TransFeminism/CisFeminism: Why Can't We Be Friends?

[NicholeW.]

TransFeminism/CisFeminism: Why Can't We Be Friends?
Feministing, by Josh, 4/17/09

http://community.feministing.com/2009/04/transfeminismcisfeminism-why-c.html

The recent bout of cis-centric/transphobic commenting on some of the bigger feminist blogs highlights a problem that exists throughout the feminist community. There are very good reasons for solidarity between the transgender community, that is people whose gender identity is self-identified as different from that assigned to them at birth, and cisgender feminists (by cisgender I mean people who identify with the gender identity they were assigned at birth). However, a binary view of gender and lack of understanding of trans life experiences often leads to the exclusion of gender non-conformists from feminist analysis and to transphobic attitudes within feminist circles.

In patriarchal cultures the oppression of women through exclusion, marginalization, and violence is oppression of people who have failed to be men . When power has been deliberately concentrated in male hands and men have positioned themselves as the norm, women experience violence because they are treated as an other, as less than. Less worthy of life, less worthy of choice, less worthy of bodily autonomy. Women's consent is deemed unnecessary because they are seen as less than human.