Guest post: Fighting these battles for decades
Guest post by Tigger the wing.
I fear that my generation may have been far too indulgent of baby mtf trannies, when I discover them saying things like this:
Reminder to not use vaginas, periods, or slogans like “pussy power” as symbols for feminism!!! don’t exclude women who don’t have vaginas :)
How DARE you! How VERY dare you, you entitled little shits‽
Your grandmothers, mothers, sisters, ftm cousins, and older transwomen, have been fighting these battles for decades before most of you decided that you’d like to wear dresses and make-up. Did you have no idea, when you discovered your feminine internal person, that by joining the underclass you would automatically lose all the privileges that being born with a penis gave you, whether you asked for or expected such or not? And that by privileging those women born with a penis over all the billions of women who weren’t, you are perpetuating the patriarchal constructs that gave all queer people, including trans people like us, such a fucking hard time until feminists fought for us to have rights?
And then you have the sheer unmitigated gall to accuse people who say “Stop trampling over women” of being TERFs or ‘transmisogynistic’?
And to think I mulled over this for two days, because I was worried that my following initial response was too strong to post. And instead, I decided that it wasn’t strong enough. ;)
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“Weird, isn’t it, that women who have had their reproductive organs removed, for health reasons for example, have never had a problem with generalised language like that, because they understand that it was never intended to be exclusive.
It was much more important to focus on getting an education and the vote, being allowed to work where one was qualified to work regardless of marital status, being allowed to control one’s own fertility, being paid the same as a man for doing work of equivalent value, being treated as an autonomous being in marriage instead of a sex slave, etc., etc., et bloody cetera.
Has it really come to this, that the struggle to improve the fate of half the human race is going to be derailed by a tiny percentage of trans extremists who think that the fact that they were born with a penis makes them more important, so it should be all about them? Isn’t that the very attitude that feminism was formed to fight against?”
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So, go on then – defriend and block me, you snivelling little cowards, too pusillanimous to engage with adults on adult terms, engaging in online slacktivism and faux outrage against manufactured slights. Bloody social justice draft-dodgers and weasels, defending the pore ould patriarchy against those eebil wimminz and their disgusting procreative ways. I’m going to hit my drums, and pretend that it is possible to knock some sense into your dense little brains.
Brilliant. Thank you, Tigger the wing.
Good call :-)
Bravo! Such eloquent righteousand anger is rare.
Go sister!
YES! Thank you.
Bravo. Just what I have mumbled to myself over the past couple of months, and spoken so eloquently, too.
Thank you, Tigger.
and I think that the concept of social justice draft-dodger deserves amplification.
Well done, tigger, and quite brilliant!
Thanks for that. I’ve read other people saying, either sadly or perplexedly, that they’d have thought mtf transwomen would be eager to support their sisters, even to the extent of a little self-effacement, not try to push them aside to ensure they themselves aren’t ‘excluded’. I don’t get it–I don’t have kids, but support the struggles of mothers and pregnant women. I’ve never had an abortion and am not likely to get one, but I support other women’s rights to have them. I work in a ‘masculine’ field, but support women’s fights for more money, better conditions and more respect in traditionally ‘feminine’ work. There are lots of ways in which my life trajectory hasn’t been typical of women (it’s been my learning experience to discover the ways in which actually it subtly has), but I’ve always supported the women, and the campaigns, associated with what most women have to deal with, even though a lot of these aren’t my personal problems. While I may feel excluded or marginalised for other reasons, I don’t feel ‘excluded’ when ‘the women’s movement’ uses languages or addresses issues that may not specifically affect me individually. Because I think it’s important to support women.
You had me at “..entitled little shits”.
“A thing of beauty is joy forever”
you entitled little shits
This, Just this.
Thing is I know older trans women, most of whom have a carefully considered and highly nuanced view of their relationship to other women and to feminism.
Then there’s the current generation who are being tutored by the loudest online activists who are in that wonderfully apt phrase, “entitled little shits”.
Thank you, Tigger, not least for reminding us that not all trans people buy in to or support this idiocy.
‘Thank you, Tigger, not least for reminding us that not all trans people buy in to or support this idiocy.’
Sorry, when I wrote my comment above I should have said ‘the mtf transwomen who seem to be hogging all the bandwidth to criticise feminism, feminists, and anything about ‘women”, rather than the mtf transwomen who go about their lives as best they can/who actively support other women and women’s issues.
I feel like “tranny” is a word we need to use more often. It’s a good word, and it makes them really really mad.
As an Australian, I first encountered “tranny” as a cheerfully Aussie self-label used by trans people. I know it’s a slur in the US so I do generally avoid it. But it sounds cute and friendly to me, especially when Tranny Granny Tigger applies it to himself.
I’m so old that “tranny” = “transistor radio”
Thanks for the praise, folks. I’m humbled indeed that my little rant resonated with so many.
As for tranny – for most of my life, I either used it as Steve Vowles did, or as an engineering term to refer to the drive system of motorbikes (‘transmission’).
Love the post! Exactly right.
Re: Tranny. I wouldn’t use that, because I do consider it a derogatory term when used by a non-trans person. Why add fuel to the fire.
Btw, though I always use “preferred pronouns” and have never used derogatory terms like “tranny”, and I recognize an individual adults right to follow their own way in terms of how they wish to be seen, I’m still labeled a terf because I question the rhetoric of transactivist extremism and how it affects women.
I also have questioned the problematic way children are “treated” for what may be dysphoria, but also may be, and most likely is, just logical reactions to the “girls must like and do this, boys must like and do that” current strict societal gender dichotomy meant to produce ultra-feminine girls (princesses and vacuous damsels in distress) and ultra masculine boys (superheroes). But, according to transactivists who seem to have an inordinate influence in pediatrics and child psychological assistance and councelling, every child must be steared towards transgenderism. Because i say that is is a problem as one solution does not fit all, that blockers are not as benign as they like to pretend, and that a whole generation of kids are being used as guinea pigs for transactivism, I am called TERF. Ridiculous.
Tigger is trans.
When I was in therapy, and talked to my doctor about the difficulty I had in terms of my gender, because I had been regarded as “Not-Feminine” by a lot of people simply because of my educational and intellectual interests (and the fact that I like stomping around in wetlands wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and a pair of neoprene booties), he immediately jumped to the suggestion that “I wanted to be male”. I didn’t have any real desire to be male; I just wanted to be accepted as who I was, and not forced into some gender box.
I was luckier than most. When I explained this, he nodded, agreed with my goal, and proceeded based on what I felt was right for me. There was no pressure to change my sex, my gender, or my way of being in the world, but rather finding a route for me to acceptance of being outside the box, and learning not to give a flying f*** what other people thought about that.
Thank you Tigger, that was beautiful.
Thanks. ‘Entitled little shits’ is worthy of framing. Not to ignore the Entitled Big Shits though.
Barbswire: I’m still working out my own standing in this issue, (and I’ve been grateful to Ophelia for permitting me to try to ask questions on it). I’ve seen forms of this assertion here before:
I know there’s a push for early access to hormone blockers–which are not used for transition, but rather to delay puberty until the child is old enough to make up their own mind. But what you’re describing seems more extreme than that. Can you give me any sort of reference point for child psychologists, etc, actively pushing a diagnosis of transgender status in the manner you describe? I tried some Googling, but I didn’t get a whole lot from that.
Joining Freemage’s request. My impression is that it is the children who are insisting on being recognized as their gender.
It sounds to me as though the ‘entitled little shits’ are saying “We’re women but by dint of also being penis-owners we are naturally in charge”.
As an aside, I have a question (not ‘jaqqing off, I promise). It just occurred to me that since having a penis or vagina is no longer indicative of gender, is there no longer such a thing as a gendered insult based on genitalia?
For example, if women can have testicles, is telling someone to ‘grow a pair’ still insulting to women? Or calling someone a prick insulting to men alone?
Oh, and ‘tranny’; either a transistor radio as mentioned above, or the abbreviation of the Ford Transit van. Stop appropriating our abbreviations: get yer bloody own :-)
@23 and 24 This is where I’ve seen that issue mentioned recently:
http://transgenderreality.com/
In my view, thinking of gendered insults in the context of de-linking gender and anatomy leads to exactly that bind. A bind, but one with a fairly easy resolution: the problem lies not with observing that there is strong pattern in the anatomy of humans (sex), but in making behavioral and psychological assumptions based on that anatomy (gender). To me, the entire concept of gender is the problem, as it implicitly relies on elements of essentialism.
This was shared on our facebook group, which had become to become secret as people were scared of their jobs, and still wanted to discuss their views on this
Guest, thanks for the link. This is very different from what I know from parents of trans kids.
Example:
AFAB kid declares their wish to be a boy when they grow up.
Parents – ‘why? A girl can do anything! A girl can be anything!’ ‘Hey, see, this woman is an engineer!. This woman is a firefighter!’
Kid: ‘That’s all great, I’m happy for those women, but I will never be a woman.’
This goes on for a few years, until kid goes ahead and starts presenting as a boy and insists on a male-coded name.
Or my kid, who presents as a young man, is legally transitioned, has started hormones, but still likes many female-coded things and enjoys them when he feels safe – at home, when among very close friends, or among queer people. And still cares about feminist things, such as which presidential candidate is better on women’s issues.
Anat, I’m delighted that those lads have had such a positive experience. You must have some really good people in the psych and medical services where you are.
Sadly, the same cannot be said of all areas. Not all doctors are trained to be that good, and not all parents are prepared to acknowledge their kids’ differences and get them to a doctor in the first place.
Tiggerthewing, what I was trying to convey is that these kids are not transitioning out of yearning for things or roles coded for a gender other than their assigned one, nor are they evidence that messages of feminism are somehow going unheard or being rejected by this group of young people.
Okay, I read a lot of the stories posted on that blog, and I note that it’s mostly the writings of adolescents and young adults trying to express their experiences. I’m not seeing actual quotes from doctors urging early transition.
As for the stories themselves, a lot of them feel like they fall into chicken/egg arguments. If an AMAB child is starting to strongly question their gender identity, then they’re likely to look around at how society says ‘girls’ should act, and incorporate those behaviors into their own. Yes, they’re buying into sexist ideology when they do that, but it’s a very human reaction, and one that feminism could help alleviate–but which might not ultimately matter one whit when it comes down to identification.
Picture a society where the arbitrary gender roles are swapped around a bit–still patriarchal in intent, but using different background reasoning. Say, society has developed in such a way that skirts (often physically more comfortable than pants) are for men, while women are expected to wear pants to better protect their modesty and virginity (not to mention preventing ‘contamination’ from menstruation), because it’s a patriarchy. In this society, these same AFAB children would be saying that they want to “be a boy so I can wear a skirt”, and vice-versa.
Hell, that’s how I’ve always been told feminism views those strict gender roles in the first place–that they are not biological but social in origin. Now, should these youths be corrected? Yes. But the correction that’s actually going to make sense is not, “Liking skirts doesn’t make a you a girl,” but rather, “You didn’t know you were a girl because you liked skirts; society taught you that because you knew you were a girl, you should like skirts.”
You can tell girls “women can be anything” until you’re blue in the face, they still see the social reality around them: not only do men still dominate public life, all women must still be sweet, we must be nurturing, we must put everyone else first, but above all, women must be sexy, and by sexy, I mean sexy in the modern way – infantalized and masochistic. I say spare the (untrue) platitudes and *prepare them to fight*.
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