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A review by trywii
On the Meaning of Sex: Thoughts about the New Definition of Woman by Kajsa Ekis Ekman
1.0
Diverging from the usual collection of anti-trans literature, ‘On The Meaning of Sex’ is the first that I’ve found that is a translated text rather than having English origins. Despite offering a unique perspective from Sweden, the text heavily borrows from US and UK discussion and discourse, and thus ends up repeating what over a dozen anti-trans books in English have already been regurgitating.
It seems that much of the book’s criticisms are that of semantics, largely of that from cisgender people talking about how to categorize trans people. ‘Woman’ is by itself largely understood to mean female humans, but is also extended beyond their reproductive capabilities, especially when millions of women could be categorized differently on the basis of varying primary and secondary sex characteristics. The author reads out popular but confusing (often cis) perspectives, bemoaning the likes of ‘71 genders’ by Facebook’s gender selection and other such well-meaning but poor forms of trying to include trans people in the conversation without actually including trans people.
The book sometimes quotes trans people on their perspectives, but the author opts to more often than not pull from more philosophical and poetic-waxing authors than folks who are more privy with speaking to the layperson about trans topics.
Unlike other anti-trans literature, the author here directly acknowledges a facet of trans lives that impact their treatment:
“The reverse is also true: a woman walking home alone at night being followed by a bearded individual isn’t going to have time to find out whether the man was born a woman and is actually a trans man. These experiences affect and shape us…After many years, a person who has gone through gender reassignment surgery will have gathered a set of experiences similar to people born in that sex, and will have much in common with them. If experiences arise as a result of the treatment we receive in society, and this treatment depends on the body we have, then presumably those who inhabit a woman-like body have women’s experiences...”
However, the empathy and understanding trans people as a minority that experience minority status and situations begins and ends with sexual and violent brutality against them. The author is able to call upon intersectionality when it comes to race or class, but ‘trans’ as a minority status that is just as vilified, misunderstood. and oppressed is simply not in the author’s vocabulary. Trans women (and only trans women) are routinely considered by the author as a class of extreme privilege; one that, in many other anti-trans literature, is reduced to a caricature of a savage. The complexities and spectrums in trans people as a whole are not articulated and thus rendered almost inhuman.
Trans men are briefly mentioned in a chapter of their own, dozens of facets of trans men’s lives and histories condensed into a few paragraphs. Ironically, the book laments that trans men are rendered invisible, and falsely claims ‘No documentaries are being produced concerning trans men in sport…’ and ‘For all that is said about male privilege, trans men do not seem to get any of it. The only thing conceded to them are the pronouns; other than that, males do not share power, spaces, brotherhood, prizes or political offices with them.’
These claims are not only false, but demonstrably so. ‘Changing the Game’ (2019) is a documentary about trans youth in sports, with a trans man front and center during the film. There have been many films, documentary or otherwise, made about and sometimes by trans men. Trans men also hold positions of communal and political power, and trans men have been on record to say that being a man has gained them many privileges they didn’t have before.
I’d say that the author’s country of origin would be a barrier for accessing English-speaking articles, film, and various literature on the subject of trans men, but if she’s able to parrot Lisa Littman’s ‘theory’ and uncritically sing praises for Rowling, then surely she has the power to access counters to her claims.
The book concludes that the word ‘woman’ has been destroyed, and that ‘woman’ should exclusively be that of a class based on reproductive rights. While women’s liberation has important foundations around reproductive rights, to say that women’s liberation and women as a whole begins and ends with reproductive ability greatly underestimates the needs of women beyond the circumstances of pregnancy.
It’s like saying ‘gay’ or ‘gay liberation’ begins and ends with the legalization of same-sex marriage; While it is an important milestone in recognizing legal and social rights, legalizing same-sex marriage is only one of many aspects of a gay person’s life and only goes so far to improve the quality of one’s wellbeing.
This book, despite being called ‘On The Meaning of Sex’, has very little to do with the intersections and histories of sex and its overlap with trans people and liberation, and is instead yet another book that puts trans women as an opposition to feminist movements instead of a complex group with direct ties to it with trans men being a silent speed bump for people to run over. I’m also disappointed that while also being a book from a non-primarily-English country, the book takes mostly from English-speaking anti-trans literature published before and only adds Swedish accounts as anecdotes to punctuate that.
It seems that much of the book’s criticisms are that of semantics, largely of that from cisgender people talking about how to categorize trans people. ‘Woman’ is by itself largely understood to mean female humans, but is also extended beyond their reproductive capabilities, especially when millions of women could be categorized differently on the basis of varying primary and secondary sex characteristics. The author reads out popular but confusing (often cis) perspectives, bemoaning the likes of ‘71 genders’ by Facebook’s gender selection and other such well-meaning but poor forms of trying to include trans people in the conversation without actually including trans people.
The book sometimes quotes trans people on their perspectives, but the author opts to more often than not pull from more philosophical and poetic-waxing authors than folks who are more privy with speaking to the layperson about trans topics.
Unlike other anti-trans literature, the author here directly acknowledges a facet of trans lives that impact their treatment:
“The reverse is also true: a woman walking home alone at night being followed by a bearded individual isn’t going to have time to find out whether the man was born a woman and is actually a trans man. These experiences affect and shape us…After many years, a person who has gone through gender reassignment surgery will have gathered a set of experiences similar to people born in that sex, and will have much in common with them. If experiences arise as a result of the treatment we receive in society, and this treatment depends on the body we have, then presumably those who inhabit a woman-like body have women’s experiences...”
However, the empathy and understanding trans people as a minority that experience minority status and situations begins and ends with sexual and violent brutality against them. The author is able to call upon intersectionality when it comes to race or class, but ‘trans’ as a minority status that is just as vilified, misunderstood. and oppressed is simply not in the author’s vocabulary. Trans women (and only trans women) are routinely considered by the author as a class of extreme privilege; one that, in many other anti-trans literature, is reduced to a caricature of a savage. The complexities and spectrums in trans people as a whole are not articulated and thus rendered almost inhuman.
Trans men are briefly mentioned in a chapter of their own, dozens of facets of trans men’s lives and histories condensed into a few paragraphs. Ironically, the book laments that trans men are rendered invisible, and falsely claims ‘No documentaries are being produced concerning trans men in sport…’ and ‘For all that is said about male privilege, trans men do not seem to get any of it. The only thing conceded to them are the pronouns; other than that, males do not share power, spaces, brotherhood, prizes or political offices with them.’
These claims are not only false, but demonstrably so. ‘Changing the Game’ (2019) is a documentary about trans youth in sports, with a trans man front and center during the film. There have been many films, documentary or otherwise, made about and sometimes by trans men. Trans men also hold positions of communal and political power, and trans men have been on record to say that being a man has gained them many privileges they didn’t have before.
I’d say that the author’s country of origin would be a barrier for accessing English-speaking articles, film, and various literature on the subject of trans men, but if she’s able to parrot Lisa Littman’s ‘theory’ and uncritically sing praises for Rowling, then surely she has the power to access counters to her claims.
The book concludes that the word ‘woman’ has been destroyed, and that ‘woman’ should exclusively be that of a class based on reproductive rights. While women’s liberation has important foundations around reproductive rights, to say that women’s liberation and women as a whole begins and ends with reproductive ability greatly underestimates the needs of women beyond the circumstances of pregnancy.
It’s like saying ‘gay’ or ‘gay liberation’ begins and ends with the legalization of same-sex marriage; While it is an important milestone in recognizing legal and social rights, legalizing same-sex marriage is only one of many aspects of a gay person’s life and only goes so far to improve the quality of one’s wellbeing.
This book, despite being called ‘On The Meaning of Sex’, has very little to do with the intersections and histories of sex and its overlap with trans people and liberation, and is instead yet another book that puts trans women as an opposition to feminist movements instead of a complex group with direct ties to it with trans men being a silent speed bump for people to run over. I’m also disappointed that while also being a book from a non-primarily-English country, the book takes mostly from English-speaking anti-trans literature published before and only adds Swedish accounts as anecdotes to punctuate that.