Quote from: Andra on May 26, 2008, 05:20:07 PM
On singular bigender...
It's generally stated that male and female are the sexes opposite to each other (go ask a feminist about 'oppositional sexism') and that everything else is intergender (inbetweeny), however I don't believe that's true. The opposite of female is 'non-female' (see male or neutrois for example), the opposite of male is 'non-male'. However you define gender, 'maleness' and 'femaleness' are two separate properties. To draw an analogy to sexual characteristics, estrogenisation and androgenisation are two separate processes, some people have breasts and facial hair without any artificial hormonal intervention!
You rang?
As a feminist, I think 'oppositional sexism' is absolutely the largest difficulty most of us have. We come to 'think' that female and male must be polar opposites, and those opposites are mostly defined as 'what is not male, MUST be female.' Which is obviously a crock of cow-made fertilizer.
The opposite of
human, regardless of identity (I want to thank Andra for pointing out something I said that I did not mean the way it was received. Very poor wording and thoughtlessness on my part.) is "not human." Our ranges exist within each of us and tend to be developed in ways that are conditioned by the culture and the society we live in.
All humans have ranges of emotional and mental congruity with our so-called "gender-specific" ways of being. A lot of people sublimate what they truly feel and want with what they feel they are 'supposed' to feel and want.
And I find it especially true of TSes. We frequently react to stereotypical socio-cultural definitions and proscriptions about how one deports him or her self if we are a particular gender. We often become caricatures of real live human beings in our quests to be 'accepted' for whom we are. At the same time we deny what moves us and what we think and feel for fear that we won't
present ourselves properly. That improper presentation we are concerned will out us or that someone will read us.
The one thing that most radical feminists seem to feel denigrates womanhood by MTFs is that stereotypical presentation of 'feminity.' So many are simply over-the-top and appear to, and actually do, undercut a lot of basic behavioral arguments about women being allowed to be whom we are. Their incessant and often ridiculous quest to somehow live-into a 1950s-60s model of feminity as knock-off June Cleavers and Carole Brady's makes them and females look downright stupid, imo.
And, tbh, imo it is because they are so damned convinced that they must fit some stereotypical role that defines 'feminity' as never liking sports, never being able to face a spider alone, always talking like Minnie Mouse or Betty Boop and always having to adore make-up, skirts (for which there ARE some very good reasons to prefer for some of us, just often not the reason they give for doing so) and being sexualized by men that undercuts a lot of trans-people with radical feminists and other feminists as well.
Humans are simply not as simple and cut-and-dried as the stereotypes. Social custom and its enforcement demanded for a long time that women wear dresses. Women adore make-up. Women find all the fluff in
Cosmo and
Glamour to be definitely interesting.
I'd rather read
Utne Reader or Serano's last book or Ursula LeGuin's
Left Hand of Darkness than 'women's' magazines. I chose my clothes and when to wear make-up for my own comfort and desire, not out of some 'presentation' I am supposed to make.
And guess what? That works out more than fine.
Relegating humanity to stereotypical "opposites" is just plain silly.
Nichole
