So about a month ago, I wrote a piece of dystopian fiction. And people flipped the fuck out, because apparently “No seriously guys, it’s satire” is meaningless when trans. It actually earned me my first appearance on the stalkery hate site Gender Identity Watch:
Come for violent misogyny, leave confusedly thinking GIW is full of shit.
But then, along the way, Sheila Jeffreys wrote a new book called Gender Hurts and proved me right. We’ll get to that in a second tho; let’s talk more about the book for a moment.
From what I can tell from reading it, “Gender Hurts” is a tale in which a cranky old white lady writes an extensive letter to the editor of a tabloid in the 1950s about the science-fiction rise of transsexualism. For some reason this counts as academia, because it’s easy money talking shit about tr*nnies.
The ultimate subtext of the book is that, ultimately, gender is trans women’s fault. All of it. Because naturally we’d conspire to create a world where our lives, loves, and deaths are consistent social punchlines. Where our most basic healthcare is highly misunderstood, expensive, and frequently kept away from us. Where attempting to come to terms with ourselves risks alienating everyone we care about. Sounds like a blast.
If trans women had half the power this loosely collected bundle of conspiracy theories claimed, transition would be as scandalous as body piercing. And funny thing about that…
Seriously, the word “mutilation” is thrown around so much in this book that I’m pretty close to starting a movement to reclaim it. If my tattoos and piercings as well as my transition is supposedly tied to my previous self-harm ideation (which ceased almost immediately after I started HRT), I’m pretty well fucked because the rest of that isn’t going anywhere.
Not to mention, how corny and out of touch does all that sound? “OOOooooooh transsexualism is mutilation like body piercing!” ugh whatever grandma isn’t it time for your nap?
Anyway, let’s get to the part where she proves me right. Skimming down to the chapter on “Feminism And The End Of Gender”:
You heard it here first. The end of gender, the pinnacle of the “gender-critical” movement, is comfortable shoes:
And it’s like, what decade is this even from? Who doesn’t wear pants, except in the most formal of situations? Pretty much everyone wears pants, hell even I wear pants most of the time, and trans folks (like myself) have not ceased to exist. I mean, whatever, I wore a dress the other weekend, but it’s not the point of my transition. Like, how sad would that be? I’ve had no trouble wearing dresses in public since I was a gothy teenager.
And again, this is the sort of thing that makes me critical of the “gender-critical” movement; it’s entire focus on stamping out all male gender-non-conformity and reifying masculine presentation as a social default. Their goal is to be the overbearing dad of Western Thought, telling us all to cut our hair and stop being sissies. Just render everyone an artless, empathy-devoid, posturing obelisk in trousers and sensible shoes in a world free of whimsy and decoration.
Fuck that.
Rani Baker Digs You. 