#how did they know which people to oppress if they didn't know what biological sex was?

[sapphsorrows]

regarding the tags on my last post: if you say something dumb like "oh you clearly don't know about indigenous 'genders'"

1. I do, nearly all of them refer to homosexuals

and 2. I don't know how to tell you this, but european colonialism did not invent biological sex. Literally every ethnic group has oppressed women in some way, even before colonization.

I know y'all have this idea that before the evil europeans arrived, every other culture was holding hands and singing kumbaya and everyone lived in peace and equality, but no. you're wrong. take a history class. read a book.

[spiderfreedom]

stop being obtuse about female people in technology

While trying to find one of my own posts (tumblr search is dire), I stumbled upon a critique of the American Anthropological Association and Canadian Anthropology Society session that was meant to discuss the importance of biological sex in anthropology. The critique asserted that the conference was anti-trans hate. But this segment caught my attention:

Why is this poster so convinced that the number of trans women in IT is not 'statistically significant'? As far as I know, there are no academic studies on this. Kathleen Richardson's session didn't go through so we don't know if she had data on trans women in IT that OP does not!

I looked up this quote to see if there was any more information about this canceled panel, and found this hacker news thread with both an appalling lack of understanding of what biological sex (hint: it is not your phenotype) is and this argument for why trans women should count as women in IT:

Let’s suppose the motive of wanting more women in tech is to rally against historic prejudices and institutional biases, in order to assist an otherwise marginalised group towards a more equal footing with the traditional power brokers, men. If you can’t see how this extends to trans women, a group that is almost inarguably as oppressed as cis women, regardless of whether you view them as ‘true’ women, then I can only assume bad faith.

Looks like we have to explain why you cannot treat trans women and cis women interchangeably, and why doing so is harmful.

The stereotype of the "trans girl programmer" exists for a reason. If you find someone in ROM hacking or Linux development identifying as a woman, there is a very high chance that this person will be a trans woman. There is also a very high chance that this person presented as a man most of their life and transitioned late. In other words, they gained their experience in tech while other people (correctly) assumed they were biologically male, and treated them as men.

Undoubtedly their situation changes once they come out as trans. They may not be as respected anymore by predominantly male community members. And if they pass as women, then they likely do experience misogyny. If they transition early, like pediatric transitioner Kim Petras, then they will also face very different struggles from late transitioners. Do you think that a pediatric transitioner entering the IT field as someone who's been socialized as female since 16 and a late transitioner who entered the field as a man and transitioned at 40 will have had the same experience in tech?

Understanding this is key to understanding why "including trans women as women in IT" with no distinction by demographic may not actually be helping. Treating 'trans women' as a monolith is not helpful to anyone - not to cis women, not to female people, and certainly not to trans women.

Let's use an example: Lynn Conway. Lynn Conway is a famous trans woman in computer science. Lynn transitioned in 1968, at age 33, and then went 'stealth' for the rest of her career, only coming out in 1999 at age 61. Being that there are no reports of Conway being 'outed', I can believe that from 33 to 61, Conway's coworkers simply believed that she was a cis woman, and assumed that she was female, and so she would have been subject to misogynistic assumptions about female people's capabilities in technology. I can imagine that Conway may have been harassed or sexualized or belittled because other people viewed her as a female, with no knowledge of her male past.

However, it is worth pointing out that for 33 years of her life, Lynn Conway lived as a man. Because Lynn Conway is male, she would have been socialized and raised as a boy.

Because Lynn Conway did not make an effort to appear as a female person for 33 years of her life (with the exception of one year 1957-58 with a 'failed medical transition', which is left unclear), this means that when Lynn Conway went to MIT, when Lynn Conway worked as an electronics technician, when Lynn Conway studied engineering at Columbia university, and when Lynn Conway was hired at IBM, Lynn Conway was presenting as a man, was viewed as a male person by the people hiring and educating her, and therefore socially benefitted from not being of the female sex.

Lynn Conway would not have been told for those 33 years of her life that technology was "for boys" and therefore she should not engage in it. Lynn Conway would not have been told that being at a computer would "make her ugly and undesirable to men." Lynn Conway would not have had to worry about being sexually harassed by boys, or even being raped and impregnated. Lynn Conway had two children, who she did not have to carry to term, because she had no eggs or uterus but a penis and sperm. As the impregnating partner, Lynn Conway's career did not suffer from discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. Conway did not have to deal with pregnancy and the trauma of birth and recovery in a society that heavily coerced mothers into giving up their careers once they had children.

In fact, being male allowed Lynn Conway to study at Columbia university, because Columbia university did not accept female students until 1983.

Lynn Conway began her career as a 33-year old "woman in tech" with advantages that no other 33-year old female person at the time could have had. Not being sexualized, not being told that females are stupider than males, being allowed to enroll normally at Columbia University. While her accomplishments as a stealth, cis-presenting trans woman in technology should actually inspire women, in so far as they show that it is possible for someone presenting as female to succeed in technology, it would be irresponsible to ignore that Lynn Conway had multiple advantages on account of being male.

This is not to say that Lynn Conway or other late-transitioners do not suffer. Lynn Conway appeared to have suffered from depression due to dysphoria. I have no doubt that Conway's mental health suffered for those 33 years because of dysphoria. After transitioning, she was not allowed to see her kids anymore on the basis that it would have been a 'bad influence' to have a 'transsexual' near them. After going stealth, she was basically unable to talk about her past at all, which is isolating and scary.

But we must recognize that lack of privilege in one area (being trans) does not mean that one does not experience privilege in another (being a male person). Whether the ledger of benefits versus penalties adds up to a positive or negative sum does not change that the benefits of being male happened.

So here's a question - if we know that female people face special challenges compared to male people in general, that female people are sexualized by male people, that female people are presumed incompetent and unintelligent by male people on account of their female biology and 'female brains', and that trans women are only oppressed on the basis of misogyny when other people mistake them as females...

How will it help female people overcome socialization and societal barriers by showing them male people who had most of their education and experience in technology as males, and only transitioned once their careers were more secure? The answer is it doesn't. Frankly it doesn't even help trans women who transition early!

Once again, this does not mean that trans women don't face problems, barriers, and even misogyny. Even late-transitioning trans women in tech face barriers to their career once they come out. Tech bros are hardly the most welcoming people to gender non-conforming people.

But it means our problems are very different. When someone says that we should not hire women because they get pregnant and leave, a trans woman can always say that she is incapable of becoming pregnant because she has no uterus or eggs, and is thus a more desirable worker. When someone says that female brains are inferior to male brains, less prone to genius, and less interested in technical development, how does that apply to trans women, especially ones who transitioned late in their lives and therefore weren't even on HRT for most of their critical development?

there are literally already jokes online about trans women being better at technology, math, and science than cis women (female people).

So frankly, Kathleen Richardson's research on this topic would have been fascinating to hear. How many trans women are there in programming? When do they transition? Did they gain their prominence in STEM before or after transitioning to feminine?

There's very little data about this. Anecdata suggest that some communities (ROM hacking and Linux kernel, as mentioned above) have very high numbers of trans women as opposed to cis women. And statistical data on Haskell programmers suggests that the ratio of trans to cis women is 1:1. In other words, 3% of Haskell programmers are women-identified, but only half of them are female. (link)

If your only concern is whether people presenting as women are succeeding in STEM, then maybe you don't really care about this! But I care about female people because I know being female comes with significant challenges, and I think having data on this matters! If there has been a huge jump in the number of women in programming, but that jump comes entirely from previously male programmers transitioning to female, then all that means is that people whose careers were secure changed their gender marker! No actual advances were made for female people!

Nothing about this topic is anti-trans. You can discuss dysphoria, transphobia, transmisogyny, the mental health impact of going stealth, the (mis)treatment of trans women in technology, the challenges of coming out as a late-career professional, the challenges of entering a career as a trans woman, perfectly well.

You can also do that while acknowledging that there is a difference between presenting/being read as female and having a female body, being raised and socialized as a female person, and dealing with the unique challenges of being a female person in technology.

In fact, we need to both if we have a commitment to social justice. If you don't care about the struggles of female people and the way data on our experiences can be obscured by collating trans women with us, then I'm not sure you have a commitment to social justice or feminism.

[harrypotterfuryroad]

fjakdsfjkl they're checking children's genitals in Ohio & florida and y'all radfems totally sided with them to get it done, much like your calls for censorship silenced lesbian authors in the nineties (see the feminist sex wars/porn wars and/or struggles of the little sisters canadian bookshop).

wow, amazing. you STILL, even after fucking LINKING it, very obviously failed to read the whole thing. she absolutely described radical feminist ideology. and being well-read is something you guys pride yourselves on...that's pretty sad. i'm not even saying this is a premier source against your crock of shit ideology; i frequently cite many others. yet you failed--multiple times, now--to properly read the one single tumblr post i brought to your attention.

by far the most obnoxious conversation to have with you people is the "sex is binary" conversation. it's so eerily like talking to the scientologist freaks i grew up around, it's like a deja vu nightmare. biology is complex. also, it doesn't care. not "it doesn't care and that's why women are fucked by it!" no, it just doesn't fucking care. period. it's neutral. why in hell are you treating biological sex like it's spiritual...oh, that's right, because of your incessant and childish need to feel like a victim, which matters more than other people and certainly more than the truth. intersex people exist. you guys deny it alot, but they do. they're about as common as redheads. are redheads fucking fictitious, "harrypotterfuryroad"?

i am a cis woman, and i'm annoyed with what influence (feeble though it is, it's still important because you quite literally endanger lives) you've managed to have over the very important, real conversation about systemic misogyny. the irony is that you have made it harder to talk about. you have hindered progress. by oppressing women you have *omg you'll never guess, cue drumroll* fucking oppressed women.

as that post said, you don't own the definition of womanhood. society does. and it and i (hello, a cis woman born with your same genitals and born into the same oppression you've faced, not that it matters!) don't agree with you. get the fuck over yourself and grow up.

name one radfem that supported genital checks and follow that up by explaining why men belong in women's sports in the first place

and am i supposed to be shocked that anti-porn feminists were anti-porn regardless of who was producing it? are you shocked? did you think you had some kind of gotcha by saying that anti-porn arguments were coopted by homophobes? that horse is long past dead

she described it, sure, but she didn't define it. and a lot of those descriptive statements were total asspulls anyway. like, imagine you ask me what a square is, and i give you "it isn't a circle," "sometimes they're blue," and "they're related to trapezoids" as descriptive statements. all of these can be true, but they're not useful in gauging if i actually know what makes a square a square. so yeah i'm gonna go ahead and reject a pile of descriptive and spuriously ascriptive statements as a coherent definition, thanks. throwing out things like "TERFs think they're leftists" and "TERFs are inherently fascist" doesn't give any clear picture of what (again) a radfem is, especially with the implicit split between radfems and "TERFs"

and likewise i'll breeze right past your attention-grabbing link to scientology, i posted a few weeks ago about why that isn't productive without much more detail. i'm not treating biology like it's spiritual; i'm treating sex like it's binary. you're the one taking that spiritually by acting like i'm making some kind of individual moral judgment based on it. the redhead frequency thing is fucking stupid, because just like redheads still have hair, intersex people are still male or female (and they're also not there to be used as pawns by you)

also please tell me how it's been made harder to talk about systemic misogyny with specific examples because i'm curious about that

and finally the womanhood thing was the exact line that made it clear that the writer of that post had no idea what she was talking about. the boundaries that feminists have drawn around womanhood are really lenient and really broad. nothing about behavior or dress or class or race disqualifies you from "womanhood." there's no wrong way to be a woman except by being male, and there's no point in taking that personally

[thepiningpoet]

The Pining Poet presents a Periodical Pother:

Allow me to fulminate for a moment, please.

My thoughts on the recent J.K. Rowling hate: When a complex topic is confusing to you, it's perfectly understandable to have questions...not that trans folk are obligated to answer them. But if they do offer to answer your questions (which may be perceived as invasive by some, understandably) then pay them the courtesy of at least listening. I don't believe Rowling has done this but has insisted on keeping a belligerent stance in all regards on the issue.

When there is something beyond my understanding I've chosen just to shut the hell up. I've learned that early on. It's served me well so far. Other than that, gain more understanding through scientific findings (and I mean scientific journal articles, studies, and published statistical findings by reputable scientific associations and those who actively work in scientific fields) plus listening to the opinions of those in the trans community to gain more understanding and, yes, empathy. No one wants to feel foreign or strange in their own body, so although I may not fully grasp everything involving trans' mindsets, I do understand the idea of wanting to be seen and heard in a way that feels authentic to oneself as long as no one is using their platform to devalue others in their own fight for equality and recognition.

"When a complex topic is confusing to you, it's perfectly understandable to have questions...not that trans folk are obligated to answer them. But if they do offer to answer your questions (which may be perceived as invasive by some, understandably) then pay them the courtesy of at least listening."

For example, many people still perceive the term "gender" and "biological sex" to be the same thing, so be wary of "gender is how you think/I wanted my body to match my brain" arguments which belittle already marginalized groups like me who proudly associate themselves with their original biological sex but often don't mentally operate in a way that society deems as "typical of a woman". Reviewing this, plus having another argument with an embarrassingly uninformed individual using the "there are only two genders argument"... it only pushes a point that's been increasingly on my mind: we should just eliminate the idea of gender. It serves no one anymore and actually...it never did. All the idea of gender has done throughout the ages is oppress, immure, limit us despite our natures and cause mental turmoil for the populous in terms of finding their own unique identity. What is it about this point that scares people really? Is it truly the fear that someone will get raped in a public restroom? If it is, they needn't look to the past to see that many countries have had mixed bathrooms before. Much of Scandinavia still does and I assure you, I've never felt safer. Is it the fear that you'll have sexual/romantic feelings with someone you didn't "intend" to?

"When there is something beyond my understanding I've chosen just to shut the hell up... It's served me well so far."

Well, here's a novel idea: Why not allow yourself to fall in love with whoever you end up falling in love with? Would that honestly be the most horrendous of crimes? And those worth knowing and loving will be honest with you about their history so that BOTH of you can plan a realistic future, whether together or apart. So, what is there to fear other than your own freedom and potential happiness? Maybe your only authentic fear is in discovering who you truly are. #foodforthought

Sincerely and most happily yours,

The Pining Poet 🥀🌹

P.S.

Psychology 101:

"Cherophobia is a phobia where a person has an irrational aversion to being happy. The term comes from the Greek word “chero,” which means “to rejoice.” When a person experiences cherophobia, they're often afraid to participate in activities that many would characterize as fun, or of being happy." - Rachel Nall

[blackwoolncrown]

This is so interesting. Much of what I know about Asexuality is from my (ex) best friend who told me that by having crushes and telling her about them, I oppressed her in a sense. At the time I didn't realize how toxic she was in my life but ultimately my knowledge about Asexuality comes from her. That she is inherently queer and has always identified w the community, stuff like that. Some things she said that kind of pierced me hurtfully was that she considered all allosexuals stupid and oppres

“and oppressive, which made me wonder why we were friends. I did understand that she felt incredibly pressured to have sex and that it was lumped into our society and thrown everywhere. I also knew she was dealing with pressures of marriage from society and she was worried about having to have sex with someone bc our society expects that in relationships. I mentioned once that after a trauma I experienced (murder of a close friend) I was ace for a while (wrong wording) bc I couldn't feel any (2)“

“(3) i couldn't experience any sexual urges anymore much less imagine that as a good thing. I was completely dead inside for a bit. She tried not to offend but she did mention that Asexuality isn't something that can come and go in phases like the effects on your libido after a trauma, that being ace is an identity defined from your being and isn't negotiable. Kind of like being gay, where it's not something that can be separated from yourself or you can change if you wanted to. I stopped saying“

“(4)stopped saying it that way. I kind of understood what she meant and honestly shouldn't have used the word ace to describe that year for myself. She was right, I knew that feeling that way wasn't normal for me and so probably couldn't use that word as a verb or adjective, it's more an identity. What do you think? That's as far as I'm familiar with the term. We're no longer friends. One thing I'll never forget is how after I came out to her @ 19, she said, Well You'll always be straight to me.“

First off, I think Ace as an identity and ‘Asexuality’ as a biological occurrence need to be understood as interlinked but still somewhat separate, because ‘Asexuality’ as a state/phenom happens for a lot of reasons, at different durations of people’s lives. And I think the most troublesome dialogue out of the Ace community recently is that ‘all forms, durations and conditions of Asexuality are ‘Ace The Identity’.

I think that Ace activism should be a thing because when someone lacks sex drive or sexual activity in their life there’s a damaging, unnecessary narrative that tells them they’re damaged, or lame, or somehow lacking, and that’s really toxic. I also think that our hypersexual and exploitative society has inundated people with itself that unless they have experience otherwise, they view ‘sex’ and sexuality through the lens that’s been shown them, and logically recoil from that-- but in some cases cannot distinguish ‘sexuality the human behavior’ from ‘sexuality as it’s depicted socially/in media’.

I also think that the experience you had is an interesting example. Because there are two facets of the working definition (in general) of Ace that are there as the discourse evolved (both manipulatively and honestly) to move away from MOGAI spaces which have been criticized for, among other things, convincing people that ‘Ace The Identity’ included things like trauma, paranoia, depression etc - again IT IS HARMFUL TO IDENTIFY *AS* ONE’S TRAUMA OR MENTAL ILLNESS. Anyway those points are now:

1. All durations (lifetime, changing, fluctuating) of Asexual behavior qualify one as Ace The Identity 

and to make that ‘real’,

2. All persons exhibiting Asexual behavior are Ace The Identity, even in cases where they know the reason has to do with illness or trauma.

and conflictingly,

3. Aceness **does not mean sex repulsion**

This raises multiple questions. How often an interval are we measuring against to determine someone’s aceness as real? At that point, what is the assumed interval/amount of sexual desire assumed of an ‘allo’ (this is not a real thing, literally everyone has different amounts of sex and varying levels of sexual desire, also at different times in life)? You see, when they started to say you could be Ace but still experience attraction ~under certain conditions~ (aka many extended MOGAI identities) that means that both ‘no sexual attraction’ and ‘some sexual attraction’ qualify as Ace. That...kind of makes everyone ace. If Asexuality is a spectrum, then there has to be a bar somewhere where it ticks over to ‘Not Asexual’. Kind of how sexuality is a spectrum, but Cis and Het is where it ticks back over to ‘not LGBT’. So where is that point?

Back to the example though, what I want to point out is that your friend basically suggested that just hearing about sex was oppressive--why would that be, unless she’s not sex repulsed? Being sex repulsed is a symptom of trauma, so by my personal opinion she has PTSD- she’s not Ace The Identity. However, again now the definition has expanded to include Mental Illnesses which is laughable because at that point that’s a Neurodivergence issue, which is a different community (yep, they overlap bc we’re human but again not all marginalized communities is the same!!). All that aside, that would make her argument that you’re not Ace oppressive. 

Before any of the recent discourse back when I was more involved in the community it was stated and agreed on that actually, yes, Aceness can fluctuate like any other identity can fluctuate. So here we are again. It’s Ace if you’r always Ace or if you’re only Ace sometimes and Ace if it’s ‘completely no to sex’ or ‘sometimes if you really like someone’ or even if ‘you’re romantically attracted to the same sex but still have internalized homophobia’.This is just messy and way too broad. I think social justice clout and the goodheartedness of people just trying to be inclusive have muddied what is a co-opting of LGBT dialogue that covers up a total lack of intersectional understanding, a history of general messiness and a LOT of unresolved trauma being covered up as an ID as a coping mechanism, which is very understandable but honestly kind of a huge issue. It truly tricked a lot of people out of exploring their inner issues or past or just figuring themselves out, and continues to do so. I absolutely believe there are people who are just Ace, but I also believe there are a lot of children (teens) and juvenile, not-fully-developed (!! BRAIN DEVELOPMENT DOESN’T EVEN END UNTIL YOU’RE ABOUT 22-25 PEOPLE !!) adults who think that if they don’t feel attraction constantly-like-on-tv and or at all at their age that they’re Asexual which just...no.