paradigm. Which basically says that trans people are effectively oppressed by the imposition
of these binary categories. Roughly speaking, it is radically oversimplified. But that's
the general idea. It's a whole different position. Notice that this is all kind of
a specific theory about how gender and sex work. I want to go back. I think that we
can worry about some of the moves that are made here. I think that there's a larger issue
at stake than the particular model of gender that we're endorsing. That is, I want to,
instead of focusing on the gender theory, what vision of gender should we focus on,
should we focus on the substrate model, or should we go for this different kind of model
where we're going to attack the binary, where we're going to say the binary is kind of like
an artificial imposition. We're going to say that there is no sex, gender, distinction,
or something like that. It's a different model of vision. Forget the different theoretical
models of gender. I want to go back to a political point, a political point that I think is sort
of fundamental to understanding what's going wrong here. That is, Raymond doesn't allow
for a discrete axis of oppression. For her, gender is a sexual oppression. It is about
the sexual oppression, which is about the oppression of women. That's it. That's it.
There is no other axis of oppression that is at all relevant. I take what is important
about trans politics, regardless of the kind of paradigm that you use. What's important
about trans politics is that there's a distinct modality of gender oppression. Probably, it
would be better to say family or modalities of dimensions. The idea is that trans people
can be oppressed as trans people. That's a form of gender oppression. When I think about
oppression, I tend to focus on the street examples of things like transphobia, sexes,
violence, race, and so forth. On the ground, you get all these instances of transphobia.
You're really a man disguised as a woman. You're really a woman disguised as a man.
You get sexual violence. You get assaults. You get discrimination in the workplace. You
get discrimination in school. You get all these clear examples of oppression based on
gender, but not directed towards women, although some of the people who are sort of subject
to transphobic oppression are in fact women, but some aren't. Some are men, some are something
else altogether. You have trans men, trans women, people who identify in God knows how
many different ways. All being subject to a different modality or a set of modalities
of oppression connected to gender that I'm going to call sort of trans-related or transphobic
forms of oppression. Are you with me on this? For Raymond, all of it, all of it, all of
gender, all of this has to do with the oppression of women. And she cannot see that there is
a kind of other oppression that she might be implicated in it. She might be engaged
in harassing other people, but there's distinct access with regard to gender. It doesn't concern
women per se, but to speak clearly concerns transphobia. Trans men, trans women, trans
women, however you identify. Does that make sense to you? Because you can't see that,
everything is analyzed in terms of this, and she falls prey to all of the most egregious
forms of transphobia that you would ever imagine. That's why you get some of the egregious
transphobia that you would see flowing from the natural attitude. All of the deceiver rhetoric,
all of the rapist rhetoric, all of this kind of stuff, you see flowing in part from this
failure, this uptake of sort of these instances of transphobic oppression. But also it blends
very nicely into her paradigm because the paradigm that she's adopted, the lesbian
sexist paradigm, is also very, very concerned and rightfully so with sexual violence against
women. If your theory is your politics, your politics as a theory that informs your politics
is very much about worrying about sexual violence against women and the male predator, then
that's only going to reinforce this idea that underlies the natural attitude. Does that
make sense to you? They're going to go together like that. And so what you see with Raymond
are two different levels. You see the lesbian separatist paradigm driving her, but you also
see this commitment to write this very sort of flat-footed attitude of the normal. Questions
with that?
I was wondering on page 148, do you think she might be allowing for that? So I think it's
the third paragraph, which is transsexual would be more honest if they dealt with a
specific form of gender agony that inclines them to want transsexual operation, this
argument proceeds from that. It's the place to deal with that problem, how it was not
the women's community. So it seemed like, I don't know whether that were agony.
No, that's a good point. And I think that there is a sense that men can be wounded by
transsexuals too. And there may be a place for men resisting that and trying to sort of
free themselves from the sex roles and heal themselves from the agony caused by that.
Being part of women's space is not how to do it.
But I think further, I mean you were talking about the egocentric sort of world, right?
And so a man who wanted to transsexual, right, would be taking a really egocentric sort of
vision of the world and looking up for number one. And I'm going to transition, make myself
completely irrelevant in the struggle because I've completely alienated myself from any
mainstream society. So in addition to enacting these stereotypical women's roles, I'm also
doing my bit to retain these roles by not staying male and fighting the system with
the voice of authority. I'm giving up the voice of authority, which props up the system
even more.
But they still got it, but like trans women are still going to queue in this kind of, like
rather, like are still like having male privilege regardless, like even if they transition.
But like from time to some people, I kind of felt like that was kind of what was coming
up when like there was like, well, trans women aren't allowed to come in here because like
they'll still assert that male privilege that they grew up with.
As if like that's the only thing that they can bring to the table.
So it's kind of weird because I feel like that's where that concept of like the essence of being
a woman comes into play because it's like, well, you're born male, like you're raised
on the male. So you have male privilege and therefore like we're just finishing you down.
But like the difference then comes like with trans men, right? Because since they were like
once women, they're still given access to like women only spaces, but that's still kind
of like a slap in the face because they're not women, they're men.
That's right. I mean, and so I think that this is an issue that I want to sort of get
into really soon. So if I don't come back to this point about like privilege, it's something that
carries over in some of the other articles. So I want to look at that.
But I want to sort of like connect these things. So I think that the point is right that Raymond
does allow for this. I think that she would say, first of all, the following though.
However, the sexual system is all about the oppression of women.
And that's what we're concerned with. There is no other kind of like real politics here, right?
Men may be hurt by this system, but there may be a space for them to deal with it, right?
And it may be as Susan says, right, their politics and better not be like coming in with
sort of like the women who are like, you know, their job should be to sort of like, you know,
do what they do what they need to do sort of in this sort of male dominated society,
not short their responsibilities, right? Right? That's sort of the point.
Notice that vision still feeds into a single axis model, right?
What you need to do, you need the other axis, you need the other axis to be able to say,
you know, actually, Raymond, when you call this person a male,
when you call this person a man, when you call this person a female or a woman,
you're actually engaged in the form of oppression yourself.
You're actually engaged in the form of transphobia.
You're actually engaged in something you have privilege
and you're actually doing something hurtful to other people.
She can't see this. You need to bring this out for that to be visible.
If that's not visible, then you're not going to see anything.
Good questions about that?
Okay, so obviously the failure, so that's what I think is actually most important about Stone's article.
It's not the specific theory of gender that is articulated,
but the taking up clearly of the idea that there is something else going on,
that we can articulate theories of oppression and resistance in this sphere of gender
in a way in which we're not talking about the oppression of women.
We're talking about something else.
That's the key move and whatever the theory looks like.
Because Raymond doesn't see this,
she's led to commit all sorts of egregious transphobia
grounded in the natural attitude, propped up by her own paradigm.
And then we get to sort of these class of criticisms of Raymond,
which is her representations of trans people,
the point just needs to be made, her representations of trans people are awful.
They're ideologically driven and they allow no room for the lived subjective realities of actual trans people.
They just don't trust them.
There is no human being dealing with trans issues,
rather there's an ideological conception where no matter what you do, this person can't win.
And the way this starts playing out is the way in which Raymond starts laying down these double binds
in ways that become immediately sort of like,
when you step back and look at them, you go, ah, that's interesting.
But I mean, the classic one, and now we're getting into this issue of privilege, right?
So you have the one sort of male to female transsexual.
On the one hand, you're sort of a patsy of the medical model.
And you come out inhabiting all of these grotesque feminine stereotypes.
But now, as you read in the chapter you looked at,
you then have the lesbians, you know, identified feminist trans women.
And she's the one who wants to be...
However, the trans sexually constructed lesbian feminist violates women's sexuality and spirit as well.
Although it usually is done by force, it can also be accomplished by deception.
And we've talked a lot about that thing.
Now, here's the point that I want to make.
It is significant that in the case of the trans sexually constructed lesbian feminist,
often he is able to gain entrance at a dominant position in women's space
because the women of all do not know he is a transsexual and he just does not happen to mention it.
So again, there's this issue of deception, quite a bit of violation.
And here comes the other double line.
The question of deception must also be raised in the context of how transsexuals
who claim to be lesbian feminists obtain surgery in the first place.
How did you, as a lesbian feminist, obtain surgery in the first place?
Since all transsexuals have to pass as feminists in order to qualify for surgery,
remember my little story about the Clark Institute?
In the first place, so-called lesbian transsexuals either had to lie to their therapist,
fake the femininity, or had a conversion experience after surgery.
I'm highly dubious of such conversions and the other alternative of deception
raises serious problems, of course.
So here's another double line.
Either way, you're in trouble.
Notice the perverse logic here, and this goes back to your point.
She's, in a sense, holding the trans person themselves accountable for the deception
when it's the medical apparatus which may appear to require that deception
in order to access the surfaces.
And why is she dubious of such conversions?
I mean, that's actually kind of weird, isn't it?
Why do we dubious of such conversions?
Why couldn't a trans woman come to see things differently?
What if she did start off having all sorts of really crappy, internalized images
of what women were supposed to be?
What if she did?
What if she did uptake all sorts of really, you know, deeply horrifying feminine behavior?
A little bit of sarcasm there.
What if she did?
And then what if, as she lived her whole life, she realized,
this is a really dangerous world for women.
Hey, wait a minute.
I see the world differently now.
Hey, wait a minute.
The street looks differently now, but it did when I was on the other side.
Hey, wait a minute.
How come no one wants to listen to me anymore?
How come everyone's always commenting on my appearances, rather than listening to what I have to say?
How come this is happening?
Dong, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, likes the one.
Why would she have a fricking conversion experience?
Hello.
Welcome to the real world of womanhood.
And isn't this kind of conversion experience precisely part of what Raymond is talking about?
Isn't that part of the idea of, like, consciousness raising?
To do movements toward the decolonized mind?
Giving up a male-identified view of the world for a woman-identified view of the world?
And why couldn't this happen for a chance woman?
I don't see why not, why it couldn't happen.
There's no reason why it couldn't happen, and she doesn't give me a reason why it couldn't happen.
Yes.
Right above that, she also goes into the other thing we talked about that we discussed earlier about how
if Sandy Stone had acknowledged her maleness, it would have been more okay, at least a little bit.
But, again, the forced exposure of what's really between your legs, that would have made it a little bit better,
but not quite, because, you know, she's still not woman, she's not double-axed.
Well said.
I think that's right.
Um, okay.
Are there any other, yeah?
Well, like, shouldn't she assume that these conversion experiences would happen?
If it really is such a male-dominated society and, you know, wouldn't a male-to-female transsexual,
like, if it's that obvious in making the conversion, well,
in making the transition, shouldn't it become more than obvious to them, you know, as a, you know, a woman now?
To see, you know, once the coin is flipped, I mean, if reality is dominated by men,
like by men, I mean, obviously the, the conversion would have to happen.
But this is what actually, no, this is what Riddell talks about, is that it's interesting that Raymond,
she thinks, only focuses on, um, and to ask, two years out of surgery,
which, in this context, understand is two years out of transition,
because at this point, transition and surgery are within this model of line.
Um, and, and she suggests, well, look it out, if you look at, you know, further out,
you know, you, you might see some different views from, but her sample is only drawing on a certain kind of person.
Um, so, and why wouldn't we expect it later on?
This actually gets into an interesting issue on, um, male privilege,
because even though she seems to, you know, talk about, you know, the importance of chromosomes,
karyotype, XXXY, and its bifurcation, that's not all that's going on with Raymond, obviously.
What's important for her are, in fact, the experiences of an individual, XX,
that, that kind of person has in society.
She thinks that you're going to have a particular kind of experience as a person who is XX,
that a person who is XY is not going to have, and this is going to shape you.
And so, the fact is, that this is where experience and upbringing matter,
is that someone who was, um, XY and raised as a man,
is not going to have the same kind of history of oppression,
that, um, that an individual, um, XX might have.
You're not going to necessarily have the same type of acquaintance, um, with sexual violence against women.
You may become accustomed to particular privileges that, um, non-transcendental, not accustomed to.
This may be taken for granted.
So, this is kind of one of, actually, sort of, sort of, like, really full of details,
different proportions.
It's not just, just, um, chromosomes, it's this, this experience, right?
So, I want to connect this to the issue of privilege, because, and this is important,
is that, and I think that when we talk about this idea of privilege,
it's really complicated, because I think that the vision is of, sort of,
an older gentleman, say, a businessman who's been accustomed to all these privileges.
One day decides to transition into a woman now, and uptakes all these, like, pernicious, like, stereotypes,
while marching around, you know, having male privilege and still expecting it.
Um, but, these different kinds of, of, of, of, M-to-F experiences, right?
And some, some trans women transition very young, some transition very old.
Some have experiences with, for example, sex work from very early on.
Some have experiences with sexual violence later on, earlier on.
You know, I mean, it depends on, like, but at some point, you're going to have a large chunk of your life,
sort of, living in a specific role, at which point you are going to have, right,
some sort of vantage point on the world, and some kind of damage done to you
as a consequence that you wouldn't have had otherwise. Does it make sense to you?
And I think that, that kind of drops out of this picture for some reason.
We always sort of end up with just this picture of, of someone who magically transitions,
and then has no consequences of, of actually being a woman.
That's one point.
Another issue on, um, uh, this bit about male privilege is,
and this again comes from this problem of the second axis or dimension of gender,
sort of dropping out, but we're only thinking in terms of, um, the gender oppression of women.
Just because this person has not experienced oppression as a woman or a girl from very early on,
doesn't mean they haven't experienced a form of gender oppression,
because they could have experienced a form of transgender oppression from very early on.
So, for example, from very early on, they, you know,
oh no, don't do that, oh no, you're not supposed to do that, or other kinds of, um,
maybe even sort of physical or sexual violence related to trans oppression.
That drops out of the picture.
Um, so I think that it's more complicated. Does that make sense to you?
Alright. I'm trying to think of this. I'm starting jumping around a little bit.
Um, because there's something, give a, kind of, I have a little,
I think it's even more complicated than that too, because I mean, when men are subject to, you know,
the gender oppression in and of itself, it's bad for men too.
You know, men that are, or men that live into the male stereotype of the male roles and stuff too.
I mean, that's, you know, they still have to live into a form of something that, you know,
maybe they don't, aren't terribly comfortable with, you know, I mean, being the, you know,
being like the stereotypical, like, breadliner, or the masculine, you know,
like, you know, the masculine stereotype that they don't cry, and they don't have any emotions,
and things like that, and it's, it's kind of, it's kind of a shitty thing for them to, you know, I mean, it's...
Well, no, and actually I would, you know, but it's not just, it's not just that.
If you actually look at, like, you know, like, if I can see, if you actually look at rates of incarceration,
if you actually do, like, you know, look at rates for being subject to physical violence,
they're actually higher for, for men, generally, than they are for women in their own system, right, the way they live.
So you may say there are particular costs of, you know, for being a man,
but I'm not sure that in and of itself is going to get us to the, to the place where we say that
men are oppressed in the same way.
And I think that, you know, for example, the reasons for that are, in part, if you look at it,
what if, for example, one of the reasons that men may be in greater likelihood of physical violence
is not at the hands of women, but other men, right?
So it wouldn't make sense to say, for example, you know what I mean?
There's not the same thing. So it's actually complicated issues.
You know, that's right, the cost. So you're right, though, that actually it is worth drawing, I think, attention to, you know,
that there are, specifically, this is complex for a lot of issues to get into.
There are costs associated.
But I think that that's what Raymond is maybe drawing to in a week or way.
She is saying, look, there are some male-bodied individuals who do bear, who do actually suffer under the sexual system.
And Raymond is willing to countenance that.
She is willing to countenance that, but she is also going to say,
but it's part of the sexual system, which mainly oppresses women, which oppresses women.
The point that I'm trying to make is actually different from that.
It's actually, let's focus on a different dimension of oppression and resistance.
Let's look at sort of the systematic ways in which we see trans people subject to oppression, different kinds of oppression.
And there's a different kind of movement.
I think that there's also a very deep sort of psychic pain and resentment, you know, that Raymond is coming from,
in which, if she was to allow that, which she hasn't, but I would think that if she was to allow that trans people perhaps do suffer at the hands of gender stereotypes, right?
Little boys who are too feminine obviously get picked on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I think that the place that she's coming from would be like, that may be true,
but if they weren't seen as so valuable in society, there wouldn't be such high expectations for them.
Like girls can kind of do whatever they want, you know, to a certain point, because they're really expendable anyway.
As long as they get it together and become marriage material at some point, it's okay.
Boys from very early on have very high expectations put on them, they're seen as more valuable.
They get to play more, they get to explore more, they get to test the boundaries more, they get more really well, they get more everything.
So, if somebody comes into, for example, a women's space or her concern of the disguised lesbian separatist, right?
She might feel like she's been duped into respecting a person who she wouldn't, you know what I mean?
It's like buying into that you're valuable and being duped into thinking that because maybe this person is a sort of,
and can actually communicate in ways that some other women can't, right?
Or this person is highly educated and had access to certain things that other people didn't, right?
And then to feel sort of like, oh, and then it turns out you're really a boy, well, just figures.
So there's a sort of like a rage, I think, that she's coming from women, obviously.
That she's coming from that has to do with that kind of privilege, not the kind of privilege of, I ran a Fortune 500 company,
but the kind of privilege from the day I was born I was seen as valuable.
Right.
But I do think that also that she does recognize, I mean, she does recognize suffering, you know, male-bodied individuals suffering under asexuals.
She does recognize that.
But what she doesn't recognize, and this is what I'm saying with sort of like, you know, I think alter her perspective,
is she allowed for an actual other dimension of oppression and resistance?
Right.
I'm saying even if she did, I don't think she would care, is my point.
I don't think she would have to if she recognized it.
I think she would have to, I think she would have to care.
So here's a straight point I wanted to make, I'm sorry, going back to this, that I wanted to make about that,
damn if you do, damn if you don't, with regard to other, you're too feminine, you're too masculine.
And I might have made this point before.
But I think that, so one of the worries, as I said before, is sort of like selective targeting,
as I call it, hunting down the vulnerable, right?
We're going to, you know, a lot of people are either, you know, exercising mass,
wanting to go to an exercising family, why are we focusing on these people?
But there's also another interesting point which I think is this, if you focus on, say, trans women,
particularly early in transition, their gender presentation is going to stand out as a little bit remarkable.
A little bit off, maybe, a little bit different, a little bit, it's going to read a little bit differently.
The reason it may read a little bit differently is because this person is still the process of learning to master her gender presentation, right?
And it may not exactly resonate in the way, it may not actually, so because she was not raised to behave in a particular way,
because she wasn't raised since the age of, you know, since she was born, to uptake particular behaviors
and to interact in a particular way, it's not a surprise that it's going to read us a little bit off.
And that's going to make it easier for it to sort of like say, oh, that looks like a weird kind of femininity.
Or this attempt at, you know, issuing that looks like a weird kind of masculinity.
It may be in part because of that, because it's reading a little funny. Jessica?
And I see what you're saying with that, because it seems that maybe, you know, we're pronounced, granted,
but similar to what I went through when I went through puberty.
And I was learning how to live into the role of a more adult woman.
And I mean, it's awkward all the way around, you know, and I can see that it would be perhaps more operative,
you know, your mother didn't kind of do it throughout your entire life.
And you try to like figure it out later, and you don't have the time, and you don't have that over.
Yeah, and perhaps maybe it's more pronounced because in general, I don't want to make over generalizations
based on my ignorance, but in general, isn't it when transition perhaps, you know, later than, you know,
learning how to be a woman is perhaps a little chronologically later than I don't have a woman,
like 11 or 12 years old. Rather, you know, it may be as pronounced if it's, you know, you're in your 30s.
Well, you have last time at it.
Yeah, then, you know, you're kind of shoved right into it.
Yes, that's kind of the point.
The point is that because you learn gender in a different way, it's going to read maybe differently.
And it's reading differently may make this double-blind pop a bit more.
You know what I mean? It's going to show up a little bit more.
Because the way that she's wearing that dress is a little bit off by our standards.
And so it beads as sort of like, oh, she's taking up feminine stereotypes, right?
Or, you know, she's trying to eschew these feminine stereotypes, but now we're also reading funny, right?
And we're going to categorize that as like too masculine.
But really, it's just sort of like, you know, just reading funny and then showing up in this double-blind.
All right, good.
I'm going to stop now with the Raymond.
And rather than talking about the Rodelle article, because I'm kind of worried about time,
I want to come back to it. I want to jump into the Koyama article.
And I want to sort of connect it up to some points I'm making here.
Because there are other problems with the lesbian feminist model.
