Thread by @MatthewWolfff

🏳️‍🌈#LGBTVoices Celebrates🏳️‍🌈
TRANS AWARENESS MONTH

Today’s Thread Topic: TERFS, and why they’re wrong.

TERFS are trans exclusionary radical feminists. They conflate gender with sex, and hold that gender is binary, and biologically assigned at birth.

#LGBTVoices

The debate over trans acceptance dates back the the early seventies of radical feminist thought.

Radical is a loaded term.

In this case, radical feminism holds that male supremacy is maintained by granting privilege to men through the institution of the patriarchy.

Feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of equality of the sexes.

Radical feminism seeks a radical restructuring of society to eliminate the patriarchy, and bring equality to the sexes.

Third Wave Feminism emerged in the 1990’s and introduced the concept of intersectionality, a concept used to describe the ways different forms of oppression (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc) are interconnected, and cannot be understood separately from one another.

The term TERF was coined by Viv Smythe as a way to describe feminists who sought to exclude trans women (woman assigned male sex at birth, who identified as women) from the feminist community. The term is seen as a slur by such people.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

TERFs argue that as a trans woman is born male (assigned male sex at birth), they were accorded male privilege at birth.

This conflates sex with gender. It also denies that trans women would endure oppression for being feminine where society would expect them to act masculine.

TERFS also claim that transgenderism affirms a binary nature to genders, affirming oppression of women, and hindering their goal of gender abolition.

This is an outdated understanding of transgenderism, which can include gender fluidity and gender neutrality.

In contrast, trans inclusionary feminism holds that gender defined only by sex assigned at birth is an affirmation of binary gender. This affirms strict gender roles which the patriarchy uses to maintain male privilege and oppress women.

In 1974, Andrea Dworkin wrote that "Work with transsexuals, and studies of formation of gender identity in children provide basic information which challenges the notion that there are two distinct biological sexes,” a notion backed up by modern sociology, neurology and genetics.

In 2015, radical feminist Catherine MacKinnon said that "male dominant society has defined women as a discrete biological group forever. If this was going to produce liberation, we'd be free... To me, women is a political group.”

Perhaps it is most important to note how trans women feel about themselves. They identify as women because that is how they feel they are. No cis gender person can crawl inside a trans person’s head and tell them how they should feel.

If gender is not a firm binary, cannot be determine solely by sex assigned at birth, and if women are a political group, what is the justification for excluding a person who identifies as a woman?

Intersectionality informs that transphobia is as hurtful as any other oppression.

It cannot be denied that women and trans people endure oppression in our society. It seems counter productive to focus on differences between these forms of oppression. Intersectionality provides us with a way to unite and fight all forms of oppression together.

The LGBT community is Intersectional. Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, intersexuals and allies unite to fight all forms of oppression, and stand in solidarity with women, POC, the disabled, and every other oppressed group.

In the end, isn’t that the only way?

#LGBTVoices is wrapping up our Nov project on trans identity.

It’s been such a rewarding project, and we’ve learned so much researching these topics.
We hope you have as well!

Check out all of our topics in the moment below.
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

https://twitter.com/voiceslgbt/status/1062308225754849280?s=21