This post is going to involve a number of acronyms and more terminology than some, so I’ve included a short glossary at the bottom, and shall begin with some history.

The feminist movement in the United States is often conceived of in terms of waves, with the “first wave” coming in the nineteenth century and yielding fruit such as the nineteenth amendment, unambiguously affirming the right of women to vote. The “second wave” of US feminism came after World War II, and included major legal gains in employment, recognition of sexist violence, and expansion of reproductive health care such as contraception and other birth control. Various third and even fourth waves are sometimes asserted for the late twentieth century, but the details of these are not important here except to note that they are nominally sex-positive and include assertions of new thoughts on gender and gender theories related to performance and gender-nonconforming terms such as “non-binary” and “transsexual.”

Nineteenth-century US feminism was fighting against sexism in a much more religiously defined world than we have today. Theologians of the time defended male supremacy in theological terms, citing the will of God as having assigned all creatures specific natures and places in a great hierarchy of being. Men were essentially superior to women, so inherently more fit to rule over them. Unable to attack supremacy immediately at all levels, first-wave US feminism more or less accepted this essentialism, but claimed any such difference was not inequality. Men might be superior in some masculine spheres, they argued, but the feminine ideal and essence were also excellent in different ways. Women were inherently more nurturing and virtuous, for example, and the labors of motherhood and virtue were equal to those of men: deserving honor. A fundamental difference between men and women was allowed, but revered and not pathologized. By accepting essentialism but arguing for parity, 19th-century feminism accomplished many good things. This essentialism, however, would later become problematic.

Twentieth-century US feminism fought against sexism in a much more secular context, using scientific understandings and modern political theory to make a different argument. Biological sex might be a physical fact, but sexual roles such as gender were socially constructed. Yes, women had traditionally been trained to more nurturant social roles (and men to more assertive ones), but most or all of this was just conditioning. Physical or psychological differences may exist between individuals, but men could also learn to be more “feminine,” sensitive or nurturant as surely as women could learn to be more “masculine,” stronger and more assertive. Biological sex might be a physical reality, but gender was socially constructed and fairly malleable. Arbitrary legal distinctions based on sex were often unfair and oppressive to women as a caste-like social class, and laws against sexual discrimination, domestic violence and recognizing sexual assault were passed. Sex and gender were different things, and gender need not be so rigidly prescribed. “The personal is political” was one common slogan. Autonomy for individuals and social equity were key goals of second-wave feminism, including same-gender and mixed-gender sexual expression and representation or “performance.”

Nineteenth-century feminism generally accepted “essentialism,” the idea that sex and gender were yoked. “Second wave,” twentieth-century feminism made a distinction between biological sex and social gender, seeing gender as socially constructed and asserting the value of gender equity and personal autonomy in social expression: personal, legal, sexual and otherwise. Almost to the end of the twentieth century, this understanding of social construction over essentialism held sway, but has recently been challenged in interesting ways.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, theories of “gender performance” came to the forefront. One might be born with biological sex and socialized into a particular gender, but the ways in which one chose to express that gender were personal and constantly performed or maintained by individual actions, physical and otherwise. At approximately the same time, science began to recognize that biological sex was not as simplistically “binary” as widely thought, genetically or physically. Things were more complicated than the XX/XY model taught in 1950’s biology. Chromosomal variations were recognized and wider physical variations in primary sexual characteristics such as genitals were recognized using tools such as the Quigley scale to acknowledge “intersex” people. With this came fewer surgical “corrections” and more challenges to popular understandings, including those of many young people and feminists.

Ideas around gender non-conformity and “third gender” or transsexual people are not new. Transvestites (those who dress in “opposite” gendered clothing) and transsexuals (who fully present or even modify their bodies to be a “different” gender) are at least as old as butch lesbians and drag queens, although not necessarily recognized by mainstream feminism or embraced by the wider and more respectably bourgeois “gay and lesbian” community. At the start of the twenty-first century, however, they have become more visible and vocal. Unfortunately, many “trans advocates” and “gender queers” lack clean vocabulary and good theory. This creates certain issues within feminism and the wider culture, which is what this piece is about.

The term “millennials” is often used to describe US children born after the mid-1980’s, who mostly came of age at the turn of the millennium and after mainstream adoption of the Internet. “Digital natives,” the economically privileged among them have had much broader access to media and one another than previous generations, allowing the creation of several sub-cultural spaces such as online message boards and websites such as Tumblr. Theories develop here outside of major currents, often seeded with ideas whose history and provenance is unknown. These coalesce as conventions which reach into the wider culture, and many of these are centered on the idea of “trans” identity and gender non-conformity.

One popular understanding of gender among some young people is that it is primarily a chosen identity. Biological sex is ancillary and may be seen as irrelevant if one “identifies” as another gender. Based on perceived biological sex, gender is “assigned at birth” and people may be identified as “assigned male at birth” (AMAB) or “assigned female at birth” (AFAB). This assignation may or may not correlate with one’s own chosen gender under this view, and ambiguous expression of gender is often encouraged. Phrases such as “ambisexual,” “gender-fluid” or “gender queer” are seen as acknowledging “gender fluidity” or rejection of an oppressive “gender binary” which would restrict people to monolithic either/or identities. People who are assigned one gender at birth but identify as another gender may identify as “trans” in some way, and even seek “gender correction” through synthetic hormones and surgery. In some circles, such self-expression is valorized or even seen as fashionable, with many traditionally adolescent, peer-pressure dynamics coming into play.

As self-identified “third wave” ideas of gender come into play they create social problems, but not necessarily in the dominant culture. As is often the case in dispossessed groups, early arguments were with other feminists, with particular attacks against the “separatist” branch of radical feminism.

Feminist separatism was an important feminist subculture, beginning in the 1960’s and growing well into the 1980’s. Separatists were feminists who sought to consciously create alternative culture among other feminists, analogous in some ways to ethnic separatists such as Black nationalists. Choosing to separate from male-dominated culture they saw themselves as “women-identified women” and often used alternative spellings and created “womyn’s land” in rural areas, for the creation of feminist culture. One major example of this was the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, which took place in a fairly rural area from 1976 to 2015. As might be expected of a counter-cultural music festival, “Michfest” often included nudity, which many participants experienced as liberating. It can be difficult for those who have not lived as women in a patriarchal culture to understand what a sense of freedom and safety such an environment brings after a lifetime of physical threats and body-shaming. Beginning in the mid-1990’s, certain self-identified “trans women” began public objections to the festival for excluding them, including some who presumably still had penises. This protest would eventually end with the organizers of the festival shutting down, but another product of that controversy was the creation of an acronym: “TERF” for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.”

As an AMAB “cis” (not trans) man born in the mid-1960′s, I came of age into a world where political separatism was common, and I reconciled myself to it. I saw myself as a person of goodwill, neither racist nor misogynist nor malicious in many ways, and initially it was painful to feel “rejected” and told that vibrant cultural spaces were not open to me. My unacknowledged privilege had conditioned me to feel entitled. I didn’t like being told “no” but quickly came to understand how it is that people might choose to create separate spaces, for healing or privacy or simply personal preference. Since these were private spaces and not public accommodations, this seemed perfectly reasonable to me, and so I got over my feelings of hurt and exclusion. Everyone should be allowed a safe space, but no one was entitled to everyone’s safe space. Many contemporary “trans advocates” do not see it that way, feeling entitled to and demanding total access to women’s spaces. For simplicity I shall call these total-access trans advocates TATA’s and here address what I see as clear errors in their thinking.

Human biology is widely dimorphic and sexual assignation based on biological sex is common across all human cultures. Some cultures may be rigidly binary in assigning gender roles based on biological sex, while others allow more flexibility or acknowledge “other” genders in various ways. Phenotypic dimorphism is a cultural standard and leads to human gender expression, based largely on the social construction of gender. As a modern secular humanist in matters of civic culture, I personally value great individual autonomy in that expression, and am opposed to rigid gender roles. I support gender equity in a wide variety of opportunities and broad freedoms in gender expression, based on individual circumstances. I do not support the imposition of those standards onto others, and here break strongly with current total-access trans advocates.

Biological sex and sexual assignation are cultural facts, and most young humans are conditioned from birth to fit certain social roles. US culture privileges the autonomy of those assigned male at birth (AMAB) and trains those assigned female at birth (AFAB) to accommodate that privilege. However strongly one may choose to identify at a later stage, years of early AMAB or AFAB conditioning will affect humans of normal intelligence, even if most people are not fully aware of that conditioning. The political theory of “unearned privilege” says that some groups are given rights and entitlements by virtue of demographic station such as gender or race or economic class. AMABs have certain unearned privileges in US culture, including a sense of entitlement to female spaces. This has traditionally included women’s beds, bodies and dwellings, an imposition rightly rejected by feminists and modern cultures to favor autonomy in birth control and protection against sexual assault. For people born with penises (and conditioned AMAB) to demand total access to AFAB spaces is a gross assertion of unearned privilege and should be rejected, however deeply they may feel some sort of “essential” feminine identity.

Total-access trans advocates have whined and raged against women who assert their moral right to choose and enjoy separate or segregated spaces, and this is bullshit. There are many words for people born with penises who feel totally entitled to women’s spaces, none of which are pleasant. The demonization of trans-exclusionary radical feminists and use of “TERF” as a slur is male privilege, whether exercised by AMAB trans women or anyone else, and I reject it as such.

Total-access trans advocates may sincerely believe that everyone is entitled to their own gender identity, and I do not know of any feminist who disagrees with this. What they may disagree with is the sense of entitled privilege which follows from that self-identification.

The TATA line of reasoning, as I understand it is:

(1) Some AMAB people feel they are women and

(2) prefer total access to all “women-only” spaces so

(3) should be granted total access to such spaces else

(4) those opposing that total access are evil oppressors.

The TERF line of reasoning, as I understand it:

(1) Some AMAB people feel they are women and

(2) prefer total access to all “women-only” spaces but

(3) one may affirm the feeling but decline that preference because

(4) AFAB women are entitled to their own preferences and

(5) AMAB/trans preferences are not privileged over AFAB/cis preference.

For AMAB/trans people to denounce or threaten violence against AFAB/cis women is wrongful assertion of male privilege and should not go unanswered, nor ceded to by AFAB “trans allies” in hopes of appeasing AMAB privilege among self-identified trans women. That is simply wrong.

Feminism generally asserts the autonomy of all people to freedom of thought, individual gender expression and broad freedoms of association under law. Such freedoms do not include the right to de-center the vast majority of women for one’s own comfort, including women of color and all ages, who are “cis.” Such de-centering is a selfish attempt to hijack a movement almost two centuries old, and should not be tolerated.

Total-access trans advocates are AMAB dicks, who can fuck right off and take their privileged, anti-cis misogyny with them.

Glossary of Select Terms and Acronyms

AFAB = Assigned female at birth

AMAB = Assigned male at birth

Assignation = social designation of gender based on biological, primary sexual indicators (usually genitals shortly after birth)

Biological sex = Genomic or phenotypical category, usually male or female for mammals

Cis = Latin for “on this side,” biological assignation matches gender

Essentialist = Believing gender exists prior to or separate from embodiment

First-wave feminism = Nineteenth-century US feminism, promoted women’s suffrage

Gender = social role, usually based on biological gender

Gender binary = Ideology that there are only two, distinct human genders

Gender correction = Hormones or surgery to help physical body match identity

Gender fluid = Performing or expressing different genders at different times

Gender performance = Expression of gender norms, such as by behavior or dress

Gender queer = Actively asserting gender non-conformity, perhaps sexually

Gender spectrum = Ideology that gender expression falls along at least one (non-binary) diverse continuum

GNC = Gender non-conforming. Not matching all standard gender expectations

Misogyny: Hatred, resentment or hostility toward cis-women

Second-wave feminism = Twentieth-century US feminism, supported full legal and social equity for women

Separatist = Supporting separate spaces for feminist culture

Sex = Biological term, corresponding to reproductive structures, phenotype or chromosomes

Social constructivist = Asserts gender roles are culturally defined and created

TATA = Total-access trans activist, believes identity entitles access to all gender-specific spaces

TERF = Trans-exclusionary radical feminist (subcategory of “separatist”)

Trans = Latin for “across,” biological assignation differs from gender

Transgender = Expressing gender different than biological assignation, often through the use of hormones and surgery

Interesting Articles

Gender spectrum as a new gender prison, https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison



A gentle defense of “second-wave” feminism, http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/06/second_wave_feminism_gets_a_bum_rap.html



Twenty-five ways to spot a secret TERF, https://devonunsilenced.wordpress.com/2017/01/01/first-blog-post/

2014 New Yorker article, from before MichFest folded http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2

AMAB photo originally at http://charthebutcher.tumblr.com/post/13105914955/this-is-for-tdor-die-cis-scum-its-not

