So now Trans Activists have privilege

Polly Styrene has made an epic attempt to put us mouthy trans activists in our place. Check it and the discussion out.

This was my response to her list and some discussion in the comments:

1 - Since when are trans people of any kind speaking for other people (like intersex people)? Sure, some have an awareness of intersex issues and refer to them (I do), but I don’t pretend to speak for them. This strikes me as a distraction and an evasion. A sort of tu quoque as it were.

2 - This doesn’t even make sense. Where has anyone said you’re not born female? Witchy Woo claimed that the cis- words implied that, but the torture required to coax that meaning from cisgender or cissexual is pretty epic.

3 - If, as a trans person or activist, I had the privilege of telling you that you have to accept me in all of your private spaces, I wouldn’t need to point out how excluding trans women from women-only spaces is discrimination - you’d just let us in because I, or Marti, or Zoe Brain, or Dyssonance, or Autumn Sandeen - just to name a few - said so. It is discrimination, and it’s not a privilege to experience discrimination or be dismissed when that discrimination is pointed out.

4 - I hate the word trans, but it’s the word everyone knows and uses, often against my will. I stick with it now to distinguish my experience as a woman from a cis woman’s experience as a woman. Believe me, I’d rather do away with both entirely, but since cis society won’t let me forget, I need a way to describe cis people without centering them as normal and leaving people like me on the fringes as aberrant freaks. The insistence that “cis” is an imposition, a redefinition, and offensive is not unlike the concept of - in English - male being the assumed, neutral gender. That is, that the default for human must be male and female only noted as a difference from male. A more blatant expression of this would be if only men get to be human, and women are explicitly noted as different from default humanity. Not something I believe, just to be clear. But, it’s similar to how cis people sound when they insist that we have no right to distinguish them from us as equals.

5 - The truth is, I have used a similar argument, but not this argument. What I have said was not what you describe in point 5. My argument is, if you insist that there’s no possible way that I can relate to or understand your upbringing as a girl who was born female, please do me the courtesy of not telling me what my upbringing as a girl born with a male body was like. If I can’t know what your life was like, you certainly can’t know what mine was like.

In other words, It goes both ways. Telling us that we can’t have any idea what it’s like for you, but telling us extensively what it’s like for us is a double standard. I’ve only said this in response to women who use that argument.

You’re getting into the existential blackmail (see Nezua’s/The Unapologetic Mexican’s glosario - Wite-Magik Attax) concept here, where if it’s not okay to define trans people’s experience for us, then how can we have a conversation at all?

6 - You’re conflating sex and gender, or you’re trying to say we do. Maybe both at the same time. I’d draw a flow chart if I could in this comment, but I’ll have to settle for just text:

A transsexual person is someone who knows that his or her body should be the other sex. Someone born male knows her body should be female, and someone born female knows her body should be male.

Society tells us that female-bodied people are women, and male-bodied people are men. Society treats women in a set of ways and men in a different set of ways. So, if you see yourself as female, your participation in society is in that context - you may choose to embrace, reject or ignore what society presents as womanhood, or aspects of womanhood.

Now, transsexualism is not specifically about how society sees you, but about how you see yourself. It ultimately includes how society sees you because if you know your body is wrong, and everyone treats you according to that wrong body, you know they’re treating you incorrectly, and this causes stress, depression, anxiety. Fun stuff.

I claim womanhood - say that I am a woman - because society treats me as one, and began treating me as one long before I had completed transition. Why? Because they see me as female. And why do they? Because my body is mostly not distinguishable from someone who was born female, at least not from someone who’s had a hysterectomy.

Now, I’m not reducing womanhood to body parts here, before anyone assumes that, or decides to assign it to my argument. I’m saying there’s two things here - the physiology, my body - and society. It also doesn’t mean that I am happy or agree with everything society assigns to women. If I were, I wouldn’t identify as feminist, nor would I get into bitter arguments with anyone who even implies that there’s something wrong with abortion, or that male privilege doesn’t exist, or that MRAs have even a modicum of a point (rather than simply mindlessly bashing women in revenge for feminism and losing custody of their children to their ex-wives).

If we removed the trans distinction, we’d have a lot of common ground.

7 - This isn’t really a valid complaint. Everyone can endlessly carp. You’re endlessly carping here about alleged trans privileges, after all. At some point, everyone does endlessly carp about a minor disagreement. Your other post, about cisgender privilege and how you don’t have it, was carping, although it had an end. Some of my posts are carping. That’s not the primary substance of what I write, or what any other activist writes. I assume that the majority of your writing isn’t carping. To be fair, I don’t think any of your other complaints are valid, either. I just wanted to point out the double standard implied in this one.

8 - This is pre-emptive dismissal. It is, itself, non sequitur. You’re calling our arguments hysteria, or overly emotional. I’m sure if you knew what that was like, you’d be a little more sensitive about applying it to someone else.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

9 - Possession of certain body parts are privileges as well as accidents of birth. That’s why there’s male privilege, am I right? That’s why, there’s white privilege? That’s why there’s able-bodied privilege? If it’s possible for a man (who sees himself as male, and doesn’t want to transition) to be privileged just for being born male and growing up with that, it is absolutely possible for a man or a woman who is comfortable with his or her body and doesn’t want to transition to have privilege over those who do transition. This is why so many trans people have trouble getting jobs, why so many end up working as prostitutes, and have trouble finding a place to live. This is why so many who do have jobs or go to school are asked to use unisex bathrooms, even if it means taking a long circuitous walk to get to those bathrooms. This is why many cis women believe that trans women don’t deserve to be around “real women.” This is why so many cis people try to put us in our place by referring to us by our birth sex - calling the women “boys” or “men” and calling the men “girls” or “women.”

The privilege is real, it’s there. You know that men deny until their faces turn blue that male privilege exists. You know that white people deny until their faces turn blue that white privilege exists. Saying that you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there, especially if you’re treated as cis - as if you’ve never transitioned and you don’t want to transition. That’s what the cisgender privilege checklist is supposed to point out, just as the male and white privilege checklists point that privilege out.

10 - This is accusing trans people of playing the trans card, that we try to use prejudice as a reason to criticize anyone who disagrees with trans people. It’s another preemptive dismissal, saying that pointing out actual prejudice against trans people is somehow frivolous or a crutch. It is exactly like talking about playing the race card or the gender card. It’s a silencing tactic meant to shut down talk about that prejudice, it’s not a criticism.

11 - Gender exists, although holding that perspective doesn’t equate to holding essentialist views. Gender is a social construct, but so are taxes, laws, government, marriage, civil rights. All of these exist despite being something collectively created by society and not having an actual physical existence.

Also, you distort the arguments. If I argue that a particular radical feminist is an essentialist, I’m referring to the fact that she insists that once born a male, always a man. That any experience of male privilege must taint and corrupt the possibility of a trans woman’s life, preventing her from ever actually being a woman. She ignores that woman’s lived realities and experiences in favor of her own prejudices that reject that woman as a woman.

Meanwhile, I, who feel that a person can change physical sex, and interact with society as a member of that sex, am somehow an essentialist? When I do in fact believe that the “binary” is permeable and that people can live outside that binary. At least in their definitions - society, by way of people, will continue to try to put them back in the binary as well as their so-called “places.” Society constantly tries to put me back in my place - either indirectly through slurs about transsexual people in general, or directly, like your trans privilege checklist.

12 - I’m not sure how you can say this. I talk about the oppression that women experience quite frequently, as do other trans women. We’re really quite aware of it. I’ll admit, there was a time when I knew that sexism existed and had seen it in action, but I hadn’t really experienced it - or rather, what I had experienced was minor enough that I wasn’t really aware of it, because I didn’t know what to look for. Believe me, though, I got the message when I asked the owner of a business I worked for if he could give me a ride home because it was after the buses stopped running, and he said “Sure, if you give me a blow job in the back seat.”

That was blatant, it was disgusting, it was offensive and insulting and objectifying and I don’t even have enough words to describe it. But at that point, I understood so many things, and the daily sexism I got to deal with became that much more visible. And I try to talk about sexism, because I do experience it, as do other trans women. We get that, on top of the prejudice for being trans, or if you’re lesbian, you get that. If you’re a woman of color, you get that. It’s intersections, so you can have privilege or lack of privilege in more than one category. I’m not just a transsexual person, I’m a white lesbian woman who is also trans, and I’ve had to deal with the sexism, the homophobia (both for being seen as gay prior to and during transition, and for being seen as lesbian), and I’ve continued to benefit from my white skin.

The ability to create a woman-only space and define it as exclusive to one kind of woman is a privileged position. The fact is, that because a large part of society doesn’t except trans people’s sex and gender as valid, that our inclusion anywhere is precarious. If we’re read to be trans, then we could end up getting mocked, bullied, assaulted, ejected, murdered. No space is safe around cis people - we really do have more to worry about from you than you have from us.

But the truth is that we’re (trans women) also women, we’re interested in and a part of women’s culture. We have a place in women’s culture - setting aside those who see us as not having a place around them. In setting up women-only spaces, you’re saying that the trans aspect is far more important than the woman aspect. That we must be forever defined by our history that amounts to an accident of birth - something you use to defend the idea that cisgender privilege doesn’t exist.

So, why should we be judged as unworthy because of an accident of birth? I couldn’t control being born in a male body any more than I could control the fact that I knew I should have been born with a female body. Neither of these facts were under my control, so why is my womanhood so situational that I must be excluded from spaces set aside for women?

13 - This is like characterizing trans women as hyperfeminine flouncing girls who dress too flamboyantly to be proper women. While there is no doubt that trans people exist who hold rigid and outrageously essentialist views about womanhood, manhood, femininity, and masculinity, this is also true of the greater populace, and it’s not a fair criticism to level at just us, or treat it as if it’s some indelible characteristic of being trans. It’d be more accurate to lob this petard at society.

14 - Speaking of essentialism, I have to ask why “assigned at birth” is the definitive feature you use here. Obviously, trans women are assigned male at birth, but that’s an accident of birth as I point out above. What you use in your response above is a slippery slope. “If we let those who were born male but have done everything in their power to become female to enter women-only spaces, then what stops actual men from entering?” I would answer, “They’re actual men.”

Rich doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s a sexist prig, and I can only imagine that he’s tolerated around radical feminists because he’s a rabid dog when it comes to talking about trans issues. Seriously - he was raped by Zoe’s response to him, he talked about trans women as if we’re commonly rapists - or he resorted to an extreme argument to make a fallacious point. He talked about how unfair it would be to not let him into women-only spaces because he had the fortitude to not transition, when the fact is that he probably doesn’t know or care why trans women (or trans men) transition in the first place.

I’ll take commentary about trans women from a man who refers to us as freaks under advisement when I can buy tickets to the Inferno Ski Resort.

Actually, no, not even then.

15 - It’s good that you linked that. Some of the transphobic comments attached to that article are a good example of what passes for “gender analysis” around some radical feminists.

I like the comment that says that women were under a curfew that wouldn’t apply to trans women. I don’t know about you, but if my community were under a curfew for women only, I’d be stopped if I walked outside my door, and I’d enjoy it just as much as any other woman.

More generally, the specific nature of how many women disagree with me about the definition of “woman” is that I include myself in that definition. Since many other women agree with me, I guess it could come down to our word against yours. I’m not sure why you’d think that just because some women think that other women can’t really be women, that those women have the final word - especially when those women aren’t every woman on Earth.

Maybe the next time an employer demands a blow job, I can have y’all come down and tell him I’m not a woman and so he shouldn’t be objectifying me like that?

16 - Right, of course. See my reply to point 12.

17 - Okay, this is pretty patronizing. You’re not allowing these men their own agency to decide to transition on their own. Instead, you’re assuming that they’re pressured into it to conform with straight society - a nightmare scenario Catherine Crouch put on film in The Gendercator, but not related to reality. People who seek transition do so because they feel it’s right for them. It’s true, some people start transition and discover it’s not right for them, and it may even be possible that they were pushed/convinced into doing it, but this doesn’t mean that trans activism is homophobic or that the majority of trans activists want people who shouldn’t transition to transition.

Also, a lot of trans men who formerly lived as butch lesbians turn out to be gay men. A lot of trans men who formerly lived as straight women turn out to be straight men. But if someone transitions and ends up straight, so what? It’s their sex life. No one is stealing people from the lesbian community. It’s up to people to decide whether belong in it or somewhere else.

18 - No, but as a trans activist, it is my prerogative to focus on trans issues.

Amananta’s post fails at what it sets out to do, as it privileges the radical feminist/cissexual point of view by presenting both the trans woman and radical feminist sides of the argument as equal.

As for women invading women-only spaces to legitimize our gender? No, that’s not how it works. Our gender is already legitimate. You’re telling us that our gender is in fact not legitimate and that we do not belong. When we say that “Yes, we think we do belong, and we’d like to participate” you call that invasion.

Also, being as these trans activists are women, I don’t think they’re denying that women suffer from sexism, because they likely experience sexism. It’s just that trans issues tend to take priority when they mean you can’t find work or a place to live.

And finally - As a trans activist I am wholly entitled to whinge, cry, and scream “you’re oppressing me, you big meanie” if anybody criticises me in any way whatsoever. Particularly if they do to me the stuff I do to everybody else. I will get away with this because certain trendy liberals who are desperate to appear cool and edgy will go along with anything I say, no matter how ridiculous. I have the privilege of being able to tell everyone else they can’t see their own privilege while not being able to see my own privilege.

This is just a big dismissal of any complaint any trans person dares to make. It’s like the tone argument - “I’d listen to you if you weren’t so mean,” or perhaps the fallacious flip - “can’t see their own privilege.”

I don’t do to other people the stuff that many radical feminists do to transwomen. Not all criticisms are valid, and dressing prejudiced declarations as criticism doesn’t magically make them not prejudiced. I know I have privilege - white privilege. And I experienced male privilege for the first 18 years of my life, but that somehow doesn’t help me much now. I also know that when people tell me my place is not among women, that I’m not the one exercising privilege or prejudice.

To quote nexyjo on my blog,

oppressed groups do have one privilege; we get to label our oppressors with whatever name we choose. as one example, jews have been calling non-jews “gentiles” for thousands of years. and we don’t give a rats ass whether they like it or not.