#trans inclusive radical feminism does exist. intersectional feminism does exist. but so many people are just... unwillfully submitting

[imadeoutwithmikeywayonwarpedtour]

why are women just always expected to. deal with it. deal with harrassment, rape, being pregnant when we don't want to be, slutshaming, burnout, abuse. like. i hate where feminism is right now because it's very bipartisan. you're either are a t3rf, or you're too afraid to say anything remotely radical because you don't want to sound like one. it's just like. i fucking hate what transmisogynists and white feminists have done to what used to be, a radical movement focused on improving the lives of ALL women.

[trans-androgyne]

Radical feminism cannot ever be trans-inclusive.

Why do I keep saying this? Because I have increasingly been seeing transmasc and transfem folks weaponize radical feminist ideas against each other and I am tired of it.

(TL;DR at the end, I know this is lengthy.)

So, what is radical feminism and how does it differ from other kinds of feminism? It’s the idea that patriarchy is the primary root oppression from which all other oppression spawns. It holds that the two primary classes are men/males and women/females, and that men are responsible for creating and maintaining all oppression, with women playing a more passive, secondary role. We're off to a bad start already; this is an inherently racist framework that absolves privileged women of their role in creating and upholding oppression, as the idea is that if women ran the world oppression would not exist. Intersectional feminism, on the other hand, understands the way many forms of oppression are rooted in racism, and that all systems of oppression are interconnected without having one singular root.

The way it functions and its prescribed remedies rely on the idea of a sisterhood--all women/females are connected with each other against men/males. The common belief is that males as the more powerful* class will always try to oppress women unless women band together against them and intervene. Men are framed as the enemy to be fought, not potential allies to be recruited into feminism.

Many of us have an idea of traditional cis radical feminism and how that leads to TERFism. But how does it function in the trans community? For radical feminism to work, a "sister" class oppressed by misogyny and an enemy class causing it must be identified. Radfem trans women will say that their identity as women means they experience the worst misogyny--trans men and mascs just get the weaker "misdirected" version, and in fact have a motive to uphold misogyny due to their identification with manhood*. Trans men are the enemy class that oppresses trans women. Radfem trans men will say that people afab are the real class that experiences the worst misogyny due to their ability to give birth*--while trans women and fems as people amab* are more aligned with cis men due to having received male privilege and been "socialized male" in addition to not having the same reproductive capabilities*. Trans women are the enemy class that oppresses trans men.

Both of these notions rely on painting groups of trans people as having access to patriarchal power they do not. They downplay the way misogyny functions in the lives of the perceived patriarchal class of trans people. It inherently ignores the real experiences of trans people and paints some of them as an enemy class; it cannot ever be truly inclusive of all trans people. Intersectional transfeminism would take into account the way misogyny functions in the oppression of all trans people, and analyze the material conditions of trans folks to reveal that no group of them is granted access to patriarchal power and cis male privilege. It means banding together as a unified trans community and understanding where our experiences are shared, as well as accounting for the way other systems of oppression critically shape the lives of trans people of color, disabled trans people, intersex trans people, and other groups.

*There are a lot of assumptions present in this analysis like the assumed agabs and reproductive abilities of trans men and women; these are not my beliefs but the oversimplifications espoused by the radfems I'm describing.

TL;DR: Radical feminism requires identifying one class as the patriarchal oppressors and the other as the oppressed victims. In the "trans-inclusive" version, this means downplaying the experiences with misogyny of either trans men and mascs or trans women and fems. It identifies either transmisogyny or "afabmisogyny" as the real root of all oppression, ignoring the voices and experiences of the most marginalized trans people. Truly inclusive transfeminism would unite all trans people against the patriarchy instead of falsely implicating us in it.

[boreal-sea]

Genuine question...

Why does it seem like people on this site are only aware of two kinds of feminism?

It feels like, at least from what I see on tumblr, that most people are just... unaware there are different kinds of feminism? Feminism isn't a monolith.

The types of feminism that tumblr seems aware of are:

Radical Feminism: "Real" feminism for adult human females and all other kinds of feminism are inferior.

Liberal Feminism: "Libfems", aka, weak and bad feminism, what radfems call every other feminist who they decide isn't "radical" enough.

But like, when you look up schools of feminism you learn the big ones are Liberal feminism, Radical feminism, and Socialist feminism. There's also Eco feminism and Cultural feminism.

But like, Intersectional Feminism exists, and isn't any of the above.

Plus, to make it even more confusing, there are "Waves" of feminism:

First Wave Feminism: 1700-1800's, involved the abolitionists, and was usually focused on recognizing women as people, not property. Second Wave Feminism: 1960's and 70's. It's here that the three main well-known kinds of feminism emerged: cultural, radical, and liberal. Liberal feminism focused on institutional change and implementing improvements that would benefit women. Radical feminism rejected the idea that men and women were basically the same, and insisted only a complete overhaul of society would ensure freedom for women. Cultural feminism is basically radical feminism with the serial number filed off. Separatist movements diverged out of radical feminism, including political lesbianism and female separatism. Third Wave Feminism: The 80's and 90's. Here is where Intersectional Feminism is created, and voices of WoC uplifted. Feminism is also focused on a woman's choice to shape who she is and what she can do with herself: individuality, rebellion, and reclaiming. Fourth Wave Feminism: Where we are right now; there are enough changes with the internet, MeToo, further discussions of race and intersectionality as well as trans rights, that we're in a fourth wave of feminism that is still responding to some of the problems of Second Wave feminism, especially with regards to intersectionality. However, there are anti-intersectional schisms in 4th wave feminism, too. Gender Critical Feminism and Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists are branches of Radical Feminism that are overtly transphobic.

I got all of this from a quick Google search, it's not hard to find this information. This is a SUPER brief summary.

So like... believing or insisting that Radical Feminism is the only One True Best Form Of Feminism is uh... bad. But you don't have to just resort to liberal feminism, either. There are a bunch of choices!! Many kinds of feminism acknowledge the damage patriarchy does to men, for example. Many kinds of feminism are trans-inclusive.

Know Feminist History, and make your choice based on what YOU want!!

[the-feminist-philosopher]

A philosophical challenge that "gender-crit" activism needs to overcome is its overemphasis of sex subordination.

In the gender-critical case against trans inclusion, structural subordination on the basis of sex dominates the discussion to the virtual exclusion of anything else. That's not to say there's no such thing as a male dominant society. I would never claim that just the same I would NEVER claim there's no such thing as a white supremacist society.

This is more a commentary on two things: the presupposition of social hierarchies in the ideological investments in structural oppression and structuralist frameworks that gender-crits care deeply about as well as the lack of engagement with intersectional frameworks.

Ideological investments in the structural oppression gender-crits care deeply about has led them to presuppose the validity of the frameworks they're using to interpret this structural oppression rather than take their validity as a hypothesis. This presupposition can lead one to miss noticing other things that are going on, especially things that just can’t, and probably should not, be forced into the explanatory frameworks gender-crits use to interpret structural oppression. "[I]f one inadvertently presupposes the singular centrality, ubiquitous validity, and superior explanatory power of the (natal) male/ (natal) female binary in structuring social relations," they miss many of the following dynamics:

"...the fact that trans girls do not identify with maleness can be expected to make a difference to the outcomes of [their] socialization"

the fact that trans girls exist can lead us to conclude that the supposed male socialization does not inherently produce a cissexual or have a universal outcome

the violence and discrimination that trans women face is connected to the violence and discrimination faced by cis women

the idea that cis women are a culturally subordinate caste while trans women are members of the dominant caste "discounts the ways in which sex, gender, and cis/trans status intersect" given that "[t]hese intersections produce more complex, shifting, and context-dependent power relationships than are captured by the M > F formula."

"Radical feminism, in its simplest form, believes that women’s oppression is the most pervasive, extreme and fundamental of all social inequalities regardless of race, class, nationality, and other factors. It is only under this assumption that the privilege transsexual women are perceived to have (i.e., male privilege) can be viewed as far more dangerous to others than any other privileges (i.e., being white, middle-class, etc.) ... But such ranking of oppressions and simplistic identity politics is inherently oppressive to people who are marginalized due to multiple identities." This is what led the Combahee River Collective to divorce itself from the separatist movement, a movement often lauded in radical feminist circles. "It is not simply that white radical feminists happened to be racist; rather, the series of assumptions behind radical lesbian feminism (e.g., women’s oppression is the most pervasive and fundamental) was faulty as it privileged ‘those for whom that position is the primary or only marked identity.'"

And this is part of what has led black and brown feminist to observe that white women- even white feminist women- are not fighting for the liberation of women, but for equal access to the white supremacist power structure. The only thing in their way is men, so it becomes the most consequential fight for them.

Such ideas about the patriarchy being the most pervasive and fundamental axis of oppression are reinforced in arguments against trans women's inclusion in women's spaces. Once such argument that trans women should be denied entry because their experiences are too different rests on the assumption that all other women’s experiences are the same. Another such argument is that trans women experience a degree of privilege, and while that's something I would dispute, even if we were to take the "gender-crit" assumption of their privilege, we don't exclude people on the basis of having some privilege given that not all women are equally privileged or oppressed (see: white women). Suggesting that safety is dependent on the exclusion of trans women or that trans women compromise the inherent safety of women's-only spaces also ignores the ways women act out violence and discrimination against each other (see: white women and racist violence).

All of this has led to the "gender-crit" movement being *predominantly* white, western, middle class, and heterosexual (re: predominantly, not exclusively, predominantly) because they ignore the intersection of privileges and marginalizations, leading many women-only, trans-exclusionary movements tofail to address how systems or racism, ablesim, and classism are reproduced within their organizations.

[betweentheracks]

LGBTQ+ and Queer Operated/Founded Brands

A composite list of some of the notable brands I have worked with or been in contact with throughout my time as a stylist. Rooted in queer communities, founded by LGBTQ+ designers, and dedicated to pursuing gender inclusive styles as well as providing an uplifting community committed to showcasing the talents of LGBTQ+ persons. A number of these also have a deal of activity in supporting POC or black owned and operated fashion brands and design studios. 

Otherwild: Los Angeles, California. 

Queer identified and woman-owned, Otherwild was established in 2012. It is a store, design studio, and event space. They offer apparel and accessories, as well as lo/no-waste home cleaning products and personal care products. Very grassroots and have a foundation of ethics and sustainability, working in earnest to establish a countercultural relationship to exploitative, extractive, and excessive consumer capitalist culture. They’re quite cost-effective with fair pricing on their range of products.

Rebirth Garments: Chicago, Illinois.

Entirely gender non-conforming, Rebirth Garments caters specifically to all non-binary, trans, and disabled. Their clothing line is custom made upon order, touting a distinct lack of standard sizes since part of their mission and manifesto is to tailor their styles to exactly the consumer’s specifications regardless of body type. Their party line is “Radical Visibility” and have a zine under the same name; their manifesto expressed as a desire to establish and nurture a community of people that have been excluded from mainstream fashion but are still deserving of an outlet to feel confident in expressing pride in the intersections of identity. Their materials are all vibrant and wild, bold and exuberant as a means to challenge the ableist and sizest ideals of mainstream fashions which still centers on gender and binary conforming styles. -- They also offer virtual lessons on accessibility, entrepreneurship, and much more. 

Automic Gold: New York City, New York.

Queer owned and queer operated all inclusive jewelry, Automic Gold promotes their products as the most comfortable and versatile jewelry available. The founder is genderqueer and makes a point to create truly genderless accessories and does so with designs that specifically mix and warp the essence of masculinity and femininity, bringing together that which is both outside and inside to form that which is beyond. Sustainable and eco-friendly, all of their jewelry is made from reclaimed gold and 100% recyclable material. Automic Gold is the only known jeweler that carries rings in sizes 2 to 16 and utilize this point to shade the fashion industry for being so constrained by sizing standards. 

Wildfang:  Los Angeles, California/Portland, Oregon.

Women found, women run, women oriented. Wildfang is seated in the belief that women can and should wear whatever they want and be whatever they want. They give much of their profits to charities and organizations that center on the rights of the oppressed communities, namely queer, reproductive, and immigrant activism. Their collections offer full suits tailored to a female body, workwear made of truly durable materials to outlast even the worst of working conditions, and button ups that won’t gap at the boobs and are not super form-fitting. They promote the sort of modern feminism that holds no underlying toxic ideals of woman’s superiority, and works in the name of women having their rights unrestricted so that they can live their fullest lives with a true sense of self and self-worth alike. 

STUZO CLOTHING: Los Angeles, California.

Steeped in the ideals of love, people, and life STUZO celebrates existence without emphasis on identity. Women owned and black owned, STUZO offers apparel with no gender bias with designs meant to invoke thought and feeling; an experience of the self, expressed without boundary. STUZO looks at clothing as being without life and therefore cannot be limited by borders of gender; textiles worn and filled out by consumers breathing life into them.

PYRAMID SEVEN: Chicago, Illinois.

A niche brand; they provide boxer briefs for periods, not gender. Their philosophy and belief is that regardless of where you fall on the gender spectrum or identify yourself as, if you menstruate you should be wearing their briefs. Designed with comfort and protection in mind, PYRAMID SEVEN briefs offer assurance that there is no longer a need to worry about leakage or bagginess - discomfort does not exist in their brand. These briefs are made to be used either in tandem with menstrual products of all kinds or even for free bleeding, it’s all at behest to comfort during an uncomfortable time. They are also advocates of privacy and neither reveal themselves too freely nor make comments on their consumer base, only expressing the validity of their representation being that of all who menstruate. 

Fluide: Brooklyn, New York.

Beauty brand founded by a mother’s goal to establish a gender-expansive beauty line to celebrate under-represented faces and voice, supporting young people’s self-expression and creativity. Fluide is queer oriented and offers a full range of vegan/cruelty free cosmetics for all skin tones + types and gender expression. Their belief is that makeup is joyful, transformative, and meant to be inclusive of all with a wish of being expressive and to invent themselves as they want to be seen. They are a platform of queer voices showcasing queer beauty and work with many LGBTQ+ non-profits and advocate for revolutionizing the world of fashion and all of it’s mainstream conception of beauty standards and create a style space of authenticity.

Official Rebrand: New York City, New York. 

A unique brand founded by a non-binary artist, Official Rebrand revives discarded clothing and remakes designs by breathing life back into what was unwanted. The mastermind behind the concept paints or otherwise alters (rebrands) items that have been cast aside and turns them into works of art which in turn proposes an anti-waste alternative.  The rebranding process strips clothing of their proposed gender categories and promotes the fluidity of identity. Official Rebrand dominates the medium where art and fashion overlap, reintroducing his pieces without any sense of today’s arbitrary societal constraints. 

PHLEMUNS: Los Angeles, California. 

Black and queer owned/operated, PHLEMUNS is a non-binary all inclusive brand that seeks to merge elements of nostalgia and modern contemporary fashion. With a goal of bridging the gap between high fashion and every day communities, this brand takes what is called a slow-fashion approach to their designs and crafts meticulously and intentionally on styles meant to be seen as accessible, inclusive, and wholly unisex. This is a brand which exists in the grey areas of society, fashion, and thrives on the idea of intersecting identity. 

NO SESSO: Los Angeles, California.

The brand name itself is Italian for “no sex/gender” and the fashion it produces truly encompasses this meaning. This is a fashion house that cranks out collections specifically targeting conventions of art, fashion, and culture. Their lines offer ranges in color, fabrics, prints, and reconstructed materials but their true signature is hand embroidery. Much of their collections are made from upcycled fabrics and materials found at flea markets and make use of patchwork designs as a motif of their community-based foundations. Think streetwear but couture, and this is what NO SESSO is defined by. 

gc2b: Maryland, USA.

Trans-owned, founded, and operated. gc2b produced the first chest binder and snapped off transitional apparel and established themselves as the first gender-affirming company in the industry. The credence of the company is comfortable, safe, and accessible binding options designed by trans people for trans people and to accomodate the vast spectrum of humanity. gc2b has donated over 6000 binders to those in need and sponsors over 100 LGBTQ+ organizations while working extensively with LGBTQ+ communities and charities to raise funds and awareness. 

Likely I will revise this post from time to time and update the listing. 

I really like being able to use my position as a platform to provide notice of undervalued communities within the fashion industry and world of style. I have often purchased outright and incorporated many key pieces of some of my most notable styles and ensembles from LGBTQ+ brands that deserve recognition and think of it as a soft promotion of their talent and falls within the conduct my company expects me to abide. 

Originally I did intend to have links in this post to make checking them out easier, but I was having some issues with tumblr being crotchety and had to forgo them sadly. Still, I encourage anyone interested to take a peek at their online sites or social medias - they’re all very lovely and inspirational!

[intersex-ionality]

Howdy! Very much enjoying your incisive analyses using Feminist, Gender, & Queer Theory (all of which might as well be blackberry-jalepeno, as they're absolutely MY FAVORITE JAM!). Anyway, wished to ask how you define 4th Wave Feminism (relative to 3rd Wave). Every explanation I've come across so far seems to boil down to 4th = 3rd + Internet ... but that seems insufficient to me, since an added medium doesn't make for a new philosophy. Wondering if you can point out what I'm missing? Thanks!

Ah, I see the confusion!

The fourth wave is the result of third wave feminism being widely accessible on the internet. A new medium does not create a new philosophy. But a new  participating audience, generation, and set of background assumptions does.

Some key differences between third and fourth wave feminism include:

An increased focus on the toxic effects that the gender binary has on people of all genders, not just on women

Additional scrutiny on the faults of the gender binary has made the fourth wave more accessible to trans people, and some academics define the fourth wave by its inclusion and exploration of transgender themes rather than the internet.

A firmer foundation in intersectionality, brought to a more firm understanding as a result of better access to other people’s lived experiences. While intersectional feminism was posited and at least conceptually began in the third wave, intersectionality as a concept was not considered a primary tenet of feminism until the fourth wave. Obviously there’s a lot left to be done with that, but it’s a marked departure from the way third wave feminism was dominated by white, western, cis women paying lip service to other groups in the third wave.

An unfortunate focus on individualism and individual contribution rather than organized action, brought about in part by the nature of social media as a platform for rapid one-on-one or one-on-many distribution of opinions, rather than a system for large groups to organize radical action

A tendency towards classism as historic modes of communication and organization, such as group rallies and written literature, are superceded by digital platforms. Those without access to digital platforms, or unable to adequately mirror the social expectations of these platforms due to disability, language barrier, etc are easily forgotten or taken advantage of.

A return to the second wave’s strong focus on justice for sexual violence, including all of the attendant problems of that as regards sexual moralizing.

An increased focus on conformity to peer expectations, as opposed to the (sometimes performative, obviously), expectation of rebellion and refusal that typified many social aspects of third wave feminism

Rejection rather than reclamation. Where third wave feminism heavily focused on reclaiming toxic terms and redefining social roles away from toxicity, fourth wave feminism tends to reject these items entirely.

A return to broadly identifying as a feminist first and a marxist feminist or ecofeminist or black feminist second. This has benefits and drawbacks, mostly related to the politics of hidden hierarchies. But it also means that a LOT of people identify as feminists, including a lot of men, and there is strength in numbers, as evidenced by the effectiveness of popular justice movements like Me Too.

We’re still firmly in the beginning of the fourth wave. As a concept, it’s barely 5 years old. It will no doubt evolve and further differentiate itself form third wave feminism as time moves on.

But these are some of the differences that exist already.

And, waves of feminism are not discrete. Many aspects of the fourth wave originated in the third wave, but only achieved prominence or central focus in more recent years. Changed focus brings with it changed methods and goals, which help further differentiate fourth wave feminism from the third wave.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

radfem lite(tm) and tumblr discourse

identifying radfem dog whistles: that is, radfem ideology when it’s not obviously and blatantly transphobic or anti-sex worker

--

nobody likes TERFs or SWERFs - or so we like to think, even if we don’t entirely know it means to be a terf or swerf. but the truth is that radical feminism - the overarching worldview that contains within it both TERF and SWERF ideology - is fairly widespread and even popular here on tumblr. it’s just that most of the time it’s not identified as being radfem/terf/swerf rhetoric unless the transphobia (or anti-sex-worker sentiment) is blatant and open.

this is the first of a series of posts intended to help fellow people on tumblr identify and understand what I call ‘radfem lite’ - radfem rhetoric that is not obviously transphobic or anti-sex-work, but naturally points one towards becoming a radical feminist (that is, abandoning intersectional feminism, eroding belief in free will (particularly in regards to consent), embracing binarist thinking & gender essentialism, and denying or belittling all forms of societal oppression that are not directly related to misogyny.) 

radfem lite rhetoric is frequently a ‘dog whistle’ as well - a phrase or word that has more than one meaning depending on who hears or reads it. non-radfems hear one thing; radfems and their targets hear another. those who become radfems or radfem targets eventually become familiar with the true meaning of the dog whistle word or phrase, but the majority of those who spread it have no idea what they’re really ‘saying’. 

some of the things I’ll post about will have overlap with other types of exclusionist thinking, or will have been adopted by those who aren’t radfems so widely that it might seem absurd that it has radfem roots. I’ll try to be clear about why I am attributing a concept to radical feminism when I introduce it. 

some things will also have some grain of ‘truth’ to it - the reason why the radfem lite concept seems reasonable to non-radfems. I’ll try to identify that grain of truth, and dismantle or demystify why the reasoning built around it is faulty.

Why am I doing this?

the first and most obvious reason is the number of ‘OP was a terf so I stole this post’ headers i’ve seen that are followed by a post loaded with radfem lite rhetoric. many, many people on tumblr know that terfs (and swerfs) are bad, but don’t know why or can’t identify terf rhetoric if it isn’t labeled ‘terf rhetoric’. 

but also: because radical feminist thinking - particularly the anti-porn branch, which bends into SWERF thinking - is highly appealing to fannish tumblr, and forms the basis for a lot of fandom anti-shipper thinking and arguments. I hope that seeing the radfem roots of these arguments will help those leaning into fandom anti-shipper thinking avoid falling victim to radical feminist outreach. 

--

post 1 / some basics

What is radical feminism?

Radical feminism - which encompasses, among others, subgroups such as trans-(women) exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs/TWERFs), and sex-worker exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs) - is an ideology that holds that the most important and severe axis on which oppression occurs is patriarchal social structure and its inevitable product, misogyny.

By discounting all other forms of oppression and marginalization as being of lesser or no importance, radical feminists (aka ‘radfems’) naturally conclude that those they perceive as men are unable to experience meaningful societal oppression and those they perceive as women are unable to experience meaningful societal privilege. As such:

it is impossible for a (perceived) woman to have a mutually beneficial friendship, business partnership, romance, or sexual relationship with a (perceived) man.  

Further, their perception of how oppression works is frequently concerned only with the binary sex organs one is born with (or ‘closest to’/that which was surgically created for intersex people).

The belief that a (radfem-perceived) woman cannot have a good or beneficial interaction - especially sexual interaction - with a (radfem-perceived) man, which (like misogyny) belittles and degrades the ability of women to make decisions for themselves, encourages activists to focus on modifying and correcting the behavior of perceived women rather than focusing on modifying and correcting societal inequalities caused by gender/perception of gender. This misplaced focus disproportionately harms sex workers* and/or any (perceived) woman having sex or in a line of business that radfems consider ‘degrading’ to women**.

The reduction of gender identity and experiences to sex organs alone leads to inclusion and/or exclusion of people from ‘womenhood’ based on whether radfems perceive a person as ‘born male’ or ‘born female’. This causes disproportionate harm to trans people (trans women particularly), leading not only to misgendering, but accusations of sexual assault/attempted sexual assault, (mostly directed at trans women), exclusion from gendered spaces to which they belong, and erasure.** It also harms anyone who does not identify with a binary gender by reducing their experiences to their agab, and anyone who does identify on the gender binary but does not ‘look’ sufficiently like the gender they identify with (which may include those who identify with their agab.)

(*this is because radfems believe that only people they see as women are sex workers and their only clients are people they see as men.)

(**all this potentially leading to even more severe consequences, such as being assaulted, attempting/committing suicide, or being murdered, among others. the consequences of radical feminist ideology are severe.)

Why is all radfem ideology so dangerous?

if you’re wondering ‘what’s the problem with radical feminism when a radfem isn’t a TERF or SWERF’, this is why radfem ideology as a whole is damaging and harmful to embrace:

because its ideology is, at heart, transphobic, and leads to trans people being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, anti-sex work, and leads to sex workers being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, based on the existence of a gender binary created by sexual dimorphism, and leads to erasure and harm of anyone who does not identify on the gender binary

because its ideology is non-intersectional and therefore belittles or ignores many axes of oppression and marginalization that can have as much as/greater effect on any given person’s quality of life

because it flattens societal structures to a single dimension (sexism), encouraging black and white thinking: namely, all (perceived) women are inherently good and all (perceived) men are inherently bad

this harms (perceived) women by putting them on a pedestal, expecting them to be ‘better’ than other genders in every way, only to be knocked off if they don’t appease radfem standards of female behavior

it erases the harm that women with axes of privilege over other women can do to those other women

it erases the harm that women with equal privilege can cause to one another (abuse in a relationship between two lesbian women), and the harm that women can do to those who are not women (predatory women who prey on men/children are erased, for example)

dismisses the victimhood of victims/survivors of oppression or harm who are not seen as women

because its aggregate societal effect is to reinforce patriarchal social structure, misogynistic dismissal of (perceived) women, and magnify sexism, primarily by putting pressure on (perceived) women to perform womanhood to radfem standards while ignoring (perceived) men as being beyond hope of reform.

because all of this hurts everyone, regardless of their gender, and disproportionately harms those marginalized by additional axes of oppression (such as race, sexual orientation, etc). 

Further reading: 

Below the cut, there are (or will be, depending on when you’re reading this) links to posts talking about specific ‘radfem lite’ concepts or dog whistles.

this will never be exhaustive, and my hope is that by illustrating how radfems perceive the world, it will be easier for others to identify radfem rhetoric that isn’t explicitly mentioned.

It’s also important to remember that radical feminism does not exist in a vacuum. it gets its power (ironically) by aiding and reinforcing bigger, much more powerful societal engines: gender essentialism, misogyny, sexism, and patriarchy. (this doesn’t mean that radfems don’t do serious harm as a group or as individuals, but rather that radical feminist ideology and its offshoots should be seen as only part of a whole, widespread societal problem.)

Thanks for reading this far.

Why ‘gender critical’ feminism leads directly to a transphobic worldview

a refresher on why radfem rhetoric is so dangerous and harmful

How radfem lite rhetoric reinforces the effects of misogyny

the radical feminist influence behind ‘enthusiastic consent is the only consent that counts’ 

some stuff i had on my blog before starting this series:

critical thinking is critical b/c radfem lite is not uncommon

‘x-critical’ is a radfem dog whistle

‘kink-critical’ is the shallow end of the swerf pool

‘queer is a slur’, lesbian separatists, and radfems

how radical feminism sneaks misogyny in the back door of fandom spaces

please also take a look at @radicalfeminismisacult, @xenoqueer, and @rfidblocking for some excellent deconstruction and/or illustrations of radfem thinking and rhetoric.

PS - please note that ‘(perceived) [gender]’ refers to ‘those who radfems and/or society perceives as [gender]’. this perception could be for any number of reasons, not limited to agab, and does not mean that a person does or does not identify with how they are perceived. the interaction, especially on an individual basis, between perception and experience is very complicated, and the model from which I’m speaking cannot possibly be exhaustive or illustrative of every experience possible.

[thisdiscontentedwinter]

“I do see exclusion as an inherently bad thing, yes, and nothing will change my mind on that. Simply because women are not a monolith, and being born with a vagina does not mean we all share the same experiences of how being female relates to the world. I believe in intersectional feminism, and that transwomen are very much a part of that.” And this is the core thing, isn’t it. I actually held this same opinion until a couple of years ago. I started seeing a certain kind of rhetoric from trans activists online - some of whom, upon reflection, probably represent an extreme view that shouldn’t be taken too seriously - that had me doing double takes and started changing my mind. I’ll back up and try to explain how my mind changed and why I struggle with this topic. I agree with you that women are not a monolith and that women in general have different experiences. I also agree that being born with a vagina does not mean we all share the same experiences of how being female relates to the world, but I disagree with what that implies and how you’ve interpreted that - those different experiences are because of the different cultural takes on what that vagina means. The presence of the vagina is inherent and necessary. The fundamental principle of feminism that I grew up with is that the category of woman is given to people with the female reproductive system, and that category was seen and treated as inferior for no good reason in all cultures. What ‘woman’ actually is (gender roles, gender expectations, treatment by wider society etc ie “gender”) is culturally malleable and constructed and varies slightly from place to place; the universal consistency is that this category is placed upon people born with the female sex (distinct from gender) in order to control and oppress them. Like, it’s key to feminism that the sex provokes the ‘woman’ category, and females are socialised into the ‘woman’ role. The oppression women face isn’t due to a demonstrable lack of intelligence or capability or physiology, it’s because someone looked at our genitals as babies and went 'okay, this is what we call and how we treat people with this biology.’ So that’s my understanding. Women are historically oppressed due to abitrary negative stereotypes placed on them because of their biological sex. How that oppression manifests is different according to culture, geography, ethnicity, religion. Where intersectionality comes into it, for me, is acknowledging all those differences in experiences and including them in feminist progress in dismantling these stereotypes and the unequal treatment and discrimination resulting from them. (some) Trans women state that they are women because they essentially 'feel like it’. They claim an internal sense of 'womanhood’ and this means they are women. When I saw this I was like “:/ okaaay, but how do you measure that, what does that actually mean.” This internal sense seems to be explained in terms like “I preferred pink and playing with dolls as a child, and I always got along better with girls, I preferred doing girly things.” This is more of a call on gender stereotypes than a satisfactory explanation - identification with the performance of the arbitrary, cultural construction of gender, something which changes over time and with which many (cis) women do not identify (yet are still discriminated against - their feelings don’t matter to people who look at them and treat them differently). They have this idea of womanhood and identify with that. I know trans people say that cis people don’t understand that internal sense of 'manhood’ and 'womanhood’ because in them it’s all aligned with their sex - I disagree. If there’s this strong of an internal sense of being a woman or being a man, surely a reasonable proportion of all women and men would report experiencing it. Again, I’m falling prone to the anecdote thing, but in my case, I don’t 'feel’ like a woman. I’m a person in a meatsack who is treated unfairly because of stupid ideas about the meatsack that have nothing to do with my qualities as a person. My female and male friends report the same kind of feeling. If I woke up tomorrow in a male body, I’d probably miss some things about my female body, but I’d be able to go through life in a male body without too much concern. I would then be a man and not a woman, despite my previous few decades in a female body; the concept is a nothing concept so it doesn’t matter. I am open to the idea that people have an innate sense of womanhood or manhood, but it’s so subjective it’s not very useful as a key identification measure for a political group. This is a very different definition of 'woman’ and to me, it completely undermines the key principle underlying feminist discourse. What is also confusing to me is that the transgender community seems roughly split into two groups - those, like above, who *feel* aligned with the opposite sex; and those who say there is a physical miswiring somewhere that causes a mismatch between their internal sense of themselves and their sex, this is a medical condition called gender dysphoria, and the best treatment is transition. Ie you’re trans if you think you are, you’re a woman if you think you are, and you’re a man if you think you are, versus you are trans if you have gender dysphoria, you think you are a woman but biologically you’re a man and you can’t expect to be treated as a woman (or a man) until you physically transition, which will ease your dysphoria. These are two quite different experiences underpinning the definition of transgender. To me, all this confusion over what it even means to be transgender doesn’t represent a cohesive front or group to meaningfully discuss this stuff with. The big thing that got me criticising the issue of inclusion of trans woman is the above realisation, that that definition undermines the ideological foundation of feminism that has brought so much progress to women. It’s an ideological difference that’s fundamental. Other things that bolstered it was accompanying rhetoric I saw online. - eg it’s transphobic/exclusive to discuss things like uteruses (uteri?), menstruation, FGM in feminist spaces, if you do it, you’re a bigot. That doesn’t feel like progress to me, to tell women they can’t discuss the bodily stuff that is the basis of their oppression, and still is for girls and women around the world, in the context of their experiences as women and as people in the world. It feels like misogyny by another name. - eg it’s transphobic to have genital preferences. I think this is a horrible thing to say. Some people do not care what genitals are involved in the sex they’re having, that is fine. Some people do, and that is also fine. Dating and who you have sex with is inherently exclusionary - not everyone is attracted to every person in their identified pool - and it involves bodies, it involves hardwired preferences, and these things can’t be changed if you just think about it really really hard. 'Preferences’ is not a good word for the concept, it implies a choice that I don’t think is there. I really don’t think people choose what they’re attracted to and what turns them on in sex. Examining your sexual self to understand how you operate and what you like and don’t like is an excellent thing to do. I also agree that trans people find it hard to date people. But calling people transphobic - especially lesbians, this seems to happen more with lesbians and trans women than gay men and trans men - because of something innate is just shitty behaviour. I was really disgusted by this. No one is owed sex. - eg there are no real differences between trans women and cis women. Any differences noted in discourse are a result of the person stating them being transphobic. A person who says they’re a woman has female biology because of this statement. This is an attitude I see a lot - any criticism of things like the above, any reference to any differences between trans woman and cis women, and suddenly you’re a bigot, a terf, a transphobic asshole, wrongthink in action! This worries me. Because there ARE differences, and shouting them down is not the way to bring people to your way of thinking. - eg gender dysphoric children should be encouraged to transition or go on puberty blockers. There’s a study out there that states something like 70-90% of gender dysphoric children desist by the end of puberty. Telling them they’re trans and putting them on drugs is not the right way to treat these kids, sensitive and appropriate counselling is. This in particular really worries me. - eg detransitioners exist and have a lot to say, but because it’s critical of transgenderism, they’re ignored. This rubs me the wrong way - they have insight into the interplay between self-understanding, sex, gender and culture, that’s valuable to general understanding of the self, sex, gender, and culture. I could go on, but this is so long. So I was originally supportive - I really was. I’m now more critical, because I don’t see a clear cohesive movement that is, ironically, inclusive, or that supports feminist issues, I’m seeing something that aggressively undermines the one movement that has truly progressed women’s rights. It strikes me that women and feminists are arguing about this more than men are, that men aren’t saying 'trans men are men’ in the same way women are expected to say 'trans women are women’. That also says something to me about the overall issue, and it’s not a good thing. It’s entirely possible that I’m hanging out in the trans part of the internet that has the assholes in it. Every group has its assholes. I also acknowledge that radical feminist groups have their hateful assholes too - but the reason I went into radical feminist spaces was to see what those evil terfs are saying and why they’re so bad, and I didn’t find evil, I found them addressing the concerns I had. They’re talking about the above things, whereas in the supposedly inclusive spaces with trans people, those topics weren’t allowed to be discussed. But I haven’t seen many answers to some of the problems trans people face - violence and discrimination in employment and housing is a real thing, and that does need to be addressed. By feminists? I’m not sure. Trans people are more than capable of organising in their self-interests - if they could find a common ground and common interests. I do think trans women face violence in male spaces and can be accommodated in female spaces - within reason. The case of Karen White in the UK is a good example of how that’s not a good rule of thumb. There’s also a domestic violence shelter in Canada that’s being sued by the women who were in it for allowing a trans woman inside, because the trans women acted in a very predatory way that caused the women distress in a place where they expected safety. I also know of one trans woman in Vancouver who tried to have a rape crisis shelter defunded because it didn’t support sex workers - that’s a valid criticism, but defunding it isn’t the action I would hope to see from any woman; it’s pointedly aggressive coming from a trans woman. For me, I do wonder whether people such as yourself are seeing the same stuff I’m seeing. I guess not. I find it very difficult to go back to the whole 'oh yeah, trans women are women and share our oppression’ stance, because I just don’t see that in evidence. In our conversation I notice that we’ve got a really fundamental difference in how we interpret and approach the world, for example the exclusion thing. Perhaps it’s too fundamental a difference and we won’t find much to agree on. I don’t know if you’ll take the time to respond to this, because it’s so long, but if you could articulate why this inclusion makes sense to you, I would actually really appreciate it. If not, that’s fine, we’re both busy people. Thanks for reading anyway, and thanks again for the conversation and for engaging with me. I *am* sorry about the length :S

DW: 

For me, it’s not a matter of “transwomen are women and share our oppression.” 

It’s a matter of “transwomen are women and are oppressed because they are transwomen.” 

Their oppression might not be exactly the same as mine, but neither is the oppression of a 12 year old child bride on the other side of the world. 

Simply put, it intersectional feminism can make room for all the different types of experiences of women–cultural, and economic, and religious, and social, and geographical–then why not widen the umbrella to include transwomen? 

There’s also a domestic violence shelter in Canada that’s being sued by the women who were in it for allowing a trans woman inside, because the trans women acted in a very predatory way that caused the women distress in a place where they expected safety. I also know of one trans woman in Vancouver who tried to have a rape crisis shelter defunded because it didn’t support sex workers - that’s a valid criticism, but defunding it isn’t the action I would hope to see from any woman; it’s pointedly aggressive coming from a trans woman.

There will always be anecdotes, and there will always be assholes, but judging all transwomen by the actions of a few is not helpful to anyone. 

When it comes to women’s shelters, there are plenty of shelters who don’t allow boys to stay, forcing families out onto the streets in cases of domestic violence because a mother doesn’t want to be separated from her son–who is a child. I think that’s unfair and wrong, but I’m not going to claim from that that all feminists are anti-child. 

I’ve taken calls from women’s shelters before where women were being threatened by other women and the workers were requesting the police. The women there also had an expectation of safety, but gender doesn’t come into it, and the implication that the transwoman was predatory because she is trans is drawing a very long bow.   

In the case of the Vancouver rape crisis shelter, why aren’t sex workers supported? That seems discriminatory. Also, why it is more “pointedly aggressive” coming from a transwoman than from anyone else? Given that transwomen are over-represented in sex work, why wouldn’t a transwoman have every right to want to fight this?

And you can bring up Karen White if you like. And I can counter with articles about transwomen who have been raped in male prisons, which I hope you would agree is just as heinous. 

In the end, nothing is going to change my mind on this. I think that being a woman is more complicated than a biological function, and I think that transwomen, while not oppressed in the same way as ciswoman, still face oppression because of their gender. And I think that there is plenty of room to be inclusive. 

[xeno-aligned]

copy & pasted under the read more in order to have a local copy.

A Brief His and Herstory of Butch And Femme

BY: JEM ZERO 16 DEC 2017

When America’s LGBTQ+ folk started coming out of the closet in the 1950s, the underground scene was dominated by working class people who had less to lose if they were outed. Butch/femme presentation arose as a way for lesbians to identify each other, also serving as a security measure when undercover cops tried to infiltrate the local scenes. Butch women exhibited dapper and dandy aesthetics, and came to be known for being aggressive because they took protective roles during raids and other examples of homophobic violence. The image of the butch lesbian became a negative stereotypes for lesbians as a whole, leaving out femme lesbians, who are (pretty insultingly) considered undetectable as lesbians due to their feminine presentation.

In modern times there’s less need for strict adherence to these roles; instead, they become heritage. A great deal of political rebellion is wrapped up in each individual aesthetic. Butch obviously involves rejecting classically feminine gender expectations, while femme fights against their derogatory connotations.

But while butch/femme has been a part of lesbian culture, these terms and identities are not exclusive to queer women. Many others in the LGBTQ community utilize these signifiers for themselves, including “butch queen” or “femme daddy.” Butch and femme have different meanings within queer subcultures, and it’s important to understand the reasons they were created and established.

The Etymology

The term “lesbian” derives from the island on which Sappho lived—if you didn’t already guess, she was a poet who wrote extensively about lady-lovin’. Before Lesbos lent its name to lesbians, the 1880s described attraction between women as Sapphism. In 1925, “lesbian” was officially recorded as the word for a female sodomite. (Ick.) Ten years before that, “bisexual” was defined as "attraction to both sexes."

In upcoming decades, Sapphic women would start tearing down the shrouds that obscured the lives of queer women for much of recorded history. Come the ‘40s and ‘50s, butch and femme were coined, putting names to the visual and behavioral expression that could be seen in pictures as early as 1903. So, yeah—Western Sapphic women popularized these terms, but the conversation doesn’t end there, nor did it start there.

Before femme emerged as its own entity, multiple etymological predecessors were used to describe gender nonconforming people. Femminiello was a non-derogatory Italian term that referred to a feminine person who was assigned male—this could be a trans woman, an effeminate gay man, or the general queering of binarist norms. En femme derives from French, and was used to describe cross-dressers.

Butch, first used in 1902 to mean "tough youth," has less recorded history. Considering how “fem” derivatives were popularized for assigned male folks, one might attribute this inequality to the holes in history where gender-defying assigned female folks ought to be.

The first time these concepts were used to specifically indicate women was the emergence of Sapphic visibility in twentieth century. This is the ground upon which Lesbian Exclusivism builds its tower, and the historical and scientific erasure of bisexual women is where it crumbles. Seriously, did we forget that was a thing?

The assumption that any woman who defies gender norms is automatically a lesbian relies on the perpetuation of misogynist, patriarchal stereotypes against bisexual women. A bisexual woman is just as likely to suffer in a marriage with a man, or else be mocked as an unlovable spinster. A woman who might potentially enjoy a man is not precluded from nonconformist gender expression. Many famous gender nonconforming women were bisexual—La Maupin (Julie d'Aubigny), for example.

Most records describing sexual and romantic attraction between women were written by men, and uphold male biases. What happens, then, when a woman is not as openly lascivious as the ones too undeniably bisexual to silence? Historically, if text or art depicts something the dominant culture at the time disagrees with, the evidence is destroyed. Without voices of the Sapphists themselves, it’s impossible to definitively draw a line between lesbians and bisexuals within Sapphic history.

Beyond White Identities

Another massive hole in the Lesbian Exclusivist’s defenses lies in the creeping plague that is the Mainstream White Gay; it lurks insidiously, hauling along the mangled tatters of culture that was stolen from Queer and Trans People of Colour (QTPOC). In many documents, examples provided of Sapphic intimacy are almost always offered from the perspective of white cis women, leaving huge gaps where women of color, whether trans or cis, and nonbinary people were concerned. This is the case despite the fact that some of the themes we still celebrate as integral to queer culture were developed by Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ folk during the Harlem Renaissance, which spanned approximately from 1920 to 1935.

A question I can’t help but ask is: Where do queer Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color fit into the primarily white butch/femme narrative? Does it mean anything that the crackdown on Black queer folk seemed to coincide with the time period when mainstream lesbianism adopted butch and femme as identifiers?

Similar concepts to butch/femme exist throughout the modern Sapphic scene. Black women often identify as WLW (Women-Loving-Women), and use terms like “stud” and “aggressive femme.” Some Asian queer women use “tomboy” instead of butch. Derivatives and subcategories abound, sometimes intersecting with asexual and trans identities. “Stone butch” for dominant lesbians who don’t want to receive sexual stimulation; “hard femme” as a gender-inclusive, fat-positive, QTPOC-dominated political aesthetic; “futch” for the in-betweenies who embody both butch and femme vibes. These all center women and nonbinary Sapphics, but there’s still more.

Paris is Burning, a documentary filmed about New York City ball culture in the 1980s, describes butch queens among the colourful range of identities prevalent in that haven of QTPOC queerness. Despite having a traditionally masculine physique, the gay male butch queen did not stick to gender expectations from straight society or gay culture. Instead, he expertly twisted up his manly features with women’s clothing and accessories, creating a persona that was neither explicitly masculine nor feminine.

Butch Queens Up in Pumps, a book by Marlon M. Bailey, expounds upon their presence within inner city Detroit’s Ballroom scene, its cover featuring a muscular gay man in a business casual shirt paired with high heels. Despite this nuance, butch remains statically defined as a masculine queer woman, leaving men of color out of the conversation.

For many QTPOC, especially those who transcend binary gender roles, embracing the spirit of butch and femme is inextricable with their racial identity. Many dark-skinned people are negatively portrayed as aggressive and hypermasculine, which makes it critical to celebrate the radical softness that can accompany femme expressions. Similarly, the intrinsic queerness of butch allows some nonbinary people to embrace the values and aesthetics that make them feel empowered without identifying themselves as men.

Butch, Femme, and Gender

It’s pretty clear to me that the voices leading the Lesbian Exclusive argument consistently fail to account for where butch and femme have always, in some form, represented diverse gender expression for all identities.

‘Butch’ and ‘femme’ began to die out in the 1970s when Second Wave Feminism and Lesbian Separatism came together to form a beautiful baby, whom they named “Gender Is Dead.” White, middle class cis women wrestled working class QTWOC out of the limelight, claiming that masculine gender expression was a perversion of lesbian identity. The assassination attempt was largely unsuccessful, however: use of these identifiers surged back to life in the ‘80s and ‘90s, now popularized outside of class and race barriers.

Looking at all this put together, I have to say that it’s a mystery to me why so many lesbians, primarily white, believe that their history should take precedence over… everyone else that makes up the spectrum of LGBTQ+ experiences, even bi/pan Sapphics in same-gender relationships. If someone truly believes that owning butch/femme is more important than uniting and protecting all members of the Sapphic community from the horrors of homophobic and gendered oppression, maybe they’re the one who shouldn’t be invited to the party.

As a nonbinary lesbian, I have experienced my share of time on the flogging-block. I empathize strongly with the queer folks being told that these cherished identities are not theirs to claim. Faced with this brutal, unnecessary battle, I value unity above all else. There’s no reason for poor trans women, nonbinary Black femmes, bisexual Asian toms, gay Latino drag queens, or any other marginalized and hurting person to be left out of the dialogue that is butch and femme, with all its wonderful deconstructions of mainstream heteronormative culture.

It is my Christmas wish that the Lesbian Exclusivist Tower is torn down before we open the new chapter in history that is 2018. Out of everything the LGBTQ+ community has to worry about already, petty infighting shouldn’t be entertained—especially when its historical foundation is so flimsy. Queering gender norms has always been the heart of butch/femme expression, and that belongs to all of us.

[tirfnotterf]

LMAO that is not a what a trans inclusive radfem is

As a trans inclusive radfem I believe trans women and trans men have the potential to be discriminated against or oppressed under the patriarchy. trans people are what they say they are and feminism has a place for trans women of course, but at the same time obviously trans women have different experiences to cis women and afab trans and nb people. Like, they experience transmisogyny but don't experience the same sex based oppression and they are not socialized to be what the patriarchy thinks women should be from birth. So trans womens issues intersect with cis womens issues but it is harmful to both to pretend the oppression they face is exactly the same. Trans men are not "traitors" lmao and feminism has a place for them too because afab trans people are victims of the patriarchy and misogyny even tho libfems like to pretend all trans masc people have male privilege. Like yeah, maybe those who can afford to transition and pass have male privilege to some extent, however many trans people (men and women alike) live in poverty due to job discrimination (large amounts end up turning to sex work and are viewed as a fetish... which is pretty dehumanising) and therefore can't afford it. This is not to say trans women have male privilege! They go through exactly what I just said about surgery and sex work, and if anything are absolutely considered a fetish way more than trans men are. Trans men and women are often victims of physical and sexual violence, and this is not ok by any means. Transphobia is not ok by any means. However, I find the lack of nuance when discussing trans issues in liberal/libfem circles (especially on tumblr) to be unbeneficial to anyone. The idea that the average trans man living in poverty, who has experienced sex based oppression and can't afford to transition to lessen their dysphoria has male privilege over someone like Caitlyn Jenner who in libfems pov has never benefited from male privilege because she was actually a woman the whole time is ridiculous to me. Obviously she is not a representation of the majority of trans women who are no where near that well off, but that's the bs lack of nuance I'm talking about. Trans issues and male privilege is more complicated than that.

Obviously I don't believe men are fundamentally bad people. However, they benefit from male privilege and the patriarchy is inherently bad. Radical feminism calls for a radical reordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that other forms of oppression exist such as in race, class, sexuality and disability. Having radical feminist beliefs does not mean I don't care about these issues (would be rather ridiculous considering I'm bisexual and working class lmfao).

What's a TIRF?

Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist, a TERF with different window dressing. They still share a lot of things in common, like the belief that a women-only space will be free of oppression or abuse. (Sorry, gonna soapbox a bit here)

Where a TERF believes it’s growing up with a penis and testosterone that makes someone fundamentally harmful and destructive, a TIRF believes it’s their masculinity. So TERFs exclude trans women but want trans men back as their “lost lesbian sisters”, and TIRFs accept trans women who have rejected masculinity sufficiently, but see trans men as the worst kind of traitor. Both varieties of radical feminist still believe men, however they define them, are fundamentally bad and oppressive, and cannot ever interact with or be in relationships with women without harming them. 

Both groups, in my mind, fail to realize that women are just as capable of cruelty and evil as men are, and what makes a space safe is not its demographic makeup but the way its members agree to treat each other; that sex discrimination is not the only form of oppression in the world, and race, class, disability, and other factors can be just as important; and that lateral violence is not the same as fighting oppression.

[stardyng]

Transphobia in the LGBT Community

To hear cisgendered lesbian and gay people say transphobic things is not as rare as we like to believe it is. It may not  happen as concurrently as with heterosexuals, but it does happen way too much especially for a self-proclaimed accepting and inclusive community. That brings a certain sense of exclusion into our community, one that was haunting this community since it was created. This transphobia often exist in reason of their misunderstanding or lack of knowledge many have on trans folks and on trans people in general, in reason of their own extreme self-denial on the non-conformity they have on their gender which they take out on trans folks often by excluding or hating them, in reason of the newfound and rather widespread acceptance of privileged white gay men  in North America that created a unity with heterosexuals that’s leading to them trying to distance themselves from trans people, in reason of the hate people feel on the fact that we include trans rights as one of the many sort of rights the LGBTQ community have to fight for especially since it’s more controversial than marriage equality per example and also because of the anonymity that many cisgendered women feel that are aimed at trans women.

So much that a substantial amount of discussions that include gays/bi/les about trans people often include a lot of muzzling, unrivaled venom, harassment and even in the worse case scenario death threats. All of these negative feelings and the ignorance that exist in the community about trans folks  really intersect with trans folks when these trans folks happen to also be a sexual minority and are therefore enforced into regular social situations with ignorant cisgendered sexual minority  folks and that leads to certain conflicts, to feelings being hurt and to the exclusion of transgender folks  in general.  Really, there’s a clear systematic problem that exist in the LGBTQ community when it comes to trans rights and trans folks in general that is created because of LGBTQ organisations, the queer media, from queer men and even more from queer women.

To be blunt, LGBTQ organisations typically ignore trans folks and their issues. Despite the fact that these people have always been in the front of the revolution for queer rights politically and socially, they have just as concurrently received wrong end of the stick, especially non-binary and agender ones. The thing is that often, they are lumped with the rest of the community so people assume that trans folks are rightfully catered in queer spaces but they have always been just an afterthought. Big organisations often just have a limited amount of trans folks who are mostly white to fit with the token system in order to earn more funding rather than actually focus of the needs of trans folks who are probably the more marginalized part of the queer community. This is to the point where the basic needs of these people are not even met by these organisations. Food and sanctuary for homeless trans folks, a rightful healthcare free of bigotry, protection in their workplaces, the public bathroom debate and security from different kinds of assaults are all things that are ignored by these organisations despite the fact that trans folks (and queer people of color)  are the part of the community the most attacked and marginalized by our society.

On the other hand, when these organisations try to talk about trans issues, it’s mostly highly ignorant and apathetic cisgendered queer folks who do it and that have more negative affects than it has positive which leaves trans perspectives mostly absent from these organisations. This invisibility in these organisations (and in the media) leaves these people with no one there to represent them especially in these so called safe spaces. That’s not forgetting the constant invisibility that is present in the media with the exclusion of trans folks in LGBTQ history, and the atrocious and rare representation of trans folks on tv which creates a lot of misconceptions and perpetuates ignorance. In the end, there’s simply just so much to do in order for trans folks to truly feel safe and included in queer safe spaces and organisations and they should feel included and safe instead of constantly having to defend and advocating themselves in the community. By ignoring a major portion of our  community, we are only undermining our vow for actual equality.

In the entire LGBTQ community, one of the biggest gaps that exist  has to be the one between cisgendered lesbians and queer trans women. For starters, there is a troubling number of non-intentionally transphobic lesbians whom not only fear trans women but seem to also believe myths about trans women that they often openly perpetuate like how trans women fit into this very strained, old-dated way of being a woman which lesbians have fought extremely hard to dismantle in a political and social sense with media only contributing to this perpetuation as it also ignore all the range of gender presentations that trans women harbor and only focus on this tired stereotype. Of course, in comparison to other ways transphobia transpires in the lesbian community this is nothing and one of the ways which overshadows this one has to be the transphobia in the dating scene.

Often when lesbian trans woman are searching for a partner, they are rejected everywhere because of their gender state despite the fact that trans women do not harbor any physical trait that is consistent and common to every single trans woman despite the fact that they are trans. That’s because the reason for this rejection and their so called ‘’lack of attraction’’ of trans women only exist in reason of their perception of the concept of what it is to be a  trans women which often stem from cultural perceptions and in reason of the stereotypes and myths that exist about trans folks.  But many ignore or invalidate these claims since these claims which feel quite unfair and very accusatory  don’t perceive themselves as transphobic. There’s also the fact that it’s not easy to tell the difference between honestly not being attracted to a trans individual and not being attracted to a trans individual in reason the repulsion and distress of the concept being with someone they see as being actually a man which is obviously a perspective smothered in our society transphobic constraints which are often mediated in a socio-culturally that only oppress, estrange and dehumanize trans women.

This very big gap that exists between both communities doesn’t particularly stem from the treatment trans women are subjected to in the lesbian dating scene as it mostly is present reason of TERFS who are a group of cisgendered lesbians who are radical feminists whom mainly focus their time on constantly perpetuating exaggerated myths and ideas about trans folks which are typically shared by conservatives christians. The term itself means trans-exclusionary radical feminists which while rejected by the group describes their ideologies perfectly as they believe that transwomen are not only men but their goal is to invade safe spaces that are inclusivity for women and also believe that these ‘’predatory men’’ simply appropriate femininity for gains, whether they be social or sexual. Thankfully, this group is  small in number however they are also extremely visible and vocal enough to create a toxic gap between cisgendered lesbians and trans women.

They first and foremost spread many rumors about trans women such as the myth that trans women force other lesbians to date them by antagonizing them by saying that these women are transphobic by refusing to date them (It only is if it is because they are trans) which they perpetuate this specific myth in order to paint trans women as not only men, but also as rapists. It doesn’t really stop there as this gender-critical will use every method possible to dehumanize trans women and even more exclude and attack them. They often disallow these women from entering women only spaces and from certain LGBTQ inclusive events and certain organisations, they bully and harass  trans men into not transitioning often with myths and stereotypes, they generally just mock and harass trans people, they out them to their family and friends, they expose personal info about them to the world, they dedicate sites into putting them down,  they mock these women bodies and simply offer some of the most atrocious and disgusting manifestation of transphobia online and offline. They paint themselves as good people by saying that these actions validly embodies feminism and that they are only doing this to protect cisgendered women from trans women.

To a much lesser degree, the relationship between gay men and trans people is troubled as most gay men do not have any problem with the transgender community and do not try to take trans rights away from trans people and it’s generally not common nowadays as a big number of gay men are participating in the movement that’s created for trans acceptance and for trans people to have equal rights. However, an equal amount gay men simply have a unconcerned opinion on trans people which only turns into this belligerent hostility when gay men start to intersect with trans folks. The negativity of this intersection can come from both community as there are as many gay men who are transphobic as there are trans folks who are homophobic. However this transphobia which is established enough to be very hurtful is much more of a problem since discrimination tends to affects people who are lower on the social pyramid more. It’s definitely not as hurtful as the discrimination coming from cishets. Per example, even if in a LGBT space, some gay men constantly use the t-word, the space itself offers much more safety than the heterosexual one. That doesn’t change the problem itself which typically involve stereotypes.

Such stereotypes include the one that trans women are inherently attracted to men, and only transitioned into to be with heterosexual men which ultimately insinuate that the gay and trans communities cannot intersect. There’s the myth that trans men embodie this narrow-minded way of being masculine e which lead to gay men invalidating and questioning trans men when they do certain gay male traditions that are feminine in nature, the stereotype that trans men are actually just lesbians with body issues, that trans women are in some way or another into this reflection of themselves as women or the very misogynistic  stereotype that gay trans men are straight women who are not adequate since they are so comfortable with gay men and wanted to be with a gay man so much that they become one. This stereotype ultimately paints femaleness as so inferior that women have to escape it and despite it’s ridiculousness, it’s so incredibly sexist that it also became a common belief since misogyny is so widespread that it can be attached to almost all the types of discrimination. Regardless, these get really problematic when they are shared.

The place where the biggest amount of problems takes place in the gay male community is in it’s exclusive dating scene which has cisgendered masculine muscular white gay men as its center. In fact, the community as a whole has this image as the forefront of the community and that definitely has a certain amount of effects on trans men. The first being that some gay men validate their sexualities by degrading women’s bodies and more specifically, their genitalia. Some trans men still haven’t done the surgery on their lower half which is why it’s not only hurtful but also why many gay men actively exclude the entire trans men community in very disgusting ways (It’s okay to not want to date a guy for having a vagina, it’s just the way you do it that makes it okay or not okay and not every trans men have vaginas). Generally, this attitude towards this type of genitalia is regressive since it ignores the diversity that exist when it comes to gender identities and sexual orientations. Regardless, this idealization of this specific body time which seems okay at first actually ends up being cissexist and misogynistic as it shames every queer men who are not gay, who are of color, who are slim or/and effeminate, who are either not in the back half of their 10s or not in their 20s and/or are transgendered.

Thing is not being attracted to everyone is perfectly fine and no one can be but grouping everyone of a specific race, sexuality or a gender state(cis, trans) and deeming every single one of them as inferior and inherently not dateable because of stereotypes and myths about that specific part of them is is not fine and rather discriminatory regardless of whether it be conscious action or not(which is why not being attracted to a certain gender does not quality as that isn’t inmate). In general, in order for there to be progression we need to let the trans voice be heard and respect the people voicing their thoughts on trans issues instead of portraying them as simply being bitter or even just jaded. Conversations about these issues help positively influence some people's mindsets on trans folks which is why as a community, we should start doing this. So start calling out transphobia and  start including trans issues when it comes to discussion about LGBTQ rights whether they be bathroom laws which can be exclusive to trans folks and honestly, simply knowing that everyone deserves to individually treated with dignity and courtesy regardless of their presentation is a good start which can be done by confronting all the myths we hold,  the biases we harbor and our sometimes exclusive viewpoints so that hopefully, one day, we’ll stop treating the movement for equality like the LG movement and more like the LGBT movement.