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sophiaserpentiaAmong the transphobic stuff from a couple of weeks ago, one thing that sticks in my memory is the accusation that transsexuals (male to female they mean of course, because FTMs are invisible) are deliberately misappropriating femininity, diluting it so that it has no real meaning anymore.
I want to tackle this head-on because i can see how someone with feminist sensibilities would be concerned about this. I've been to enough drag shows to see how this concern would develop. Myths and stories concern me too: why, for exampe, in Hindu mythology the most beautiful woman who ever breathed is a man in disguise, and why did Dustin Hoffman's Tootsie become a better advocate for women's rights than any of the women around her?
Perhaps what underlies this portrayal of transgenderism is a largely unconscious attitude that if men did take on 'women's work' -- whether that be seducing men or standing up for women's rights -- that they would do it better. But fiction is not real-life, and the real-life attitude of most men towards transwomen is vastly different. My belief is that this attitude is inserted by the dominant culture into media portrayals of transgenderism.
It seems to me that if transsexualism were a patriarchal plot to undermine femininity, then transwomen would be highly prized, be celebrated in the media, have more privilege than women, and be more highly valued than women as sex partners and spouses.
The charge of misappropriation only works if transwomen are "really men" who retain men's privilege in some form even after finding ways to cover the expense and cope with the pain of transition. It presumes that there are no parallels whatsoever between what women experience and what transwomen experience. It presumes that the men who line up for "undermining women duty" are rewarded or celebrated in some way. None of this holds up to any actual scrutiny:
I can offer an alternate hypothesis for the positive portrayal of transwomen in myths, stories, and media: it is indeed misappropriation -- of transgenderism. The dominant culture dips into the expression and experience of the oppressed transgender culture and borrows what it likes, treats the entire subject as humorous, inserts what it thinks is important about being transgendered without any concern for our reality, and overall conveys the impression that transgenderism is merely the wearing of a disguise. This is why every portrayal of transwomen in the dominant culture's media focuses overmuch on "applying makeup and strutting around in frilly dresses". To paraphrase Kate Bornstein, if i thought that's all there was to being transgendered, i'd be suspicious too.
ETA: after consideration, i've decided to crosspost this to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
feminist.
I want to tackle this head-on because i can see how someone with feminist sensibilities would be concerned about this. I've been to enough drag shows to see how this concern would develop. Myths and stories concern me too: why, for exampe, in Hindu mythology the most beautiful woman who ever breathed is a man in disguise, and why did Dustin Hoffman's Tootsie become a better advocate for women's rights than any of the women around her?
Perhaps what underlies this portrayal of transgenderism is a largely unconscious attitude that if men did take on 'women's work' -- whether that be seducing men or standing up for women's rights -- that they would do it better. But fiction is not real-life, and the real-life attitude of most men towards transwomen is vastly different. My belief is that this attitude is inserted by the dominant culture into media portrayals of transgenderism.
It seems to me that if transsexualism were a patriarchal plot to undermine femininity, then transwomen would be highly prized, be celebrated in the media, have more privilege than women, and be more highly valued than women as sex partners and spouses.
The charge of misappropriation only works if transwomen are "really men" who retain men's privilege in some form even after finding ways to cover the expense and cope with the pain of transition. It presumes that there are no parallels whatsoever between what women experience and what transwomen experience. It presumes that the men who line up for "undermining women duty" are rewarded or celebrated in some way. None of this holds up to any actual scrutiny:
- GenderPAC's "50 under 30" project assembles data on the murders of young transpeople, a statistic the FBI can't be bothered to track, and demonstrates that the rate of hate-motivated murder of transpeople rivals that of racist murder.
- It is not known what percentage of the transgender population is homeless and/or prostituted, but it is disproportionately, even shockingly, high. Advocates around the country argue that 35% to 42% of all homeless youth are GLBT -- from a segment which makes up about 4-5% of the general population. Homeless shelters are particularly unsafe for transpeople, who are typically segregated into shelters by birth gender, and some cities are finally, finally responding to this with special shelters for transfolk.
- Employment discrimination against transwomen continues even in parts of the world where people "should know better."
I can offer an alternate hypothesis for the positive portrayal of transwomen in myths, stories, and media: it is indeed misappropriation -- of transgenderism. The dominant culture dips into the expression and experience of the oppressed transgender culture and borrows what it likes, treats the entire subject as humorous, inserts what it thinks is important about being transgendered without any concern for our reality, and overall conveys the impression that transgenderism is merely the wearing of a disguise. This is why every portrayal of transwomen in the dominant culture's media focuses overmuch on "applying makeup and strutting around in frilly dresses". To paraphrase Kate Bornstein, if i thought that's all there was to being transgendered, i'd be suspicious too.
ETA: after consideration, i've decided to crosspost this to
feminist.
