#even if it's not in a misnaming/transphobic context

[wild-at-mind]

Also now I'm feeling really shit about not getting to anything for trans day of remembrance this year.

[discyours]

Are you actually a terf

I’m gonna copy & paste my answer from a post I’ve written about this before.

Short answer; yes, and it’s not because I hate trans people (I don’t).

Starting with the radical feminist part, first of all it’s important to clarify that radical does not mean extremist in this context. The origin of the word radical is from latin radicalis, meaning relating to a root. Originally it meant the base, root, or fundamentals of something, though the meaning later shifted to essentially the exact opposite. In political context, radical is now often used to mean someone who advocates for thorough or complete social or political reform.

This is to say radical feminism is not extremist feminism, it is feminism at its root (female liberation rather than gender equality) and feminism that calls for large scale social and/or political reform. Depending on your interpretation, I either do or don’t agree with this. Some radfems see that reform as being communism, and I’m strongly against that, but I do agree with the root ideals of feminism far more than I do with modern feminism.

When it comes to why I’m a feminist rather than say, an egalitarian, and why I’m a feminist at all while women have equal rights in most Western countries, there’s multiple reasons. The first being that, while I’d consider myself to be an ally to men’s rights activists, I believe it’s better for everyone to have separate organisations for men’s and women’s rights. Men’s legal rights are admittedly lagging behind in countries where feminism has existed for a long time. This is the direct result of men trying to fight against feminism for decades before thinking to start their own movement though, so it would be ridiculous to make it a feminist issue to help them catch up. With separate organisations you also don’t have to waste any time fighting about who has it worse. MRAs get to focus on men’s rights even in areas where men have it better than women, and feminists get to focus on women’s rights even in areas where women have it better than men. There’s no need to convince anyone that the other side is more privileged, because they don’t have to be for you not to include them.

As far as which women’s rights I actually believe are lacking, legally there’s not much left except female reproductive rights and issues around prostitution (on both ends of the legal/illegal scale). On things that can’t easily be helped with concrete laws though, there’s a lot. Medical discrimination including things like longer ER wait times, a massive underdiagnosis of female specific health issues, abuse during labour, and a bias where things like PSAs on heart attacks make no mention of the fact that symptoms are often entirely different in females. I’ve already mentioned prostitution but a large part of what Western radfems fight for has to do with sex, including the normalisation of “sex work” while 90% of prostitutes want out, and while consent can by definition not be bought. BDSM culture is also a big issue as it both normalises and fetishises violence against women. And finally the reason I actually started to consider myself to be a feminist again, the social expectations that are put on women (which I got a unique perspective on as a trans man). This including the expectation to wear makeup, shave your legs, and wear bras (because the natural female body is unacceptable) but also certain expectations on social behaviours such as being quiet, unopinionated, compliant, and always friendly.

So that’s why I’m a radical or rad leaning feminist, now the trans exclusionary part. Trans exclusionary radical feminism is misnamed, because it doesn’t exclude all trans people. It excludes trans women for a very simple reason; trans women are not female (of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs). Trans women simply don’t deal with a large amount of issues that come with being a woman, the biggest examples being female reproductive rights. You can argue that a passing trans woman will socially be treated like any other woman, with catcalling being one of the most common examples. And while I think it’s important to note that catcalling is often experienced differently by trans women, I actually agree. Trans women can face certain types of social misogyny. But those things are already a part of feminism, and trans women are automatically going to benefit when they’re improved. Terfs aren’t fighting to end misogyny for everyone except trans women. Excluding trans women from feminism really means excluding issues specific to trans women from feminism, and that’s because those issues are by definition caused by not being female. When you hear trans exclusionary, think less “excludes trans people” and more “excludes trans issues”.

If you’ve read all of this and are thinking “but that’s not what terf means, terfs think trans women are rapists and trans men are self hating lesbians, they hate trans people” then no, that’s not me, I believe dysphoria is a real thing (gee I even have it myself) and that it’s a much more likely motivation to transition than hating women. 

There are transphobic terfs, but using that to claim that radical feminism is inherently transphobic just gives them an excuse to be hateful. I’m not going to steer clear of something I sincerely believe in just because some of the others who believe in it may dislike me for being trans. I’d rather prove them (and everyone else) wrong that transphobia has anything to do with radical feminism.