¿Soy cisgender?

(Note: someone has very kindly translated my post, Am I Cisgender?, into Spanish. I do not speak Spanish and thus cannot vouch for the accuracy of the translation. But since this post has been read so many times and has clearly been useful to many people, I am posting the translation here so that Spanish speakers can benefit from the hard work of the translator. Gracias, Jose! You can also find a Portuguese translation here.)

Soy una mujer. Esto es algo que nunca he cuestionado. Es algo que sé con casi total certeza. Continue reading “¿Soy cisgender?” →

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Still trashing

“Sisterhood is powerful. It kills. Mostly sisters.”

– Ti-Grace Atkinson

I was reminded of this essay today, first published in 1976. The author, writing in the middle of the Second Wave of feminist activism, describes in heartbreaking detail the long-lasting psychological damage inflicted on the women at the heart of that movement, by the very relationships that were supposed to nurture and sustain and liberate them. When I first encountered this essay, as an undergraduate with a vague interest in the history of the Second Wave but no direct experience of feminist activism of my own, I read it with a sort of bemused and detached fascination, unable to fathom how women could do this to one another, or what could explain these devastating dynamics. Today, having witnessed the latest round of brutal, relentless trashing of a much loved friend of mine, and having been subject to one myself only yesterday, the familiarity of it all makes it almost too painful to re-read.

There is some small comfort to be had from the realisation that none of this is new: that my generation is not uniquely unhealthy or dysfunctional, that we are not unusually incapable of demonstrating solidarity and sisterhood with one another, that these phenomenal, fearless, fearsome feminists whose writings and activism I admire so much suffered many of the same miseries as I do, and would empathise with my pain. But that is accompanied by a real sadness that in nearly forty years since Joreen’s article was published, we have made so little progress. We are repeating the mistakes of our foremothers. Another generation of bright, committed, impassioned women is being worn down. Being killed by the power of sisterhood. Continue reading “Still trashing” →

A gender abolitionist in a non-ideal world

[I reproduce here a post I wrote wrote for a new blog run by some friends of mine. The Gender Apostates are a coalition of Women and Transwomen who believe in and are working together towards the abolition of gender. I wrote about why I believe there is nothing contradictory or hypocritical about gender critical feminists and transsexual women working together towards the goal of gender abolition. I’m proud and honoured to contribute to this project. Compromise and mutual understanding is impossible unless there can be open, good-faith, reasoned discussion about our differences and disagreements.]

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It’s not an easy path to tread, being a gender apostate. As a feminist who thinks that female biology is real, that female socialization matters, but also that it is possible for male people to transition into the role of woman and therefore to live as women, I’m used to being unpopular. I’ve made my peace with the fact I’m simultaneously denounced both as a vicious exclusionary transphobe, and as a cowardly liberal quisling in thrall to men. So I’m not particularly concerned to defend myself against these claims. But I do think it’s important to explain, for those who may be in any doubt, why there is nothing inconsistent about this position I’ve arrived at, and why I believe there is nothing contradictory or hypocritical about gender critical feminists and transsexual women working together towards the goal of gender abolition.

Continue reading “A gender abolitionist in a non-ideal world” →

Standing up for all women: Statement in response to London Young Labour Summer Conference Motion 8

The London Young Labour summer conference takes place this Sunday. Among the motions to be voted on, motion 8 deserves particular scrutiny from feminists: it is titled “Standing up for sex workers’ rights, supporting the decriminalisation of sex work.” It is principally concerned with committing LYL to opposing the Nordic model. A number of feminist activists, academics and frontline service providers have collaborated to critique the claims and evidence offered in this motion.

As a feminist and a Labour Party member, I am publishing the full text of the document below and hope that any delegates attending the LYL conference will consider it carefully before voting. It is a detailed and thorough rebuttal of motion 8, and very much worth reading in full.

However, the conclusion is a particularly powerful explanation of why the Labour movement should never legitimise an industry founded in exploitative power relations:

as feminists we believe that women who sell sex are fellow human beings who operate under the constraints and limitations of all human life. Most of them are neither superior, sexually liberated entrepreneurs, nor weak and defenceless victims. They are responding to the demand created by men and catered to by pimps and traffickers (among others), a demand which can and should be delegitimised through the introduction of legislation that signals that sexual exploitation is not an acceptable “service” to purchase, even if the money exchanging hands seems to make it a “free” transaction on behalf of the class of people thus being exploited. The protection of those who sell should not be conflated with the legitimisation of those who buy. Those within the Labour movement who fail to distinguish or even acknowledge these two very different constituent elements of the sex industry, and who do not identify which holds the power, should explain their position better and more honestly than they have done in this motion.

Continue reading “Standing up for all women: Statement in response to London Young Labour Summer Conference Motion 8” →

What I believe about sex and gender: part 6

How did we get here?

50. We have sleepwalked into a situation where the reality of female biology is routinely denied; the lived experience and the oppression of female-bodied persons is rendered invisible and unspeakable; and women are regularly harassed, threatened and defamed as bigots for continuing to insist that female biology exists, and female biology matters. Female-only spaces are under threat, as gender identity laws are enacted in many jurisdictions, granting any person the right to enter such spaces solely on the basis of self-identification as a woman. This leads to situations such as male-bodied, male-socialised persons having a legally protected right to enter female changing rooms, and rape crisis centres coming under attack and facing legal action for refusing to employ male-bodied members of staff. Lesbian women are criticised and accused of transphobia if they refuse to consider male-bodied people who identify as women as potential sexual partners. Children whose behaviour and preferences do not conform to traditional gender norms are being referred to Gender Identity Clinics and diagnosed with gender dysphoria in increasing numbers.

51. Any person who expresses unease or discomfort about any of this will inevitably attract accusations of transphobia, as well as potential threats to livelihood and even threats of violence. Many liberal, progressive-minded people – often men – who are not fully immersed in the huge complexity of this debate are willingly participating in the labelling of women as bigots and TERFs, and are perpetuating the idea that women who insist on the need for at least some female-only spaces are just nasty bigots who need to stop being unkind to transsexual women.

Continue reading “What I believe about sex and gender: part 6” →

What I believe about sex and gender: part 5

Political implications, continued

39. Women and trans women have some political concerns in common. Insofar as the injustices and oppressions that trans women experience are traceable to sexism or misogyny, as many are, they have common interests with women, and both groups would benefit from working together and organising together.

40. There is also some divergence in experience. Insofar as the injustices and oppressions that trans women experience are not shared with biological females, there may be a need for them to work and organise separately. On some issues – for instance, with respect to forms of discrimination and marginalisation traceable to transphobia, rather than sexism – trans women and trans men may have more in common with one another than do trans women and biologically female women, and so may benefit from organising together.

41. Some political issues will affect biological females only. These issues are usually of paramount importance to female persons. Reproduction, contraception, female diseases: these are only really issues of concern for biologically female people, and insofar as they don’t affect trans women, who are biologically male, it may sometimes be appropriate for them to be excluded from organising on this issue.

Continue reading “What I believe about sex and gender: part 5” →

What I believe about sex and gender: part 4

Political implications

29. People can and do experience oppression across numerous dimensions. The key theoretical insight and political contribution of feminism has been to highlight the various ways in which biological sex acts as an axis of oppression, and the ways in which living in a female body in a male-dominated society is accompanied by a range of injustices. Some of these injustices are directly connected to the material conditions of female biology, such as lack of access to contraception, abortion and obstetric healthcare, lack of research into and medical treatment for female diseases, under-provision of maternity benefits and employment rights, female genital mutilation. Some are less directly connected to female biology, but are a result of being read as female and living in the subordinate sex role, such as sexual and physical violence, sexual harassment, unequal pay, lack of political representation, unequal division of domestic labour, and many, many more. All are products of, and manifestations of, a social order organised to perpetuate male dominance and supremacy and female passivity and subordination – what feminists call patriarchy.

30. Sex-based oppression will intersect with other axes of oppression, including race, disability, and socio-economic class. So white women will be privileged in comparison to women of colour with respect to race, while being oppressed in comparison with men of all races on the axis of sex. We must always be sensitive to the ways in which various axes of oppression interact to produce unique experiences for different individuals, depending on the specific features of their identities. However, the fact that women of different races, classes or abilities will have different perspectives and experiences of injustice does not negate the fact that sex is an axis of oppression in its own right. Nobody suggests that because black men will have a different experience of racism to black women, this means that we cannot coherently talk about race as an axis of oppression. Feminism as a movement, and as a political label that individuals adopt, is predicated on the belief that there are some shared experiences among women, and that despite their differences and diversity, we can conceptualise women as a coherent political class. It makes little sense to refer to oneself as a feminist, if one does not believe that there is sufficient commonality and shared experience among women for them to constitute a coherent political class.

Continue reading “What I believe about sex and gender: part 4” →