#Claire heuchan

[ask-a-radfem]

why does radical feminism consider gender/sex to be an extremely pivotal “class” of oppression, but not anything else like race, physical/mental disability, or literal wealth? why does radical feminism regularly deny the fact that women who are privileged can and do avoid many of the actual material results of oppression? why does radical feminism seemingly avoid conversations about intersectionality, and seemingly refuse to admit that men can also experience forms of discrimination?

short answer: this is a misconception. Just because we dont subscribe to the tumblrized version of "intersectional feminism" ("how privileged are you? find your privilege score!" ) doesnt mean we dont think intersectionality is important and that race, class are main axes of oppression.

Long answer:

[sagevalleymusings]

Responding to "Lesbian is a Powerful Word:" With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

So I wrote the bulk of this essay in February of 2020 when the original article I reference came out. Then… I dunno, something happened. And I forgot about this in the face of… well, you know. Everything. But I think it’s still highly relevant, so I’ve wrapped up the ending, cleaned up my sourcing, and am setting it loose on the world. Enjoy.

A while ago, AfterEllen published an article by Claire Heuchan called “Lesbian is a Powerful Word: Here’s Why We Will Always Need It.”

This bothered me a lot, not because I disagree, but because I felt like the argument being made was disingenuous at best. The author assumed that their definition of lesbian (a biological female who is exclusively attracted to other biological females) is the only valid definition, then proceeded to use this assumption to explain why lesbian identity needed to be protected from modern queer politics or risk erasure.

I wouldn’t just disagree, but would counter-argue that Heuchan is pushing a dangerous false narrative, one that misses a huge swathe of discourse around how the term lesbian can and does fit into non-binary spaces.

But what struck me the most was that the argument itself was poorly constructed. There were multiple instances where I didn’t just disagree, but didn’t think that the argument even made logical sense. For example, at one point Heuchan cites three articles about how modern lesbians dislike the term lesbian. But there are two issues with this: the first is that two of the three articles are joking listicles with no real substance which of course could be torn to shreds with the most basic of counter argument, but the second issue is that Heuchan constructs this as an attack on lesbians by non-lesbians when in fact these articles were about how lesbians themselves feel about the term for their own identity. Not only that, but the only article of substance wasn’t provided a link for, so by lumping that article in with these two joking listicles, and then on top of that falsely claiming that these listicles were written by non-lesbians, Heuchan has literally constructed a strawman argument that non-lesbians are trying to tell lesbians not to use the term because it has too many syllables or sounds like a disease (a point made, ironically, by lesbian icon Ellen, who AfterEllen gets their name from).

I was so frustrated by this lack of well-constructed argument that I did some research, and I discovered that self-proclaimed radical feminist Claire Heuchan has a blog where she made a much longer, more nuanced version of this argument. And although I still disagree with the premise, I think it’s important to acknowledge that for me to respond purely to this AfterEllen fluff piece without an acknowledgement of the fantastic work Heuchan has done on black feminism on her award-winning blog would be as disingenuous as failing to include an intersectional perspective of lesbian that is trans-inclusive in an argument about where the term lesbian fits into modern queer rhetoric. Because not only is it the case that lesbian can fit into modern queer rhetoric, it’s a conversation that is happening in trans-inclusive spaces.

But Heuchan’s accomplishments as a black radical feminist don’t change the fact that she’s a radical feminist, and only the briefest dissection of her six-part series on sex and gender does legitimize my concern that this means that Heuchan is a trans-exclusionary radical feminist. And on some level, I have a hard time taking trans-exclusionary arguments seriously, because they so frequently construct a false narrative. Heuchan’s argument assumes that all lesbians agree with her definition of lesbian, because in her world, a lesbian is a cis woman attracted exclusively to cis women, and anyone calling themselves a lesbian who doesn’t fall into that category is contributing to lesbian erasure. 

It’s a winner-take-all argument that allows for absolutely no middle ground, because all dissent is just considered oppressive patriarchy. Heuchan doesn’t believe in gender. At all. She believes that gender is a tool by the patriarchy to keep women (and by women she means people with vaginas) oppressed. So any argument that I attempt to make about queering lesbianism to include trans women or non-binary folks is stopped before it even gets to the discussion stage because the premise that people can identify as women at all is considered invalid.

If I were to make a counter-argument to the AfterEllen article, it would be to say that “lesbian” does have a checkered history of transphobia which means that lesbians like me have trouble relating to it. So do I stop identifying as a lesbian because it feels like other lesbians are trying to push me and the people I love out? Or do I try to open it so that more people can be included? The argument I would make is that lesbian fits into modern queer politics better by opening. Lesbian used to be defined as an attraction to women in general (fellow queer tumblrina star-anise has documented this extremely well), not an exclusive one, and that older definition is very compatible with modern queer politics. A loosening on the reigns of lesbian would allow non-binary folks and trans women to find acceptance of the very real experience they have. And although trans-inclusive rhetoric can get pretty aggressive, at times complaining that lesbians refusing to date trans women is itself transphobic, I think there is a place in the middle where we can acknowledge that trans lesbians and cis lesbians who date trans women exist, while still allowing for preference, much like anything else. No one is forcing transphobic lesbians to date trans women. This point even gets brought up in the much longer discussion Heuchan is encouraging on her blog, when she talks about the “cotton ceiling.” But the way in which it’s brought up here conflates the argument in a disingenuous way, not only by pointing out that the cotton ceiling was coined by a trans woman but then not providing links to the original conversation, but then also by dismissing the entire argument of the cotton ceiling and by extension the trans activist’s extremely valid point that cis lesbians are bad at talking about trans inclusion. 

I want to add a sidebar here to say that actually I think I can understand why Heuchan didn’t cite the original cotton ceiling discussion. It’s poorly archived. I am not the only person who has looked and failed to find the original source. Wikipedia doesn’t even cite the original source - they cite an academic article citing a blog that no longer exists. The oldest sources I can find are trans exclusive radical feminists tearing into it as early as March 2012, but none of them screenshot the original tweet (it is implied it’s a tweet). If it weren’t for the fact that I have heard other trans activists use the term, I would almost say it was made up whole cloth. At the very least I think it is telling that the term traveled through Heuchan’s spaces far more than it did trans activist spaces - potentially an example I see not infrequently of radical feminists blowing a bad take out of proportion and treating it as representative of trans perspective as a whole. 

To go back to my point about Heuchan’s premise, there is a counter-argument being skirted around that seeks to incorporate lesbianism into modern queer politics. The problem is that Heuchan’s argument doesn’t allow for this possibility at all, doesn’t even acknowledge it, because from a trans-exclusionary radical feminist viewpoint, lesbians who have sex with trans women are no longer lesbians and therefore do not get a say.

Another way to construct this argument would be to say that Heuchan is arguing that lesbians who think lesbianism includes dating trans and non-binary folks are themselves contributing to lesbian erasure, and that trans-exclusionary lesbianism is here to stay. But phrased this way, the argument sounds a lot less defensible. Because from that perspective, the trans-exclusionary stance is one that stands against other lesbians specifically. 

And yeah. It does.

Lesbian is a powerful word, and I want it to be here to stay. But it’s hard to advocate for a term when so many people have tried so hard to link the term lesbian with transphobia. And this especially hurts when… it’s just not true. 

In March of 2023, the LGBT+ youth charity Just Like Us published an early report on their survey on trans inclusivity among LGBT young adults. They found that of the over 3,000 LGBT+ young adults surveyed, lesbians were the most inclusive orientation, with a staggering 96% saying they were supportive or very supportive of trans people. 

Queer folk are more supportive than the general populace, but 96% is unreal. And yet, those numbers back up my own experience in lesbian spaces. Almost all of us are supportive or very supportive of the trans people in our lives. 

Lesbian does not necessarily just mean “female homosexual.” It can be a cis woman attracted to femmes. It can be a non-binary she/they. It can be a he/him butch. Hell, believe it or not, some trans women are also lesbians. 

Lesbians aren’t being erased. It’s just that a lot of the people calling themselves lesbians now are people you disagree with.

Welcome to the club.

[radfemblack]

[whentherewerebicycles]

“Like the majority of Black feminists, I can never afford to take the solidarity of white women for granted. I think some white women get offended that our shared womanhood doesn’t automatically win them my trust – but those are usually the women best avoided. With every white woman I meet, whether or not she realises it, there is a careful vetting process that takes place inside my head. I watch and listen carefully before opening myself to a connection with her.

I’m wary of white women, but open to the possibility of kinship and solidarity with them. It’s exactly the same way I feel about Black men. In a white supremacist patriarchy, there’s potential for good and harm in both of those relationships. Racism within the feminist movement has hurt me in profound and painful ways; so much so that I can’t afford to let my guard down with white women – at least, not to begin with. There will probably be some white feminists reading these words thinking that I sound paranoid or unsisterly. To them, I say: how much do you trust men?

A man you have never met before approaches you on the street, calling after you. He could be about to hand you back the umbrella you dropped without realising and continue on his way. Or he could be catcalling and following you in the hope of forcing contact you do not want. You are poised to run or scream. The metal of your house keys is hot between your knuckles. At the back of your brain flickers an animal sort of fear, the fight or flight instinct hardwired to keep us alive. It could be nothing. But, you can’t help thinking, it might be something. That’s how it works with gender.

It also works that way with race. Just as I fear sexual assault on the last train home, I fear being pelted with racial slurs. Over time, like countless other people of colour, I’ve developed a kind of spidey-sense that tingles when it’s coming: those questions designed to police and undermine the belonging of my Black body in this white, white country. Whether it’s the hands of men trying to cop a feel or the hands of white women curious about the texture of my hair, both forms of touching happen without my consent and are a part of the racialised misogyny that hugely complicates my relationship with public space.

The Scottish feminist movement is very white. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, given that the majority whiteness is a consequence of Scotland’s population. Still, it can leave women of colour vulnerable within feminist spaces. I cannot take it for granted that there will be another Black woman in the room. When racism happens – which is a case of when rather than if – there is no guarantee that other women will recognise it. And even if white women do understand that what’s happening is racism, they will not necessarily be willing to acknowledge it as such. The final hurdle: those white women who recognise and acknowledge racism aren’t always willing to challenge it. As a consequence of being in multiple minority groups, I can’t rely on members of the majority choosing to align themselves with me. Challenging racism requires white women to voluntarily step outside of the fold.

[...]

Whether or not they realise it, all the white women who said that I was being overly sensitive about race sounded like nothing so much as a man in a position of power trying to delegitimise the complaint of sexual harassment filed against him by a junior female employee. They closed ranks, in exactly the same way Boris Johnson did when he shut down the inquiry into the conduct of Mark Field MP that began after he slammed a female protestor into the wall and dragged her from the room by her throat. White women choose to leverage their power in exactly the same way that men do, importing the patriarchy’s oppressiveness and cruelty into a movement that’s supposed to fight for the liberation of all women.

I have yet to meet a radical feminist who meets misogyny with a smile, accommodating the comfort of sexist men over the safety and wellbeing of women. And I hope that I never do. The power of radical feminism lies in its rigorous structural analysis, however uncomfortable it can be. Still, white women continue to expect me to accommodate their racism, to be polite in addressing it – or, better yet, say nothing at all.

[...]

Every so often a white woman will say to me “but we’re not men”, as though their violence is excusable because it’s less likely to be physical. Black women deserve so much better than choosing between the false binary of men’s misogyny and white women’s racism. We deserve to be treated with respect and kindness everywhere – especially in social movements of which we are so often the backbone. Race is a hierarchy in exactly the same way that gender is a hierarchy. White feminists can either work to disband both by actively building interracial solidarity, or cling to power in one by reinforcing the other. They must choose.

God knows it’s not comfortable scrutinising yourself as a member of the oppressor class. But that critical self-reflection is so freeing. And it opens up the most exciting possibilities for connecting with women whose lives are completely unlike your own.”

-- Claire Heuchan, “When White Women Close Ranks,” Sister Outrider

[listening2lesbians]

Australia: Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Denies Single Sex Lesbian Event

Australia: Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Denies Single Sex Lesbian Event

by Claire Heuchan AfterEllen.com A new ruling in Tasmania decrees that lesbians will be breaking the law if they host single-sex spaces. Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Sarah Bolt banned LGB Alliance Australia from hosting lesbian events that exclude transwomen, on the grounds that such gatherings carry a “significant risk” of breaching existing equalities legislation. This ruling has…

[radfemetc]

[lovefreedompowerlove]

Escaping compulsory heterosexuality is a hard won victory for lesbians. ... Lesbian sexuality is legitimate. Women’s sexual boundaries are legitimate. Be wary of anyone who seeks to undermine either, for whatever cause.

Claire Heuchan

[tokendyke]

‘Feminist principles and empathy both seem to go missing in the Bermuda triangle of whiteness, class privilege, and heterosexuality – that standpoint, it often seems, is where solidarity between women goes to die.‘ 

[thegynocrat-blog]

https://twitter.com/ClaireShrugged/status/879304535059165187

[there-are-4-lights]

"Gathering myself together, repairing the damage with a breath mint and lipstick, I wonder at this situation. How have we, members of a liberal democracy, reached a point where the threat of violence is being used to discourage women from having meetings to talk about our rights? All kinds of misogyny become freshly permissible if you call the woman in question a TERF.

I know a number of women booked to attend this event, and I know quite a few women planning to protest it too. There's not a world of difference between their politics. All of us believe women and trans-identifying people deserve to live full, free lives, safe from men's violence. We all want to live in a society where the trajectory of a baby's life isn't largely determined by whether they have a vagina or a penis. And we all want an end to the inequalities propping up patriarchy.

There's a lot of common ground, whether or not either 'side' wants to walk on it. And I think it's the defining tragedy of contemporary feminism that any chance of coalition, of a collaborative approach to doing feminist politics, gets trampled when there are differences in how women conceptualise gender.

If the people protesting outside had come in and listened to what we said, I don't believe there's anything they could class as hateful. Julie Bindel speaks about ending male violence against women. Rosa Freedman talks about meeting the human rights of women and trans people. Lucy Hunter Blackburn considers the problems with androcentric policy making. Louise Moody reflects on the complicated relationship between post-modernism and material reality. And I speak from the heart about how painful this schism over gender has become for everyone involved.

I also question why violence against women is being conflated with liberation politics. Women of colour don't bring baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire to anti-racist marches and talk about fucking up white supremacist women. Disabled women don't send images of guns and nooses captioned 'shut the fuck up' to enabled women. Working-class women don't send messages to middle-class women saying they hope we get raped or better yet killed, which is exactly what one self-proclaimed trans rights activist said to me when I defined lesbianism as same-sex attraction between women. But all of this behaviour has become standard practice in gender discourse".

Claire Heuchan, in The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht

[genderisareligion]

"I can't be racist, I'm black" doesn't actually address the problem that TERFs use racist ideals of femininity to determine who is and isn't a woman. Black Women are specifically targeted by transphobic dogpiling because we don't meet white beauty standards, they don't care if we're real women, they attack anyway, and TRAs are the ones I see defending us by default while TERFs usually have to be told that "no, they're real woman" before they stop attacking us, and only a handful bother apologizing before they move on to harass some other woman who isn't white enough to be a woman. We have to face the truth, even if we are real women, TERFs hate trannies more than they want to protect black women, we can't trust them

What "TERFs" are going around calling black women men? Cause I really don't see this happening. If you're going to come back (I'd prefer it if you didn't) give me specific examples of this happening. Radical feminists are not "racist when determining who is a woman," the only thing that makes one female is the production of the large gamete, your race doesn't matter, any disease, disorder or disability you have doesn't matter, you just have to be female.

Harassment of black women calling them male and masculine does happen, like with racists and misogynists, but I don't see it happening among radical feminists. Y'all will call anyone regardless of whether or not they're a feminist let alone a radical feminist a "TERF," men, women who vehemently hate other women as well as trans people, any random Bible punting patriarchy loving conservative who hates GNC bi and lesbian leftists, as many radical feminists are. Racist women harass black women all the time, but those aren't radical feminists. Radical feminist is anti racist. Ever read Audre Lorde? Barbara and Beverly Smith? Claire Heuchan? Here's Claire's blog for what radical feminists actually believe, since you seem to be confused.

Regardless black women being harassed for not living up to white beauty standards is not fucking transphobia. It's misogynoir. Before TRAs and their white ass gender and "queer theory" starting attempting to colonize everyone's language, black women were calling it that and I'm not about to march to the popular drum that says I should start calling it transphobia just because dysphoric males need me to be "less female than other females" so that they can feel better about themselves.

Nice use of the t-slur, by the way. Almost everyone I've ever followed who's gender critical or a radical feminist is above using that word but apparently you aren't lol

[comrade-meow]

The Lancet medical journal has been accused of sexism after describing women as “bodies with vaginas” on the cover of its latest edition.

A tweet of the front page prompted a wave of criticism, with academics cancelling subscriptions and resigning as reviewers, doctors condemning the phrase as “dehumanising” and activists suggesting the term was “unhelpful” for broader debates about inclusivity.

The cover refers to an article, titled “Periods on Display”, that reviews an exhibition at London’s Vagina Museum on the history of menstruation. The writer refers to “women” four times in the piece, but uses the phrase “bodies with vaginas” once.

It is a quote including this latter phrase that The Lancet’s editors chose to use on the front page. “Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected,” it says.

While the language seems to be an attempt at inclusivity, it has prompted a backlash, with some academics suggesting they will never work with the journal again.

“Just wrote [to] The Lancet to tell them to take me off their list of statistical reviewers and cancel my subscription and never contact me about anything ever again,” Prof David Curtis, a retired psychiatrist and honorary professor of genetics at University College London, wrote on Twitter.

“Absolutely inexcusable language to refer to women and girls.”

Dr Madeleine Ní Dhálaigh, a GP, added: “You can be inclusive without being insulting and abusive. How dare you dehumanise us with a statement like this?”

Others suggested that the journal has double standards, flagging a Twitter post on September 20 in which it referred to the 10 million “men” living with prostate cancer and pointing out they have never seen it use the phrase “bodies with penises”.

Dr Katie Paddock, a lecturer in education psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: “Considering, as the replies highlight, that The Lancet has recently published work on prostates and refers to men, I don’t think the decision to use ‘bodies with vaginas’ is an attempt at inclusive language.”

Women Make Glasgow, a campaign group, said it had logged a formal complaint “about the dehumanising and straight up sexist cover story”.

Claire Heuchan, a feminist blogger, called the term “utterly shameful and totally regressive”. “This framing makes it sound like a coincidence that ‘bodies with vaginas’ have been neglected by medicine, as if it were not the product of a discrimination and oppression specific to the female sex,” she said on Twitter. “Until [the Lancet starts] writing about ‘bodies with penises’, dehumanising and neglecting research specific to men, I’m going to call this erasure out for what it is: sexism.”

There were also concerns that the language undermined inclusivity amid increasingly toxic debates on gender. “There is absolutely a conversation to be had about trans-inclusive language, but ‘bodies with vaginas’ is not the one and doesn’t do women, trans men or non-binary people any favours,” Sarah Graham, a freelance health journalist covering medical biases, said.

She wrote on Twitter: “It IS possible to be inclusive AND accurate AND acknowledge medical misogyny (& transphobia) all at once, without reducing anyone to their anatomy.”

The Lancet has not responded to requests for comment.

[listening2lesbians]

Spinifex Press: Celebrating Radical Lesbian Publishing

Spinifex Press: Celebrating Radical Lesbian Publishing

by Claire Heuchan

AfterEllen.com

Spinifex was founded in March of 1991 by Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein. The press began as a pushback to the cuts that threatened feminist and literary publishing during Australia’s recession. Susan and Renate started out with four titles. Since then, Spinifex has gone from strength to strength. They publish everything from fiction to poetry to political…

[radfemetc]

@claireshrugged is one of my faves on twitter, do check her out.

[lovefreedompowerlove]

Men are the problem. Unless we can identify them as perpetrators of the vast majority of violence directed towards women and girls, we cannot challenge that violence in any meaningful way -- never mind hope to end it. ... A feminism that cannot name male violence against women is incapable of challenging it; and, therefore, useless.

Claire Heuchan