#Gender liberation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cock-holliday · 5 months

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"Does the parody of this gender make me NOT this gender?"

but... all gender IS a parody. that's why the patriarchy invented it. and why gender doesn't exist in any form outside of human society. gender is stereotypes and parody and an axis of oppression. everyone on earth should be genderqueer/nonbinary. socialisation is the thing that stops this. the end goal of gender rights is the complete abolition of gender, not whatever you're doing in that post. you seem like you're really rightwing and trying to hide it by mis-using leftwing terminology...

You sound like a deeply unpleasant person.

"everyone on earth should be genderqueer/nonbinary" As a genderqueer person...no they should not. People should be free to identify how they want, not have labels forced on them, and not have to be punished for falling into any particular category. The problem is not the existence of gender and identity labels but rather the power other axes of oppression have to influence it---namely white supremacy and colonial standards.

Gender is not uniform across different societies. It is wholeheartedly made up, sure, as is any other form of categorization! And like any other form of categorization there is shared history and community and the ability to shape it into what you want just as much as the ability to form a sense of nationalism tied to it. And what makes up men, women, and other is different across time and location. The problem is assigning roles and status along a hierarchy, not in putting labels on yourself.

"the end goal of gender rights is the complete abolition of gender, not whatever you're doing in that post" hmmmm can't tell if you're misinformed or gender crit, either way, what a presumptuous take. There are plenty who reject gender abolition in favor of gender liberation.

There needs to be an end to oppression based on gender, on restrictive pressures placed on various genders, on hierarchies (based in gender and others) and an end to the gender binary, but gender abolition is a pretty shit path, imo

Anarcha-genderism only requires, at minimum, non-participation in the legal and social enforcement of unjust hierarchies which revolve around the gender binary.

Gender should be a choice--yours and yours alone. And it should mean what you want it to mean. Forcing a new metric for gender and forbidding use of terms is just as reductive under an """abolitionist""' lol perspective as it is under patriarchy.

I'll give you some credit if you're coming from a nihilist perspective on gender abolition--their critiques of liberal feminism are super correct, but I think their conclusion is flawed, namely in thinking there is no value to identity words.

Abolition is for systems, not ways people describe themselves.

Also please for the love of god read Judith Butler, even the nihilists do

#ask #anon ask #charming to be accused of being rightwing for NOT being gender crit #gender liberation #gender anarchy #queer anarchism

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 month

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By: Leor Sapir

Published: Mar 21, 2024

Both critics and supporters of so-called “gender-affirming care” appreciated the candor of transgender activist and author Andrea Long Chu’s recent cover story for New York magazine.

Chu’s piece, titled “Freedom of Sex: The Moral Case for Letting Trans Kids Change Their Bodies,” makes a principled case for letting children dictate their own hormonal and surgical treatments. Chu believes that “trans kids” shouldn’t have to get a mental-health assessment before initiating hormones, and that, “in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history.” Remarkably, Chu does not deny that biological sex is binary and determined at conception but argues that humans have no ethical obligation to come to terms with reality, calling this purported duty “a fine definition of nihilism.”

While trans activists often pretend that only “right-wing reactionaries” and “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” (“TERFs”) oppose their claims, Chu refreshingly observes that this isn’t true. The most “insidious” pushback, Chu says, has come from “TARLs,” or “trans-agnostic reactionary liberals.” Indeed, polling has shown that Americans with liberal views largely reject such policies as schools keeping students’ gender “transition” secret from their parents and allowing trans-identified males to compete in female sports.

Chu’s essay went viral, prompting New York staff writer Jonathan Chait to pen a “Liberal Response.” Chait has a history of opposing trans activists’ censoriousness, particularly about medical transition for youth. Last December, for example, he responded to transgender advocacy groups’ fury that the New York Times had acknowledged the ongoing scientific debate over how best to treat gender-distressed minors, which they claimed had abetted state-level Republican efforts to ban pediatric transition. Chait called for “carefully following the evidence,” and observed that “the whole reason leftists try to associate reporters at the Times with Republican-backed laws is precisely that their targets do not agree with the conservative position on transgender care.”

Chait’s December piece correctly identified the tribalist logic informing elite discussions of gender medicine in the United States, and progressive journalists’ efforts to banish from the liberal tribe those who raise questions about this controversial area of medicine. His response to Chu’s essay, however, fails to extend to conservatives the charity he expects trans activists to extend to liberals like himself. If Chait is worried about tribalism obscuring the pursuit of truth, he might consider how his own writing may contribute to this problem.

Consider his characterization of the debate over “trans rights.” Chait claims that “[c]onservatives dismiss trans rights altogether, while liberals completely support trans rights as it pertains to employment, housing, public spaces, and other adult matters, disagreeing mainly in how it is applied to children (as well as, in limited cases, addressing the problems raised by trans female athletes competing in women’s sports).”

Whether this is true, of course, depends entirely on what Chait means by “trans rights.” “Rights talk,” to borrow Mary Ann Glendon’s term, obscures the hard trade-offs and real-world costs that unavoidably confront those entrusted to make policy choices. Chait should have spelled out what “trans rights” mean in practice, but he doesn’t. His failure is especially puzzling considering two claims he makes in his essay. Chait claims, first, that “Trans-rights activists and their allies have relentlessly presented their entire agenda as a take-it-or-leave-it block, attacking anybody who criticizes any piece of it as a transphobe.” Second, he argues that rights claims generally render empirical questions irrelevant. As Chait puts it, “if, say, you consider firearm ownership an absolute right, then no evidence about how many lives any particular gun-control reform is likely to save is going to make you support it.”

Whatever Chait means by “trans rights,” the notion that all liberals support permissive trans policies outside the pediatric medicine and athletic contexts is unfounded, according to the data. Partisan affiliations are not a perfect proxy for voter ideology, but it’s telling that a 2022 PRRI poll found 31 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Independents favor laws that require people to use bathrooms that accord with their biological sex. A more recent YouGov poll found that 26 percent of surveyed Democrats backed such laws, with 22 percent unsure.

Assuming the “liberal” position on public accommodations is that people should be legally allowed to use bathrooms that accord with their subjective definition of being male or female (and many liberals would dispute that this is in fact a liberal position), and if the “conservative” position is that no such law should exist or even that laws should require bathroom access based on sex, then almost half of Democratic Party voters appear to hold views about bathroom access that could qualify as “conservative” under Chait’s scheme.

Liberal opinion similarly divides on the issue of trans-identifying inmates’ prison placements. According to the same YouGov poll, most Democratic voters either supported (35 percent) or weren’t sure about (33 percent) laws requiring prisons to house inmates according to their biological sex. In this case, support for “trans rights,” here defined as a legally protected right to be housed according to “gender identity,” appears to be a minority position within the Democratic Party.

Has Chait accurately characterized the conservative position in this debate? Despite his claim that “[c]onservatives dismiss trans rights altogether,” there’s no evidence that the standard “conservative” position on, say, employment is to allow adverse action against trans-identified people tout court. The YouGov poll found that 44 percent of Republican respondents said they support “banning employers from firing employees on the basis of their transgender identity.” Fifty-seven percent of Independents, which presumably includes some conservatives, answered the same way. Recalling the abstract nature of “rights talk,” what is framed as “employment non-discrimination” often comes down to policy questions about how employers should treat trans-identified employees or candidates in circumstances where sex presumably matters, for instance access to workplace bathrooms.

When asked whether there should be specific provisions for “transgender people in hate crime laws,” 42 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of Independents agreed that transgender status merits special protection, while 24 percent and 27 percent, respectively, said they weren’t sure.

In short, it is highly misleading to say that liberals support trans rights while conservatives do not. When the abstraction “trans rights” is broken down into concrete policy questions, as inevitably it must be, many liberals seem to disagree with policies favored by trans rights activists while many conservatives agree with them. Chait himself recognizes the uselessness of abstract rights talk when he turns his attention to Chu’s argument for “freedom of sex.”

Chait’s response to Chu’s arguments about pediatric medical “transitions” admirably makes the case that “empiricism” must be part of the liberal position on trans rights. However, his commitment to political “rights” seems to constrain his commitment to empiricism and evidence in crucial ways.

First, Chait notes that the supposed consensus that “gender-affirming care” is “settled science” is the result of “a power struggle between advocates of unmediated gender-affirming care and their more cautious colleagues,” but he doesn’t really explain what makes these colleagues “cautious” or whether there are divides within the “cautious” group. By this point he must know that there are three main positions in the debate: those, like Chu and parts of the gender medicine industry, who support unrestricted access to hormones and surgeries; those who support medical transition but call for rigorous mental health assessments; and those who believe that “gender-affirming” hormones and surgeries are inappropriate for minors regardless of circumstances. Those, like myself, who belong to the third group make evidence-based arguments. We regard members of the second group, many of whom are well intentioned, as cautious compared with the first group but overall misguided in their support for harmful practices.

While Chait mentions systematic evidence reviews from Europe and Canada, he fails to disclose that these reviews found no credible evidence of benefits for any pediatric cohort, including those treated under the “gold standard” and more “cautious” Dutch approach, which Chait notes involves “extensive evaluation and screening for mental health.” Left unstated is his apparent hope that after “extensive evaluation and screening,” some kids will benefit from early medicalization.

If liberals like Chait are truly committed to empirical medicine, they must at some point read and respond to the most important scholarly paper on pediatric gender medicine in recent years: “The Myth of ‘Reliable Research’ in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch studies—and research that has followed,” published last year. It’s hard to read this paper and come away with any impression other than that this entire medical field is based on fraud.

More fundamentally, Chait needs to grapple with a problem that runs deeper than the empirical questions discussed in clinical studies. Empirical debates about medical evidence generally presuppose a coherent conceptual framework of health and disease. We can debate, for example, whether a new drug for treating cancer is “safe and effective” because we agree that there is a condition to be treated (cancer), that it constitutes illness, and that doctors have an objective diagnosis to confirm its presence in humans.

Gender medicine, by contrast, lacks a coherent conceptual framework. The discipline is riddled with deep and abiding contradictions. Advocates argue that “gender incongruence” is not a pathology but a normal variation of human development, but they also insist that this phenomenon is a potentially life-threatening medical condition that requires “medically necessary” hormonal or surgical interventions. Advocates argue that “gender identity”—a term whose definition is either circular or reliant on stereotypes—is fixed, immutable, and infallibly knowable from early childhood, but they also say that “gender identity” is fluid and a “journey.”

Above all, thoughtful discussion of youth gender transition is not possible unless one is willing to interrogate the very notion of the “transgender child.” And this, I think, is still a bridge too far for liberals like Chait. What does it mean to say that a child “is transgender”? That she was “born in the wrong body”? That’s metaphysical talk, and absurd. It’s also dangerous to suggest such a thing to vulnerable teenagers who are going through the throes of puberty. Nor is there evidence for the transgender brain hypothesis—and even if there were, gender clinicians (even the “cautious”) ones are not calling for, and most would actively oppose, brain scans as part of the diagnostic process.

Liberal journalists who continue to use the term “trans kids,” as if it’s obvious what this means, without trying to define the term and defend it against rational, good faith criticism, are not truly interested in an empirical debate about youth gender medicine. They care about evidence and research, but only within limits.

A final note on Chait’s piece. He mentions the National Health Service of England’s recent decision to decommission puberty blockers as routine care for gender dysphoric youth. Chait should keep in mind that the Dutch first proposed using puberty blockers as part of the diagnostic process—halting puberty to create a window of time for the adolescent to sort out his feelings and decide whether to proceed with transition. We now know that these drugs do not provide neutral “time to think” (the title of a book about the Tavistock clinic) but more likely lock in a child’s incongruent gender feelings and make further “transition” all but a foregone conclusion. Chait seems to have read the Tavistock book and should at least be open to the possibility that the NHS’s decision is a step toward an eventual full national ban on medical transition for minors—similar to the restrictions enacted in two dozen Republican states that Chait presumably believes are extreme.

To his credit, Chait recognizes the potential for golden mean fallacies in the debate over youth gender medicine. He argues that we should not assume that “ideas located at the extreme at any given moment are always wrong.” I agree. But Chait should acknowledge the possibility that empirically minded, principled liberals like himself are still getting pediatric gender medicine wrong. He should be open to the possibility that one day in the not-too-distant future, he will find himself among the “conservatives.”

"Sex is real… But the belief that we have a moral duty to accept reality just because it is real is, I think, a fine definition of nihilism." -- Andrea Long Chu, 2024

"The facts may tell you one thing. But, God is not limited by the facts. Choose faith in spite of the facts." -- Joel Osteen, 2014

Same thing.

#Leor Sapir #Andrea Long Chu #Jonathan Chait #gender ideology #gender identity ideology #queer theory #intersectional feminism #liberationism #gender liberationism #gender liberation #delusion #fantasy #religion is a mental illness

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ale-arro · 3 months

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in gender liberation theory the violence that comes with attraction wherein one person is expected to manage the other person's attraction to them is considered an extension of the patriarchy with the default interpretation being that women are expected to manage the feelings of men who are attracted to them, while simultaneously protecting themself from that attraction. but isn't it nice to know that presenting my gender fluidly and interacting with other transgender people doesn't protect me from having to manage their attraction to me while also protecting their feelings! i think the simplification of "women managing men's feelings" is not necessarily *inaccurate* but it does take an approach to feelings in a way that views it entirely as an extension of the patriarchy which doesn't wholly account for the fact that romance as a structure is often used to commit violence, and that while this goes very hand-in-hand with the patriarchy because the modern conception of love is inextricable from the patriarchy and in particular in m/f relationships men are expected to be the pursuers and women are expected to be the pursuees, but escaping the boundaries of that expectation doesn't save people from the violences established by that view on relationships

#anyways read relationship anarchy by juan carlos perez cortes #aromantic #aro #gender liberation #relationship anarchy

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graytheory · 2 years

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I completely understand that some trans people really like "gender abolition" as a concept.

I don't. I prefer Gender Liberation.

I like my gender. I like having a gender.

Unlike radfems, trans people do not think birth sex is more important than gender. But if you eradicate gender, birth sex is all that's left. And if you pay attention to the gender critical feminists, that's what they want. They want society to be divided along the lines of birth sex. They absolutely believe in sexual dimorphism and the sex binary. They want to enforce it by eliminating gender expression!

"Gender abolition" is at this point a synonym for "gender critical". I did not first hear of "gender abolition" from trans people, I heard of it from terfs and radfems.

A lot of the philosophies of gender abolition are the same as gender liberation:

Free people from the expectations of a sexist patriarchy. Let people express themselves however they like. Do not assign stereotypes to people based on their birth sex. Let people have full bodily autonomy over themselves.

The difference between gender liberation and gender abolition is that gender abolitionists believe that gender is inherently and unchangeably oppressive in all cultures around the world and has been since the dawn of humanity.

I think that's presumptuous. And racist. And xenophobic.

Gender is a form of human expression. It's not inherently bad or good. It's just one more way we can express ourselves. And it absolutely should be optional. It should also be something you can pick and choose and mix and match.

That's what I mean by gender liberation. Freeing gender not only from the patriarchy, but freeing it from sex as well. Freeing it from gender stereotypes, freeing it from sex stereotypes. freeing it from everything, so it can be a beautiful form of human expression.

Gender criticals, radfems and terfs do not want trans people to exist, which is why they say trans people uphold the gender binary and we are "preventing" gender abolition from happening. The people using this term are your enemy.

I won't be using any term that consistently has "#radfem" attached to it.

#gender liberation #anti gender critical #anti gender abolition #trans #transgender #trans rights #transsexual

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intergalacticgoose · 3 months

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Not to start a whole like….discourse or anything, but I discovered truscum/transmedicalists within the queer community lately (I know, late to the party, I’m a late bloomer) and I’ve been, well…distressingly down over it.

When I think about it, I’ve butted up against my gender assigned at birth (GAB?) my entire life. I’ve been seriously questioning my gender for the past, idk, 2-3 years or so? Buying a binder, asking for men’s cuts, following my instincts when I found myself dressing more and more masculine during the pandemic.

I’m fairly happy with my body. I like the bits I have, for the most part. I’d like to be more androgynous, but those are things I can accomplish without surgery. I looked into HRT, and realized it wasn’t for me. (Not gambling with male-pattern baldness OR excess hair, thank you very much) I started exploring genderfluidity or something beneath the nonbinary umbrella once I realized that, had I been born AMAB, I wouldn’t necessarily desire being a woman. I think I’d even be a bit happier. But I’ve spent so long learning to love my femininity, I don’t necessarily want to abandon it.

Enter truscum.

I hate that it bothers me so much. The insistence that I *need* to invest in medical intervention or experience dysphoria of a certain type in order to be “not cis” felt like getting beaten back into the box I was assigned to. Like I was foolish to imagine something grander, wilder, and bigger than what my body had written for me. It made me worry that perhaps I had imagined it all. It made me feel like I wouldn’t be recognized even within my own community, which was supposed to recognize me where cis people simply don’t see beyond my bone structure and voice despite all I do to blur my lines.

And this is the reason that thinking is so, so damaging to the trans and nonbinary community. So much of gender is uncultured, and many cultures have had spaces or language for genders beyond what they considered male or female. It’s western society, really, that’s been slow on the uptake in not allowing for those other genders, and insisting on a rigid binary. If I’m struggling, I can only imagine how others like me, who don’t feel comfortable anywhere, may be feeling.

I don’t really have a point to all this other than to vent my frustrations with transmedicalism. If you’re out there and dealing with the same types of doubts, man, don’t listen to ‘em. The world has carved out spaces for people like you in other times and places, probably, and you gotta have faith in who you know you are.

#queer #lgbtq #nonbinary #enby #genderfluid #genderqueer #gender feels #gender #gender questioning #transmedicalism #gender liberation #rants #queer community

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crazycatsiren · 1 year

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I'm thinking about genders again.

I think, probably the biggest reason why some of us grew up never questioning our AGAB, is because our upbringings were very much immersed in traditional gender roles and gender essentialism.

I know this was so for me. During my childhood, there was no shortage of reminders on the daily about me being a girl. I pretty much had it drilled into my head everywhere I turned. You're a girl. You were born a girl and you'll always be a girl. Girls do girl things. Girls do this and boys do that. Girls marry boys when they grow up. And this constant conditioning reinforced what my delicate little mind knew about my body.

Then I grew up. What an epiphany. That was all a grand load of bullshit.

#personal #lorelei's mind #genders #identities #expressions #genderqueer #mogai #queer #gender liberation

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hobohobgoblim · 1 year

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"Whether you identify as trans, as non-binary, or some other way, everyone’s lives improve when each of us is free to determine our own relationship to gender. This does not mean we should de-center the voices and experiences of trans people in this struggle—on the contrary, trans people are especially well-positioned to know all about the forms of patriarchal violence and repression that are rampant in this society. But this struggle concerns everyone’s freedom, not just the freedom of a “minority.” Rather than seeing themselves as “allies” in someone else’s fight, those who do not identify as trans should nonetheless understand that their own liberation is at stake here, too. Just as the assault on abortion rights will not stop in Texas and Mississippi, anything that the bigots can get away with doing to trans people they will do to other LGBTQ people next—and then it will turn out that some heterosexual people aren’t heterosexual enough for them, either."

https://crimethinc.com/2022/05/05/the-fight-for-gender-self-determination-confronting-the-assault-on-trans-people

#crimethinc #gender liberation #gender autonomy #lgbtqia+#bash back #bash the fash #fight fascism

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hadeantaiga · 2 years

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"Abolish gender!"

NO.

liberate gender

Free gender from the confines of the patriarchy and give it to everyone in whatever ways they want it.

#gender liberation #gender liberationist #queer #trans #transgender #anti gender critical #feminism #intersectional feminism #gender

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starberrywander · 7 months

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So I was originally going ambitious with this. My whole habit of "I'm gonna write a whole book and express every detail that I can possibly think of about it and never tell anyone anything until I've perfected it." And then I thought for a second and I realized, No that's not gonna go anywhere because I'm never gonna be satisfied that its perfect. I just gotta talk about it and do collaborative thinking with other feminists to work out the details.

So basically this comes from this feeling I have that no feminist movement that has been established truly captures my sentiment toward the topic of fighting the patriarchy. Like some I pretty strongly agree with but the focus is different and I wanted a framework that put the focus on what I do.

So I came up with this analogy of society and people being gardens and the patriarchy being weeds that need to be pulled. Kinda like an invasive species that has hijacked the garden and is hurting its ecosystem. And everyone who is within its range (in other words, living within a space with a patriarchal culture) is constantly dealing with its seeds spreading to their garden. And so all of us, both individuals and groups, that exist within a patriarchal culture need to be constantly tending to the garden to pull these weeds and also helping others to pull their weeds and make a habit of it.

So that's how I came up with the name Tender Feminism. Because, y'know, you are the Tender of your gardens. But also because a huge part of fighting the patriarchy is replacing the values that fuel patriarchy with better values and I believe that part of that is tenderness being viewed as an important value and not as something synonymous with weakness or ineffectiveness. Like, aggression should not be treated as the only way to stand up for what you believe in. You can be like a tree; digging in your roots and refusing to budge but also not lashing out or attacking. You simply stand your ground and establish yourself, leaving no room for the patriarchy as you spread your range further out into the world. Eventually, if we remain proactive about weeding it out and spreading, the patriarchy will have nowhere else to grow and will die out. The new culture will become the established norm, completely peacefully, and the social ecosystem will begin to heal.

And I know that approach isn't appealing to everyone. But I'm big on peace and kindness that has a strong and stubborn opposition to harm. Like, you don't need to be angry and aggressive to oppose something. You can just plant your feet, stand your ground, and live your values defiantly with love. And I feel, at least for me, that having a strong named label to live by and stick to will help me actually get stuff done and craft the kind of environment I want to live in.

Anyway, what this looks like is this:

Acknowledge that the Patriarchy is a Culture, not an institution or active movement. People become comfortable in their culture and they will defend it because your culture becomes a part of you. But this lashing out and enforcement of an established culture is not an active or organized practice; it is simply the natural behavior of a culture to defend and perpetuate itself through the people who live in it.

Identify the cultural roots of harmful patriarchal behaviors. These are things like beliefs and values that people take for granted. These will exist in you as well, so you're gonna need to build some strong self-awareness in order to understand where the weeds you need to pull are. Make notes about your observations of what these weeds look like; how the beliefs and values can be traced up through behaviors and patterns of the patriarchy.

Start pulling. Once those cultural roots have been identified, start weeding your gardens. Replace those beliefs and values with something healthier. Establish what the problem is, why its a problem, and what alternatives would solve and prevent it.

Collaborate. Share your notes with others and guide them to identifying and pulling those same weeds in their own gardens. Listen to other people's observations and check for those weeds in your gardens.

So yeah, that's the structure I'm trying to operate under. And now having the words for it will make it easier to maintain my direction rather than it just being scattered like it has been. Having this label of Tender Feminism will give me a framework to express my perception of this issue all in one place. Its very culture and belief system focused, rather than the focus on laws and legal stuff that many other approaches tend to have. Not that those things are bad, they are very necessary, but I just wanted something that will focus more on the roots of the issue rather than the symptoms.

And this isn't really meant to be an opposition to other types of feminism, just a different approach. I still consider myself to be an intersectional feminist but now also a tender feminist. I guess this is more of a subtype of intersectional feminism than anything else. Or who knows, maybe this already exists as something else I wasn't aware of and I'll be pleasantly surprised to find an already established community around this.

Anyway, just wanted to share and also provide some context for future posts I'll probably make with this tag as I organize my thoughts.

#feminism #tender feminism #anti patriarchy #lgbt #queer #gender liberation #intersectional feminism

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oozetin · 2 years

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[ID: A fat body with stretch marks and body hair surrounded by plants with a rose for a head. Red text on their body reads: Fat rolls not gender roles.]

#oozetin’s art #art #digital art #illustration #digital illustration #artists on tumblr #original art #fat belly #fat Pride #gender liberation #floral #body posititivity #body image

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intergalactic-bean · 1 year

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hey y’all!!

I am working on a project at the moment focusing on what we (my team) are coining as the “universal tom boy experience” (it’s catchy)

My part in the team is looking into the relationship between trans and non-binary people socialized as girls at a young age and the connection to the rejection of that specific femininity. Basically the tendency to reject the girly shit because you aren’t a girl or over feminize yourself to convince yourself you are a girl, before you realize you are not a girl or you come out of denial. Then the subsequent re-understanding and healing of the relationship with femininity.

Not to claim that every trans person presents femininely but that often the aversion to those past feminine things is lessened because it’s not a “girl” participating in it, it’s the person after their self actualization.

This is a theory of mine because I’ve seen it in a lot of people, so if anyone wants to dm me about their experience or share sources talking about this; that would be great!

#me thinks a thought #queer #trans #trans masc #ftm #afab #non binary #femininity #gender stereotypes #gender liberation

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queen-mabs-revenge · 2 years

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"Women’s liberation organizations that were influenced by socialist feminism, such as CLWU and the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition (WONAAC), understood that reproductive justice for women wasn’t just about abortion, particularly for women of color, and they demanded an end to forced sterilization. CLWU in particular campaigned against sterilization abuse and supported the waiting period. However, the California chapter of NOW opposed any waiting period in the midst of the Madrigal women’s struggle for justice.

NOW’s failure to stand in solidarity with women of color reflected its orientation to white, middle-class women. In the 1970s, population control was a prominent theme in the arsenal of institutionalized racism. Women of color were portrayed as out-of-control reproducers who were over-taxing society’s resources and overwhelming the white population. Sterilizations, whether or not they were coerced, could be obtained for free, with clinics and doctors paid by the DHEW. Conversely, abortions, only legalized in 1973, were made economically unavailable to poor women with the passage of the Hyde Amendment in 1976 which banned the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. Bodily autonomy, even after Roe v. Wade, remained out of reach for poor women who were disproportionately black and brown.

The divisions around the question of fighting sterilization abuse speak to a wider problem, namely the failure of the broad mass of the women’s movement to unite around a program centered around the needs of working-class women, women of color, and LGBTQ women. Such a program would have linked abortion rights to the fight to end poverty and segregation, for universal health care and paid parental leave, and for good unionized jobs for women that would enable them to exercise real choice. It would have therefore pointed toward linking the struggle for women’s liberation to the struggle of the whole working class to end capitalism. While this would have required a struggle with the pro-capitalist wing of the movement, it would have potentially inspired millions more to join the struggle."

— Socialist Feminism and the New Women's Movement

#feminism #socialist feminism #abortion rights #bodily autonomy #gender liberation

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graytheory · 2 years

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literally what could somebody ask you that wouldn't be debating your gender lol? How are we gonna have a conversation about how gender is bullshit if that in itself directly questions your identity? (BTW, the trans community does debate our sexualities. Like, all the time. Like, plenty of you actively tell lesbians that we have to include transwomen in our dating pool or we're "genital fetishists"/transphobes.)

If you don't understand the difference between debate questions and discussion questions, might I suggest you google the difference between a debate and a discussion?

Like, you could ask, "What does it feel like to go on testosterone?"

You could ask, "Was there a lightbulb moment that made you realise you were trans?"

You could ask "Do you feel better presenting masculine or feminine?"

You could ask "How long did you think about HRT before going on it?"

There are many questions you could ask me that would not be debate questions about my identity. I suppose it does say something about your point of view that you cannot think of any question you'd want to ask a trans person that wouldn't be treating their identity like a debate.

And actually, I would love to have discussions about gender if you could enter that discussion without all the angry baggage. I love discussing gender as a concept - and you're right, so do many trans people. Gender is a beautiful form of human expression, and is not one that I feel is inherently "bullshit", and I certainly don't have any right to debate the validity of gender identity and expression from other cultures. It would be highly bigoted of me to do so. I'm not so supreme and knowledgeable a person that I somehow have a right to say "ALL gender should be abolished".

I rather think we should liberate gender from the patriarchy instead, and think of it as another facet of human expression that anyone can opt into if they so choose - and that everyone should have the freedom to pick and choose which aspects of gender they like and which they don't like.

I also don't think gender should be attached to physical biology in any way - that's bioessentialism, and that's playing right back into sex stereotypes, the same thing I think we'd both like to abolish.

So when I, a trans person, say that adult human females should be able to be whatever we want, I mean it. We should be able to do whatever we want with our bodies: clothe ourselves in whatever clothing we want, cut our hair how we want, behave how we want, and modify our bodies however we want: tattoos, cutting our hair, controlling our ability to procreate, getting our tubes tied, and, yes, taking testosterone if we so wish. Getting top surgery if we wish.

That's ultimate freedom, to me. And I think that's a far more radical and free view of body autonomy than whatever I've seen from radical feminists or gender critcials, who claim "every female is miserable" and "all females hate their bodies" and "you shouldn't be allowed to change your body in ways I don't like".

It's one step away from "you have to give birth to be happy, motherhood is the ultimate form of femininity".

#trans #transgender #transphobia #transandrophobia #transmisogyny #bigotry #gender #gender liberation

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