In Community, Genitalia & Socialization Essentialism Has Been Around For Awhile
by: Autumn Sandeen
Thu May 12, 2011 at 05:00:00 AM EDT
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/19225/in-community-genitalia-socialization-essentialism-has-been-around-for-awhile (http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/19225/in-community-genitalia-socialization-essentialism-has-been-around-for-awhile)
If there is a antitrans devil identified by many trans people, that devil would be Janice Raymond. She wrote the book The Transsexual Empire: The Making Of The She/Male. The book is a second wave feminism take on transsexual people -- mostly transsexual women. And the book, to put it mildly, not exactly a warm and compassionate take on transsexual women.
From the 1993 introduction of the reprinted version of the book:
[C]hromozones are only one defining factor, in the context of the total history of what it means to be a woman or a man, in a society that treats women and men differently on the basis of biological sex. This means that the integrity of the body must also be placed in the context of the integrity of the total person, which includes the realization of such values as choice, awareness, and autonomy. Finally, if the transsexual answer reinforces the foundation of sex-role stereotyping, by encouraging the transsexual to conform to these stereotypes, then it also is violating the integrity of the society.