(no subject)
Jan. 2nd, 2019 03:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
notreallystarsWell this was a bit longer than I'd anticipated! I'm doing a lot of thinking here.
I've just watched this amazing video about masculinity in Fantastic Beasts.
I loved it; I think this is exactly the kind of discussion about masculinity and performance of masculinity that society needs to be having, and I think Pop Culture Detective does this kind of thing really well in other videos too.
That's not the bit that I want to talk about. I haven't seen Fantastic Beasts, but I identify a lot with Newt as he is described in the video - a nurturing, empathetic person who can have difficulties forming friendships. What interests me is that this is described in the video as a way of performing masculinity. When cis men behave in these ways and display these personality traits that can be understood as a performance of masculinity, whereas when I or any other transmasculine person behave in the same way it is often interpreted as proof that we're 'really women after all'.
Trans women have been dealing with their side of this issue for longer than I want to think about (a cis woman who refuses to shave her body hair is empowered, but a trans woman who does the same is 'not trying hard enough', because double standards are fucking everywhere), but I don't often see this coming up with respect to trans guys1, so I decided to talk about it myself.
Trans people can never win. That is my foundational assumption, and I don't see it going anywhere soon. A trans man who behaves in traditionally masculine ways is 'giving in to the patriarchy', a trans man who behaves in traditionally feminine ways is 'a woman who is betraying other women in order to escape oppression'because as we all know trans people experience zero oppression. A cis friend of mine enjoys knitting and is enthusiastic about Lush skincare products. If I said this friend was a woman that would seem completely unremarkable to almost everyone. If I said this friend was a man there would be at the very least a few lefty-liberal folk feeling that he was doing well at breaking down gender stereotypes. If I said instead that this was a trans guy there would be a lot of people thinking he was Doing It Wrong; that certainly is the position that most gender identity clinics in this country would take.
Why is it that when cis people break gender stereotypes that is something to be applauded (at least among progressive/left wing/liberal/whatever-other-label folk) but when trans people do it we make most people at least a little uncomfortable? People want these categories to be flexible, but not in that way. They want to break down traditional expectations, but trans people can't be involved even though we are probably the people best placed to do so because we are already doing it. Is that the concern, perhaps? That they want to break down these categories, but not too far. They want to feel that they're toeing the progressive line in advocating for the end of gender stereotyping, but the idea of what that might look like if you let people do it however they want still makes people uncomfortable.
When do we get to admit that a lot of these things are just personality traits, and nothing to do with gender at all?
When I display nurturing and empathetic qualities, I don't consider that I'm performing masculinity or femininity - I don't think that I'm performing anything to do with gender at all. I'm just performing my authentic self. When it becomes clear that I have no understanding of what colours 'go' together and would rather cut off an arm than go clothes shopping, I similarly don't think of this as gendered at all; it's just me. If I were a cis man, they would both be thought of as a performance of (admittedly unusual) masculinity; if I were a cis woman they would likewise be thought of as a performance of femininity. Because I am trans however, they are both and neither. Both, in that they are likely to get separated out into 'masculine' things and 'feminine' things; neither in that the first will be and has been used to negate my masculinity and the second has been used tell me that I'm doing femininity wrong.
I don't think they do either of those things. I think what they do is display my personality.
I don't really have a conclusion to this. I think this needs to change but I don't know how to make that happen. I think this gendered nonsense is hurting everyone but people don't know how to make it stop. I think that it's nearly 5am and I'm probably less coherent than I imagine myself to be. I think that the gender vs personality thing can't really be satisfactorily resolved because gendered socialisation encourages different personality traits in boys and girls and no one is really free from that. I don't know how to persuade people to stop judging certain hobbies, personality traits, and preferences as typically masculine or feminine. I want to encourage portrayals of men like Newt Scamander, but I also want to move past a world in which those portrayals are considered to be performances of masculinity instead of just performances of a character.
Maybe I'm missing the point. It's just that this is the point that leaped out at me watching the video: my character is pretty similar to Newt's as described in the video but whereas he is performing masculinity, I am proving that I'm not really trans/am really a woman. This is surely not the way it ought to work.
1 If I've just been looking in the wrong places and there's loads out there to find, I'd really like to know about that!
I've just watched this amazing video about masculinity in Fantastic Beasts.
I loved it; I think this is exactly the kind of discussion about masculinity and performance of masculinity that society needs to be having, and I think Pop Culture Detective does this kind of thing really well in other videos too.
That's not the bit that I want to talk about. I haven't seen Fantastic Beasts, but I identify a lot with Newt as he is described in the video - a nurturing, empathetic person who can have difficulties forming friendships. What interests me is that this is described in the video as a way of performing masculinity. When cis men behave in these ways and display these personality traits that can be understood as a performance of masculinity, whereas when I or any other transmasculine person behave in the same way it is often interpreted as proof that we're 'really women after all'.
Trans women have been dealing with their side of this issue for longer than I want to think about (a cis woman who refuses to shave her body hair is empowered, but a trans woman who does the same is 'not trying hard enough', because double standards are fucking everywhere), but I don't often see this coming up with respect to trans guys1, so I decided to talk about it myself.
Trans people can never win. That is my foundational assumption, and I don't see it going anywhere soon. A trans man who behaves in traditionally masculine ways is 'giving in to the patriarchy', a trans man who behaves in traditionally feminine ways is 'a woman who is betraying other women in order to escape oppression'
Why is it that when cis people break gender stereotypes that is something to be applauded (at least among progressive/left wing/liberal/whatever-other-label folk) but when trans people do it we make most people at least a little uncomfortable? People want these categories to be flexible, but not in that way. They want to break down traditional expectations, but trans people can't be involved even though we are probably the people best placed to do so because we are already doing it. Is that the concern, perhaps? That they want to break down these categories, but not too far. They want to feel that they're toeing the progressive line in advocating for the end of gender stereotyping, but the idea of what that might look like if you let people do it however they want still makes people uncomfortable.
When do we get to admit that a lot of these things are just personality traits, and nothing to do with gender at all?
When I display nurturing and empathetic qualities, I don't consider that I'm performing masculinity or femininity - I don't think that I'm performing anything to do with gender at all. I'm just performing my authentic self. When it becomes clear that I have no understanding of what colours 'go' together and would rather cut off an arm than go clothes shopping, I similarly don't think of this as gendered at all; it's just me. If I were a cis man, they would both be thought of as a performance of (admittedly unusual) masculinity; if I were a cis woman they would likewise be thought of as a performance of femininity. Because I am trans however, they are both and neither. Both, in that they are likely to get separated out into 'masculine' things and 'feminine' things; neither in that the first will be and has been used to negate my masculinity and the second has been used tell me that I'm doing femininity wrong.
I don't think they do either of those things. I think what they do is display my personality.
I don't really have a conclusion to this. I think this needs to change but I don't know how to make that happen. I think this gendered nonsense is hurting everyone but people don't know how to make it stop. I think that it's nearly 5am and I'm probably less coherent than I imagine myself to be. I think that the gender vs personality thing can't really be satisfactorily resolved because gendered socialisation encourages different personality traits in boys and girls and no one is really free from that. I don't know how to persuade people to stop judging certain hobbies, personality traits, and preferences as typically masculine or feminine. I want to encourage portrayals of men like Newt Scamander, but I also want to move past a world in which those portrayals are considered to be performances of masculinity instead of just performances of a character.
Maybe I'm missing the point. It's just that this is the point that leaped out at me watching the video: my character is pretty similar to Newt's as described in the video but whereas he is performing masculinity, I am proving that I'm not really trans/am really a woman. This is surely not the way it ought to work.
1 If I've just been looking in the wrong places and there's loads out there to find, I'd really like to know about that!
no subject
Date: 2019-01-02 07:18 am (UTC)And I have definitely seen it with trans men before! When make up started gaining traction & acceptance for cis men, trans men were still thrown under the bus and questioned if they had any interest in it. It's just... really not fair that we're trying to remove the boundaries and show that people are just people and their gender has no bearing on their personality/preferences... but with trans people, they have to hyper-perform just to be accepted as their gender. They have to become a stereotype instead being allowed to be themselves. Gender is such a complex thing because it's not a personality trait and it's not what's in your pants, and I think people trying keep it to such a simple definition is what's hurting trans people (even though the aforementioned people might not actively be trying to do so.)
no subject
Date: 2019-01-02 10:49 pm (UTC)Yes, gender really is far more complex than most people seem to realise, and I wish I knew how to make them all realise they're wrong! All that seems to happen when I talk to cis people about gender IRL though is that they tune out of the conversation because they think I might be becoming an Angry Trans. Hence the internet essays!