happy pride!
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com

“Trans woman” tends to work better, as opposed to “cis woman.”

I’m not saying you’re saying that, just explaining what bothers me about the way the language reads to me. As to your actual point: That people like mAndrea rail about transgender and transsexual people because they make transgenderism and transsexualism all about them? Yes, I think that’s a fair and accurate point. I don’t think it should excuse them.

I’m also not really sure that many of these women who complain about trans people reifying the gender binary really do all that much in the real world to act against the gender binary. Many are feminine, many are masculine. I don’t think I’ve really come across any who are trying to actively ungender the world. If anything, many are fairly quick to strongly and rigidly gender stuff and then decry it (sometimes even denigrating femininity in ways I would charitably describe as misogynist).

And, the fact is, if they want to attack anyone for reifying and reinforcing the gender binary and its boundaries, going after people who cross those boundaries, who define themselves anywhere from masculine to feminine, and male to female, despite their birth and assumed upbringing, makes less sense than going after the large majority of cisgender and cissexual people who actively police and reinforce the gender binary, most especially against those who are seen as violating the boundaries (gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, etc).

This comes down to:

1) Their own prejudices

2) Who’s safest to attack

Seriously though. The issue probably is that these women have fought for things that push the boundaries of gender roles, and they see people who want to change to a different and defined gender role as attacking that. The scariest thing in the world for someone who sees themselves as unique and “envelope pushing” is for someone to decide to fit into a certain category. They don’t see it as “I don’t feel like the gender I was born/ascribed as fits who I am, they see “I want to change genders so it will be socially acceptable for me to be a lumberjack/wear a pink feather boa every day (insensitive exaggerations purposeful to the illustration).

The reality is that gender is still such an inherently undermining and uncomfortable and anxiety-prone issue in the lives of so many that anything discussing it leaves us feeling vulnerable and attacked. It has nothing to do with what an mtf might want to do with her life, but what another woman fears the mtf might expect from the other’s femininity. It’s not about what the ftm feels about himself, it’s what the woman fears he doesn’t value about femininity. It’s not about the transgendered person. It’s about the insecurities of so many women who haven’t figured out who they are and have defined themselves solely by how they can oppose the norm.

I don’t know if that is always so easy. I identify as a womanist strictly because of the racism in feminism. I refuse to turn my back on feminism but cannot identify with a label that has historically treated people like me as other. I think at this time feminism has much to prove to the people that it has alienated.

Other popular social constructs include law, government, police, money, economics, corporations, marriage, family, property, territory, nations, entertainment, fidelity, morals, ethics, taxes, language, courtesy, and so on.

mAndrea hypocritically decides that this one social construct is unacceptable and that trans people are primarily guilty for upholding a pervasive construct that is largely enforced by people who are not themselves trans. She’s attacking trans people who actually have the least amount of power when it comes to dealing with gender normativity, and are typically subjected heavily to it in order to receive treatment.

Of course, by railing against trans people, mAndrea herself is trying to reinforce gender norms, demanding that those born male never cross to womanhood and those born female never cross to manhood. She knows as well as anyone else that there is no “respectable third gender,” and that thirdgendering is used to other people and treat them as subhuman (just as she does). She transgresses nothing, she simply sets out to reinforce the dominant paradigm.