Seeing as there’s once more TERF discourse in the SFF/literary twittersphere, let me ask you this: if you don’t believe that self-knowledge/self-identification is the only universal proof of gender identity, then what the fuck is? Thread:
Chromosomes and hormones are more complicated and vastly more varied across individuals than was previously thought; even if you wanna be a tool about acknowledging intersex issues, these things aren’t binary; and no discounting “artificial” hormones, bc some cisfolk use them too
- for instance, post- or perimenopausal women, those recovering from or dealing with particular medical conditions, women who take the pill. If you want to argue that trans hormones don’t count towards gender, then how aren’t you wailing about other people who use them -
- including, in particular, cis women who use things like the pill or other hormone supplements to have a better experience of womanhood, whether by controlling menstruation or dealing with acne or hot flashes or the aftermath of oopherectomy or mastectomy?
Which brings me to bodies: again, even if you wanna be a tool and claim that intersex people are someone Genders Georg, statistical outliers who shouldn’t be counted, are you going to argue that a cis man who loses his testes or is born with a micropenis is somehow not male?
Are you going to hinge your idea of “woman” on possession of breasts and a vagina, but somehow not count any trans women who get top and/or bottom surgery even if you count cis women who have boob jobs and vaginoplasty or who otherwise undergo surgeries to those parts?
Are you going to say gender is defined by the shared cultural experience of gender persecution, as though there’s One True Sexism that only little cis girls experience and which somehow bonds them all, regardless of nationality or background or anything else -
- even when it’s patently absurd to suggest that, even among cis women, sexism is experienced exactly the same in all cases? As though Black women and queer women (for instance) don’t experience something different to white and straight women; as though locality, faith, class -
- are all afterthoughts instead of integral? Are you going to pin “woman” to menstruation, as though little girls and older women are less female? To childbearing, as though infertile women or those childless by choice or who adopt or whose queer partner gives birth are lesser?
Are you going to tie it to how women present gender, when the internet is rife with TERFs screaming about how “obvious” it is that X woman is “really a man” when the woman in question is actually a cis butch or not white or doesn’t otherwise “pass” their brainless standards?
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: biology is absurd, because LIFE is absurd. We’re all electric meat with feelings, and the idea that trans people are scary and wrong Because Something Something Fear Is The Mindkiller Somethingn is so exhaustingly fucking juvenile.
“BUT WHAT IF I HAVE TO SHARE A BATHROOM WITH SOMEONE WITH DIFFERENT GENITALS??” BITCH you mean like you do in your house?? Or a unisex bathroom?? Or a parents and kids bathroom-slash-changing area?? If someone is being creepy you remove THAT ONE PERSON, not everyone trying to pee
In conclusion TERFism is fucking absurd and poisonous and does real harm to vulnerable people just trying to exist. GTFOH with that bullshit.
Jumping back on this thread to say that if an individual trans person refers to their life pre-transition or pre-realisation-of-transness by saying “when I was [gender assigned at birth]” that’s their choice and it’s fine! It’s not a gotcha! for Being Trans Is Fake Actually -
- it just means that gender and identity are, as mentioned, complicated. A trans woman who didn’t understand herself until well into adulthood will have different experiences to a trans girl who identified as such at a young age and was supported by her family pre-puberty.
Similarly, the fact that some people detransition or don’t want to medically transition in the first place? It’s fine! Figuring yourself out can be hard actually, even if the only difficulty is getting other people understand where you’re at or that it’s not their business!
You know that video of the anti-masker dude throwing an absolute TANTRUM and then taking his dick out in the shops? TERFs are like that guy, only instead of showing their own genitals they’re grabbing the pants of the person they’re yelling at.
