So Debs wrote a post about Women only spaces. I thought really hard about writing this response because I didn’t want to cause more upheaval in the blogsphere than there needs to be but I felt that it was really important to make a stand against some of the things she said in it. I can obviously not speak from a transwomens perspective, but these are my thoughts from a trans supportive radical feminist perspective
I think there maybe times when cisgendered woman only spaces need to be available and I think that there are times when trans women only spaces need to be available but by and large I think women only spaces should be for cisgendered and transgendered women both and that trans women shouldn’t just be tolerated in them but should be actively accepted in them and be an inherent part of the organisation and structure of them.
I also don’t believe that transwomen have more privileged than cisgendered women, they are more at risk of violence, unemployment, homelessness than cisgendered women, not to mention prejudice from friends and family.
This is not an attack its a critique and I’m quite happy to have a dialogue about it with Debs or anyone else
To begin with Debs writes
When I first had the idea for a women-only radical feminist meet-up back in March of this year, I naively thought that everyone would naturally understand that ‘women-only’ meant ‘female-born women only’.
Maybe this is because lots of women who throw themselves into what they consider radical feminism often don’t actually know that much about feminist history and that there are lots of different strands of feminism and lots of them are supportive and inclusive of transwomen
I was dismayed to discover this was not the case, and some people thought transwomen had a right to attend the meeting. And that is what this issue comes down to; rights.
See I’m not convinced about that, I think what people often mean by rights is comforts and privileges.
She quotes from the London Feminist Network site:
“We are a women-only group because we believe it is vital that women have safe and supportive spaces where we can work together politically to campaign for our rights.
We are the experts on our own lives and on what it is to be a woman, in all of our various identities, in a society where we do not have equal political representation, where we are disadvantaged and discriminated against simply because we are women. All too many of us know what it is to experience male violence, including rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse, pornography, prostitution, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and so-called ‘honour’ crimes.
I have a lot of respect for London feminist network but this really sounds to me that they are saying that trans women don’t experience male violence, including rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse, pornography, prostitution, Statistically trans women are at more risk of male violence than cis women not less
[EDIT: acording to a woman who is on the email list for LFN, LFN are not trans exclusive and when they say "women only" they are including trans women in that]
Debs goes on to say that
Our work in women-only campaigns is not in exclusion of other types of political work and many of us are active in mixed groups for peace, against racism, anti-globalisation, lesbian and gay rights, environmental concerns, etc.
Fine, good but I think that’s like saying “its okay to be racist because I’m doing all this other good work, being elitist and prejudiced in one part of your life is going to effect all the other work you do for change negatively.
The approval of men is irrelevant to our self-organising, as much as the presence of men is obviously inappropriate at a women-only event
While I agree with this totally I don’t see what this has to do with transwomen in women only space seeing as transwomen aren’t men.
She quotes Women’s Space
“For one thing not all men who undergo srs do it because of ‘gender dysphoria.’ There are those who have extreme fetishistic desires to have sex as a woman but who do not describe themselves as having a ‘woman’s gender identity.’
How does she know this? Is she trans herself? Does she have trans friends and/or lovers, is she talking to trans women about this or just other people who are not trans friendly either.
Many straight men who undergo srs then go on to describe themselves as lesbian (because they still want to sleep with women)
Um, yeah maybe that’s because they weren’t straight men in the first place, women who are attracted exclusively to women are lesbians, and I don’t see what the fuck its got to do with anyone else anyway.
There’s a minority among them who are absolutely rabid about forcing & involving themselves on lesbians & in lesbian groups.
Like say oh, heterosexual women who claim they are “political lesbians” while still married to men? And anyway she says “A minority”. A minority of any group of people behaving like arseholes does not mean the whole group are arseholes . And where else are lesbian transwomen supposed to go than lesbian groups? Its really sad seeing oppressed people oppressing other people, and most of the lesbians I’ve met and most of the queer women spaces I’ve been in (which I’m pretty sure is way more that either Heart or Debs) are trans accepting and trans inclusive.
While they may see themselves as ‘lesbian’ for the most part many, many lesbians still experience them as men because they come with all their male privileges, expectations and attitudes towards women absolutely intact
How “many” exactly or is that just her and her transphobic friend, And really I hate this, do she really think in cisgendered only women’s space that peoples privileges and expectations don’t come in to play? That there is no able bodied privilege, white, privilege, class privilege that effect dynamics amongst cis women? There also seems to be no knowledge (unsurprisingly) of how masculinities are often played out in lesbian spaces.
Debs again
That is so well expressed, I could never have put it any better, “They may have changed the penis between their legs but the one in their heads is still fully operational.” Some might argue, and I would be one of them, that it is the penis in their heads that does the most damage to women. The physical body is almost irrelevant, what bits you’ve got, what bits you haven’t; what counts are the attitudes, the self-absorption, the sense of ownership over another’s body. They are the things, among others, that distinguish the ‘male brain’ from the female, and they are the things which keep women in a position of subordination to men.
Okay so the argument most often used by radical feminists against transitioning is that there is no such thing as gender, that there is no such thing as a “male” brain or a “female” brain so how does this even make sense? firstly attitudes are not inherent or hard wired they are learnt behaviours and can be unlearnt if necessary and I hate the assumption that all men everywhere are hard wired to be self absorbed and claim owner ship over others bodies
And really if people cant change their attitudes and behaviours then what the fuck are we fighting for?
Radical feminists, including myself on several occasions, have often been called “transphobic”. It’s a pretty lame and meaningless insult that seems to be hurled by some people as soon as they hear that a woman is planning a women-only event.
The use of “lame” an ablest insult there really pissed me off, and I did actually comment on this but she hasn’t changed it or even posted my comment or responded to it, so maybe unpacking her privilege doesn’t matter all that much to her,
Yes, it must be we who identify the membership in those groups, otherwise the entire meaning and purpose of the group is lost, which means there would be little point in continuing, little point in forming a group in the first place, little point in the group trying to achieve any of its aims
Who is we exactly? I am a feminist. I am a radical feminist, but I don’t agree with other feminists position on this, who decides who the gatekeepers are in these situations? Why is my voice less than other women’s voices, Why are the voices of trans women less than other women’s voices, and while we are at it who decided that it was impossible for transwomen to be radical feminists?
She quotes from the questioning transgender webside
“Exclusion is exclusion. At least that’s what boycotters or those angered over the festival’s women-only policies argue. Maybe that’s true. And in that case, exclusion is not necessarily a bad thing. One of the major traps that people in privilege fall into is not realizing that sometimes they will have to be excluded from certain groups, conversations and spaces. Exclusion is sometimes necessary to prevent the erasure of the specificity of difference. We all know that gender is a social construction; however, gender constructs are very real in that people are oppressed through them.”[emphasis Debs]
So the bit emphasised? I absolute agree with the statement, except its not relevant here, because trans women do not have more privilege than cis women. I feel there is real hypocrisy here. Debs has massive amounts of privilege, she is white, cisgendered, heterosexual, able bodied, maybe she should be interrogating the traps her privilege causes her to fall in to instead of telling people who, weather she want to acknowledge it or not, do have less privilege than her
quoting heart
. Some ought to get over themselves and learn the difference between critiques, analysis, opinions, politics and them. I can critique the hell out of your politics and your theories and ideas and go to the mat for you, love the hell out of you, and be willing to lay down my life for you. This is what any mother knows. This is what any lover knows. If you want to know how to critique and analyze the hell out of something without making it personal, try unconditionally fucking loving somebody, would you? Then you’ll understand. Maybe unconditional love is just so goddamn rare right now, nobody knows what it is any more. And if people don’t learn, then there will not be any revolution, not any time soon.”
while I pretty much agree with this I think its bizarre coming from a set of people who are always rejecting people for not believing the same things or doing the right things, people who don’t have other women’s backs no matter what, who belittle other women, who hurt other women, who ignore other women if they are the wrong sort of feminists or the wrong sort of women
many of these feminist don’t do unconditional love, they very much do “my way or the highway, we will express love and concern to you as long as you believe exactly the same thing as we do” they think its okay for them to decide who is the right sort of feminist or not. I have been on the receiving end of this, and you know what? it hurts, it sucks, it damages feminism.
Debs again
The Radical Feminist Spring Gathering is not for female-born women only out of any kind of fear or hatred or mistrust or disliking or victimisation or anything else of transwomen. As Heart says, the trans ‘issue’ is nothing to do with feminism
So why bring it up over and over again?
The gathering is an oasis in the desert of the male-identified society we live in, many women’s (unless they are seperatists) only escape in the year,
See I don’t even understand this. Yeah we live in a male identified society but that doesn’t mean that women only spaces happen when DEBS make them happen, I’m perfectly capable of creating women only spaces in my life and I do regularly, with women who shockingly are not exactly the same as me. Its not like women only spaces happened when DEBS arrived at feminism.
