Fugitivus Discussion Forum

I consider myself challenged. It is however not Valenti's theory per se, but something pieced together based on different debates I have had with feminists. The statement about what the worst thing is you can call a man is from an interview she gave about a book she wrote.

When it comes to gay men, they are many insults thrown at them but generally there is a consensus among homophobes that gay men "take it up the ass / are penetrated by other men". This is something they equate with what happens to women. Gay men are also referred to as "pussies" or "sissies". They are expected not to fight back "like women and girls". The stereotypes are that all gay men are into fashion and their appearance and that they walk and talk "just like all women". So therefore homophobia looks a lot like sexism. Gay men don't "have sex with women" / "penetrate women" / "objectify women" / "enjoy looking at titties"; all things a "real man" is expected to do.

For racist slurs thrown at black men I would like to refer you to this awesome documentary made by Byron Hurt. It's called "Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8YpcN7oKIM. The most horrible stereotypes that exist for black men are the "hyper masculine", aggressive and dangerous attitudes that are attributed to black men. Quote from the film: Furthermore, black women also get a lot sexism, as well racism, thrown their way. In many cases the sexist stereotypes for black women are even worse than that for white women as black women are often depicted as animals in advertising and other forms of media. Quite often they are portrait as hysterical and angry and untrustworthy, all at once and with insatiable sexual appetites to boot.

I don't know if you have seen the movie "American History X". The main character, who is in prison because he brutally murdered a black man who was trying to steal his car, is eventually raped by his former neo-nazi buddies, in prison, when he becomes friends with a black man in prison. The rape was a punishment and nothing sexual. However, female rape victims are always said to be raped because men can't control their sexual appetites and such.

In the end it all comes down a sexual binary. The whole concept of gender is created to set people a part and to create an artificial hierarchy with some people privileged over and at the expense of those others. I do not believe a hierarchy always needs to be a negative things. Such as the theory of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Those concepts can be very useful, but not when it is used to keep people down.

I won't touch the stereotypes of trans-people. Part of the ideals that trans-people are fighting for conflicts with the ideals I am fighting for. I want the concept of gender gone. I am not a gender; never have been and never will be. I hate shoving people into a box at birth. It is really not fair and a form of bigotry in my eyes. I believe that the whole concept of gender is the main tool of the patriarchy to keep oppressing people and has done far too much damage already. People should be whatever they want to be without having labels foisted onto them.

Another thing that happens with patriarchy is the feminizing of "opposing" cultures. Soldiers are often unofficially trained to see the "enemy" as less than men, as female. Most of those directly involved in the fighting are men and by killing those men the culture in question is mostly left with women and children. A fine example is the new TSA scans and invasive pat downs. The people who are most audibly protesting this are men. Women are used to having their privacy invaded or to have it be non-existent in the first place, but this is new for men and they find the concept rather odd.

I don't know if this makes any sense, what I just posted. I do constantly see the link of any form of bigotry with sexism.

Edited to add: Within groups of women you also have hierarchies of for example the "cool girl" who plays video games and fixes her own car. She is considered to be "more like a man", sometimes this is derogatory as it makes it more difficult to see her as an object, but many women and girls do score points with men for liking "guy things" and it results often into the woman or girl in question feeling superior to those "girly girls". Some women who identify as "girly girls" also dumb themselves down in order to appeal to men, but they hardly ever feel superior to women who don't adhere to the same principles.

Being a trans woman, I am curious what ideals trans people fight for that conflict with what you are fighting for. I mean ignoring the fact that our opinions are as varied as any other groups, and that I'm totally out of touch with large segments of the trans population... I see bunches of trans people all over fighting to abolish coersive gender, fighting for the right to self-identify as whatever gender they want genderwise, smashing down walls, fighting against sexism and misogyny, destroying binarism, etc. and I wonder if this is really irreconcilable with your fight?
One of the big stereotypes (on the first two bingo cards I found) about trans people out there is that we reify and reinforce the gender binary, but really I see trans people fighting the gender binary all the time because it cuts us and it makes us bleed, and it hurts; the patriarchy uses it's weapons against trans people too, and in many places hits us with both transphobia and sexism.
Hopefully that made sense, my thoughts are kinda muddled xD
I also disagree with other parts of the post but would have to think a lot more to write a response.

My thoughts were muddled too and I should have been more clear that I don't mean that all trans-people think alike. The gender issue what is what is causes problems for me. I am really for abolishing gender altogether. Either as a binary or as a gradient, it has done nothing but hinder me to a lesser or greater degree. There are also people who by current standards don't fit either designation or even something in between, yet there must either be an F or an M on their passports. It's freaking ridiculous. Other than a doctor, who needs to know my sex? It's only matters for menstruation or if I want to reproduce, which I do not want.

Those are basically my views on gender in a nutshell. I am curious about your views on the other points I posted.

Edited to add: I also have a problem with the term cis-gendered or cis-privilege. I do not be consider myself any gender and get annoyed when people try to assign me a gender after all. I have been assigned female at birth and as a result have always been treated the way people consider is acceptable to treat "females". Almost several times a day I am telling people to back off when they make assumptions or are surprised by what I do and what my interests are. They ask and somehow I am always the one who winds up defending my lifestyle. Yet I have no desire to get a different gender-designation. I don't feel it's any better, it would simply be a differ pigeonhole I'd be shoved into.

I'm agendered, so I'm not cisgendered, but I still receive cis privilege, in much the same way that I appear male-gendered and thus receive male privilege. Is there anything you find objectionable about this description?

Can someone have male privilege without being male or have straight-privilege without openly being in a heterosexual relationship whether one is actually straight or not? I can also not have white privilege without being white or have able bodied privilege without being able bodied. So how can I have gender privilege without being a gender? Also when a trans-male is not seen as trans by the casual observer, than he has male privilege too over female-privilege, because there is no such thing as female-privilege.

Privilege is also something that people bestow on others based on physical characteristics that one has control over and according to the patriarchal hierarchy, because if people had control over characteristics that could gain them privilege than those in power would stand to lose a lot. The whole foundation upon which their power is constructed would be shaken. This expresses itself in every backlash wave against any disenfranchised group that managed to acquire a victory.

I guess the term cis-gender just doesn't make any sense to me, especially for women. I have no problem with being of the female sex, but I do have a problem with being of the female gender, because the description just doesn't fit who I am and neither would the description male and I suspect that this is true for a lot of people. Many try to fit themselves in a gender moult they are expected to be and I know none that have succeeded. I just saw on jezebel.com that in the Canadian Army trans-people are required to dress as their "target" gender. Why is there even a dress code based on gender?

For me the only thing that makes a person either male or female or something else entirely is biology and this may sound terrible trans-phobic and ignorant, but I think that if our society no longer would attempt to force a gender on people and a person's sex no longer mattered than I think there would be much less need for people to "transition" or so to speak. I don't know what the preferred term is. People can come up with their own identity without having to "choose" something so specific as we have now.

Ooh, I took forever writing this and there have been replies!
So now I gotta write more O:

Sex is not gender. Do you see me as less of a woman because of my penis?
Lots of people transition and don't identify with the gender binary.
Male and female, even biologically speaking (and I cringed to say that), is a false binary. It's not male, female, other, it's more like... doctor says this baby looks pretty male to him, makes arbitrary decision. Or a cis male person who unknowingly to everyone even himself has XXY chromosomes, but really who cares? Whatever definition you can come up with for male and female, I can find counterexamples.
Like you say, people can come up with their own identity without having to "choose" something so specific as we have now, and they *do* and many of these people are trans.

People who are not trans have privilege over people who are trans. This is a fact. Trans people get killed, or raped, or abused, or unemployed by these people. We call this cis privilege. It exists. period. Yes I can believe this without coercing you into one gender or another.

Here's my original post before that above added on stuff.
There are tons of trans people who fight against gender markers on official documents such as passports, lots of us find stuff like that really no good at all! And lots of us argue for disclosing gender or sex when we want, not when some binary box on a form wants And yeah, there are tons of people who don't fit on the M - F line. In fact most of those sentiments wouldn't be out of place on a major trans blog like Questioning Transphobia (in fact I'd recommend reading over it!). But wanting to abolish gender completely seems to me to be denying the ability of people who identify with a gender to, well, identify with a gender.
I fight for not coercing people into one gender or another, for the ability for people to identify however they want, whenever they want, changing said identity whenever they want, telling whoever they want and only what they want to tell them, and without being shamed for any of that. I fight for this for gendered people, *and* for agendered people. If gender disappears or something after people aren't coerced into it anymore, so-be-it, but for many of us, myself included, gender is a very real part of our identity, I'm never going to abolish my gender, never gonna force it on anyone either though.

Moving on, I guess I just don't see how everything comes back to the patriarchy an sexism and misogyny in the end. Everything's connected yeah, but it's not just connected one way, there's this big... meshy weshy wibbly wobbly ball of internationality. It all feeds eachother, I don't think you could just cut out all the sexism and misogyny and expect all the racism, and ableism, and homophobia, and transphobia and whatnot, to shrivel up and die, or even expect it to work for sexism.

Rather I think you'd have to treat it as a system of interlocking intersecting oppressions that all build and feed on eachother, without a head nor tail, it's heart and vital organs distributed throughout the writhing seeming mass, the entire form pulsing and swaying, people have tried to attack it only to find it turning their blade back against their fellow friend, thousands more have been swayed by it's comfortable lies, it's empty promises for salvation, or its bedazzling visions and mirages. It lets out a foul stench, corrupting the very air, twisting and warping reality around it. Many have tried to find it's center, though they have all failed, for it has no center, and has an unquenchable thirst for blood. This beast I call Kyriarchy! (or Francis for short)

(whoo ok I think I got a little carried away at the end there)

Yes, Megann, I think your statements are starting to enter transphobic territory.

I mean, I'm pretty sure if I (a man) questioned the relevance of male privilege to my life, you would quite rightly instruct me to go piss in a lake.

I was going to say more things, but Princess Backpack got there better and faster.

If it is believed I am entering trans-phobic territory then I am going to bow out of this discussion because I don't feel in the least be persuaded by the past two posts, but I also have no desire to start something that could only result in both sides being accused of denying that certain privileges exist. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Megann, I'm trying to respect your wish to cease an argument you have no interest in continuing, but the 'let's just agree to disagree' parting words really rub me the wrong way, because I've heard it so many times from sexists before. When they did it, it always seemed to translate as 'just let me be ignorant in peace'.

I think at the very least you should examine this issue further on your own time, if not here, with us, in this thread. And now I'll leave you be.

or if anyone wanted to continue this tangent, we could take it to high-noon
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*wants the tumbleweed and cactuses and everything*