Gender & Sexuality Studies
Topic:
Issues of Sex and Gender in Society Today
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Society has continuously grown to acknowledge and accept transgender identities; it has continually been a controversial gender-identity topic. Gender identity has been fundamental in society as it aids people to self-identify depending on how they express their internal selves. This identification goes beyond what gender one was assigned during birth. Transgender individuals typically identify with members of a different gender from the one identified during birth. Different commentators have given their views on the transgender community, specifically transgender women. Radical feminists have demonstrated their disapproval of transgender women entirely belonging to the female gender. In contrast, others have argued that transgender women face similar oppression and sexism as cisgender women. Over time, there has been an unending discussion among feminists on whether transwomen should identify themselves in all contexts.
Gender Identity for Transgender Women
An individual’s gender identity can align with the sex they are assigned at birth or one they choose to align with even when it was not given at birth. The controversy on the identity of transgender women being women was brought into the limelight when Nigerian novelist and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie asserted that transwomen were trans women when she was asked whether they were real women (Crockett, 2017). While the feminist would later apologize for the statement since it was seen as if one identity was greater than another one, critics continue to highlight this problem. The critics assert that trans women are seen as a distinctive category from real women; it becomes dangerous due to the discrimination forms that transgender individuals have to deal with. The feminist’s mistake was that she sent a powerful message that transwomen are not similar to the other women (Crockett, 2017). Her intention was not meant to hurt transwomen, and that she was accurate in considering gender to be a social construct. However, if gender is extensively about how people treat individuals, it is difficult to ignore how trans people are specifically treated.
Radical feminists have been critical in discerning whether the transwoman should be considered a woman. Hence, the radical feminists have asserted that the transwoman being fully a woman comes from the notion that gender is a social class system where women get opposed based on their biological characteristics and, not their femininity (Zanghelini, 2020). The majority of these feminists believe that an individual has their gender labeled during birth to either be male or female. Additionally, they argue that since trans women were considered male at birth, they have grown enjoying some degree of male privilege with limited experiences similar to the one identified as a female. Their focus is on eliminating all forms of male dominance in social and economic aspects, which cannot be attained when society brings in individuals who have no full understanding of this impact. Transwomen individuals have disagreed with this view of experiencing some male privilege due to the unending discrimination they were forced to deal with from transgender policing. Transgender policing has been a racialization and class hierarchy that reflected a practice of calling a grown man a boy or being pretty or fairy. Women who are too masculine or sexual or strong or fast or emasculating, which are considered masculine traits, are discriminated against for their natural bodies.
Radical feminists would go on further to assert that even when the transgender woman chose to live like a female individual and acknowledged the compatible secondary social position given to the latter, the fact that she gets to choose these positions impeded their level of understanding of what it is to be a woman (Jeffreys, 2014). These trans women get to have the privilege of freely transitioning from being a man to the kind of gender identity they prefer. Ultimately, feminists believe that the biological nature of transwomen brings confusion on women’s boundaries and could disrupt feminist objectives of creating a voice for women. Therefore, radical feminists believe that they present enough ideas to encourage all of them to keep the women-only areas and service industries for cisgender women only.
Conversely, some feminists have been trans-inclusive and supportive towards upholding the rights of these transwomen immediately they identify as women. the trans feminists have argued that both trans women and cisgender women have to deal with several forms of oppression have a mutual interest in fighting sexism (Finlayson et al., 2018). The fact that people are assigned to be either male or female at birth creates a difference between the individuals. However, as asserted by the different theories, whether queer, feminist or critical race theory, all bodies are made of one kind no more or less scientifically than the other. Therefore, while there are different ways to become a woman, this should not stop them from enjoying the rights that come with that position. The trans women have demonstrated to have more in common with any other ciswoman in the society compared to their gender assigned at birth.
Unending Debated Bathroom laws Relating to the Transgender Community
There have been unending legal debates on the rights of transgender individuals in the United States have added onto the numerous studies relating to the ‘bathroom law.’ These debates add to the legal provisions and analyses that range from the right to work to eliminating racial segregation. According to Rios & Resadori (2015), bathroom inequality has been one of the greatest challenges that have impeded the full integration of the transgender community into the American community.
The trans-exclusionary bathroom laws provide new meaning to these mechanisms as they target their exclusive use to cisgender individuals while segregating the transgender community. Ultimately, the discriminatory laws would reverse the burden of crime as the trans individuals who have asserted their right to utilize these social facilities would be penalized instead of penalizing the wrong legal practices that seek the exclusion and invisibility of the transgender community (Bagagli et al., 2021). The latter discriminatory practices are typically based on the definition of sex as the set of immutable physical traits and the legal assignment of sex that was initially registered in an individual’s birth records. For instance, South Carolina has a bill that emphasizes on the original birth certificate being the definitive evidence that is not accidental considering that transgender individuals may later choose to rectify this assignment of sex in their formal records (South Carolina legislature online, 2016). The proposed wording for the bill has implied that even the transgender individuals who have already rectified their official documents could not theoretically use the bathroom as per their present official documents, which has denied the right of recognizing civil identity and the legal status of transgender individuals.
The term trans-exclusionary has commonly been used for specifying the radical feminist currents who call for the exclusion of trans women from feminism. The exclusion has been founded on the basic premise that fighting for the rights of transgender individuals is in itself antagonistic with the cisgender women’s rights. Furthermore, in the naming, this feminist current, using the expression ‘trans-exclusionary’, could designate an extensive set of transphobic practices that foster exclusion or effectively exclude this transgender community from distinct spaces, including transwomen from the women’s bathroom. In this sense, it is understandable that excluding transgender individuals due to their gender identity is only a form of manifestation of cissexism or transphobia. It is not a coincidence that several trans-exclusionary radical feminists are advocating for the positions that favor the exclusion of trans-women from the women’s bathrooms. According to Jones & Slater (2020), the hostility that has been directed towards the trans individuals from several factions within feminism has monopolized the public discussion within the movement, with bathroom access being a symbol that is overloaded with significance.
Conclusion
Notably, good science has shown that the acceptance of transgender individuals for who they are allows them to thrive. Also, Cooper (2019) would assert that invoking the legal pluralist perspective is possible and desirable in handling this debacle. In this case, the gender-critical feminists who conceive gender as sex-based and the trans-affirming feminists who consider gender to be diverse can coexist together legally. The access to women’s spaces is just a policy issue that should not require the selecting gender to be a conception of one side over another. With the compelling feminist case that has been established for inclusivity, The best feminist case against inclusion does duffer from several argumentative fallacies. The latter position is at odds with the well-established and sound uses of practical reason. Most of the challenges within the gender-critical thoughts align with the explanations that paranoid structuralism is too often presupposed in the gender-critical work instead of treating it productively as a hypothesis.
As society accepts the different forms of gender identities that exist in society, it is prudent to acknowledge that it will remain a controversial issue. The agreements and disagreements on whether trans women need to be treated similarly to cisgender women or differently remain controversial. These dynamics will continue to change even to matters such as implementing bathroom laws pointing out the challenge facing the feminist movement.
References
Bagagli, B. P., Chaves, T. V., & Zoppi Fontana, M. G. (2021). Trans women and public restrooms: the legal discourse and its violence. Frontiers in Sociology, 6, 54.
Cooper, D. (2019). A very binary drama: The conceptual struggle for gender’s future. King’s College London Law School Research Paper, (2019-34).
Crockett, E. (2017, March 15). The controversy over Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and trans women, explained. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14910900/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-transgender-women-comments-apology
Finlayson, L., Jenkins, K., & Worsdale, R. (2018). ‘I’m not transphobic, but…‘: A feminist case against the feminist case against trans inclusivity. Versobooks. Com.
Jeffreys, S. (2014). Gender hurts: A feminist analysis of the politics of transgenderism. Routledge.
Jones, C., & Slater, J. (2020). The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’. The Sociological Review, 68(4), 834-851.
Rios, R. R., & Resadori, A. H. (2015). Direitos humanos, transexualidade e “direito dos banheiros”. Revista Direito e Práxis, 6(12), 196-227.
South Carolina legislature online – Bill search by bill number. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=1306&session=121&summary=B
Zanghellini, A. (2020). Philosophical problems with the gender-critical feminist argument against trans inclusion. Sage open, 10(2), 2158244020927029.
