On the Edge of Trolling, Pt 3
A brief comment was posted for the final installment of On the Edge of Trolling. (At least until I get some more ‘lovely’ comments like these have been!). This one was from to The Great Trans Feminist Blogging Shakeup of 2009 and, of the series, comes the closet to simply being an outright troll:
sorry, but cis trumps. Born this way. You chose the new territory, so perhaps you’ll be able to be a feminist in time, but right away? No way
Once again, I think I’m just going to quote myself:
Neither Dictionary.com, nor Wikipedia, nor Stanford, nor any other resource I could find indicates feminism is a philosophy exclusive to women, or people raised as women. Feminism, at least the feminism I identify with, isn’t a womyn-born-womyn space, and doesn’t benefit only women. CrimethInc says it better than I could but, in short, for every girl who was told she couldn’t be a firefighter there is a boy who was told he couldn’t be a ballerina. Yes, women are ultimately the victims of sexism and the benefactors of feminism more often than men, but it’s naive to think sexism doesn’t cut both ways and its elimination wouldn’t benefit people other than those who have “been oppressed because of their genitalia or reproductive organs.” (Which, by the way, trans women have too.)
And that’s that.
Themocracy
What a naked and blatant expression of cis privilege.
What a naked and blatant ploy at establishing a hierarchy of oppressions. Her cisness privileges her womanhood over all other things. Your transness erases your womanhood no matter what.
Well said. That’s pretty much what her comments boiled down to. What I don’t think I’ll ever understand is why it has to be such a battle for some people. I was born “this way” (identifying as female) too, but – as you said – that’s not as important as A) what was between my legs when I was born and B) how I was raised.
By phrasing it that way, I realize she’s not only saying that biology is destiny (because I have/ever had a penis, I can’t ‘really’ be a woman) but socialization is also destiny (because I wasn’t raised as a woman, I can’t ever ‘really’ be one). This is just one of the many contradictions Anonymous seems to be pushing, but it’s ridiculous nonetheless.
If people can’t work past their socialization or their biology, why bother fighting to broaden woman’s rights? Or anyone’s rights? If that’s true, then people can’t change. Ever. The world is trapped in a kind of social stasis because the actors in this grand scheme are mere puppets. So, why bother?
Clearly, this notion is crap because the world and it’s people have changed in countless ways in both their attitudes and their behaviors as the decades have passed. People aren’t automatons, trundling along predestined paths, plotted by their genes and their early childhood experiences.
Thanks for stopping by! I’m enjoying reading through your blog, and look forward to catching future posts in my RSS reader.
I think there’s something at first scary, but ultimately liberating, about really deeply realizing that. To some extent, most of us never fully shed either our genes or our early childhood experiences, and I don’t think we should feel obligated to. But to be able to examine where you come from, to consciously choose what to cherish and what to discard, is extremely worthwhile. Many people, probably most, don’t really do that, either.
Which isn’t to say I’m always filled with sunshine and happiness that being trans has given me the opportunity to really, deeply, examine who I am (or forced me to, depending on how I’m feeling at the moment). But I am glad that the results of such examination make me, well, more me.
Getting back to the original comment about cis “trumping” trans, it sounds like Anonymous isn’t able to acknowledge that any of us can make those decisions (what to cherish, what to discard) and that while being trans kind of forces one to do so, we’re not the only ones who can…
I’m glad that you are enjoying my blog.
I just discovered your blog via the post about Pop on Rachel’s blog. I’ll be hanging around here, too.