The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) has just shown the world that they are transphobic. I’m not surprised by this, but it is still depressing.
‘Transgender rights’ are bourgeois ideology. The whole issue confounds reality. It is pure idealism because the reality is that we cannot choose our identity at will. It is an illusion, a mistake and a crime to teach people to think that they can choose like this, under capitalism.
We are here to help them dispel their bourgeois illusions, and our own first, however taxing and painful that can be.
Tankies siding with the far right against us again.
I remember reading Marx in university and being surprised by how heteronormative and patriarchal he was in his analysis. Like, hellooooo, housework is work too, Karl, and determining a complete overhaul of society without working out how it affects women and their labour is shitty.
Marx could be kinda sorta excused for being a 19th century intellectual though. Why so many Communists since accept a heteronormative patriarchy unquestioningly is inexcusable.
But not entirely. Take this quote from Emma Goldman, who was born in the mid-late 19th century.
“It is a tragedy, I feel, that people of a different sexual type are caught in a world which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life.
To correct myself further: dismissing anything which doesn’t fit into the heteronormative, patriarchal standards of the 19th century as “bourgeois decadence” is just lazy.
Many cis feminists claim that trans activism and/or trans culture reinforces stereotypes about women. Can anyone help figure these out?
That women tend to prefer female-typical hormone levels and get dysphoria if too far from these. That may, legitimately, erase the experiences of some women with endocrine issues such as PCOS.
That women tend not to have access to male privilege.
I’m a cis feminist who hangs out with other cis feminists, and I’ve never heard of any of these except the cat one, which is always a one-line joke (“and women are cats” [everyone laughs]). Do any of these “many” feminists have names?
Anti-trans feminists often claim trans activism and/or trans culture tend to support stereotypes of feminine clothing, especially lipstick and pantyhose, shallowness, sexual submissiveness, and so on. I haven’t kept track, and don’t want to single anyone out, but a lot of people have told me one or another online.
So I tried to offer some which we do tend to support, rightly or wrongly.
I don’t want to suggest women with PCOS should all go on anti-androgens, but trans feminism does emphasize hormones.
Around 30 years ago I used to belong to an activity group that was basically 120 gay men and me. I was proof they didn’t discriminate! Anyway, there were a handful that would do the despicable stereotype stuff whenever we went to conventions and the like. Big hair, mega-makeup, ridiculous heels, etc. And yes, they were as misogynistic as you can imagine. But then, the year it was our turn to host the convention, some women from another group came to me and asked if someone they knew (who had not had any operations or hormonal therapies) could come to the women’s area, which was a feature at these conventions because there were always so few women in attendance. They vouched for this person, so I said “of course”. And you know what? She was not a stereotype. She was herself. The difference between someone who really is a different gender than how their body was born, and someone who is merely playing with gender stereotypes is IMMEDIATELY EVIDENT when you meet them.
So I wonder if the problem is that some women/feminists have only seen the flamboyant stage performer types, and have never met actual trans people at all the various stages of medical treatment. After all, if someone fits in and doesn’t stand out as being over-the-top, these so-called feminists might not even realize they’ve been talking to someone who is trans, you know?
I watched this the other day and have considered posting it, and I think that it’s a good time to put it out here. One thing that was fascinating to me about this video was the fact that every trans woman this consultant met with had a really inappropriate skimpy dress in her closet. And it really made me sad to see how the women who were transitioning from the old identities were also trapped by their messages about women that they had received when they were navigating the world as men, and also it made me sad for her older clients that they never got to experience that time in their lives when wearing that dress would have been appropriate.
Me thinks that they are purposefully conflating trans women with drag culture, which indeed does involve (often exaggerated for comedic effect, sometimes in misogynistic ways, it could be argued) feminine stereotypes. In other words, It’s the same sort of bull shit reasoning they give for being exclusive of transwomen in their feminism.
I’d think so.
Or could be that they have, and they still don’t care. Probably a subset of both, I’d think. There are just some people that even when they are confronted by the very people they wish to discriminate against, and like them, they still can’t see the larger picture or be bothered to care.
I’ve found that when you don’t support those stereotypes then the anti-trans feminists also use it as evidence that you aren’t really a woman. There is no winning this game, they just change the rules to their advantage.
Regarding hormones, I need female levels of oestrogen to be stable. I had to be changed off one kind because my body wasn’t metabolising it correctly (I don’t know why, it should have been) and I was becoming suicidal. It was the double blind test from hell.
Infuriating indeed; but it’s good (?) to have data like this to PROVE IT. Now if it could really do any good . . . She could write a book? Opinion piece?
I wonder what would happen for someone transitioning the other way?
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