6 Ways Trans Women Are Helping Deliver Gender Equality

[Shana A]

6 Ways Trans Women Are Helping Deliver Gender Equality
By Marcie Bianco  March 21, 2014

http://www.policymic.com/articles/85835/6-ways-trans-women-are-helping-deliver-gender-equality?utm_source=policymicFB&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=sociala

The movement for women's equality has occurred primarily within the LGBT community over the past decade, with the discourse of "equality" often framed in terms of marriage. DADT and DOMA were both federally repealed, and the marriage equality movement has a nearly invisible state-organized apparatus, thanks to two Supreme Court's decisions this past summer. As Chris Geidner illustrates in a spectacular marriage equality map at BuzzFeed, 17 states have legalized same-sex marriage, with nearly a dozen more debating the issue at various circuit court levels.

As a lesbian, I can't help but wonder if the LGBT movement co-opted much of the feminist movement's energy and resources. Not to mention how a particular strand of queer politics within the LGBT movement is arguably disparate in both intent and objective from the politics of the feminist movement — the latter of which is profoundly geared toward the desires of "Lean In"-oriented white cisgender women. As Jessica Valenti wrote in a recent article at the Nation: "The corporate interpretation of feminism has more to do with cheerleading all women's accomplishments than ending patriarchy and pushing for equal rights."

This is where the trans community makes all the difference, with its unprecedented legal and legislative inroads at the state and federal level over the past couple of years.I believe this community — particularly trans women — will deliver gender equality to us all on a federal level.

[Vicky]

This does bring up some interesting points in my mind.  Traditional feminism and traditional paternalism has relied on a dichotomy between male and female rights or social hierarchy, however you want to say it.  With only two major league teams playing though, it is really tough to define equality since the big picture contains the image of one side losing and the other winning even in small increments, when the ideal end is a tie game.  Adding the three to (infinity -1) gender expressions that can occur in the Trans* sphere to the big picture of Human Equality and rights, gives a highly superior chance to make differences between People smaller, and based on other more personal differences. 

[Asche]

Traditional feminism and traditional paternalism has relied on a dichotomy between male and female rights or social hierarchy, however you want to say it.  With only two major league teams playing though, it is really tough to define equality since the big picture contains the image of one side losing and the other winning even in small increments, when the ideal end is a tie game.

It's not feminists who frame feminism (and its goals) as a competition between two leagues (male and female), of which only one can "win."   It's the media and other power structures in our society who (mostly) control what people hear and spin the stories this way.  If they can get the mass of men and women to see "equality" as a limited resource which they can only get by depriving the other "side" of it, then those masses will be so busy fighting the other "side" that they won't notice the groups in our society who've set things up so they win either way.

Most serious feminists want to dismantle the game entirely.

(I can't help thinking of Hunger Games.)