#you can't salvage radical feminism the bigotry is intrinsically baked in regardless of how you try to reframe it

[ftmtftm]

marxistcalvinisthobbiest is a well known instigator, and that reading of my answer is in extreme bad faith. I'll respond here though, just to add further context to my recommendations.

To marxistcalvinisthobbiest's credit - I did forget a load bearing word while I was typing my initial answer and that's 100% my mistake and on me - and frankly? I appreciate it being noticed and having attention brought to it.

I forgot the word "Marxist". Feinberg was the first author to advance the Marxist concept of transgender liberation. That info is straight from hir website [ X ] and as far as I'm aware, there weren't any major Marxist / Communist analyses of transgender liberation before Feinberg. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong and Feinberg wasn't a major advancement to the theory.

From pages 2 and 3 of my heavily annotated and read several times over copy of the 2024 edition of Whipping Girl. I will transcribe the section I'm highlighting below:

Other people who know me from my work as a transgender activist and trans-focused performance poet might have assumed that I was working on a "transgender revolution" book: one similar to those books by Kate Bornstein, Leslie Feinberg, and Riki Wilchins that influenced me so much when I was first coming out; one that challenges readers to look beyond the gender binary; one that encourages all transgender people (whether they are transsexuals, crossdressers, genderqueers, drag artists, etc.) to recognize that we are all in the same boat, all victims at the hands of the same rigid cultural gender norms. While I do believe that all transgender people have a stale in the same political fight against those who fear and dismiss gender diversity and difference in all of its wonderous forms, I do not believe that we are discriminated against in the same ways and for the exact same reasons. I have found that the ways people reacted to me back when I identified as a mostly closeted male crossdresser, or as a bigender queer boy, were very different from one another and yet again different from the way people react to me now that I am an out transsexual woman. The focus on "transgender" as a one-size-fits-all category for those who "transgress binary gender norms" has inadvertently erased the struggles faced by those of us who lie at the intersection of multiple forms of gender-based prejudice. And while I agree with many of the points "shattering-the-gender-binary"-themed books make, I have come to realize they only tell part of the story.

The idea that all anti-trans discrimination arises from the fact that, as transgender people, we "transgress binary gender norms" does not resonate completely with my personal experiences. [ . . . ] I find those who wish to ridicule or dismiss me do not simply take me to task for the fact that I fail to conform to gender norms—instead, more often than not, they mock my femininity. From the perspective of an occasional gender bender or someone on the female-to-male spectrum, it might seem like binary gender norms are at the core of all anti-trans discrimination. But most of the anti-trans sentiment that I have to deal with as a transsexual woman is probably better described as misogyny.

There is a lot that I take issue within this section that is frankly deserving of it's own post — especially because it is a section meant to establish the premise of the entire book — but since it was asked of me I'll answer.

First and foremost, you can see Serano lists by name the authors she is intentionally trying to distinguish herself from - which is part of why I recommended them specifically. If someone wants to delve into transfeminism, they should be familiar with the authors one of the most recommended authors in the theorist space is intentionally setting herself apart from as different.

Serano also never mentions Koyama once, but I digress.

I think Serano's analysis here is incredibly shallow, and that's concerning considering it is the analysis she bases her entire book off of. The way it is framed intrinsically writes off "gender benders and [ those ] on the female-to-male spectrum" as trans people who don't also sit at intersections of multiple forms of gender-based prejudice - which is just completely materially detached from the realities of most non-trans feminine trans people.

And despite the way she couches her opinions by saying the work of other trans authors shaped her, she spends the entire final chapter of the book arguing against foundational premises of their works - that liberation from the oppressive nature of the gender binary is liberation for all trans people.

Whipping Girl is steeped in this ever present false notion that binary trans people have been fear mongering about for literal decades now — that if we're liberated from the gender binary, that means we're leaving binary, gender conforming trans folks in the dust and they would somehow be wrong for finding comfort and safety in binary gender norms so their experiences and comfort don't matter in the conversation on gendered liberation. That's never been what breaking the gender binary has been about.

Not to mention, misogyny is rooted in binary gender norms. To challenge binary gender norms is to challenge the hatred of gender-variant people who "want to be female" or "want to be feminine" - which is what the term transmisogyny is actually seeking to define despite the sloppiness of Whipping Girl's framework that allows that understanding to sort of fly under the radars of contemporary readers.

Serano has been very open in more recent years about how the term is meant to give voice to the experiences of drag queens, cross dressers, transvestites, and feminine men - not just trans women. Source: Articulating Trans-Misogyny, Serano, 2016 - bottom of the second page of the PDF [ X ]

Serano has also been very open in recent years about the fact that if she had known Whipping Girl was going to explode in the way it had, she would have written it differently and that it is just the position of one trans woman at one point in time - I think that's a vital thing to know about the book before going into it as well frankly, because even contemporary audiences of the book don't read it that way.

So to wrap this bit up, it's not a problem that Serano's writing an analysis of binary trans womanhood in Whipping Girl.

It is a problem that - at the time of her initial writing - she positions trans binary womanhood in opposition to literally every other possible trans experience and herself in opposition the trans authors who came before her.

I also recommended bell hooks because she and Lorde are authors Serano is very open about being inspired by. hooks influenced the theory, regardless of the rightful criticisms of her work.

Because none of my recommendations are to say that I don't disagree with criticisms of Bornstein, Feinberg, and Wilchins or bell hooks either. You're going to be hard pressed to find an ideologically pure author you perfectly agree with all the time and those authors are no exception for me. That's not what this is about and will never be what it is about.

I was asked for recommendations - and I provided a relatively short list of my own favorite authors because I think the frameworks they present are integral to an understanding of transfeminism, plus an author I often find myself disagreeing with, but know is still an integral part of the conversation and important to read regardless. I gave some opinions but I'm not trying to act like they're the only authors worth reading or that they're the most ideological pure authors or that Julia Serano is evil or something. If that's someone's take away from my recommendation list.... That's just intentional bad faith. There's also a difference between White Feminism and Feminists who are White and it's so bad faith to obscure that.

I do actually appreciate the additional recommendations. However, the line I do draw is with Radical Feminism and Talia Bhatt is a Radfem. Trans / Rad / Fem is an attempt at making Radical Feminism palatable for a trans audience and frankly, just on a personal level, I think that's disgusting. I, personally, inherently distrust an author who responds positively to being compared to Andrea Dworkin of all people in the year 2025. Like - we're gonna put up a stink about bell hooks, but not DWORKIN?? I'm not gonna recommend a Radfem as a primer to Transfeminism to someone on my blog where I am open about my disgust for Radical Feminism and how dangerous of an ideology I view it as, especially for queer people, regardless of the identity of that Radfem.

Hi I've seen you use the tag transfeminism a lot but I've never seen anyone else talk about it? Would you mind explaining it, or if not maybe pointing me in the direction of what to read to understand it? Thanks a lot in advance! <3

Yeah absolutely!

The most broad and basic premise of transfeminism is: it is feminist practice that works to incorporate the experiences of trans individuals into a feminist framework.

Depending on what theorists you engage with transfeminism is either a framework for the liberation of all trans individuals from the Patriarchy - or it solely focuses on the experiences of trans women and fems. I personally ascribe to the theories of the former, not the latter.

The best, and easiest, place to start with transfeminist theory in my opinion is with Emi Koyama's "Transfeminist Manifesto" - [ here ]. The first 10 pages are the Manifesto as originally written. The last 5 are a postscript to the manifesto and a bonus piece about racist feminism. I highly recommend reading the postscript, I find it fundamental to my own understanding of transfeminist praxis.

You can read more of Koyama's work on her website - [ here ] - and I highly recommend it! She's a profound trans and intersex advocate.

I also recommend trans theorists that pre-date Koyama such as Kate Bornstein, Leslie Feinberg, and Judith Butler. They're all nonbinary trans theorists across a multitude of identities and experiences. I love this interview with Feinberg and Bornstein a lot - [ here ].

Feinberg was prolific and the first author to truly advance the concept of transgender liberation - hir website [ here ] has a free PDF download of hir book Stone Butch Blues and several other resources on hir work and life.

Bornstein's books Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us and Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation are go-to's of mine regarding a relatively modern history and understanding of trans identity. Her My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, a Real You, or Something Else Entirely really helped shape my own relationship to my gender identity really positively and profoundly!

Judith Butler's most recent book Who's Afraid of Gender is also incredibly good, however it is incredibly dense in an academic sense. It personally takes me weeks to get through Butler's writing because it is so jammed with information - and that's not to their discredit, it's just the way they write. I highly recommend looking up some of their talks and interviews on YouTube as they're an easier introduction to their work.

Personally, I don't like Julia Serano as an author all that much, but she is still an influential transfeminist voice to be aware of because she coined and popularized the term transmisogyny. I personally have a lot of criticism of her work - particularly her seminal work Whipping Girl - because it explicitly, in her own words, is intended to be distinctly different from the work of Feinberg, Bornstein, and Riki Wilchins (another nonbinary intersex activist) and is more interested in societal perception and binary trans womanhood over politics and liberation. It also stands in opposition to a lot of the liberationist ideals of the Feminists she claims to be inspired by. I've read the whole book twice over now and in my opinion it reeks of White Feminism. I don't recommend it outside of reading it for context to the wider transfeminist discourse.

Transfeminism as a whole is also deeply entangled with the politics of Black and Intersectional Feminist politics, as many of those previously mentioned authors worked with, worked around, or were inspired by authors like Audre Lorde and bell hooks. As such I highly recommend both of them as authors as well!! I think their work really helps set the framework transfeminist theory is also built around.

I hope this helps!!