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@PriyamvadaGopal We were always considered female. That is why slaveholders raped us. It is why medical science tortured us to find cures for white women. It is why black women gave birth to babies. It is one reason why we were denied equal pay.
@PriyamvadaGopal It is why marriage took away our legal rights. It is why we were denied a fair share of medical research dollars. It is why we could not vote (tho the male bodied could). It is one reason why we were denied an opportunity to hold certain jobs reserved to men.
@PriyamvadaGopal It is why we one reason we have ovarian cancer, or cervical cancer, or uterine cancer. It is why we produce breast milk that slaveholders and later Jim Crow whites used for their own babies.
@PriyamvadaGopal And it is why you target us now—because we are women and you Know that as black women and as women, we have been vulnerable.
@PriyamvadaGopal As women, we have earned the right to insist that what we have fought for not be dismissed as unimportant, that biology does matter, and that to ignore it is to jeopardize our safety and our rights and a history we have fought hard to recreate and to preserve.
@PriyamvadaGopal I believe gender conforming people have always existed. I believe they experienced discrimination but also that the male bodied among them perpetuated discrimination against women and benefitted from it. Some still do.
@PriyamvadaGopal What terms we use for people are as much public policy choices as much as they are personal choices. But you won’t get very far by being ignorant of women’s history & then insisting that women erase themselves so that trans people, especially male bodied trans people, can live.
@PriyamvadaGopal The goal of people like you, as I see it, is to reorient the world so that biology and procreation can still be used against us, but with no acknowledgement of that fact. It is a demand that our reality be erased because transwomen do not share it.
@PriyamvadaGopal No thanks. It’s a request that we just switch masters, not that we be free.
@PriyamvadaGopal Like others, women seek money and advancement. Some will go along with your oppression of women to get that. Some will deny themselves so that the male bodied can advance-even stand against other women—because they have accepted that they are not entitled to rights as women.
@PriyamvadaGopal I celebrate the women who stand tall and don’t dismiss oppression just because it comes from a group that also is oppressed.
@PriyamvadaGopal There are points of intersection in all struggles. Probably wise that we looked for those, rather than denigrating black women’s history, women’s history and experiences, as a way of moving up against oppression. Even done out of ignorance, it is not a good look.
@PriyamvadaGopal But you make that money and advance your career at the cost of women and other vulnerable people. Pick up those awards and dollars. Do not think we do not see you.
