Hi, I guess I can say I'm an ET regular now, although I've only been lurking up until now. This diary is certainly of more than marginal interest to me! I'm a transwoman grad student/aspiring academic who has decided not to work on trans issues due to the fact that I can't read people like JB's writing on people categorized with me to the end and respond accurately. And the same goes for the writing of some people who identify themselves as trans allies. However, I find myself in complete agreement with JB (shudder), at least in Helen's account of her position, when she says "For women gender is oppressive and not fun." That pretty much sums up the reason why I resent so much academic work on trans issues, especially within the humanities, my home base. Transition (i.e. my gender) for me has been far more about oppression than fun: economic oppression due to decreased employability and the expenses of transition, psychological oppression due to verbal harassment and isolation from my family, and an attenuated ability to cope due to strained friendships and the institutionalized discrimination built into private and public bureaucracies. Now that I more or less pass, though, and on a day-to-day basis only have to face the kinds of oppression available to all women, I'm far more likely to see myself as privileged than oppressed. Perhaps what terrifies JB more than us transwomen is having to come to terms with the realization that there are people in this world who are more oppressed than white, middle-class, highly educated, non-disabled, English-speaking women.
Oh yeah, and in my worldview, "woman" is a social construct designed to service the needs of lesbians.