Trans Women and Feminism
Trans women improving the lives of cis women
Erica Vogel and I write a little about the fact that people transitioning to their authentic gender is actually a really good thing for society at large as well as being beneficial for trans individuals.
Introduction
I was chatting to one of my sisters-from-another-mother Erica today and we decided to collaborate on a blog post as this is a topic we’re both super interested in. Erica is a fellow trans woman of around the same age and we connected randomly one day via a LinkedIn connection and hit it off. We chat regularly and although we’ve not met in person, Since we got chatting, we’ve been largely inseparable and we talk regularly about all that ails us and I’d say we are close, we are of a similar vibe mentally about how we see and deal with the world.
I’ll leave it to her to introduce herself
Hello to all of Kat’s readers, it’s the fabulous lady she was going on about above. I’m Erica, and I am Kat’s sister in every way that matters and her biggest fan. Now that’s out of the way, I am a queer trans woman living in Washington DC, married to an amazing queer cis woman, and I work as a DEI technologist. I am also a public speaker on trans affairs, and a Corporate Queer™ who’s led LGBTQIA2S employee resource groups representing 5K queer associates. I also sit on the board of Trans Tech Social Enterprises.
A common underlying theme in most of my posts on this blog is one talking about the negative views from some parts of society about trans women and how people transitioning is somehow a threat to cis women. I know this negativity is not just confined to trans women and affects trans men and non-binary folk too but I can only talk about my own experiences as a trans woman.
Erica and I wanted to talk a little about the fact that people transitioning to their authentic gender is actually a really good thing for society at large as well as being a huge benefit at the individual level for those women who blossom into happy humans. I know a lot of trans women and most who have been doing this a while have a new inner glow and strength of character which is really forged upon the anvil of necessity. It takes a lot to walk this path and it does eventually give you a strong sense of self-belief and confidence once you start to figure your shit out.
A trans woman’s entire concept of levels of difficult is somewhat redefined because transition is really a difficult thing to do, day-to-day. For the first year or so you’re constantly self-adjusting your habits and muscle memory that you’ve accumulated over the years living in the wrong gender and learning new ways to do everything and you break everything and rebuild it from scratch. This doesn’t include dealing with any accidental or intentional negativity from other people or dealing with the societal systems you need to work through. I’ve talked a lot about this stuff in previous blog posts so please take a look at older posts if you’re new to this blog and want to find out more.
Transition is said to be the greatest act of self love that a person can undertake. People can and do mistake this for narcissism because transition requires that we fully invest in our sense of self. This can generate an assumption that we are self-centred, when in fact we are really focused on self-love and authenticity. We genuinely care deeply about others and want others to live their truths and be happy and content. You’ll often find trans women at the front of every demonstration for social justice as we are hyper-aware of inequality in society and strive to equalise things. Please don’t mistake choosing to live authentically with being self-centred. The world does not revolve around us in the slightest (transition would be a lot easier if it did). We do, however, expect the world to trust that we are who we say we are and this is really a bare minimum expectation for every human, trans or cis.
This leads nicely onto the subject in hand, how do people transitioning actually improve society as a whole?
Feminism
The Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs/Gender Criticals) believe that trans women are a threat to cis women and feminism as a whole. They believe that womanhood is a bio-essentialist zero sum game. We, in contrast, believe they are beyond reason and radicalised in the same way as any religious fundamentalist is. Their arguments do not make logical sense and there’s no evidence for their beliefs.
We fundamentally disagree with the notion that trans women are a threat to feminism. I have always been a feminist and did what I could, long before I transitioned or understood what transition was, to promote feminism and argued strongly for equality for women at every possible opportunity.
I think you’d actually struggle to find many trans women who aren’t feminists and don't want true equality and equity for women. Though the world saw us as men and inferred that privilege on us, most of us felt deeply distressed with manhood, were othered because of our feminine traits that kept showing through the mask, and struggled to conform to a societal role that caused us great pain and anguish. As a result of conforming to this role, we could walk down the street largely without risk of abuse or harassment, were often paid more than cis women by default and never worried too much about being on the streets at night (and the other numerous advantages inferred by male privilege!).
Caitlin Moran writes a little about trans women and feminists in her book “Moranthology”. She uses slightly antiquated language by referring to us as transgenders but it was written 10+ years ago and trans authors have used similar terms in the past so I’ll forgive her for it.
Caitlin writes
And as a strident feminist, I'm always saddened by other feminists who rail against male-to-female transgenders - claiming you can only be born a woman, and not 'become' one.
Holy moly, ladies - what exactly do you think is going wrong here?
Having your male genitals remodelled as female, then committing to a lifetime of hormone therapy, sounds like a bit more of a commitment to being a woman than just accidentally being born one. And, besides, it's an incredibly inhospitable stance to take. Personally, anyone who wants to join the Lady Party is welcome as far as I'm concerned. The more the merrier! Anyone who's been rejected by The Man is a friend of mine!
I genuinely don’t understand why some cis women are against us, we have the same aims, the same goals, we very much want to topple the patriarchy. We really understand patriarchy and were and are affected by it (albeit in slightly different ways) and have the advantage of having seen it from the other side. As Caitlin said in the quote above, we actually chose this path based on how we see ourselves internally. Our womanhood wasn’t forced onto us as it is with cis women. We spent some time pretending to be men and made an active decision to discard it all because it didn’t align with our internal view of ourselves. Why would you not want us to use our voices to help dismantle inequality?
Erica here again. I've been amazed at the amount of friends I've picked up after transition who are cis women - ten times the amount I had before. Truly, my life is one lived in the sisterhood of women now. Not one of them would tell you I am not as female as they are because they have taken the time to know me. They know I am one of them. While I don't have the shared experience of carrying and giving birth to children like some women, I am a woman who has always been her now adult kids' primary parent. I've taken female friends shopping to help them with their style. I'm frequently included in women's conversation groups, from periods to childbirth and from what goes on in their bedrooms to their challenges as women in society. I have nurtured and cared for children, family, and friends, seeing one of them through a scary bout of breast cancer. I do my fair share of the emotional and physical labour in the home.
I use the ladies without anyone thinking anything about it or complaining. I can't tell you the last time a man failed to open the door for me. The boobs HRT has provided me are as functional as any others and get stared at and groped at the same rate as cis women. I get followed in public by men, and I get cat-called and propositioned; I've had my drinks spiked and only barely managed to get to safety. I walk through a world where every man is a potential danger to me and perhaps more so as trans women are murdered 400 times more frequently than cis women at the hands of a sexual predator. I am talked over in every meeting at work and have the quality of my work questioned in a way that all women know. I've had my body policed by men and women in ways it never was before transition. I grew up knowing I was a girl since I was five and punished for being honest about who I am. I have always been a feminist and, frankly, was lauded in the workplace for the aspects of myself that are unequivocally female, while my coworkers thought I was a man. And yet, today, I am criticised for those same strengths like all women. Does my lack of menstruation truly make a difference worth noting? Do women love their periods so much that they feel compelled to use it to other people? Are we going to, as women, reduce our femaleness to only reproduction? How is that not playing into the hands of misogyny and patriarchal systems of oppression? How is that not the most anti-feminist stance to take?
The Cis View of Womanhood
I’ve had some really nice feedback from friends who have told me that reading this blog has helped them with how they see the world and that it’s been genuinely helpful for them to understand their own view of womanhood as they’ve seen me trying to, somewhat publicly, figure my own womanhood out. It’s triggered some really interesting conversation as to what femininity and womanhood actually is and I think that the conversations have helped all of us figure our stuff out a little.
Erica here again. I frequently have women approach me for style help, to talk about their lives, and to feel seen by someone who has struggled to claim what womanhood means personally. Honestly, what drives this is the absolute pursuit of my authenticity, a fierce sense of self, and my track record of showing up for my fellow women with love and compassion.
I've had more than one conversation with cis women about my sense of womanhood, and a comment I've received more than once is that not only am I a woman, but I have helped them realise they can claim or let go of aspects of their femininity as well. A few weeks ago, I was talking with a cis gal pal about my path and how I arrived at who I am today. This gal asked me if it's common for cis women to feel kinship and closeness to trans women because we help make it possible for women to see a path of self-discovery within the patriarchal society we all live in. This comment surprised me, as I hadn't thought about it from that perspective so clearly. Seeing this, she said, "...because I see you so authentically claim your womanhood, I can see that I can make the same choices to put down the things that do not fit me in favour of what is most true for me."
In a world where women are held to unobtainable standards, any woman, trans or cis, that embodies who she is as a woman on her terms is fucking badass.
Gender Freedom and Gender Roles
The thing is, once you’ve smashed one glass wall on your box and figured out that you don’t actually need to stay in that box (this particular box being labelled “assigned gender”), people start getting clever ideas about why you’re in other boxes such as capitalism, heteronormative sexuality or even monogamy. As a thought experiment for you, dear reader, imagine a world where gender isn’t really a thing, everybody can present how they want, you aren’t told to act in a certain way because of what’s between your legs. You don’t have to live on a narrow and specific path and you can define which bits of gender feel right for you (if you even want to choose a binary!). There isn’t a lifetime of preconceptions placed upon you based upon a quick examination of your external genitalia by a doctor at the time of your birth. What would you have done differently? Have you ever sat down and thought about what gender means for you or have you just gone along with it because it’s what’s expected of you?
I believe that this is really what the bigots are scared about, they’re scared to live in a world which they don’t understand entirely. I really try hard to assume that it’s just this, the fear of something they don’t understand. The nervous system LOVES well trodden paths and stepping out of your comfort zone takes effort, love and support, trust me, I know this HARD. I understand why people don’t want to change the way they think as growth is uncomfortable and hard but I do however feel that growth should be the bare minimum of what we achieve during this short and fleeting existence on this planet (as well as trying to be the best supportive human you can be to others). It’s probably one of the best things about being human and as James O’Brien says
there’s no point in having a mind unless you’re willing to change it
To add on to this, why would choosing your own womanhood make you less of a woman. Certainly my path has been different, but I had far less choice than you would think. Forced maleness damn near killed me, and I say that in no uncertain terms. Society has forced on women what it means to be a “good one.” So much so, that many have internalised what are frankly misogynist points of view, and are now fighting to protect what they never had a choice about. My choices, my womanhood should be a beacon, a call to arms to every woman to deconstruct what they were handed, and start to honour who they actually are on their own terms. Women are far far more than tremendous mothers. We are leaders, activists, fire brands, change makers, incredible athletes, and whole beings that have so much more to offer to a world that desperately needs women's voices to change the course we are all on.
I hope that this post has been interesting, it’s been lovely to write something with somebody else and I hope to do it more as this blog evolves.
As always, sending love to you all, be the best human you can be and show kindness wherever you can in these dark and difficult times. We are all trying to live our best lives.
Love
Kat
x
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