Thursday 19 April 2012

That's All I Can Stands, I Can't Stands No More

Okay, seeing as I've been gone for about a bajillion years and I've had lots time to think about this, here we go. Today the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (with whom I don't normally have beef) decided that genital surgery isn't required for a man to be legally recognized as a woman.

Whoooooops, Ithoughtforaminuteyoumadeareallystupidfuckingdescisionthere.

Oh, wait, you did. Now, I'm probably the least qualified person ever to weigh in on the trans debate, but shit. Let me say this right now, and forevermore: penises do NOT belong in the ladies' room. Are we clear on that? I don't care if you, man, like Shania Twain, feel like a woman, you're not. Especially if you're still holding onto the ol' doodle down there. Look, I don't think that all trans women (that's men who wanna be recognized as women, right? Somebody correct me if I'm fucking up) mean direct and inherent harm to real women, but with the seemingly endless fucking demand that they be allowed carte blanche access to any and all womens' spaces, whether or not they've rid themselves of the organ that makes them most obviously male, is scary as all hell in my mind. Men, raised in the patriarchy are taught, either directly or indirectly, that the penis is a weapon. The penis as weapon is used to harm and threaten and control the female population, while at the same time reminding the male of his superiority to those that lack the penis. Do I have to repeat it? I will anyways: penises do NOT belong in the ladies' room.

This decision is all stemming from some dude, who is of course remaining nameless (he is still a dude, after all), who had his testes removed, but not his penis, and thinks that the law and all those under it should now believe that he is woman, hear him roar. So, what's the logic here? If we use the penis-as-weapon analogy again, one could liken the penis to a gun, and argue that without the testes the gun is 'unloaded', and therefore useless as a weapon, as it cannot perform the function it was designed to.

I choose: Strongly Disagree

For the penis-as-weapon is not a gun, nor a knife, nor a club, nor a grenade. To women, the penis-as-weapon is all of these things and more, and whether or not it can perform one or more of it's biological functions is mutually exclusive to the fact that it's very presence can cause great harm to women. A man who does not produce sperm in his semen or who has lowered levels of testosterone due to the removal of the testes is NOT and CANNOT be defined as a man that will not rape, simply because his penis does not perform all of its' normal operations. A man with a penis is still a man with a penis that was raised in a patriarchal rape-culture. Whether he believes he is a woman or not is by and large irrelevant to the fact that he poses a threat to the women whose space he wants access to, due to the way he was brought up to interact with women in the rape-culture.

Anyways, back to the article. A Toronto-based Trans Lobby Group said in a statement it was "thrilled" with the ruling.

“Requiring sexual reassignment surgery is differential treatment based upon a personal characteristic, that is, that trans people are treated differently, and face harassment and discrimination when their legal documents do not match how they present in their everyday lives.” said Susan Gapka, chair of the Trans Lobby Group.

I don't doubt that trans-folk are treated differently. Nor do I doubt that they face harassment, discrimination or even violence. I would not be so crass as to suggest this. I do believe that there may be out there one or more men that truly believe that they are women. That have no negative agenda in their trans-ness. That these individuals would not claim to 'know what it's like to be a woman' as they were not born as females and, in their pursuit of becoming the opposite sex, would gladly rid themselves of their male genitalia. However, from the research I've done about the trans movement, these individuals I just hypothesized about are clearly not the visible majority. Or the visible minority. Or hell, even the invisible minority. There ain't enough of them to make much of an argument, amidst all the dudes demanding to work in rape crisis centres and talk of 'cotton ceilings', topics which many of the other blogs on my sidebar have already covered very completely. I'm seeing the trans-movement drawing too many parallels to the MRA movement these days. Trans-women calling out lesbians that don't want to sleep with folks that have penises. Shit, that's kinda at the crux of what being a lesbian is all about, you know? Speaking as a heterosexual MAAB (and I hope this doesn't come off sounding stupid), I wouldn't wanna sleep with someone that has a penis, either, even if they do believe that they're a woman.

And, is believing enough? To a man who 'becomes' a woman in his teens, or his twenties or his thirties or whenever, is just the mere belief that he's a woman going to undo years of patriarchal brainwashing? Can he ever really understand what it's like to be a woman in today's society, even if he, say, reads all the back issues of Cosmo? Of fucking course not. A man, raised with male privilege and used to solving problems with male privilege (or male violence) will never be able to truly think like a woman. Not a real woman, anyways, maybe just one of those caricatures you see in television sitcoms.

Just like you can't roller skate in a buffalo herd, you can't be a woman if you have a penis. I know it's not actually up to me to make that decision in society, but that's how I feel. I'm not trying to shit on anyone's dreams, but it's biological science, dudes! We're not clownfish. We can't just become one sex or the other over the course of our lives as a natural function. As humans we're born male or female and our genitalia are clear indicators of which. If being 100 % female was really on the agenda, I think you'd want to lose the sausage, not just put on a lady-costume. And under-fucking-stand that to women born as women, the thought of some newly-minted faux lady pissing through a penis in the next stall is frightening. The womens' washroom is one of the only woman-only spaces women have ever gotten without much of a fight from MRA's (see: women-only gyms, etc.) Don't try to take that away from them. I don't know where trans-people are supposed to piss once they're 100% post-op. But, I'll say this one last fucking time: penises do NOT belong in the ladies' room.




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