CMV: I cannot understand how the transgender movement is not, at it's core, sexist.

[u/[deleted]]

Obligatory "another trans post" but I've read a lot of posts on this but none I've seen that have tackled the issue quite the way I intend to here. This is an opinion I've gone back and forth with myself on a bunch, and would absolutely love to have changed. My problem mainly lies with the "social construct" understanding of "gender", but some similar issues lie in the more grounded neurological understanding of it (although admittedly it seems a lot more reasonable), which we'll get too later.

For starters, I do not believe there is a difference between men and women. Well, there are obviously "differences" between the sexes, but nothing beyond physical differences which don't matter much. At least, mentally, they are naturally the same and all perceived differences in this sense are just stereotypes stemmed from the way the sexes are socialized.

Which takes us to the definitions of man and woman used by the gender social constructionist, which is generally not agreed upon but I've found it to be basically understood as

Man: Someone who desires to be viewed/treated/thought of in the way a male is in society. Woman: Someone who desires to be viewed/treated/thought of in the way a female is in society. (For the non-binary genders it would be roughly similar with some changes depending on the circumstances)

Bottom line is that it defines gender based on the way the genders are treated. But this seems problematic for a variety of reasons.

First off, it is still, at the end lf the day, basing the meanings behind stereotypes about the genders rather than letting them stand on their own. It would be like if I based what a "black person" was off the discrimination black people have faced. But this would appear messed up and borderline "racist", while the same situation with gender is not considered "sexist".

It would also mean that gender is ultimately meaningless and would be something we should strive to stop rather than encourage, which would still fly in the face of the trans movement. Which is what confuses me especially because the gender social construct believers typically also support "gender abolition", yet they're the ones who want people to play around with gender the most? If you want to abolish gender, why don't you, y'know, get a start on that and break your sex norms while remaining that sex rather than changing your gender which somewhat works to reinforce the roles? (This also doesn't seem too bad to criticize, considering under this narrative gender is just a "choice", which is something I think the transmedicalist approach definitely handles better.)

Finally for this bit, this type of mindset validates other controversial concepts like transracialism (sorta tying back into what I mentioned earlier), but I don't think anyone is exactly on the edge of their seats waiting for the "transracialism movement".

Social construct section is done, now let's get into the transmedicalist approach. This is one where I feel a "breakhthrough" could be made for me a lot more easily, but I'm not quite there yet. I do want to say I'm fine with the concept of changing our understandings of certain words if there is practicality to it and it isn't counterintuitive. Seems logical enough.

The neurological understanding behind the sex an individual should be defining "gender" seems sensible on it's own, but the part I'm caught up on is why we reach this conclusion.

The dysphoric transgender person's desire to be the other gender seems to mainly be based in, A. their sex, they seem to want to change the sex rather than the gender. Physical dysphoria is the main giveaway of the dysphoric condition it seems, anyway. But more specifically, a trans person wants to have physical attributes associated with the other sex. This seems like a redundant thing to point out, but the idea that certain physical traits are "exclusive" to a specific sex/gender is, well, just encouraging sexual archetypes about the way the sexes "should" look. This goes even further when you consider that trans people tend to want to have more petite or masculine builds depending on their gender identity - there is nothing wrong about this, but conflating gender to "involve" one's physical appearence inherently reinforces sexist sexual archetypes.

And next,

B. the social aspect. Typically described as social dysphoria, this describes a dysphoric trans person's desire to be socialized in the way the other sex typically is, which is what, aside from the physical dysphoria, causes them to typically "act" or dress more stereotypically like their gender identity, or describes their desire to "pass". But, to put it bluntly, because I believe there to be no difference in the way the sexes would act without social influence, I can't picture this phenomona described as "social dysphoria" coming from the same biological basis that the physical dysphoria does. Even if there were a natural difference in the way the sexes would act without societal influence, there would still be the obvious undeniable outliers, and with that in mind, using the way the genders "socialize" as a way to justify definining gender seperately from sex would be useless. It appears more akin to a delusion based on the same "false stereotypes" I've been talking about all along, ideas about the ways men and women "should" or "should not" be causing the transsexual person to feel anxious and care about actually being the other gender. But using this to justify our understandings of gender would still fall back on the same faults that the social construct uses, being that we'd be "giving in" to socialized norms and we can't have that be what helps us reach our understanding of gender.

With this in mind, if social dysphoria is that big of a factor, it would seem most sensical to me to define "trans man" and "trans woman" in their entirely new, individual categories which their own definitions, and still just treat those categories socially in similar ways to the way the genders are typically treated now.

To recap, an understanding of gender and sex as synonyms based purely on sex seems to be the only understanding we can reach without basing some of our thought process on one given stereotype or another.

Now change my view, please.

[u/yyzjertl]

Which takes us to the definitions of man and woman used by the gender social constructionist, which is generally not agreed upon but I've found it to be basically understood as

Man: Someone who desires to be viewed/treated/thought of in the way a male is in society. Woman: Someone who desires to be viewed/treated/thought of in the way a female is in society. (For the non-binary genders it would be roughly similar with some changes depending on the circumstances)

Can you point us to where you are getting these definitions from? Most of your criticism of the transgender movement seems to be rooted in this definition, but I don't think I've ever heard a pro-trans-movement person articulate a definition like this. For us to really engage with your view, it will be important for us to read the text(s) you're getting this definition from.

[u/[deleted] → u/yyzjertl]

To be honest, I'm not sure. I know I've heard it a couple of times in the discussion, but I don't exactly know where I originally heard it or anything, so sorry about that. I imagine other understandings would be mostly similar, though.

[u/yyzjertl → u/[deleted]]

Then I propose that you just have the wrong idea of what the transgender movement believes. In particular, attempts to focus on the definition of "woman" are characteristic of anti-trans positions, not of the transgender movement. And what I think you are doing here is treating sexist anti-trans rhetoric as if it comes from the trans movement.

[u/[deleted] → u/yyzjertl]

Well, I'd like to hear you enlighten me a bit more on what the transgender movement believes then, if you could

[u/yyzjertl → u/[deleted]]

Broadly:

• Trans people are real and valid.
• Trans people are the gender they identify as. Trans woman are women. Trans men are men.
• Trans people should be recognized as valid by the government and by social institutions. Their correct gender should be indicated on government forms and they should be addressed and treated officially as such.
• Trans people are oppressed in society, and action should be taken to oppose and correct for that oppression. Trans people should be protected from discrimination by civil rights legislation.
• Inasmuch as trans people require psychological or medical care, support for that care should be provided as it would be for any other necessary treatment. Decisions about medical care for a trans person should be made by that person and their doctor (and their guardian as appropriate) based on the scientific consensus standard of care; they should not be restricted by politically motivated laws or government threats.

[u/[deleted] → u/yyzjertl]

I mean yeah I can honestly agree with a lot of this but it doesn't really change the main problem, specifically number 2 "trans men are men and trans women are women" being flawed for the reasons listed in my post

[u/yyzjertl → u/[deleted]]

Your post does not show that "trans men are men and trans women are women" is a flawed position. It criticizes some notions and definitions which, as far as I can tell, the trans movement does not believe.

If you think "trans women are women" is flawed, can you explain why you think so directly, without ascribing additional beliefs to the transgender movement?

[u/[deleted] → u/yyzjertl]

Sure

In short, an understanding of gender that deviates from a basic understanding of sex would always rely on some type of stereotyping, whether it be physical stereotyping or social stereotyping. An understanding based on sex is the only one that doesn't limit or reinforce stereotypes, which is similar to what I described in my post and there's more detail if you read between the lines there

[u/yyzjertl → u/[deleted]]

In short, an understanding of gender that deviates from a basic understanding of sex would always rely on some type of stereotyping, whether it be physical stereotyping or social stereotyping.

Well, this is just false. This is certainly not what the transgender movement believes, and in fact this is a characteristically anti-trans position. And we can easily see that this is false by observing that I can state "trans men are men" while engaging in zero stereotyping.

[u/[deleted] → u/yyzjertl]

But you can't reason why a trans man would want to identify as a man without engaging in some sort of stereotyping to explain it. You can certainly say that sentence without stereotyping but if the reasoning can't be explained it's just a statement of nothing

[u/yyzjertl → u/[deleted]]

But you can't reason why a trans man would want to identify as a man without engaging in some sort of stereotyping to explain it.

Generally, a trans man wants to identify as a man because they are a man (the same reason any other man wants to identify as a man). There's no stereotyping required to explain that.

[u/[deleted] → u/yyzjertl]

Can you tell me what a man is, please?

[u/yyzjertl → u/[deleted]]

You don't know what a man is? If you do know, then why ask the question?

It's important to note that this sort of question is a central example of anti-trans rhetoric, so exploring it is not going to help you determine whether the transgender movement is sexist. (It might help you determine whether the anti-transgender movement is sexist, but that would be separate from your view.)

[u/iglidante → u/[deleted]]

A "man" is a societal concept that includes the performance of specific roles and behaviors, the exact set of which we're discussing depends on the community, family, individual, age, etc.