Losing the plot

What is transphobia?

From the prefix “trans” and the Greek word “phobia” which means fear.

Trans is defined as across, through or on the other side of.

Am I a transphobe?

The latter is a question that comes and goes inside my mind very often.

And the answer is easy; it is either a yes or it’s a no. There is no in between here. There is no you may be a bit transphobic… you know, you may not. You either are or not. And I don’t think transphobes actually wonder if they are or not, they gleefully are.

That said, I don’t want to be transphobic. I’m not afraid of trans people, I don’t wish ill on them. They are humans and deserve equal rights to those who aren’t trans. So, would I even think that I may be, someone may ask suspiciously.

I am going to be as simplistic as possible at expressing my opinion. This isn’t a scientific essay filled with examples of why a is right and b is wrong. This is just my opinion.

What is transphobia?

According to wikipedia, “transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence, anger, or discomfort felt or expressed towards people who do not conform to social gender expectations.”

Being a non trans person, I think the psychological issues of a person who was born in the wrong body alongside the environmental dislike the person encounters in his or her or their life are more than enough for them to have my support in every fight they give until they are accepted for who they are.

And that will never change.

So far, I thought that that alone made me an ally.

I was wrong.

Because who are they?

What are the “social gender expectations” that trans people do not conform to?

Granted, I come from a generation (and many generations before me) that were taught gender and sex is the same thing and there are males and females. And that’s basically it. Sure there can be exceptions, but hey! Exceptions confirm the rule.

I remember reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides in my first year in university and its protagonist’s intersex condition is attributed to incest. The truth is that that’s exactly what we used to learn at school. Most of the exceptions to the rule was because of nature’s defect caused by environmental issues (such as incest). If we are honest with ourselves, Eugenides wouldn’t have won the Pulitzer prize if he had published the novel 15 years later.

I’m certain intersex people would have been critical of it then, but it didn’t matter. It was a work of fiction. A work of fiction well done.

But, most transsexual or transgendered people are not intersex. They have been born with a specific set of reproductive/sexual organs, either male or female. Gender, according to everyone these days, is a social construct. I believe we have found a nice mantra to repeat. It’s a social construct so we can change it…

What is a social construct?

“A social construct or construction concerns the meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society, and adopted by the inhabitants of that society with respect to how they view or deal with the object or event. In that respect, a social construct as an idea would be widely accepted as natural by the society.”

It’s been a couple of days that I posed a question in twitter but I got no answer. It was an easy question; “What is a woman?” but I got absolutely no answer. I mean what is the meaning, notion or connotation placed on the noun “woman” by society?

According to Cambridge Dictionary,

“woman” is a noun

an adult female human being:

She’s a really nice woman.

A woman and two men were arrested the day after the explosion.

Women first got the vote in Britain in 1918.

She is Ireland’s first woman (= female) president.

informal

2. a wife or female sexual partner:

Apparently, Jeff has a new woman.

Anyway, regardless of what dictionary you use bottom line is that woman is a female person. And we can go with snail pace and having me question what is a female person. Seriously, though…

A woman is not some abstract notion of colours, a woman is not a spectrum, a woman is not an umbrella term.

Are dictionaries transphobic? You can answer yes and consider everyone except yourself a transphobe or you can go see the definition of transwoman and ponder on it.

Transwoman as a word exists. The same with transman.

What is trans?

trans-

on the other side of, to the other side of, over, across, through: transatlantic, transpierce

so as to change thoroughly: transliterate

above and beyond; transcending: transonic

Chem.

designating an isomer having certain atoms or groups on opposite sides of a given plane in the molecule (in chemical names, usually printed in italic type and hyphenated and disregarded in alphabetization): trans-butene

designating the elements beyond (a given element) in the periodic table: transuranium

If you translate Don Quixote in English, it doesn’t stop being Spanish Literature.

Does it?

A trans woman is a person who was born male. Trans women may experience gender dysphoria and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and sometimes sex reassignment surgery, which can bring relief and resolve feelings of gender dysphoria.

The term transsexual originated in the medical and psychological communities. However, unlike the term transgender, transsexual is not an umbrella term, and many transgender people do not identify as such. Transsexual is a term for AFAB and assigned male at birth (AMAB) people alike who feel their sex organs do not reflect their gender and have chosen to change some aspect of their body; it is an older term, with GLAAD stating that it is “still preferred by some people who have permanently changed — or seek to change — their bodies through medical interventions (including but not limited to hormones and/or surgeries).” The transgender community sometimes uses the term passing to describe a transgender person’s ability to appear as the gender they identify with. The opposite meaning is conveyed by the terms “to be read” or “to be clocked”, and means not passing.

So, transsexual is not the same as transgendered, but hey! trans women and women are the same.

Do I have this right?

So, I found myself having an issue with the statement “trans women are women” and this issue brought up my whole “am I transphobic” existential crisis inside my head. Many people will say that only transsexual or transgendered people can answer that and if they say that I am, then that’s what I am.

Regardless, no I don’t believe trans women are women. I don’t believe trans men are men. Trans women are trans women and trans men are trans men.

If a woman is a female person it means she has the female reproduction organs and has faced in her whole life the issues that come hand to hand with them. Everything, from abuse, female genital mutilation, rapes to the very trendy pay gap are results to being a woman, a female person. A trans woman had never had to deal with such issues. She had to deal with other issues that a woman cannot identify with.

There is no empathy between the two categories. As a matter a fact, a woman can have more empathy for a trans man. And the opposite; a trans man knows how it is to be a woman; it’s exactly what he wasn’t comfortable with to begin with.

Even if we can’t empathise with someone we can sympathise with them. Women have been oppressed for centuries because of their stature and reproductions organs. Saying that someone is woman when they are not going to feel that is offensive to women, whether you like it or not.

If we expect women to be sympathetic to trans women why shouldn’t we expect trans women to be sympathetic to women?

And maybe it’s not for me to say, but isn’t this motto offensive to trans women as well? Doesn’t it invalidate what they had to go through to become trans women? Certainly, the choice is theirs but the experiences is also theirs and they are not shared by [biological] women. Same as women’s experiences from the day they were born is not something trans women have had to live with.

We don’t have to be the same to be equal.

As a matter of fact, we are not the same.

And that’s a good thing.

We don’t try to end racism by saying “black is white” and “white is black”.

If that makes me transphobic, so be it.

I would hope every transphobic person would be like me. No one would be in danger or in fear for their life.

Everything else in science comes in categories.

Why would you say “some women have penises. Deal with it.”? if not to bait? To create uproar?

When the correct statement is “some transwomen have penises”. No one can disagree with that.

“Some trans men menstruate”. Why is that? Certainly not because they are men, but because they are trans. Because they have female anatomy. Because they used to be women. It’s not part of what they want to be, it’s part of what they didn’t want to be, of what they used to be.

When you say a group of people, a minority is vulnerable and then you don’t change the vulnerability to strength but attempt to shove it under a very heavy carpet at the expense of another [larger] group of people that has also been vulnerable in society you only create enemies you don’t really need.

If I’m wrong I’m wrong. If you want to call me transphobic for hurting someone’s feelings, then I have every right to call you out when you hurt my feelings. As a woman. And if you are a man (not a trans one) who does it, well you know what you can do, as far as I’m concerned. My feminine sensibilities do not permit me to spell it out for you.

A trans woman is not a woman in the same way I am not a trans woman.

She is a trans woman and she fought hard for that.

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Anything difficult to understand comes from wikipedia.

Featured image: The Persistence of Memory (1931), Salvador Dali