I identify with my biological sex. My gender identity is the same as my biological sex. That happens to be what's considered normal in the place and time I live. I also come from another culture, which has given me insight into "doing femininity" in a variety of ways. I don't feel constrained by strict gendered stereotypes. It doesn't phase me to have been a tomboy, or to read that my autistic brain is more "masculine". These things don't cause me to question my femaleness nor my femininity. I believe I am feminine enough. I do not do feminine things that make me uncomfortable. Like high heels or waxing body hair.
But there is another aspect of myself that I do not identify with nearly as strongly as seems to be traditionally expected of me: my marital status. I grew up hearing (and resisting) that once married, "two become one" essentially means "both become him". I did not drop my "maiden" name.
In fact, I doubled down and used the opportunity to switch from my father's to my mother's surname. And my husband and I arranged to both hyphenate each other's names. So while I did add his to mine, he likewise added mine to his. What's more, I have never felt comfortable using the social title "Mrs." I simply saw no reason why my marital status should affect any social interaction I have with anyone.
It caused me great anguish every time I was referred to not only by my husband's surname, but by his first name as well. I once pointed this out to a lady who pointed to the "Mrs." on an envelope with what was supposed to be both our names and said "there you are". (I have used "Ms" before and after getting married.)
So maybe this is what it's like to be transgender. Maybe a trans person simply does not put as much weight on their biological sex or level of masculinity/femininity. Maybe a trans person doesn't think their adherence to sex stereotypes or gender roles (or lack thereof) should determine how they interact with the world around them. Maybe their identity is much more basic, more generic, more universally human?
I was once "misgendered" when a boy in my middle school math class called me an "it" on account of my not being particularly stereotypically feminine. I was offended by this, and I assumed everyone would be offended by being referred to by a non-gendered pronoun (like "it" or "they"). But I was assuming everyone identified as strongly with their sex and gender as I do. What if other people experience the world differently from us? What if other people place more or less value on things than we do? What if we're having a mass knee-jerk reaction to the transgender community becoming more vocal and assertive on account of our own insecurities?
I remember discerning where I fell on the same-sex marriage issue before Obama made it legal nation-wide. I listened to the conservative arguments against it, and I simply did not buy it. I did not see how same-sex marriage in any way threatened MY marriage, or heterosexual marriage as an institution. In fact, what I saw as the greatest threat to marriage (of any kind) was two-fold: promiscuity and no-fault divorce.
When gay people started demanding access to the same family rights as straight people, society could've done one of two things. One - it could've redefined their terminology without compromising their values (while they still had them), saying OK, you can marry, but we're holding firm on no sex before/outside of marriage. Or two - it could've resisted kicking and screaming all the way, forcing gay people into generations of extramarital sexual relations on account of having no other socially acceptable alternative outside of celibacy. And to my Catholic and Orthodox Christian friends I say - celibacy is indeed a calling, but certainly not a simple solution to all of life's problems. There is way too much focus on sexuality in our society. From both sides. Too promiscuous on the secular side, and too prudish on the religious side.
At any rate, now that trans people are making similar demands as gay people before them, again society has a chance to respond in one of two ways. One - we can redefine terms and continue on our merry way, holding fast to a continued need for both femininity and masculinity in society, without accusing either of toxicity. Or two - we can resist kicking and screaming all the way, forcing trans people to eventuall erode any gendered expression from public life at all.
Will this happen? I don't know. Could this happen? Why not? If they're going to be told over and over and over again that they do not get to identify as a woman or man because their sex doesn't match their identity, they will do what they need to do to meet their psychological needs. They will go after gendered stereotypes as a whole, eradicating them so that there is no more gendered difference among people, and therefore their personal identities would become a moot point.
I don't know about ya'll, but I for one want to maintain my freedom to embrace certain feminine stereotyped roles, appearances, presentation. I don't want skirts or makeup to become illegal any more than losing the freedom to choose to stay home to raise my children and not have to worry about being drafted into military service.
My being a woman, my being a female, my being feminine.... these are not inherently threatened by biological males wanting to present like me, nor by biological females not wanting to present like me. There are already many women (more so than men due to the homophobic stigma against effeminate men until quite recently) who do not identify as trans and yet would be tricky to pick out of a line up as being female, due to their androgenous or even masculine appearance.
Now, that doesn't mean there aren't certian issues of equality that present a conflict of interest. Women's sports is one thing that comes to mind. Forcing terminology onto people (people with uteruses or ciswomen come to mind). While I may in fact be a person with a uterus, that is not how I identify. To me, my uterus means something. Much like some women's marital status means something more to them than it did to me, and they insist on being referred to as "Mrs." To each their own. I have no problem calling a woman "Mrs." if that's what she wants (I would stop short of ever using a woman's husband's given name to refer to her, though. I just can't.) So if a biological female identifies as a man, I say let him. And then, indeed, this newly expanded definition of "man/him" would in fact mean that new concepts are now possible: menstruating men, pregnant men, lactating men.
Is it comfortable for me? No. You know what it is? It feels like I'm being robbed. These things used to be uniquely woman's territory. Now they aren't anymore. And that's a loss that we have to grieve societely.
Dare I compare this to the integration of Black women into the feminist movement? Or the civil rights movement? Black men had been emasculated by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. They were fighting to be Black MEN, to be recognized on an equal footing with white MEN. So for them, to include Black women felt like it was taking away from what they were fighting for. Similarly for white women. White women were trying to establish their equality with white men, who had the right to vote. They wanted to be associated with those who already had privileges and status in society, not with Black women, who had less privileges and status. Both white women and Black men worried about losing their proximity to the desired privileged status of white men, to the detriment of Black women who had to fight both sexism and racism simultaneously.
Are we biological women doing the same thing now to our fellow trans citizens? Are we afraid of losing our proximity to the privileged status that is still associated with white men in a lot of corners of our country? We don't want to share. There's an element of priding ourselves on our "victim" role as the "second sex" (Simone de Beauvoir). Poor us. We are physically weaker, therefore we need our own sports, locker rooms, bathrooms. Woe is us. We are cursed with menstruation and the reproductive burden, so we want special consideration in other areas of life, since we don't get the respect we deserve for our feminine contributions.
What if it will be thanks to trans women that all women finally become truly equal? What if it'll be thanks to trans women that there will be no need to physically separate women from men in locker rooms and bathrooms because there will be sufficient infastructure, technology, and peer pressure to simply treat other people with dignity and respect simply for being human, not because they're "the weaker sex"?
Notice the public debate is not about trans men. No one seems to mind too much that trans men are doing all the same things as trans women. There's an understanding in our society that biological men are still top dog. Therefore, biological men are not threatened by the presence of biological women, and on account of there being a history of women seeking to infiltrate traditional men's spaces (workforce, military, clergy; pants, short hair), trans men in men's spaces isn't met with the same level of resistance as trans women in women's spaces.
Yes, there are precautions that must be in place. There certainly are biological differences that make it problematic for a male body to be in the vicinity of female bodies under certain circumstances. Maybe that second amendment controversy needs to come to the forefront here. What if every woman armed herself with a handgun and training in how to use it? What if then everyone knew that if you try anything in a women's locker room or bathroom, you will find yourself staring down the barrel of all those women's new besties? What if we step up security in all public spaces to ensure sexual assault is not a temptation?
What if biological women were to welcome trans women instead of fearing that they're taking something from us? What if we were to take on the role of showing them the ropes? What if we teach them what it means to be a woman, so they don't just get their information off the internet? What if we use our feminine charm and nurturing to help trans women become better women? What if we take on the role of setting the standards and calling the shots, rather than allowing ourselves to be on the defensive? What if we stand firm in our confidence about what it means to be a woman? What if allowing one other "type" of woman into the fold actually strengthened our "cause"? What if it may not be a bad idea to have women with biologically male bodies "on our side", "on the inside"? What if the emergence of transwomen into communities of women is precisely what will finally even the playing field between the binary sexes in society?
And what if the price we have to pay for that comes in the realm of sports? What if we reenvision sports? What if we stop separating sports by sex and start separating it by weight or size, like in martial arts? What if we have different tiers of runners, say tier A for those who can run up to X speed, and tier B for those who can run above X speed? What if integrating sports between the sexes is what will finally raise women's sports in the consciousness of sports fans everywhere? What if women athletes end up getting paid the same as men because of this integration?
What if the future can be nothing like what we've previously experienced and everything we can possibly imagine? What if it only takes a little bit of labor pains to iron out the details, but if we're just willing to let go of the past and embrace the future, we can all evolve as human beings?
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