Hi, I have a question that I’ve been mulling over in my mind for a few months, and you seem like someone who would have an informed answer. I’ve seen this take from radfems that essentially boils down to “woman” and “man” are terms that should only refer to sex and not gender and women and men under this definition should be able to be as masculine or as feminine as they please, but trans people should only call themselves by the terms that align with the body they were born with. While I agree with them that gender expression should be expanded for all people, I think this take fails to acknowledge that gender dysphoria (or even euphoria) is a real thing. And it polices language people can use for themselves and in most cases discourages bodily autonomy. Not to mention it doesn’t adequately address the existence of intersex people. But is there something else I’m missing? And is there literature out there on this topic? I keep seeing radfems using arguments like Judith Butler’s to try to justify transphobia.
You're really not missing anything. It's very common for radfems who claim they believe in gender abolition to essentially want to replace the gender binary with the sex binary.
Their argument can basically be boiled down to "Gender is a social construct created by the patriarchy to oppress women on the basis of sex. Sex is a real, immutable, binary, scientific fact and """""people with DSD""""" are outliers who we can still categorize based on their chromosomes".
When it comes to sex it is an argument that inherently dismisses intersex people, intersex advocacy, intersex activism, and intersex autonomy because radfems to not see being intersex as anything other than having a disorder to pathologize. Their position doesn't allow them to see sex as a social construction — they think they are replacing a falsehood (the social construction of gender) with a truth ("the scientific fact" of sex). That's why they still use outdated, medical terminology like "people with DSD" instead of just saying "intersex people". From the radfem perspective, intersex people are disordered outliers that shouldn't be counted.
This is tangential but, the fact that radfems are essentially misusing arguments like Butler's as a means for their own ends is why I think a lot of trans people (especially binary trans people) are resistant to Butler. I know it's why I personally was resistant to Butler for so long. As a less informed teenager I saw what I thought boiled down to "gender isn't real" from both radfems AND nonbinary people and that scared me as someone who identified as binary trans at the time.
It's why I do think this radfem argument is actually one of the things that pushes a lot of binary trans people into transmedicalism. It kind of creates this logical fallacy slippery slope of "If radfems are arguing that only sex is real and I want to argue against it, I have to prove that trans people's dysphoria is sex based to counter them".
When I was in the trenches of transmedicalism way back when, I didn't fully understand Butler and other nonbinary activists' positions, I just saw TERFs and radfems saying things that echoed my idea of Butler's words. I was, of course, wrong but it makes me very sympathetic to other trans people who instinctively shudder at Butler before understanding them because I think those trans people are coming from a similar place.
Ultimately though, the difference is radfems do not think gender euphoria/gender dysphoria exist or they are a seen as a sign of mental illness to treat like a dangerous disorder — because the radfem political position (much like the right wing) loves pathologizing anything outside of their own perceived norm.
Someone with a position akin to Butler (especially modern Butler) actually advocates for the destruction of barriers to self determination and self advocacy and essentially says "what matters most is that we, as a society, abolish the systems restraining you and allow you to exist however you see fit by addressing your needs without pathologizing them under an oppressive system".
As for reading — I'm genuinely not really sure where to point you to for these ideas, at least in a contemporary sense. I'm ironically more interested in understanding the historical roots of radical feminism in order to counter it because there's a bit more historical distance. I do see a lot of connections that go all the way back to women like Ti-Grace Atkinson and the Redstockings in the 60's and 70's, as well as to radfem woman/lesbian separatist literature from the 80's and into the 90's, but when it comes to literature approaching the 90's it starts hitting a wall of anti-sex work and transphobia that I struggle to engage with even from my position of trying to gain historical, academic understanding. My exposure to most modern radfem rhetoric that falls into this category just comes from being trans and a feminist on the internet for the last 13 years.
However — if you're interested in radical trans gender abolition that is actually abolitionist unlike radfems' bastardized idea of abolition — I highly recommend "The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto" by Eme Flores and Vikky Storm [ here ].
Basically TL;DR — You cannot approach trying to understand the logic of radical feminist gender abolition from a position that cares about intersex people, trans people, or any kind of bodily autonomy or self determination — because it is not a position that actually cares about intersex people and trans people or the bodily autonomy and self determination of anyone outside of radfems. That's why it feels contradictory or like you're missing something. You're not missing anything. It's a cruel philosophy that leads these radfems to a conclusion where they do not see people who are not like them as people who are actually worthy of consideration for the same levels of autonomy they want to grant themselves.
It's selfish, self centered, and cruel and there is no good way to reconcile that logic from a compassionate and open minded position.
