The fight over trans rights has ignored a key group: pro-trans feminists. Here, leading feminist thinkers told BuzzFeed News why feminism should include trans people. buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwi…
One of the problems with biology, when discussing feminism and trans people, is where it leads, said Prof. Akwugo Emejulu. 
“This has always been the dark heart of white, feminist politics: a jealous guarding of the boundaries of who gets to be a woman, said Prof. Emejulu
She cited several examples of white feminists excluding women from ethnic minorities, but began with the earliest.
She cited several examples of white feminists excluding women from ethnic minorities, but began with the earliest.
This continues to the present day, she said. “Boundary making is what’s crucial here.” Therefore, she said, excluding trans people is a way of keeping one’s position or status.
Keeping trans women out is, Prof. Sally Hines said, “regulating who can belong to a category in order to close down membership, in order to protect the rights of a dominant majority [white women]”.
Prof. Emejulu & Prof. Vanita Sundaram argue that for feminism to really deliver equality & emancipation, it must also focus on problems women face as a result of oppression on basis of factors other than their sex: in particular race,class,sexuality, disability,& gender identity.
Prof. Sundaram: “My own research area is violence vs women & girls, and we know that trans women are more vulnerable to violence, harassment, and everyday abuse than other groups of women. So as a feminist and academic, it’s my responsibility to advocate for that group of women.”
“So it has to be a feminism that challenges patriarchy and other systems of hierarchy that are used to oppress, gender identity being one of them,” Prof. Sundaram.
One of the reasons that a war over trans rights has raged more intensely among feminists in the U.K. than in the US, said Prof. Alison Phipps, is “the blame has been put on to the wrong group, and trans people are carrying the can for problems that are not of their making.”
The idea that simplifying trans women’s legal recognition would lead to increase in attacks in toilets or prisons was unfounded. Prof. Phipps said evidence doesn’t show trans women to be anything like as sexually violent as men...while instead being even more likely to be victims
Painting trans women as predators when they are routinely victims is unjust. And because perceived threat is not the same as actual threat, policies should be “based on actual levels of risk, which are low,” Prof Phipps.
The risk of being raped by one’s husband, by contrast, is inordinately higher, which is why this furore is an odd paradox for Prof. Phipps.
“Male rapists who want to rape a woman in a women’s toilet wouldn’t bother to put a dress on first...It’s a ridiculous assumption that violent men won’t have access to women anyway,” Prof. Phipps
Prof. Tracey Jensen describes the situation in the US, arguing that it is the press causing problems around trans-inclusive toilets. Several of the academics pointed to the absence of such incidents in Ireland over the past three years since it introduced self-declaration.
Nowhere in the debate is there more heat than around the treatment of children who question their gender identity. For these academics, the entire furore is a prime example of a moral panic: a concocted outrage that whips up fear and ignores the more sober facts.
Prof. Jensen pointed to the reality of help offered: Children in Britain are not given surgery until age 18 and are only given hormones at 16, and there is only one clinic to which children can be referred.
“The rates of suicide and self-harm among young trans people is incredibly high...So what do you want? Do you want those children to suffer? Do you want them to die? Or do you want them to go through a process where they may feel happier?” Prof. Hines
Why endless focus on trans people?For these academics, it’s misuse of data that has in part led to furore over trans people. eg. Karen White,trans woman who while living as a man raped women & then amid transition was sent to women’s prison where she sexually assaulted inmates
“These cases are being used to exemplify all the things that are false or suspicious about the community and they are absolutely the exception,” said Prif. Sundaram. “That happens in various debates around minority rights. It’s a way of upholding the status quo.”
The future? Some of the academics spoke of the personal abuse they have suffered for supporting trans rights. All are horrified at the tone of the debate. Prof. Phipps is disturbed, too, by the links forming between anti-trans feminists and the far right.
By supporting transgender rights and helping this minority, “we can make the world safer, more livable, and more dignified for all people,” Prof. Jensen
Thank you @sally_hines, @VanitaSundaram, @alisonphipps, @AkwugoEmejulu, @Drtraceyjensen for your powerful and vital work.
Thank you @PatrickStrud for interviewing British academics who are pro-trans feminists. All tweets are from his article and interviews with those academics.
Thank you @PatrickStrud for interviewing British academics who are pro-trans feminists. All tweets are from his article and interviews with those academics.
