Susan's Place Transgender Resources

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-enough (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/19/feminism-trans-women-female-enough)

My 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.

There's nothing wrong with feminism telling MTF that most of them are  way too masculine by nature and in their behaviour.
Ambitious, competitive, dominant etcetc like most straight men are.

A feminist survey about why pre everything MTF often choose wives who are self sacrifising would be very interesting btw.

O-o I am not way too masculine by nature, nor would I ever want to be seen as such.  Obv some things physical and other life experience can't really be helped but that doesn't make me any less of a woman.  Thats why my rights to transition are just as important as my rights as a lady.

Quote from: Dahlia on January 20, 2013, 10:40:43 AM
There's nothing wrong with feminism telling MTF that most of them are  way too masculine by nature and in their behaviour.
Ambitious, competitive, dominant etcetc like most straight men are.

A feminist survey about why pre everything MTF often choose wives who are self sacrifising would be very interesting btw.

Huh?  ???

Anyway I do believe most all feminists will come around eventually.  I see more and more people like this writer that seem to get it lately, feminists or not, and it's encouraging.