thedeadflag:
professionallush:
This is a question asked with sincerity & love & inclusiveness & sparked by something I just saw on Twitter: does the existence and inclusion of transwomen mean that cis women can’t talk about/make protest signs about our vaginas without causing pain? I know not all women have a vagina or can bear children but I do want to stand up for those of us who do/can. Reproductive freedom should include everyone (even men) but does talking about the specifics of legislating women as “hosts” exclude/hurt transwomen?
Usually posts like these are spurred from discussions on what happened at the women’s march, so that’s the context I’ll be using throughout this post
A popular thing folks have asked a lot about is “Did wearing a pussy hat make me transphobic and exclude trans women?” and stuff like that. I mean, the issue wasn’t inherently that people wore the hats, or that the hats existed or whatever. Like, going out in everyday life wearing it? Not a big deal. The hats aren’t offensive.
When a million people wear them to a ‘Woman’s March’, that’s pretty much sending a message that, due to society’s deeply held cissexism, claims that ‘Womanhood = having a vagina’
Like, individual beliefs and views and knowledges go out the window at rallies, marches, protests, etc. What matters is what messages are most visible by volume.
With all the pussy hats and everything centered around certain reproductive organs or genitals, a message was pretty clearly sent. It had nothing to do with the hat or most individual signs inherently. It had to do with volume, and the fact that there wasn’t inclusive messaging or anything visual to counteract the cissexism that would shape that message (our society operates at a binary…if one set of genitalia is equated to womanhood, then the other binary set will be equated to manhood as a rule).
Of course, there was also the issue of people equating ‘pussies’ with cis women, as if trans women don’t have vaginas, and as if trans women without vaginas don’t experience easily just as much sexual assault and harassment due to our genitals no matter their state. There was the issue of people ignoring that trans women also have our reproductive rights and bodily autonomy attacked. There was the issue of folks not recognizing that trans women’s genitalia is female genitalia no matter the state, and that trans men’s genitalia are male genitalia no matter the state, and non-binary people’s genitals are whatever the heck they decide.
The issue was that, due to how society is taught to be cissexist, unless there’s effort to be actively inclusive and counteract cissexism, messaging centered around reproductive organs and genitals within a Women’s march will equate those organs and genitals to womanhood (even if those who own them aren’t women), and will negate the womanhood of those who don’t fit that criteria.
Now, it’s 1000% super important that folks be able to talk about parts of their bodies that are sites for oppressive violence. Absolutely. That’s incredibly necessary, because there’s a lot of harmful stigma that needs to be done away with, and words about our bodies (like, say, pussy) need to be reclaimed from how they’re considered ‘dirty words’, but those discussions should be inclusive. They should be nuanced. They should not be used to speak for all women or womanhood, and there needs to be room for all women’s bodies (because yeah, the genitals I was born with as a trans woman were hugely formative in my experiences of womanhood growing up, in understanding myself as female…it’s not something cis women can 100% directly relate to, but it doesn’t make my body or my experience a non-woman’s or less female).
And when it comes time for larger group events, there should be some effort made to ensure that the messages being sent are clearly inclusive on a visible level. It’s not hard to make statements around bodies without being cissexist, even at protests. Folks just need to get it done, but for them to do so, they need to know how. They need to have some working understanding of cissexism, and most don’t, so their messaging ends up largely greasing the wheels of cissexism
Our society silences and overwrites our experiences and truths by default, due to cissexism. If there’s no pushback against that, if those limits and restrictions are accepted and reproduced instead of openly and visibly challenged, then trans folks will always be marginalized by cissexism, and feminism, women’s rights events, etc. will always be exclusive to us and anyone who isn’t a cis woman.
In a more intimate setting, where there is a sense of individuality per person, there’s…again…nothing wrong with speaking on any part of one’s body that’s impacted their womanhood, any part of their anatomy tied to specific causes, etc. so long as there’s no universalization going on, obviously. So talking about legislation and the specifics involved in reproductive justice issues is 100% fine. No one is harmed by folks talking about their bodies. It’s when folks speak about certain parts of our bodies and validate those being rendered essential to a specific gender that there becomes an issue. And it’s very easy to take the cissexist legislation coming out and meet it on its violent premise without correction (because legislating ‘women’ as ‘hosts’ will undoubtedly cast many non-women as hosts as well due to their anatomy, and they are just as important to consider within reproductive justice contexts as trans women who get excluded by such definitions), but folks need to strive to be better than that.
Also, fwiw, there is a space between trans and woman, just like you used between cis and woman. In case you’re not aware. It may seem small, but “transwoman” is generally (but obviously not always) used by people who refuse to accept trans woman as women, but instead see us as some other sort of being outside of womanhood. The space is there to remind folks that being trans does not disqualify a person from being their gender but simply describes a particular life experience, much like disabled women are obviously still women, and black women are obviously still women, etc.
If you want to do more reading on cissexism intertwined with reproductive justice (ones specifically spurred by the women’s march on washington), there are posts here, here, here and here
I hope that helps!
Thank you so so so much!!