His mother is a radical feminist, so it’s no real surprise that my son Jonah would be an ally. He, like his mother, is a writer — although better, I think, than I am. What I am really proud of, though, is his take on trans politics and “queer” theory. Here’s a link to his blog, Gender Detective, which is devoted to the proposition that as a manmade, sinful social contstruct, gender (not “sex,” which is biological and immutable) is the enemy of all sexual minorities — Lesbians, gay men, and males who identify as women as well as women who identify as men.
This is the crux of the radical feminist argument against “queer” theory: Radfems, like me, wish to abolish this structure, which uses manmade labels like “masculine” and “feminine” to establish strict sex roles that, and there’s no shock here, privilege men and subordinate women. Without gender, males who appear “effeminate” would be encouraged to simply BE and not, through surgery, hormones, and stereotypical “feminine” accoutrements, attempt to colonize female lives, experiences, and spaces by “transitioning to womanhood.” Likewise, without gender, butch women wouldn’t feel the need to transition (surgery, hormones) to “manhood” — although the transman (a female-born person who identifies as male) is at least unlikely to prey upon women in what should be female-only spaces.
This doesn’t make me, or my son, transphobic. Rather, we seek to relieve all people, the Sexual Standard as well as the Sexual Other, of the burdens of gender conformity so they can adopt whatever behaviors and appearances they care to — without muddying the immutable waters of biological sex. A five-year-old boy who eschews trucks and hammers and sports is not a “trans” anything, and certainly not fodder for the lucrative “gender reassignment” industry. No, this five-year-old boy is simply … watch out! … a five-year-old boy playing with stuff he likes. Sadly, these days he’s likely to be psychotherapized and medicated and manufactured into an adolescent “transwoman” in an attempt to modify his body to reflect the silly, arbitrary, fallen agenda of the “masculine.”
It’s important to note that there is a phenomenal culture of violence that’s killed hundreds, if not thousands, of transwomen (female-born, “male-transitioned”). Nobody can or should attempt to deny or excuse it. However, it’s significant that in virtually EVERY case of violence experienced by transwomen, the perpetrator is a biological male. Male violence against transwomen is male-on-male violence, and it is deplorable in all of its various ugly forms.
So … read my son’s work. He’s pretty amazing, and I’m very proud of him:
https://genderdetective.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/okcupid-racism-and-queer-inflation/