It’s been a long day
Seen on Facebook today:
Being lumped in with women by being called “female-bodied” is insulting to me. So, maybe if you dont want to insult people on your wall then you should heed the words of trans people.
Yeah, really – how gross to be lumped in with those disgusting people, women. What an insult.
Also how dare you say “female-bodied”? There is no such thing. Forget all that business about how sex=bodies and gender=everything else – that’s out of date. A person whose gender identity is male has a male body because that person is male, so obviously HIS body is male. Apologize or be evicted from everything.
Next it will be ‘vagina-haver’ plus a steaming pile of gabble claiming the removal of female from female-bodied is totally not erasure, even though every failure to mention trans* is trans* erasure.
The utter self-centredness of the loony end if the trans movement never fails to surprise and depress me. The only people who can be insulted or misgendered are trans while the rest of us have to put up with it because of some strange interpretation of privilege.
Woman and man are social categories that means something more than “adult female/male human” so, yes, a trans woman who is perceived as a woman by society is a woman. “Female/male” are scientific terms referring to the two sexually dimorphic forms of mature human beings. Calling someone female bodied is actually recognising that a woman may have a male or female body, depending on how society treats him/her.
The facts of the universe do not care about anyone’s post-modernist opinions about them.
If this person is male and has a male body then they aren’t trans, and thus need not be listened to. Problem solved!
One of the things that keeps getting to me is the insistence that somehow having been born into the body that matches the gender we live as is privilege. In fact, it isn’t. I spent my entire childhood being abused for not being “female” enough, because I liked science and history and politics, and wanted to go to college. I wasn’t interested in settling down as a “little woman” to take care of a man and his noisy brats for my entire future. The penalties of stepping outside the acceptable in my family were enormous. It took me 10 years of therapy to undo the damage that was done, and finally move to a point where I could realize I was not what my mother thought of me as – some grotesque mutant unable to be completely female, but not good enough to be male. I began to realize that I wasn’t a mutant, that gender wasn’t an essential, inborn thing to me, so I could be happy with who I was (I never really had the desire to be male, so please, no one ask me why I never transitioned. It shouldn’t be required). Then, suddenly, gender is essential and inborn again, and I am supposed to acknowledge that I am “lucky” because my body matched my perception of myself. Huh? Never really did. There was no body that matched my perception of myself, because we continue to divide people into these two genders, even though pretty much everyone I know (yes, including my “feminine” mother and sisters) have gender characteristics that fit the pattern recognized for the opposite gender, and some characteristics that match the pattern recognized for the gender they were born into.
With my history, I refuse to accept the claim that I am somehow privileged because the gender assigned to me at birth matches the one that I perceive myself as. That was not my experience, then or now. I am a woman, yes, but not a suite of characteristics commonly recognized as woman. My characteristics are all over the lot. And it took many painful years, wasting the prime years of my life locked in a dark house afraid to go out, for me to recognize that!
Hear, hear, iknklast.
Yes. That. Exactly. Me too (except that I wasn’t truly abused, just socially nudged quite a lot plus forced to wear skirts).
However hard I try, I can’t see this as a form of privilege.
Women’s reproductive rights are being reversed at every turn. We have gamergate, the pay gap, discrimination in our careers, and numerous other examples of how women are second-class citizens, if we’re considered human at all.
This certainly does not feel like privilege.
Hey that was me.
Misgendering me is insulting. Calling me famale-bodied is misgendering me because i am not a woman. I would be just as insulted if someone called me “male-bodied.” Which, you know has happened in my life.
And I’m blocking you on facebook so you can’t misrepresent my words ever again.
I think you misread the person. Non-binary trans people consistently get told they’re ______ bodied. My aunt has been told she’s male bodied, and as a CIS woman, that’s inaccurate and hurtful to her; just as hurtful as being NB and constantly having people try to lump you in to male or female.
And yet, Andi Lynn @ 9, I didn’t misrepresent your words, did I. I simply quoted them and then said what I thought of them. They were on a public post, and I didn’t name you, so I don’t think I harmed you.
I’m crushed that you’re blocking me on Facebook though. Really really crushed.
“Yeah, really – how gross to be lumped in with those disgusting people, women. What an insult”
This is what you claimed I meant. Even though in the thread I had been clear several times
that my problem with the phrase is that it is misgendering. I never said or implied that I think
women are gross.
Pulling one comment out of context and claiming it means something the author clearly did not
mean is cherry – picking and misrepresenting their words. Clearly you’re familiar with this tactic.
If you disagree with me that calling me “female-bodied” is misgendering that’s one thing. I wouldnt
have ever commented here or cared if you had only written about that disagreement. But you also said
that I think women are disgusting. You made it seem like I dont want to be called a woman because
being called a woman is inherently insulting. The reason I don’t want to be called a woman or female
is because i am not a woman or female. Misgendering me is inherently insulting. Being a woman is not.
No, it’s not what I claimed you meant, it’s what I claimed you implied. The way you chose to put it implied that women are disgusting. I don’t think I thought you necessarily intended it that way – but it is what you said.
That’s a problem I have with a lot of the rhetoric around this subject. That, in turn, is one reason people like you and your friends consider me a “TERF.”
I did not imply it at all. In the thread it was clear that I was talking about being misgendered.
You misrepresented what I said. Own that, or delete the sentence, and I’ll leave you alone. I’d
rather not spend my Saturday discussing this with you. Like I said, I would never have commented
if you had only discussed your disagreement with the fact that calling me female-bodied is misgendering,
because I really don’t care what you have to say on that matter. But I *do* care about being flagrantly
misrepresented.
I do like how you’re hedging now that you have to face the person you misrepresented. No where in the
article or your other comments did you say or imply that you think I didn’t intend to say women are gross.
I guess that’s one small step for you.
Andi Lynn—I’m sorry. What you’re saying makes no sense. It’s Humpty Dumpty. It’s Alice in Wonderland. It’s bizarre, it’s internally contradictory, and more than anything? It’s bullshit. If you can’t get through a day without claiming that someone referring to your biology accurately (in any context) is an oppression and a “misgendering” that is your very own, very personal, problem.
I’m not here to argue with anyone about whether or not female-bodied is misgendering. You need
not agree with me about that in order to see that I was not calling women disgusting, I was objecting
to being misgendered — whether you agree with that assessmentor not. Just because you disagree
with my assessment that being called female when I am notfemale, does not suddenly mean that
I think women are disgusting. Disagreeing with whether or not x is insulting to someone does not
mean you get to play fill-in-the-blank and claim they’re actually insulted by y.
I never said or implied or meant that women are disgusting or gross or that being a woman is inherently
gross. I was strictly and specifically talking about my experience of being misgendered. Ophelia chose
to disregard the context of the discussion and cherry – picked my words in order to try to discredit people
she thinks will just lie back and take it.
Andi Lynn @ 14 – no, I’m not going to “own” anything on your say-so. I own things when I’m convinced I made a mistake, but not on command. I don’t particularly care whether you leave me alone or not – if I don’t want you commenting here I can prevent you, and other than that, meh.
And no, I’m not hedging. I apparently have a better grasp on concepts like implication than you do, that’s all.
Get counseling.
I do not think that Andi’s comment can properly be read as insulting women.
Being told that you are [gender X] when you don’t identify as [gender X] can be hurtful, if you are a person who was assigned [gender X] at birth and who is constantly being coercively treated as [gender X] by society despite your expressed wishes. I don’t have this experience, because I’m cis. But trans people have it. It doesn’t imply that there is anything wrong or bad about being [gender X]. It simply means that it is hurtful to force a gender identity on someone which runs counter to their actual gender identity. It’s a way of saying that their perception of their gender identity is not real, or not important. It would be just as hurtful and insulting if you called a trans woman “male-bodied” (which does happen regularly); that doesn’t imply anything in particular about men.
Saying “I am not X, and I don’t want to be treated as X” doesn’t imply that being X is bad or inferior. The “insulting” part comes in where you’ve had the experience of being told all your life that you are X when you are sure that you are not X, where it’s something that’s been forced on you by society.
I don’t want to exacerbate conflict here, and although I don’t agree with you on trans issues I normally wouldn’t want to get into this debate. As you know, I do agree with you on many other things and have enormous respect for much of your work. But I think it’s important not to misrepresent someone’s views, especially when the context is a single decontextualised comment excerpted from a long thread.
Josh Spokes – thanks I already am and my counselor doesn’t misgender me or ever imply that I’m a woman.
The doctors who treat me at Planned Parenthood are also somehow capable pf treating me and discussing my genitals, sex life, and reproductive capabilities without misgendering me. Why? Because they know that trying to call me a man or a woman is incredibly distressing and detrimental to my overall health and well being.
Ophelia – the only way anyone can think i implied that women are gross is if they ignored the fact that i was discussing being trans and being misgendered. Which is exactly what you did. You are being dishonest here. It’s cool though. Dishonesty and misrepresentation is apparently your schtick now when it comes to discussing trans issues.
Andi Lynn: I think there are two possibilities.
1. You’re experiencing real mental distress that’s best helped by personal support and counseling. A person who says they have a uterus, who uses feminine pronouns, but who then says she’s not a woman and that she experiences debilitating mental trauma from being referred to as such sounds like someone in psychological distress. Having lived with a raft of mental illness issues of my own, I’m very sympathetic to that level of existential suffering.
2. You’re caught up in a social group that is so self-reinforcing that you don’t see the delusion, or you’re getting a lot of satisfaction through performative outrage that’s so ridiculous that the only people who refuse to say it’s ridiculous are people invested in the same social group you are.
If number one is true, then I hope you get the help you need. If number two is true, then you’d better learn to expect to be mocked for being a bullshitter.
Walton, people like me and Ophelia can see the misrepresentations you’re making on Facebook, and how you’re reporting back to the purity patrol. Just know that.
Also: I am not your counselor. The outside world is not your counselor. You don’t get to expect the world to treat you the way your own mental health expert treats you in a clinical setting.
Andi Lynn @ 20 –
No, I’m not being dishonest, because it’s obvious that that’s what you were discussing. I think pretty much everyone who reads this blog is well familiar with the context and the rhetoric and would be perfectly aware that that was what you were talking about. The point is that your way of talking about it is hyperbolic in a way that implies disgust toward women. That’s more and more commonplace in the rhetoric about trans issues, and that’s a bad thing. I write about it. I’m not going to stop writing about it.
Josh – I do not use feminine pronouns. I have not for over a year now. I am not a woman. It took me a long time to figure that out. Do not attempt to claim to understand my experience as a trans person and then say it must be a mental illness. My being trans isnot a mental illness anymore than being queer is a mental illness. You honestly sound like my homophobic and transphobic mother right now. You might want to avoid using the same arguments as people who advocate for reparative therapy.
Also? Saying that you’re monitoring my personal facebook page is really creepy behavior sense I unfriended you a long time ago. If people are telling you what I say on my personal page then you should do the right thing and tell them that my communication with my friends should stay friends only. I dont attempt to gain access to your friends only posts or communications so maybe you should respect my boundaries instead of making stalkery vaguely threatening comments about what we post on facebook.
1. If you don’t use feminine pronouns, then I made a mistake and I apologize. I would not intentionally ignore that, no matter how irritated I am.
2. I did not say I’m monitoring your Facebook page. I am not monitoring your Facebook page. I have you blocked. You didn’t notice that what I wrote was about someone other than you.
I also did not say being trans was a mental illness, and I did not imply. What I said—and what I repeat and affirm—is that being physically incapacitated and unable to function merely because someone referred to you as the wrong gender is most definitely an acute mental problem. That’s not a healthy reaction, and I say that with no moral judgment, but as a statement of fact. I’ve been in similar (though not having to do with gender) situations with my own mental health where my reactions to certain things were so fraught and overdetermined that I was causing myself more harm and distress.
You do not get to re-purpose this to claim that I think you’re mentally ill simply because you’re trans. Argue honestly if you can, and if you’re bullshitting on purpose, I’m gonna keep pointing it out.
Josh: I’m not at all happy to be in the situation of having to say these things, especially given that you and I were friends for many years from Pharyngula days. And I’m not trying to be an ass. Honestly. I *hate* conflict.
But what you are saying on this thread is not at all okay. It’s transphobic and demeaning and offensive. Which is indeed what I have said on Facebook; I am not being duplicitous. I never wanted to be involved in this, but I can’t stay silent given that a few of the closest people in my life are trans. (Not Andi, with whom I have no prior connection other than having recently become friends on Facebook.)
I am not misrepresenting anything. I’m being serious and honest when I say that I greatly respect much of what Ophelia has done over the years, and I’ve said that many times in many places. (We’ve had productive discussions about immigrants’ rights in the past, for instance.) I have criticised her views on trans issues, which I think are misconceived and inaccurate. That is not meant to be a personal slight. I’ve held all manner of extremely wrong views in my life, as you know well.
I am going to bow out of this now, because I’ve said my piece and there is nothing to be gained from arguing.
Ophelia – My not being a woman and not wanting to be called a woman does not imply anything other than that I’m not a woman. You are not a man. It would be insulting if all the people around you insisted on calling you a man. That does not mean that being a man is inherently insulting.
And no the people who read your blog did not have the full context. They did not even know whether or not I was trans. Some even seemed to think I’m a trans man. The context was not clear and you madr no attempt to clarify anything until I spoke up. You’re being dishonest AND you’re attempting ti gas light me by suddenly claiming that it was my “hyperbole” you haf issue with. Even though I wasn’t using hyperbole. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say I’m not a woman anymore than you’re hyperbolic when you say you’re not a man.
I will no longer respond to anything Josh says because apparently he doesnt seem to realize that part of my need for counseling is the fact that him and people like him insist on gendering me however they want and then blame me when I have an adverse psychological reaction to it. I’m not asking for anyone to be my counselor other than my counselor (which, by the way, he brought up). I’m only asking for bare minimum respect of my person.
Walton—Remember when I sent you a private message on Facebook telling you I was unfriending you because you have a weak character? That you’re very easily influenced by people with more dominant personalities than yours, and that it leads you into making what I consider dubious ethical choices? And how you claim to hate conflict, but that you actually seek it out and stoke it but use passive-sounding language in order to deny that you’re doing it?
That’s the person you are, and the person you’re being right here.
Monitoring someone else’s facebook is no better. Pretty sure much of what Walton posts is also friends only. Keep digging though. Totally not creepy.
I am not a danger to you or the source of your emotional problems, Andi.
Stop the performance Andi.
Ophelia, you court harmful transphobia when you misrepresent our words like this. Stop misrepresenting me.
Stop performing Andi.
I guess im blocked from commenting now, Ophelia? That’s ok. Everyone sees the kind of person you are. Picking on people who have very little power to fight back against lies and bullying. You’re a joke now.
Ah i see im not blocked from commenting. Wonderful.
You’re not blocked from commenting and you never were.
Andi @ 29 –
Of course; all that is true. But you didn’t just say “I’m not a woman and it’s insulting when people call me a woman.”
Also, Andi @ 28 – I’m not “picking on” you. I didn’t name you in the post. There was no way for anyone to know who said the thing I quoted – Facebook comments aren’t searchable.
It was clear from the thread that I was discussing how calling me a woman is misgendering. You’re forgetting that part. That’s what cherry – picking is: taking words out of context in order to claim those words mean or imply something the author never said.
And i already saw i wasnt blocked. Im on my phone and it’s hard to read and i didnt see my last three comments until after that one posted.
You’re picking on pretty much all trans people by stealing our words and claiming they say things that they didnt say.
No. I didn’t steal anything. It was a public post. It’s not stealing to quote people.
This is just the same absurdly inflated rhetoric that I pointed at in the post.
Andi, you didn’t just object to being misgendered. You objected to being called “female-bodied.” And to being “lumped in with women.”
Ophelia commented on your language and its implications. And she did not name you.
You’ve outed yourself, and now you’re claiming Ophelia picked on you, personally. And you’re claiming that your original point was merely an objection to being misgendered, when in fact you objected to being referred to as female-bodied. There is a difference.
Now Ophelia is picking on “all trans people!”
No. She’s criticizing the rhetoric and thinking of some trans people.
Also, Andi–I understand that you did not intend to insult women. But Ophelia’s point was never that you, personally, were deliberately insulting women.
I’m sorry this is painful for you.
(Sorry for triple-posting.)
Walton: be sure to add me to your roster of thoughtcriminals when you report back to your cult.
Walton, I’m confused. Can you please show me where you feel that Josh was being transphobic? I’d really like to know.
How on Earth did I miss this?
Honestly, talk about privilege – if the worst thing happening in your life is someone calling you female-bodied on Facebook, you have less to worry about than 99% (at least) of humanity.
One of the ludicrous things that I’ve in read comments by people in the so-called ‘trans activism’ group is the objection to calling a woman a ‘vagina-haver’ on the grounds that trans women don’t all have vaginas, and suggest ‘female bodied’ as being inclusive; followed by others saying that ‘female-bodied’ is ‘transphobic’ and we should say ‘uterus-havers’.
If the in-group can’t agree on terminology, why the hell are they coming here and ranting at the rest of us?
I’m female-bodied; it’s what makes me trans. Female refers to sex. When I had reproductive sex in the past, it was my body that got pregnant. It’s the body of a man in the sense that it belongs to me, but it isn’t a male body (biological sex category).
I’m not a uterus-haver (or the even more ludicrous term I read today, ‘uterine person’) because mine was removed decades ago. Lots of women have had their wombs removed; that doesn’t stop society at large treating them as if they still have them. And that is where gender comes in – it’s the way people are treated and expected to behave, based on perceived biological sex.
It is imperative that we band together to dismantle that particular set of boxes, because if we don’t no amount of foot-stamping and goal-post-moving with regard to how feminists are to be allowed to refer to one another will make the damnedest bit of difference to how the rest of the world treats non-conformists. Except that they might be laughing uncontrollably at the same time as beating people up for perceived failure to live up to gender norms.
Solidarity – since when did that become a dirty word amongst progressives? Probably at the same time ‘woman’ did, and amongst the same people. Fifth columnists.
Ach – that’s such a great comment.
[…] a comment by tiggerthewing on It’s been a long […]
Yall are just dead set on thinking that someone objecting to being misgendered means they somehow think women are gross. And lol at the idea that this is the worst i have to deal with. Yall sound like MRA’s complaining when someone talks about gendered slurs. But sure, whatever. You all believe whatever Ophelia says anyway. She could say i torture kittens and you’d all jump on board. Really though, have fun being irrelevant to the future of gender theory and feminism. The rest of us have actual work to do.
My cis male husband has been called “ma’am”, “lady” etc with far more fucking grace than some intersex-by-process-of-elimination folks in this discussion.
And that’s living in a society that does treat being a woman as something inherently icky and a major insult to use on a man.
@Ophelia, you said:
“No, it’s not what I claimed you meant, it’s what I claimed you implied.”
But this would only be implied if to be called “female-bodied” is the same as to be called “a woman.”
(Andi Lynn said it was insulting for her to be called “female-bodied.” You claimed this implies she thinks it’s insulting to be called a woman.)
But I know from past posts that you don’t think that “female-bodied” means “woman,” so I’m puzzled why you should say Andi Lynn’s not wanting to be called “female-bodied” implies she thinks it’s insulting to be called a woman.
Oops, I used “her” when referring to Andi Lynn above, due to a failure to thoroughly edit. I don’t actually know what pronoun was preferred there, and did not intend to presume.)
#8 Andi Lynn
Misgendering me is insulting. Calling me famale-bodied is misgendering me because i am not a woman. I would be just as insulted if someone called me “male-bodied.” Which, you know has happened in my life.
By definition, calling you female- or male-bodied cannot misgender anyone, as ‘bodied’ quite clearly refers to anatomy i.e. sex rather than gender.
_
#14
It would have been misrepresentation if OB had claimed you actually stated X, but she didn’t. It is not misrepresentation to quote someone and then argue that what they (you) said logically (and not necessarily intentionally) implies X.
_
#29
Explaining something to you, and then trying again using different wording, is not gaslighting.
_
#41
It was clear from the thread that I was discussing how calling me a woman is misgendering. You’re forgetting that part. That’s what cherry – picking is: taking words out of context in order to claim those words mean or imply something the author never said.
This may make me a massive pedant, but cherry-picking is not the same as quoting someone out of context. There is overlap – it is certainly possibly to do both at once – but cherr-picking doesn’t necessarily involve taking something out of context.
#52
Ah, the old ‘this blog is a hive mind!’ trope. You would blend in seamlessly amongst the slymepit shitposters.
at this point you’re just embarrassing yourself.
Back again, sorry, but seriously, I don’t get it. Let’s stipulate, for the sake of argument, that what Andi Lynn said can be reasonably construed, in or out of context, as insulting to women in general.
Well, Andi Lynn has, in this thread, clarified their meaning, and their meaning is clearly _not_ insulting to women. Right?
So then why is that not the end of the story?
This still going on?
When it is pointed out that something someone wrote has implications that the writer probably didn’t intend, without connecting the quote to the author in any way, I wouldn’t blame them for being embarrassed despite the anonymity; but why out themself as the author? And then claim that intent is suddenly, somehow, magic? Whilst at the very same time claiming that a harmlessly accurate phrase like ‘female bodied’ – a phrase that the trans activists have previously asked be used, at that – is ‘violently misgendering’ them?
Words have accepted meanings, and someone attempting to manipulate other people by abusing the language like that can expect to get push back.
I agree with Josh – Humpty Dumpty.
Kris, I don’t see anything unreasonable in this thread except for the arguments coming from Andi Lynn. She said some words, and while it is clear that she didn’t mean overt hostility towards women, OB argued that that was the logical implication of her words anyway. Andi Lynn’s response to this is where it gets unreasonable – that because she didn’t intend that outcome, no one is allowed to point out that implication.
Meta – Is intent magic or not?
Because when someone accidentally misgenders a person, and apologises, it is exactly as big a deal as when someone accidentally insults women by implying they are disgusting and states that was not their intent (kind of an apology, at least a clarification).
@Kris Rhodes: read the original quote. The author complained about “Being lumped in with women by being called female-bodied” – it’s not Ophelia making that connection, it was Andi in the first place.
Yes, that is incoherent with the insistence that bodies are irrelevant to both sex and gender, but the incoherence again is Andi’s, not anyone else’s.