Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Writer and Feminist

My trans-partner and I both write on medium. We both get trolled by so called ‘Gender Critical Feminists,’ questioning my partner’s right to claim womanhood, bemoaning that trans-woman are somehow stripping ‘real-woman’ of rights, and worse, attempting to justify their arguments with claims of sexual assault.

I can understand how something as traumatic as sexual assault might cause someone to feel threatened, and therefore might raise questions. There is nothing wrong with this. However, if the questions are merely rhetorical vehicles to convey pre-conceived and transphobic answers then they are not really questions at all, but a form of discrimination and marginalisation falsely supported by sob stories.

At first I gave time to individuals like this. I could see where they were coming from, and I genuinely wanted to try to console them and explain why their fears were misguided. But I quickly realised that it is often the same group of people who seem to put a surprising amount of effort into trolling trans writers. They are not people that can be talked to or reasoned with. Their sole purpose is to delegitimise trans people. I am not sure why they want to actively demonise and persecute a group of people who currently rank below cis women in social hierarchy rather than being sympathetic as fellow victims of oppression. I am not sure why they prefer to waste their energy causing pain and hurt to others rather than looking for commonalities and working together to smash the patriarchy. It seems like a tragic mis-use of potential power, but maybe that’s just me.

But for those that do have genuine questions and want genuine answers, stemming from traumatic sexual experiences or otherwise, I wanted to rework some of my responses to trolls into a quick question and answer guide.

Why can’t I ask questions about whether trans women are real women?

I don’t think it is wrong to ask questions about the differences between trans women and cis born women. I don’t think any trans woman would dispute there are differences- they are already more painfully aware of them than most cis gendered women will ever be. By itself, asking a question is not transphobic. However, assuming that the answer to this question is that having experienced male privilege/having a penis means one should automatically be excluded from the category of woman, and thus female only spaces is.

I don’t think someone should be called transphobic for asking questions. However, many people that have these types of questions already have pre-formed answers which are essentially prejudiced. Trans people are used to hearing these types of questions, so are likely to make the assumption—justified or not—that you already have a TERFesque, transphobic answer prepared.

2. When trans-woman complain of transphobia amongst ‘gender critical feminists,’ isn’t this just another way in which the patriarchy (which trans-woman arguably still, or at least did, belong to) is silencing cis woman?

This question is based on a false a parallel between men and trans women. A feeling that they have some inherent similarities, and worse, more similarities than trans women and cis women, because of their physical body, especially their genitalia. Most trans women have also been oppressed by the patriarchy because of some of the same external feminine characteristics that cis women possess. They are not and have never been a part of the patriarchy in the way ‘gender critical feminists’ might imagine.

3. Isn’t all this focus on trans-women distracting from the fact that cis women are still being discriminated against and marginalised?

No. Just because woman are still struggling with this, does it mean that the issues of trans woman should just be dismissed? This is analogous to saying that ‘black men are still oppressed so we don’t have time yet to think about black woman.’ Trans women don’t want to supersede cis women, they just want the right to stand alongside them, and for people to understand the ways in which they are similarly or differently oppressed.

4. As a victim of rape or sexual assault, don’t I have the right to reserve and feel comfortable in cis women only spaces?

It is understandable, as a victim of sexual violence, to feel threatened by a penis, but it is important to recognise that in the case of trans women, it’s a false threat. The penis to a rape victim may no doubt be symbolic of sexual violence, but the real threat to female sexual safety is from toxic masculinity, not a biological member.

A person acknowledging that they have issues surrounding male perceived genitalia because of sexual assault is not transphobic. Acknowledging a fear of trans-women in cis only female spaces because of this is not transphobic. The assumption that this fear extends beyond genitalia to a transperson themselves is. I have yet to meet a trans woman who is toxically masculine. Most out trans woman— like cis woman— are victims of this trope, not reinforcers and in fact statistically more likely to be sexually assaulted than cis women.

The argument about having a right to space is similar to the one men make about male exclusionary spaces, or equal gender hiring policies. They are necessary because all spaces are cis white men spaces. Most structures automatically preference cis white men for jobs etc. More spaces are cis gendered female spaces than trans female spaces, which is why trans woman shouldn’t be excluded from spaces that could provide them with a similar level of support that cis women receive from them. Would you exclude a black woman from these spaces because the perpetrator of your sexual assault was black? This is conflating one physical aspect of a person with the negative actions of others that just happen to share that one characteristic.

Let me ask you, if a trans woman has had SRS would you then be ok with them in woman only spaces? Is it really the penis that is the problem?

5. As a lesbian I don’t want to have sex that involves a penis. It’s just my sexual preference, why should this be considered transphobic?

If the only reason a person doesn’t want to have sex with a trans woman is because they have a penis, and they have not previously had penis-related experiences to base their level of desire off, then that is transphobic and closed minded. The same way that not considering a same-sex relationship because you think you are not attracted to same-sex genitals without any actual experience is also closed-minded. Having had a negative penis related experience or not finding penises arousing are of course valid reasons to be hesitant, but there is a difference.

Again, if a trans woman has had SRS would you sleep with them? If the answer is no, then again it is not their penis that is the problem.

6. Why are ‘gender critical feminists,’ so severely criticised for just trying to discuss the distinctions between women and trans women?

Gender critical feminists are not criticised for just having a simple discussion, but for saying that trans women aren’t women, because they haven’t been socialised as such. Critics such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Germaine Greer and Jenni Murray all argue this. Discriminating on social grounds is not better than discriminating on physical grounds, which is why they were, rightly, heavily criticised. If you are interested in reading a more nuanced breakdown of their arguments and why they are problematic, check out an article I wrote previously:

7. I accept trans women as women, I just think they are different because they have different physical characteristics and have experienced male privilege. Why is acknowledging this transphobic?

It’s not. The problem is when these ‘different physical characteristics’, and ‘male privilege’ are used to align trans women more closely to men than cis women. This is a different, more subtle form of transphobia, but it is still transphobia.

This article is just the tip of the gender-confused ice-berg. No one should be labelled a TERF or anti-feminist for asking a question, but I think that people jumping down each others throats in the name of political incorrectness is symptomatic of a wider issue with social media, and not exclusively the fault of trans women.

Nevertheless, critics such as Adichie and Murray went beyond asking questions. They gave answers that were based on inaccurate assumptions. Critiquing them is part of the process of academic dialogue. Their responses needs to be engaged with and broken down. In the same way that you would engage with male stereotypes and misunderstandings of women, trans women also have a right to point out ways in which they are also being both deliberately and inadvertently silenced by a group of cis women with whom they share more similarities with than differences than they will ever realise.