DiscussionPolitical Lesbian is a concept that led to the concept of translesbianism.

submitted by GayPartisan from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]soundsituationI myself was once a gay 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I don't think there is any argument against modern feminism being rooted in or at least inspired by Marxism unless you see Marxism only as an economic theory rather than a rubric of axes of oppression. James' contention that the trans wave was ushered in by radical feminism is a harder sell for me, though. I get what he's saying--that in declaring gender a social construct, feminists left the door open for others to claim that sex is a social construct--and I see the historical progression (because this was Butler's exact argument) but I don't see the logical one. It's comparing something that is somewhat and sometimes materially determined to something that always is. Furthermore, it's not like feminists introduced the idea of social constructivism. Subjectivism has been around since forever, and was revived by the postmodernists well ahead of 2nd wave feminists.

[–]jjdub7TERF (Trans Exterminating Reactionary Fascist) 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

Marxism [...] as [...] a rubric of axes of oppression

I'll believe this when my gay white ass out-earns Beyonce, or hell, even Lori Lightfoot for that matter.

[–]cryptoterfthrowTomcattin' 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm glad you gave Lori Lightfoot as another example, because I was going to say that in the case of female celebrities, I'm skeptical of how many make money by putting out sexualised music videos. It's another way of playing into the male gaze, and isn't 'empowering'. Having said that, I don't know much about either Lori or Beyonce.

It depends on what you work as. I know that, in the UK at least, some of the poorest people are lower class white males. They are often completely passed over by schemes set up to help people in poverty/people with fewer opportunities, because males have fewer biological vulnerabilities than females, them being white means they don't have the same history as black people, and they're the 'evil cis white male' after all.

I see this as an issue with intersectionality. You can't create an oppression hierarchy when they all depend on different things.

[–]PenseePansyBio-Sex or Bust 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

in declaring gender a social construct, feminists left the door open for others to claim that sex is a social construct

I don't follow this at all! "Gender" (meaning gender-roles: specifically, the male gender-role and the female gender-role) is a social construct; what else could it possibly be? The same as all other stereotypes, and all other social roles (think Hindu castes, for example). They're ideas; products of human culture, defined and imposed by the society you live in.

But this in no way suggests that the same is true of sex! That's not an idea; it's a concrete physical reality, a matter not of social roles or culture, but of biology. And not even just human biology, either; it's how most animal and plant species reproduce, and is, in fact, characteristic of life on Earth.

Here's the difference: "gender" will cease to exist the moment that humans stop believing in it. Whereas sex existed long before our species did... and will continue to do so long after we're all gone.