Wonderful read. I think my favorite part is the bit about woman goo, because it's how I feel about my own gender. I don't "identity" as a woman, and I have no preference for my pronouns. I am a woman, and want to be womanly, and have known that since I was a child. Like a lot of things, the language used to define transness also reinforces patriarchy--in the sense I don't believe in saying that I "identify" as anything in the way that the average cis woman wouldn't. I simply am.
Excellent article, captures many of the central ideas of your past work very coherently!
And regarding woman goo, well, I'd prefer a high dimensional vector space of physiological features moderated by environmental and interpersonal factors but I think yours is perhaps just a bit more catchy...
"a woman is somebody who struggles under the yoke of womanhood and does not shirk from it" is a nice definition! I will struggle with and for my shimmering, invisible woman goo
“transgender women are practically always child abused”
Can you elaborate on that? I am assuming you don’t mean this in the common understanding of the phrase, but as a trans woman who doesn’t have a concrete example of this to point to in my own life, I found myself bristling at the implication.
I don't think you've given self identification enough credit. For many who are Questioning it feels like this is the first step; to examine their gender identity in terms of how the cis population understands there to be a binary and other gender norms. That has to come from solid, known information at first - or what people believe is solid and known. I do like the idea of woman goo though as an expansion of self identity. I liked this one.
FWIW: After having done too much reading, womanhood as a “glowing liquid” is the most useful medical model I have found, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.
halimede you drive me nuts but when you hit you hit... you can say in three sentences what it takes an entire 40 minute read for other people to say on this website. because all of this is actually very simple!
I do take slight issue with the period comment, though I acknowledge it's primarily semantic, it still downplays the fact that trans women (once on HRT) do experience the bulk of period symptoms.
There are problems with defining periods at menstruation. For one it excludes cis and intersex women with a number of medical conditions, not just amab trans women, and whatever kind of logic you try and use to carve out exceptions for those medical conditions, but not for trans women, is inherently going to fall into transphobic rhetoric. But it's also stemming from a misconception about the cause and effect. The hormone cycle that causes all of the other symptoms is what causes menstruation, trans women on HRT get all of the other parts of a period (including the cramps which are what directly causes the menstruation!) and from the same source. It's not a coincidental set of similar symptoms, it's the same symptoms from the same cause, just without one of the end results (which not every cis woman has either).
- Transinclusive focused woman goo instead of self identification is pretty daring but also—weirdly—kind of affirming. I find that being told “you, too, have the woman goo in you and therefore you’re a woman” provides a sort of hard-to-deny external validation which I appreciate.
- Proof by obviousness is so funny and yet somehow powerful when the person using it is perceived to have some authority—I won’t deny reading it from a cisgender woman feels more powerful just because I have no way to refute it from a person who has lived through the more typical womanhood I lacked… all her life.
- You’re the kind of person I would be terrified to talk to because you somehow seem to know more about trans women than me (a trans woman). I fear you out-woke me no matter how hard I try.
this made me stop boying myself. thank you
Wonderful read. I think my favorite part is the bit about woman goo, because it's how I feel about my own gender. I don't "identity" as a woman, and I have no preference for my pronouns. I am a woman, and want to be womanly, and have known that since I was a child. Like a lot of things, the language used to define transness also reinforces patriarchy--in the sense I don't believe in saying that I "identify" as anything in the way that the average cis woman wouldn't. I simply am.
Peak substack
Excellent article, captures many of the central ideas of your past work very coherently!
And regarding woman goo, well, I'd prefer a high dimensional vector space of physiological features moderated by environmental and interpersonal factors but I think yours is perhaps just a bit more catchy...
NOT goo.
"a woman is somebody who struggles under the yoke of womanhood and does not shirk from it" is a nice definition! I will struggle with and for my shimmering, invisible woman goo
Hali whenever I comment on your articles I get likes from women with such beautiful names. Do you live like this? How do you manage?
well, I love attention. everything else kind of just comes naturally through hard work.
“transgender women are practically always child abused”
Can you elaborate on that? I am assuming you don’t mean this in the common understanding of the phrase, but as a trans woman who doesn’t have a concrete example of this to point to in my own life, I found myself bristling at the implication.
were you comfortable and supported well enough to transition at a young age?
Halimede, do you believe that puppygirl are a psyop by CIA to make trans women codependent.
a psyop wouldn't be necessary.
Can the catgirls survive the puppygirl dominance in transwomen? =(
we will prevail. do not worry.
I don't think you've given self identification enough credit. For many who are Questioning it feels like this is the first step; to examine their gender identity in terms of how the cis population understands there to be a binary and other gender norms. That has to come from solid, known information at first - or what people believe is solid and known. I do like the idea of woman goo though as an expansion of self identity. I liked this one.
FWIW: After having done too much reading, womanhood as a “glowing liquid” is the most useful medical model I have found, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.
halimede you drive me nuts but when you hit you hit... you can say in three sentences what it takes an entire 40 minute read for other people to say on this website. because all of this is actually very simple!
I do take slight issue with the period comment, though I acknowledge it's primarily semantic, it still downplays the fact that trans women (once on HRT) do experience the bulk of period symptoms.
There are problems with defining periods at menstruation. For one it excludes cis and intersex women with a number of medical conditions, not just amab trans women, and whatever kind of logic you try and use to carve out exceptions for those medical conditions, but not for trans women, is inherently going to fall into transphobic rhetoric. But it's also stemming from a misconception about the cause and effect. The hormone cycle that causes all of the other symptoms is what causes menstruation, trans women on HRT get all of the other parts of a period (including the cramps which are what directly causes the menstruation!) and from the same source. It's not a coincidental set of similar symptoms, it's the same symptoms from the same cause, just without one of the end results (which not every cis woman has either).
Several things:
- Transinclusive focused woman goo instead of self identification is pretty daring but also—weirdly—kind of affirming. I find that being told “you, too, have the woman goo in you and therefore you’re a woman” provides a sort of hard-to-deny external validation which I appreciate.
- Proof by obviousness is so funny and yet somehow powerful when the person using it is perceived to have some authority—I won’t deny reading it from a cisgender woman feels more powerful just because I have no way to refute it from a person who has lived through the more typical womanhood I lacked… all her life.
- You’re the kind of person I would be terrified to talk to because you somehow seem to know more about trans women than me (a trans woman). I fear you out-woke me no matter how hard I try.
- Meow.