By David Futrelle
So-called “gender critical feminists” are obsessed with pronouns; they talk about them more often than a 7th grade English teacher, and the discussions often get quite vitriolic.
Despite the profusion of new pronouns in recent years, the pronoun that gets these rebranded TERFs the angriest is one as ancient as language itself: she. At least when it’s applied to women who aren’t cis.
In a notorious (and quickly deleted) Mumsnet post last year (which you can now find archived here), an angry transphobe called Barra Kerr declared that “pronouns are Rohypnol” — at least when the pronoun in question is “she” or “her” applied to a trans woman. As Kerr sees it, calling one of these “men” by a female pronoun is a “cheap but effective psychological trick” that confuses the brain and lowers natural female defenses against predatory males, whether cis men or wily trans lesbians (who in Kerr’s mind aren’t “really” lesbians at all but dudes who pretend to be women so they can pick up lesbians). By this convoluted “logic” the pronoun “she,” when applied to trans women, is the equivalent of a date rape drug.
If Kerr’s is the most radical transphobic attack on the pronouns of trans women, the meanest and most petty take on the subject I’ve seen so far comes in a Gender Critical subreddit posting from a few days ago by someone called vanillaorgtfo — arguing that calling trans women “she” is just a way to make
these ugly men in dresses feel better about the fact that no one is really fooled and everyone can tell they are actually men.
Let’s go through vanillaorgtfo’s, er, argument in detail.
“The fact is,” she begins, “the vast majority of transwomen do not pass.”
Er, maybe the reason you think this is because the other trans women (not “transwomen”) you run across on the regular do pass, meaning that you never notice them. And it’s also possible that some of the women you think are non-passing “transwomen” are in fact cis women with some stereotypically masculine features.
Even the ones I see who try to take a good selfie with all the pretty hair and clothes and makeup and who have gained weight in the face in “feminine” patterns tend to suffer from pretty noticeable “man jaw”, aka the heavy lower jaw and face women rarely get.
There are plenty of cis women with these so-called “man jaws.” And plenty of cis men without them.
That and other body subtleties tend to subconsciously clue a person in to their true sex. But by now most socially adept people can guess from their egregiously girly clothing they want to be called “she/her”.
If you’re going by twenty-year-old stereotypes, I suppose, or confusing trans women with drag queens.
For those who are passing badly or meeting people in a new situation or talking online or on tumblr, whatever, they use the “preferred pronouns”, however, so that people know. It’s a tacit admission that they are failing to adequately convince people of their preferred gender presentation, or that people are regularly pegging them as the correct sex.
Even aside form the fact that many of those who are careful to spell out their preferred pronouns do so because they don’t fit the gender binary, the fact that someone’s gender presentation doesn’t seem “correct” to vanillaorgtfo is less a reflection on them than on the narrowness of her notions of acceptable gender presentation. Some people actually have no desire to “pass.”
In any case, that’s the substance, such as it is, of vanillaorg’s argument, which essentially boils down to “ha ha, ‘transwomen’ are so ugly they have to tell people their pronouns in advance!” Which is not so much an argument as a dubious assertion based on a series of dumb premises.
The real question is why “arguments” like this make so many Gender Crits — generally a fairly indignant bunch — so gleeful. (Vanillaorgtfo’s post fot nearly 70 upvotes and virtually universal agreement from commenters.) I’m going to take a wild guess and say “transmisogyny.”
Indeed, much of what the Gender Crit crowd says about trans women is similar in spirit to what MGTOWs and other manosphere misosgynists regularly say about cis women. Some of the obsessions are not just similar but identical: the last person I recall going on about “man jaws” was alt-Nazi pickup artist Heartiste.
I would say something about “strange bedfellows” here, but it’s not really strange that there are so many parallels between misogynistic manospherans and transmisogynistic Gender Crits. Hate movements gonna hate.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies entirely on readers like you for its survival. If you appreciate our work, please send a few bucks our way! Thanks!
Love too do feminism by practicing my Regina George impression
This is an example of confirmation bias. I can almost guarantee that if you showed them photos of cis women and said they were trans* women, the TERFs would suddenly begin pointing out features they perceive as telltale signs.
Also, is it just me or does this paragraph make anyone else super self-conscious of how their face looks?
I believe the confusion is deliberate. I’ve seen TERFs criticize drag queens and trans* women in the same breath, and I think they’re trying to confuse the general public. It also allows them to keep using old stereotypes and produces bonus damage against other groups.
In a similar vein, I had an idea to create a TERF bingo game for reading TERF crap online, similar to David’s GamerGate bingo. I’ve already got a few dozen words and phrases TERFs often use or that describe them, anyone have more suggestions?
And there certainly was, and may still be in some places, gate keeping where if a trans person wished to transition and obtain medical assistance they were obliged (no matter their personal preference) to represent themselves in clothing etc in a very stereotypical way. Ultra feminine or masculine. They weren’t trying to pass anything but that gate.
Wasn’t H Rider Haggard a colonialist swine?
@Naglfar
ISTR someone on here talking about trolling TERF forums by posting pics of ither TERFS tagged as trans and watch them point out all the ‘masculine’ features they ‘saw’.
@Naglfar
Calling them FARTS or anything that will get a rise out of them? Although admittedly, they do get angry at TERF alone and insist on calling it a slur, so it alone might suffice.
@Dalillama
So, the real life version of this comic?
The “you can just tell” thing is really funny to me because I recently received a very cute picture of a friend in an outfit they like that I wanted to share with some different friends of mine. I posted it in a small group chat with the caption “My friend is very cute.” A couple people immediately responded with messages like “She is cute!”
The friend in question is a cis man.
It’s really not that difficult to confuse whatever part of the brain we use to categorize other people as male or female. As far as animals go, humans actually have a very small degree of sexual dimorphism. Aside from definite secondary sex characteristics like beards or breasts, we don’t really have any features that are inherently male or female. We just tend to associate certain traits with certain sexes because we’re socialized to.
@Talonknife
And even then there is some variation because some cis women have facial hair (often due to PCOS, hypertrichosis, or hirsutism) and some cis men have enlarged breasts (gynecomastia).
I’ve been roofied, and it was one of the worst experiences of my entire life. It must be awful to be so traumatized by someone’s preferred pronouns that the experience is comparable to being drugged without your consent. Poor TERFs.
(On a serious note, I made it home safely – thank you, alert friends who guessed what had happened! Still super not fun. Remember to always watch your drinks, and look out for each other.)
I should not have read this post
I really feel like she is seeing cis women who aren’t conventional attractive and shes so focus on strict gender roles that she doesn’t actual think their women.
I have a really good friend who is gender non conforming a lot. He is a cis gender bisexual man he just likes to wear his hair longer and wear skirts and dresses or lacy tops a lot of the time in the summer. He doesn’t have any really defining “male or female features” he looks pretty ambiguous with all his features. Their pretty neutral and he is also only about 5″3 to 5″4 feet tall. He doesn’t care when people misgender him. But we’ve gone out when he’s dressed pretty feminine, the amount of people that get really upset when they cant tell his gender is really alarming. Apparently it is way to much to ask for people to just mind their business. So the idea that you can “just tell” by looking at people is really stupid. Hell when I had a pixie cut if I wasn’t dressed super feminit I got called he all the time despite not having “masculine” features.
Terfs are particularly disappointing to me. I love being a feminist and I love my trans sisters. Here come these crude mean people claiming to be the former, but hating the latter. I’d expect this horrible nonsense from entitled cis dudes, but when cis women who ought to know better gleefully begin kicking others it’s just so discouraging.
Some people really, Really, REALLY need the world carefully categorized and delineated into neat and simple specifications.
Duckbilled platypuses must drive them crazy.
One of my favorite genderfuck moments of all time was after I was out, but before I was able to change my ID. I would often have to use a public restroom on the way to/from work because of a fairly long transit across town. Because I didn’t want to get arrested, I used the men’s room. It was difficult emotionally, but whaddayagonnado? The body is the body, and it didn’t know not to produce urine until I was home.
So this one time I go use the bathroom, I wash my hands, and I’m just turning to leave when someone comes in who looks just barely younger than I was at the time, maybe 18-20. She has a moment where she’s clearly weirded out like she’s worried she’s in the wrong place, then she sees me and sighs and relaxes, then she steps forward and gets to the point where she can see urinals and let’s out an audible chirp, then turns to me with this really, really questioning face and I just shrug without saying anything and we walk out together.
There was literally no word of any language said between us, but it was super clear that she saw something – I don’t know what – that made her worry that she was in the men’s room, then she looked at me and my appearance was all the reassurance she needed that she was in the women’s room and then the urinals changed that back and now she’s really freaked out and then she questions what she thought she knew about me and I shrug and she’s like, “Whatever, let’s get out of here.”
When people are super insistent that gender is easy and stereotypes about women and men and trans* people work and you can just tell who is cis and who is a woman and yada yada yada, I think back to that moment and just smile.
@Lainy
I genuinely find that encouraging to read. Sadly I’m not sure if I have the courage to dress in this way. Part of it is because I’m quite worried about being easily identified in this small town I live in even though it’s an accepting town.
Well, so long as the subject of Drag Queens and gender come up, I might as well ask…
I’ve had a few conversations which involved drag queens with my mother (definitely not a normal topic of conversation, though!) and in the absence of any known pronoun preference for any particular drag queen, I use “they” for the person in general regardless of circumstances, while my mother uses “he” for out-of-costume normal identity and “she” for in-costume persona. But I’m wondering if there’s a general standard which most of them prefer, or if it’s a situation where you can’t reasonably guess without asking the individual in question.
(Yes, I’m aware that there are ciswomen and transwomen who are drag queens, which possibly complicates things.)
Your mother is correct that that was a long established custom – like, probably over a hundred years old now – but it’s also possible that this has changed in recent years. I don’t hang out with any professional drag performers and even the sometime-performers I hang out with I don’t think I’ve ever asked this question. I’ve always treated pronouns as an individual thing.
So… that was the thing. It might still be the thing. But you should prob get an answer from a person who has more current info than I do.
Yeah, that’s still the convention.
Thanks, D.
Okay then. My mother went with that because it “seemed right” and I went for what I considered a “neutral default” because “what seems right” isn’t always actually right. At least that’s cleared up now.
I’ve encountered a few people whom I was unable to clearly identify as a given gender, and the only discomfort I felt was a mild sort of “oh, damn, is it rude of me to ask them their pronouns?” social awkwardness.
Most of the time I didn’t ask, because you don’t really need to use gendered pronouns when interacting with someone? Like, it’s all ‘you’ or ‘we’, essentially.
It’s surprisingly similar to the way I act when I can’t remember someone’s name. It all works perfectly fine until I need to introduce them to someone else.
Unlurking to say that one of the physical features I adore about my husband is the delicacy and fineness of his jawline. I, on the other hand, come from generations of Irish/German peasant stock and I have a jaw that wouldn’t be out of place on a Cro-magnon man – and a large, burley one at that. Go figure.
I can’t help but ask, wouldn’t it just be better to engineer humans in a way so that traditionally masculine sexuality isn’t second nature to them? I feel like that such hostile attitudes towards women and their appearance wouldn’t exist or at least be so prevalent if it weren’t so rewarding for men.
One of my ambitions, as yet not gratified, is to use a picture of me, with context that makes it clear that I’m trans but obscures the fact that I’m trans masc, and let transphobes point out all my manly features thinking they’re hurting my feelings.