Reminder that “compulsory heterosexuality” as a term was coined by
Adrienne
Rich, a contributor to the infamous TERF book The Transsexual Empire.
Wait how is compulsory heterosexuality a terf thing. I’ve never heard that ? (I’ve barely heard anything about the term in general though so.)
The informal concept that we are all compelled by society to be heterosexual is real and important. But the phrase/language use of “compulsory heterosexuality” was coined or at least popularized by Adrienne Rich in her essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, which was extremely sex-essentialist and included stuff like… a mother nursing her female child as a lesbian experience. Or a nurse caring for a female elder a lesbian experience. Even if not all lesbian experiences are sexual, that’s kind of getting into a sketchy area (is caring for a male child ‘straight?’ is a latina or black nanny caring for a white girl baby having a ‘lesbian’ experience?) that is questionable at best.
the experience that all people are conditioned by a heterosexual society to be straight and see straightness as success and a default, is real– this post is not intended to remove that concept from anybody or ‘take away’ the right to express that concept in language. Lesbians experience it in a unique way, and almost all over lgbqa+ women (and others!) experience it in different unique ways. Its important. we gotta talk about it.
it’s just that this language as it was solidified, was done so by someone who did not think bisexuality, pansexuality, asexuality, were valid. And it was done so by someone who did not think that trans women were women, or that nonbinary dfab people were anything but cis women, or that trans men were anything but women. That’s what anon means when they say “it was never meant for the rest of us.” Many posts that are about “identifying compulsory heterosexuality” are posts that contain a lot of bi, pan, ace, trans, nonbinary, and other experiences as brainwashing and not as nuanced stores told by diverse people.
(which is not to say that a lesbian can’t have experiences where a heterosexual society tried to use bisexual and other categories as weapons or tools to keep them open to including men. We’re furious about that too.)
incidentally, TERFs would really love it if being a terf was synonymous with ‘lesbian experience.’ They have been trying to make that a reality for years. One of the ways they do so is popularize their language and references to their literature as I-thought-it-meants and get newcomers to lgbtqa+ community to use them and accept them. It can be really disappointing to find out that what seemed like useful language was coined in a context that is exterminatory of others but I’m sure that moving forward alternatives can be found that don’t include contributors to The Transsexual Empire.
last time i asked, someone told me that it’s been suggested (so idk how widespread the use is yet) that we use “coercive heterosexuality” for a non-terfy version of the concept
“compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence” is one of my fave wtf essays, not gonna lie. like…. listen to this: “if we expand [the definition of ‘lesbian’] to embrace many more forms of primary intensity between and among women, including the sharing of rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny, the giving and receiving if practical and political support…we begin to grasp breadths of female history and psychology which have lain out of reach as a consequence of limited, mostly clinical definitions of lesbianism. […] to equate lesbian existence with male homosexuality because each is stigmatized is to erase female reality once again. […] all women exist on a lesbian continuum.”
Reminder that “compulsory heterosexuality” as a term was coined by
Adrienne
Rich, a contributor to the infamous TERF book The Transsexual Empire.
Wait how is compulsory heterosexuality a terf thing. I’ve never heard that ? (I’ve barely heard anything about the term in general though so.)
The informal concept that we are all compelled by society to be heterosexual is real and important. But the phrase/language use of “compulsory heterosexuality” was coined or at least popularized by Adrienne Rich in her essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, which was extremely sex-essentialist and included stuff like… a mother nursing her female child as a lesbian experience. Or a nurse caring for a female elder a lesbian experience. Even if not all lesbian experiences are sexual, that’s kind of getting into a sketchy area (is caring for a male child ‘straight?’ is a latina or black nanny caring for a white girl baby having a ‘lesbian’ experience?) that is questionable at best.
the experience that all people are conditioned by a heterosexual society to be straight and see straightness as success and a default, is real– this post is not intended to remove that concept from anybody or ‘take away’ the right to express that concept in language. Lesbians experience it in a unique way, and almost all over lgbqa+ women (and others!) experience it in different unique ways. Its important. we gotta talk about it.
it’s just that this language as it was solidified, was done so by someone who did not think bisexuality, pansexuality, asexuality, were valid. And it was done so by someone who did not think that trans women were women, or that nonbinary dfab people were anything but cis women, or that trans men were anything but women. That’s what anon means when they say “it was never meant for the rest of us.” Many posts that are about “identifying compulsory heterosexuality” are posts that contain a lot of bi, pan, ace, trans, nonbinary, and other experiences as brainwashing and not as nuanced stores told by diverse people.
(which is not to say that a lesbian can’t have experiences where a heterosexual society tried to use bisexual and other categories as weapons or tools to keep them open to including men. We’re furious about that too.)
incidentally, TERFs would really love it if being a terf was synonymous with ‘lesbian experience.’ They have been trying to make that a reality for years. One of the ways they do so is popularize their language and references to their literature as I-thought-it-meants and get newcomers to lgbtqa+ community to use them and accept them. It can be really disappointing to find out that what seemed like useful language was coined in a context that is exterminatory of others but I’m sure that moving forward alternatives can be found that don’t include contributors to The Transsexual Empire.
last time i asked, someone told me that it’s been suggested (so idk how widespread the use is yet) that we use “coercive heterosexuality” for a non-terfy version of the concept
this post is hilarious considering cardozzza was one of the diehard defenders of discourseprincessa, who was a cis woman pretending to be an intersex trans woman to get away with attacking people
this shitwipe was constantly telling inclusionist trans women to die and making other violent remarks lol which many trans women were calling out lol
and on top of that also claimed to be a “messianic” jewish person which many jewish people have said time and time again is not a thing and is antisemitic as fuck
and don’t come at me with that “but we were manipulated! stop hanging this over our heads!” because even if she wasn’t lying about who she was she was still claiming to be a “messianic” jewish person and threatening trans women!!
and that shit’s not suddenly unacceptable only because she turned out to be fucking cis, it was unacceptable to fucking start with!
I’m not gonna sit here and pretend this doesn’t have anything to do with the discourse and is “actually about helping people” because aphobes, cardozza included, have shown time and time again they don’t care about or will even defend when their own pull these kinds of stunts
so again this all smells very strongly of being exactly about ace discourse
honestly, y’all need to stop listening to only the trans women and trans people that you personally like lol
a good reply:
tatterdemalionamberite said: I’m so fucking exhausted and enraged that this is going to be (is already being) used as a bludgeon against the trans women whose perspective Nora was boosting in the first place. Oh, and OP isn’t a trans woman either as far as I can tell, they just decided they’re an arbiter of what counts as transmisogyny, now that they can use that against a group of people including trans women that they don’t agree with.
all this said i do think i’m going to block anyone using AERF because it’s painfully incorrect: exclusionists aren’t even tangentially related to any brand of feminism, they’re not radical, and the E in TERF and SWERF was meant to stand for exterminationist instead of exclusionist. AERF has also turned actual trans women calling out transphobic exclusionists into a joke
i zeriously don’t give a shit if you’re lesbian and say that you’re penis-repulsed or that you never want to have penetrative sex like obviously these are very very personal things and you have every right to dictate where your personal limits lie with regards to intimacy and sex.
like for REAL there are trans women who are penis-repulsed, who don’t want their own penis touched sexually at all (due to dysphoria or otherwise), who don’t want to have sex at all, who don’t want to have penetrative sex (receiving or giving), And of course there are also trans women who DO want all of these things…
(And there are trans women with a penis who are unable to penetrate or maintain an erection due to HRT or orchiectomy or otherwise, And there are trans women With A Fully Functioning Vagina That Is Physically Indistinguishable From An Average Cis Woman’s Vagina, but i digress…)
but the PROBLEM lies in the fact that people view trans women as a monolith! The problem lies in the fact that people assume that trans women are all just the same as the stereotype that you have built up in your minds! The stereotype of trans women as: a deceptive predatory sexually voracious straight man who will do anything to have sex with cis lesbians!
It’s not a problem for you to have your personal boundaries regarding intimacy and sex! What is a problem is when you have a malicious ideology against trans women and place your personal boundaries into this rubric. There is nothing forcing you to do that. There is nothing forcing you to apply malicious misinformation and stereotypes to trans women. There is nothing forcing you to call transgender women male, or men, or trannies, or transmale, or male-to-trans, or transwomen, (as a distinct and separate category from “Real” cis women!!) it is cruel and bigoted and transmisogynist for you to do these things.
However I will never concede the fact that stereotypes influence how you perceive people! And as a corollary to this fact, I can certainly say that there is transmisogyny among cis people. There IS a major phenomenon of straight men, lesbians, and bi/pan people, of any gender, viewing trans women as disgusting and ugly and undateable and To Be Avoided DUE TO STEREOTYPES AGAINST TRANS WOMEN.
This is not simply an issue that has regards to dating, obviously, it is something that informs all social interactions that other people have with trans women.
And, before you twefs jump in with “not being dated isn’t oppression!” I am going to pre-empt you and state that this is a similar issue to how straight women are homophobic towards bisexual men and avoid them and refrain from socializing with them or dating them, this is a similar issue to how white women and men are racist towards black men and avoid them and refrain from socializing with them or dating them.
Not equating these issues, just pointing out that social avoidance IS a part of interpersonal oppression against marginalized groups.
My position is that stereotypes and social norms inform behavior towards trans women and you have to take responsibility for how your bigoted rhetoric impacts the people it’s leveled against.
Bi and straight radfems are allllllways talking about how disgusting trans women are and it generally seems that they don’t even have any trans women as friends let alone date them, and I can’t help but beg the question: You don’t actually truly view us as men, do you? In fact, to you, we must be something different than men because you treat us terribly different than you treat men. You treat us much worse than you treat men, which is a major failure of your supposedly self-identified man-hating agenda. Get good, frankly.
Another pre-emptive statement before someone makes an ugly and unnecessary comment: I’m engaged and have been monogamous for 7 years so this is literally not a weird ideological quest for romantic contact for me, regardless of how so-called radical feminists might twist my words.
thank you! it’s seriously ridiculous how terfs think trans people just popped up in the sixties?? like?? talk about not knowing your own history
there’s also the Cult of Cybele, an important religion to the Roman empire that had a priestess-hood made up of trans women. Catallus, a very famous latin author, wrote about their mythology, where apparently dysphoria is treated as a sacred calling from the goddess. Here’s my fave translation, it doesn’t add in any unnecessary misgendering that wasn’t there in latin, because apparently translators feel the need to do that sometimes. TW for descriptions of intense dysphoria, and a gorey description of ancient bottom surgery.
a good rule of thumb is that if you see the word ‘eunuch’ in a history book, that’s usually a reference to trans women that’s been lost in time thanks to the rise of Christianity.
Okay since apparently someone is replacing old Nazi blogs with Woody from Toy Story, the next thing to do is replace all the TERF blogs with Buzz Lightyear.
We shall swallow the sky and the earth.
We shall swallow the sky and the earth.
We shall swallow the sky and the earth.
i for one worship our new lord and saviour
if anyone wants to argue about that last post and thinks all these radfem oppression dynamics are actually reasonable, and not completely detached from reality, be warned i didn’t mention Motherhood privilege yet, this is not a fight you can win
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