Gericho ([info]gericho) wrote in [info]trans_academics,
@ 2005-02-01 12:01:00
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Ammunition to combat Transphobia in the classroom
Hi. I'm studying for a Masters in Philosophy in London, England. As part of my course I'm taking a series of seminars on Gender in Philosophy. In one of our classes we were discussing what it meant to be a woman and as part of that discussion one of the other students started arguing that MTF transwomen were not really women at all. She said that she'd been heavily influenced in her position on this by something that Germaine Greer had written about transwomen.

Does anyone have any idea in which text of Greer's she argues that transwomen are not really women? I'd like to familiarise myself with her position so that I argue against it in class. (I've read The Female Eunuch and it doesn't seem to be in that.)

ETA: I'm a pre-everything FTM. I am not out as such to my class and don't want to be because I'm worried that people will take me less seriously. I want to argue against this other student's position on philosophical grounds and I worry that if I'm out as trans she'll see me as biased and think I'm arguing from personal or emotional grounds rather than genuinely philosophical ones.

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[info]peaceofpie
2005-02-01 04:29 pm UTC (link)
I'm having the same deal in my Women's Studies class, although our class is much more trans-positive. A few of my friends know that I identify as genderqueer, but I haven't expressly identified myself to the class that way for the same reason.

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[info]gericho
2005-02-01 04:56 pm UTC (link)
It's an odd atmosphere in class. On the one hand we've been talking about the 'Maleness' of philosophy as a discipline and the tendency of philosophers to neglect the 'Female' aspects of human experience, such as emotion and embodiment. On the other hand though, I still feel that my arguments would be felt to carry less if they came from a place of personal experience rather than from properly objective reasoning.

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[info]griffen
2005-02-01 08:23 pm UTC (link)
Sounds like she's arguing from pretty emotional grounds herself... what's her justification, beyond that Greer article, for saying that?

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[info]gericho
2005-02-03 02:52 pm UTC (link)
I've found the Greer article (a chapter called 'Pantomime Dames' in The Whole Woman) and I have to say that I feel a lot better about arguing against all this now. I had been assuming that there was some theory in the Greer article to back up this sort of statement (the student herself was using some essentialist arguments as part of her justification) but there's nothing at all. A lot of it is unjustified and frankly misinformed. I feel a lot more confident arguing against this other students assertions of essentialism and the clearly fallacious statements made in the Greer article now.

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[info]emotrouble
2005-02-02 08:41 pm UTC (link)
*Sigh* I'm not familiar with that Greer article, but nonetheless I'd like to throw in my take on this.

I find it really disheartening and problematic that some feminists, like the one in your class, spend so much energy policing gender boundaries (i.e. defining who gets to be a "woman" and who is a "man"). It seems really counterproductive to the tenets of feminism, which to me seems to strive for equality regardless of gender.

Most feminists would agree that gender stereotyping is harmful to acheiving that equality, because it's used to classify women as weak, not as smart, not as strong, better suited to the kitchen, the home, private spheres, etc. This type of gender stereotyping, in which people are assumed to good at certain things and not suited to others, is called essentialism.

And it's essentialism that calls for a permanent gender binary, with men on one side, women on the other, and no one can ever cross, because they will always be -essentially- men or women. So it's a slippery slope. If there is an essential woman, it's really easy to say that all those gender stereotypes are essentialized, also. After all, if we are -born- women or men, then we can be -born- feminine, which means we can be -born- inferior...

In addition, as far as arguing for an essential woman experience or identity... there isn't one. There are -all- types of women, of different class backgrounds, different ethnicities, different religions, different genders and sexual orientations... the list can go on and on. With so much diversity out there, how could you possibly police a category so big? Even the reductive "all women have cunts" is problematic - what about women who are victims of FGM, about intersex people assigned to the category of "female" as infants?

Surely, in such a large, amorphis space, there's room for transwomen? By including others, you don't necessarily need to disempower yourself.

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[info]gericho
2005-02-03 03:02 pm UTC (link)
And it's essentialism that calls for a permanent gender binary, with men on one side, women on the other, and no one can ever cross, because they will always be -essentially- men or women. So it's a slippery slope. If there is an essential woman, it's really easy to say that all those gender stereotypes are essentialized, also. After all, if we are -born- women or men, then we can be -born- feminine, which means we can be -born- inferior...

I found the Greer article and it turned out to be completely confused. On the one hand it's trying to argue against essentialising gender stereotypes, in that she says that trans-folks shouldn't have to change their bodies in order to take on the social roles they want to take on. But on the other hand she's saying that taking on a social gender role is not equivalent to becoming a man or a woman, since being a man or a woman is something that is tied to your biology and experiences growing up in a certain body, which seems pretty essentialist to me, and dangerously close to the slippery slope you're talking about.

In addition, as far as arguing for an essential woman experience or identity... there isn't one. There are -all- types of women, of different class backgrounds, different ethnicities, different religions, different genders and sexual orientations... the list can go on and on. With so much diversity out there, how could you possibly police a category so big?

One of the really bizarre points Greer makes is that no one asked 'real' women whether they accept trans-women as 'one of them' (with the implication that if they had been asked they would have said no). I find this ridiculous. She's basically giving the people who are recognised as women the power to police their gender, without asking whether that sort of policing is possible or desirable.

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[info]honeyfumblings
2005-03-05 03:08 am UTC (link)
Thought I should mention that I just referenced this thread in an entry on Greer (and Julie Burchill's and Julie Bindel's) stabs at transpeople via the British media in my latest livejournal post or on my weblog which is mirrored on my journal here. A very useful summary, thanks.

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[info]lumpthing
2005-07-05 11:42 pm UTC (link)
Hmm, personally I don't see the confusion there. From my limited knowledge of Greer's views on transfolk, it seems she's saying that maleness and femaleness are about biological fact, not about social identity and personality. Where's the confusion. Its just defining maleness and femaleness acording to biology rather than identity.

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