Why feminism sucked...
Sep. 2nd, 2002 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beandelphiki(Eleven)
I've been thinking about feminism lately, and how I've related to feminism in my life. (I just thought I'd get a longer reflection in before school starts tomorrow.)
I think it's fairly typical for tranny guys to become feminists. The story I seem to hear the most is: tranny boy raised (or there are attempts to raise said tranny boy) as a feminine woman/girl person. Guy goes to college. Guy discovers feminism and lesbians together. (Note: this really only applies to t-boys who've come up in lesbian space. Otherwise, I don't know if there's a common back story.) Feminism seems to reflect feelings of frustration at the "girl" box. Lesbianism, if not due to actual attraction to women, affords masculinity. Feminism flourishes in lesbian space. Ta-da! Feminist tranny!
Or something like that.
But it never could have happened to me like that.
I wasn't unaware of feminism as a child. Possibly, I can blame my age for that. I'm young now; my parents were young and just out of college when they had me. (Actually, in the case of my mother, it was just out of college BECAUSE of me.) I don't think my parents had any real intention of trying to make me a feminist little girl at first. They certainly didn't attempt that with my sister. No, they picked on me because I was a tomboy.
I was an extremely masculine child. From some of the stories I've heard in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ftm, maybe I was more masculine than a lot of tranny boys as a child, but I don't know. I'm just your textbook ftm, is all.
I think I was seven when I first told my parents, "I should have been born a boy." Of course they wanted to know why.
I was seven, for pete's sake; I couldn't possibly articulate that I felt male when everyone told me I was a girl. I didn't have words like "transsexual." The best I could do to explain it was to say, "Well, boys are better." I don't think I actually meant that boys are better than girls, although I might have. I don't think I was really any more naturally misogynistic than any seven-year old boy. I meant that I thought it would be better to be a boy...because being a girl felt wrong.
That's not the way it was taken, though. It made all my relatives nervous. Especially the female ones.
Soon, I had all of them responding to me, en masse, "No, honey, girls are better!" It was frustrating, to say the least.
My natural masculinity was trod on whenever it started to make anyone uncomfortable. No one had a problem with my tomboyishness...except when they did. For a while, I had to be dressed head to toe in pink. I kid you not. We still have pictures of me wearing pink T-shirts and pink sweatpants. I still have no idea what possible purpose this served beyond torturing me.
I couldn't buy Superman comics. If I had to get comics, I HAD to buy Supergirl. I recall the numerous futile arguments with my mother in the drugstore.
Whenever my parents bought my sister and I matching sets of anything, they were sure to give me the girlier version.
I wanted Ninja Turtles figurines for my birthday; they were sure to get me a Barbie. Complete with a car, a camping tent and a kitchen, to entice me to play with her.
And on and on and on. All in the name of "feminism." They used that word a lot.
In reality, this was a particularly warped version of "feminism." Refusing me boyish expression in favor of girlishness, which was "better." Pink and soft wasn't just okay, it was BETTER. Preferable to anything else.
This is feminism? I think not. Not that I knew any better.
When I was eleven, they ruined the Easter Bunny by making sure I got a feminist-minded book in my basket. It was a story about how a girl got on a football team - actually, there was nothing I can now object to there, but I wasn't listening anymore. I was fed up with this feminist crap. I think that was the point I rejected the concept of feminism as stifling and stupid as hell.
I recall when I hit puberty and my mother started to tell me anti-man jokes. You know the kind. Men can't do such-and-such because of such-and-such an inborn failing. Whenever my mom would tell those jokes to me, she'd wait for me to laugh, and I'd stand there looking at her thinking of murder. I hated her when she told those jokes, but I couldn't say why. It just felt like a rejection. But I couldn't tell her that because she'd think I was crazy, so I told those jokes, too.
After I came out, my mom told one of those jokes one night at the table. I burst out laughing, right on cue, and followed it up with an extra punch line. Then I sat there in shock, thinking, What am I SAYING? How can I laugh at that when I know I'm a boy, and that applies to me? Good god, I'm a trained dog!
I'm going through a process now. I'm not sure where I'm going to end up with this.
I highly doubt I'll become a strident feminist. Not when the word "feminism" still makes me shudder.
But I remember a point when I hated women. Loathed them, actually. I think there was a point when I fervently wished for all females to be wiped off the planet.
As I've - gradually - let loose of the idea that I am female, so has my hatred dissipated. My earlier self-loathing and how I relate to women are no longer wrapped up in each other. It feels like freedom to be rid of that.
It's gotten to the point where I think I can listen to feminists talk, and not cringe or want to leave the room. But whether or not I think there will ever be a point where I can consider calling myself a feminist - and not feel like I'm calling myself a dirty name - I don't know yet.
And I think I'm all written out at this point. Blah.
I've been thinking about feminism lately, and how I've related to feminism in my life. (I just thought I'd get a longer reflection in before school starts tomorrow.)
I think it's fairly typical for tranny guys to become feminists. The story I seem to hear the most is: tranny boy raised (or there are attempts to raise said tranny boy) as a feminine woman/girl person. Guy goes to college. Guy discovers feminism and lesbians together. (Note: this really only applies to t-boys who've come up in lesbian space. Otherwise, I don't know if there's a common back story.) Feminism seems to reflect feelings of frustration at the "girl" box. Lesbianism, if not due to actual attraction to women, affords masculinity. Feminism flourishes in lesbian space. Ta-da! Feminist tranny!
Or something like that.
But it never could have happened to me like that.
I wasn't unaware of feminism as a child. Possibly, I can blame my age for that. I'm young now; my parents were young and just out of college when they had me. (Actually, in the case of my mother, it was just out of college BECAUSE of me.) I don't think my parents had any real intention of trying to make me a feminist little girl at first. They certainly didn't attempt that with my sister. No, they picked on me because I was a tomboy.
I was an extremely masculine child. From some of the stories I've heard in
ftm, maybe I was more masculine than a lot of tranny boys as a child, but I don't know. I'm just your textbook ftm, is all.I think I was seven when I first told my parents, "I should have been born a boy." Of course they wanted to know why.
I was seven, for pete's sake; I couldn't possibly articulate that I felt male when everyone told me I was a girl. I didn't have words like "transsexual." The best I could do to explain it was to say, "Well, boys are better." I don't think I actually meant that boys are better than girls, although I might have. I don't think I was really any more naturally misogynistic than any seven-year old boy. I meant that I thought it would be better to be a boy...because being a girl felt wrong.
That's not the way it was taken, though. It made all my relatives nervous. Especially the female ones.
Soon, I had all of them responding to me, en masse, "No, honey, girls are better!" It was frustrating, to say the least.
My natural masculinity was trod on whenever it started to make anyone uncomfortable. No one had a problem with my tomboyishness...except when they did. For a while, I had to be dressed head to toe in pink. I kid you not. We still have pictures of me wearing pink T-shirts and pink sweatpants. I still have no idea what possible purpose this served beyond torturing me.
I couldn't buy Superman comics. If I had to get comics, I HAD to buy Supergirl. I recall the numerous futile arguments with my mother in the drugstore.
Whenever my parents bought my sister and I matching sets of anything, they were sure to give me the girlier version.
I wanted Ninja Turtles figurines for my birthday; they were sure to get me a Barbie. Complete with a car, a camping tent and a kitchen, to entice me to play with her.
And on and on and on. All in the name of "feminism." They used that word a lot.
In reality, this was a particularly warped version of "feminism." Refusing me boyish expression in favor of girlishness, which was "better." Pink and soft wasn't just okay, it was BETTER. Preferable to anything else.
This is feminism? I think not. Not that I knew any better.
When I was eleven, they ruined the Easter Bunny by making sure I got a feminist-minded book in my basket. It was a story about how a girl got on a football team - actually, there was nothing I can now object to there, but I wasn't listening anymore. I was fed up with this feminist crap. I think that was the point I rejected the concept of feminism as stifling and stupid as hell.
I recall when I hit puberty and my mother started to tell me anti-man jokes. You know the kind. Men can't do such-and-such because of such-and-such an inborn failing. Whenever my mom would tell those jokes to me, she'd wait for me to laugh, and I'd stand there looking at her thinking of murder. I hated her when she told those jokes, but I couldn't say why. It just felt like a rejection. But I couldn't tell her that because she'd think I was crazy, so I told those jokes, too.
After I came out, my mom told one of those jokes one night at the table. I burst out laughing, right on cue, and followed it up with an extra punch line. Then I sat there in shock, thinking, What am I SAYING? How can I laugh at that when I know I'm a boy, and that applies to me? Good god, I'm a trained dog!
I'm going through a process now. I'm not sure where I'm going to end up with this.
I highly doubt I'll become a strident feminist. Not when the word "feminism" still makes me shudder.
But I remember a point when I hated women. Loathed them, actually. I think there was a point when I fervently wished for all females to be wiped off the planet.
As I've - gradually - let loose of the idea that I am female, so has my hatred dissipated. My earlier self-loathing and how I relate to women are no longer wrapped up in each other. It feels like freedom to be rid of that.
It's gotten to the point where I think I can listen to feminists talk, and not cringe or want to leave the room. But whether or not I think there will ever be a point where I can consider calling myself a feminist - and not feel like I'm calling myself a dirty name - I don't know yet.
And I think I'm all written out at this point. Blah.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2002-09-02 09:36 am (UTC)I know what you mean. I think that it's mostly important to distinguish feminism as a philosophy (equality for all, acceptance of the different, etc.) from GIRLPOWER. GIRLPOWER seems to have been inflicted upon you in the NAME of feminism... and as someone inherently masculine, it bothered you. Understandably. Hell, GIRLPOWER annoys me, and I identify mostly as a female. Sometimes I call myself a misogynist, not really meaning that I hate women, but that I hate GIRLPOWER femmy pink crap. I think it may be feminism's worst enemy, really.
Maybe I'll love you one day
Maybe we'll someday grow
Till then, just sit your drunk ass on that fucking runway, ho
--is my angry anti-GIRLPOWER mantra. I'm so evil. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2002-09-02 09:48 am (UTC)*hearts you completely for finding the right word*
(no subject)
Date: 2002-09-02 10:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-09-02 10:03 am (UTC)I am a staunch feminist and always will be. Since you know I didn't do the whole t-boy lesbian space gig, I do have to admit that I came up a bit differently and I do have the advantage of being the child of a first wave feminist. Feminism just made inherent sense to me, regardless of my gender.
But that didn't mean that there wasn't a time when I resented women tremendously and had real issues with them - as the chief tormenters of my childhood and the arbiters of "appropriateness" in my adulthood. I did go through a thankfully short lived phase when I was first dealing with my own gender of making a big point out of the women as being OTHER than myself, if that makes sense. And that was and is easy for me to do since I live in gay space and that makes it apallingly easy to go for weeks without ever encountering a woman.
Now that I am well and truly freed of any sort of forced identification of myself -as- woman, I am freed to heal those wounds and am finding that I actually like women quite a lot. I find myself seeking them out and wanting them as my friends and working my way back into my staunchly feminist headspace.
Anyway, I think with time, and if you expose yourself to a bit more of the feminist writings and actual feminist theory than "pink is better than blue" *laugh* you'll find it making sense for you on a gut level. One of the praises I have heard for t-guys is that (with rare exceptions) we don't have the cultural bias towards viewing women as less than equal which most men do. It wouldn't really occur to us to do so in most cases. To my mind, having seen the gender differences post-transition, I am much more valuable to the movement overall. I feel like telling most of my former feminist friends "Oh my GOD, sisters, you should see the view from over here. There is SO much work to be done." *laugh* Pity so many of them view transsexualism as betrayal and want nothing to do with me now.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-09-02 02:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-09-02 11:54 pm (UTC)it also sounds like just about the polar opposite of my introduction to the word 'feminism,' which, when i was introduced to it, was (among other things) a word that was given to some of the reasons why one *shouldn't* force-feminize girl (heh--or 'girl') children...
it sounds like a kind of particularly virulent way of forcing the status quo down people's throats--like, it's one thing to be all well-intentioned and shit and be like, 'well, you're a girl, and that's a fine thing to be, and you can be whatever variant of girl you are, and if that includes sports and trucks and short hair and etc., then that is the perfectly fine kind of girl you are.' --not that that answers a budding trans-kid in an ultimately useful way, but, whatever, it's well-intentioned (and it would answer a kid who isn't trans and who has a personality that goes with those sorts of forms of gendered expression), and maybe in a generation or two it will be less impossible for parents to see budding trans kids as who they are, or at least we will come up with better ways of letting kids be who they are without having to impose a future identity on them...
it's another thing entirely to be like, 'well, you're a girl, and girls are better, and the way that girls are better is by doing girly things, and if oyu don't like them, that is because you are wrong.' like--what sense does that make?
but yeah... feminism is one of those words that doesn't actually have a clear meaning, and so people who have entirely different attitudes about women and men and gender and social power dynamics use it to either glorify or vilify certain views... i don't think i know anyone who self-identifies as a feminist who would ever *think* of force-feminizing a child or who would ever think of that as an application of feminism. --then again, i don't think i know anyone who i consider a friend who would think of force-feminizing (or -masculinizing) a child in general.