Burdening society

Reposting a blog comment responding to another commenter on Musings of An Aspie:

I really want to question the idea that a disabled individual who needs constant atypical supports is a “tremendous strain” on “society”. The fact that society isn’t organized in a way to provide for everyone’s needs with love and love for the caregivers as well is the strain, not the individual. So while I have no problem with the prediction that having a child who needs constant monitoring would be a strain on the family, because we live in a society with messed up priorities, I don’t think you owe it to “society” to keep your potentially disabled child from existing, and I don’t think being forced to accommodate for people with atypical needs is even a bad thing for society.

What places a strain on society?
Greed. Production of nuclear missiles. Subsidizing fossil fuels and thereby destroying the biosphere quicker. Market failures, like how some people starve to death while others go on vacations in their personal jets. War. Child abuse. Murder. Sexual assault. White-collar crime. Unethical lending practices. Racism. Alcoholism. Meth. Excessive gambling. Undervaluing of education. Past genocides.

Having to adjust to take care of people whose needs aren’t met by default doesn’t put a strain on society. It heals it. I completely understand if anyone doesn’t want to be the one fighting all of society’s failures to get their kid a decent life, but I don’t for a minute agree that society is somehow hurt by reallocating resources to something that’s actually a good thing to do.

Beta Readers and Diversity: Focused or widespread?

I was reading this post: http://tranifesto.com/2012/05/03/ask-matt-writing-a-trans-character-in-fiction/

Overall, I like it and the discussion. There's a commenter who goes way over the top, IMO, criticizing the person who asked the question for even asking the question, since it supposedly objectifies trans* people and portrays us all as a monolith, which kinda bugged me. There are things that are generally good to do and generally good to avoid when writing about trans* characters even though we're all individuals. For instance, avoiding stereotypes and language that cis people don't get to use, or making sure the character's multi-dimensional and realistic, not defined by being trans.

At some other point a commenter called palacinky says:

I agree with the advice about getting feedback from several trans women (ideally people who have a vaguely similar backgrounds and identities to that of the character you’re writing). In other words, don’t ask trans men what they think about the trans woman character (and vice versa), don’t ask a gay man who does drag what they think about the character, if the character is black or latina, then ask a black trans or latina woman for their feedback. Try to not be defensive when you hear the feedback but also understand you’re writing a unique person, hopefully not a trans cardboard cutout or token. And first and formost, you’re writing a WOMAN character not “a man who wants to be a woman.”

I find this advice interesting and am not sure about it. Yes, get at least 2 trans Latinas if you're writing about trans Latinas--but I'd actually have given the advice to specifically include reviewers from other identities under the same umbrella. You don't want to accidentally write things that affirm trans women while denying the existence of trans men or nonbinaries. Similarly, even if your character's white, you probably want a beta reader of color to screen for racism. I think with the trans umbrella in particular it's really easy to fall into definitions and explanations that completely erase entire swathes of people, and while your character is going to be an individual with experience as only one specific trans person of a specific identity, you do run the risk of characters or authorial voice saying or implying something offensive to other sorts of trans people.

So, I'd say, ideally both, but specific is probably more important than broad.

Upset with Cheryl Morgan's Review of The Bone Palace

Okay, this is neither here nor there and nearly 3 years old, but since it's linked from http://hellyeahagender.tumblr.com/resources, I came across it. Can't leave a comment on the post, so here it goes:

Cheryl Morgan critiques Amanda Downum's The Bone Palace as being transphobic. This is mostly based on the fact that the main trans character didn't surgically remove her testicles/penis despite presumably having the ability and Cheryl Morgan apparently thinks that invalidates her as a trans woman:

The biggest problem for transsexual women, however, is between their legs. There is no more obvious reminder of one’s indisputable maleness than possession of a penis. Not only is it very clear physical evidence, but it has a bad habit of jumping up and demanding attention whenever its owner becomes sexually aroused. This makes it very difficult indeed for a trans woman to have any sort of heterosexual relationship prior to surgery. Testicles are a problem too. They might not be as obvious or attention-seeking, but they are a source of male hormones. If you get rid of them, your body becomes more feminine in appearance.

And regarding sex

For a trans woman with a strong female gender identity, there is generally only one thing she wants to do with her penis, and that is get rid of it as soon as she can. (There are exceptions; more about this later.)

And, no, she doesn't fulfill the promise of giving adequate consideration to those "exceptions."

(I say that this is the main basis for the criticism both because she describes this as the turning point, and because the other criticisms have strongly different readings that have been pointed out in the comments.)

When readers, including someone who's very vocal about being another trans woman who did find herself well-represented in the character in question, object in the comments, Cheryl ignores the main criticisms and claims without substantiation that she's not objecting to a particular type of trans person being portrayed, but that the portrayal was somehow transphobic beyond that. She fails to actually consider--after being explicitly told so at length--that she herself is creating/perpetuating transphobic norms by quotes like the ones I put above, which denies the identity of any woman who likes her penis.

She responds to an articulate argument (see Quinnae Moongazer's comments) pointing these things out by saying

I appreciate your input, but basically it seems to come down to telling me that my reading of the book was wrong.

 Which is basically her either misunderstanding the argument (and I don't see what's not clear about

One, I was not suggesting your context was unreal or irrelevant or invalid. I *was* suggesting that statements like:

“For a trans woman with a strong female gender identity, there is generally only one thing she wants to do with her penis, and that is get rid of it as soon as she can.”

Distort trans women’s experience and tells cis people what they think they already know about us.

), or she's intentionally ignoring the main criticisms and pretending the person she's responding to had made an entirely different argument. Note that Quinnae does say her reading of the book is wrong--I'm not trying to distort things here--but the point is that her criticisms in the book are grounded in her own commitment to transphobic stereotypes/assumptions, with the right or wrongness of her criticisms being a lesser matter (IMO, at least--not sure if either Quinnae or Cheryl would agree that literary criticism << transphobia in importance). In any case, it's obviously crucial that she address her own transphobia when called out on it by other trans people, and she fails that miserably.

I'm pretty disappointed in hellyeahagender tumblr for linking to it (indirectly, through this post that's very closely related), and more disappointed that Cheryl never edited her post to note that some trans people found her comments/assumptions offensive. I don't think Cheryl's wrong to have her reactions, or to criticize potentially negative narratives about trans people in media--but it's always wrong to do that by dismissing entire swafts of trans people and then failing to address your mistake when they call you out. Saying that something's upsetting because it portrays a trans character with a similar identity to you but a different experience of sexuality/dysphoria than you, and that the character not having the same dysphoria/sexuality as you means they don't have a strong gender identity, is pretty damn clearly transphobic and that doesn't change just because you claim that's not what you're saying. You have to, you know, actually go back and change what you said, or apologize for it. Failing to realize even when it's explained clearly to you that your reading of something as transphobic is actually due to your *own* transphobia (thinking the author must not have intended this character to be a real woman since she doesn't think/act like you think real women have to/almost always do) is... a pity, really. I'm still hoping the blogger goes back to this post one day and adds an apology at the top.

Some points I want to make:

- Degree and type of gender dysphoria aren't the same thing as strength of gender identity. There are people who don't have a gender identity who needed to get surgery to reduce the dysphoria they feel for their bodies. There are people (like FTMTF types) who have body dysphoria but identify with their assigned genders. There are also very much so people with strong gender identities different from their assigned genders who only feel social, not body-related dysphoria, or who have body dysphoria in many ways but appreciate the pleasure their penises can bring them, or who find that the risks/costs of surgery would outweigh the rewards.
- Yes, it would be really cool to have another work of fiction realistically exploring a trans woman of the type Cheryl Morgan would want explored, who for instance might have resorted to castration in a world without reconstructive surgery.
- The original post didn't bother me much. It was just like, "Cool, an opinion." The fractal failure to respond upon being called out was what bothers me.
- I think I might actually find some parts of the book uncomfortably sensationalized (the pregnancy part seemed like a bit much), too.

Yes, I do want to end gender

Reposting a comment I left on this blog post. The original post, I don't have a problem with--haven't read either of the articles it's talking about, and the one being criticized does sound awful.

But a couple of the comments hit an old nerve--reiterating this idea that somehow people who want to "do away with gender" can't be part of the trans community.

The way I experience gender is fragmented and doesn't fit either dominant models of (genitals == penis ? man : woman) or of somehow "knowing" that you're a man/woman/whatever and feeling severely dysphoric if this isn't recognized or doesn't "match" your body (whatever gender has to do with anatomy), so my political belief that imposing or requiring gender is tyrannical and unnecessary actually fills out a lot of the core of what I'll call gender identity because other people decided gender identity was a thing. Unfortunately, to a lot of people apparently politics is an unacceptable explanation for being trans. They feel threatened because anti-trans people have used politics against them in at least two ways:

1. Developing a straw-trans who's basically a "laughable" rebel and using that to dismiss the authentic and seriously-effing-important experiences of actual trans people. This is what Nat's article is speaking out against.

2. Dismissing many aspects of trans experience, such as transitioning from one [perceived/presented] gender to another, by saying we should just "do away with gender" instead of promoting trans rights. I was unaware of this phenomenon until reading the comments that I'm replying to.

I've basically been collateral damage in other trans people's fight against these attacks. It's not necessary, though--you can seriously want to abolish gender while respecting trans rights and perspectives. The necessary distinction is really simple, actually: The gender that should be abolished is coercive, other-imposed gender, while the gender that should be respected is personal expression, identity, self-definition, and experience.

So, here's the comments:

makomk said:

Think this is part of a running pattern of cis people using the idea that trans and non-binary folks are an obstacle to ending gender/gender roles/gender rules/... as a way of dismissing them, whilst actually relying heavily on binary gender and everything that traditionally goes with it. By now I may even visibly twitch when someone suggests doing away with gender

I was twitching at the "twitch" comment, but still not really objectionable since it's personal experience and clearly attacking the attackers, not me.

Rani Bakr replied in a way that took it too far, IMO:

 Yeah, when people say things like "doing away with gender" there's a 1000% chance they mean the elimination of people that don't display a masculine (aka "default" in our sexist, heteronormative world) gender expression.

So I said (and btw disqus is really annoying, was trying to post under my real name and failed):

 Umm, no? If I say something similar to "doing away with gender" (and I try not to, even though it's what I believe, since I know I'll offend people), what I mean is ending societally imposed gender labels and other forms of gender coercion. That includes but is not limited to:

Never assigning gender to a baby at birth
Using gender neutral pronouns as the default for all people unless someone expresses a preference otherwise (simply "looking" physically and socially female/male isn't an expression of a preference)
Not having gendered public facilities like bathrooms and locker rooms
Never putting gender on legal documents or ids
Actively fighting prejudice and inequality based on gender/sex
Prejudice based on gender/sex includes prejudice against interests, traits, and communication styles considered "feminine"
Not giving children names that carry heavy gender connotations (like "Alicia" or "James")--for that matter, I'd prefer if children routinely chose their own names upon coming of age
Ending all segregated activities like Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts, choirs, etc

Yes, around the time I came to identify as non-binary, I was also discovering that I believe gender is an illegitimate form of social control. I am not sure whether the concept of gender would exist if we'd never tried to control or oppress people based on it, but certainly body dysphoria would exist anyway, and certainly preferences for certain styles of self-expression would exist anyway. In any case, that's hypothetical, and "gender" also has another meaning of involving personal identity and expression, and that's fine. It took me a couple years to realize the two ideas--respect for people who value being a certain gender and opposition to coercive gender--aren't actually contradictory. So I'd rephrase "gender is an illegitimate form of social control" as "imposing gender upon people or using it to control them is an abusive practice that's often made obligatory in societies and governments."

I don't think I should have to prove that my non-binary identity is based on something other than my political beliefs for it to be recognized as legitimate--and I'm tired of feeling that I do. I think it's pretty easy to make the connection that a teenager who doesn't understand the point of gender and doesn't feel that the gender binary as imposed by society is a real thing at all probably isn't experiencing their own gender in a normative way, and so I'm not saying that it *isn't* about self-expression and reducing discomfort and all that for me (now in my mid-twenties), but I am rejecting the idea that those personal factors are good reasons to be genderqueer while all the political ones are embarrassing and backwards and I should keep them to myself.

I'm not okay with other people who want to do away with gender using that opinion to erase or dismiss trans people. But I'm not okay with other trans people using stereotypes to erase or dismiss my own beliefs (and in doing so my gender identity, since I connect my non-binary identity very strongly to my beliefs), either.