#julia serano

[thepinkpestilence]

advising to read "whipping girl" by julia serano to understand trans men is like telling people to watch steven spielbergs "jaws" 1975 if they want to learn about sharks. both creators admitted that their works influence on that part is terrible.

[pawberri]

For readers who are new to the concept of stigma, thinking about sexualization in these terms may seem a bit abstract at first, so allow me to illustrate this with a real-world example. Imagine that you are an unscrupulous political operative, and you are given the task of destroying your opponent by any means necessary. How might you go about that? Well, you could go after their record and stated positions, or paint them as a typical two-faced politician, but these approaches would likely have limited impact. If they’ve committed some kind of crime, that might raise some eyebrows, depending on the charges. But what would probably excite you the most—the thing that would likely do the most damage to your opponent—would be if you could pin some kind of “sex scandal” on them. What if they are an adulterer, or a “closeted homosexual,” or have some kind of “fetish”? Maybe someone out there has nude photos of them, or sexually explicitly texts they’ve sent, or perhaps there’s even a “pee tape”? Or what if you could brand their entire political party as a cabal of pedophiles and child sex traffickers? Notably, none of these things are illegal (except for the final charge, which comes from the QAnon conspiracy theory), yet they would all likely garner far more negative attention than most financial crimes or political corruption scandals. The sex scandal would likely follow your opponent around wherever they went, “soiling” their entire person and reputation in many people’s eyes. This is a testament to the power of sex-related stigma.

Of course, as a savvy political operative, you would also intuitively understand that simply uncovering or inventing a sex scandal is not necessarily enough. You also need the charges to “stick” to your opponent. If they are widely considered to be a normal, respectable, upstanding member of the community, then voters might have a hard time believing the accusation is true without a preponderance of evidence, and even then, they might not be convinced. In contrast, if your opponent was… I don’t know, let’s say me, then you might feel fairly confident that at least some voters would accept the sex scandal at face value, even if the evidence is rather flimsy. Why is that? Well, as we discussed with regards to the Unmarked/Marked mindset, accusations and attributions tend to “stick” better to people who are marked relative to their unmarked counterparts. Not only am I marked, but people are likely to view me as “marked by sex” in a number of different ways: for being female, bisexual, and/or transgender, not to mention the fact that I regularly write about sexuality, including sharing some of my own past sexual experiences—talk about letting my “sex” show!

Thus, while any person can theoretically be sexualized in a number of ways, in practice, some individuals are significantly more susceptible to sexualization than others. In particular, marked groups, especially those that are widely stigmatized, are especially prone to sexualization.

Sexed Up by Julia Serano

[void-of-moths]

so i’m 19% through whipping girl and like. serano says this:

and i don’t really know what to think of it?

so, does julia serano not understand gender as a social construct or especially sex as a social construct? this kind of confuses me, because a lot of transfeminists that build on serano’s work tend to see both gender and sex as constructed, so how do they reconcile this?

i don’t think the part about hormonal predispositions being real is untrue, but serano seems to characterise gender and “biological sex” as not constructed, but instead exaggerated, so for instance, it seems like she would say that it is bad to claim that “all women are more emotional” but she would say that “women in general are more emotional” for instance, where she acknowledges that there is not universality, but at no point in this does she question the way that emotionality is typically operationalised in misogynistic ways? like earlier she talks about crying more and not being able to stop after going on HRT, and this is the stereotypical way to operationalise emotion, as a woman sniffling, as opposed to a man getting angry at a sports game or smth. like, she abides by the patriarchal metrics of something like emotion, if that makes sense? she also doesn’t question the androcentrism in operationalising “strength” as muscle mass and brute force (presumably, as she links her becoming “weaker” to going on E). she also states that typical women are “feminine” and typical men are “masculine” and posits “masculine women” and “feminine men” as outliers. and by viewing it this way, she seems to legitimise and naturalise the categories of male and female, whereas transfeminists seem to understand those categories as inherently the product of patriarchy, in the sense argued by Monique Wittig. I’ve also heard of sexgender described as a set of labour relations, for example, by transfeminists.

if anyone has any explanation or response to my confusion, i would appreciate it, especially if you’re more well read than me about transfeminist theory and sex deconstruction

[fulltransmetalgenderist]

Still thinking about Whipping Girl... here's a passage that's been banging around in my head

For me, the question of why I am transsexual has always been a source of shame and self-loathing... Like most people, I assumed that it was better to be cissexual. Eventually I realized that dwelling on "why" was a pointless endeavor--the fact is that I am transsexual and I exist, and there is no legitimate reason why I should feel inferior to a cissexual because of that.

The question, "Why do transsexuals exist?" is not a matter of pure curiosity, but rather an act of nonacceptance, as it invariably occurs in the absence of asking the reciprocal question: "Why do cissexuals exist?" The unceasing search to uncover the cause of transsexuality is designed to keep the transsexual gender identities in a perpetually questionable state, thereby ensuring cissexual gender identities continue to be unquestionable

[taliabhattwrites]

Episode 8: Are Transsexuals Bourgeois? Serena Nanda's "Neither Man Nor Woman" | Cracked Ivory

Get more from Cracked Ivory on Patreon

Out early on Patreon!

We're joined by the inimitable Julia Serano to discuss third-gendering, Orientalism, pervasive institutional transmisogyny, and to finally declare a winner in the eternal struggle between Transsexuals and Transgenders!

[ftmtftm]

Once again working through my annotating reread of Whipping Girl and I think this is a passage people who use Serano's work as a weapon against other trans people's lived experiences need to internalize:

"And while this book primarily focuses on transsexuality, and more specifically on trans women (as that is my experience and perspective), it is not because I believe that transgender people who are not transsexual are any less important or legitimate; their experiences of gender are just as valid as mind and the discrimination they may face as a result of those expressions is just as real. It is also crucial for us to recognize that it is equally valid for a trans person to decide to transition and live as the other sex as it is for them to instead choose to blur gender boundaries and identify themselves outside the gender binary. There is no right way to be trans. Each of us simply needs to figure out what works best for us and what allows us to best express who we feel we are."

— Julia Serano, Whipping Girl - "Coming to Terms with Transgender and Transsexual People" (emphasis mine)

[justonethingtosay]

Hey. I’m not going to be snippy or try to one-up anybody. This isn’t Marvel dialogue. This is a real attempt at bridging a misunderstanding.

Nobody can be “TME” (exempt from transmisogyny) because nobody’s identity determines if a bigot’s bigotry was motivated by transmisogyny or not.

Transmisogyny, per its Sage Encyclopedia definition by Julia Serano, is a conscious or unconscious bias that forms against trans women as a class when they are assumed to be not women but sexually perverse men. Traditional sexism tells us that men are better than women, and women are only good for sex. Oppositional sexism tells us that men and women are irrevocably different, and transition isn’t real/doesn’t work. When these two biases attempt to explain a trans woman, it goes something like this: (Oppositional sexism) That “trans woman” isn’t really a woman, that’s a man. (Traditional sexism) But he’s pretending to be an inferior sex object. (Transmisogyny) The only reason a superior man would want to be an inferior sex object is if being a sex object is fulfilling a fetish, so that “trans woman” is actually a publicly sexually deviant man who deserves to be mistreated/corrected.

Again. Transmisogyny is a specific word describing a specific internal bias. It isn't just any oppression/bigotry that happens to trans women. It was coined and defined with a highly specific and deeply important meaning.

A transmisogynist is someone with this bias. Someone who sees transfemininity itself as evidence that a person is deserving of less/worse, specifically arising from the assumption that transfemininity is motivated by sexual perversion. Acts of transmisogyny aren’t defined by who they’re leveled against, but whether or not they’re motivated by the transmisogynistic bias. Any action - anything at all - could be an act of transmisogyny if the transmisogynistic bias is what motivates it.

So when a transmisogynist won’t leave his kid in the care of a nonbinary teacher because he insists they’re sexually dangerous, he’s still motivated by and expressing his transmisogyny. It was still a transmisogynistic act, because it was motivated by transmisogyny. When a transmisogynist calls the cops on a butch cis woman using the bathroom because she mistakes her for a trans woman, she’s still motivated by and expressing her transmisogyny. It was still a transmisogynistic act, because it was motivated by transmisogyny. If Jake wears a dress and Bret calls him a slur, Jake’s actual identity has nothing to do with Bret deciding to punish what he perceived as transfemininity. If the justification for an act is the punishment of (presumed or true) transfemininity because the bigot believes all people who are trans women deserve to be punished/corrected for their “sexual deviancy,” that was an act of transmisogyny. The motivation is what defines whether or not an act is transmisogynistic, because transmisogyny is a specific motivating bias in the mind of the bigot.

Transmisogyny can happen when no trans women are present. Transmisogyny can happen when only trans women are present. A victim’s identity will not determine what an aggressor’s motivation was at the time of the aggression. For this reason, the language of TMA and TME fail at defining what they’re trying to categorize, and water down the ubiquity of transmisogyny. We can’t water it down if we want to truly eradicate it. Transmisogynistic bias can affect anyone, anywhere, at any time, and be expressed by anyone, anywhere, at any time. If we want to stop transmisogyny everywhere it arises, we cannot define it as only happening when trans women are present/the victims. We will fail at identifying and eliminating everywhere transmisogyny occurs if it only “counts” when it’s leveled directly against real trans women.

TL;DR: Transmisogyny is a specifically defined conscious or unconscious bias in the mind of the bigot. Any act motivated by this specific bias is by definition transmisogynistic. No identity is or ever can make a person “exempt” from a third party’s bias.

If you use the terms TMA/TME to seek community and comfort, I understand what you're going for, but these specific terms are insufficient and obscure the real meaning and grave breadth of transmisogyny. You deserve the community you want to find. AMAB trans women are irrefutably the villain/boogeyman of transmisogyny, and it's exhausting and devastating to have been demonized as an entire demographic. Wanting to find others who share that specific experience to commiserate with and offer solidarity and support isn't inherently evil. Especially during such a shit time. All I'm saying is, if the group you want to connect with is "AMAB trans women" exclusively, that phrasing is more accurate - or "MTF." Transmisogyny is a specific word with a specific, crucial meaning, and watering it down is a discredit to the transfeminist who articulated it and antithetical to making progress dismantling it. TMA/TME does not accurately account for the true meaning of transmisogyny, and if you mean something other than Serano's definition and don't want to use terms like AMAB or MTF, you should coin a different/new word, not step over Serano's work.

[puc-puggy]

THANK YOU, SERANO

[x]

trans people are not the oppressor. neither trans men nor trans women. trans men do not become oppressors because they're men and trans women are not oppressors because they were assigned male at birth.