Quote:
Originally Posted by Martina
i am not talking about the circumstances of a man's life or making generalizations about how much he may get out of his privilege.
i may not KNOW that i am interacting with a transman. i do know i am interacting with a man. And if he is careless about the way he handles his privilege, he will do harm. i do not like to hear anyone denying that responsibility. It's not all about the transmen's personal experience or how educated a cis-gender person should be ideally.
The fact is that in the office or sitting in a classroom, a man interacting with a woman has a responsibility to be aware of male privilege and how that can disempower her.
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Ok, well I wasn't going to respond because I have this feeling of going in circles, and figured we might as well stop before one of us drops down dizzy. But hey, who doesn't like a good headrush?
I highlighted in my last post why I was taking issue with yours and other posts and the way you were using male privilege in conjunction with transmen or non-biological (though I'm finding myself even taking issue with this term of description) male identities. But upon further consideration what truly does not sit well with me is both the absolutism of your words (and as far as I'm concerned, no situation can be absolute, and it takes more effort to keep that absolutist view in place than realise that most colours are the result of the mixtures of mixtures, if that makes sense), in addition to your statement that the presence of privilege in your hypothetical setting (interesting that you should call my examples of why many transmen may not have what is popularly called male privilege generalised when your hypothetical transman in his hypothetical office/classroom with his hypothetical responsibility talking to a hypothetical woman is...well...the definition of generalised) is not affected at all by the circumstances of a transman's life.
In fact, I'm not sure that you can entirely or absolutely divorce the experiences of a transman as a transman from a hypothetical situation such as you have described. First of all, let's think a little bit about the freedoms and therefore privileges that "passing" may or may not provide. What is "passing?" I mean that question to involve both its definition and its implications on the life of the one doing the "passing." Unfortunately, the Oxford dictionary does not reflect on the term
passing as it is applied race or sex, but settles for a brief mention of passing as "of a resemblence or similarity." So when we're talking about "passing" are we as "female to male" identities agreeing with popular belief that we are actually imperfect copies of men that require hiding those imperfections in order to maintain our well-being? That we are not "real men" but merely trying to trick others into seeing us as men?
And if this is, truly what we are doing then why do we do it? To be
seen as male by mainstream society. What does being
seen as male mean? For many it means that society does not identify us as female, but as our mind's sex. That, then, means that society believes that men born with XX chromosomes and an anatomy defined as "female" are not male, cannot be seriously considered male, and so we tell ourselves and keep the misconceptions alive. Hence why I would argue that passing
can be (note, I do not state "
always is") an oppressive tool, and just because a transman passes does not mean that he cannot be disempowered by another man, woman or any other identity; does not mean he cannot be silenced, and the secret disempowerment during a seemingly innocent hypothetical conversation can be very harmful, and can, in fact, create a problem out of throwing "male privilege" at him. Again, my argument is not that it exists, but that this so-called responsibility (which nothing can truly be if one simply places that on another person without their consent) cannot exist on its own and only on the side of the transman (and certainly not without taking into consideration his experiences as a transman).
If we are going to bring the issue of transmen, passing and what male privilege exists for transmen, then we cannot allow that discussion to be a one-sided flogging block. The hypothetical woman, in this hypothetical discussion with this hypothetical transman
also has a responsibility to be aware of her cisgender privilege; the privilege she possesses as a non-transgender person, or, if she is a hypothetical heterosexual "biological" women, of her privilege beyond the queer spectrum. She should not be excused of her unawareness because of the fact that she does not know she is interacting with a transman. If the world is to drop its rigid gender laws, then it must remain constantly aware of what one says, because even the most "innocent" comments can be a privilege if you've never been at the pointy end[s] of the stick.
Again, just because someone passes, just because the other party doesn't know a transman was born female, does not mean that other party is powerless to hurt that transman. It just means that a transman may very well remain silent in order to avoid making his humiliation or offense public for fear that society will view him as a lesser man, or not a man at all; or perhaps it isn't not being seen as a man that frightens him most, but the consequences of that visibility. I'm thinking also of those of part African, part European heritage who have also used passing for survival or the attempt to gain and maintain some dignity in society. If an African American man who can pass as a white man is in the presence of a white woman who does not recognise his African American heritage, who does not remain aware of her own privilege, does that mean that that man is not humiliated, silenced or disempowered by a comment she makes thinking she is in the presence of a white man? How does his white male privilege compare to a white man who is not "passing?"
Like trans people, I feel that he, too, is wedged somewhere between oppression and privilege (both hanging a mighty big axe over his head). Again, the dynamic is not so black and white when you are dealing with a "passing" individual.
And this is a main part of my point. While the transman may arguably possess male privilege in this hypothetically hypothetical situation (yes, I think I may just have crossed the border to ridiculousland), the woman in the situation
also possesses a privilege whether she is ignorant of it or aware of it.
Furthermore, what is the point of discussing one individual's privilege within a situation, if the awareness of each person's privilege is
equally important when it comes down to burning the gender rulebook? The only purpose I can see is to guilt, alienate and shame one of the two parties; to place the importance of one over the other, and that is what I feel has happened at certain points of this thread when male privilege and transmen have been brought up. Especially when it comes to accusatory statements about a person supposedly denying their privilege without necessarily knowing the circumstances of their life or their struggles. And that is something
I do not like to see or hear.
The source of both privileges is the rigidly heterosexual, gendered, classed etc. society we live in, and attacking one person over another screams ridding one's self of one's own responsibility and dumping it onto somebody else. This is not what I want, and feel we should be dealing with the source, not the symptoms. I don't mind talking about male privilege and how it relates to transmen, but if we're going to do that then we should also recognise how that privilege
differs for transmen and the perhaps brutal and unpleasant reality of passing in so far as how it affects that privilege. We should also be discussing the very basic privileges someone who is not trans possesses over someone who is trans,
in conjunction with the above discussion, because that privilege is something most people (I dare say both in and out of the LGBT community) are dreadfully unaware of.