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[–]Radfeminist 29 insightful - 4 fun29 insightful - 3 fun30 insightful - 4 fun -  (7 children)

this is the opposite of the case. Trans ideology is rooted in essentialism. The entire concept of transitioning to a woman is based on the idea that there are innate traits associated with being a woman and if a man shows any of these traits, it's because he is actually a woman.

In fact, "queer theory" is the origin of the TRA movement. Queer theory borrows from feminism, but it borrows more from "critical race theory" which is an essentialist theory itself. The reason it feels like the opposite of essentialism is because its postmodern, which means that theorists believe in social deconstruction. They believe that gender is a social construct, and social constructions are meant to be de constructed. This is generally positive, because men and women should be allowed to behave and act however they want. But when you then blur the lines between gender and sex, it morphed into a belief that you have to deconstruct sex itself.

This is obviously a problem because sex is not a social construct. Sex is just your biological function. So how do you deconstruct sex? You have to attribute everything that was written about gender to sex. They basically walked themselves into a circle.

[–]mangosplums 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Feminism created the term "gender", when what they really meant was "sex roles". Why was the term gender created at all? Because feminists were trying to divorce the roles that men and women play, who we are, from our biology. Feminists argued those roles weren't based on biology at all, they are only based on socialization. That was the entire aim of Judith Butler and what radical feminists argue. That it's all socialization. This is false though. Sex roles are based on the assumption that women will grow to be mothers and men, fathers. Because women are the ones who give birth to children, qualities such as being nurturing have historically been highly valued and encouraged in women, and qualities such as being a provider have been highly valued and encouraged in men. Women didn't go out and work because they couldn't, because they were too busy making babies. All of this is based on biology. Of course, people shouldn't be forced to do things they don't want to do just because they were born a certain sex. Not everyone wants to have their life focused around popping out babies, and with technology, birth control and so many thing, we can make babies in different ways today than we used to be able to, and it just changes so much about our lives and who we can be. So people need not live lives based on sex roles if they don't want to.

With that said, the essentialism in sex dysphoric transexuals makes sense. If you were born having qualities that fit really well with the things that the opposite sex body is made to do, and fit really poorly with the things that your body is made to do, having feelings that you're in the wrong body makes sense. If you're a boy who is extremely nurturing and gentle, you probably know instinctively from a very early age that you have all the qualities to make a great mother, and to do the things that people who have soft, nurturing bodies do. Therefore being a man with a hard strong body feels wrong and being a woman with a soft gentle body feels right. That's why extremely feminine gay male transexuals and extremely masculine butch lesbians who transition make sense. The contrast is just too strong between their personality and the things their bodies are made to do. That is not to say that any woman or man who has qualities that don't go well with their body's sex role, should switch sexes, of course not. Just that it makes sense how acute body dysphoria can develops for individuals in which this is extreme, and that switching sexes actually makes sense for them. These types of trans people I have zero problem with and I support fully.

What does not make sense is men who aren't extremely feminine wanting to become women, or women who aren't extremely masculine wanting to become men. Also people transitioning who haven't been longing to be the opposite sex since childhood. A butch trans woman just makes no fucking sense. There's no need for them to transition in the first place, their personality fits well with their original biology. Where is the motivation to transition coming from for them? Where is the body dysphoria coming from? Do they even have body dysphoria?

[–]FediNetizen 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Where is the motivation to transition coming from for them? Where is the body dysphoria coming from? Do they even have body dysphoria?

Not sure if you were just being rhetorical here, but for the men the motivation to transition is largely fetishistic in nature, and it's called autogynephilia.

[–]mangosplums 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Sorry, yeah I was being rhetorical. That’s the motivation sometimes. I think there’s other motivations as well though.

[–]FediNetizen 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeah I agree fetishism is just the most common one IMO. Second most common is probably the desire to be a "gender special" so you can feel oppressed.

[–]mangosplums 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

That is definitely also one of them though I don’t know the percentage breakdown for these catagories... I also think that a man who simply wants to explore a girly side, sometimes feels the need to “become” a woman in order to do so. It shouldn’t be that way. People like Caitlyn Jenner or the Wakowski siblings, I don’t really care about them transitioning, but I do care about that everyone takes seriously the idea that they are women now and that they should be speaking on women’s issues and being included in women’s symposiums and counted in women’s statistics. They have had the successes they’ve had in life because they’ve lived their lives as men. It’s disingenuous to see them as women. The Wakowskis are now seen as the most successful women in film.... because they aren’t women in film. If we just recognized that trans women are a different category than women and trans men are a different category then men, it’d be fine.

[–]FediNetizen 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

According to Blanchard, before people started blindly swallowing the trans kool-aid a lot of AGPs would "cope" by wearing women's panties to work or something along those lines. Another behavior, which is still common, is to secretly raid your female family member's wardrobe to try on.

Jenner's step-daughter (one of the Kardashian kids who didn't get famous from a sex tape, I forget which one) caught him trying on her panties when she was a teenager. Bruce told her she needed to keep it a secret for "the good of the family" or something like that, and when she did eventually talk about it Bruce claimed that she made it up for attention or something like that.

I can't speak to the Wakowskis but Jenner is totally an AGP.

[–]mangosplums 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You may be right, I don’t know that much about the Jenner case. I definitely am skeptical about men who are hyper masculine who then say they are actually super feminine and were just pretending to be hyper masculine the whole time. I don’t think it works that way. If you are truly feminine, you won’t be able to hide it, you don’t react by becoming hyper masculine to combat it, you just are a very effeminate man and it shows in everything you do. Even if it is true, and it’s not AGP, and you just want to embrace a feminine side, it shouldn’t be seen that you are a woman now. You can’t be after all those years as a man. If only they’d accept that they are trans women and be respectful of women, there’d be no problem.