One troublesome fact that feminism has always had to deal with is that not all women are feminists. Some women are apolitical, some women don’t really know from feminism, some women are explicitly anti-feminist, some women are minimalist feminists (votes, good; equal pay, good; tweaking the culture, bad), some women are officially submissive, usually on religious grounds.

So feminism has to accommodate that fact. (The same of course applies, mutatis mutandis, to other movements.) Feminism wants to end the subordination of all women, but that doesn’t mean feminism considers all women feminists for the sake of being inclusive. Feminism can’t help being aware that some women are not feminists.

Here’s a shocker: the same thing applies to trans women. Not all trans women are feminists; some are very hostile to feminism.

So feminism has to accommodate that fact. Feminism wants to end the subordination of all women including trans women, but that doesn’t mean feminism considers all trans women feminists for the sake of being inclusive. Feminism can’t help being aware that some trans women are not feminists.

This is not transphobic or transantagonistic. It’s just reality. Not all trans women are feminists. I’m a feminist. I have a very fundamental political disagreement with trans women who aren’t feminists, just as I do with cis women who aren’t feminists. That’s entirely compatible with wanting trans women (and trans men) to be safe, to live as they want to live, to be able to use whatever restrooms they need to use, to choose their own names.

Supporting people’s rights is not the same thing as agreeing with their politics on every point.

It’s not transphobic to disagree with a particular trans woman’s take on feminism. If you ask me, it would be the transphobia of lowered expectations to do anything else.

All that seems obvious enough, but it apparently isn’t.