A (butthurt) definition of transgendered
I read a very good essay this morning, about the term "transgendered" and the difference between "gender" which, according to the writer is a cultural phenomenon meaning the host of behaviors that read as male or female to the majority of the world as opposed to "sex," which this writer uses to mean the biological functionality of procreation and reproduction.
Said writer went on to critique the behaviors that signal femininity or masculinity, and –really– did so very well. Writer pointed out that gender is illusory, and constructed and that we all pick and choose which bits we will use to construct our own illusion.
Writer also expressed the opinion that much of ultra-feminine behavior is destructive– to other women. And writer is justly proud of the fact that she rejected those behaviorism, giving an excellent example.
But, this writer seems to be writing from the point of view of a woman who is perfectly happy to be a vagina-bearing, non-penis-having, female of the tomboyish type. And she seems to have feel that the women who use that term "transgender" are happy enough with the vaginas they have, and only want to "act like men."
I don’t particularly want to "act like a man," as society defines manliness.
When I say I am transgendered, I mean that I wake up, each and every morning, grabbing for a piss hardon that does not exist. And I have no intention of going into surgery because there is no surgery that can fix that. That can give me a working, pissing, ejaculating, penetrating, penis.
I am a bisexual butch dyke, and I know all about ignoring the cultural constructs of gender. I’m good at it, and I can twist cultural perceptions around my little finger — but if somehow I were able to, I would leave my female identity, and the feminist principles I have fought for these fifty years, all behind along with the vagina I don’t really care so much about and that has defined my identity all this time.
I would be a campy queeny bi guy with a penchant for pink and paisley. I would not be a masculine man– but I would no longer be transgendered.
http://dharma-slut.dreamwidth.org/92523.html | comments | Comment at Dreamwidth
Tags: ego, gender, gender; transiting, pith and pungency
I don’t think of myself as transgendered, but reading your description…caught my attention, somehow. Sometimes I hate that I’m female – not because I hate being a woman (I like my pussy, thank you very much), but because I look at the men I work with, the men I’m related to, the men I know, and I am so envious of them. I’m envious that they don’t have to shave – that it’s okay if they grow a beard, that no one looks at them and thinks they’re a FREAK for having body hair that’s thick and dark and coarse and long and all OVER the place. I’m envious that they put on muscle and drop weight like it’s nothing, I’m envious that even though I work out more, they still seem to be physically stronger. I’m envious that they can pee standing up without having to do anything special and that they can burp in public and people just laugh and that they have hairy chests and hairy legs and mustaches and it’s okay, and that’s it’s not okay for me, because if I have those things, if I do those things, it somehow lessens me in the eyes of the people around me just because I am a female and I don’t have a dick, and that makes me angry.
When I dream, I’m almost always a man. It doesn’t have to make sense – and often I start out as a woman, but I’m almost always a man by the time I wake up. Last night I was Riddick – from The Chronicles of Riddick, which is weird because I’ve only ever seen the movie once, and it was years ago – and I was on a mission in space and I had amazingly satisfying sex with a person named Shaitan who had the ability to turn change from a man to a woman at will. But I was a man the whole time.
See, that might be the kind of transgender my friend was thinking of…
and yeah. I think it counts.
I don’t dislike my vagina – I like it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want a penis. It doesn’t mean I don’t want a male body.
If I could have two bodies – a male and a female one – that occupied the same space at the same moment, I think that would be perfect.
I still do not consider myself transgender, though.
I am sick of feminists… the combination of the ignorance of non-white-women’s problems, and the refusal to understand that things other than body parts define ‘woman’, and that women ‘acting like women’ is harmful, and etc. There’s gotta be a less harmful way to get equality.
On a sillier note, the next post after yours on my flist is titled “Is it catching?” and I lol’ed.
second-waver here;
It’s still strange to me to hear younger women talk about feminist history, and feminist theory, and all of that stuff. Honest to god, we were pulling it all out of our asses.
Trying to figure out what the paradigms were.
Trying to talk over the voices that drowned ours out so effortlessly.
As far as I am concerned, the ONLY thing that defined me as “woman” has been my body parts. And I have never been able to shake that definition.
And that any time I “acted like a woman” I ran the risk of losing myself and my real identity.
YMMV of course.
I would add that IMHO the folks who claim that title and act as you described are a current crop of spoilt brats who weren’t around when the real stuff was on the line.
This image is also over-hyped by media trying to invalidate genuine attempts to improve conditions right now.
Back in the day, the real broads were getting arrested and assaulted for organizing rallies and putting together low-cost or free health clinics with sexual health and fighting for pay parity in union jobs and so on. The real ones are still out there fighting for it, and Thug organizations like Faux News are trying to make everybody ridicule them for it. They’d certainly recruit all the POC and poor folks they can–and how easy is that in an economy where it’s impossible to get a job, and the women with families are scrambling just to get work?
Gender, used accurately, means a social construct. You are transsexual, going by what you say here. .
The reason the inaccurate transgender is used in place of the accurate transsexual is that our society can’t stand to say “sex” in its accurate meaning of physical characteristics instead of meaning sexual behavior.
The writer’s insistence on technical accuracy vs. common usage can be quibbled with. You could say that a word’s definition is not, in fact, its official, long established meaning, but rather, its current common usage. And there are many who agree with that. In fact, it’s why dictionaries have to keep being updated.
I would say that the writer sounds very nice. For the official, traditional meaning of nice– finicky and detail oriented. But she isn’t wrong.
You could say that a word’s definition is not, in fact, its official, long established meaning, but rather, its current common usage.
From a detail oriented person, the terms for this are prescriptive and descriptive. They’re generally applied to arguments and discussions of grammar, not definitions of words, but they can also be used for this purpose.
“nice” is a very good desciption of this friend, and that convo has been going quite well…
yeah, she likes deconstruction rather a lot. I don’t quite so much, I like construction.
But even in that more precise meaning, I am still transgendered. I have established, I think, a set of behaviors that would be the same no matter what my sex was– I read as butch to those who seem me as a woman, and I read as a fem to those who see me as a man. NOT gender neutral, though, either way.
But that is exactly how polarized social reading of traits that are never actually polarized would work!
For instance, competition is coded as masculine, cooperation is coded as feminine. But humans both compete and cooperate. So everyone normal is at the same time feminine and masculine– and the trait that is less expected is more visible. There’s even a word for your opposite-gendered characteristics manifest– anima/animus.
Unless you ignore your anima/animus, you aren’t 100% your own gender.
Or something where the gender bias is more carefully taught, so most people try to fit theirs– women are concerned about their looks, men are slovenly. Means a woman, like me, who wants to dress in coordinated but comfortable clothing, would be seen as butch (sensible shoes! Short hair! No make up! Pants!)– but if I presented myself as a man as myself, rather than a character, I’d probably wear such nicely chosen clothing I’d be deemed meterosexual. I’d also smile more than men are trained to do, still wouldn’t like sports, etc, and probably end up being thought of as sissy. However, when I do dress as a man, it is as a character, and Sam Vimes, Harry Potter, etc, trip a “masculinity recognition switch” in people’s minds so much that they don’t even NOTICE I have huge boobs.
You want a penis– that’s transsexuality. If you wanted to behave in a way coded as masculine man, at all times, you’d be transgender. By the strict, older definition of transgender. What you want is to behave like a human being at all times, either playing with or ignoring social enforcement of gender roles. And that I might call free-gendered.
However, I support the rights of people to choose a label they are comfortable with. Or else I’d insist that gay means happy, not homosexual. You might bring this up with your friend if you want to insist your definition is better.
I have no desire to change my body, or even wear things designed to create a sense of physical sex change, like strapping down or packing. I also wouldn’t terribly mind waking up male, which makes me … um, I don’t even think there’s a word for a person who doesn’t care about their physical sex.
I would freak out if I was not allowed to act in my gender-neutral way, slightly more masculine than feminine, but also able to tap my feminine side as needed. So I might be called transgendered, but I am not transsexual. I’m apathetic-sexual?