Gender Identity and Feminism

Identifying as genderqueer is not misogynistic. If you were cis but claimed the label in an attempt to disassociate yourself from femininity, that would be misogynistic. Being genderqueer is not.

They way I see it, identifying as trans is not me rejecting my femininity because it is not my femininity. I am not female. I am not rejecting any part of myself. I am rejecting the femininity that was assigned to me.

If anything, realizing I am trans has encouraged me to be a better feminist. At this point in my life, I am not viewed as male, which means I don't have male privilege. But as a guy, I feel even more obligated to fight against the system that will (once I am seen and treated as male) put me in a position of power that I don't want. As the one who will have the privilege, I feel that it is even more important for me to try to change that.

 

Hey sweetie! :3 I'm a transfeminine person and a feminist myself.

I want to point out two things. One, being FTM, transmasculine, or genderqueer is not misogynistic. Can we please stop believing about feminism things that Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffreys said?

Two, despite the existence of a lesbian separatist movement that is trans-denialist, trans and genderqueer people of all genders find a lot of support in modern feminism. Feministing has always been supportive of trans people. They have Jos Truitt on their staff, and they regularly post contributions from Katherine Cross.

~ Adrienne

 

One thing I have noticed about the way people use the word "feminism" is that they mean two different things. Some people mean "everyone should be the same" and some people mean "everyone deserves respect and dignity". I get along with people who mean the second thing great, not so much the first thing. Everyone is different. Men and women are different. Intersex people and people not easy to drop into either bucket are different. And that's cool. There is nothing wrong with that. There is everything wrong when someone isn't treated like a person.

 

No, and true feminism would respect you for that. One of the the core beliefs of feminism is that what's in your pants does not define who you are. This includes gender. If anything, breaking away from what the patriarchy says so to be who you are is feminist.

 

I'm gonna go against this a bit because I studied a good bit of feminism in college and I have some issues with the way it has developed as a movement.

I'm a big fan of people like simone de beauvoir, mary wollstonecraft, bell hooks and judith butler who stood up against the norm but feminism in its modern academic form has come to embody many of the masculine traits that it once stood against. it seems that academic feminism is dependant on an essential idea of what gender is that ignores differences to do with class race or even familial upbringing. It veers on transphobia by denying difference in how people experience gender.

Therefore I am no longer comfortable calling myself a feminist, rather I am a queer activist. This is based on my own practical experience of feminism through lecturers, friends and reading a lot of different texts not on some problem with the basic ideas of feminism.

 

I think i'm a little girly to day

 

As a bell hooks feminist, I am confused about your characterization of modern feminists.

 

I've struggled hugely with this. Not only am I AFAB, but I'm short, curvy, and have a high voice, so sexism has followed me around a great deal in my life. Too many people have treated me like a doll or a sex object than like a human being. This even included a sexual assault at the hands of a person who I thought had seen me as human, but actually saw me as female (which apparently is a different thing? fuck those guys)

For a long time, I wondered if my rejection of my female body was a rejection of all the grief it had caused me. Then, one day, I realized: millions of women experience this same bullshit. But millions of women are not identifying as non-cis because of it. They find other ways of expressing their frustration with their gender's current status in society. They don't start wondering if they're actually a guy.

So if those feelings are there? They're almost certainly real. If sexist shit like sexual assault made women want to be men, then we'd have millions of transmen. Your gender identity is interacting with your social status, to be sure, but your social status isn't causing your gender identity.

I hope this helps! Good luck.

 

I don't think not assossiating with your birth gender is contradicting with feminism since no one simply changes their gender because of a gender role (i think)

i'm slightly against the word feminism since it only means man and woman should be equal while i think that if you make a movement that fights for equality it should also include other things like equality of religion races or sexuality.

@shota that has nothing to do with this thread.....

 

Tbh bell hooks was a bad example as she is very for the feminist cause regards education and inclusion. And to be honest she is the theorist in that list I'm least familiar with, but I wanted to include a person of colour who has identified problems in the movement in that it tends to favour a white western world view. Which is not very inclusive.

madhu purnima is a better example: Madhu Purnima Kishwar's Blog

Again, its not that I'm against a movement that is for women's rights, I just disagree with its methodology that I see as reinforcing a binary system and ignoring difference in how people experience gender. And also I am talking about the type of feminism that is found in academic circles, not in other spaces, which I admit I would not have as much experience of.

 

Feminist women usually have the wrong belief that trans people are against gender equality, so it'd be better to be careful around them. You're not doing anything wrong by feeling like you're not supposed to be a woman, you just want to be yourself.

 

No they don't. Cisgender women feminists do not subscribe to that view. Not even a large minority of them.

 

Feminism is the word that specifically refers to equality between genders, and there needs to be a word that means that, but you are certainly correct in saying that fighting for equality of religions, races, and sexualities is important too. There is a belief (that I wholeheartedly support) that feminism is not good feminism if it isn't intersectional (including considerations of race, religion, sexuality, etc.). Tied into this tends to be a belief in not just recognizing the difference in the experiences of, for example, a white woman and a woman of color, but in fighting for the equality of the races, etc.

Basically, there can be a lot of overlap in supporters of different movements, and while the word feminism needs to exist in order to refer to this specific movement, it doesn't mean a good feminist shouldn't also support many other movements for equality.

 

Just because you aren't female or not fully female doesn't mean that you are misogynistic(that's like saying that every man is automatically sexist because he isn't a woman.) And you don't chose your gender,it is predetermined before birth-there is nothing you can do about that. If you think that your gender expression is the problem believe me it isn't you can express yourself any way you want as long as you aren't harming others in the process(and this isn't!) Don't be afraid to be who you are-it isn't sexist to be who you are!