On The "Dispute" Between Radical Feminism And Trans Peopleby Juliet Jacques
PUBLISHED 6 AUGUST, 2014 - 11:32 GMT
Content Note: Contains reference to sexual assault and stalking.QuoteI'm aware that this article is entitled 'On the 'dispute' between radical feminists and trans people' and I've barely touched on it so far. It's partly because I've always agreed that 'the personal is political', as many second-wave feminists said, and partly because two things have often been missing from this 'dispute' as it's recently played out on social networks and in the mainstream media: a sense of humanity, and a sense of history.
Writing in the New Yorker, Michelle Goldberg tried to address these issues, especially the latter, in an article entitled 'What is a Woman?' Goldberg mentions some of the main flashpoints of the conflict between trans people and a group labelled trans-exclusionary radical feminists (or TERFs for short, especially within the limited space of a tweet), but various trans people have remarked that the piece is rather one-sided. I'm not going to critique it here – Mari Brighe did an excellent job of that at Autostraddle. Instead, I will offer a counter-history that tries to be fair but makes no claim to impartiality – if you want balance, maybe read Goldberg and me side-by-side – and look at how that history has informed my own engagement with mainstream liberal media.
Link: http://www.newstatesman.com/juliet-jacques/2014/08/dispute-between-radical-feminism-and-trans-people
Lonicera
Many thanks for sharing. It provides a very good review of the changing and often fraught relationship between radfem and trans*. Not particularly edifying, but it is useful in helping me understand why trans* often feel abandoned by our former Stonewall allies and their CIS normative, exclusionary and trans* antagonistic stance
Aisla
I think we should rename them TERDs. Trans exclusionary radical Dummies. You all know the real word I was thing though.
I'm very happy if anyone gains any benefit from it. I asked permission to share this since it seems to give an intriguing overview of various important areas of history, from early sexology to present conflicts, while effectively coupling it with deeply emotional personal experiences. I think the criticism of liberal media is particularly poignant since I'm ridiculously sick of the golden mean fallacy obviously determining what is deemed balanced. It's also rather amazing that decades later there are a substantial number of radical feminists, and silently accepting feminists, that are 'devoting so much energy to the tiny numbers of trans people within [the movement's] orbit.' It's absurd that they take time to write entire books about us despite even the most generous present estimates putting trans prevalence at one per several hundred people.
My only quibble is that I think one section
seems to imply a false equivalence between very angry trans people and angry trans-exclusionary radical feminists on places like Twitter. I hope I misunderstood because I don't accept that they're at all the same since the root causes and motivations are incredibly different.
Quote from: Jess42 on August 06, 2014, 09:54:40 AM
I think we should rename them TERDs. Trans exclusionary radical Dummies. You all know the real word I was thing though.
*giggles* Be careful, they'll accuse you of dehumanising them and proving you're violent because
obviously nobody can ever make a light-hearted joke!
Lonicera, thanks for posting this. It's an excellent, thoughtful piece of analysis -- by far the best thing I've read on this subject for a very long time. I've bookmarked it, and I think I'll be sending it to quite a few friends, far too many of whom come out of a radical (small r) and/or lesbian feminist experience -- and most of whom read the New Yorker.
Thanks too for introducing me to a new writer -- I hadn't read any of Ms. Jacques' work before now, and she just went to the top of my list.
The term "radical feminism" should have a parentheses next to it in the LGBT lexicon that says (also see 'trans misogyny'). People who claim to seek tolerance and equality, and then treat others in their own disharmonious community with the very thing they've built their podiums in defense of, are shameful and embarrassing to everyone. There just seems to be no escape from hate no matter what direction you take or any of the detours that you think might avoid scrutiny and bigotry. We seriously need to work on this; with expediency and with due diligence.
I mean, if the LGBT community was harmonious we'd probably have gotten a lot more achieved. They are so concerned with these little things that don't, for a second, interfere with anyone's personal liberty or cause any harm. They're just ego-based, self-righteous, attention-seeking tantrums. Feminism should be focused on restoring the feminine in balance with the masculine; not trying to overpower it and take its place, and not associating being transgender with fetishism. They complain that trans women are just men trying to impose themselves into women's spaces, but what the hell are THEY doing? Imposing themselves into men's spaces, and then saying "take your penis and get out!" This is pure insanity.
If I'm at all wrong about anything I welcome any provable examples to the contrary. None of it will excuse the absurdity that I have seen, but I'll take it as at least a tiny ray of hope that maybe there are some sensible people in their ranks willing to defend gender diversity.