The effrontery
Man is expert on feminism again.
As two cis-hetero woman feminist educators, we provide an educator’s perspective on trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) discourses.
The stupid starts with zero delay. “Cis-hetero” is stupid. Cis and hetero are two different things so what’s the point of treating them as one thing? Of course “cis” is also not a real thing, which makes the mashup doubly stupid.
We begin by discussing the heterosexual matrix and the gender violence that it produces in schools as well as other socializing institutions.
What’s a heterosexual matrix? I can help with that! Professor Google says
“Heterosexual Matrix” comes from Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble”. It describes an invisible norm which does not appear to be constructed but comes through as “natural” – a norm that defines everyone and everything as heterosexual until proved differently.
Yeah ok I get that – there are a lot of invisible norms of that kind. Everybody’s white, everybody’s middle class, everybody lives with a mommy and a daddy, and on and on. But does the heterosexual norm produce “gender violence”? It produces a lot of bad feelings once kids are old enough, no doubt, but I suspect they’re using violence to mean more than, you know, actual violence.
The socially constructed sexual binary constrains identity production to adhere to the heteronormative, at the same time excluding those who transgress this normativity.
Of course it does. The sociology jargon makes that sound more impressive than it is.
We then critically analyse some of the increasingly belligerent popular discourses promoted by TERF groups since the 1970s, appropriating feminist discourses to produce arguments that contradict basic premises of feminism.
Nope nope nope nope. It’s not a “basic premise of feminism” that men are women. Never has been. We’re not the ones appropriating feminist anything.
We trace possibilities for a collaborative response by reinforcing alliances between transfeminism and other feminist movements.
The hell with “transfeminism.” Transfeminism would be feminism that calls itself feminism but is the opposite of feminism because it’s all about letting men do whatever they want all the time. That may identify as feminism but it isn’t feminism.
Trans feminism – an MRA in a frock.
Humans are heteronormative in that our reproductive capabilities are centered around heterosexuality; most humans are heterosexual. Statistically, it is heteronormative.
That being said, not being heterosexual does not make you less than human; you are human, you are different in one crucial way, but there isn’t anything wrong with that except that you don’t behave exactly like the rest of us. I think that’s fine; if there isn’t room for being different, then things are too constrained. I carve out my own ways to be different, visual ways that mark me as “quirky”. For some people, it represents a challenge to “fix” me, but most people either appreciate my differences or shrug them off as “oh, that’s just iknklast being iknklast”. That is how it should be for LGB realities, but they have had to work hard to get anywhere near that status. The same with those that are people of color; even in a society such as the one I live in that is largely white, being able to have the same rights as those who look like me should be a basic thing.
Trans, however, are not doing that. They are trying to not only have basic rights (as they should) but are trying t usurp the rights of others and claim rights no one else has. They are not doing the hard work that women, people of color, and LGB had to do to claim basic rights. They accept the basic rights others worked for as their due (which they are), and demand other rights on top of that, rights that aren’t theirs to claim (or mine, for that matter). Saying ‘men can’t be women’ is not a heteronormative statement; it’s a biological reality.
Feminism fought for the right for people to dress as they wish, no matter which sex the clothing was perceived as belonging to. Now trans want to say if the way you wish to dress is “wrong”, them you really are the opposite sex, in short, not doing feminism but undoing feminism.