Special Status, and Cisgendered Privilege

The book “Transpeople” by Christopher A. Shelly, published by the University of Toronto Press, has been a facinating read. I've been going through the book both sequentially page by page, and also flipping to random sections that fit my current fancy.

One of my friends, Ellie, considers herself a radical feminist. What she has noticed very poignantly in radical feminist circles is a kind of militant transphobia towards transgendered people and gender-non-conformists. The self-proclaimed “women-born-women” (or “womyn-born-womyn” as they attempt to get rid of the patriarchal and admittedly sexist language of including “men/man” in “women/woman”) attempt to discredit and delegitimize both transgendered women and transgendered men as “not women/actually men.”

I have, of course, mentioned the most infamous of the “feminist” transphobes, Janice Raymond. She wrote the book “The Transsexual Empire,” where she described transgendered women as “Male-to-Constructed-Females” and “transgendered men,” claiming that they were no better than “rapists” who wanted to use male privilege to “invade the female space.” We are, apparently, “spies for the patriarchy.” (My words.)

It strikes me as particularly odd. Even though MtF women have experienced male privilege, upon transitioning almost all of that privilege is deemed forfeit. With transgendered presenation being so extremely public, from hair, to the voice, to the clothes, to the given name and pronouns, to the particular locations of body fat and muscle on a trans persons' body, if one does not “pass” then how do radical cultural feminists expect FtM men and MtF women to retain any sort of “male privilege” without being victims of male schadenfreude? Do transphobic radical cultural feminists truly believe that MtF women who are full time and non-passing really move in and out of male circles at will without any repercussions to their reputation, status or social network? Moreover, do they deny that transpeople face the same gender-determined violence based on their perceived gender role, and are the victims of gender-based discrimination and hate crimes that women are?

With these powerful and direct words, I digress into my sociological theory.

Growing up as a very “gender queer” child who simply “could not” be a girl but did not see “him”self as a boy, I noticed the special status applied to boys and girls at an early age. I saw it quickly like a club, as opposed to anything that had any sort of responsibilities or oppression associated with it. Boys were for sports and being all manly, girls were for being pretty. This is a simplistic view, but as someone who didn't value competitive sports or being pretty, I quickly saw how these two “differences” were then played off each other in the social scene. Both girls and boys at such a young age became quickly infatuated with the patriarchal gender binary, as it quickly became a simple and easy mould to identify with.

Feminism, as far as my understanding goes, wished to equalize men and women and erase the borders between them. Thus, it also found a solid footing in the queer movement. But with the rise of individualism in the last thirty years, starting especially in the late-70's/early-80's, there was a change. Simultaneous group-identification and individualist drive took hold of society.

I will not attempt to paint all cultural feminists with the same brush, but this is my interpretation. Transphobic radical cultural feminists, from what I've read, have adopted this “special status” but in a very specific way. Mainly, they have begun embracing biological determinism and the sex/gender dichotomy as a source of strength. “Men are rapists” is a kind of sexism which feminism used to decry. How is “men are rapists” functionally different than “women are emotional/underdeveloped men”? Both are biologically determined stereotypes and generalizations aimed at extracting some kind of power or privilege over the “bad” gender. Much like how there were “proper women” and “improper women/unwomen” when the second wave first hit, so too have they created a “proper woman” and “improper woman/man” - a transgendered woman, despite her extremely transgressive behaviour and inherently queer nature, is placed on the same level as women who adopt patriarchy and men (who all apparently “rapists”).

This same biological determinism is what is currently used to oppress women even to this day and elevate the status of men. Yet radical cultural feminists see no cognitive dissonance on adopting this biological determinism and applying it to transgendered women, transgendered men, queer identified men and women, and so on.

This special status as “real women” empowers them to oppress other gender minorities. Suddenly, they are the privileged ones, and those who do not conform to the biologically deterministic philosophy of gender are unaccepted outcasts of “the movement.” Much like how women who wore pants in the 50's and 60's were seen as “unwomanly,” so too are transgendered women who weren't “born women,” a natural roll of the dice that ended up not in their favour, marginalized and ostracized from female spaces, independent of their sexual anatomy, sexual orientation, personalities, intentions, or “true nature.” This demonization of men, and, by “association,” transgendered women only seeks to perpetuate the stereotype of “feminists are all lesbian man-haters.”

Not all men are rapists. Transgendered women are NOT men and receive no male privilege. They live in an oppressive cis-privileged society. Much like how there is the dichotomy between the rights and status of men and women, there is the dichotomy of rights and status between cisgendered and transgendered people. Those who cannot see this aren't just simply “not looking hard enough,” they haven't even opened their eyes.