Feminist views on transgender topics

Feminist views on transgender topics range from critical to accepting. Some feminists such as Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffreys believe that transgender and transsexual people uphold and reinforce sexist gender roles and the gender binary, while other feminists such as Judith Butler and Jack Halberstam believe that transgender and transsexual people challenge repressive gender norms and that transgender politics are fully compatible with feminism. Additionally, some transgender and transsexual people, such as Julia Serano and Jacob Anderson-Minshall, identify as transfeminists. Feminists with exclusionary views have been referred to as "TERFs" (short for trans-exclusionary radical feminist). They generally object to the acronym[1] and have called it a slur or even hate speech.[2][3]

The increased number and public profile of individuals transitioning coincided with second-wave feminism, and so most of the first statements and books were written in the 1970s, with reference mainly to people then known as male-to-female (MTF) transsexuals, and now called trans women.

Socialization differences

Some feminists argue that trans women, because they were assigned male at birth, and experienced some degree of male privilege, can not fully be women.[4] A more radical view, more commonly found in works by radical feminists during the 1970s, holds that transwomen are men, and transmen are women. For instance: Janice Raymond's 1979 book, The Transsexual Empire, argues that sex roles are fixed from birth based on biological sex, and trans people maintain these roles regardless of their subjective identity.[5] In this view, transwomen's desire to be seen as women and being included in female-only spaces is a form of male entitlement.[5][6]

Patricia Elliot argues that this perspective assumes that women's experiences are homogeneous, and discounts the possibility that trans and non-trans women might share the experience of being disparaged for femininity.[7] Similarly, Transfeminist Manifesto author Emi Koyama counters that, while trans women may have experienced a degree of male privilege prior to transitioning, trans women's experiences are also marked by disadvantages resulting from being trans.[8]

Radical feminists reject the notion of a female brain. They believe that the differences in behavior between men and women are a result of different socialization, some calling it "ritualized submission".[9] According to this view, gender is not an innate identity, but rather a role that is imposed on people on the basis of their sex, and is viewed as an obstacle to gender abolition.[5][6]

Feminist and trans issues

In 1977 Gloria Steinem expressed disapproval that the heavily publicized transition of tennis player Renée Richards (a trans woman) had been characterized as "a frightening instance of what feminism could lead to" or as "living proof that feminism isn't necessary". Steinem wrote, "At a minimum, it was a diversion from the widespread problems of sexual inequality."[10]

Robert Jensen has outlined feminist[11] and ecological concerns[12] about transgender ideology, and connected that ideology to a larger cultural fear of the feminist critique of patriarchy.[13]

In 2017, with regard to the question of whether trans women are women, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie expressed the view that "trans women are trans women." She acknowledged transgender women face discrimination on the basis of being transgender and sees this as a serious issue, but also said that "we should not conflate the gender experiences of trans women with that of women born female."[14] After sustaining significant criticism for her views, Adichie opined that the American Left is "creating its own decline" and is "very cannibalistic." She said that she sees trans women as women despite her views, but stood behind her position.[15]

Transfeminism

Transfeminism (also written "trans feminism"), is a category of feminism that synthesizes feminist and transgender discourse. According to Robert Hill, transfeminism has "specific content that applies to transgender and transsexual people, but the thinking and theory of which is also applicable to all women".[16] Transfeminists argue that there are multiple forms of oppression and sexism, and that transwomen and non-transwomen have share interests in combating sexism.[17]

Influential transfeminists include Julia Serano, Diana Courvant, and Emi Koyama. In 2006, the first book on transfeminism, Trans/Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out edited by Krista Scott-Dixon, was published.[18]

Sex reassignment surgery

Andrea Dworkin, in her 1974 book Woman Hating, stated that "every transsexual has the right to survival on his/her own terms. That means every transsexual is entitled to a sex-change operation, and it should be provided by the community as one of its functions."[19]

In 1977, Gloria Steinem wrote that while she supported the right of individuals to identify as they choose, in many cases, transgender people "surgically mutilate their own bodies" in order to conform to a gender role that is inexorably tied to physical body parts. She concluded that "feminists are right to feel uncomfortable about the need for and uses of transsexualism." The article concluded with what became one of Steinem's most famous quotes: "If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?" Although meant in the context of transgender issues, the quote is frequently mistaken as a general statement about feminism.[10] Steinem's statements led to her being characterized as transphobic for some years.[20] In a 2013 interview with The Advocate, she repudiated the interpretation of her text as an altogether condemnation of sex reassignment surgery, stating that her position was informed by accounts of gay men choosing to transition as a way of coping with societal homophobia. She added that she sees transgender people as living "authentic lives" that should be "celebrated".[21]

In 1979, Janice Raymond wrote a book on trans women called The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, which looked at the role of transsexuality–particularly psychological and surgical approaches to it—in reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes, the ways in which the "medical-psychiatric complex" is medicalizing "gender identity", and the social and political context that has helped spawn transsexual treatment and surgery as normal and therapeutic medicine.[22] Raymond maintains that transsexualism is based on the "patriarchal myths" of "male mothering", and "making of woman according to man's image". She argued that this is done in order "to colonize feminist identification, culture, politics and sexuality," adding: "All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.... Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive."[23] Several writers characterized these views as extremely transphobic and constituting hate speech.[24][25][26][27]

In her 1987 book Gyn/Ecology, Mary Daly expressed negative views of sex change operations, writing, "Today the Frankenstein phenomenon is omnipresent . . . in . . . phallocratic technology. . . . Transsexualism is an example of male surgical siring which invades the female world with substitutes."[28] "Transsexualism, which Janice Raymond has shown to be essentially a male problem, is an attempt to change males into females, whereas in fact no male can assume female chromosomes and life history/experience."[29] "The surgeons and hormone therapists of the transsexual kingdom . . . can be said to produce feminine persons. They cannot produce women."[30]

In 1999, in the book The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer published a sequel to The Female Eunuch. One chapter was titled "Pantomime Dames", wherein she states her opposition to accepting trans women who were assigned male at birth as women.[31]

Julie Bindel wrote several articles critical of sex reassignment surgery, transsexualism, and transgender issues. Bindel's first published article on transsexualism appeared in The Guardian, in May 2007; it was the first example of coverage of a narrative of 'transsexual regret' in the UK media. Bindel interviewed 'Claudia', a post-operative transsexual, who regretted her decision to have surgery and felt that the psychiatrist involved did not take sufficient care in reaching a diagnosis. Bindel questioned the medical approach in the article.[32]

Feminist exclusion of trans women

General

Radical feminists generally see gender as a social class system in which women are oppressed due to their biology, rather than a supposed innate femininity, and are thus critical of the notion that "trans women are women".[33]

In 1978, trans woman Sandy Stone who worked as a sound engineer for Olivia Records resigned over the controversy of a trans woman working for a lesbian-identified enterprise, precipitating feminist debate over trans women.[34] The debate continued in Raymond's book,[35] which devoted a chapter to criticism of "the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist". Groups like Lesbian Organization of Toronto (LOOT) then voted to exclude trans lesbians[36] and include only womyn-born womyn. A formal request to join the organization was made by a trans lesbian in 1978; in response, the organization voted to exclude trans women. During informal discussion, members of L.O.O.T. expressed their outrage that in their view a "sex-change he-creature...dared to identify himself as a woman and a lesbian." In their public response, LOOT wrote, "A woman's voice was almost never heard as a woman's voice – it was always filtered through men's voices. So here a guy comes along saying, "I'm going to be a girl now and speak for girls." And we thought, 'No you're not.' A person cannot just join the oppressed by fiat."[36]

Another site of conflict between feminists and trans women was the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MichFest). It ejected a transgender woman, Nancy Burkholder, in the early 1990s.[37] Since then, the festival has maintained that it is intended for "womyn-born womyn" only.[38] Activist group Camp Trans formed to protest this policy and to advocate for greater acceptance of trans women within the feminist community. A number of prominent transgender activists and transfeminists were involved in Camp Trans, including Riki Wilchins, Jessica Xavier, and Leslie Feinberg. MichFest considered allowing post-operative trans women to attend; however, this was criticized as classist, as many trans women cannot afford sex reassignment surgery.[39] Lisa Vogel, the MichFest organizer, said that protesters from Camp Trans responded to the ejection of Burkholder with vandalism.[5][6] The festival ended in 2015.

There was also a long-running dispute in Canada involving access to a women-only space. Kimberly Nixon volunteered for training as a rape crisis counselor at Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter in 1995. When Nixon's trans status was determined, she was expelled. The staff decided that Nixon's status made it impossible for her to understand the experiences of their clients, and required their counselors to be genetically female. Nixon disagreed, disclosing her own history of partner abuse and sued on the grounds of discrimination. Nixon's attorneys argued that there was no basis for the dismissal, citing Diana Courvant's experiences as the first publicly trans woman to work in a women-only domestic violence shelter. In 2007 the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear Nixon's appeal, ending the case.[40][41][42]

Germaine Greer was appointed as a special lecturer and fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she unsuccessfully opposed the election to a fellowship of her transgender colleague Rachael Padman. Greer argued that Padman had been born male, and therefore should not be admitted to Newnham, a women's college. Greer resigned in 1996 after the case attracted negative publicity.[43][44][45]

The 2018 Pride in London march was disrupted by a small group of lesbians calling themselves Get the L Out. The group carried banners with the phrases 'Lesbian = Female Homosexual', 'Lesbian not Queer', and 'Transactivism Erases Lesbians', while giving out leaflets stating that LGBTQ politics had failed lesbians and was contributing to lesbian erasure and compulsory heterosexuality.[46] A member of the group described their motivation as follows: "We protested the LGBT movement as a whole and Pride specifically because many lesbians feel erased and betrayed by a movement which claimed to represent us. The L in 'LGBT' is meaningless when the LGBT organisations claim that a man can identify as 'lesbian.'"[47] The group was condemned as transphobic or "anti-trans" by several news outlets, and the organizers of Pride in London published a public apology, condemning the group of "a level of bigotry, ignorance and hate that is unacceptable."[48]

In 2017 a 60 year old woman was left bruised after a scuffle broke out between pro-trans activists and a group of feminists who were protesting potential changes to the Gender Recognition Act. One protester was later convicted of assault in relation to the incident. [49][50]

The term "TERF"

"TERF" is short for "trans exclusionary radical feminist". The term is used by trans advocates to describe feminists who oppose the inclusion of trans people in female spaces and organizations,[51][52] whereas those it is applied to see it as a mischaracterization and a slur.[2][51][53] Cristan Williams from The Transadvocate has listed a set of criteria detailing what she considers "TERF ideology".[54] Journalist and commentator Sarah Ditum has criticized the term for being too widely used, writing that "the bar to being called a 'terf' is remarkably low."[55]

The neologism was coined by an inclusive radical feminist online space in 2008 as a way to distinguish between trans-supportive or trans-neutral radical feminists and those who wished to exclude trans women from their feminism. The progenitor of the term, the feminist Viv Smythe said, “It was meant to be a deliberately technically neutral description of an activist grouping. We wanted a way to distinguish TERFs from other RadFems with whom we engaged who were trans*-positive/neutral, because we had several years of history of engaging productively/substantively with non-TERF RadFems.”[56]

Radical feminist journalist Sarah Ditum, writing for the New Statesman in 2017, said that "TERF" became a mainstream slur after initially starting out as what was mostly an Internet buzzword.[57] In a piece written for Feminist Current, she stated that the term is used to silence feminists through guilt by association.[58] In February 2017, the opening of the Vancouver Women's Library was disrupted by protesters who argued that library's organizers and supporters were not inclusive toward trans women.[59]

Claire Heuchan, criticizing the deplatforming of Linda Bellos from Cambridge University on grounds of her perceived transphobia, said that "TERF" is often used alongside violent rhetoric, and used to dehumanize women who are critical of gender.[60] She also added that the term obscures who is responsible for violence against transgender people: "The term "terf" and the violent rhetoric that often accompanies it only serve to obscure the reality: women and trans people alike are targets of male violence. To make radical feminists the villains is to blame men’s violence on women’s thoughts."

The Morning Star reported that on International Women's Day 2018, an elected union official was forced off a picket line by a group of protesters, unconnected to the strike, who surrounded her shouting "Terf!" The newspaper describes the term as "commonly used as an insult towards women who question proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act".[61]

Criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints

Queer feminist philosopher Judith Butler has argued for feminist solidarity with trans and gender-nonconforming people, and has been critical of philosophers, such as Sheila Jeffreys, who she argues engage in oppressive attempts to dispute trans people's sense of identity.[62]

In 1997, Sheila Jeffreys published a paper that stated that ""transgenderism" is... deeply problematic from a feminist perspective and that transsexualism should be seen as a violation of human rights".[63] In 2012, she wrote in The Guardian that she and others who "criticised transgenderism, from any academic discipline," had been subjected to internet campaigns to ban their speaking because of alleged "transhate, transphobia, hate speech". She wrote that the "degree of vituperation and the energy expended by the activists may suggest that they fear the practice of transgenderism could justifiably be subjected to criticism, and might not stand up to rigorous research and debate, if critics were allowed to speak out."[64] Jeffreys is co-author with Lorene Gottschalk of the 2013 book Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism.[65]

A 2004 piece by Julie Bindel titled "Gender Benders, beware" was printed in The Guardian concerning her anger about a rape crisis centre's dispute with a transsexual rape counselor; the article also expressed her views about transsexuals and transsexualism.[66] Many considered the language used to be offensive and demeaning. The Guardian received more than two hundred letters of complaint from transgender people, doctors, therapists, academics and others. Transgender activist group Press for Change cite this article as an example of 'discriminatory writing' about transsexual people in the press.[67] Complaints focused on the title, "Gender benders, beware", the cartoon[68] accompanying the piece,[69] and the disparaging tone, such as "Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals. It would look like the set of Grease" and "I don't have a problem with men disposing of their genitals, but it does not make them women, in the same way that shoving a bit of vacuum hose down your 501s [jeans] does not make you a man."[66]

As of 2009, Bindel reportedly still maintained that "people should question the basis of the diagnosis of male psychiatrists, 'at a time when gender polarisation and homophobia work hand-in-hand.'"[70] She argued that "Iran carries out the highest number of sex change surgeries in the world" (see Transsexuality in Iran) and that "surgery is an attempt to keep gender stereotypes intact".[70] Bindel responded to the protest in a piece in the Guardian which covered the way the LGBT movement had developed since her early days as a radical lesbian feminist. She suggested that the protest was as much about "Stonewall for refusing to add the T (for transsexual) on to the LGB (for lesbian, gay and bisexual)."[71] and that "the idea that certain distinct behaviours are appropriate for males and females underlies feminist criticism of the phenomenon of 'transgenderism'."[70] Following the Stonewall protest Whittle invited her to debate these issues again with Susan Stryker, an American academic and transsexual activist, in front of an audience at Manchester Metropolitan University on 12 December 2008. The debate was broadcast live on the internet.

When Linda Bellos was invited to speak at Cambridge University in 2017, she told the organizers that she would be "publicly questioning some of the trans politics...which seems to assert the power of those who were previously designated male to tell lesbians, and especially lesbian feminists, what to say and think."[72] She was subsequently disinvited from speaking. Asked by The Times for comment, Bellos reiterated: "I’m not being told by someone who a few months ago was a man what I as a woman can or cannot do." Claire Heuchan, writing for The Guardian, lamented the university's decision to disinvite Bellos, opining: "When feminists who have spent decades challenging sexism, racism, and homophobia are viewed as a risk to the wellbeing of students, something has gone very wrong indeed."[73]

Feminist support

In Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality, published in 1974, radical feminist writer and activist Andrea Dworkin called for the support of transsexuals, whom she viewed as "in a state of primary emergency" due to "the culture of male–female discreteness". She writes: "every transsexual has the right to survival on his/her own terms. That means every transsexual is entitled to a sex-change operation, and it should be provided by the community as one of its functions." However, she also stated that the phenomenon of transsexuality might disappear in a free society, giving way to new modes of sexual identity and behavior.[74][75]

In a 2014 interview, Judith Butler argued for civil rights for trans people: "[N]othing is more important for transgender people than to have access to excellent health care in trans-affirmative environments, to have the legal and institutional freedom to pursue their own lives as they wish, and to have their freedom and desire affirmed by the rest of the world." Moreover, she responded to some of Sheila Jeffreys and Janice Raymond's criticisms of trans people, calling their criticisms "prescriptivism" and "tyranny." According to Butler, trans people are not created by medical discourse but rather develop new discourses through self-determination.[76]

Margaret Atwood has stated that when she hears the label feminist, "it is always – ‘What do you mean by the word?’ For instance, some feminists have historically been against lipstick and letting transgender women into women’s washrooms. Those are not positions I have agreed with."[77] She continued "I’m not the kind [of feminist] that thinks that trans women are not women."[78]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Terry MacDonald (16 February 2015). "Are you now or have you ever been a TERF?". www.newstatesman.com.
  2. 1 2 Goldberg, Michelle (August 4, 2014). "What Is a Woman?". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 20, 2015. TERF stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.” The term can be useful for making a distinction with radical feminists who do not share the same position, but those at whom it is directed consider it a slur.
  3. ↑ Meghan E. Murphy (September 21, 2017). "'TERF' isn't just a slur, it's hate speech". Feminist Current. If “TERF” were a term that conveyed something purposeful, accurate, or useful, beyond simply smearing, silencing, insulting, discriminating against, or inciting violence, it could perhaps be considered neutral or harmless. But because the term itself is politically dishonest and misrepresentative, and because its intent is to vilify, disparage, and intimidate, as well as to incite and justify violence against women, it is dangerous and indeed qualifies as a form of hate speech. While women have tried to point out that this would be the end result of “TERF” before, they were, as usual, dismissed. We now have undeniable proof that painting women with this brush leads to real, physical violence. If you didn’t believe us before, you now have no excuse.
  4. ↑ Schmidt, Samantha (March 13, 2017). "Women's issues are different from trans women's issues, feminist author says, sparking criticism". Washington Post. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Goldberg, Michelle (August 4, 2014). "What Is a Woman?". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 Reilly, Peter J (June 15, 2013). "Cathy Brennan On Radfem 2013". Forbes. Retrieved April 18, 2014.
  7. ↑ Elliot, Patricia (2004). "Who Gets to Be a Woman?: Feminist Politics and the Question of Trans-inclusion1". Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice. 29 (1): 16. Retrieved 12 October 2018. The first assumption is that 9 one's socialization as a girl or woman defines "women's experience" as something shared. But this assumption downplays differences among women, as if the sociological norms one identifies as part of a patriarchal gender order are evenly applied to all in one cookie-cutter model, or as if girls and women have the same relationships to those norms. It also fails to ask about possible similarities of experience between trans and non-trans women (both of whom may have been disparaged for their femininity).
  8. ↑ Koyama, Emi (2001). Transfeminist Manifesto (PDF). p. 3. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  9. ↑ Keith, Lierre (21–23 June 2013). "The Emperor's New Penis". CounterPunch. Retrieved 27 August 2014. Female socialization is a process of psychologically constraining and breaking girls—otherwise known as "grooming"—to create a class of compliant victims. Femininity is a set of behaviors that are, in essence, ritualized submission.
  10. 1 2 Steinem, Gloria (1984). Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1st ed.). New York: Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 9780805042023. :206–210
  11. ↑ "Some Basic Propositions about Sex, Gender, and Patriarchy". Dissident Voice. Retrieved 2015-05-23. June 13, 2014
  12. ↑ "Ecological and Social Implications of Trans and Climate Change". Dissident Voice. Retrieved 2015-05-23. September 12, 2014
  13. ↑ "Feminism Unheeded". Nation of Change. Retrieved 2015-05-23. January 8, 2015
  14. ↑ Emily Crockett (March 15, 2017). "The controversy over Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and trans women, explained". Vox.
  15. ↑ Claire Fallon (October 9, 2017). "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Says The American Left 'Is Creating Its Own Decline'". Huffington Post.
  16. ↑ Hill et al. 2002
  17. ↑ Bettcher, Talia (2009). "Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved October 13, 2018.
  18. ↑ "Trans/forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out [Paperback]".
  19. ↑ Dworkin, Andrea (1974). Woman Hating. New York City: E. P. Dutton. p. 186. ISBN 0-525-47423-4.
  20. ↑ Vasquez, Tina (February 17, 2014). "It's Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women". Bitch Media. Retrieved April 18, 2014. Steinem was long considered transphobic because of the stance she took in writing about professional tennis player Renée Richards, who transitioned in the 1970’s. Steinem’s 1983 book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellion cited Janice Raymond’s work and discussed how transsexuals “mutilate their own bodies.”
  21. ↑ Steinem, Gloria (October 2, 2013). "On Working Together Over Time". The Advocate. Years passed the Internet arrived, and words circulated out of time and context. Last year one young transgender student on campus assumed that old essay’s use of the word “mutilate” for surgeries performed because of societal pressure meant I was against sexual reassignment surgery altogether. He didn’t consider that it had been written two generations before he was born, and also in the context of global protests against routine surgical assaults, called female genital mutilation by some survivors.
    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.
  22. ↑ Raymond, Janice G. (1994). The transsexual empire : the making of the she-male (Reissued with a new introduction on transgender ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. ISBN 0807762725.
  23. ↑ Raymond, Janice. (1980). The Transsexual Empire, p. 104
  24. ↑ Rose, Katrina C. (2004) "The Man Who Would be Janice Raymond", Transgender Tapestry 104, Winter 2004
  25. ↑ Julia Serano (2007) Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, pp. 233–234 ISBN 9781580051545
  26. ↑ Namaste, Viviane K. (2000) Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People, pp. 33–34. ISBN 9780226568102
  27. ↑ Hayes, Cressida J., 2003, "Feminist Solidarity after Queer Theory: The Case of Transgender," in Signs 28(4):1093–1120. JSTOR 10.1086/343132
  28. ↑ Daly, Mary, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, pbk. [1st printing? printing of [19]90?] 1978 & 1990 (prob. all content except New Intergalactic Introduction 1978 & prob. New Intergalactic Introduction 1990) ( ISBN 0-8070-1413-3)), pp. 70–71 (page break within ellipsis between sentences) (New Intergalactic Introduction is separate from Introduction: The Metapatriarchal Journey of Exorcism and Ecstasy).
  29. ↑ Daly, Mary, Gyn/Ecology, op. cit., p. 238 n.
  30. ↑ Daly, Mary, Gyn/Ecology, op. cit., p. 68 (n. 60 (at end) omitted).
  31. ↑ Greer, Germaine (1999). "the whole woman". Transworld Publishers Ltd. p. 64. ISBN 0-385-60016-X. Governments that consist of very few women have hurried to recognise as women men who believe that they are women and have had themselves castrated to prove it, because they see women not as another sex but as a non-sex. No so-called sex-change has ever begged for a uterus-and-ovaries transplant; if uterus-and-ovaries transplants were made mandatory for wannabe women they would disappear overnight. The insistence that man-made women be accepted as women is the institutional expression of the mistaken conviction that women are defective males.
  32. ↑ Bindel, Julie (May 23, 2007). "Mistaken Identity". The Guardian.
  33. ↑ Michelle, Goldberg. "The Trans Women Who Say That Trans Women Aren't Women". Slate. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  34. ↑ Sayer, Susan (1995-10-01). "From Lesbian Nation to Queer Nation". Hecate. Archived from the original on 2018-09-11. Retrieved 2012-10-03.
  35. ↑ Raymond, J. (1994). The Transsexual Empire (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press. The second edition includes a new foreword that describes her anti-trans work after the publication of her thesis project as the first edition in the late 70s.
  36. 1 2 Ross, Becki (1995). The House that Jill Built: A Lesbian Nation in Formation. University of Toronto Press, ISBN 978-0-8020-7479-9
  37. ↑ Van Gelder, Lindsy; and Pamela Robin Brandt. "The Girls Next Door: Into the Heart of Lesbian America", p. 73. Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-0-684-83957-8
  38. ↑ "Michigan Womyn's Music Festival: Community Statements". MichFest. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  39. ↑ Hand, Michael; Sreedhar, Susanne (2006). "The Ethics of Exclusion: Gender and Politics at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival". In Scott-Dixon, Krista. Trans/Forming Feminisms: Trans/Feminist Voices Speak Out. Toronto: Sumach Press. pp. 164–65. ISBN 1-894-54961-9. OCLC 70839321.
  40. ↑ "Background on Nixon v Vancouver Rape Relief". Egale Canada. Archived from the original on 2012-02-07. Retrieved 2012-10-03.
  41. ↑ "Excerpt from Proceedings" (PDF). 2001-01-08. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-02. Retrieved 2013-11-02.
  42. ↑ Perelle, Robin (February 14, 2007). Rape Relief wins: Supreme Court refuses to hear trans woman's appeal. Xtra
  43. ↑ In the news:1997 Archived June 25, 2006, at the Wayback Machine. Press For Change.org.uk
  44. ↑ "Brilliant Careers – Germaine Greer". Salon.com. 1999-06-22. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  45. ↑ Burwell, Ian (November 20, 2015). "Germaine Greer, profile: Writer who has not backed down from fight with transgender community". The Independent. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  46. ↑ "London Pride: Anti-trans activists disrupt parade by lying down in street to protest 'lesbian erasure'". The Independent. July 7, 2018.
  47. ↑ "What Really Happened With Lesbian Protestors At Pride London Yesterday?". Conatus News. July 8, 2018.
  48. ↑ "Pride organisers say sorry after anti-trans group leads march". The Guardian. July 8, 2018.
    "Pride in London sorry after anti-trans protest". BBC News. July 8, 2018.
    "Pride in London condemns anti-trans protest as 'vile': 'We are sorry'". Pink News. July 8, 2018.
    "Statement from Pride in London regarding the 2018 protest group". Pride in London.
  49. ↑ Anoosh Chakelian (September 14, 2017). "Trans rights, TERFs, and a bruised 60-year-old: what happened at Speakers' Corner?". New Statesman.
    James Gillespie (September 24, 2017). "Trans group ATH 'condones punching feminists'". The Sunday Times.
    Jen Izakson (September 18, 2017). "Misogynist violence at Speakers' Corner". Morning Star.
  50. ↑ "Feminist activist denies trying to 'out' transgender woman who 'punched' her". Sky News. 12 April 2018. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  51. 1 2 Vasquez, Tina (February 17, 2014). "It's Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women". Bitch Media. Retrieved April 18, 2014. Drawing from that history, Brennan, fellow attorney Elizabeth Hungerford, and other modern-day feminists continue to actively question the inclusion of trans people in women’s spaces. These feminists refer to themselves as “radical feminists” or “gender critical feminists.” In 2008, trans women and trans advocates started referring to this group as “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” or TERFs, a term Brennan considers a slur.
  52. ↑ Dot Wordsworth (May 5, 2018). "Terf wars and the ludicrous lexicon of feminist theory". The Spectator.
  53. ↑ Hungerford, Elizabeth (2–4 August 2013). "Sex is Not Gender". CounterPunch. Retrieved 10 August 2014. Make no mistake, this is a slur. TERF is not meant to be explanatory, but insulting. These characterizations are hyperbolic, misleading, and ultimately defamatory. They do nothing but escalate the vitriol and fail to advance the conversation in any way.
  54. ↑ Cristan Williams (24 September 2013). "You might be a TERF if…". TransAdvocate.
  55. ↑ Sarah Ditum (September 29, 2017). "What is a Terf? How an internet buzzword became a mainstream slur". The New Statesman. On the other hand, if you are a feminist, the bar to being called a “terf” is remarkably low. Woman’s Hour presenter Jenni Murray achieved it by writing an article in which she pointed out that someone born and raised male will not have the same experiences of sexism as a woman; novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie likewise made the grade by answering “transwomen are transwomen” when asked whether she believed that “transwomen are women”.
  56. ↑ Cristan Williams (1 May 2016). "Radical Inclusion: Recounting the Trans Inclusive History of Radical Feminism". Duke University Press.
  57. ↑ Sarah Ditum (September 29, 2017). "What is a Terf? How an internet buzzword became a mainstream slur". New Statesman.
  58. ↑ Sarah Ditum (July 29, 2014). "How 'TERF' works". Feminist Current. Am I a TERF? West didn't have the time to check: avoiding any association with a tainted form of feminism took precedence over sharing a message about domestic violence. And she acted perfectly rationally in this: to associate herself with me, even by merely RTing a statement she agreed with, could be enough to make her a "known TERF" in turn and lead to her being similarly denounced in public. But note the end result of this: a feminist has withdrawn support for another feminist speaking against male violence, because a man told her to.
  59. ↑ Meghan Murphy (February 7, 2017). "Vancouver Women's Library opens amid anti-feminist backlash". Feminist Current.
    Dene Moore (March 13, 2017). "How a Feminist Library Opening Became All About the Definition of a Woman". Vice.
  60. ↑ Claire Heuchan (October 6, 2017). "If feminist Linda Bellos is seen as a risk, progressive politics has lost its way". The Guardian. Terf stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Online, it often it appears alongside violent rhetoric: punch a Terf, stab a Terf, kill a Terf. This language is used to dehumanise women who are critical of gender as part of a political system.
  61. ↑ Sitwell, Ros (20 March 2018). "Female trade union official 'bullied off own union's picket line on International Women's Day'". Morning Star. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  62. ↑ Butler, Judith (May 26, 2015). "Judith Butler on gender and the trans experience: "One should be free to determine the course of one's gendered life"". Verso Books. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  63. ↑ Jeffreys, Sheila (1997). Transgender Activism: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective. "Journal of Lesbian Studies", Vol. 1(3/4) 1997 doi:10.1300/J155v01n03_03
  64. ↑ Sheila Jeffreys, Let us be free to debate transgenderism without being accused of 'hate speech', published in The Guardian, May 29, 2012. The article was a response to Roz Kaveney, Radical feminists are acting like a cult, The Guardian, 25 May 2012.
  65. ↑ Sheila Jeffreys, Lorene Gottschalk, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism, Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2013, ISBN 0415539404, 9780415539401
  66. 1 2 Bindel, Julie (31 January 2004), Gender Benders, beware, The Guardian
  67. ↑ Media Issues Archived 2009-04-15 at the Wayback Machine. Press for Change – PfC examples of press coverage
  68. ↑ "Facsimile of 'Gender Benders, Beware' from 'The Guardian' showing cartoon". 31 January 2004. Archived from the original on January 25, 2016.
  69. ↑ Claire McNab Re: UK: Gender benders, beware [The Guardian] McNab's reaction to PfC list on article
  70. 1 2 3 Grew, Tony (7 November 2008), Celebs split over trans protest at Stonewall Awards
  71. ↑ Bindel, Julie (8 October 2008), "It's not me. It's you", The Guardian
  72. ↑ James Gillespie; Sian Griffiths (October 1, 2017). "Linda Bellos barred in Cambridge University row". The Sunday Times.
    Anna Savva (October 5, 2017). "Cambridge University has uninvited this feminist speaker after these comments". Cambridge News.
    Rachel Loughran; Anna Menin (October 5, 2017). "Exclusive: Linda Bellos 'disappointed' by Beard Society ban". Varsity.
  73. ↑ Claire Heuchan (October 6, 2017). "If feminist Linda Bellos is seen as a risk, progressive politics has lost its way". The Guardian.
  74. ↑ Dworkin, Andrea (1974). Woman Hating. New York City: E. P. Dutton. p. 186. ISBN 0-525-47423-4.
  75. ↑ John Stoltenberg. "#GenderWeek: Andrea was not transphobic". Feminist Times.
  76. ↑ Butler, Judith; Williams, Cristan. "Gender Performance: The TransAdvocate interviews Judith Butler". The TransAdvocate. The TransAdvocate. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  77. ↑ Lisa Allardice, Margaret Atwood: ‘I am not a prophet. Science fiction is really about now’, in The Guardian, January 20, 2018
  78. ↑ Catherine Conroy, Margaret Atwood: ‘When did it become the norm to expect a porn star on the first date?’, in The Irish Times, March 1, 2018

Further reading

  • Jeffreys, Sheila. Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism. London : Routledge, 2013. ISBN 0-415-53940-4
  • Califia, Patrick. Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism, San Francisco, Calif. : Cleis Press, 1997. ISBN 1-573-44072-8
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