How I became a “TERF”

For a trans exclusionary radical feminist I consider myself pretty inclusive of trans people. I’ve always thought that every human being deserves basic human rights including things like equal access to employment and housing. I’ve also thought that human rights include the right to move freely in public spaces without fear of threats, harassment, or assault of any kind. I was positive I was doing my job to promote the interests of the transgender community until I was called a TERF when I made a Facebook post indicating that I would not support centering transwomen in the women’s movement.

The argument I made, and I still stand by, is that transwomen face very serious obstacles in life and in moving about in the world. However, the difficulties they experience are not fully inclusive of the experiences of women, and they therefore wouldn’t be good representatives for women in the political arena. Examples of things that are obviously central to the notion of “womanhood,” and are fundamental to our shared systematic oppression, that transwomen would not identify with and would not be predisposed to advocate on are issues of menstruation, abortion, and childbirth.

I’ve spent some time looking at the way the progressive left is treating transgenderism and it is accepting it unconditionally. This is problematic because a lot of transgenderism relies on self-identification, which has very serious implications for women. The transgender lobby is seeking to eliminate even the need for confirmation of sex change surgeries for transgender people seeking to change the sex on their legal identification documents. The result of this could be that males that identify as transwomen gain access to women-only spaces and programs, without having to demonstrate that they’ve changed their bodies accordingly.

Something else I found extremely disturbing when I began to research transgenderism is the fact that people, especially gays and lesbians are being told they are “transphobic,” if they refuse to date or sleep with someone on the basis of their physical sex. This is a form of sexual coercion where people are being guilted into dating or sleeping with certain people for fear that if they don’t they will be labeled “transphobic.” My understanding is this line of reasoning goes so far among transgenderists that some believe it is transphobic for a lesbian to refuse penetrative vaginal intercourse with a woman-identifying individual. That opened my eyes to how far males are willing to go to impose their bodies on women and has moved me to action.

This has become a moment where women need to begin to take note of what is going on within mainstream feminism and educate themselves so we can take back our movement.