An Inclusive Radical Feminist Response to an Article by Juniper Fitzgerald

by Margo Schulter

This is an important article, and as a radical feminist I have a few
thoughts.


1. Meghan Murphy and some of her politics

First, I wouldn't refer to any human being, and especially not another woman
like Meghan Murphy, as a "complete joke," but would say that she is involved
in some bad feminist theory with toxic consequences for trans women and all
women. It's what I might call a radical misunderstanding of radical
feminism, although at times the _Feminist Current_ has carried important
stories about violence against women, for example.


2. Classic radical feminist challenges the sex and gender binaries

Equating sex differentiation in humans, which is not strictly binary, with
"reproduction" is actually an antifeminist position, and one I would think
other lesbian feminists would find especially oppressive, as I do. It's bad
science and worse sexual politics. Women's reproductive rights are
absolutely central, and I would agree that the exploitation of women's
reproductive and childraising labor has been pivotal in the origins and
practice of patriarchy for some millennia.

What feminism says, however, is that this is bad social structure and
ideology rather than "nature," which embraces intersex variations in humans
and many other mammals. Also, at least in humans and some of our closest
primate relatives, sexuality is *not* strictly for reproduction: female
bonobos often share lesbian sexual contact for purposes of conflict
resolution and bonding. Radical feminists like Paola Tabet have concluded
that birthrates before patriarchy were dramatically lower, so that the
subordination of women based on forced reproductive labor was a product of
patriarchy, not of "nature."

Further, classic radical feminism says that the sex binary was itself a
social creation of the patriarchy, that went along with the domination of
women by men, not a "natural" condition somehow threatened by trans or
nonbinary people. Monique Wittig famously spoke in the later Second Wave era
of the 1970's against the misconception that it was "biology" that caused
the oppression of women -- although, of course, sexism takes forms relating
to women's bodies and the reproductive capacity that many although not all
share.

As we know in part from the Indigenous "Two Spirit" communities, traditional
societies which may give a clue as to prepatriarchal or nonpatriarchal
conditions often recognize more than two sexes or genders, and often accord
honor and power to women of a kind that patriarchal societies deny. Further,
patriarchal colonialism over the last 600 years or so has especially
targeted both Two Spirit people within Indigenous Nations, and Women of
Color.


3. Sex differentiation and sexuality in humans go beyond reproduction

The truly reactionary nature of some of this "gender critical" ideology is
revealed by statements that the purpose of sex is "reproduction," leaving
open an inference the survival of humans is therefore somehow put at issue
by the existence of trans and nonbinary people! This reads like a brief
against marriage equality, and could just as well be used against all
lesbian women, who proudly declare that female sexuality need not be tied to
reproduction (although, of course, some lesbians do choose to reproduce in
various ways, as well as to adopt children). It's ironic to have "lesbian
feminists" -- and I can attest in at least one case to a very courageous
lesbian feminist I heard talk in the 1970's who's now a part of this -- now
in a movement where a main speaker is Ryan Anderson, a leading architect of
the case against marriage equality before the decision of the United States
Supreme Court in _Obergefell v. Hodges_ (2015) affirmed marriage equality as
a constitutional right.

While I wouldn't venture to speak for my heterosexual sisters, many of them
have spoken for themselves about how they have gotten to know their own
bodies and realize that although they are oriented toward men,
heteronormative intercourse, or at least that alone, is not what most
satisfies them sexually. For them, also, women's sexuality is not
necessarily tied to reproduction, contrary to antifeminist ideology,
including "gender critical feminism" of the kind that takes this line.

A truly radical feminism also needs to include and recognize bisexual and
pansexual women, who likewise have their sexual dignity and autonomy
compromised by the idea that "sex and reproduction are the same," whether
"sex" here means physical sex differentiation or, in another sense,
sexuality and sexual activity.


4. Radical feminism must champion, not marginalize, intersex people!

As a transsexual lesbian feminist with mostly female but still definitely
mixed physical sex characteristics after a medical transition involving
hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery, I would like to caution
against forms of "gender critical" feminism which tend to marginalize not
only transsexual women, but also intersex women and other intersex people
with naturally mixed or variant sex characteristics, an estimated 1.7% of
the population according to the Intersex Campaign for Equality (IC4E), or
OII-USA, the branch in the USA of Organization Intersex International, and
other human rights organizations including the United Nations.

A dangerous trend in transmisogynistic and interphobic brands of "gender
critical" theory is chromosomal essentialism, which equates being a woman or
female with the possession of XX chromosomes. Indeed a great majority of
women have 46-XX chromosomes, and the majority of people with XX chromosomes
are by identity and social status part of the female sex class. However,
there are also trans men and nonbinary people with 46-XX, as well as
intersex women, men, and nonbinary people. And while most 46-XY people are
by identity and social situation male, some are trans women or nonbinary
people, and some are intersex women, men, or nonbinary people. Additionally,
there are other human karyotypes or chromosome configurations such as 45-XO
or 47-XXY, etc., and people who are "mosaics" with different karyotypes for
different portions of their bodies.

The statement that "sex is written into every cell in our bodies" made in
some "gender critical" ideology is a dangerous half-truth. It's true that
one's chromosome configuration is one factor in one's biology and health,
with certain traits, sometimes called "sex-linked," being located on the X
chromosome, so that possessing two X's (as most women do) is a protection
against certain harmful recessive traits. However, the totality of one's sex
traits or "biological sex," possibly intersex by nature or consensually
altered by medical transition, is far more complex, with intersex and
transsexual people as a prime exhibit.


5. We must resist rather than naturalize patriarchal sex-class oppression

None of this complex reality, reflecting both the diversity of Mother Nature
(as opposed to patriarchal ideology) and the bodily self-determination
possible with modern medicine, at all contradicts the fact that under
patriarchy, being deemed female by birth or transition subjects women to a
variety of oppressions -- including menstrual and reproductive oppression
for a large majority of women -- that are definitely sex-based, targeted at
bodies deemed female. This is why sex-class solidarity, the sisterhood and
mutual support between women that is so powerful, must at once include trans
and intersex women, and include the centering of issues regarding
reproductive rights and self-determination that affect most although not all
women.

Feminism in general, and radical feminist in particular, should be a
first-line champion of the rights of intersex people, including the right
*not* to have one's body "normalized" by nonconsensual infant and childhood
surgeries and other medical abuse before one reaches an age of
self-knowledge and informed consent. Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM), like
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), is a feminist issue. Feminists want to
challenge the sex binary and support the self-determination and rights of
intersex people, including intersex girls and women who are happy with their
bodies as-is, or would be if the patriarchal medical establishment had not
imposed the sexual violence of IGM on them before they were old enough
either to consent or resist effectively. From a feminist perspective, it's
also very important to understand that the genital cutting of IGM inflicts
literal as well as psychic scars on intersex women who grow up to identify
and live as women, much as the genital cutting of FGM would; as well as
harming the minority of survivors who grow up to identify and live as men or
nonbinary people. Further, both FGM and IGM are often targeted against
infants and children deemed female whose clitorides (the Greek plural of
clitoris) are seen by heteropatriarchy as too large or powerful. 

Here some "gender critical" arguments and literature do harm by
marginalizing and pathologizing intersex people, for example by use of the
term "Disorders of Sex Development" (DSD) which many medical professionals
practicing IGM use, but the intersex community generally rejects, preferring
"intersex." While intersex oppression is unique because it results from
natural variations often detected at birth or in early childhood, embraced
by many traditional cultures, but feared and demeaned by the patriarchy in
ways that lead to medical abuse of defenseless infants and children, endosex
(nonintersex) transsexual people also have bodies with mixed or variant sex
characteristics. Thus some of the same attitudes which fuel transmisogyny
also fuel interphobia (the fear or hatred of intersex people). Further,
while most intersex people tend to remain within the sex/gender assigned at
birth, a significant number do transition, and some identify as both
intersex and binary or nonbinary trans.

As a generalization, it is true that intersex people are above all
interested in stopping and outlawing IGM and other medical abuse; while many
trans people have a compelling concern for being able to access medical
transition care, including sex reassignment surgery. For many Second Wave
and other feminists, this situation will not be so unfamiliar. We may recall
how, in the later 20th century, much feminist struggle centered on the right
to access contraception, abortion, and also truly voluntary sterilization
with informed consent. At the same time, many of the most marginalized
women, including Women of Color, poor women, and women of disability, were
struggling against involuntary sterilization, and reminding those of us who
were more privileged sisters that reproductive rights were a two-way street.

In the same way, feminists will show consistency rather than any
contradiction by supporting both the intersex struggle against IGM and other
nonconsensual medical abuse; and the struggle of trans people, including some
intersex people who are also trans, to access medical transition care.
Sadly, one tactic of some forms of "gender critical feminism" is to seek to
divide the trans and intersex communities against each other by spreading
the oversimplified notion that intersex people, by definition, do not want any
medical intervention, while trans people want it, so that the two groups
have mutually exclusive and conflicting interests. 

What aware intersex and trans people join together in demanding, as should
all feminists, is an end to IGM as well as FGM; and access to medical
transition care for those at an age of consent who make an informed decision
to undergo it. As intersex educator and trans man Cary Gabriel Costello has
observed, intersex people who are also trans have often faced extra barriers
to getting the transition care they need.


6. Radical feminism means mutual sisterhood, not "Who erases whom?"

A balanced radical feminist ideology will emphasize that the rule does not
erase the exception, and neither does the exception erase the rule. Thus the
rule or prevailing reality that most women menstruate during much of their
lives, and share a reproductive capacity that under patriarchy becomes
reproductive vulnerability, does not erase the exception that transsexual
women, along with many although not all intersex women deemed female at
birth and some endosex (nonintersex) women deemed female at birth also, do
not experience menstruation and cannot bear children.

Likewise, the existence within the female sex class of intersex women who do
not menstruate and cannot become pregnant (although some can, as well as
some nonbinary intersex people like Hida Viloria, who was raped and nearly
killed by the resulting ectopic pregnancy before he/r life was saved by
emergency surgery), and also transsexual women in this situation, does not
erase the prevailing reality that a large majority of women do menstruate
through much of their lives and most of these women can become pregnant, a
reality central to the nature of patriarchal oppression and exploitation of
the female sex class.

Furthermore, the same patriarchal attitudes expressed in the reproductive
oppression of women and the fear and devaluation of menstruation and women
who experience it are also expressed in transphobia and interphobia, as well
as homophobia or more specifically lesbophobia, and butchphobia or more
generally a fear of gender nonconforming (GNC) people, as well as binary
chauvinism. Female sex-class solidarity thus means inclusive sisterhood and
resisting all these oppressions: an injury against one is an injury against
all!


7. Sisterly dialogue and example

It's important to realize that not all "gender critical" writings or
ideologies are the same, and to seek dialogue always, and possible agreement
where there is, in fact, common ground. Also, 45 years of experience as a
transsexual lesbian feminist tell me that radically listening to other
women, and acting in a sisterly manner even when some of us are not
recognized as sisters, are ways of responding to bad ideology not only by
offering better ideas for feminist theory and practice, but through example.

Some "gender critical" concerns are real and valid, but too often lead to
wrong and even antifeminist conclusions, when a more balanced dialogue could
lead to at least a degree of peaceful understanding and coexistence. Let's
consider a few issues for radical feminists, and feminists in general.

A critically important point is that women who are deemed female at birth
(DFAB) and live their entire lives as women experience and survive some
unique oppressions, as is also true for women are deemed male at birth
(DMAB) and transition as adults (which is my own situation, having
transitioned at age 22 in 1973). For trans women who transition in childhood
or adolescence, as is now becoming more common, the situation may be
somewhere between these most often recognized cases. At the same time, we
all face some common oppressions as women, and share the possibility of
sex-class solidarity and sisterhood in supporting each other and seeking our
common emancipation.

One valid concern that can lead to the mistaken "solution" of transmisogyny
is a concern that the special experiences and often oppressions of growing
up female, as experienced by DFAB women, also now more often by trans women
who transition in childhood, not be "erased" or disregarded.

For some DFAB and transsexual women, including myself, the way that the
concept of "cis," and especially of "cis privilege," has too often been used
in recent years seems problematic. Experiencing and surviving girlhood under
patriarchy, including not only the explicitly sexist messages that girls
receive, but also unspoken sexism such as the tendency of teachers to call
on boys more often than girls, is something that gives women who share this
experience a special commonality, and is rightly a source of pride and
honor.

Thus transsexual women, and more especially those of us who transitioned as
adults, need to realize that we are relative newcomers to the women's
community. My own intuition is that some of us may have a certain
self-confidence not because we internalized all the harmful norms of
childhood male socialization, but because we were spared direct targeting by
the specific negative sexist messages that DFAB women (and trans women who
transition in childhood) receive as girls.

More specifically, by the time I planned and went through my transition, I
knew that I was a lesbian feminist, and was well aware of the sexism, street
harassment, and other oppressions I would face along with my sisters. Of
course, I was thus indebted to the many women who had found themselves in
the midst of patriarchal oppression without any such ready-made compass,
banded together as sisters, launched the Second Wave of feminism, and thus
provided me with a roadmap for my own journey.

Claims about "cis privilege" which maintain that DFAB women are generally
more "privileged" or less oppressed than trans women thus feel very wrong to
me. At the same time, I must differ from some "gender critical" views that
seem to commit the same mistake in reverse: to assume that transsexual women
or trans women in general are somehow all more "privileged." Is not there a
middle ground of equal sisterhood, where DFAB and transsexual women each
share some special experiences and oppression (growing up as female, or
becoming female through transition, or some mixture for those who transition
in childhood); and together share and fight the oppression visited on all
women by the patriarchy?

A term I have liked for some four decades, but can be problematic to some
women, is "natal women" to describe DFAB women, emphasizing that they have
been deemed female and lived as girls and women for their entire lives.
Curiously, this term is actually offensive to some "gender critical"
feminists because it implies -- as intended! -- that there are non-DFAB
women who have not lived as women from birth: in other words, trans women.
Thus the term was and is meant to show respect for women who have lived
their entire lives as girls and women, while recognizing that trans women
also exist within the female sex class, and that we are all sisters.

However, nowadays "natal women" tends to evoke mixed feelings at best from
some DFAB and trans women who hear it as marginalizing if not erasing trans
women. This is true although some transsexual women including myself like
the term, just as many DFAB women identify as "cis" and find this term
helpful.

As originally conceived, the "cis/trans" binary was intended, much like
the "heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual/pansexual" concept, to avoid
marginalizing trans people or people with sexual orientations other than the
socially approved heterosexuality. However, there is a humorous Russian
proverb that might apply in some current feminist circles: "Under
capitalism, human oppresses human. Under socialism, the relationship is
reversed."

In recent years I have seen the term "cis" used, not as a neutral
description for DFAB women seen as equal sisters if not indeed elder sisters
for those of us who transition into the women's community (especially as
adults), but as "privileged" people who needed to be "good allies" and
follow the leadership of trans women. It's not so amazing that many DFAB
women and especially radical lesbian feminists did not take to this kindly,
and at times might see it as a kind of attempt at domination by "male-born"
newcomers. I have also received this treatment as a Second Wave lesbian
feminist who has a lot in common with my sisters who do identify as "gender
critical," including some who unfortunately follow transmisogynistic brands
of "gender critical" ideology.

This is why, although I will respect the self-identification of a woman who
wishes to be known as "cis," I prefer "DFAB" as a general term, and use
"natal women" in settings where it is likely to communicate empathy and
respect rather than to evoke discomfort or associations of transmisogyny.

Please let me hasten to add, on the basis of some personal experiences in
1973-1976, that transmisogyny itself goes back to the early years of Second
Wave lesbian feminism, and is not a new reaction to certain problematic
behavior by DFAB or trans women in the name of "transactivism." The stories
of Beth Elliott in 1972-1973 and Sandy Stone in 1976-1978, transsexual
lesbian feminists who had the support of many of their sisters but were
attacked in campaigns of transmisogyny within the lesbian community,
illustrate how this is a conflict of some 45 years within the feminist and
especially lesbian feminist communities. Their stories also involve violent
threats and even attempted or completed acts of actual violence, sadly
sometimes also made in recent years in the name of "transactivism." However,
seeking out words and behavior patterns that may help to deescalate and
resolve this conflict among sisters rather than aggravate it seems only
common sense.

A suggestion from an older lesbian not adverse to learning some new tricks:
maybe, in this area, rather than speaking in terms of "privilege," we should
speak in the women's community of "DFAB oppression" and "trans oppression."
That honors each other as sisters for what we have faced and survived, with
the understanding that we need to listen to and honor each other's stories

Whatever language we use, there is also a vital distinction between the
organizing strategy or boundaries chosen by this or that group, space, or
event within the women's or lesbian community, and a mutual recognition that
intersex and trans women exist and have a valid presence in the women's and
lesbian communities. Thus DFAB women who have personal or group preferences
for DFAB-only spaces are not the problem; nor trans women who prefer
trans-women-only spaces. However, there is a problem when either DFAB or
trans women are deemed less than equal and welcome sisters as part of the
women's and lesbian communities as a whole.

In some ways, the toxic discourse in the name of "feminism" over sex/gender
issues has a certain symmetry, with the most virulent tendencies on each
"side" (e.g. on Twitter) reinforcing each other, as if each were vying to
outdo the patriarchy in misogyny, whether directed at DFAB or trans women.
At an individual or small group level, oppression can be a two-way street,
and indeed this whole conflict is largely a form of horizontal hostility
among sisters.

However, there is one asymmetry relating to intersex women (most of whom are
DFAB) as well as trans women: our situation as rather small although
significant minorities of the female sex class. Thus even if all or most
intersex and/or trans women improbably chose separatism from the larger
women's community and movement -- absolutely not my own choice as one who
believes in female sex-class solidarity! -- the remaining endosex DFAB women
would still equal about half of humanity, well able to organize and continue
the women's struggle against patriarchy.

In contrast, while a given women's group or event might choose a DFAB-only
intention and boundaries, for the overall women's or lesbian community to
adopt such a policy would place transsexual women (and the minority of
intersex women who are not DFAB) in an isolated and untenable position. We
would be deprived of female sex-class solidarity; and so would our DFAB
sisters. We would lose the vital energy of being enriched and empowered by
each other's stories, and of embracing each other's diverse worlds in a way
that prepares the way for, or even actualizes to a degree, our embracing of
a future beyond patriarchy.

Happily, the brands of "gender critical" feminism uncritical enough of the
sex binary, interphobia, and transmisogyny to advocate or imply such a
scenario have little credibility among most feminists, DFAB or otherwise. I
urge that our best response, as feminists in general or radical feminists in
particular, is to counter bad ideologies while understanding some of the
important concerns behind them, and striving for balance and reconciliation
through sisterly solidarity in theory and practice.

Margo Schulter
30 November 2018