- cross-posted to:
- the_dunk_tank
- cross-posted to:
- the_dunk_tank
Look right, I like a lot of things about the foundational 2007 text Whipping Girl by Julia Serano. But if you've ever been told to read this book without any qualifiers, I'd like to apologise on behalf of the trans community.
Obviously the concepts of traditional and oppositional sexism, the idea of transmisogyny, Serano's analysis of media depictions of trans women, and more are all superb and well worthy of praise. However, Serano is a land of contrasts, as AcidSmiley so concisely put it. She's read both Leslie Feinberg and Kate Bornstein's works, and writes this extremely salient quote:
We must also stop pretending that there are essential differences between women and men. This begins with the acknowledgement that there are exceptions to every gender rule and stereotype, and this simply stated fact disproves all gender theories that purport that female and male are mutually exclusive categories.
Despite all that, Serano has a perspective that's utterly mired in exorsexist* binary-only assumptions, with language to match. On own, describing someone taking estrogen as "hormonally female" or her body prior to hormone replacement therapy as "physically male" would be unpleasantly cisnormative, but just that. I respect fully that the intent of this book is to analyse the ins and outs of being trans in the gender binary, and so the text is focused in that direction. When Serano writes goofy shit like "mtf spectrum" though, you wonder if she wouldn't be better served by thinking a little outside of the two-genders box.
She doesn't want to, though; Julia Serano circa 2007 (the text has not been meaningfully updated to my knowledge) is a brave warrior going against the grain of non binary domination :citation to defend our poor, repressed binary genders. She's taking down those woke non-binary moralists from their ivory towers:
There are many different (but often overlapping) forms of gender entitlement and gender anxiety. For example, one of the most frequently discussed forms of gender entitlement is heterosexism, the belief that heterosexuality is the only "natural," legitimate, or morally acceptable form of sexual desire. Heterosexist gender entitlement ean lead to homophobia, which is an expression of gender anxiety directed against those people who engage in same-sex relationships. Similarly, the gender-entitled belief that all women are (or should be) feminine and men masculine-which some have called cisgenderism-gives rise to transphobia, a gender anxiety that is directed against people who fall outside of those norms. While homophobia and transphobia have both received mainstream attention, thinking in terms of gender entitlement and gender anxiety also allows us to consider less well- known (but just as disparaging) forms of gender and sexual discrimination. For example, many gays and lesbians who believe that all people are "naturally" either homosexual or heterosexual often express biphobia, a gender anxiety directed toward bisexual people because they challenge the presumption that people can only be attracted to one sex or the other. I have also met some people in the transgender community who feel that identifying outside of the male/female binary is superior to, or more enlightened than, identifying within it. Such people often express gender anxiety (binary- phobia?) at people who identify strongly as either female or male.
I would be laughing if I weren't actually really mad about this classic, foundational transfeminist text featuring tons of brainworms about anyone outside the binary. It's a punchline, the phrase "binary-phobia" is perfect to sit right next to "heterophobia" or "cisphobia". It's right up there alongside white westerners claiming to be victims of racism when someone calls them a cracker, even. It should be plainly self-evident how ridiculous a claim this is. I want to ask Serano circa 2007 to tell me which genders have legal recognition - binary or non-binary ones?
It is truly incredible that a woman can write so sharply about the cultural/societal hedgemony of cis gender and heterosexuality, about how the concept of anything being inherently gendered is antithetical to feminism, and then turn around and write a deeply unserious aside about how non-binary people are apparently smug moralists commiting discrimination against people of binary gender due to the same gender anxiety**--in itself a smart concept about how queer people disrupt assumed gender/sexual normality--that drives cis people to be transphobes!! I am for real left somewhat speechless.
I don't think Whipping Girl is a book nobody should read, obviously. But I scoured the bearsite to see if anyone had dome criticism of or even qualified their recommendation of Whipping Girl, and I found nothing. Part of me wonders if anyone has made a concerted criticism of this book before, but surely someone has before me. I yap exclusively for your benefit! I wonder if Sexed Up or Excluded are better, but frankly I'm just disappointed and angry. Truly a joke.
--
*Exorsexist, I learned today, is discrimination against people outside the gender binary!
**Serano describes gender anxiety as "the act of becoming irrationally upset or being made uncomfortable by the existence of those people who challenge or bring into question one's gender entitlement." In turn, she describes gender entitlement being "an arrogant conviction that one's own beliefs, perceptions, and assumptions regarding gender and sexuality are more valid than those of other people". She is more or less insinuating that non-binary people are befuddled supremacists who cannot stand... adherence to the gender binary. Cool.
I can speak for myself quite easily. I do not feel "gender anxiety" at people who identify strongly as either binary female or binary male. Unless the definition of "gender anxiety" includes being upset to be compared to a transphobe for not "picking a side."
I don't begrudge any trans people their binary identities if that makes them happy. I want everyone to read the Gender Accelerationist Manifesto because nothing else truly satisfied me as an explanation and resolution for the contradictions regarding gender, and I hope that it will help people to find true happiness and freedom by stepping outside societal gender expectations and setting themselves free from expectations, even if that's just internally.
When I originally read (most of) this text, I read it before the GAM, so I didn't know much about nb identities - I skipped over stuff like this because I didn't understand it. But looking back now I kind of agree with you - I'm not happy to be at the butt-end of the joke and I think this is crass in something presenting itself as "theory," especially knowing that allegedly she did read Bornstein and Feinberg.
[CW: Ramblings About Enbyphobia, Especially From Other Trans People]
I second this comment. This is pretty much my exact mood.
The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto is an incredible read for shaving off these kinds of
Having ignorance about non-binary identities and hearing people spout reactionary bullshit like stating that non-binary identity is a "white thing" or the belief that non-binary people are "cis people who pretend to be trans" literally left me so perplexed for too long. My gender dysphoria felt so damn real, and most trans people I interacted with were the Reddit kind of libs who would frequently prove themselves to be at least some degree of racist and/or enbyphobic.
I was always thinking, "I can't be non-binary because I have dysphoria, but identifying as a trans woman just doesn't feel right at all. Identifying as a cis man definitely doesn't feel right either."
These myths that try to shove non-binary people into this particular archetype, which is the very essence of enbyphobia, left me feeling like I didn't follow enough of the "non-binary rules" to be enby. I could've saved myself a lot of hardship in that department if it weren't for the binarist, cisheteronormative brainworms that still sometimes plague the trans community.
I don't have an inherent begrudging of people who identify as binary either, but at this point, interacting with a lot of them is getting to feel the same way I do when interacting with white people or cishet people. It's like I just have to assume they're going to have some problematic tendencies and express them in either an implicit or explicit way at some time or another.
People call non-binary people "confused" all of the time, but I never felt like I stopped being confused about my gender until I finally and truly acknowledged that I must shove the binary away from my life.
spoiler
I wish I had more to say but I really appreciate your response, thank you for sharing!
This really does seem like a type of person Serano made up, like this is joke material for most people. I somehow doubt anyone seriously thinks that binary genders are inferior, and even if they do Serano should shut the fuck up. Your stupid binary genders have legal recognition, for fucks sake.
You do get to thinkin' that forcing people to read the Gender Accelerationist Manifesto at gunpoint would solve a lot of problems Near as I can tell Whipping Girl is bereft of that sort of analysis. It utterly flouts Feinberg and Bornstein, lol.
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Hey Eel, would you be willing to find some writing from some of these asshole terf-adjacent people who claim non-binary gender for subversive reasons? I believe you (and Serano) that they existed, but I still find it hard to actually grasp, for the simple reason that I've never seen a terf claim anything other than the most vulgar kind of cis identity. (They don't say it like that, of course, they say "I'm a woman because I was born female" or some such nonsense.)
So I'd be really interested to read some writing from one of these jerks, because I do have a hard time grasping how we could get from cynically claiming to be subversively non-binary to the kind of sex essentialism we see today. And I have no idea what to Google to find such writing!
But, I also don't want to force you to spend time reading transphobic bullshit just to satisfy my curiosity, so please feel free to tell me to fuck off and find it myself, that's a very fair response!
Terfs are not non-binary.
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What terfs could be saying this and be "binary-phobic" as she describes then?
i don't doubt that she met somebody like that, but she should shut up regardless. it's a vey sophomoric attitude to have like how one might think bi people or poly people are better than mono or mono people in a fit of missing the trees for the forest.
It smells like so very much nasty "THE MARGINALISED PERSON ATTACKED ME, A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETAL INGROUP!!!" not in love with it.
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yes. irrelevant and lacking perspective but you can probably find a few.
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i would say this is an extremely generous reading of the text bordering on misrepresentation. "people in the trans community... express gender anxiety". it's being put in the same category as the other things on the page. she does appear to be talking about nonbinary people. i don't have that much trouble believing she is secretly better than this but it is an enbyphobic portion of the text and her refusal to revise it makes it doubly objectionable.
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lol, well good on you for doing so:) sorry for piling on in that case, hadn't seen your newer posts.
sorry, terfs were pro-nonbinary?
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