Is feminism necessarily trans-exclusionary?

Question

Transgender rights and feminism in the US are both considered part of the cultural left's causes, but it occurred to me that one might perceive an inherent tension between the two:

• The basis of feminism seems, to me, that all differences between men and women other than anatomical differences are purely social constructs. Women don't have inherently different intellects and emotional dispositions than men, and whatever differences they do have are acquired characteristics inculcated by a patriarchal society. Moreover a lot of traditionally feminine behavior, such as dressing a certain way, an acceptance of objectification, etc...are linked to the oppression of women.
• Trans folk on the other hand are stereotyped as "feeling like a trapped [man/woman] in a [woman/man]'s body", "knowing since early childhood that they were really women", etc...as if gender and sex are separate notions. It's almost as if they're embracing a form of mind-body dualism, with there being a specific gendered mind that then has to be correctly synced up with a gendered body.

How can one reconcile feminist ideals with transgender notions of what really makes a person male or female? And does being trans indeed imply a form of mind-body dualism if claims of belonging to one gender but being trapped in the wrong body are valid?

Answer 1

It seems to me that this question is based upon two false assumptions.

1.) Feminism today seeks not to erase the differences between men and women, but to change the perception of everything feminine as being inherently lesser than everything masculine. It is from this aim to normalize and appreciate "femininity" that the lines between strictly gendered values may appear to blur, such as the realization that crying does not indicate weakness leading to an acceptance of men crying instead of being forced by social obligation to hide their feelings. Modern feminism acknowledges that there may be differences between men and women, but that those differences do not interfere with our abilities to be useful, functional, and rational. In the past, the main struggle was to prove that women were even capable of becoming "soldiers and mathematicians and whatnot," as you mentioned, and as a result were forced to present themselves in a more masculine way; in order to be taken seriously, a woman in a predominantly male field had to present herself as "one of the guys" to be accepted. Now, the women in those positions are seeking the freedom to reclaim their femininity (however they define it) because things like wearing makeup and watching soap operas don't affect a person's ability to think logically and work diligently. The idea here is to paint the traditional view of femininity in a more positive light in order to share it with men (as wearing makeup and watching soap operas have no power to reflect on the validity of a man's gender and do not inherently weaken a person) and break the requirement of women to completely conform to this traditional feminine role.

2.) The "popular transgender narrative," as it is referred to within the queer and trans community, was created to simplify the trans experience into something easily digested by cisgender people. The idea that somebody can be "a woman trapped in a man's body" is outlandish and ridiculous, but I am guilty of providing a similar simplification as explanation of my decision to transition to those that I already know will never understand my feelings. The actual trans experience consists of a combination of social and physical dysphoria that may arise at any time in one's life, and is usually not understood until much later in life. We are forced to claim that we knew from birth in order to dodge invalidating accusations that something "turned" us transgender, even if we didn't begin questioning our gender until our teens, thirties, or late sixties. Social dysphoria can be defined most simply as the discomfort experienced from being forced into the roles associated with the gender that one is assigned at birth (which feminism seeks to dismantle), whether one is given the opportunity to explore the feeling of living within the role of another gender or not. Physical dysphoria, similarly simplified, is the discomfort or disgust felt in regards to one's body in terms of not only secondary sex characteristics, but often things such as height, body type, and facial features. Whether this discomfort is a result of subconscious associations with social values regarding the binary gendered body (as those who support the complete abolition of gender will claim) remains to be seen, and the concrete, physical discomfort will not be soothed by this kind of realization anyways. The adaptation of traditional gender roles after transition is often another attempt to dodge invalidation, and many transfolk do experience a more mixed identification with certain aspects of their assigned gender and of their true gender.

As a transman and a feminist, I believe that modern feminism only stands to improve the social acceptance of genderqueer and transgender people due to the overlap of issues that feminism seeks to resolve and struggles that genderqueer and transfolk face.

Answer 2

This may be less of an answer than a defense of the question -- I like @AlexanderSKing and I consider him more brave than misinformed. My own reaction is exactly @Oliver's, and I don't intend to compete with him.

The question leaves out a very important complicating factor. There really are three players in the game here. Framings of gay identity, transgender understandings and different kinds of feminism all compete to shape our assumptions about gender in definite and permanent ways. In the process, they all step on one another's toes to one degree or another. Pretending they all happily get along lies somewhere between posturing and wishful thinking. Here is one cycle of conflicts that have yet to be reconciled.

It is primarily the stability of the understanding upon which the broader society has accepted gay culture that relies strongly on gender roles being largely socially constructed, with inborn nature not matching the social construction. Feminism only gains from this perspective when women want a chance to play men's roles, not when they want to be valued for themselves and truly integrated into an equal society that acknowledges the full range of natural behaviors.

Feminism focussed on the latter: increasing the real social value of women as they already contribute to society, without becoming any more like men, also exists. And it contains branches that adopt basic gender differences traceable to physical differences as a positive fact we have not yet adequately valued. (E.g. Dianic Witches and the likes of Christina Hoff-Summers) We have never truly cultivated natural female (or male) nature because we have overlayed it with a bias toward the demands of social roles. To my mind they are right, but this returns certain gay men to the position of being inadequately male at a basic level.

The casualties of this conflict turn to history and identify a historical trend of maintaining a 'psychologically hermaphroditic' sex or 'third gender' of effeminate males, often as a marked variety of priest, and often placing them in the roles of confessor, arbitrator or ambassador. (E.g. , "The Zuni Two-Spirit" a' la Ambassador We'Wha, the Hermaphrodyte imagery in Alchemy, half of all Marian Orders of Franciscan Priests.)

Transgender advocates can just look at that and accuse those men of being self-hating transgendered individuals who cannot own their identity because they have been afforded a place due to male privilege.

Other gay men obviously don't want to see a contingent of people who would rather identify with them rather than apart from them further degraded by what they see as aggressive political correctness. So they more strongly cling to the notion that all of this is about other people trying to impose an identity on them. They often go too far with this, to the degree that they deny the validity or extent of claims about intersexual/intergender identity.

And around and around we go...

Dynamics like this are real and matter to those trapped in them. So having outsiders point them out is not a horrible thing that needs to be beaten away with a stick.

Answer 3

If the defining concept of trans theory, “Gender dysphoria”, is defined as “the condition of feeling one's emotional and psychological identity as male or female to be opposite to one's biological sex,” and if the referenced “feeling” denotes a discrepancy between one’s behavioral predispositions and the behavioral dispositions deemed appropriate by one'ssociety/culture to one’s biological gender (the supposedly socially constructed gender role of one’s biological gender), then there would seem to be some contradiction between transgenderism and feminism as you have defined it (the traditional definition).

If, however, with Commando, that “feeling” of dysphoria instead denotes somehow “experiencing” the neurological difference between a cis and a trans brain (see Commando’s comment and citation to a Scientific American article: “There are neurological accounts of gender (e.g. 1,) which do not commit to gender roles.”), then there need be no contradiction. However, the cited article would seem to open a can of worms. For what the article seems to imply is that there are four materially different brains (or brain types): cis male, cis female, trans male and trans female. If so, then it makes sense to reconsider whether “gender roles” are in fact social constructs or something else. (Moreover, such a scenario also addresses you “mind-body” problem by rendering it moot -- it is body (read brain) all the way down.)