for that, Carol. In a world of people who demand that everything be either black or white, it's nice to hear from someone who knows that life is almost always in shades of grey.

is that it is both liberating and mutilating. And that one had better be sure that the liberation is going to be worth the uncomfortable process and permanent changes.

I'm surprised you didn't bring up Kate Bornstein.

The idea that gender is nothing but a social construct is simply idiotic. I don't understand how a theory that seems to have no evidence, with a mountain of evidence disproving it, gets taught in higher education. I've never taken Women's Studies, but isn't this theory what is taught?

Sure, girls are encouraged by society to play with dolls and look pretty, etc at a young age but it doesnt follow that gender is NOTHING BUT a social construct.

How are these people not challenged?

If you looked at a lot of literature of the transgendered community (and by the way, they should probably be termed transgendered and not transsexual), you will find the idea of an essential nature of being a man or a woman is not common. Read the works of Kate Bornstein, for an example. Or essays by Sandy Stone. Or any other countless writers and theorists from a transgendered perspective. Indeed, it is the not the transgendered people who so often make arguments of being trapped in the wrong body, but the medical establishment that regulates who get the surgery and who doesn't. In order to get the surgery, a trans person is often expected to recite a certain a narrative, to explain certain feelings. Often these have little to nothing to do with what the trans person feels or has experienced. Sandy Stone's classic essay "The Empire Strikes Back: A PostTranssexual Manifesto" (which can be here http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/~sandy/empire-strikes-back ) details some of this.

On the other hand, the Mary Dalys and Janice Raymonds of the world seem completely fine with gender essentialism. Their problems with trans people seem even to be how it destabilizes our notions of gender.

And I may be unfair in reaching this conclusion, but it does seem that Broadsheet spends most of its time chastising women.

I don't think Julie Bindel is "transphobic", to use your hair-raisingly awful invented fake-English word. In the course of a thoughtful piece, you skipped gaily over Bindel's assessment of a complicated news story about a man-turned-woman suing a destitute rape clinic for the right to counsel terrified raped women. The lawsuit, which the transgendered person lost, itself revealed why he-she shouldn't have been allowed into a woman's life at such an awful time. Rape clinics aren't about self. They're about helping others. It may make the counsellor feel terribly feminine to talk to rape victims, but the question is: does it help or frighten the victim? Isn't that what counts most? It's not an office, it's a rape clinic.

Here's a link to a brilliant article by Bindel in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2127319,00.html (If the link doesn't work, go to www.guardian.co.uk and search "julie bindel.")

Read it and see if you think Bindel dismisses anyone's case in a shallow way. If there's anyone who can see life's gray areas in a black and white world, it's her.

Doesn't anyone at "Broadsheet" read "Bitch"? I doubt it, because then you'd be paying attention to Julia Serano. She's trans AND a feminist and has some truly amazing writing about being both.

Her book is called "Whipping Girl: A Transexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininty". Check it out,

http://www.juliaserano.com/

I don't feel that I have the right to criticize people's decisions about what they do with their body. I don't understand the motivations behind multiple body piercings, extensive tattoos, cosmetic surgery, or sex-reassignment surgery, but I strongly believe that rational people have a right to do what they want to with their bodies. That said... I believe that in a few hundred years, when we understand the human mind completely, they will look back at gender reassignment surgery as a barbaric practice. I believe they will also look upon cosmetic surgery as barbaric. People who are unhappy with their bodies will be treated so that they can be happy with who they are instead of undergoing radical surgery to change their appearance. Tattoos and piercings (and probably some new tricks) may still be undertaken as body art, but bodies will be modified only for self-expression, not because people are dissatisfied with their bodies.

It looks like the transphobia anachronism of second wave feminism has reared its ugly head again. Nearly three decades ago, Janice Raymond performed her verbal assault on transgenders, positing that transpeople were either men who would "rape" women vicariously by wearing their clothes (or infiltrate women's-only spaces to seize power over them), or women trying to gain entrance to male privelege by "becoming men". (Yes yes, of course, and we all know that homosexuals use gerbils and try to recruit little boys, and masturbation causes brain damage.)

Since then, feminism has grown quite a bit. Like any progressive cause, it progresses, and outmoded doctrinaire prejudices just can't hold up over time. After all, one of the things feminism fights against is rigid gender roles assigned externally upon people, as patriarchy has done so effectively.

Most feminist organizations today support transgender-rights (the NOW charter adopted this in their charter in the mid-1990s). In fact, in the under-30 demographic, there is growning acceptance for transgenders across the board. They simply have fewer hang-ups about gender and sexuality. Of course, bigotry certainly still exists, but there is a generational shift. In public opinion, transgenders are where gays and lesbians were 30 years ago. The anti-trans feminists are on the wrong side of history -- they need to just get over it.

The ideological underpinnings of the debate intrigued me -- a sort of battle of ideas, the tranny vs. the feminazi.

"Battle of ideas?" No. More like the "battle of idiots."

The irony here is that many militant feminists are probably biologically leaning towards male pattern behavior, which is emotionally difficult for them, and being unwilling to accept it, they instead choose to strike out at society and even the concept of norms, to insist everyone else has got it wrong.

And while many transsexuals are experiencing biological gender dissonance, it becomes a kind of cognitive dissonance when they attempt through medicine to become an idealized 100% male or female, which biologically isn't a realistic goal for them, though the operation does seem to alleviate psychological issues for many.

It's tragic. Between the two groups I have far more sympathy for trannys though. At least they're not really hurting anyone else.