First, this is one piece in which Hedges doesn't take sides and if you read
it, you'll understand why.
Second: It took me hours of trying for two days, to access this article. My
Truthdig newsletters keep disappearing and I keep resubscribing. I haven't
received one for two weeks. The website is a bitch to deal with. Then I
tried to send a message to the webmaster through their contact us link about
my newsletters, but there was a captcha. Finally, yesterday, I stumbled on
an email address for the webmaster. I wrote an email. I also re-subscribed.
I received a thank you for the subscription today, but no newsletter. I went
back to the website an played around with it again until I could get this
article because I knew it would be controversial and interesting.
Miriam
Truthdig
The Battle Over What It Means to Be Female
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_battle_over_what_it_means_to_be_fema
le_20170702/
Posted on Jul 2, 2017
By Chris Hedges
Mr. Fish / Truthdig
Patriarchy, across the globe, plagues humankind. In some regions female
fetuses often are aborted because they are considered less valuable than
male fetuses. Girls are sometimes smothered in infancy. Many women and girls
are sold to men as rape and breeding slaves. Many endure genital mutilation.
Many are trafficked and forced into prostitution. Many are denied abortions
and access to birth control. Many, to survive economically, sell their eggs
to donors or hire their wombs out to couples who cannot produce babies. In
some countries, including Saudi Arabia and parts of India, women are
considered the property of male guardians. There are villages in India where
women have only one kidney because their husbands have sold their other one.
Women are often denied education and, even in industrial countries, are paid
less for carrying out the same work as men.
How, in an age in which some born with male bodies self-identify as women,
can those born female define their unique oppression based on their
experience? As laws in Europe, Canada and the United States are rewritten to
broaden the definition of what it means to be female or male, how will such
change affect the struggle for equality by those born as females?
The debate over gender identity pits the trans narrative against radical
feminists. It is one of the most bitter and acrimonious battles on the left.
Radical feminists are castigated by many on the left as reactionary for
their insistence that those born female hold a unique and separate identity
as an oppressed group, one that requires them to form protected spaces and
organizations.
"Freedom of association is especially important to the oppressed," Alice
Lee, a co-founder of Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution
(http://awcep.org/ ;) , said when I reached her in Vancouver by phone. "It is
absolutely necessary for oppressed people to be able to group together. It
allows us to dare to identify and vocalize our shared experiences and find
ways to effectively strategize to overthrow our oppressors. The formation of
such civil rights groups, anti-racism groups, women rape crisis centers and
shelters, caucuses, clubs, associations and religious organizations is a
hallmark of a democratic civil society. Decisions about group membership
must be a process of self-determination. Having the criteria dictated to us
by the state, or by those who belong to the oppressor groups, means defeat
at the outset."
"The neoliberal approach (http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376)
centers on individual feelings and choice at the expense of shared group
experience," Lee continued. "It is a deliberate strategy to prevent the
development of any effective challenge to male supremacy, white supremacy,
heterosexual supremacy, and rule by those who control capital. Forcing us to
open our groups to those who do not share the basic experiences of our
reality cuts off the potential for revolution at the root."
Many members of the trans community strongly disagree. One is Misty Snow
(http://www.mistyksnow.com/biography/ ;) , a Utah Democratic candidate for
the U.S. Senate in last November's general election and the first
transgender woman to run as a nominee for such a seat. [Click here
(http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/robert_scheer_interviews_misty_snow_fi
rst_major_20161007 ) to read and hear an interview of Snow that Truthdig
Editor in Chief Robert Scheer conducted for his KCRW podcast, "Scheer
Intelligence," in October 2016.] She recently announced her candidacy
(http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/328733-transgender-senate-candidate-mis
ty-snow-announces-house-bid) for the U.S. House of Representatives.
When I spoke to Snow by phone, she said:
The argument that the inclusion of trans people in spaces traditionally
reserved for girls and women somehow infringes on the rights of girls and
women presupposes a collective sisterhood that does not exist.
Women of color, who have long been marginalized by white feminists, face
different forms of oppression, in the same way trans people face different
forms of oppression.
This recycles the old feminist argument from the 1950s when women of color
were excluded from the feminist movement. A lot of this is about privileged
women, especially white women, clinging to the status quo.
The equal rights of girls and women in the United States are protected under
Title IX
(http://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/public-policy/aauw-issues/title-ix/?gclid=Cj
wKEAjwvr3KBRD_i_Lz6cihrDASJADUkGCaI81LgAwiP3T9LVkcQ6CRLLexXFrGAshya9LnvZqOpB
oCH9rw_wcB ) , but new laws are blurring the lines of what it means to be
female. Feminists say these laws, passed in the name of inclusivity, amount
to an erasure of what it means to be female. They charge that such change is
a gift to patriarchy and the corporate state, which seeks to turn everyone,
especially the most vulnerable, into disempowered, atomized commodities. As
societies break down, it is girls and women, along with children and the
elderly, who bear the worst abuse and violence. The need for collective
strength, given the global unraveling of civil society and the rise of
authoritarian and protofascist governments, is vital, these feminists say.
"Patriarchy is a millennium-old system of male supremacy by which
male-bodied people are exploiting female-bodied people for reproductive,
sexual and domestic labor," feminist MaryLou Singleton
(https://www.facebook.com/marylou.singleton ;) told me during a conversation
in New York. "When power and property are held by men and passed to the
heirs of men, men need to police and control women's bodies to know who
their heirs are. Now it's global in scope, where women don't have control
over their own reproduction and are dependent on men in terms of having and
raising our children."
The consumer culture grooms women through female socialization, which it
defines as gender, to participate in their own subjugation. Prostitution and
pornography, for example, are sold by patriarchy as liberating and
empowering for women. Those who meet the rigid standards of female
socialization are rewarded and celebrated. Those who do not are dismissed,
marginalized and often attacked.
"Capitalism thrives on promoting extreme individualism and this idea that we
are all separate, unique individuals," Singleton said. "We are at a point in
late-stage capitalism where identity is for sale. People take on consumer
identities. I believe this particular [trans] identity is being marketed to
our young people who are at an age where they experience a lot of
questioning naturally about their identity. It's always been acknowledged
that children and teenagers and young adults question who they are and what
they want to be."
Trans activists, however, dispute the idea that being trans is a
manufactured identity.
"Being transgender is not a consumer identity pushed on us by a capitalist
system," Snow said. "Transgender people have existed long before capitalism
and will continue to exist. Pushing the narrative that trans identities are
simply a 'consumer' rather than an authentic identity only reinforces rigid
standards of what it means to be female. Trans women are often dismissed,
marginalized and attacked for failing to meet these rigid standards of what
it means to be female. So-called 'feminists' who wish to label trans
identities as being inauthentic are actually doing the patriarchy's work of
enforcing rigid standards and ideas of what it means to be female."
There is a billion-dollar industry built around gender reassignment surgery.
Pharmaceutical companies provide drugs and hormones that block puberty and
the secondary sex characteristics
(http://www.dictionary.com/browse/secondary-sex-characteristic ;) of
children. In our courts we do not try children as adults, recognizing that
they do not have fully developed brains, yet children are permitted to
ingest potent drugs that will affect them for life. Those who change their
minds about a gender identity decision often must cope with permanently
altered bodies.
"Pediatric medical gender transition is being pushed extensively in the
medical field," said Singleton, who is a nurse practitioner
(http://www.nursepractitionerschools.com/faq/what-is-np ;) . "Every
conference brochure I get has something about transgenderism. It's a huge
money-making experiment on our children, where children as young as toddlers
are being diagnosed as being in the wrong body and taken to these gender
clinics where they are first socially transitioned to live as the opposite
sex. I find that problematic too. I think children should be able to do
whatever they want [without having to make gender decisions]. What does it
mean to live as a boy or live as a girl, other than sexism?"
"After social transitioning, when those children get close to puberty,
they're placed on very strong drugs that suppress puberty," she said.
"They're called puberty blockers. Those drugs have many long-term dangerous
side effects that we already know about from children who have been put on
them in the past. Once they hit young adolescence and their peers are
starting to go through puberty and they still have a child's body, the
pressure is to give them cross-sex hormones
(http://www.issm.info/sexual-health-qa/what-is-cross-sex-hormone-therapy/) .
If you give a child puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones before a natural
puberty, that child will never develop normally as the sex they are. They
will be permanently sterile and permanently dependent on synthetic hormones
because their ovaries or testes never developed and cannot make their own
hormones."
Is there such a thing as a "female brain"? Or do men and women-and girls and
boys-act differently because society has conditioned them to behave
according to male and female stereotypes? Is a boy who dresses as a girl and
plays with dolls a girl, or simply a boy who dresses as a girl and plays
with dolls?
"The idea that transition-related care is being pushed on people to simply
make money is absurd," Snow said. "Capitalism has actually been a barrier
and not a promoter of transition-related care. Throughout most of the 20th
century and even into the 21st century, transgender people have struggled to
get even the most basic transition-related care due to many doctors and
hospitals being unwilling to treat transgender people for fear that it could
harm the reputation of their practice and hurt their business. Furthermore,
there have been, historically, lots of restrictions on who is even allowed
access to such care, with mental health professionals serving as gatekeepers
often delaying or denying transgender people the care they need.
Transition-related care is not some 'money-making experiment'; it is
treatment that has been proven to be effective for those who have gender
dysphoria (https://www.google.com/#q=gender+dysphoria ;) . It is not
treatment that is prescribed by doctors on a whim or pushed on people in the
interest of making money."
"Children and young adults are not deciding they are trans because it was
'marketed' towards them," she went on. "There is a lot of science that
supports the fact that male and female brains are different and respond to
hormones differently, and children are often innately aware of the fact that
they are different as soon as they are able to tell the difference between
male and female and will start to identify with the sex they know themselves
to be. Far too often assertions from a child about their gender identity are
ignored by parents and other trusted adults, which leads to shame, confusion
and depression in the child. These children often feel the need to hide
their true identities to avoid disappointment of their parents and bullying
by their peers. When they reach adulthood, only then do they feel they have
the freedom to live an authentic life. However, by then it is often too
late, as their bodies have already experienced the ravages of puberty that
made irreversible changes to their body. This is why it is very important
for transgender people to have the love and support they need to express
themselves authentically starting in childhood. As they approach the teenage
years it's very important that they are able to access treatments that will
allow them to avoid the terrifying experience of going through the wrong
puberty and allow them to develop secondary sex characteristics that are
typical of their gender. Denying these treatments to children is cruel and
can leave them with lots of regrets when they reach adulthood and a feeling
that they were robbed of their childhood and ever being able to live a
normal life."
Laws passed to protect trans people from discrimination often do so by
expanding the legal definition of what it means to be a woman. The trans
community unquestionably needs legal protection. Transgender people commonly
are bullied, suffer violent attacks, including by the police, and are
discriminated against in much higher percentages than the general
population. The transgender community also has much higher rates for
attempted suicide, poverty and homelessness. But, some feminists argue,
these new laws, however well intentioned, effectively eradicate girls and
women as a uniquely oppressed group.
"There are two primary vehicles [for cutting back on women's legal gains]
being explored right now," said attorney Maya Dillard Smith, who was pushed
out of her position
(http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/2/maya-dillard-smith-georgia-a
clu-leader-resigns-ove/ ) as the head of Georgia's ACLU chapter when she
questioned the decision by the Obama administration to allow male-born trans
people to enter women's restrooms. "One is through Title IX. Title IX is a
1972 legislative act that essentially prohibits all schools that receive
federal funding from discriminating against folks on the basis of sex. One
of the ways in which the law is attempting to be converted is, under the
Obama guidelines that were issued last year, it basically reads into the
prohibition against sex discrimination [that] someone who self-identifies as
male or female should be extended the same protections as someone born a
woman. That means, in the context of schools, sports, housing, bathroom and
locker room facilities, that [trans] individuals would have access to those
facilities." [Editor's note: In February of this year the Trump
administration rescinded the Obama guidelines
(http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-lgbt-idUSKBN161243 ;) .]
"However," Dillard Smith continued, "in 1975, Justice [Anthony] Kennedy
essentially said that sex, like race, is an immutable characteristic
(https://casetext.com/posts/obergefell-reflects-justice-kennedys-evolved-vie
ws-on-equal-protection-and-opens-the-door-to-further-protections-for-lgbt-pe
ople ) . An immutable characteristic [means that], by no fault of your own,
just by an accident of DNA, you're either born with melanin in your skin,
like me as a black woman, or to be female or male with your sex organs.
There is nothing that can mutate that."
"Another vehicle is through 'equal protection
(https://www.google.com/#q=equal+protection+clause ;) ,' " she said. " 'Equal
protection' is the [constitutional] basis on which this notion of immutable
characteristics first arose. It arose to protect African-Americans against
race discrimination. There's now a term called trans-black or trans-race
that is being highlighted, particularly by the white woman Rachel Dolezal
(https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/25/rachel-dolezal-not-going-st
oop-apologise-grovel ) from the Northwest who passed as a black woman and
[was] a leader in the NAACP, and now identifies herself as trans-black or
transracial. So the implications of the law will have the greatest
consequence to the advancement of rights for women but also have deep
consequences on the advancement of people of color."
"How do we explore these rights for transgender folks in a way that does not
undermine the rights of women or people of color?" she asked. "There have to
be accommodations. But how do we do that in a way that does the least harm
to the rights of others?"
Most trans activists reject the analogy between being trans and defining
yourself as a member of another race.
"Bringing up Rachel Dolezal to make a point is a false equivalency that has
no relevancy when talking about transgender people," Snow said. "Gender
dysphoria is a very real and documented condition with a biological basis
and very specific treatment guidelines and a long history behind it.
Transracial and trans-black are terms with no history that Dolezal made up
and cannot be equated with the experiences or realities of transgender
people."
Dillard Smith, returning to the intense issue of restroom access, said,
"It's really unfortunate that we're starting an entire national narrative
around bathrooms. But let's just start there. There are a lot of folks who
say that not allowing trans people to go into the bathrooms of their gender
identity is creating 'separate but equal' facilities. They equate that to
the 'separate but equal' facilities that existed before the civil rights
movement where we segregated bathrooms on the basis of race. To which I say,
when bathrooms were separate on the basis of race, it was done so purely for
discriminatory purposes. The difference in terms of single-sex bathrooms,
bathrooms for men and bathrooms for women is that the implementation of
Title IX specifically permitted these things to protect the privacy and
safety rights of women. In providing them you have to provide equal
accommodations. There was a legitimate justification that was not
discriminatory."
Singleton said, "Women have sex-based protections under the law. Under the
U.N., there are certain sex-based protections. Female prisoners deserve to
be housed separately from men. If a prison contains both sexes, the women
need to be as far as possible from the men. That's international law. That's
also U.S. law. Now we have a situation where any male criminal can
self-declare himself as a woman (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39337805) even
if this is a serial rapist. These men are being transferred to women's
prisons. There is a lawsuit in California where women are feeling unsafe
with these violent male-bodied people in prison."
"Our crime statistics are changing," Singleton went on. "Men who identify as
women rape women with their penises, and these crimes are being recorded as
committed by women. Those are examples. If a woman seeks shelter at a
women's shelter, there may be male-bodied people there. There have been
attacks in those shelters by male-bodied people on female-bodied people."
Snow rebutted the assertions of Dillard Smith and Singleton:
Trans people suffer more bullying, discrimination and violence than almost
any other segment of the population. These feminists seek to portray trans
people as aggressors, which is factually untrue.
It is not that there are no criminals in the trans community. There are. But
using these criminals to characterize the entire trans community is no
different from white racists who use black criminals to characterize the
entire black community.
We as trans people need to be included in [women's] spaces because when we
enter male spaces we are harassed, threatened and sometimes attacked. The
charges these feminists make have no basis in reality.
Transgender people have the same needs as any other people, and they need
access to restrooms as much as anyone else. If a transgender person is not
allowed access to the restroom, how can they go to work? How can they go to
school? Banishing a transgender person from a restroom, in essence, bans
them from them from being able to participate in public life.
Dillard Smith said, "My life's work has been about defending the rights of
all people. In so doing I am called to balance the rights of all people.
What I'm exploring in raising the questions I've been raising is how do you
create accommodations for trans people at the same time that we don't overly
or unnecessarily infringe on the rights of others-like women, or children,
or parents? It's a delicate balance. To achieve that balance, we must engage
in healthy discourse and agree to disagree to come up with the best public
policy possible."
Singleton said, "I am fully supportive of the rights of transgender people
to be free of discrimination. Like Maya, I think we need a national
conversation on where those rights end and where women's rights begin. From
what I can see, the transgender narrative very much reinforces patriarchy.
In our culture, gender is a synonym for sexism. It's the behavioral caste
system that says how men behave and how women behave. It has no basis in
material reality. It's completely based on sexual stereotypes. I've never
heard a trans narrative that does not rely on sexual stereotypes to explain
how someone knew they were actually born in the wrong body. I'd like to
return to the old feminist war cry: Start a revolution and stop hating your
body."
Snow said the issue is not about hating one's body. Rather, she said, it is
about allowing male-born people who internally are female to be who they
truly are.
"So-called 'feminists,' " Snow said, "are upholding a very patriarchal
[idea] of what a woman is. Protecting the rights of trans women and allowing
them to access women's spaces does not infringe on the rights of women.
These fears are unreasonable and unfounded and are more about protecting the
privilege of certain women than protecting the rights of all women."