Precisely. The nebulous concoction of self id and ‘gender-identity’ are virtually orthogonal to the real world situations women face. No one can ‘identify into’ or ‘out of’ the structural sex based oppression that exists within our societies.
Progressive Bloggers
Your opinions…
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
- Bank of Canada ready to step in if global financial crisis causes 'spillovers' to banks here March 13, 2023
- In the volatile streets of Paris, Macron may be winning his war of attrition against the unions March 30, 2023
- How the Nashville grade school shooter was able to get guns legally March 30, 2023
- People love this crocheted Maud Lewis sweater — but it's not for sale March 30, 2023
- Compostable takeout bowls contain 'forever chemicals,' study finds March 30, 2023
Blogs I Follow
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
2 comments
October 28, 2020 at 4:14 pm
Bill Malcolm
I don’t think I’m dense or incapable of understanding the English language, but I haven’t got the faintest clue what this post is about. It’s written in a code of some kind to which I don’t have the cipher key. It’s not the first time I’ve been baffled here either.
In fact, despite valiantly reading your blog for over five years at Prog Blog, about all I can say I do get is that you argue that trans women who were once men aren’t appreciated by your group of feminists, that they may well be fake and that they did it all to invade public female bathrooms to get their jollies, or that they did it because they felt female in their minds but really don’t have a clue how a real woman thinks, so their desire to appear externally as female is a waste of time from beginning to end because you can’t be an approximation of the real thing. And that just because they think they think like a female doesn’t mean they are or come anywhere close to it. Sounds logical because nobody can prove otherwise.
If my surmise is correct, and i don’t know for sure that it is, I’m not going to blame myself for trying to wade through poorly written non-English that consists of jargon and code. Not for the first time I’ve wanted to say, “Come on, spit it out, what are you really trying to say?”
If you can’t be bothered to do that, how do you expect regular ding-a-lings like me to have any idea what the fuss is all about? Ideas transferred by osmosis don’t work for me, nor would being told I just don’t get it.
I’d like to try to understand, so that I can have the basis for having a think on the matter, but that rather depends on persons like you putting matters in everyday terms that are understandable. Otherwise, I might as well skip the blog entirely as unfathomable, like this sentence: “The nebulous concoction of self id and ‘gender-identity’ are virtually orthogonal to the real world situations women face.”
I know what orthogonal is in the world of mathematics, but fail to see why I should regard the “concoction” as being at right angles to what women face in rhe real world. It’s total gobbledeegook. Clarify for the sake of others, please! In English.
LikeLiked by 1 person
October 28, 2020 at 7:17 pm
The Arbourist
It really is a shame, because being gender non-conforming is exactly what the doctor ordered. Defying the normative gender roles in society would be an actual blow against the patriarchy and would help liberate both women and men from its harsh strictures.
Sometimes the English minor in me makes me get a touch superfluousand prolix-y. Sorry about that.
The problems and discrimination trans identified people face in society can be partially attributed to the system (gender) that tells us what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ for each sex in society.
Merely ‘identifying’ as the opposite sex does not make you the opposite sex, and the experiences and challenges that are unique to each sex remain fundamentally unknowable.
For instance, I have no idea what a menstrual cramp feels like or what going through menopause actually feels like. Concomitantly, I also have not been socialized to be quiet, to mollify possibly violent males, and always be on guard as part of the class of people that are generally predated on. If I cannot access these features, I’m pretty damn sure trans identified males don’t know sweet FA what being a female is all about.
Instead, they often become performative sexist stereotypes of how men see women in society -thus further reinforcing the toxic expectations of gender in society. This reification of gender makes gender theory and the notion of self id inherently reactionary, misogynistic, and patriarchal.
Compare and contrast with simply being a gender non-conforming male or female. A GNC male wearing a dress, for instance, is actually defying normative attitudes and combating patriarchy.
Our clothes are in no way gender specific – the values and the gendered expectations we assign to them are mostly arbitrary. Thus, in reality there is no gendered essence of woman in dresses and highheels. Gender non-conforming behaviour demonstrates that this is the case, and thus is revolutionary.
Thinking that dresses and high-heels *make* you woman, on the other hand, is regressive and of course delusional as it is a matter of scientific fact that human cannot change sex.
LikeLike