Bodies That Matter, Part II — Detransitioning

In the last post I argued that we are naturally occurring variations in the system. And that we should own that, rather than embark on the path of trying to be exactly what the system already mostly offers – that is, gender normative men and women.

For myself, this would be an inversion of much of the work I’ve tried to do when interacting with the gender normative world. Especially in my early years, when it seemed the two things I cared most about were a) being really accepted as a woman and b) passing.

I think in my mind I felt that accomplishing those two things, or at least one of them, would somehow authorize me to feel the (fem) feelings I was having.

Bodies That Matter: On Trans Legitimacy

As David Buller says in a recent Newsweek article on the limits of evolutionary psychology, human variation is not noise in the system; it is the system.

Most arguments about transgender — as opposed to bio-genders — are based on the issue of legitimacy. Bio-bodies have it; trans-bodies don’t. They are “real” man and “real” women, we want to be them. And if not to approximate them as closely as possible.

Postmodernists are quick to point out that arguments about legitimacy tend to be diversionary. They are not actually about what is “real” but rather a political tactic. Some bodies are empowered and others are disempowered and marginalized.