I wasn't sure what to select in the poll, so I didn't select anything... Let me try to explain. Apologizing in advance... It's hard for me to think about objectively, just because I'm so wrapped up in my own TS problems right now, it's hard to think of what it means to the other individuals, because I worry too much about how it might impact
me. My apology is for approaching this in such a self-centered way, when the question isn't about me at all.
I have been accused of perpetuating the oppressive gender binary simply because I identify strongly as one gender to the exclusion of the other. Intellectually, I get what people mean when they advocate there should be no gender at all--but I don't feel it. All I can feel is that I'm a woman. I have been facing so much difficulty in winning acceptance for my transition that I feel constantly on the defensive.
If you had asked me half a year ago, I would have said unhesitatingly, Yes, I'm all for androgynes, genderqueers, anyone who helps to break down the rigid gender binary that keeps us all in prison. But now that my transition is picking up momentum, it takes so much of my attention and concern to defend who I am, I can't spare much thought for people with different problems. I don't like being so self-centered, because I idealistically believe in the value of altruism--but circumstances right now force me to focus on my own problems.
Intellectually, I readily agree that androgynes exist, your existence is perfectly valid, and you deserve to be recognized for your authentic identity same as anyone else. I cannot
feel what it would be like to be androgyne. At the same time, I very much respect the need and the right to identify as androgynous. Because I'm so sick of clueless cissexual people who put down transsexual people saying "I don't know what you mean, you feel like a woman, cause I don't feel I have anything invested in my gender, I don't care about it, it's just my body" and stuff like that. The cluelessness of privilege, unable to conceive of what it's like to be deprived of that privilege. I don't want to turn around and inflict the same cluelessness on other people who have to struggle for their identity.
My former therapist tried to make me accept being "two spirit" by which I think she meant "half male." Well, screw that! Maleness is so abhorrent to me, all I can think is "get it awayyyy!" I was so depressed and suicidal by her insistence on my part-maleness, I fired her and found a therapist who supports my womanhood and my need to get free of the gloomy prison of maleness. I resent that all TS people should be forced to accept any compromise identity like "two spirit" just because some people are that way.
Julia Serano wrote about problems with the non-gendered ideal in
Whipping Girl:
QuoteThis sort of thinking, when taken to the extreme, can privilege those people who are predisposed toward being bigendered and bisexual. In this scenario, someone who feels comfortable identifying outside the male/female gender binary, expressing combinations of both femininity and masculinity ... may falsely assume that their "bi" inclinations represent a natural state that is present in all other people. From this "bi-sexist" perspective, people who identify exclusively as either female or male, feminine or masculine ... are assumed to have developed such preferences as the result of being duped by binary gender norms and socialization. This view has also led to the creation of another oppositional binary of sorts, pitting those transgender people who identify outside the gender binary (and who are therefore presumed to challenge gender norms) against transsexuals (who are accused of supporting the gender status quo by transitioning to their identified sex).
Serano warns against the discrimination that may be implicit in "such arguments--that bi-gendered and genderqueer people are more 'radical' or 'queer' than transsexuals..." Her argument is balanced, because she also argues against privileging single-gender-identified people like me over the ambiguously gendered; in other words, she argues for doing away with all such notions of a queer pecking order that privileges any one tendency over the others. I strongly agree with her.
I fully accept the validity of androgyny for those who need it, I just don't want it being used against my womanhood. Apologizing again for my totally self-centered point of view.
