Feminism Thread

[Rhinox]

Must suck to live in Puerto Rico.

My sympathy

[Kuya]

Oh? You thought that just happens in Puerto Rico? Explains a bit.

[Rhinox]

No. I'm pretty sure it also happens in all third world Hispanic countries.


Again it sucks to live in those countries.

[Kuya]

You should try some gay jokes too while you're at it.

[Rhinox]

I'm not joking. Mexico is pretty bad with lgbt rights mainly because of its strong Catholic beliefs. Same with most If not all Latin American countries.


But go ahead tell me how my experience living in Mexico with openly gay family members is wrong.

[Priran]

Transgender is an identity label, while gender dysmorphia is a pathological category in the DSM 5. They do not mean the same thing.

If you talk to transsexuals, you will hear two kinds of opinions. Some transsexuals will not want to be labeled as transsexuals because they feel it invalidates the gender or sex they feel they are. Other transsexuals will say they are "female transsexuals" or "male transsexuals" because they say a female transsexual's life experiences (specifically the transition and social rejection) are experiences that female born women or "cis" women don't ever experience. Either way, you can either use transsexual because that is what the person identifies as, or you can use transsexual to mean someone who has transitioned or wishes to transition from one sex to the other. A transsexual may cease to be dysmorphic once she feels she's successfully transitioned to her desired sex, but she may continue to identify as transsexual. For demographic and medical purposes it might still be useful to use the transsexual category.

That's just the transsexuals though and the problem we have here is that different words mean different things in different countries. For example, in Puerto Rico, transsexual and transgender don't mean the same thing. Transsexuals are people who feel the sex they are born as is not the sex they feel they are psychologically. Transgender is an umbrella team to mean anyone who doesn't neatly fall into the category of male or female gender and may have a combination of both. As I understand it, in english speaking countries transgender and transsexual is used interchangeably. Here, for example, a man with feminine features can be considered transgender if he doesn't intend to transition via hormones and/or surgery.

I should have been more clear, I was referring more specifically to people who claim they wake up some days feeling masculine and others feeling feminine, that this constitutes a gender, and that they must be referred to with special pronouns like xe/xhe/xyrself.

People with fixed, non-male-or-female genders are generally called genderqueer, and transsexual has fallen out of use to discourage the aforementioned misconception that being trans is a sexuality.

So yes, there are people who exist in what you call a "nebulous state of masculinity and femininity" because their gender doesn't neatly fall into either category. I wouldn't say they need to grow up, but i am not sure if you were trying to be a dick for no reason or just didn't understand the distinction.

I can't speak to Puerto Rican social justice but here in internetland we have SJWs who decided to take over "trans" as meaning "a gender not strictly male or female" including such things as cat-gender, dragon-gender, deity-gender, and planet-gender. They readily admit to choosing to be "trans" and demand to be referred to with pronouns such as purr/purrs/purrself. You've also got trans-exclusionary feminists who think that transmen are the scum of the earth because they willfully betrayed femininity.

That's where my anger on this issue is coming from.

[Ksandra]

Okay. So i started reading the thread again and now some people here have a problem with the word cis.

For the purpose of conversation, what should we call people who aren't trans? If i want to draw a distinction between a female feminist who is trans and a female feminist who is cis, what word should i use to replace cis?

I am fine with it tbh if the context is correct. Though cis always rubs me as derogatory though idk why so go for it.


It's when people throw it in for the sake of throwing it in. You know, googling slutwalk and I can find nothing that talks about it being an issue for only "cis heteronormative" feminists. The only people who are upset with it I see are, again, WOC. And cis heternormatives have dick all to do with that. Which confirms to me he said it just to say it to sound like he knows what's up in the feminist movement.

[Kuya]

I should have been more clear, I was referring more specifically to people who claim they wake up some days feeling masculine and others feeling feminine, that this constitutes a gender, and that they must be referred to with special pronouns like xe/xhe/xyrself.

People with fixed, non-male-or-female genders are generally called genderqueer, and transsexual has fallen out of use to discourage the aforementioned misconception that being trans is a sexuality.


I can't speak to Puerto Rican social justice but here in internetland we have SJWs who decided to take over "trans" as meaning "a gender not strictly male or female" including such things as cat-gender, dragon-gender, deity-gender, and planet-gender. They readily admit to choosing to be "trans" and demand to be referred to with pronouns such as purr/purrs/purrself. You've also got trans-exclusionary feminists who think that transmen are the scum of the earth because they willfully betrayed femininity.

That's where my anger on this issue is coming from.

Ah, ok. In that case I get where that anger comes from. Here, we use trans as shorthand for transgender and transsexual only. Genderqueer is a word i've heard, but it hasn't caught on here. But back to the topic: i think the words trans and cis can be useful for drawing distinctions. For example: distinction between a cis only feminist group or a trans friendly feminist group.

Maybe some people react strongly against the word cis because they've seen it thrown out frequently as an insult? At least, that's what solanis used to do.

[Priran]

I would imagine most of the resistance to cis is just disparity in enthusiasm for acquiring labels between those who feel oppressed and those who do not. For someone who is cis and does not care about gender studies, there's a big psychological hurdle between assuming trans people will self-identify, to answering in the negative when asked if you are trans, and then again to being asked to identify your gender assignment at birth and whether you are cisgendered or transgendered. It can come off as retributive. As I said before though, I just don't think it serves a useful purpose.

It certainly doesn't help that the people who use "cis" the most use it as a weapon, but the same goes for "privilege" and "problematic".

[Teryu]

That is amazing, lol.

[Waraji]

Fkin hell man, what the fuck happened to "Other". 20 years from now I'm going to be filling a fucking survey outside the movie theater, after receiving a trigger warning about the survey, and there will surely be 50 fucking options under Sex.

Is all that really fucking necessary?

Edit: rofl that twitter. fkin, oh the iron'ing!

[Kuya]

If you're making a good survey question, you should probably be using "other" as little as possible since it tells you very little. There wont ever be 20 categories for sex because there are only three possible alternatives. Male, female, and intersex. I wouldn't put transsexual there since that should be its own question, and you likely shouldn't ask someone if they are transsexual cause they might not identify that way (even if they are). So you make a question say something like: "have you ever been dissatisfied with the sex you were born with and decided to transition from one sex to another whether it be via surgery and/or hormones". That way you make sure you catch even the ones who don't like the trans label. This is the same tactic questionnaire makers use when instead of asking if someone identifies as gay male or bisexual male, they just ask if you've ever had sex with a man or MSM.

[Ksandra]

Maybe some people react strongly against the word cis because they've seen it thrown out frequently as an insult? At least, that's what solanis used to do.

I usually hear it one of two ways. As either A: an insult, or B: someone who is obsessed with giving themselves like ten different categories to make sure everyone knows that they are a special snowflake.

[Kuya]

Well, considering if they want to be a snowflake, then cis is probably the last thing they'd want to call themselves as.

But i get your point. Despite that, i think we're all in agreement that cis isn't just a schoolyard insult invented by otherkin. It's just a word that makes it easier and faster to refer to someone who isn't trans. For example, i don't have to say female born woman. I can just say cis female and be done with it.

[Andalusian girls]

or just say female since oh 99.7% of people are not trans and a 0.03% variant populace should accept that it is the taxonomical other

the word itself is fine, just overused in relation to its actual utility

[Koul]

Fkin hell man, what the fuck happened to "Other". 20 years from now I'm going to be filling a fucking survey outside the movie theater, after receiving a trigger warning about the survey, and there will surely be 50 fucking options under Sex.

Is all that really fucking necessary?

Edit: rofl that twitter. fkin, oh the iron'ing!

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...r-options.html

Janet Mock (trans activist) was on Colbert Report talking about this and said that there needed to be MORE gender options.

[Aoshi]

or just say female since oh 99.7% of people are not trans and a 0.03% variant populace should accept that it is the taxonomical other

the word itself is fine, just overused in relation to its actual utility

I would have to agree with this, i think we're reaching a point in this issue collectively where it's possible to be overly PC about this to the point of being confusing and detracting from the greater issues at hand.

Perhaps this comparison is off base and you're free to call me out if it is but it very much reminds of of the issues we STILL have when it comes to labeling ethnicity, specifically the terms "African-American" versus "Black".

There was a period of people going so far out of their way to find a label for Black people or the "African-American" community that the term somehow became a blanket label for almost all Black people regardless of if they were of African decent or even American to begin with.

This leads into more confusion when you consider actual Nigerian immigrants who by definition actually ARE African-American by citizenship as opposed to someone else who is just a natural born American of African decent.

This was further skewed on a personal level as i have a friend who came to America from Paris but was born in Africa originally and would simply raise his eyebrows when being referred to as an "African-American".

This seems to be something very rapidly happening concerning this, if people have to go through 15-20 different labels before they can even discuss the problems that need solving, perhaps we need to take a step back.

[Priran]

Janet Mock (trans activist) was on Colbert Report talking about this and said that there needed to be MORE gender options.

I think you need to look at whether that would serve a useful purpose, or if you're just trying to turn your form into a personality test. For medical forms (the primary focus of tumblrite "ugh the transphobia!" posts), the primary reason they ask is because genetically male bodies and genetically female bodies have different risk factors for different diseases, react to medication differently, etc. Even then, the best reform for that question would probably not be asking for your assignment at birth but for there to be a "Trans" option, because trans people also have certain things to worry about like hormone use, social problems, and high rates of substance abuse/suicide attempts/HIV. Anything more specific than a blanket third option and you run the risk of making your form confusing for people who don't give two shits about gender identity, while also alienating somebody who's nonbinary but too obscurely so to make your list. Plus there's no practical use because nobody's gathering statistics for the 5 people who identify as smaugender.

[Acevalefor]

Maybe some people react strongly against the word cis because they've seen it thrown out frequently as an insult? At least, that's what solanis used to do.

Late to the party, but don't forget Celeste. She may actually be the reason many people on BG see "cis" and think negative associations. She used it heavily as an insult to males of any variety in a particular topic before she was banned.

Can we bring solanis back? That boy was great entertainment...

[hey]

I talk a lot more about this stuff on the mommy boards (because you know, they are actually women), and there is a much larger group of feminists there than here, so I get a better perspective. This shit is never mentioned here, and I would imagine it's because we don't have any WOC posters.

Oh and it seems feminism is a daily debate and terms like cis and heteronormative are never used. So yeah, forgive me for not believing you about them not being buzzwords.

Yes, i am shocked that "mommy boards" posters aren't concerned about these things. I can't believe it. Who would have thought?

It's kind of obvious that the vast majority of posters are straight cis women.