my post about the brilliant Paris Mwendwa is getting a little bit of attention from a few different sides of feminist tumblr so i just want to make some things clear!!!! i don’t fully align with one specific school of feminist thought. gender critical, trans inclusive, anti sex work, intersectional feminism? idk. i think these perspectives can co-exist.
- I AM NOT TRANSPHOBIC!!! as you get deeper into online feminist spaces you will encounter more transphobia in more volatile ways and i just want to be extremely clear that i do approach feminism (and general social justice) in an intersectional way. i recognize the plight of trans women as well as the role of trans people in women’s rights movements as well as rights movements for different sectors of the LGBTQ+ community which led to increased freedoms for millions of women. i will not refer to trans women as “TIM” or with he/him pronouns, in discussion of ***gender*** based discrimination/violence if trans women can relate they are absolutely included, etc. i simply don’t harbor that bigotry towards trans people. i call myself gender critical because no matter how much i might agree with gender theories under a different set of circumstances, we do not live in a post-gender or post-sex society and sex-based oppression is a reality for many women. trans women shouldn’t be fighting tooth and nail to pretend they’re experiencing the same sex based oppression (or even sex based phenomena like menstruation). we are different and that’s okay, it doesn’t mean i don’t think you’re a woman or that i don’t think you deserve rights/respect/safety or that i think you should never be a part of any women’s spaces again, it means you can’t experience the same type of sex based oppression, and denying/disregarding sex based violence in favor of discussing violence that impacts both trans and cis women is disgusting. it’s an act of sexism to disregard women’s experiences in discussion of gender and sex based oppression, and hallucinating that women have “cis privilege” or insisting that trans women are “more oppressed” simply isn’t an intersectional perspective; we are both experiencing different kinds of gender based discrimination/violence at the same time by the hands of the same people. some forms can only be felt by one subset of women, and sex based oppression/violence is generally afab-specific. also, the community of trans women is often times extremely misogynistic and acts as if they are above all criticism despite the fact that they WERE socially programmed the way men are at least until the point of coming out, and i don’t think that social programming magically disappears when you come out as trans. a lot of trans women are still harboring the male entitlement and intense internalized misogyny that was taught to them when they were expected to be a cis man, but feminists are rarely able to call it out for fear of the genuine critique being disregarded and their feminism being painted transphobic. i do see it as a form of silencing and as a manifestation of patriarchy, women being pushed aside and having their language policed for not being inclusive enough (even if they are inclusive in their feminism!) even within our own movement is absolutely patriarchal. why is it that we have to unpack and correct our potentially exclusive language and behaviors, but they don’t have to examine and correct their massive amounts of misogyny and patriarchal social programming? it’s unfair. obviously things should be corrected if it’s something blatantly wrong or blatantly xenophobic in some way, but asking cis women to center the experience of trans women and to find gender neutral terminology to use during the discussion is unfair and honestly disingenuous—we all know that while gender neutral or trans-forward terminology may be more inclusive, it also discounts the fact that gender based experiences are largely happening to WOMEN, not specifically trans women or cis women, and that if you see yourself as a woman or if you can relate to the conversation at hand you should know you are included without special disclaimers, and that there are some experiences that generally only happen to cis women. centering cis women in feminism is good, actually. where else are we centered?
- feminism is for WOMEN, other parties just also reap benefits. i do not agree that feminism is for everyone, feminism is for men, men are victims of patriarchy, etc. it’s not true. experiencing negative impacts of patriarchy doesn’t somehow make you a victim while you’re still on the top of the gender/sex hierarchy. impact ≠ victimhood. i think feminism online is pushed to become more inclusive and more sanitized in order to protect the male ego so they are more likely to support our plight, and while i understand the purpose, i think it’s diluting the movement and concept of feminism. feminism is a real political school of thought and a macro level sociological framework, it isn’t a girl power club made up on the internet and the goal isn’t to make people feel good about themselves, the goal to liberate women from the patriarchy. that requires work and examination of internalized sexism/misogyny, and it requires us to center around women lest we lose the original purpose of the movement. i find “feminism is for everyone/feminism is for men too” to be an extremely male centered approach that doesn’t seek women’s liberation in any meaningful political/sociological way. i actually think it shifts victimhood towards men and shifts more responsibility to fix things onto the shoulders of women, which is the opposite of feminism’s purpose.
