you said to message you about the jrk thing. she said sex is real and that's pretty much it. she said biological women should be able to address issues that affect only them and that the type of seemingly progressive language of "people who menstruate" is only used on women's issues. never seen "prostate havers" or "dick owners" from men's cancer groups. + every social/cultural group gets their own "space" other than of course biological women. why should gender supersede sex in these spaces?
Thanks for the message Anon. I’m going to break down my reply to this using your message. She said sex is real and that’s pretty much it. She’s said quite a bit more than that and at some length, but on that point specifically there’s a rigidity to the ‘sex is real’ argument that I don’t consider to be particularly helpful. As science has developed we are beginning to understand sex isn’t as binary as we once thought. 2% of the population are born intersex, hormone levels vary, chromosomes are not binary. We can argue back and forth on the science as it’s a conversation that remains unsettled, but I do not take an absolutist approach to sex. I believe I can be persuaded by more inclusive scientific studies around sex, use language that doesn’t exclude marginalised groups and still fight for women’s rights without erasure of the specific, gender-driven violence and inequalities women experience.
She said biological women should be able to address issues that affect only them. I remain baffled as to why we would be unprepared to adopt our language to talk about a biological matter in a way that includes all those that experience it. There are publications that explore the risk of prostate cancer in transgender women so it’s incorrect to say you never see that addressed, but I would advocate for making language around specific biological issues more inclusive across the board. To take the menstruation example, I have zero issue including transgender men and my non-binary siblings in conversations around menstruation and referring to them under the umbrella of “woman” is invalidating, exclusionary and it denies them that place in the conversation. To me, using inclusive language is simply a respectful way of enabling transgender men and non-binary people who face the same issues around things like tampon taxes to be part of the conversation. What does a woman whose gender corresponds with her sex lose from that inclusion? Aren’t we ultimately stronger together than apart?
Every social/cultural group gets their own “space” other than biological women. Why should gender supersede sex in these places? I guess I would flip this around and say what is it about the current system that suggests that kind of space is necessary? I find the debate around access to single-sex spaces very confused because in the UK transgender people can use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender and transgender women can access women-only spaces such as crisis centers. Removing access to these essential services based on the mythical ‘trans villain’ the ‘man in a dress’ masquerading as transgender to cause harm to women is preposterous, dangerous and reinforces the kind of thinking that places transgender people at particular harm. If that was a legitimate concern we would already have seen evidence of the right to access single sex spaces being abused, yet we haven’t. Why? Because the brutal reality is men do not have to go to those lengths to commit violence against women. Is the suggestion honestly that we roll back existing rights, taking a legislative step backwards, in a way that would enable the turning away of transgender women who have experienced violence and are seeking refuge because we are scared of a monster that doesn’t actually exist? I really struggle to understand what excluding transgender women from vital women-only services actually accomplishes. I don’t believe it would make cisgender women any safer from male-perpetrated violence but it would make the position of transgender women even more unsafe.
The patriarchy oppresses women and gender based violence does not discriminate, treating femininity with suspicion and posing a threat to transgender women and femmes together with cisgender women. The suspicion of the feminine operates at all kinds of levels, including the way it manifests in violence against effeminate gay men. Together with misogyny, transgender women also experience queerphobia and if it’s a woman of colour, systemic racism too. Recognising and wanting to support women who experience those intersectional struggles seems to me to be at the very heart of the feminist movement. As Audre Lorde said, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” I really struggle to understand what the feminist movement gains from gatekeeping who benefits from it and fail to see anything progressive in enforcing rigid male/female binaries which are rooted in colonialism that were specifically designed to oppress women, permit gender violence and create deep inequalities.
