Chick Bashing, the Tranny Way

How the hell can feminists and trannies coexist?

I ask because (natch), I’m doing a story on transsexuals, and man, they say the darndest things. Things at which no good feminist, or even myself, can help but cringe. 

Take, for example, the testimony of Flo, the supremely confident dyke-who-should-have-been-a-man whom I met with pal Courtney Hambright at New Moon, the local lesbian bar, a few weeks back.

Flo, a biological-born woman who only dates straight women, is, er, well, sexist. I fell into a conversation with her about what women really want, in and out of bed, and it through me for a loop, knocking me off the rather stout pedestal of conviction I’ve nurtured about female (read: my) sexuality since puberty, which dictates that sex and pleasure can take many forms for both women and men.

“All women really want penetration,” is how I’ll paraphrase what Flo told me, her body language oozing masculine assurance, ego, and suavity. “Any woman who tells you different, even a lesbian who never want to be with a man, is in denial. Women want to be penetrated; that’s what makes them women.”

So Flo, I asked, what about you?

“I’m a man in a woman’s body,” she says. “I don’t want to be penetrated. Never have.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Indeed, though I usually bristle at such biologically deterministic characterizations of women, I let Flo breach my customary there-ain’t-no-difference-between-women-and-men mindset because Flo had authority. She was a woman AND a man. Surely her point(s) of view trumped mine. I began to freak out a little bit. Were men really just the mounting machines and women really just the fuckholes that our physiology implies?

I met my first bona fide FTM (female-to-male transsexual) a few weeks ago. He is a wonderful man named Mark Anthony Cummings, a spiritual guy with a sweet wife and the speech patterns of a Latino Baptist preacher. The story of his tortured transition from Maritza is a funny and painful one that deserves respect and pathos.

But Mark’s new book, The Mirror Makes No Sense, has a troubling chapter, wherein he discusses the differences between men and women from his perch on the wall between both. A few themes:

--Women are more emotional than men.

--Shopping is the key to a woman's heart.

--Women are manipulative, especially when they want a man.

--Women have a “a touch of evil” in them.

I told Mark that his facile write-offs of women made my feminist side wet itself. He was understanding, but stuck to his beliefs as conclusions he had drawn from his experience as a woman. I turned to his wife, woman-born and raised, asking her how she felt about this woman-bashing. “I don’t like it,” she said. “Sometimes I get angry.”

Well, gee. These guy/gals left me completely confused, and more than a little frustrated at how the people who should be the most insightful and tolerant of the wide range of gender expression are actually the ones who tell me that women should get back to the kitchen.

I even took a dive in the murky waters of feminist theory and its new offshoot, transfeminism, to find some ethical guideposts, and darn it if I’m still at a loss. All the shifting identities and looming power structures just make my head hurt.

As I see it, the conflict is somewhat immutable. For many trans people, embracing the opposite gender tends to involves celebrating the traditional markers of gender—like, say, pants—that feminists have been trying to uncouple from gender for decades. Mark talks about how he hated dolls as a child, and longed to play with cars. My feminist roommates counter: what in hell does that have to do with him really being a boy? Both camps have valid desires—Mark to express himself as he feels he really is, my roommates to live in a world that doesn’t force little girls who hate dolls to feel that they must be men.

If Flo and Mark were biological males saying the same exact things, I would have blown them off as misogynistic assholes. I probably would’ve enjoyed a little good old-fashioned gender-banter with them that would’ve inevitably included a lively exchange about the ethics of ass-banditry. And I would’ve gone home no worse for wear, my feminism intact.

"Men," I would think. "They don't get it."

But transmen, by definition, do get it. Right?

So how does feminism handle the misogyny of former women? (Or, come to think of it, of current and aspiring women?) Should it be seriously threatened by the unexpected critcism of itself from within? Or should it dismiss it all, regardless of the vaginas and XX chromosomes posessed by the speaker, as jackasstic assholery?    

Comments

[Bixi]

Feminism is a political movement and an analytic lens for all times, for all places, for all people, including within gay male communities and within trans communities...

Thank you for writing about this difficult issue, giuleah. When you try to wrap your mind around it all, it just dissolves in your hands. To seek gender liberation, to be a "good feminist," is to work toward the dissociation of particular characteristics from particular genders. If you're working toward the realization of that goal (which I think a lot of trans people are not), then why the impetus to change genders at all? Then again, if gendered characteristics are completely dissociated from sex and there is no essential maleness or femaleness, what does it matter if someone wants to change their gender? And why, if there's no essential femaleness, I might ask myself, am I so glad that I was born a woman? Hmm.

I expect (but do not anticipate) that every person I encounter be a feminist, and what I must be sure of is that I give male-born men as hard a time about their misogynist viewpoints as I would give trans men espousing similar viewpoints.

[Lissa]

Very prescient. This is about fifteen minutes of editing away from being an ass-kicking, face-owning, apoplexy-inducing opinion column. Go publish it somewhere already, eh?

*grin*

[maddy]

"Women want to be penetrated; that’s what makes them women.” What we have here is what I'd call a pretty assinine description of womanhood. Why do newspapers and magazines get criticized for not publishing more pieces by women? Is it because the 51 percent of the population which wants to be penetrated is not having its voice heard? Are people sitting at home asking themselves, ""I wonder what those who enjoy penetration think about the idea of national healthcare. What's the view of willing penetratees on a sound exit strategy for Iraq? What unique issues do they feel are being overlooked by the mainstream media--besides, of course, how damn good it feels to be penetrated?" (Incidentally, I'd say that issue has gotten a lot more play in the media in the past half century, although when compared to press coverage of the thrill of penetrating, it has a lot of catching up to do.) When you learn that there is to be a woman speaker at a

Never mind that it comes from suave, confident Flo--the "man in a woman's body." I question Flo's authority on the subject of sex difference. And I want to know where Flo (he? she? penetrator or penetratee?) stands on the question of "a woman's right to choose." For Flo, this right must not be one of choosing whether to be penetrated--only when, where, by whom and under what circumstances. Which is clearly wack. Flo may not want to be penetrated, but supposing Flo got pregnant. Gender essentialism may not be total crap, but Flo's version sounds like it to me.

Anyway, who says trans men are "former women"? I bristle at the idea that they have more authority on the subject of sex difference than the rest of us. On the other hand, I seriously doubt that transsexuals and trans people of all varieties are worse offenders in the realm of gross sexism than the rest of us. Many have developed more complicated and enlightened views of sexuality and gender through their experiences--and for the rest, well, they can think what they need to think for the time being. If these facile definitions make their lives easier and give them more social and sexual confidence, then fine. Biological men and women alike have been relying on facile notions of sexual identity for long enough, and until we get over it, trans people should be able to take part in the fun.

[Bixi]

No, no one can have fun! No fun!