So a friend posted a link to the recent puberty blockers news story on Facebook, and there was some interesting debate there.

There were a lot of people (primarily genderqueer but not trans, as far as i could see) coming out against it primarily because of the subtext of there only being 2 possible genders that a person could want to live in, thus that such physical treatments (and presumably physical transition in general) reinforces the gender binary - to which i responded:

ok... still low on verbal coherence spoons, but felt i had to come back to this...

you know my utopia is a world in which no one is gendered anything, and the whole social concept of gender doesn't exist. thing is... even in a perfect social world, there would *still* be people who have a physical/hormonal need to change their *sex* (as in, gonads, genitalia and hormone levels). for some people, it's not a sociol/political thing, it's nothing more and nothing less than an impairment.

therefore, i think these drugs should be available to the people who need them. and people who truly are transsexual (in the "it's about physical sex, not gender" sense) very definitely *are* capable of making unambiguous decisions about it at a very early age - my friend twiggy, for example, knew she was a girl despite having boy bits for as long as she could remember, and i saw her with my own eyes go from chronically depressed (worse than me) to practically ecstatic *as soon as* she started taking the hormones. i know of others who tried to cut off their penis at the age of 6, or ftms who tried life threatening stuff to stop themselves starting to menstruate, etc...

see here: http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/puberty-blockers/

(and that blog in general, also a lot of the stuff at taking up too much space: http://takesupspace.wordpress.com )

yes, there is a lot of fucked up social stuff which means genderqueer-but-not-transsexual ppl *might* be pressurised into early transition and regret it, but frankly i think that's a lot less likely than the opposite, those who need to transition being denied it, at least in current political climate.

(continued cos got too long)

and i get really pissed off with the assertion that "transitioning transsexuals reinforce the gender binary", cos they really don't, or at the very least no more than the average cis man/woman in the street does - what really reinforces it is the medical gatekeeper bullshit that *forces* people to conform to binary gender stereotypes in order to get the hormones/body modifications they feel they need. if that wasn't there, and ppl could get hormones and/or surgery on a libertarian model of informed consent, then they wouldn't have to do all that crap... so don't blame trans ppl, blame the misogynistic and gender-binary-defensive medical establishment...

so yeah. probably more, but i am knackered and its nearly 3am, and i should be in bed. apologies if this is really incoherent (and for my apparent inability to use capital letters)... i will re-read tomorrow to check that i haven't inadvertently said the opposite of what i mean by misplacing a "not" in a sentence or anything...

(yes, facebook seems to kill my ability to use capital letters for some reason... probably the "chat" applet...)

to which i got this response:

the problem with imagining a world without gender is that you are already locked into a discourse that makes it impossible. a discourse wherein the very way that you and i think (and the way you think you think, the way you think about thought itself) is structured beyond your control and beyond your knowledge -- and it's certain that gender forms an integral part of that discourse. so trying to imagine a world without gender is impossible because the position from which you imagine it is one that is very definitely, fundamentally, informed by gender! (sorry about the exclamation mark, just wanted to add emphasis) i find this comes through in the way you argue the point you make. there can be no *need* to change sex without the pressures that accrue because of gender roles and social pressures, etc. it's a difficult point because it complicates everything. it would be so much simpler if it were the case that some people just *need* to change their **sex**, independent of any gender issue. unfortunately that could never be possible.

to which i don't really know how to respond... any ideas?

(also, being genderqueer-but-not-trans myself, i would be interested to know whether actual transitioning trans people would agree with my argument - not wanting to fall into the trap of representing experiences/positions not my own...)

I finally gave in and joined it. new_kinda_freak and beccaviola, this is entirely your fault(s).

If you actually know me, and want to friend me, and don't know my real name, send me a message here with your name and i'll friend you. I will not friend random people who i don't actually know outside Facebook. This is strictly for keeping in touch with people i know in reality (blogosphere arguably counts as reality, but just "having some mutual Facebook friends" emphatically doesn't).

I may come to regret this.