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One’s identity is the entirety of themselves and heir experience, and having gone through a transition, identifying with one end or the other of said transition is not a sufficient means of such. In the newarticle14 “Critical Identities: Rethinking Feminism Through Transgender Politics” Eleanor MacDonald argues for the terms of gender identity to be revised. Feminist theorists have agreed that the presence of transgender people Is not destructive to feminism.
This hasn’t always been the belief as Is Iterated by traditional feminist Janice Raymond who wrote In her book that “transsexuals rape woman’s bodies by reducing the real woman from artifact”. Feminist of the postmodern era believe that the acceptance of transgender people creates a sense of diversity. The array of diversity amongst transgender people can result in the binary break down of the mind and body. Since transgender individuals break down the binary dualism between the body and mind that allows for diversity, which in turn makes it more acceptable for postmodern feminist.
What they do not want to acknowledge however, is the categorical difference between male and female, but is what many transgender individuals desire for they have been denied this label for so long. The politics that surround transgender Individuals and gender Identity should be taken seriously by traditional feminist and postmodern feminist. Macdonald reiterates In her conclusion that gender Identity of Individuals Is not determined by their assigned sex at birth or the way that one Is raised, but Is socially constructed having many influences with not set framework.
The factors in accordance to MacDonald which define gender are gender assignment, roles, identity, status, relations, attribution, behavior, and biology in conjunction with one another, not solely gender assignment at birth. Concurrently, gender and the resultantly label of “woman” is associated with sex as in the actual organs required in order to complete the actual act of intercourse. What transgender people fail to satisfy in regards to these factors is the cohesion between these internal factors and their anatomy.
Transgender individuals generally identify with their transitioned counterpart, and then change their anatomy In order to create cohesion between their Internal feelings and external anatomy. The term woman does not capture the struggle of having to create this cohesion and exultantly Is not a cements means AT ascription In regards to tense Monolinguals. However, what needs to be taken into consideration is the fact that many individuals do not want these struggles to be a part of their identity and would prefer to be identified by only their transitioned self.
This then creates the idea that the term woman is not only a matter of categorization but also one of choice. In terms of exclusion, there are several manners in which individuals choose eliminate or include who is a woman depending on the context of the situation, but the more important issue is who is included rather than who is excluded. Feminists argue that the category male and female are unnecessary, but all that transgender individuals desire is to be included in the category of woman, and in denying the existence of categories feminine theorists are inadvertently denying something that so clearly does exist in our society.
This categorization should continue to occur for the sheer fact that women and men are anatomically, biologically, and psychologically different, otherwise transgender individuals would not exist. This categorization forever, need not have any sort of negative connotation, male and female equality should occur without the actual labels being removed.
Prejudice should not occur as a result of any factors be it gender, ethnicity, or nationality but eliminating identity will not solve this problem; only equality between the different factors will be able to solve this problem. This is exactly the manner in which postmodern feminine theorists may harm their own goals. In labeling these individuals as a diverse and different, postmodern theorists emphasize their difference to either gender more Han their similarity to their transitioned gender.