Transwomen and Residual Male Privilege

I was originally going to write about the whole Suzanne Moore / Julie Burchill / transwomen activism debacle, but Heather McNamara has already posted an eloquent response to the whole disaster, so you should really just watch her You Tube video to get caught up on the current row. I’d rather focus on an issue near and dear to me that was missed by the circular firing squad: that of male privilege, and how it has helped to drive a wedge between transwomen and cis-women.

And it all comes down to socialization. Socialization is the basis of how a society replicates itself, and Patriarchy is no exception. Patriarchal socialization is an insidious fucker of a system that is incredibly hard to root out of oneself. Patriarchal socialization ensures (among other things) that Catholics who quit the Church continue to feel pangs of unjustified guilt for the rest of their lives, that a third of all individuals who were abused or neglected as children will subject their own children to abuse, and that transwomen may still have to deal with male privilege even after transitioning.

Even if a transwoman was never very masculine before transitioning, even if their time as a man involved being bullied or ostracized, whenever they successfully passed as a man, they got many of of the privileges of men. And while the transition from male to female will remove most male privileges from a person (and confer plenty of horrible disadvantages unique to transwomen [1] ), a few of the more insidious male privileges have a tendency to stick around, especially those related to what might be decades of male socialization in a patriarchal society. I call these lingering points of privilege (for lack of a better term), residual male privileges.

Residual male privileges might include (but are not limited to):

• The expectation that people will continue to listen to you when you speak (a privilege that all people deserve and one that is worth holding on to!!! See the Privilege to Speak).
• The continued expectation of general safety that comes from being born and raised free of gender terrorism (a privilege all people deserve, but that only people who have been, for a time, accepted by society as a male get to experience, see the Privilege of Relative Safety).
• Continued use of masculine speech patterns [2] (see the Privilege to Speak).
• Having women continue to yield the floor to you when you start speaking, triggered by the continued use of masculine speech patterns (see the Privilege to End Debate).
• The expectation that women in your life will continue serve a disproportionate share of your needs (i.e. be your Mom when they are not, see the Privilege of Women’s Labor).
• The expectation that you will now have access to all female spaces [3] (see the Privilege of Space).
• The belief that it is OK to threaten murder and rape against women who offend you (see the Privilege of Harassment).
• The belief that it is OK to use harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence to drive women who you do not like out of their personal internet spaces (see Internet Presence).

Of course, these are just a few general examples of male privileges that may linger after transitioning. Your individual situation and upbringing will affect which privileges you still wield, consciously or unconsciously: For example, a kid whose biological sex is male at birth, but who had a (mostly) genderqueer childhood before transitioning at puberty will have a lot less exposure to male privilege than someone whose gender expression was male for decades and who successfully passed as male for years before transitioning in their 40s. And that’s before we even factor in personality, family upbringing, the sexism or enlightenment of friend groups, exposure to queer communities, exposure to feminism, etc. into the mix.

As everyone likes to say, your mileage may vary.

But for now I want to highlight the last two residual privileges on this list, as I believe they helped to aggravate the shitstorm between Suzanne Moore, Julie Burchill, and the trans community. Now I am not defending Burchill at all for her obnoxious article. The Observer did the right thing in taking it down. Nor am I defending Moore’s regression (and apology/hole-digging afterwards) in an article that was otherwise a valid expression of anger against the continued loss of women’s rights and lives in the current conservative backlash. But NO ONE deserves to be threatened with violence for their words. Period! The threats against Moore stink of male privilege, and it is shameful that more people haven’t spoken out against the harassment that she has suffered [4].

I suspect that Burchill was reacting to the commenters’ vicious deployment of the Privilege of Harassment against Moore, but that her own baggage of bigotry and blindness to residual male privilege prevented her from responding constructively to the violence (either that or she’s just a jerk, I don’t know her well enough to tell).

Regardless of her true motives, I have a bit of advice for Burchill: When a conservative newspaper offers to pick up your previously dropped controversial article, it is because you have either A) enlightened humanity so much that you’ve managed to temporarily short-circuit the entirety of conservative culture, or B) stepped in your own privilege so badly that you’re now getting golf claps from the landed gentry. Since most paper-owning rich dudes are fairly immune to said enlightenment, you should assume that “B” has happened and refuse the offer.

And next time you write a piece railing against harassment, try calling out the social constructs of power, privilege, and inequality surrounding the harassers, or even the individual trolls themselves, rather than contributing to social inequality by adding your own shit to the bigotry pile.

And finally, regardless of socialization or circumstances of birth, everyone needs to check as much of their damned privilege at the door as they can before writing about feminist topics [5]. It’s just better that way, for everyone involved.

We need to separate reactionary, transphobic radical feminists from decent, respectful radfems who want to dive deeper into the thorny details of gender constructs, gender power imbalances, and women’s spaces. Not every radfem is a ‘TERF’, and not every cis-women-only space is transphobic [3], and it is wrong to use the term to indict the entire radfem community with transphobia.

And unlike Burchill, we need to separate decent, feminist transwomen from sexist, violent, residual-male-privilege-wielding transwomen when we decide to firebomb the people who harass and intimidate our friends.

[1] Transitioning confers a plethora of unique disadvantages on trans-people, including the perpetual terror-threat of _LEGALIZED_ violence and death should their trans-status be discovered by transphobic cis-dudes.

[2] I can write a whole article on masculine and feminine speech patterns, and how conversational rituals between women and men reinforce an imbalance of power which favors men, and I will endeavor to do so in the future. But for now, I will sum it up with an example:

Feminine Voice: “I could be wrong, but, I just think that there Maybe, might be, could be, possibly, some evidence out there that could prove that, like, this idea might, maybe, just possibly benefit the project?? Uptalk???”

Masculine Voice: “Feminine voice is a pinhead!! her ideas are stupid!!! But There’s no way that _my_ completely identical idea could fail! Let’s do it now!!!!!”

Boss: “Great leadership and authority, Masculine Voice! Have a promotion!”

[3] The issue of cis-women-only spaces has been a contentious one, But they become a necessity in the light of Male Privilege, residual male privilege, and the oppression that can accompany even their unconscious employment. It’s not about excluding trans-people; it’s about creating safe, private spaces that are as free from as many forms of male privilege as possible within the confines of our Patriarchal society.

More on that in a later post.

Now, that said, the line between the right to private assembly and minority exclusion is a fine one. If cis-women-only spaces become powerful or significant enough that they significantly disadvantage anyone that is not allowed into the group, that is a problem (for example, women’s public restrooms are too essential to be kept as cis-women-only spaces, especially when better solutions are available). Or, if cis-women-only spaces become havens to perpetuate bigotry and class oppression (As gentlemen’s clubs, elite country clubs, or fraternal lodges already are for cis-men) then they are a problem.

But whenever that is not the case, cis-women have the same right as transwomen or everyone else to create private spaces, and to invite whomever they want into them.

[4] Anyone who excuses the violence and harassment committed by others is complicit in the abuse. No one entices an abuser to abuse people; their actions are their own.
And claims of victims “baiting” by attackers should be recognized for what it is: victim-blaming!

[5] And for any cis-men reading this, Forget residual privileges! your male privileges are core essentials of your gender, checking privileges at the door applies to you a hundred fold!