Thread by @CandiceBenbow

This morning, my cousin asked me why the statement “trans women are trans women” is wrong. She was genuinely asking because she didn’t understand why it’s wrong to say that trans women are born with male privilege.

I told her that, while all women experience womanhood differently, you must acknowledge that trans women are women. Full stop.

And to say trans women have/were born with male privilege completely negates how gender and sexuality (and other factors) impacted them growing up.

I told her too many cis women act as if trans women lived fully into heteronormative cismale identity and woke up one day and decided they wanted to be women and take the identity on/off as they see fit. That contradicts what they tell us about their journey and experience.

Finally, I told my cousin acknowledging trans women as women doesn’t rob womanhood of anything. (Hell, what is womanhood anyway?! LOL) What it does, though, is honor the vast experiences of women in this world. And it respects the particularities of experiences.

And, in explaining that to her, I explained why the short step taken in the statement is transphobic and refuses full humanity.

My cousin is finishing school and grew up just like me: in the South and in the church. She’s learning and growing and evolving.

She also was trying to make sense of why that essay resonated with her a lot and why she saw so many people she follows and respect panning it.

I told her multiple truths can exist. That essay can have pieces we savor and ponder while also having a context that can’t be ignored.

Even as some are choosing not to have public conversations about the essay, I hope we’re making it clear what was wrong and where the right side of history and God’s heart is.