WHY TRANS INCLUSIVE FEMINISM IS NOT MISOGYNY.
Chances are, if you are a transwoman, when you were growing up, if you had to play sport that was boys against girls, you reluctantly went on the boys’ side, unless there were more boys than girls and the teacher asked for a few boys to go onto the girls’ side. And chances are, as an adult, if you went to a gathering where the males went to one end and the females to the other, you sat like a shag on a rock with nothing to talk about, while the males raved about sport, cars and whatever else, and you cradled a lemonade or wine whilst the others drank beer. If you were lucky enough to be included by the females, you had something to talk about.
I saw a quotation from Maya Forstater that, “A man’s internal feeling that he is a woman has no basis in material reality.” Well, what could be further from the truth?! I know there is a difference between gender roles and sex, but if you were assigned male at birth and you had the gender roles forced onto you, you are being forced to be someone or something you’re not! Cisgender means being happy with the gender you were assigned.
I had a difficult childhood and an even more difficult adolescence and early adulthood. I had a brother who was your typical rough house boy, who wanted to play armies, cricket, football and the others, and I would be forced to go off and do things with him. From when I was really little, I have always gotten on better with girls than boys. It wasn’t until I started kindergarten, however, that I got to see different toys.
When it comes to women’s spaces, I can understand some concerns, but as somebody on my own journey, I have no desire to use even male public restrooms, I prefer to go before I leave home or when I return. I don’t use public pools, but if I did, unless it was a heated pool in winter, I would rather arrive in my costume, take off my overshirt, go for a swim, towel dry myself off, put a towel over the seat of my car, drive home and have a shower there than use a public change room. Why? I don’t like showing off my body. I do say, however, when it comes to women’s spaces that do not involve the removal of clothing, there is no real reason why transwomen cannot be granted access.
What I think needs to be carefully discerned here is, whether or not a person transitions socially or medically. If a person merely socially transitions, they are still capable of obtaining an erection; as someone who is using a testosterone blocker to medically transition, it is impossible to obtain a spontaneous erection and much less one that lasts. I believe that gender certificates should be obtained by someone who has a letter from their treating endocrinologist, GP and mental health support worker who can say, “I have been treating so-and-so for gender dysphoria for two years, and at the last blood test, their testosterone level was this, and their estrogen level was this,” and THEN they can obtain it.
Extremists cherry-pick extreme examples, and the statistics they use are interpretative. The number of transwomen in women’s prisons who commit violence against women is small. And I think, before a determination is made as to which prison they are housed in, just like fine defaulters are no longer imprisoned in most of Australia (a young man was sentenced to four days’ imprisonment for non-payment of fines and was violently assaulted by another prisoner and was in a coma for six months) it should depend upon the nature of the crime. If they are imprisoned for petty theft, okay, but for violence, no. And let’s not forget, in Victoria, a man who murdered multiple women and would have murdered another had she not escaped, wanted to gender transition and be placed in a women’s prison, and the prison authorities said no!
And when it comes to women’s sports, let’s not forget this. There have been numerous athletes over the years who have been stripped of gold medals because they have had their urine tested and found to have used performance enhancing drugs and masking agents. A male athlete can’t simply go along and say, “My name’s so and so but I’m transgender, and I want to participate in the female category.” The officials will say, “Now, just a minute. We need to see your testosterone levels and estrogen levels before we make that distinction.” Okay, if an AMAB athlete is competing as a female but injecting testosterone, THAT is cheating, but if they qualify as a female, they’re not. And let’s also not forget that in any competition, there will always be somebody who will have an advantage. For example, American Michael Phelps and Australian Ian Thorpe have larger feet, so that goes in their favor, and you can’t bind their feet.
When it comes to lesbian spaces, I say this. I knew a woman who father’s second wife, her stepmother, was Japanese, and her father was a member of the RSL. Former National Vice-President and Victorian RSL President, Bruce Ruxton, was a member of the Beaumaris RSL, as just a rank-and-file member, and the woman’s father went in with his wife. Bruce Ruxton kicked up a big stink but was howled down by other members of the club, among whom were ex-POWs, who said, “No, she can come in.” They showed her a museum they had and then she was allowed in. If an individual who served in the Pacific Theatre in the Second World War does not wish to drive a Japanese car, wear a Japanese watch, or associate with Japanese people, even to the point of cutting off their grandchild if they learnt Japanese, that’s their right as an individual; but if another person served in Japan after the war, visited Japan for R&R while serving in Korea or Vietnam and married a Japanese person, they have as much right to attend the RSL as a member. If a lesbian does not wish to date a transwoman, that’s her right, but she does NOT have the right to bar transwomen from events, especially if a fellow lesbian or bisexual has a transwoman for a partner.
True feminists welcome transwomen as women and help them integrate into womanhood. Far too many conflate being transgender with drag and with men’s rights activists, when neither are even close.