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.