Non-binary: What do you understand it to mean?

[AuroraSaab]

Thing is, no harm is caused by a tomato when we put it in the category of 'vegetable'. The vegetables aren't disadvantaged in any way. The cabbage won't mind. Not that veggies are sentient anyway, but the inclusion of tomatoes into their category comes at no cost.

This isn't the case when we include men in the category of women. Women lose out.

Hence Eddie Izzard is Britain's top selling female comedian, not Sarah Millican, and Laurel Hubbard is Sportswoman of the Year.

 

[Bromptonaut]

I am almost totally ignorant on this subject, hence, I have not commented. But....

Out of interest.

Most, if not all, of this thread is about Trans men, wanting to identify as women. Does the reverse exist, ie, trans women wanting to identify as men?

Yes transmen, women who transition into a male gender identity, are absolutely a fact.

Societally it's quite a big thing, particularly with girls/women around the age of puberty.

Court case currently headed for the Supreme Court involving whether it is lawful to provide treatment for gender dysphoria pre 18 involves a woman who aspired to be male.

 

[AuroraSaab]

I am almost totally ignorant on this subject, hence, I have not commented. I have read, with interest. But....

Out of interest.

Most, if not all, of this thread is about Trans men, wanting to identify as women. Does the reverse exist, ie, trans women wanting to identify as men?

Transwomen = men who identify as women.
Transmen = women who identify as men.

To be honest, transmen are mostly left out of the debate because they are not seeking access to single sex spaces, and even if they did it wouldn't be a problem. I am not aware of any transman prisoner seeking to be moved to a male prison. Similarly, female athletes who identify as male seem reluctant to leave their women's sports teams and try out for the men's side.

I don't think men object if transmen use male changing rooms because they are no threat.

There's a huge issue around girls rejecting today's prevalent culture of hyper femininity and thinking that this somehow makes them not women, in my opinion. But that's a different side of the transgender debate.

 

[BoldonLad]

Yes transmen, women who transition into a male gender identity, are absolutely a fact.

Societally it's quite a big thing, particularly with girls/women around the age of puberty.

Court case currently headed for the Supreme Court involving whether it is lawful to provide treatment for gender dysphoria pre 18 involves a woman who aspired to be male.

Thank you

 

[BoldonLad]

Transwomen = men who identify as women.
Transmen = women who identify as men.

To be honest, transmen are mostly left out of the debate because they are not seeking access to single sex spaces, and even if they did it wouldn't be a problem. I am not aware of any transman prisoner seeking to be moved to a male prison. Similarly, female athletes who identify as male seem reluctant to leave their women's sports teams and try out for the men's side.

I don't think men object if transmen use male changing rooms because they are no threat.

There's a huge issue around girls rejecting today's prevalent culture of hyper femininity and thinking that this somehow makes them not women, in my opinion. But that's a different side of the transgender debate.

Can't say I have noticed the bolded bit, quite the reverse. But, perhaps that is just the company I keep.

Thanks for the explanation.

 

[newfhouse]

including them is just further oppression.

Thing is, no harm is caused by a tomato when we put it in the category of 'vegetable'.

I'm not yet convinced that the categorisation is the oppression. Isn't it more that there is the potential for harm from those with bad intent? Is hard separation really the only way to deal with that potential?

 

[Fab Foodie]

I think the world is a material place and things actually fall into meaningful categories pretty easily. The nature of a category is that it includes some things and excludes others. You could argue whether a tomato is a vegetable I suppose, but I think the male/female divide is easier to discern.

You could argue that it's not helpful to put things in categories, but in the case of the sex binary it's very important to acknowledge that the category of female is different to the category of male because women are oppressed on the basis of being in the female category. Changing the meaning of words won't change that. Female oppression won't stop simply because we include men in the female sex category. In fact, including them is just further oppression.

‘Cos we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl….

But only at the weekends :-)

 

[Fab Foodie]

Has the rise (if there is one) in identity politics (if such it is) anything to do with our broader disempowerment under late capitalism?

…an interesting question deserving of it’s own thread.

 

[AuroraSaab]

‘Cos we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl….

But only at the weekends….

Not dissimilar to when Eddie Izzard tells us he will be in 'girl mode' for his stand up tours, but 'boy mode' when trying to get film parts.

 

[Unkraut]

Has the rise (if there is one) in identity politics (if such it is) anything to do with our broader disempowerment under late capitalism?

As I see it, the move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

 

[AuroraSaab]

I'm not yet convinced that the categorisation is the oppression. Isn't it more that there is the potential for harm from those with bad intent? Is hard separation really the only way to deal with that potential?

The hard separation is already there though because women are oppressed on the basis of their sexed bodies. This is a material reality.

It needs to be the other way round to what you suggest - once women stop being oppressed we can dissolve all the boundaries because they won't matter anymore. (Which is kind of what Mudsticks said earlier).

Once men stop putting cameras in cubicles, getting off on being in the women's changing rooms, and committing 98% of sex crimes, we can happily share those facilities with you. But the end of the oppression has to come first, otherwise it's just more oppression.

Women's oppression isn't lessened in any way by blurring the boundaries between 'man' and 'woman'. It makes it worse because it removes what few unique rights women have that acknowledge this oppression.

Women can't opt out of this oppression because it's based on their sexed bodies. Girls can't opt out of female genital mutilation or child marriage by self identifying as boys. It's an ideology that predominantly benefits males by allowing them to opt into 'woman', and disadvantages females because they can never opt out of 'woman'.

 

[qigong chimp]

Let me put it another way then: back in my nursing days I fed a lot of elderly, elderly-mentally-infirm patients, and encountered a lot of spirited resistance/non-compliance. May've been my shoddy technique or the nastiness of hospital food, but I fancied it had something to do with the body and its margins as last line of defence against institutionalising forces stripping people of agency and autonomy and dignity and choice. What to admit or not admit into their interiors had become the last place they might skirmish against the erosion of their humanity.

 

[newfhouse]

Once men stop putting cameras in cubicles, getting off on being in the women's changing rooms, and committing 98% of sex crimes, we can happily share those facilities with you

My colleague Joan (that we used to know as John) isn't doing those despicable things either. She is more oppressed than oppressor. Treating her lived identity with kindness, dignity and respect does not diminish women in any way.

Edit to add:
What next? Do we treat all Muslims as suspects until Islamist inspired terrorism ceases?

 

[AuroraSaab]

Statistically, it's men that are a risk to women. That risk does not diminish because they identify as women, and it is impossible to know whether they are genuinely bodily dysphoric or simply hiding under the trans umbrella. No-one is questioning your friend's right to exist or be treated with dignity. When you ask women to give up single sex spaces that were specifically designed to give women safety and privacy, it's you who are being unkind though.

Why do your friend's feelings matter more than women's feelings? Why does her lived identity trump women's lived experiences?

If Muslims were responsible for terrorism at the same rate that men are responsible for sex crimes, then yes, we probably would treat them with more caution.

Transwomen are oppressed but it's not the same oppression that women face. Women are oppressed on the basis of their sexed body. Transwomen are oppressed because they are gender non-conforming men. On an individual basis she might not be an oppressor, but she belongs to the class that oppresses women. It doesn't matter how nice a person is as an individual. Safeguarding doesn't work like that.

 

[newfhouse]

it is impossible to know whether they are genuinely bodily dysphoric or simply hiding under the trans umbrella.

Impossible or simply not quite as binary as you would like?

Why do your friend's feelings matter more than women's feelings? Why does her lived identity trump women's lived experiences?

They don't; it doesn't. They matter just the same.

For what it's worth, I don't think that any of the other women at work are particularly bothered by Joan or her use of the facilities. I acknowledge that I may not be aware of every whispered conversation between my female colleagues, but the general vibe is generous and supportive.

Sadly, there's more of an unpleasant undercurrent from some of the men.