Cooperative Community not a Stonewalling.
By Sophia Siedlberg
19 October 2008
Having covered all the negative aspects of the Stonewall-Bindel affair, perhaps I could try to address the positives. I don't feel any personal animosity towards Julie Bindel or Stonewall, I just seem to get a lot of mixed messages about parts of the debate I clearly cannot understand.
One message that is not quite so mixed is the issue of boundaries. Essentially there is a conflict between two groups, Lesbian women and Transsexual folks. How can this be resolved? Well let's look at the claims of the two groups.
Lesbian women basically assert that transsexual (M to F that is) folks are men with male privilege who seek to live in a more oppressed state, and this is basically nonsensical to them, they also assert that such "men" (Their phrase not mine) are enforcing the "gender binary" (The social aspect of the two sex system which everyone knows I myself abhor, which will become relevant in later) by adopting stereotypical feminine roles. The discussion about female to male transsexual folks is less often mentioned (Though Julie Bindel has expressed similar opinions about them also).
The transsexual folks basically assert that the lesbian women are seeking to block any effort on their part to become a given sex. Lesbian women are basically going against the right to self determination. They also assert that the lesbian women are being "Transphobic" in following this line of reasoning.
What do I think? Well I think the two sex system is so ingrained, neither can see the wood for the trees. I do know of some (Certainly not all) transsexual folks who go a little overboard when it comes to the stereotyping. I have also seen situations where some (Again not all) transsexual folks just appear from nowhere and demand to be let into women only groups. (These are the ones who get noticed, and do not reflect the attitudes of the whole community from my understanding)
I have seen a number of lesbian women (Not all) involved in what seems like a sort of Machiavellian policy of taking control of other groups (ISNA springs to mind), which to me indicates a need to keep anything they don't understand under some sort of control, With transsexual folks some have appeared to be incredibly hostile (Bindel in 2004 was a good example of that).
I think at the core of this we are not actually talking about transsexual folks or lesbian women but the two sex system pitting people against each other. You see the difficulty I have with the lesbian argument is that while they say they are opposed to the gender binary, they are enforcing the root of it (The two sex system) by asserting that there are only women born women and men born men. Here there are no exceptions to this rule and as such transsexual folks are really their birth sex from what I can gather of their argument.
On the other side of the coin, transsexual folks argue that there are not just two immutable biological categories and that they have the mind of one sex trapped in the body of another. The problem (For lesbian women in particular) is that this asserts another facet of the two sex system, and that is social roles (Gender) are being described by transsexual folks as "Hardwired". And yes this brings the specter of the two sex system in again, only this time with the belief that people are biologically hardwired to act and self identify as one or the other sex. (Regardless of anatomy).
OK I am looking at this with some confusion because I am intersexed and I find that the idea of there only being men born men and women born women hard to believe, why? Because I was born neither. I find the notion of being one brain sex trapped in the body of the opposite, unclear because mentally I don't have a brain sex., not in the true sense. I have 5 alpha reductase deficiency and most of the literature claims I have a male brain sex and will at some point run to a surgeon wanting a penis, (This will never happen).
It does not mean I would exclude the two views though, there are generally two biological sexes, and surgery at present cannot transform one to another in terms of say the ability to reproduce. But is reproduction that important? At the same time, I find that brain sex probably does exist, but I think it is more a case of how the brain maps the body and sees it, than say a preference for certain toys or activities.
Now I am incredibly hostile to the two sex system, I have a personal grudge against it, that little incident in 1965 when as a defenseless child I was mutilated without consent. I consider the two sex system to be the ultimate rapist. But I am also a realist, there will always be men and women and there will always be some part of the brain that maps the body, wobbly bits included. It is where we go from there. You will notice I am not using entrenched definitions, I am not saying that a female brain sex will automatically lead to some Venus and Mars style fetish for wearing pink and looking like Nanette Newman saying "I made you a coffee and you did that, I made you a coffee and you did that, do you want some apple pie?" (I don't think M to F transsexual folks are Stepford wives trapped in men's bodies, I just think their nervous system expects a female body and they clearly describe need to resolve that usually with surgery) I also do not say "There are men born men and women born women" There is the statistical fact that most people are born either male or female, and the Levinian nightmare of social conditioning the "Gender Binary" lies waiting to hammer them into conforming to bits of flesh.
I think transsexual folks and lesbian women in these political debates could be the best of friends if they just got over the arbitrary thinking and fatalism. It is just a tiny step on both sides, like transsexual folks just accept that Brain sex is most probably more basic than some need to wear pink and make coffee and apple pie (I think most transsexual folks realize that) and lesbian women really need to get over this idea that biologically there are only men and women, who are born men and women, live as men and women and dies as men and women, and it is just the social roles that are wrong. (I also think most lesbian women realize that) The truth is there is more biological variation in terms of there being sexes, (About as many variations as there are individuals if you take it to the logical conclusion, are two lesbian women identical, or two transsexual people? No, can you see my point?
I break all the rules laid down by both groups if I am honest, I don't have a "Brain sex" to speak of, I have external female genitalia, but no real vaginal canal, I am tall and guess what I am comfortable like that. I don't wear pink dresses (I would look silly) I rarely wear warpaint, I don't have any pubic, under arm or facial hair to speak of, I just have hair on my head and that is that, in terms of physical features I am comfortable with that. If I woke up tomorrow morning with a ten foot penis, I would lob it off, why? Because it would not be a part of my body, I am androgynous in a tall geeky sort of way and that is what my brain expects. I do not walk into female spaces unless invited, nor do I walk into male spaces, (It is easier to crouch behind a tree to piss quite frankly but a unisex toilet would be more comfortable). Having been through the things I have been trough with my body being pushed in all directions by surgeons and an insane endocrine system, I can see why a transsexual woman would have a penis removed or a transsexual man have a penis added. I do not have a fixed biological sex either, in fact I can simply repeat the above paragraph again, vagina but little or no canal, no pubic or facial hair, I am tall etc. But that is not fully female, I don't have a uterus, nor do I have a pair of ovaries, I do not have a penis nor to I have testis. I never will either, even if surgery was offered to achieve that, I would not take up the offer. I was born intersexed, and I have done what I can to reclaim that from the machinations of the two sex system.
I am not saying surgery should be banned for transsexual folks, I think they need the surgery to save them going mad, (Lets face it is must be a pretty extreme thing to go to a surgeon to get your genitalia rearranged, there is something going on there) I am not saying that there are no men and women, because there are. What I am saying is just step back before ripping each other to pieces and think of a new approach. For me the real enemies are those who write papers advocating the "Genetic testing for and screening out of" Gay, Lesbian, and Transsexual folks, or papers claiming that bisexual folks are liars. The two sex system is alive and kicking in various dark corners of the medical profession, or lurking in the prejudice that gets someone barred from a job or treated unfairly by the law.
Perhaps if people looked at the real enemy (Oh there is one, no doubt about that) and just got on while opposing the real oppression, coming from the two sex system, then cool, perhaps Julie Bindel can have her award, Stonewall give some respect to the people they got their name from, and be reasonable with transsexual folks, (Like treat them as human beings perhaps?) and hey Stonewall may just get out of that hole they had dug themselves into.
