DagSeoul: Positions, Populations, Punk, Poetics

dagWeek in Review: Catherine Brennan Lurks

dagseoul:

Because Catherine Brennan is lurking on my blog and giggling about it, let’s look, again, at her definition for what she calls gender identity: “We support the following definition of ‘gender identity’-–a person’s identification with the sex opposite her or his physiology or assigned sex at birth, which can be shown by providing evidence including, but not limited to, medical history, care or treatment of a transsexual medical condition, or related condition, as deemed medically necessary by the American Medical Association.”

Shitty binaries lead to shitty arguments that create shitty definitions used to construct shitty law.

Specifically, the above confines female to that which is the opposite of male and so doing reaffirms traditional patriarchal sex and gender discourse that historically insists to be female is to be other than male apparently to insure men who identify as women can’t be legally considered female. And for what purpose? I don’t think it is at all clear.

Is this the future female subject? —a legal subject of the state composed against all other subjects for her benefit?

Talk about patronizing heteronormative rhetoric.

How does this sort of rhetoric “not harm females”?

Because Catherine Brennan is lurking on my blog and giggling about it, let’s look, again, at her definition for what she calls gender identity: “We support the following definition of ‘gender identity’-–a person’s identification with the sex opposite her or his physiology or assigned sex at birth, which can be shown by providing evidence including, but not limited to, medical history, care or treatment of a transsexual medical condition, or related condition, as deemed medically necessary by the American Medical Association.”

Shitty binaries lead to shitty arguments that create shitty definitions used to construct shitty law.

Specifically, the above confines female to that which is the opposite of male and so doing reaffirms traditional patriarchal sex and gender discourse that historically insists to be female is to be other than male apparently to insure men who identify as women can’t be legally considered female. And for what purpose? I don’t think it is at all clear.

Is this the future female subject? —a legal subject of the state composed against all other subjects for her benefit?

Talk about patronizing heteronormative rhetoric.

(Source: dagseoul)

How does this sort of rhetoric “not harm females”?

interruptions replied to your post: For Her, Seeing is Believing: Patriarchal Feminist Theory (White People Problems)

Check out the def they provide of “gender identity” at note xxix in the communication the FAQ is about. Apparently only trans people have one.

Thanks for the head’s up. I hadn’t read all of it, but it’s craptastic stuff. From the get-go, I realized Brennan is confused about what she’s writing about regarding gender and sex, males and females, men and women. Certainly, she knows how to define concepts for herself and against others. (By the way, I wonder if she realizes how horribly narrow her definition of female is?)

Brennan’s definition for gender identity is constructed to address what she refers to as “transgender or transexual people (by people, I think she means people-born-with-a-penis) and “without harming females”:

We fully support anti-discrimination protections for transgender and transsexual people that do not run rough-shod over laws that protect females.  We support the following definition of “gender identity” – a person’s identification with the sex opposite her or his physiology or assigned sex at birth, which can be shown by providing evidence including, but not limited to, medical history, care or treatment of a transsexual medical condition, or related condition, as deemed medically necessary by the American Medical Association.” Such a definition would protect the classification of sex, while simultaneously providing a cause of action for discriminatory practices on the basis of a persistent and documented “gender identity.”  We welcome people who fit into this definition into space segregated by sex in recognition of their perceived need for access and in the fervent hope that we can achieve such protection for identifiably transgender or transsexual people without harming females.

I don’t mean to be funny, but I have to wonder if Brennan believes all females are people? In the above definition, I get the sense all males and all men are people no matter how you choose to define “male” and “men”. It seems that’s an unstated assumption. But if all females are women but not all women are females—because some women are males who don’t identify as men—then are all females people? I’m confused.

Horrible, horrible writing representing narrow and conservative thinking. She is a reactionary for sure, but her feminism seems to adopt and adapt the worst aspects of white masculinity’s regressivity.