This article makes a case for including ftm's in women's spaces, specifically the MWMF, but for "welcoming them as sisters," not brothers. She concludes:
Some people — I’m among them — worry that the trans movement is encouraging our most masculine women to abandon their female bodies for male ones. We worry that instead of fighting a world culture that discourages women from being strong and masculine, they simply give up and decide to join, well, “The Man.”
Of course, many trans men continue to identify strongly with the lesbian community, calling themselves — as Sam does — gender queer. And Sam assured me that he is a feminist. In fact, he said his activism on behalf of women is stronger than ever.
THESE WORRIES OF some lesbians, however, aren’t illegitimate. Think about breast augmentation, as opposed to breast reduction. We can support an individual’s right to enlarge her breasts, and even celebrate her choice, while still worrying that such a choice is a concession to the dominant culture that tells us that women’s bodies must look a certain way.
Even so, we know that there is always going to be body modification of some sort or another.
After all, we all do things to modify our bodies. We go to the gym. We color our hair (mine changes color several times a year). We pierce and tattoo and take pills and have plastic surgery and tan and wear makeup. I understand about feeling more comfortable in a body that’s a certain way. I think all of us do.
But is it necessary, really, to also take on a male identity?
I wonder if trans men like Sam, who aren’t planning on changing their vagina to a penis and so who still are, technically, women, could think about keeping the female pronoun even as they “masculinize” their bodies.
Instead, let’s expand our definition of women to include the gender queer, to embrace people who have more male bodies, even when those bodies are achieved through hormone therapy and surgery.
Obviously, she doesn't seem to be able to think about how hard, potentially life-threatening, this approach would be for the individuals who have to live in this binary gender world while going by the "wrong" pronouns. They get to be the guinea pigs...
And, this is less-well-formed in my head, but I'm thinking about what might be lost in this utopian world where "she" becomes, ever more increasingly, defined as the "flexible" pronoun, where "he" would mean, increasingly, something quite distinct (essentially "male born men" only only by this standard.) This argument's goal of "she" as an open and accepting category reinforces the idea that men cannot be flexible or ambiguous in anyway about any aspect of "masculinity." The idea that women are "inherently" more flexible, more able to expand and adapt to suit changing times and other people's needs... This gendered understanding of "flexibility" is part of sexism, also...
(I think I remember Judith Halberstam critiquing "flexibility" and its connection to globalization also...must think.) |
