Transsexuality and feminisim

[rydermorrison]

totally.. Gender is inherent and biological but gender roles are a social construct.

[loveboof]

totally.. Gender is inherent and biological but gender roles are a social construct.

Not sure I entirely agree because there are biological factors involved in some of those gender roles...

For example, traditionally it would be more down to women to look after babies because of the stronger bond that is initially formed during pregnancy and breast feeding (etc). Also, on average women are not as physically strong as men... (among with many other differences)

In other words, some of those gender roles are rooted in biology as much as societal pressures.

[be2378]

I think the gender lines are more blurred now. Mostly women doing the so called "guy" things now. Im all about that I like women doing "guy" things.

[amberskyi]

i guess its kinda hard to explain why we trans woman feel like woman.for me its was just knowing that the male body i was born in felt odd and wrong.i didnt want to be a girl because of a desire to do things that were feminine like play with dolls and etc because as a young boy i was allowed to do those things.
now as a trans woman im strive for femininity in appearance alone.the ability to look like and pass as an every day woman.i think some trans woman aspire to be this hyper feminine and sexy image of a woman that is very stereotypical.i can kinda understand why some feminist might see it as a bit weird when a ts girl thinks that in order to be a woman one must have exaggerated secondary sex characteristics and buy into all the stereotypes of what a woman is.
i know a few trans girls who do identify as woman but live lives free of gender roles and restrictions.

[rydermorrison]

i agree. some gender roles are def indirectly born from biology.

[danthepoetman]

Yes to all of your interventions, Ryder, Loveboof and Amber. I do feel that there is no way to think, today, that biology doesn’t have a role in gender determinations too. Culture does, on top of it, of course, it’s obvious. But we’ve come a long way since the theories of the recent past that held as a sacred truth that we are tabula rasa, that everything we are comes from culture. With the progress of neurology and endocrinology for instance, we understand how biology always has a role in everything we are. For the bond between children and infants, Loveboof, we know that progesterone and oxytocin have a major role. As to the desire for a very particular aesthetic for women, Amber, we have to suspect strongly that the seduction behaviour in human, most probably largely determined by biology, has a lot to do with it. And the fact that this behaviour has been pursued by women since the dawn of time is (and was) one more indication of that. (In most species, it’s the male that has the “burden” of aesthetic, it’s the male that adopt some colours and some features that will make the female choose him; in humans, it seems to be the females, for reasons not yet known).
It’s now a matter of knowing where to draw the line. Both nature and culture are involved in our behaviour, if such a distinction still has any meaning; many biologists today point to the fact that even what is learned through cultural processes has a foundation in biology that needs to be considered: we can only learn what our biology allow us to learn, what our particular biology already has in store for us at birth, and therefore our behaviour remains in a relatively restricted realm. And more and more, we can discover and understand what those determinations are.
Allow me to insist on something I touched before: I think in (what little I know of) feminist thinking, there is an important confusion between “equality” (social equality, equality in face of the institutions, in justice, politics, democracy, work, workplaces, work laws, etc., etc.), and “identity”. It’s not because we want and seek equality between women and men that we also want them to be identical! It’s total nonsense! Sexual differentiation is the most beautiful thing life has produced. It seems that we often apply ourselves with all our energy to destroy this difference. And I find that terrible! Women and men are different, and it’s the only thing that seems to make any sense in that crazy world! Why would we want to destroy that?
Amber, you shouldn’t be embarrassed of your desire to be beautiful (and by God, you are lovely!). To me, it’s perfectly normal and natural! Not only is there nothing wrong with it, not only is it on the contrary something beautiful for every one around you, there’s no doubt in my mind that it does have everything to do with what you are deep down, a woman! it has everything to do with some biological factor in your very identity.

[amberskyi]

i dont recall every stating i want to be beautiful.i want to be feminine in appearance and pass as a woman.i dont necessarily buy into societies standard of feminine beauty.i shaved my head (think g.i. jane lol) last year and later donned a mohawk.i got alot of slack for it from the porn world.it was apparently not feminine enough from the male porn consumer perspective.however in the normal world i never had a problem passing with the very short do and never felt more womanly.in fact for me it affirmed my femininity.i didnt need all the superficial crap to be a woman like weave,make up etc.
i dont want to be some hyper feminine sex doll,i merely desire to have my outside match my inside.

[danthepoetman]

It's what I'm talking about, Amber. I never said either that I found you to be superficial. I really don't, on the contrary. I just found that it's something that comes with the territory: it just comes with femininity. That's my point.
But on the other hand, I do feel that we tend to put such impulses or desires as feminine coquetry in the superficial department; in my opinion, it's totally wrong! Not to the point of being a doll, I agree with you. But to a certain extent, I think it's simply part of what femininity is. And strangely, it's you, women, among yourselves, that tend to put some kind of guilt on one another for that... To me, human aesthetic, which females hold the key to, and always historically has been, is part of the seduction behaviour, and I'm personally persuaded that it is largely (not uniquely) of biological origin. No?