia-Falgueras that claimed to find a relationship between gender identity and the anterior hypothalamus, but this isn't the sole focus of research:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18980961
Mahadev
Member
Not this shit again. There will always be flaws in scientific research in general due to technological disadvantages, lack of understand and so on. That isn't a reason to reject the best way possible for humanity to understand the world, it makes you sound like religious nuts. In fact religious nuts use the exact same arguments to deny evolution.
The Librarian
Banned
For it's worth, I don't think gender (or sex, whatever you want to call it) is entirely social. It can't be. There's something in you that says you're a boy or a girl (or neither if you don't identify as either), otherwise transgender people wouldn't go through the pain of transitioning there's too much ostracizing, physical and emotional pain, they go through for it to be some societal reason. You don't like the body you're born with, you're uncomfortable inside it, and you want to change it.
It's disappointing to see people, as pointed out in the OP, write such malicious stuff like that.
It's disappointing to see people, as pointed out in the OP, write such malicious stuff like that.
You're misreading him, and insulting him while doing it by comparing him to religious nuts. He's not arguing against science as a tool for understanding the world; he's making a well-informed argument about the fact that neuroscience is still in the early stages, and claims (particularly those written about in popular science) ought to be taken with a grain of salt on that basis.
Er...what? I never advocated throwing out scientific research (that would be rather silly, given the fact that my own background is in science). Scrutinising research for potentially flawed or faulty assumptions, ensuring rigor of methodology and taking into account conflicting data are all an integral part of science. The comparison to evolution deniers is flawed, given the overwhelming abundance in support of evolution and lack of data to falsify it - the same is patently not true of the statement "A 12 year old girl's brain is like an 8 year old boy's when it comes to mathematical prowess."
Edit: Mumei beat me to it. (Just to clarify, I'm a she.
)I don't think Yrael is rejecting science, I think they're pretty correctly pointing out that the science on the issue is still in its infancy, and science is often dead wrong about conclusions drawn with limited information. They said the issue was contentious, which it is. It's not clear to us whether some brain differences are genetic, or influenced by the environment. For years we believe it had to be one or the other, and the scientific position was that once it was encoded in the genes, it was there forever. Now we know that's simply not true.
And starting your discussion with "not this shit again" does very little to help discussion.
Devolution
Member
It's right to be skeptical of science unless you're completely ignorant to the idea of flawed studies being used to prop up racist and sexist ideas.
Mahadev
Member
Neuroscience has made great strides this decade, it's no longer a science in its infancy so excuse me if I'm frustrated by the constant denial of scientific research. Furthermore the consensus about "different brains" doesn't exist only in neuroscience, evolutionary biologists and biologists also agree, and these are also sciences certain feminists are trying to discredit.
Just to clarify, as I think you have the two mixed around, a "trans man" is someone who was born a woman and then transitioned into being male, while a "trans woman" is someone who was born male and transitioned into being female.
You also use the gender pronoun of how they identity, not who they were before.
Unless, of course, I'm just reading what you were saying wrong.
I will just say this,
Man and woman live the world in different way's starting from a biological perspective. Just the hormone distribution difference influence personalities, the body and interaction with society. Then come the experiences, menstruation, body difference, pregnancy, start of maturity, etc.
Man and woman are not the same we are different and as a society we need to accept this. This whole feminist thing is out of focus, we need equal oportunities and right not just for woman and men also we have this same problems with race, nationality, religion, etc.
Man and woman live the world in different way's starting from a biological perspective. Just the hormone distribution difference influence personalities, the body and interaction with society. Then come the experiences, menstruation, body difference, pregnancy, start of maturity, etc.
Man and woman are not the same we are different and as a society we need to accept this. This whole feminist thing is out of focus, we need equal oportunities and right not just for woman and men also we have this same problems with race, nationality, religion, etc.
WiiRevolution1
Member
And yet, theres plenty of girls who transition into girls at around age 5 or 6 or even earlier. So those girls ARE raised as girls from pretty much the beginning. With only female puberty being delayed maybe a year or two because of stupid doctors not giving out horomes when they should. (Sorry, that has always grinded on me.)
Where is your logic now radical feminists?
They have no logic.
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