Reply to I guess I still don't understand transgender definitions of gay and straight

Forum Index » LGBTQIA+ Issues and Relationship Discussion

Reply to "I guess I still don't understand transgender definitions of gay and straight"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a cisgender woman, and I have to say: Trans people (the ones I've met, the ones I actually know as people who have thoughts and feelings and hopes and doubts and think about bathrooms yes and the rate of suicide in their youth yes but also cooking dinner and doing well at whatever work project they're dealing with) have blown my mind open in realizing what I have always assumed was just, you know, true & unchanging about gender and sex. I'm really grateful to them.

[trimmed for length]

But to the people who feel really alienated by this language, I guess I just offer you the fact that listening to the experiences of other people (and the work that allies to trans people have done--like in this thread--to remind me that yeah of course a penis is a female sex organ if a transfeminine woman has one but also if I'm not having sex with a transfemine woman...then I don't need to worry about her sex organs.) has opened my eyes to the mutability of gender in really useful ways.

It's also made me a (slightly?) less self-involved asshole. And I think that's essentially the point of our time on earth. [/quote]

You are a straight woman, so it's easy for you to say that it doesn't matter to you if trans politics consider a penis a female sex organ if it's on a transwoman.

It *does* matter greatly to lesbians, who have fought for decades for their rights to love who they love- other women- without persecution or hatred. It's been a long, hard-fought battle. But now trans politics say that lesbians who won't have sex with transwomen are "genital fetishists" (see the section on the "cotton ceiling" here by a lesbian feminist: https://sisteroutrider.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/lezbehonest-about-queer-politics-erasing-lesbian-women/). Or see the video by trans activist Riley J. Cooper on page 2 of this thread. It reeks of homophobia.[/quote]

I am the "cisgender woman" in that first quote and wanted to clarify that I'm a lesbian, not actually a "straight woman". Which is a reasonable enough assumption; I didn't realize I didn't mention it in my post.

But I am in my 40s, married to a woman, went to a women's college that has been through a long and contentious series of conversations about women-only spaces and trans people, and am deeply sympathetic to the complexity of gender and sex and biology.

The trans people that I know (not a huge number, maybe a dozen) aren't out there living lives to oppress me or force me to use for myself the same definitions they use when it comes to intercourse.  They're trying to stay alive. And also pee in public. And if they're brave enough to date outside of their community, if their desire leads them there... they face dangers that are different than the dangers I face, even as a lesbian. (Although there are certainly lesbians and other queer people whose gender presentation puts them in similar danger; I look femme enough that no one questions my gender.)

As a lesbian I think I have a particular responsibility to know the ways that an insistence on difference or stark gender divisions can breed some really dark queerbashing or conversion therapy or custody denial* or raping the gay out of someone. As a ciswoman, it truly doesn't matter to me if some trans people consider a transfeminine person's penis a female sex organ. If we've got a mutual attraction, we should have a conversation about our genitals, sure.  But otherwise: Not my business.  In exactly the same way that how I have sex with my wife or the genetic backstory of our kids is none of anyone else's business unless I want to tell them. 
 
Obviously we have different opinions. I respect your anger at the sexism and homophobia you've experienced from people in the trans community. (I do.) But I think that the LGBQ sexuality side and the T gender side have a lot more to gain in sticking together and listening and figuring out how to give each other some space in legitimately touchy / high-stakes areas. Because our VP believes in conversion therapy and there are kids we've got to keep alive and families we've got to protect...

*Still an issue, yes, in a state I've lived in recently: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/us/kentucky-judge-refuses-same-sex-adoption-cases.html[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics