Anonymous 11:30 Thursday wrote:

An odd position to find myself in: I agree with many of the straight, white, male posters.

Being a straight black feminist woman who in the past has ACTIVELY aligned with the GLBT movement this sort of shocks a little.

I guess you lost me when essentialism became ok with some of the posters. Which means, I guess, since I'm a black woman, it makes sense for me to be biologically (essentially) stupid and oversexed.

Only if you want to be. There's no biological reason why you should, no actual evidence that you're fated to be that way.

Laving aside the "oversexed" bit, everyone has the capability to be stupid. I exercise my own capability there rather more than I like to admit, as is obvious.

Some people are constrained to have less intelligence than others, by biology. I live next to a halfway house for those with severe intellectual difficulties, many of them never master "patty cake". To say that this is because of Nurture would be so self-evidently false, no-one seriously suggests it.

Yet in a kind of "doublethink", many see no inconsistency between such extreme cases and saying that Nature does not provide constraints in individuals - rather than in ethnic groups, something for which there is no evidence whatsoever. There has been almost as much Junk Science about bogus "racial differences" as there has been about Transsexuality.

Or because I'm a woman that my goal in life is to be married with 2.5 kids. All because of those hormones and uterus.

The evidence shows that hormones do have effects. Just ask someone who has transitioned.

By denying that biology has any part to play, that gender (as opposed to gender role) is a social construct, you not only dismiss the testimony of transsexual people, from a position of cisgendered privilege you disempower them, some of the most powerless in society. You don't even realise you're doing it.

This should come as a lesson to those who believe the Patriarchy is a conscious social construct, a conspiracy of privileged males to oppress women. Now that may be true in some cases, but the vast majority of men have no idea how privileged they are, nor how arrogant. If they realised, they'd be horrified. It's an easy trap to fall into, as you have just done. Demonising opponents is easy, but to effectively fight them, you must understand them. Hopefully my words will help there.

Come on, gender roles are learned!

That's what the evidence says, yes, I agree. Close enough to 100% true that it may as well be 100%.

I'm in Engineering. On purely biological grounds, perhaps 30% of engineers should be female, because of neural wiring. Sorry if that's un-PC and not in accordance with your non-evidence-based philosophy, but tough.

But the fact is that only 8-12% of engineers are female, and that is from social conditioning, a waste of talent and clear evidence of oppression. That doesn't accord with some right-wing misogenistic views held by both privileged straight and gay males, but again, tough.

Most Japanese are darker and shorter than most Swedes. But some Japanese are taller and lighter than some Swedes. To force everyone to fit into simplistic molds, where you are only allowed to follow stereotypes (many of which have no biological basis) is oppressive. It's something the anti-Gay and anti-Feminist movements do all the time, as do Racists. We have to judge people as individuals.

In closing, personally I could not bring myself to effectively support oppression of any group, just because some of them had radical differences in philosophy from my own. I'm a Feminist, and always was. That the mainstream branch of Postmodernist Feminist Thought denies my very existence I find vexing, but ultimately of no import when it comes to employment rights and fighting oppression.

We - and that means me especially - should never let our Ideology over-ride our Humanity.

Today, I spoke with Rep. Baron Hill's press secretary and she was very adamant that they are not holding up ENDA (see update below) and that Rep. Hill is indeed supportive of a trans-inclusive ENDA. Of course, they waffled in saying that there are always last minute changes that could blow up any bill, but that the Congressman was supportive of gender identity being included in ENDA, fundamentally.

Nonetheless, she encouraged folks to still contact the Congressman's office to indicate their support for ENDA with trans-inclusive language. Be sure to thank the Congressman for supporting non-discrimination.

Further, the Congressman's staff was shocked to be asked about the Whip count that Rep. Frank mentions in his guest post on this site. In fact, she was adamant that Rep. Hill had not participated in any official Whip count on ENDA and that their office was unaware of ANY official Whip count taking place.

...

UPDATE: I spoke with Rep. Hill's press secretary again. She says there was an "unofficial Whip count" on this issue and that Rep. Hill voted "undecided". She says Rep. Hill isn't an impediment to any ENDA bill, but I countered that if he voted "undecided" on the Whip count in question, that figured into Rep. Frank's decision to pull "gender identity" according to Rep. Frank's own words. In other words, an "undecided" vote is no different than a no vote if the Whip count is to determine if a majority exists, which is what Rep. Frank says in the quote above.

There is still no clarity as to whether this Whip count was official or unofficial.

http://www.bilerico.com/2007/10/rep_baron_hill_support_enda_with_traninc.php

So tell me about Rep Frank's great political acumen again.

Perhaps this might explain to Gays what TS people go through. Appropriate for "Coming Out Day".

The most common family reaction when you come out?

"WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST BE GAY?????"