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> My understanding is that in "queer theory" gender is 100% socially constructed. This essentially means "women" are socially constructed. It is hard to have f

> My understanding is that in "queer theory" gender is 100% socially constructed. This essentially means "women" are socially constructed. It is hard to have feminism if you don't have "women". This seems to be at the core of the "terf" conflict. TERFs don't actually disagree with this. They call themselves "gender critical" because they believe all gender roles are socially constructed and that the gender role we call "woman" was constructed so that females would be weaker than males and subservient to them. So when they see someone choosing to join that gender role they become very irked by it and can only explain it in terms of mental sickness or perversion. Likewise they see Female to Male trans people as somewhat more commendable since they are trying to escape the oppression of womanhood, but also bad because they are joining the enemy. Since Janice Raymond in the 70's their idea has been that they can completely eliminate transsexualism by abolishing all gender role distinctions. Now in practice, TERFs/Gender Crits behave exactly like any other religious conservatives regarding gender. You don't exactly see them encouraging boys to dress like princesses but still identify as boys do you? Instead you see them championing people like Ken Zucker who advocates for feminine boys to be forced to behave in a masculine way, going so far as to deny them access to their mothers in some cases lest she encourage their girlish behavior. Instead they just advocate that gender isn't real therefore sex determines everything forever without making any attempt to open up sex roles to more modes of acceptable behavior. Mainstream transgender organizations view gender as socially constructed but also related to one's own preferences and personality. Because of that gender may not always align with sex. They do not conflate sex and gender and do acknowledge that sex is a biological reality. They also don't imply that to have feminine preferences is to be lesser than someone having masculine preferences. The notion that transgender people think sex isn't real is a straw man argument. You can find people who say things like this but they don't represent mainstream thought. What you're more likely to find really is that some trans people and organizations point to disorders of sexual development like androgen insensitivity syndrome, kleinfelter's, etc.... as a way of selling the idea that sex isn't so simple that people should have their entire sense of being and self expression stifled by the size of their gametes. To some people this line of thinking is persuasive, to others it seems like a sellout in that it has an element of nature over nurture to it, and to others still like conservatives and TERFs it's frustrating because it sort of messes with their "biological reality of sex" high ground they've tried to claim thus their most common refrain is to say that such disorders are so rare that they don't matter. (DSDs are about as common as red hair in the US population so make of that what you will). Nevertheless, even this type of argument is a far cry from saying that "sex isn't real" which is what trans people are often accused of.

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nicoburns 5y ago
> They call themselves "gender critical" because they believe all gender roles are socially constructed and that the gender role we call "woman" was constructed so that females would be weaker than males and subservient to them. So when they see someone choosing to join that gender role they become very irked by it and can only explain it in terms of mental sickness or perversion. I think the logic is more: gender is socially constructed and generally harmful. And therefore we ought to deconstruct it rather than further baking it into our society. > You don't exactly see them encouraging boys to dress like princesses but still identify as boys do you? I think there's a big mix here. I think you'd find a lot of "TERFs" would support exactly this (take a look at someone like JK Rowling for example). > Mainstream transgender organizations view gender as socially constructed but also related to one's own preferences and personality. Because of that gender may not always align with sex. They do not conflate sex and gender and do acknowledge that sex is a biological reality. I haven't seen many people deny that sex is real, but I have seen a lot of people saying that it isn't socially relevant and that for example people ought to define their sexuality in terms of gender identity rather than sex.
- tiredofcomp 5y ago
  > I think there's a big mix here. I think you'd find a lot of "TERFs" would support exactly this (take a look at someone like JK Rowling for example). JK Rowling isn't really much of a radical feminist or a TERF as far as I can tell. She's just sympathetic to their views. The organizations that TERFs support and staff however do indeed do things like campaign to support Ken Zuckeresque conversion therapies for gender non-conforming youth. > I haven't seen many people deny that sex is real, but I have seen a lot of people saying that it isn't socially relevant and that for example people ought to define their sexuality in terms of gender identity rather than sex. Maybe you're alluding to something like the sports argument here? The transgender movement is a big tent that is made up of people who have no medical intervention or even gender dysphoria and also people who take cross-sex hormones and have gender affirming surgeries. The sports debate is muddied by the need to not alienate anyone. If you get down the brass tacks though, the real argument is about how much impact cross-sex hormones have on the performance of a body that has been through a testosterone dominant puberty. The conservative position seems to be that being AMAB grants you superior performance at all times regardless of any other condition, which complete androgen insensitivity syndrome seems to contradict considering that CAIS girls have no physical advantages over XX girls despite their Y chromosomes. The most radical liberal position would be that all sports should be open via self-id. The real answer is probably that trans kids who never had an androgen dominant puberty should be allowed to play any women's sport and trans women who transitioned later should be allowed in some women's sports but not others depending on how much the development of their skeleton during puberty number one might impact their performance. This nuanced view is rare however as both sides keep taking more and more extreme stances to spite one another. Look at how in Texas a 7 year old trans girl is considered too dangerous to play softball with cis girls. That's obviously dumb but the conservatives proposed HB25 to send a message that trans kids aren't wanted first and to """protect le women's sports""" second (a distant second). Nevertheless, self-id is one issue that has some real nuance but it's one issue in a whole constellation of other debates which have much less nuance and simply come down to: trans people look weird and I want them to not exist.

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nicoburns 5y ago

> They call themselves "gender critical" because they believe all gender roles are socially constructed and that the gender role we call "woman" was constructed so that females would be weaker than males and subservient to them. So when they see someone choosing to join that gender role they become very irked by it and can only explain it in terms of mental sickness or perversion. I think the logic is more: gender is socially constructed and generally harmful. And therefore we ought to deconstruct it rather than further baking it into our society. > You don't exactly see them encouraging boys to dress like princesses but still identify as boys do you? I think there's a big mix here. I think you'd find a lot of "TERFs" would support exactly this (take a look at someone like JK Rowling for example). > Mainstream transgender organizations view gender as socially constructed but also related to one's own preferences and personality. Because of that gender may not always align with sex. They do not conflate sex and gender and do acknowledge that sex is a biological reality. I haven't seen many people deny that sex is real, but I have seen a lot of people saying that it isn't socially relevant and that for example people ought to define their sexuality in terms of gender identity rather than sex.

tiredofcomp 5y ago
> I think there's a big mix here. I think you'd find a lot of "TERFs" would support exactly this (take a look at someone like JK Rowling for example). JK Rowling isn't really much of a radical feminist or a TERF as far as I can tell. She's just sympathetic to their views. The organizations that TERFs support and staff however do indeed do things like campaign to support Ken Zuckeresque conversion therapies for gender non-conforming youth. > I haven't seen many people deny that sex is real, but I have seen a lot of people saying that it isn't socially relevant and that for example people ought to define their sexuality in terms of gender identity rather than sex. Maybe you're alluding to something like the sports argument here? The transgender movement is a big tent that is made up of people who have no medical intervention or even gender dysphoria and also people who take cross-sex hormones and have gender affirming surgeries. The sports debate is muddied by the need to not alienate anyone. If you get down the brass tacks though, the real argument is about how much impact cross-sex hormones have on the performance of a body that has been through a testosterone dominant puberty. The conservative position seems to be that being AMAB grants you superior performance at all times regardless of any other condition, which complete androgen insensitivity syndrome seems to contradict considering that CAIS girls have no physical advantages over XX girls despite their Y chromosomes. The most radical liberal position would be that all sports should be open via self-id. The real answer is probably that trans kids who never had an androgen dominant puberty should be allowed to play any women's sport and trans women who transitioned later should be allowed in some women's sports but not others depending on how much the development of their skeleton during puberty number one might impact their performance. This nuanced view is rare however as both sides keep taking more and more extreme stances to spite one another. Look at how in Texas a 7 year old trans girl is considered too dangerous to play softball with cis girls. That's obviously dumb but the conservatives proposed HB25 to send a message that trans kids aren't wanted first and to """protect le women's sports""" second (a distant second). Nevertheless, self-id is one issue that has some real nuance but it's one issue in a whole constellation of other debates which have much less nuance and simply come down to: trans people look weird and I want them to not exist.