Reply to J.K. Rowling’s post on trans-identity and modern misogyny

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree with her completely. It is not about rejecting trans identity. It is about saying that our lives are indeed shaped by our outward-facing gender. A trans woman who passes as their "assigned" gender until adulthood DOES have certain privileges not available to women raised as women from birth. Their experiences are different. They are socialized differently. It is like light-skinned AA who passed for white and had entree into higher education opportunities as a result. Martine Rothblatt is the highest paid woman in American because she used to be a Martin (and had a wife who raised her and Martine's children) so that Martine could benefit from male privilege: https://www.thewrap.com/highest-paid-woman-ceo-used-to-be-a-man/. Intersectionality is often framed as focusing on the most marginalized sub-group with a given group, to the exclusion of other narratives. So, here, we would be being asked to focus on trans women experiences, to the exclusion of other women who were socialized as women from an early age. That doesn't make a lot of sense. It also, in effect, erases the voices of most women. If we frame it as trans women are women and they experiences - but we also need to listen to other women who might have different experiences - I think everyone is on board. [/quote]

I'm not quite clear on what you are getting at here. I think most trans women would admit that they benefited from male privilege while presenting as men, and many have used their platforms to discuss misogyny from the perspective of someone used to being treated one way, and now being treated another.

What I don't understand is what you think is actually lost when we as women include the concerns of trans women in our feminism.  What does it actually mean to "focus on trans women's experiences to the exclusion of other women?" Why can't we have a feminism that includes the needs of all women, no matter what their chromosomes say? [/quote]

DP. I want to include concerns of trans women as part of intersectional feminism, and welcome trans women into the discussion when discussing how misogyny effects them as women but I am super super super against language that waters down issues that are inherently female and that are used to oppress women around the world. IE, what set her off in the first place, which is saying 'people who menstruate' or 'people who birth children'.

As I frequently bring up, if there was no meaningful difference between being a man and being a woman, people wouldn't want to transition. [/quote]

I guess I just don't see the harm of inclusive language. Like, let's say I want my employer to put tampons and pads in the restroom, in order to provide for employees who experience menstrual emergencies. It is possible for someone who presents as a man to experience a menstrual emergency. How does it harm me to include that person in my advocacy? [/quote]

Women all over the world are denied access to education because they have periods. They are entrapped in lifetimes of being less than because they bear children and bear the responsibility of raising them more than male counterparts.

Women are held down in society by restricting access to birth control and abortion. Women bear a substantially increased cost of being raped for the same reason. These are issues women face that women advocate for. I have NO problem with trans rights, literally none. But I want to talk about how these things effect WOMEN, not 'people who menstruate' because the reality is that women have been held back for centuries because of these issues. And we have been held back BY MEN (and trans women have, until they transitioned, enjoyed the benefits that men enjoy in our society). And so by being vague in language, we once again put women in the backseat, even in the space of advocating for their own rights.

When men and women share an entirely equal place in society and we aren't in a position where women's rights are being stripped away daily across this country, then I will not care what language we use. But right now women are having their SPECIFIC rights that are tied specifically to their biological reality stripped away. And anything that makes that unclear is, to me, unacceptable.[/quote]

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