What is a Woman (or a Man): A Trans Woman's Perspective | Trans Sandwiched #15

The insistence on line-drawing, not the existence of trans people, is the problem.

Welcome back to Trans Sandwiched by TaraElla. Today, I want to talk about the twin questions of 'what is a woman', and its reverse, 'what is a man', from the perspective of a trans woman. From what I see, a small number of people keep asking these questions for a variety of reasons, which leads people to think that trans people are out to challenge common societal understandings about men and women, which ultimately brings on a lot of unnecessary backlash to us. In this episode, I will argue that people have been looking at the whole thing in the wrong way.

So, 'what is a woman'? Or, 'what is a man'? I guess there are no hard and fast answers to these questions. You see, the concepts 'man' and 'woman' were part of the English language, and indeed part of every language in the world, well before humans had given any thoughts to define things clearly. Historically, the need to define things absolutely clearly came with the development of things like modern legal systems and scientific study. However, human civilization had a long history before these developments. And it is in these ancient times that the concepts of 'men' and 'women' arose.

Before what we could call modern academic thinking emerged, the way human beings understood things, especially natural phenomenon, was mostly by perception, and comparing to what they already knew. Hence, a 'man' was what people perceived as similar to other men they had known, and a 'woman' was what people perceived as similar to other women they had known. There was no 'definition', in the modern sense, to speak of. We also have to remember that perception is necessarily subjective to some extent, which means its application to borderline cases could vary between observers. (However, in ancient times, people generally lived in smaller and more isolated communities, and they weren't likely to come across borderline cases, so it wasn't much of a problem.) Hence, any rule that claims to be able to objectively and reliably classify borderline cases as 'men' or 'women' 100% of the time, would have to be a modern invention. This includes definitions based on reproductive systems, gametes, genes and identity alike.

This then begs the question: if a 100% clear and certain definition for 'man' and 'woman' never existed in the first place, is it a good idea to invent one now? I don't actually think so. The fact is, whatever definition you come up with, it is going to be problematic in some way. For example, definitions emphasizing genetics, reproductive systems or other aspects of anatomy are going to find plenty of exceptions, even if we exclude trans people. There are non-trans women with XY chromosomes, there are many naturally infertile men and women, and there are certainly enough people with atypical anatomy to make any system of definition embarrassing and painfully hurtful to some individuals. Besides, why do we have to obsess about classifying people? Can't we just accept people as they are, and treat everyone with compassion?

Since there really can be no satisfactory definition, instead of obsessing about definitions and where to 'draw the line', I think it is more useful to think of 'man' and 'woman' as archetypes, which would in fact be more consistent with the traditional way people used these words. There is a clear archetype of what a 'man' is, and what a 'woman' is, agreed to by people across the centuries and across different cultures, and everyone knows what the archetypes look like. Therefore, we do actually have a firm and shared understanding of what a 'man' or a 'woman' is.

But how about trans people, who basically have a mix of features from both archetypes? People who insist on engaging in line-drawing exercises make it look like it's trans people who are the problem, but then, if you let go of the obsessive need to put people into boxes, much of the problem actually goes away. Trans people do not inherently challenge the long-standing archetypes of 'man' and 'woman' just by existing. It is only the act of obsessive line-drawing that makes it look like so. I think society should simply recognize that trans people are an exception to the rule, and provide accommodations where necessary, rather than be fixated on which 'category' we should belong to.

Ultimately, the point of life shouldn't be to obsessively classify people. People should be treated as human beings rather than objects to be classified, and accepted as they exist, even if they don't fit into boxes neatly.

***

If trans people are not the ones interested in drawing the line between men and women, then who is? From what I see, there are three types of people, with three types of agendas, involved. Firstly, there is the anti-LGBT rights faction of the conservatives. Among this group, the idea that there needs to be a firm line between 'men' and 'women' appeared to have developed during the gay marriage debate. Back in 2004, in response to the courts legalizing gay marriage in Massachusetts and some parts of Canada, the anti-gay marriage people proposed constitutional amendments to stop what they saw as 'judicial activism'. In fact, some were so fearful of 'judicial activism' that they were not even satisfied with defining marriage as between a man and a woman, they thought they also needed a clear definition of the terms 'man' and 'woman'.

The effort to define 'man' and 'woman' ultimately didn't amount to much, because it was something that was hard to put boundaries around (as I had demonstrated above). Ultimately, gay marriage was legalized by the US Supreme Court on grounds that had nothing to do with the definitions of 'man' and 'woman', which just shows how futile the whole thing was. However, when trans issues became a mainstream topic around the same time, the effort to define 'man' and 'woman' resumed, this time to defeat trans rights. I guess the thinking is, if they could come up with a reliable and generally accepted rule to categorize people as 'men' and 'women', and demonstrate that trans women are men under that rule, then trans rights become invalid. However, the argument that trans people deserve rights because we deserve compassion, isn't going to be affected by their line-drawing exercise. In other words, trans acceptance and trans rights aren't going to be stopped by line-drawing exercises, and frankly I'm not that worried about such exercises.

The second type of people who are interested in line-drawing are the radical feminists whose politics are rooted in the critical theory pseudo-class struggle model. A definition of 'woman' is needed here, because men are defined as the oppressor class, women are defined as the oppressed class, and people need to be clearly sorted into the oppressor or oppressed class. Furthermore, gender critical theory says that women are oppressed because of their reproductive capacity, which provides labor for the capitalist system. Therefore, the line gender critical feminists use would logically have to be drawn around reproductive organs. Which is why they are so certain that trans women are men (and hence part of the oppressor class). However, when asked to explain why they include infertile genetic women as women, they never seem to give a convincing answer, that would still be consistent with their exclusion of trans women. Which just shows that line-drawing is always going to be problematic, and is going to be even more problematic when it is done in the service of identity politics. It is also important to note that the gender critical view of what a woman is, is in fact a very radical and ahistorical one, because it is ultimately a form of pseudo-Marxist class membership, rooted in the 20th century theory that having a womb makes you a member of the oppressed class.

The final type of people who are interested in line-drawing are the postmodernism inspired gender deconstructionists. Many such activists probably don't even want the traditional categories of men and women to exist. By engaging in some line-drawing, and dragging borderline cases like trans people into it to 'make it problematic', they can destabilize the categories. This is why, when trans people say that people should be accepted as what they identify as, deconstructionists seem to agree too. The problem is, trans people generally want this rule to apply to themselves, so they could be accepted and have an easier time in life. Deconstructionists want this rule to apply to everyone in society, which they think will lead to the destabilization and collapse of the categories altogether. The underlying motivations of the deconstructionists are picked up by general society, who then begin to fear that trans rights will end up fundamentally affecting their commonly held understanding of gender. Hence, deconstructionists effectively use trans people as cannon fodder to make their point in the culture wars, while carelessly creating backlash towards trans people.

So how should we resolve this problem? I think this problem could be best resolved by re-affirming the long-standing notions of 'man' and 'woman' for society in general, while creating clearly defined exceptions for trans people. This could start with moving to an archetype-based view of 'man' and 'woman' (as described above), which would have strong roots in our inherited understandings, and also resistant to destabilization by the games of the deconstructionists, because they are not vulnerable to be 'made problematic' by a line-drawing game. Trans people would then be treated as an 'exception to the rule' minority, with appropriate accommodations. Social gender would then still be tied to traditional notions for the vast majority of the population, while trans people get an exception justified on compassionate grounds, and are treated on the basis of their gender identity where practicable, which is at least most of the time.