[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]It is horribly trans exclusionary, if not an outright hit piece on the trans community.
Or is that what you are trying to say by calling it "interesting?" If so I apologize for the misunderstanding.[/font]
People who haven’t lived their whole lives as women, whether Ms. Jenner or Mr. Summers, shouldn’t get to define us. That’s something men have been doing for much too long. And as much as I recognize and endorse the right of men to throw off the mantle of maleness, they cannot stake their claim to dignity as transgender people by trampling on mine as a woman.
[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]Maybe I am reading this wrong, but this comes off as "you are not as much a woman as I am therefore your opinion counts for less." That comes off transantagonistic to me.
How is Ms. Jenner defining womanhood? Looks to me like she is just being herself and just so happens to see herself as a female? So she is expressing her gender in way the author disapproves of? So what? It is Ms. Jenner's life and whatever makes her happy is none of Ms. Burkett's business.
Is this not judging Ms Jenner based on her looks and manner of dress? Isn't that the very thing third wave feminist have been fighting against? Why does Caitlyn have to live up to Ms. Burkett's expectations of what is or what is not female?
There are woman whose gender expression (which is different from gender identification) is very similar to Ms. Jenner's. Do their opinions not count? Is their gender expression invalid?[/font]
Their truth is not my truth. Their female identities are not my female identity. They haven’t traveled through the world as women and been shaped by all that this entails. They haven’t suffered through business meetings with men talking to their breasts or woken up after sex terrified they’d forgotten to take their birth control pills the day before. They haven’t had to cope with the onset of their periods in the middle of a crowded subway, the humiliation of discovering that their male work partners’ checks were far larger than theirs, or the fear of being too weak to ward off rapists.
[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]Correct, their expression is not Ms. Burkett's nor did they experience the same experiences as the articles author. But that is true of every woman. There are many "woman born" women who don't experience periods due to birth defects or having something like CAIS. Do they not count as women either? None of this makes transwomen's experiences, their pain less real. It doesn't mean they didn't suffer! It does not mean they weren't shamed and abused for who they are!
And they don't experience fear of being too weak to ward off rapists? Really? [/font]
Brains are a good place to begin because one thing that science has learned about them is that they’re in fact shaped by experience, cultural and otherwise.
{snip}
The differences between male and female brains are caused by the “drip, drip, drip” of the gendered environment, she said.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
http://www.crossdreamers.com/2012/08/the-story-about-viktor-and-viktoria-and.html
[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]The idea that gender is formed purely by environment has long been put to rest. David Reimer lost his life proving that.[/font]
THE drip, drip, drip of Ms. Jenner’s experience included a hefty dose of male privilege few women could possibly imagine.
{snip}
Those are realities that shape women’s brains.
[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]So is the author saying there are no female olympic athletes? What about Picabo Street? Kristi Yamaguchi?
Or is she saying transwomen don't face misogyny?
You know what else shapes a woman's brain? Being told to stop acting like a girl and being made to feel shame at being oneself. Being harassed for being not being manly and possibly abused. Of course this is what shapes a transwoman's brain, but that doesn't count in the authors opinion, does it?
I guess ignoring realities also applies to ciswomen as well?[/font]
Bruce Jenner told Ms. Sawyer that what he looked forward to most in his transition was the chance to wear nail polish, not for a furtive, fugitive instant, but until it chips off. I want that for Bruce, now Caitlyn, too. But I also want her to remember: Nail polish does not a woman make.
[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal] Sorry the article is too long to respond to everything.
I have not heard anything about any attack on Wendy Davis' slogan, but every group can have someone who is misguided. Trans activist are no exception nor are feminist. And I don't see what is wrong with transmen wanting to EXPAND the abortion rights fight, and pointing out that it affects them too.
I can't help but see hypocrisy in complaining about more inclusiveness for trans individuals in language from someone who claims to have fought to free women from similar forms of discrimination and privilege.
Also, it would not kill the author to not mis-gender Caitlyn Jenner.[/font]
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