I apologize for returning so quickly to the cesspool that is The Spearhood, but I felt the need to note how head Spearheader WF Price celebrated Mothers’ Day this year: with an attack on trans* women that probably deserves a TRIGGER WARNING for its nastiness and ignorance.
Responding to an Op-Ed in the New York Times by author Jennifer Finley Boylan reflecting on her experience as a mother who also happens to be a trans* woman, Price lashes out at what he describes as
men who reject everything about masculinity. Men who reject it so much that they chop off their genitalia and take female hormones in order to eradicate everything male about them.
You may recall A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam making a similarly transphobic “argument” about the alleged motivations of trans* women a couple of years back.
After this general attack on trans* women, Price narrows his aim a bit, attacking those trans* women who have the chutzpah to declare themselves mothers, focusing his wrath on Boylan in particular:
One of these stalwart, self-mutilating individuals – a “former” male who goes by the name Jennifer Finley Boylan – has declared that he’s every bit the mother as any woman. … If we don’t accept that he’s a mother, we’re bigots.
Well, yes, Mr. Price, not accepting that she’s a mother does make you a bigot.
After setting forth this rather garden-variety transphobia, WF Price spells out the broad outlines of what you might call an MRA Theory of Trans* Womanhood:
I understand why some of the most selfish, depraved men among us would want to relinquish their masculinity. In our society, women are free to pursue their heart’s desire without fear of sanction. Judging women for putting their own needs first is condemned in every mainstream outlet, from Dr. Phil to The Atlantic.
Some men are bound to be envious of this. Some of them go so far as to try to try to become a woman. And what kind of woman do they emulate? The worst parody of one. Gaudy, self-righteous, exhibitionist, attention-seeking, demanding, selfish and all too willing to place their burdens on others.
Ironically, with the possible exception of the word “gaudy,” all those adjectives in that last sentence apply perfectly to Price himself, and more than a few of the other Men’s Rights Activists I’ve had the displeasure of encountering while writing this blog.
My opinion.
rgh I have to draw a tentacle monster for tomorrow and it is just not coming together!
Scary tentacle monster or cute tentacle monster? If it’s cute you could always draw a kitty with tentacles.
Displacer kitty wants a hug!
I admit to having a beef with the concepts of ‘transmasculine’ and ‘transfeminine.’ Are femme trans men transfeminine? Are butch trans women transmasculine? It mostly just seems yet another excuse to lump me in with women for reasons I don’t understand.
Buntzums, what ARE you on about now?
Now I’ve got to work in a tentacle kitty (squitty?) somehow.
With transmasculine/transfeminine, is it mostly the people themselves who’re claiming those identities or is it others labeling them? Because that would make a significant different in how I’d feel about the terms.
In terms of TERFs, I once had a conversation with a radfem whose objection to trans theory starting to be integrated into feminism was that she was butch and felt like her identity was being eroded because people kept telling her that she was probably trans and just couldn’t accept it. I still think the radfem attitude towards trans people is in general really fucked up, but I could see how someone who’d been happily identifying as butch for years might not appreciate other people deciding to re-label her with a description that didn’t feel right to her at all.
RE: CassandraSays
I’ve seen it both ways. Self-identifying, I have no problem with. But other people trying to slap me with it is obnoxious as fuck.
Oof. What you describe is actually part due to the definition of ‘trans’ being vague. Some people extend it to anyone who doesn’t have a normative gender expression. So there are butches who ID as trans, regardless of their gender identity.
I also think this is one of those universal fails. I mean, I kept getting asked if I wasn’t sue I was just a butch lesbian, so I think this is a case of ‘no matter WHAT your gender is, if it’s not normal it’s wrong.’ Don’t even get me started on the concept of butch flight…
Yeah, I don’t think this is an issue specific to LGBT stuff, it’s a general problem with people liking to slap neat little labels on everyone in order to make them easier to understand. I don’t understand it, but it happens in so many different contexts that at this point I’m assuming it’s a fairly universal human brain fail.
It seems a lot simpler and kinder to me to allow people to choose their own descriptive terms, but apparently I’m in the minority there. I still don’t understand why, if someone says “I’m X” and the lizard brain is going “no, you’re Y!” people can’t at least go with the option they are being clearly told is preferred as a courtesy.
Cassandra – especially when it’s someone you hardly know, or know only on the internet, for instance. It’s what you said yesterday: wtf is so threatening about it for people? What does it matter if somene prefers a different pronoun? Are our tribal boundaries that narrow? I guess some people’s are.
Argh. I’m not around and the talk shifts to Labyrinth (Yes. I’m a fangirl… also Building-verse fangirl. *facepalm*)
Yeah, as a trans woman I have completely stopped caring about such types of absurd theories as to why people like me choose to go through the painful and sometimes dangerous process of transition. People like him are so utterly clueless and far off the mark that they only become a parody of themselves.
Any cis woman should be able to at least imagine the scenario of suddenly having their body masculinise. Facial hair, body hair, hair loss, voice, all that stuff. I am willing to bet most cis women would hate it if that suddenly started to happen. Well, to me it did. Puberty did that. That’s why I swapped my hormones. It is really that simple. At least for me.
I suppose the backwards idea of these people, of women having more freedom, is what spills into this. Yes, I have more freedom to be myself, but that’s only because I was never allowed to before, but I have lost the freedom to feel safe in the same way I used to, I have lost the privilege of being automatically assumed to be competent to perform difficult tasks even though I have a master’s in physics, and I have gained the attention, online and offline, of creepy men. Among other things.