Steinem: We Must Put Rights of Transgender Community First

[Amelia Pond]

Steinem: We Must Put Rights of Transgender Community First
Shaya Tayefe Mohajer, October 2, 2013

After years of criticism for comments she made about transgender people, feminist activist Gloria Steinem wants to set the record straight.

In an essay in The Advocate, Steinem updates pieces she wrote decades ago, explaining that she's been quoted out of context since a 1977 essay that asked "if the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?"

That question has been called transphobic by many in the years since she asked it, but Steinem said Wednesday that the Internet has been misquoting and browbeating her wrongly. Steinem now explains that she wrote that question in response to stories she'd heard about gays and lesbians undergoing sex changes to respond to society's bias against their sexual orientation—not the deep sense of belonging trans people feel in the gender they weren't born into.

[Ltl89]

I can't stand Steinhem and her over the top press conferences, so it's hard for me to be impartial.  Having said that, I'm glad she is willing to verbally support us.

As for her clarification on the past remarks, it sounds like back-peddling to me. 

[Shana A]

Op-ed: On Working Together Over Time

Journalist, feminist, and political activist Gloria Steinem says transgender identities should be celebrated, not questioned.
BY Gloria Steinem
October 02 2013 6:00 AM ET

http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2013/10/02/op-ed-working-together-over-time

Such stories led me to write a 1977 essay reminding us that, in addition to supporting informed choices like those of Jan Morris, Renee Richards, and others in the news at the time, we also needed to change society to fit individuals. It asked the question: If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?

[...]

So now I want to be unequivocal in my words: I believe that transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned. Their health care decisions should be theirs and theirs alone to make. And what I wrote decades ago does not reflect what we know today as we move away from only the binary boxes of "masculine" or "feminine" and begin to live along the full human continuum of identity and expression.

Obviously, there is much similarity among the challenges of transgender people and all women — from health care to harassment to discrimination in the workplace. And there is always the basic patriarchal bias against any sexual expression that can't end in conception, which is why kids on campus are sometimes mystified by the fact that the same groups oppose both, say, contraception and lesbians. I also think we have a lot to learn from original cultures that often didn't even have "he" and "she" in their languages, taught girls how to control their own fertility, and routinely accepted and had special roles for the "twin-spirited." These facts may remind us that patriarchy, racism, and nationalism have been dominant for less than 5% of human history. Maybe they are an experiment that failed.