Feminism shouldn't be about telling trans women they're not female enough
At a young age, I briefly had cause to question my gender. For me, it passed. For others, it doesn't – and feminists should be fighting for their liberation, too
Deborah Orr
The Guardian, Friday 18 January 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/19/feminism-trans-women-female-enoughMy childhood yearning to grow up a man was transitory, a response to adult descriptions of a gender role. It had no biological roots. As I say, I know in my head that I'm female. I need no breasts, no vagina, no fallopian tubes to tell me that. If, as an adult, I'd had difficulty becoming pregnant, and doctors had examined me to find my fallopian tubes were poorly developed, or not there at all, I'd be no less a woman. That happens sometimes. Nobody's perfect.
Yet the memory of that moment of misery, that brief encounter with the helplessness of feeling my gender destiny was wrong, yet inescapable, has stayed with me. If my wish for masculinity had not been a thought that faded, but a feeling that grew, well, that would have been terrible. My male mind would have been trapped in my female body, in some sort of hideous locked-in syndrome of gender. How strong would that feeling of incarceration in gender expectation have become as I underwent puberty? It doesn't bear thinking about.
Except that some people do have to think about it. They feel female in their heads, but their bodies tell the world they should be treated as male, and should behave like males (or vice versa). Failing to conform to this sets them apart in the eyes of others. Yet conforming to it sets them apart in their own heads. What a relief it would be to learn that this is a condition called gender dysphoria, and that they can be helped to live their life in a body that more closely matches the life in their mind.
