I don’t really think that a welcome is enough, to be frank.

Feminism has a long long long history of cissexism and transphobia. Cissupremacy was at one point central to feminism. Second-wave feminists like Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, and yes, even Gloria Stienem (though she’s gotten better I believe) actively worked to exclude trans women from woman-only spaces - which meant life or death when you’re talking about rape crisis and domestic violence survivor shelters. Trans women, who face a MUCH higher rate of gendered violence than cis women.

This legacy has created a cis-centric feminism in which trans women are dehumanized and excluded to this very day and in which cis women like me participate. Trans women still face extremely high rates of violence, and like all marginalized women their safety is still not considered a priority the way, say, abortion is.

We should not expect trans women to just join us because we waved and asked nicely, to trust a group that has contributed to violence against them, because we finally acknowledged that they are women. We’ve got to do more than just welcome women in, than deign to finally do something we should have been doing all along (I don’t think this is totally SHIC’s point of view, btw - she may share these views, it just got me thinking).

Cis feminists need to do more than just welcome. We need to repair feminism: to centralize trans women on a consistent basis, to take their violence and degradation as seriously as we do our own.

rachel mccarthy james, emphasis pronoun (via regazzadilupo, sluthaditcoming)
  • August 25
  • , 2011
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