Yes, a million times

[tim]

caladri, on the terms "biological male" and "biological female":

"The problem is that people set out from having a pre-defined grouping of 'normal' and the 'other' group. People grope around for ways to say 'normal female' in a way that's less offensive and less pejorative and prejudicial and obnoxious and brash and ignorant, and choose to use politically-correct and disingenuously-defensible drop-in replacements for 'normal' like 'biological' and 'genetic'. Those words, too, are so often used to define the normal, right group and how the deviant, aberrant, wrong group area. The normal group is defined in absolute terms, these solid concrete concepts like biology and genetics, which define who and what we are, and define the other group by not being true to who and what they are. They are defined relative to the normal in a way that is implicitly wrong and explicitly other. The exception, rather than the rule. And it's fine to acknowledge exceptionality, but it reinforces social prejudices galore to use 'normal' (and its replacements) to define the in-group, right-group: whether a 'normal woman' wears makeup, is skinny or [something inarticulate about her gender and sex] doesn't matter, it's the dichotomy that is problematic.

Worse, people set out from the dichotomy in their head about what's right and wrong and choose these defensible drop-in replacements for the word 'normal' and end up being painfully disingenuous in everything they say! If you appeal to an authority in biology, you'd better have something good and concrete in your dichotomous key that biology will back you up on. Likewise for genetics and birth. Birth is perhaps a little less offensive in America than in the rest of the world — we have nothing but working-class kid makes good stories. In the rest of the world, people acknowledge that human bias is that you are what you are born to, and when people talk about natal females they might as well be talking about old money, the reality and the aspirationality of the person involved; their authenticity and their credentials."

Comments

[badasstronaut.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the right group can become the wrong group too. Sometimes what's normal shifts depending on the context, ie in dyke circles you're more likely to get away with it if a guy you're fucking is trans than if he isn't. You still won't necessarily get away with it, but fewer people will be vocally outraged. I see people (and sometimes myself) pathetically scraping around for terms and avoiding pronouns, or else just not talking about some things at all, with perhaps a more painfully heightened awareness (because it's our friends we're talking about) of doing something dodgy in an effort to avoid censure from one's peer group. It completely sucks.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Well, I think your example is also an example of in-group privilege (where the in-group is cismen), because you're only "more likely to get away with it" to the extent that certain dykes don't see transmen as men, and therefore don't see them as a threat to the purity of someone's dyke identity.

[badasstronaut.livejournal.com]

Yes, I guess so. So that means one gets away with something illegitimately. So someone like me is cheating on so many levels.

[oxeador.livejournal.com]

I understand what you are saying. So, what is the term that you would prefer I use to refer to non-T men and non-T women? "Non-T men" will not work out, and if I use the term "cismen" plenty of people will have no idea what I am talking about. This is an honest question.

[caladri.livejournal.com]

At some point one has to embrace and even force change if something is wrong. Maybe nobody will understand what you mean by cismen, but some of them will be willing to listen. Mostly, though, you'll get people saying "why do I need a special word for what's normal?"

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Like caladri said, if you want to change things sometimes you have to do some explaining; also, it might be worth contemplating why you want to draw the distinction. Sometimes it might be suitable to use a more precise term; otherwise, it might not be necessary at all. I think the underlying point is that there is nothing that is shared by all women who were assigned female at birth that distinguishes them from another group, nor is there nothing that is shared by all men who were assigned male at birth that distinguishes them from another group.

[badoingdoing.livejournal.com]

"cisgender men" might be easier to get at first, moving on to "cis men" once people start having "cis" as the opposite of "trans" in their vocabularies.

[mingerspice.livejournal.com]

I favor "assigned male at birth" or "assigned female at birth" because, although unwieldy, their meanings are readily apparent (as opposed to having to explain "cis" every time you're speaking to a mixed or untrained audience) and it also acknowledges that we don't really know what our "biological" gender is, in part because we don't have a good definition for what constitutes "biology" and in part because even if we did, most of us don't know about much of our gender biology (I certainly haven't had my chromosomes or hormone levels checked).

[mingerspice.livejournal.com]

also then you have to specify that a person either identifies as male or female or not as well.

[mingerspice.livejournal.com]

Which I see as a plus, rather than a minus, because it draws attention to the socially constructed nature of both gender identity and gender assignation.

[badoingdoing.livejournal.com]

Me, I don't get to be biological. Clearly that means I am a robot or something. A robot that bleeds if you prick me. Who knew robots could bleed non-biological blood, full of cells with non-genetics?

[mingerspice.livejournal.com]

Moved this to a more appropriate comment thread

[caladri.livejournal.com]

Feel free to correct typos! I think "area" should've been "are" or something. It was like 3am and I had just gotten out of bed because PEOPLE WERE WRONG ON THE INTERNET.