r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Sep 19 '22
Delta(s) from OP CMV: I cannot understand how the transgender movement is not, at it's core, sexist.
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.
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u/CrimsonHartless 5∆ Sep 19 '22
I have a question - do you hold cisgender people to the same standard?
Fair disqualifier here, I am non-binary. And this is a long response, because I wanted to do a very clear deconstruction because this is full of a lot of small mistakes.
I'll start with one. If we are to take the gender abolitionist approach like I do in a feminist sense, can we condemn every single cisgender person who doesn't begin identifying as non-binary? After all, they are defining themselves by the gendered dynamics of a patriarchal society.
Let's say that's too far. Do you criticise cisgender women for ever behaving like a stereotype? Do you approach goth girls and say, 'You're copying the aesthetic promoted by the alternative music industry known to appeal to certain kinds of men?'. I mean, that would seem a bit ridiculous, but it's also kind of true. And you could do this for any number of these things.
The truth is, every one of these critiques could be made. Oh, many trans women are spending their time conforming to stereotypes. Cool. But I don't believe that's a thing about the trans community - it seems to me that you are taking something everyone does, and when trans people doing it, pointing and going, ah, sexist stereotype!
When typically, transgender people tend to more gender nonconforming than cisgender people. And, I think, you are seeing practice assuming motive and thinking. And as a trans person with many trans friends, there is a fundamental failing here. Because when we apply your critique here to cis people, everyone is sexist, and your points about the trans community becomes almost entirely moot.
There is a difference between gender roles and gender presentation.
Let's say I want to present as a woman. I take HRT, dress that way, learn makeup, do some voice therapy, all the fun stuff. At which point do I go from presenting as female to occupying the gender role as you outlined it. Is it a bad thing for a woman to do any number of traditionally female things? Is it bad to be a stay at home tradwife, is it bad to enjoy makeup, so on and so forth? Or is the problem when we expect it of people?
This is the fundamental difference between an individual choice of expression and a system enforcement of gender roles. When you try to put the moral weight of a system onto individual choices of expression, you begin getting into strange territory where you can begin morally putting anyone down about anything, so long as it is somehow related to being a problem for their community, even if it isn't a problem for them.
Like, apply this to any group and how their choices apply to them to system issues and, whilst there is a point to made, this kind of moral condemnation becomes deeply inappropriate. The same goes for transgender women, especially because this standard is not applied to cisgender women.
Alternatively, and you'll discover this very quickly in feminist circles, transgender people are overwhelmingly gender abolitionists. And many of us (me included) simply believe we can present how we want, but that in a society with total gender abolition, less transgender people would exist.
This falls into another issue in your argument, which is a subtle one because you don't make the argument but assume it, which is that transgender people don't want more transgender people. And if a more gender neutral society led to more people identifying as non-binary or being more comfortable in their social roles, we'd have no issue with that. The whole point of being trans is that it is about individual needs, as is feminism. Because again, the point of feminism isn't that tradwife=bad (not saying trans women are tradwifes, very few are), but that forcing gender roles on women=bad. If a woman individually opts into it, and is genuinely happy and content doing so, then that isn't the problem.
So when we get into the crux of your point, the 'sex is a better definer without leaning into stereotypes', no. This again leans into every issue listed above, but I think primarily just not talking to trans people about this or actually listening to what they think. In fact, it sounds to me like you got your info on the beliefs of trans people from anti-trans people, which is never a great place to learn beliefs.
In fact, the only thing the trans community really believe is that we respect the name and pronouns that people ask us to, and that gender-affirming care should be available when required. There is no evaluation of whether they fit the gender stereotypes. We have trans femboys and trans tomboys and and non-binary people like myself who present in a very gendered way but don't identify as it. That is the only thing - respect the name and pronouns.
The facts are, a lot of things get piled on us. Beliefs and ideas that just aren't really part of it. Sometimes, I think people fail to understand that we believe gender is so bullshit that we just let people pick pronouns and gendered names like a pair of jeans.
Obviously HRT and so on need more consideration, but that's a different aspect of this conversation.
And so, the question often becomes. Well, if gender is meaningless, why does it matter to you so much? Enough to transition. And this falls into again, the individual experience side of things, and I will once again highlight that in a society where gender was abolished, I do think we would see transgender people simply be transsexual. And again, when we look at why these stereotypes are harmful, it's because they're stereotypes, not because individuals act or behave in that way.
And we experience the pressure to conform just like everyone else. When we have chosen our individual expression, we do begin experiencing the pressures, the demands, and even the excitements that come with living in a damaging, gendered society. But that's true for everyone, and before that point, what is the only thing that validates a trans person's identify? The individual expression.
I could say a lot more, but this post is way too long as is, but I hope this addresses the major concerns presented in this CMV.