Here’s what it comes down to: telling a six-year old transgender girl that as she grows up she would would naturally make other girls uncomfortable (or that she would even represent a “threat“) because of her genitalia is actually somewhat comparable to telling a nine-year old cisgender girl that she is a “c*nt.”
In the latter case, society is attempting to teach a young woman to believe, “you are inherently to be devalued as a human being because of your genitalia, and your body has only sexual value. We have set your lot in life before you, and you are always to be victimized.”
Meanwhile, in the former case a young woman is also cruelly being taught, “You are inherently an aggressor because of your genitalia. Because of your body configuration itself, you can’t help yourself but subjugate someone or make them feel uncomfortable.”
One is teaching patriarchy from a victim-coercive perspective, the other teaches patriarchy from an oppressor-coercive perspective. They are two sides of the same coin, a misogynistic narrative that ultimately teaches us to reduce human beings to their body parts one way or the other.
See here for another compelling perspective from a different angle.
Update: See here for another great perspective that also focuses on the implicit sexualizing of children in the arguments against forcing this young woman out of the girl’s bathroom.
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Follow-up comment: I should have made acknowledgment in my comments above that there were very apparent racialized dynamics involved in how Hollywood and the media interacted with the nine-year old girl mentioned above at the Oscars. It is difficult to imagine that such a horrific comment would ever be made about a nine-year old white girl, and I have no doubt that racism played a role, even if race was not explicitly mentioned in the Onion’s tweet itself. (The tweet was almost certainly made in the context of or in response to the racialized interactions that others were already having with this young lady in the media).
Thanks to those who have pointed this oversight out to me (in the comments section below and elsewhere), as I should have included a comment to this effect from the beginning.
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March 1, 2013 at 2:36 pm
Amy Dentata
I agree with the main point, but as a few people have brought up on Twitter, we need to recognize that racism also played a role in how Quvenzhané was treated. I think the point you raise is true in general, but with this specific example it gets more complicated than just cis/sexism.
March 1, 2013 at 3:55 pm
Christine Noble
These things usually are Amy, though I am sure you understand that. Too few want to look past their pet intersection to realize how complicated all oppression is, and how we all have at least some culpability in another’s oppression (though goodness sake, I hope some straight, white, cis-male does not read this and take it as we owe him some sort of debt.)
March 2, 2013 at 6:56 am
leftytgirl
I added a comment to this effect. Thanks Amy.
March 3, 2013 at 2:56 am
Cait
Reblogged this on Cait.
March 8, 2013 at 8:38 am
farishcunning
No, calling a six-year-old “trans girl” a dick would be the flip side of calling a nine-year-old girl a c*nt. You say you are uncomfortable going to the men’s room, but you don’t care about the discomfort of the women who don’t want a person with a dick in the women’s room. Dicks are dangerous. They have done untold harm to women through the ages. Can you truly not understand why they are not welcome in women-only spaces? As Spock would say, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
March 8, 2013 at 9:09 am
leftytgirl
Are you suggesting that someone with a penis is a threat to someone with a vagina based merely on the fact that the person in question has a penis?
While it is absolutely true that cis men have inflicted a great deal of harm on cis women through the ages:
1) I have seen very little evidence that trans women bear any culpability in that. After all, we are generally more vulnerable to sexual violence than just about anybody.
2) If you are suggesting that someone with a penis is inherently a threat based merely on the fact that they have a penis, then you have bought into one of patriarchy’s most basic myths. It is not the presence of a penis that enables male sexual violence, it is the social dynamics that patriarchy enables that are at fault. It is in fact the *belief* that someone with a penis “can’t help themselves” that enables widespread male sexual aggression. In part, because it creates a built-in excuse (hence the infamous question, “well what was she was wearing?”… as if that had anything to do with it).
The feminism in which I believe views human beings as not merely reducible to their genitalia. Because the fact of the matter is that under a patriarchal system, calling a young person with a penis a “dick” is not AT ALL comparable to calling a young person with a vagina a “c*nt.” Because one of those words causes great social damage and the other causes very little (if any). (And if you call yourself a feminist and you really believe that those two words have comparable social impact, then I have to say that seems more than a little ridiculous).
However, calling a a young person with a penis a “threat” is reinforcing the some destructive social roles that are being reinforced when a young person with a vagina is called a “c*nt.”
March 8, 2013 at 10:11 am
farishcunning
“Are you suggesting that someone with a penis is a threat to someone with a vagina based merely on the fact that the person in question has a penis?”
Yes. I do not believe that someone with a dick can’t help himself; I believe he doesn’t bother to try. Males of all stripes feel entitled–and by males I mean people with dicks–and they cause tremendous harm because of that entitlement.
Women–and by women I mean people with *actual* vaginas–don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing which people with dicks to be wary of. It’s stupid and careless to ignore the possibility of harm from males in general, as well as any one dick in particular. I don’t think you truly understand the danger women feel or you would not be so callous.
I wish you well, but think you should realize that you evince male entitlement in your demands to be viewed in only the way you like, without taking women’s needs into account.
Peace to you.
March 8, 2013 at 10:59 am
leftytgirl
“Yes. I do not believe that someone with a dick can’t help himself; I believe he doesn’t bother to try. Males of all stripes feel entitled–and by males I mean people with dicks–and they cause tremendous harm because of that entitlement.”
Well this is just where we have a great difference in philosophical orientation: whereas I aim to reform society to eliminate male social privilege, you take it as a given and then essentially assign blame on penises (even when they belong to trans women who are themselves oppressed by patriarchy).
“I wish you well, but think you should realize that you evince male entitlement in your demands to be viewed in only the way you like, without taking women’s needs into account.”
But which needs have I not taken into account? As I pointed out, penises are not the source of oppression, it is male social dominance. I work to upend such dominance because it harms me, just as it harms all women.
And as I also pointed out, trans women do *not* represent any social threat or violent threat to you or any other cis woman. And as I and many others have pointed out, those who state otherwise have very little to back up those hyperbolic claims (believe it or not, “Silence of the Lambs” was fiction!!).
So if you attempt to kick us out of women’s spaces based on false, harmful stereotypes of who we are, then who is it that is really not taking the other’s needs into account?
Honestly I think you are just taking the easy way out: instead of dealing with undoing harmful patriarchal social roles, you just blame it all on penises and run away from dealing with the real issues.
March 8, 2013 at 12:21 pm
farishcunning
I hear you about working for social change, but am still affected/afflicted by my experience of a world egregiously harmed by dicks. You say you are not a danger, but why should I or any woman believe you? I thought my father was safe right up to the moment he rammed his dick into my three-year-old mouth.
LEFTYTGIRL EDIT: I’m not your father and you have no right whatsoever to project blame for his horrible actions onto me. I was sexually harassed in the workplace by a woman like you. Does that make you responsible for her actions??
As to whose needs should be considered, I’ll repeat the Spock quote I posted elsewhere: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. The need for women to have spaces where they feel safe (the many) outweigh the need of trans people with dicks (the few) to crash those spaces.
LEFTYTGIRL EDIT: Apparently you are now endorsing the oppression of the majority against any minority? So in the U.S. white supremacists should have the right to project their hateful narratives and violence onto the bodies of persons of color because they are the majority? If women were a minority, according your logic above then it would in fact be okay for men to oppress them?? Fucking sick!
[[This final paragraph finally crossed the line into outright abusive comments about my body -- deleted]]
Peace to you.
LEFTYTGIRL EDIT: Given your pathological views of me and my body that you have expressed, that comment “peace to you” is disingenuous bullshit. At this point you are very close to no longer being welcome on my blog.
March 8, 2013 at 9:49 am
N
Women haven’t been done harm by penises. They’ve been done harm by violent men. There’s a huge difference
March 8, 2013 at 10:12 am
farishcunning
Violent men with penises, obviously.
March 8, 2013 at 3:55 pm
farishcunning
“I was sexually harassed in the workplace by a woman like you. Does that make you responsible for her actions??”
Certainly not; but it would be perfectly understandable for you to be wary of people like her. In fact, it would be foolish of you to not be thus aware.
I’m not endorsing oppression of any sort, but rather the right of women to be safe from dicks.
I did not intend to be abusive; in fact, I don’t understand what you found abusive about my rather bland description of the things many transgender people undergo. I prefaced my comments with “I respect …”. It sounds as if you have some shame about those things, as you called them “gross”.
My wish for peace to you is genuine. I am seeking to be enlightened and perhaps even to enlighten. It seems to me that you and other self-identified transgender people don’t understand what some women think about dicks and why. I thought perhaps we could learn something from each other. If I’ve been clumsy or ignorant or even (unintentionally) abusive, I beg your pardon.
Peace to you.
March 8, 2013 at 11:36 pm
leftytgirl
“I’m not endorsing oppression of any sort, but rather the right of women to be safe from dicks.”
Incorrect.
You are making a tradeoff with patriarchy by endorsing and implicitly promoting sexist notions that people with penises are inherently pre-disposed to violence, and in return patriarchy offers you the illusion of safety from the very violence that you implicitly endorse. Just as women in some parts of the world are offered the mandatory “freedom” to cover themselves in order to “prevent” unwanted sexual advances. In the U.S. we have a softer version of this same concept: women get to have their own bathrooms, then they are supposedly magically safe from sexual assault. This is false and irrelevant. Like the little stick person symbol on the door would ever actually stop a *real* predator from entering whatever washroom they like??
You prefaced your comments with a lie: “I respect…” followed by disrespectful oppressive statements about my body that have been used by individuals who have committed acts of violence against me. Do I have ‘shame’ about that? Are you suggesting that ‘shame’ about experiences of oppression and gendered violence should be used to discredit or silence someone who is attempting to eliminate such violence?
Finally, if you continue to de-gender trans women and (even implicitly) refer to them as “fake women” then your comments will simply be deleted from this point forward.
March 9, 2013 at 8:13 am
farishcunning
I guess I still don’t understand how my comments were offensive. To me they seem merely descriptive. I don’t lie. When I say I respect something, that is exactly what I mean. You refer to things in your history without explaining what they are, leaving me at a loss as to what you actually mean.
It seems I am unable to adequately convey to you the menace that dicks represent to many women. Perhaps a person born with a dick cannot understand. This is an important issue to me, and I had hoped have a meaningful exchange of ideas, but you find me offensive and I find you hostile and baffling, so I will answer you on Twitter, then leave you be. I hope you will at least consider the effect that the presence of dicks has on some people born with vaginas.
I truly do wish you well. Sorry to have troubled you. I’m done.
March 9, 2013 at 1:06 pm
leftytgirl
Sure, whatever.
BTW for anyone reading this conversation who is actually serious about challenging rape culture, here is a brilliant woman who has a meaningful approach for reducing or eliminating rape in our society, that actually works. Of course, it has absolutely nothing to do with dicks or kicking 6 year-olds out of bathrooms, it’s about teaching men NOT TO RAPE:
http://www.upworthy.com/feminist-confuses-fox-news-host-by-suggesting-that-we-teach-men-to-not-attack-wo