- 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.
You must log in or register to comment.
this was made at a time period when people were unironically not allowing trans women who didn't purposely present or identify as nonbinary to attend women's festivals, while simultaneously praising drag queens for being femme but not identifying as such.
She is more or less insinuating that non-binary people are befuddled supremacists who cannot stand... adherence to the gender binary. Cool.
no, she is insinuating the aforementioned people who exclude trans women from women's festivals and their ilk are befuddled supremacists. I have never seen a non-binary person in the year of our lord and savior Karl Marx 2024 do any of the things Julia Serano mentions here. She simply is not talking about any modern non-binary person in existence minus some weird fringe take havers who are the remnants of the people she IS talking about. And those fringe take havers are unlikely to actually identify as non-binary regardless.
she actually addresses a decent amount of this in her foreword, including clarifying that she does not like the gender binary and thinks of it as an oppressive institution, but queer theory was ass back then. I can't repeat enough how weird people were about the idea of trans women like, presenting femme. Evidence of this is all over her book and if I was in that situation I don't know if I or anyone else here would have takes that were any better.
mtf spectrum
ok i'm actually offended by the implication this is silly, you can be both non-binary and identify as mtf, you can be mtf and different-mtf than someone else who is mtf, there is absolutely an mtf spectrum and there is nothing wrong with mentioning as such
edit: read theory
GOOD post never read the book the worst thing I've heard about it is that it's "somewhat dated" but some of this stuff is real bad and I'm glad you took the time to write up some critique! you're so right as usual
it's not that bad, it's just phrased miserably and leads to horrible takes if followed as advice out of context of the period
i like julia serano a lot and i will defend her to my last breath. she's one of the few writers who's validated my emotions and it's infuriating seeing people read that she's trying to make some sort of terminally online enbyphobic take when she never would have wanted it to be read that way. ugh. i know it's technically her fault but it makes me sad
I feel like this was more relevant 20 years ago, when the lines of conflict were very different. There was plenty of lit I could at the time really did put forth the notion that the binary was an antiquated concept that needed to go, and that transgressing the boundary was how you broke the gender hegemony. Some people ran with this and accused binary trans people of more-or-less playing at respectability politics by attempting to appeal to mainstream sensibilities.
These days, that position is downright archaic. At the time, nonbinary people and non-passing trans people were in the same boat in terms of general acceptance, so there wasnt quite the privilege gap that there is today, and as a result, I feel like this wasn't "kicking down" the same as it would be today.
It definitely shpuld be removed or revised though. This is an academic book, and it warrants updates that keep it in tune with the times
i agree with this completely including the fact it should be changed. her foreword isn't enough and without the context it's really bad, which means it's really bad when read as theory applicable to current times
the fact this is silly to think is why she wrote the paragraphs being posted everywhere
spoiler from ch 20
Have you got to the part where Julia just says non-binary people are creating their own binary?
It is sadly ironic that people who claim to be gender-fucking in the name of “shattering the gender binary,” and who criticize people whose identities fail to adequately challenge our societal notions of femaleness and maleness, cannot see that they have just created a new gender binary, one in which subversive genders are “good” and conservative genders are “bad.”
Don't get how someone who seems to think a lot about things these could write something like that unironically...
the "and" is really important there. she doesn't have anything against people who do gender-fucking and never has, every other take she has had indicates the opposite. It's also important that she's specifying people who do it specifically (and by implication, only) to "own the binaroids". She's against the idea of gender-fucking in opposition of one's own genuine desires and identity to seem "subversive", rather than doing it because you want to for other reasons/intrinsic benefits (and possibly also because you want to fuck the gender binary, I see nothing wrong with that). I don't really think any non-binary people that exist nowadays are like that. It was probably just weird non-binary appropriating TERFs during her time that did that stuff, too.
cannot see that they have just created a new gender binary, one in which subversive genders are “good” and conservative genders are “bad.”
i don't see your issue with this other than the wording, i mean this is a dumb "gotcha" sort of way to put it but the sentiment is genuinely correct. People trying to portray "binary-aligned" genders as objectively Less Good than "subversive genders" and making a hierarchy out of it are weird, and are doing a kind of vulgar anti-binarism. Instead of trying to remove the forces and phobias preventing people from developing and understanding their own identities in ways that naturally subvert patriarchal norms, they try to shame people into having different identities and presentations than they actually want. You see this kind of thing in a very less fringe way in weird "wearing makeup is always self-enslavement actually" type takes from non-intersectional feminists.
You are telling me two things:
one, that every possible worst-case assumption I could have made about this book is true and more,
two, this fucking shitass jokebook has been paraded around and used to bully cishets withput criticism on this site? for years?
one, that every possible worst-case assumption I could have made about this book is true and more,
no, most of this thread is made on an understandably worried reading of it, but her take around "binary-phobia" and shit is more of bad wording than actually incorrect. the attitude she is describing is very real. (edit... back then. Anyone with it these days is a chronic grass deficient)
I've certainly got the idea that it might be a bit... uhh... "dated?"... from some people's comments about it on here, so I don't think its totally without criticism. But idr details.
But given the reputation, perhaps others felt like me about it, thinking maybe we're the ones missing something given the praise it gets.
It has many praiseworthy elements I would agree, but this is basically like, the worst possible characterisation of the text is the actual truth. Blegh.
I stopped at chapter 17, jeez good thing... all non-assigned-at-birth genders are subversive, right? Wasn't that the point of the section of the GAM about trans people being revolutionary even if they are binary-identified?
I do agree that Serano's work is generally mired in exorsexist assumptions, yes, but I don't actually have that much of an issue with the passage you quote? While the phrase 'binary phobia' is obviously absurd, I have myself met people who genuinely believed that being non-binary was somehow superior to or more enlightened than having a binary gender. It might be less common now than it was when I first started transitioning about 8 years ago, but this is absolutely a current of thought that exists within the trans community, largely, in my experience, among TME non-binary people.
I myself used to hold this view, in fact! It was something that was directed at me a lot early in my transition, and I internalized the idea that 'binary trans women' (and it was always trans women, nobody ever directed this shit at trans men in my experience) were somehow 'reinforcing the binary' and were ultimately obstacles to the cause of 'gender abolition'. Being a trans woman myself, internalizing this idea did me a lot of harm - it took me 7 years to actually start presenting femininely because of it, because I was so convinced that if I did so, I would be acting in an immoral manner by way of reinforcing the gender binary, and so I forced myself to present in a masculine or neutral manner even though I didn't actually want that, and even though doing so actively mentally hurt me. Indeed, this sort of thought was likely a large contributor to the 2 years in which I de-transitioned.
The idea Serano describes here, even if her wording is awful, absolutely does exist in the trans community - I would classify it mostly as one of the forms of intracommunity transmisogyny as this sort of thought does seem to be largely directed at 'binary trans women' specifically. Obviously as a problem it is not at all comparable in scale to homophobia or transphobia, but it absolutely does exist - to characterize non-binary people as being privileged because of this current of thought is, however, ridiculous, yes. In actuality I would say that this stuff is just a manifestation of transmisogyny, a manifestation of the contextual privilege held by TME people within the trans community.
yeah, placing it in a list alongside homophobia, transphobia and biphobia is patently ridiculous
i don't think she ever uses this term again. julia serano has a bad habit of making fairly good points with really cringe presentation to dunk on some people and then never reusing it because she doesn't actually seem to internalize the narrative she made to make the point.
I have, on very rare occasions, seen the "being binary trans reinforces the oppressive forces of the gender binary" take before, so I don't entirely doubt what you're saying. However, at this point and from what I know, I found that internalizing the transmedicalist and truscum brainworms that plague the trans community even more harshly than this fringe you're concerned about is what prevented me from being myself.
Gender abolitionism gets strawmanned a ton. Yes, there are TERFs who do reactionary co-opting of the concept, but most non-binary/trans people you interact with who believe in gender abolitionism are not trying to demonize those who identify with being a binary trans person.
I am transfeminine myself, so this may differ from what you have to say about "TME non-binary people," but I find that the transmedicalist brainworms that harmed me so damn much and led me down the harshest path of internalized transphobia, as I was already facing a shitton of other kinds of discrimination and hardship, were practically evenly perpetuated by both truscummy trans men and trans women.
My problem has never been with those of binary identities; it has been with those who need to cling onto some sense of hierarchical domination, so they place enbies beneath them as a way to feel like they're not the same brand of the "lowest of the low" in society. Enbies are even much less understood than binary trans people, so there are definitely more enbies being harmed by this kind of stuff than one would be harmed by the supposed inverse "enby supremacy" ideology you're hinting at here.
Most people, even a lot of trans people, have not freed themselves of their binarist brainworms. The amount of times I'd chat with a trans person online who cannot anonymously pick up on my assigned sex and have them ask, "Are you MTF or FTM?" not even including NB as a possibility in this question (that they don't even need to ask in the first place) is astronomical. Most cis people and a not so insignificant amount of binary trans people see non-binary people as an afterthought to performatively support in the back of their heads, and those who never learn how to stop the support from being performative will still have those enbyphobic brainworms that are kept alive in both trans spaces and the wider society until they get proper insight and theory into how being trans, binary or non-binary, all undermines the patriarchal, cisheteronormative system in the exact same way.
have myself met people who genuinely believed that being non-binary was somehow superior to or more enlightened than having a binary gender.
Can I ask, sincerely and genuinely, why you care?Sorry I can see now. So more pointedly, why Serano was so very miffed about just such an encounter that she felt it right to enshrine her being mad in a book? She doesn't seem to be in your position.largely, in my experience, among TME non-binary people.
Wowee, didn't take long for this to come out...
internalized the idea that 'binary trans women' (and it was always trans women, nobody ever directed this shit at trans men in my experience) were somehow 'reinforcing the binary' and were ultimately obstacles to the cause of 'gender abolition'.
I'm sorry you had that experience. Anyone who has used non-binary identities in this way is a reactionary hiding behind Gender Accelerationist language as a fig leaf. Neither the Gender Accelerationist Manifesto nor the 2016 revision of Gender Outlaw support this viewpoint. See also, the "you can still be a baker" passage of the Gender Accelerationst Manifesto.
In actuality I would say that this stuff is just a manifestation of transmisogyny,
Right, I agree. It sounds unsurprisingly like reductive so-called "gender abolitionist" terfs who want to abolish gender by reducing it to assigned sex. One wonders if these people are wreckers, or indeed why "TME people" are being singled out for it.
So more pointedly, why Serano was so very miffed about just such an encounter that she felt it right to enshrine her being mad in a book? She doesn't seem to be in your position.
we live in a period where they got dunked on by people like Serano herself and shoved to irrelevancy. It was NOT always a fringe position
edit: it's actually not even a fringe position nowadays, it's just that the people who held it don't identify as non-binary at all. I don't even know if they did back then. It's all just TERFs trying to mis-appropriate queer theory all the way down
I would say that the reason I care is fairly simple? The existence of this current of thought and it's advocacy by the individuals I mentioned did me significant psychological harm. It is only natural that I would care given that is the case.
And yes the similarity to TERF ideology is obvious, and I am aware that the Gender Accelerationist Manifesto does not advocate for this - I don't think the people in question were wreckers however, they had quite open public histories of having been trans for years. And I am not trying to 'single out' TME people - I am genuinely just describing what I saw in my experience using the most precise terms available to me, given I characterize the current of thought we are discussing as being a manifestation of transmisogyny, I thought it would be relevant to mention in this instance, that is all.
Yes, I edited that line in my reply, mistake on my part.
given I characterize the current of thought we are discussing as being a manifestation of transmisogyny, I thought it would be relevant to mention in this instance, that is all.
Terfs are also "transmisogyny exempt" strictly speaking. I tend to agree with a post I saw earlier today on the subject:
Quote
Honestly, (trans)misogynistic transmascs are a pain in the ass, but in the end they're just incel ideologues or liberal chauvinists like any other masc person with problematic views, and the reason is largely the same, they latch onto male privilege to lord it over women. As people navigating a masc-aligned gender role, they intuitively get how to center yourself in conversations, how to silence women and how to be a petty, power-grabbing piece of shit in general, because our society provides ample role models, material and ideological incentives and culturally ingrained leeway for that. It has to to maintain patriarchal property and power relations. Trans men are men and sometimes, some of them are men in the worst ways possible, it comes with the territory when you live in a society that enables male violence in all kinds of ways.
The main difference is that they are people i run into in supposed safer spaces, but it never sat well with me to give them their own trans-specific label, i honestly don't think these dinguses deserve it. They're just misogynist swine like all the other misogynist swine. And i wouldn't say that all transmasculine people are united by a shared lived experience of not experiencing what i go through, trans experiences are a bit too diverse for that. I get a feeling that there's a neo-binarist essentialism to the TME and TMA labels, and i do not use them when calling out (trans)misogyny. I do that a lot, i had to do that with somebody in a trans space just yesterday, but i did not need to call dem TME for that. If i needed an expression for that person, i would go with transmisogynist, joyless pile of spite and insecurity, that seems more fitting than TME.
I simply disagree on that matter, then. I find TMA/TME to be very useful terms, especially when one is talking about structural transmisogyny within the trans community itself. Indeed, I find that the TMA/TME terminology's very existence has been helpful in causing a lot more discussion about intracommunity transmisogyny, which is an issue that in the past in my experience has not been discussed at all.
In this case, I used it pretty much because I find it more concise than what the post you are quoting suggests.
They aren't bad terms in concept, the concept of transmisogyny as Serano lays it out is pretty cool. I've seen the terms used as nouns too many times, though.
What makes misogyny from a trans man different from misogyny from a cis man or woman? (Aside that our comrades should be doing better, which is universal)
It's not in any way fundamentally different - that is why TME as a term includes not just trans men, but also cis men and cis women, that is part of the point of the term.
The only manner in which it is different is that transmisogynist (or just str8 up misogynist, although this seems somewhat less common in my experience) trans men are afforded something of a shield from criticism by way of their transness. They can assert that trans women and trans men are functionally the 'same', that they are equally victimized in all contexts, and use that to dismiss any accusations of transmisogyny they may face because of their behavior as 'infighting' - pointing to the shared enemy of the cisheteropatriarchy as a way of deflecting their own problems.
This is most effective when it comes to more subtle forms of transmisogyny that may be somewhat unconscious - tendencies to talk over trans women, a quickness to cancel and ostracize them, an expectation that trans women ought to not be too 'forceful', even perhaps the common retort to trans women's complaints of intracommunity transmisogyny I have seen of 'why are we infighting we should be kissing and making out instead', shit like that.
Oh, and I guess to answer your edit - I have no idea why Serano was so miffed about that. I am not her, and cannot say, although it is obvious that she has some degree of exorsexist brainworms regardless of what her experiences may or may not have been.
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.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.
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'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's that exact kind of attitude she's railing against.
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.
teleport to 20 years ago and talk to terfs for an hour and then come back to me on that
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."
yeah... your takes are completely correct. that's why, she's not, like, talking about you
