19 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Trans Women, Male Privilege, and the Intersectionality of Patriarchal Oppression
…to quote you…I want to thank you for sharing and also challenge you a bit!
I didnt read the above comment as dismissing that trans women have specific struggles. I read it as them trying to forge connections, highlight commonalities, areas of mutual understanding, motivation. I commented on this in more detail elsewhere, BUT, cis women DO face a costly, painful journey through life in a gendered context. You even said cis women face difficulties “related to femininity”—this is limited. Cis women face difficulties related to GENDER, gender expression, acceptance, behaviour, identity etc. In my comment elsewhere I pointed out that gender euphoria/dysphoria (while being specific terms that apply to the trans experience) are phenomenon which occur regardless of transition. ie not bound and limited to a particular type of “sexed” body. Eg non-binary people experience both regardless of transition. The distress that such dissonance can cause is inherently similar/comparable to many experiences a cis woman may have re gender. I’m not saying we should co-opt the definition, but rather that it is a good starting point for mutual understanding and progress. If we just stand around pointing out how different we are and tallying oppression points we get nowhere.
Womanhood has incredibly strict societal expectations, and many women experience something comparable to dysphoria due to not meeting these standards. I’d say one difference is instead of feeling like another gender, this “dysphoria” makes cis women feel non or sub-human bc our humanity is conditional on our performance of womanhood. Women post childbirth/during breastfeeding/early days of motherhood often describe feeling like a cow, an animal, an incubator for the baby…whether that’s because of how they are treated by society, the medical establishment (obstetric rape/genital mutilation is incredibly common in….all countries) or due to their own sense of self when the bodily changes necessitated by pregnancy etc ironically make them feel they have “failed” the standards. It doesn’t make them feel like a man—it makes them feel like nothing.
Is this the same thing as trans gender dysphoria? Of course not, it’s definitionally a different phenomenon. But if we acknowledge the similarities in the factors that lead us here, if we do the work to unpack why we feel this way and how to engage w that, we can HELP each other. The fact that this is different isn’t the same thing as it being harder or easier, and trying to adjudicate these discrepancies is playing into the exact type of division that the far right wants from us…and which they’ve relied upon to bring about a new era of oppressive conservatism.
Even the way you’ve summarised the challenges cis women face—“reproductive access and bodily autonomy” is not inaccurate…but it doesn’t suggest a very clear understanding of what is happening w legislation of women and AFAB bodies worldwide. They are trying to make abortions punishable by death. Medically, there is NO LEGALLY DEFINABLE DIFFERENCE bw an abortion and a miscarriage. In a world where at least 1 in 3 women are raped that is tantamount to making having a fertile AFAB body punishable by death. We cannot control if we get pregnant, accidentally miscarry. We cannot prove it wasn’t intentional. This results in pregnant people suffering and dying preventable deaths. This is about SO MUCH more than abortion ACCESS, or bodily autonomy. It is literally legislating our bodies to death. The ripple effect this will have on our freedom is immense and indescribable, outside of the direct harm caused…which is pain, imprisonment and death.
the commenter never said transition is “just a shift”. But based on your replying this regarding puberty, you seemingly think that puberty is “just a shift” for cis girls. your response is to emphasise your experience without considering that you may have more in common with others than assumed. They pointed out commonalities without value judgements or comparing—you brought the comparison into it. They pointed out that cis women also face challenges re gender identify in ways that the post expressly said they didn’t. she was responding to the OP ruling these issues OUT for cis women. As a cis woman. She spoke to her own experience. Without comparing or dismissing yours.
You called transition a “complex, painful, costly journey that involved navigating family rejection and medical hurdles and years of internal struggle”. That is…also how I would describe puberty for myself. The fact that you think describing transition differentiates it completely from other gendered transitions like puberty when in fact it only further identifies commonalities shows that you are dismissing an experience you don’t know about. Being a young girl/teen was an oppressive, violent time during which I was harassed, bullied, raped, abused, criticised, sexually exploited and culturally encouraged toward self-hatred, self-harm and eating disorders due to my gender expression to the point where I almost ended myself. Idk if that was harder or easier than your transition! Bc I don’t know you! But I’m gonna guess you can relate to most of that description! It’s how many women would describe pregnancy and motherhood, menopause, aging, infertility. I was late diagnosed w adhd as a woman and would describe that similarly, as well as my expensive attempts to get diagnosed and treated for an agonising and disabling reproductive condition which developed during puberty and worsened.
there is a novelty versus complacency factor here. This kind of drastic shift in your own and the world’s conception of your gender was something that likely yourself and many other trans women were raised to believe you wouldn’t ever have to face (before you understood transness). we are all raised to simply expect that women go through these kinds of difficulties and to not acknowledge this. ie it is novel to you to be treated how girls were socialised to expect….maybe bc of the novelty of your experience and the lack of acknowledgment THAT receives, the assumption is ciswomen don’t similarly struggle with their gender. I’d say that like ALL women’s labour and suffering, we are socialised to ignore it, so experiencing it is novel for you and yet you also refuse to STOP ignoring it when it doesn’t directly impact you.
You insist we cannot understand or find commonality but ignore all the similarities explained, insisting bc of definitional differences, yours are worse and beyond our appreciation (though you can accurately appreciate OUR experiences)…but you don’t explain why or how this means they have nothing in common w similar experiences of cis women, or that they are inherently worse, that cis women are excluded from gender identity challenges. You don’t even explain why or how they’re exclusive to trans women, just sort of double down on definitional divisions. Yet your descriptions only highlight similarities and mutual outcomes.
Comment by Cevari at 30/01/2025 at 12:19 UTC
8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I don't think there's anything wrong with the vast majority of what you've written here, but there is absolutely no question the original commenter was being dismissive. Generally speaking "welcome to being a woman / welcome to womanhood" is always a dismissive phrase when said to trans women, and in this case it really did not even feel well-intentioned as it most often does. They were directly implying that pre-transition trans women are essentially just men, which is simply untrue and is never applied the same way when it comes to, for example, closeted gay or lesbian folks.
I also don't think that the person you're replying to was in any way saying her experiences are "worse and beyond your appreciation". She was doing the exact same thing as the commenter she's replying to - expanding on what exactly her own struggles are like to someone who has not experienced them. The fact you read her as confrontational and dismissive while not getting the same from the original comment seems to me to imply a certain bias - one that is not surprising in a space dominated by cis women, but is also very well reflected in how everyone who has called the original commenter out in any way is getting heavily downvoted.
Comment by FeelGuiltThrowaway94 at 30/01/2025 at 08:30 UTC
-6 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Again I'm aware of all of these challenges.
I'm a feminist and active in feminist circles. Cis women have a dominant position within feminism because of societal privilege and, let's face it, vastly bigger numbers.
My critique is that feminism isn't intersectional and ignores the struggles I face. That's why I don't appreciate when you constantly try and recentre what I've said to focus on cis women.
You're not even aware you're doing it. I'm a trans woman who is scared to access public bathrooms, I don't have privilege over you. Why do you need to be so defensive with me, obliquely calling me a man while you're at it.
From your writing I'm telling you that you don't understand transmisogyny.