{"id":1051,"date":"2020-11-08T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2020-11-08T10:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/?p=1051"},"modified":"2020-11-08T08:45:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-08T08:45:49","slug":"ii-bodily-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/ii-bodily-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"II: Bodily threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is the bodily difference between males and females that explains most of the other differences in the roles of men and women in any given society\u2014both in Homeric society and in ours. The social and ceremonial differences in their roles are ritualisations and \u2019containments\u2019 of the difference and the threat that that implies. (Note how religion has a role in sanctioning all this too.)<\/p>\n

One thing that these considerations explain is of course why women find male-bodied people threatening, often including trans women (at least when they\u2019re aware <\/em>that someone is a trans woman). The threat is bound to be real as long as we have a patriarchy. And of course the threat can lead to actual violence.<\/p>\n

So to find a way of reimagining society that is not <\/em>the patriarchy, we need to find a way of fundamentally rethinking the whole human attitude to force and violence. That is a hard thing to do, and it is a big task; my own attempt at it is in a piece of science-fiction-fantasy (partly drawing on Homer, partly on Ursula Le Guin, and partly on Jonathan Swift) that I put on the internet, about a possible society called Lissounes<\/a>. What centrally needs reimagining, I suspect, is the ancient link that makes family life a way of ensuring the man\u2019s genetic success; in a matriarchy this might be undermined by making fatherhood a private matter for the mother, i.e. by creating a society where a woman has an unchallengeable right to choose the father of her children, and is under no obligation\u2014and no threat of violence\u2014to disclose who it is to anyone.<\/p>\n

But that is (literally) another story. The central point, for now, is simply that as I understand it, feminism is essentially <\/em>a response to male violence. And that I think is crucial to understanding and negotiating the relationship between feminists and trans women, in two ways. First, because typically trans women at least start their lives male-bodied\u2014and it is the male body that feminists rightly identify as the generic threat to women. And secondly, because feminism, if I have it right, is not just about gender roles; it is ultimately about bodies. <\/em>That means, among other things, that it can be an evasion for trans activists to focus on gender roles, and treat physical sex as some kind of distraction. For the feminist, by contrast\u2014if I am understanding things aright\u2014the body is everything. <\/em>And the fact that trans women\u2019s bodies typically have a different history and career from cis women\u2019s bodies is, as they rightly point out, not an irrelevance <\/em>about trans women; it is a crucial fact about them.<\/p>\n

We now perhaps have to hand an explanation of why, within a patriarchy, trans women are so routinely subjected to threats and violence too. The answer is: because they threaten the bodily differential on which the patriarchy depends. They claim, in various ways, to adopt the life and the bodies of women. But they at least start off as men. So much power and psychic energy is invested in maintaining the male\/ female differential; and trans women subvert that threat. They are implicitly and externally protesting <\/em>against patriarchy by the way they live. And if they become politically aware, of the reality of patriarchy as a system of violence and the possibility of subverting it by living as they do, then they may become conscious and deliberate protesters against the patriarchy.<\/p>\n

In fact I\u2019m increasingly inclined to think\u2014it is Homer who\u2019s radicalising me here\u2014that the whole business of being transgender is subversive <\/em>of patriarchy. And so it\u2019s a rejection of the body-based violence that grounds patriarchy. And making such a signal is costly<\/em>: you get thumped for it. If trans-suspicious feminists want costly assurance, they should consider the cost of preparedness on trans women\u2019s part to stand out as protesters against patriarchy.<\/p>\n

So transgender is or can be a politically revolutionary act. (It is sometimes said that the four stages of being a trans woman are 1 I can\u2019t live as a woman, 2 I shouldn\u2019t live as a woman, 3 I\u2019m going to live as a woman anyway, 4 smash capitalism.)\u00a0 About that at any rate, the right-wing headbanger transphobes are correct: the UKIPer in the Welsh Senedd who recently said that tolerating transgender in Wales would mean \u201cthe collapse of civilisation\u201d was absolutely right. Tolerating transgender in Wales will indeed hasten the end of the kind of society that he <\/em>values. Well you know what, I grew up in a society exactly like that, and the sooner such societies all <\/em>collapse the better for everyone, transgender and cisgender alike.<\/p>\n

All this makes it both understandable, but also sadly ironic, when other women see trans women as a threat or part of the patriarchy. Their natural political position is as allies against the patriarchy. Very possibly, they are trans women because they want <\/em>to make a statement of solidarity and protest. (Among other motives; of course that wouldn\u2019t be their only reason.) They subvert it by collapsing the difference, by being visible (when they are) as cross-cases. By saying \u201cthe masculine\/ feminine alignment of power and appearance is not inevitable\u201d.<\/p>\n

But of course there is a big division that we need to note between those trans women who pass and those who don\u2019t. When trans women pass they aren\u2019t seen as trans women, but as cis women, natal women. So their political status is not visible at all to the synchronic observer. They cannot and do not excite suspicion or a sense of threat in other women. It is the trans women who are seen as trans women <\/em>of whom I\u2019m mainly speaking here. But the fact that there are actually two classes of trans women, and the passers are not seen in public as trans women at all but as natal women, is politically and ethically crucial. It\u2019s a fact that seems to me to go missing in a lot of the familiar talk of trans women as a visible threat. The ones who aren\u2019t visible obviously aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Trans women can and do attract ideological gate-keeping violence, usually metaphorical but sometimes literal, both from society at large, and from trans-suspicious feminists. But not always. It\u2019s worth reflecting on what actually happens in practice in society. In practice trans women do live and present as women, and are accepted as such, and can get their bank cards and their address and their passports and use the ladies\u2019, and it simply isn\u2019t a problem. (One nice kind of gate-keeping: the supportive smiles I get on the tube. A place where this doesn\u2019t happen: Trump\u2019s America.) The law and the sociology are notably out of step here: society as presently arranged largely gets on just fine allowing trans women a kind of adoptive status as women. Here as everywhere, we should build on what is already working.<\/p>\n

On that notion of adoptive <\/em>status, by the way, we come here to the familiar insistence, among some trans women, that \u201cTrans women are women\u2014full stop\u201d, and the opposite insistence, among most transphobes, that \u201cTrans women are men\u201d. What should we say about that one? Here, I think, not only doth the (wannabe?) lady protest too much; so doth the transphobe. Why insist on the extremes? Why not take a softer and more accommodating line? What if this is what Derek Parfit calls an \u201cempty question\u201d, a question where what matters is to know all the facts in virtue of which people say the one thing or the other, and then, which way you go is actually less important\u2014or perhaps both hardline answers are clearly shown up as unjustified?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I think we should say: what Aristotle so often, and usually so wisely, says: pros ti men, pros alla d\u2019ou\u2014<\/em>\u201cYes in some respects; but not in others.\u201d Or as he might also say, \u201cmen\u201d is \u201csaid numerous ways\u201d\u2014is ambiguous. If by \u201cmen\u201d you mean what are more accurately called males, i.e. humans with masculine anatomy, hormones, and genes, then certainly some <\/em>trans women, including me, are males\u2014though the ones who\u2019ve had gender-reassignment surgery aren\u2019t males in two of these senses: they have feminine anatomy and hormones. But if by \u201cmen\u201d you mean what Sally Haslanger means, namely humans who are socialised into our society\u2019s masculine gender-role, then it depends how trans women live. The more time a trans woman spends living in our society as a woman, the more she will be socialised as a woman, not as a man\u2014at any rate, that\u2019s what will happen if she \u201cpasses\u201d, i.e. if she looks enough like a natural-born woman to be unquestioningly identified as a woman by the society around her.<\/p>\n

Of course, society might also identify her, not as a woman, nor yet as a man, but as a member of a third category: as a trans woman. That I think is what mostly happens to me; I\u2019d love to pass, but I very rarely do. The solution to this, in my view, is just to accept it, and live in society in the gender-role of trans woman. I think that\u2019s pretty much how I live. And given that this isn\u2019t Saudi Arabia, it\u2019s fine\u2014so far.<\/p>\n

The point about the social and gender role of trans woman is that it isn\u2019t the same as either cis social or gender role: and so far as I can see it doesn\u2019t inherently involve oppression. (Maybe I should separate out social and gender roles, and say that it might be that the gender role of woman is oppressive, but the social role isn\u2019t necessarily? But I then expect the objection that the gender role is <\/em>a social role.) Anyway, the development of a trans woman gender-role might even be a way of pointing forward to a state of things where we have gender-roles, but none <\/em>of them are oppressive (or: they have all become social <\/em>roles?). And to have something like such roles but without <\/em>oppression, if that were possible: that would be a very good thing.<\/p>\n

Picture: Sophie-Grace skiing by Stephen Venables<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is the bodily difference between males and females that explains most of the other differences in the roles of men and women in any given society\u2014both in Homeric society […]","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":1054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"II: Bodily threats the second instalment of 'Getting the question right' by Sophie-Grace Chappell","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[266,264],"custom_author":[263],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-for-debate","tag-feminism","tag-transgender","custom_author-chappell-sophie-grace"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KPlM-gX","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1044,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/getting-the-question-right-reflections-on-transgender-and-the-transgender-question\/","url_meta":{"origin":1051,"position":0},"title":"Getting the question right: reflections on transgender and \u201cthe transgender question\u201d","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 2, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I: From \u201cthe transgender question\u201d to the transphobia question \u00a0There is no such thing as \u201cthe transgender question\u201d. No more than there was any such thing as \u201cthe Jewish question\u201d in Germany in the 1840s\u2014or 1930s. For Bruno Bauer, and for his interlocutor Karl Marx, the supposed question about Germany\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/sophie-grace-climbingBW-22528212_1862011984114877_2700895398703663270_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/sophie-grace-climbingBW-22528212_1862011984114877_2700895398703663270_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/sophie-grace-climbingBW-22528212_1862011984114877_2700895398703663270_n.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1064,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/is-jk-rowling-transphobic\/","url_meta":{"origin":1051,"position":1},"title":"Is JK Rowling transphobic?","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Is JK Rowling transphobic? According to many transgender activists and their supporters, including Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne she is. The LGBTQ+ organisation GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has said that the author \u201ccontinues to align herself with an ideology which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/BWTrans_Women_are_Real_Women_39819062561-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1060,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/iii-be-kind\/","url_meta":{"origin":1051,"position":2},"title":"III: Be kind","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I think there\u2019s something rude and unkind, or can be depending on the pragmatics, in the assertion that you often hear, that \u201cTrans women are men really.\u201d It\u2019s rude and unkind in the way that it\u2019s rude and unkind to say \u201cAn adoptive parent isn\u2019t a parent really\u201d\u2014or even more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/sophie-grace-climbingBW-22528212_1862011984114877_2700895398703663270_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/sophie-grace-climbingBW-22528212_1862011984114877_2700895398703663270_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/sophie-grace-climbingBW-22528212_1862011984114877_2700895398703663270_n.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1386,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/on-choosing-reality-how-public-discussions-of-gender-recognition-go-wrong-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-part-3-beyond-the-ontology-first-approach\/","url_meta":{"origin":1051,"position":3},"title":"On \u201cChoosing Reality\u201d: How Public Discussions of Gender Recognition Go Wrong, and What We Can Do About It Part 3. Beyond the Ontology-First Approach","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"March 7, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Content advice: transphobia. In the previous post, I argued that we should reject the Ontology-First Approach, which is the view that questions about gender recognition should be settled by first establishing what gender really is. This raises the question of how we should approach discussions of gender recognition. In this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1369,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/on-choosing-reality-how-public-discussions-of-gender-recognition-go-wrong-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-part-1-arguing-about-what-gender-really-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":1051,"position":4},"title":"On \u201cChoosing Reality\u201d: How Public Discussions of Gender Recognition Go Wrong, and What We Can Do About It: Part 1 Arguing About What Gender Really Is","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"February 7, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Content advice: transphobia. On 10th October 2018, a full page-advert ran in the Metro, London\u2019s free commuter newspaper. The topic of the advert was an imminently closing government consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004, the legislation governing changes of legal gender for trans people in England and Wales. 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The workshop was by invitation and designed to bring together some philosophers, social psychologists and linguists that analyse the verbal and non-verbal aspects of conversations. 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