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As the United States continues to move into a presidency that ran a campaign in favor of oppression toward women and numerous other marginalized groups, everyone must stand together.
It is not hard to see that this nation is barreling toward a more fundamentalist, Christian-nationalist political and cultural climate, and with this comes the promise of an increase in discriminatory rhetoric and policies, many of which target women. As more and more pieces of antiwoman propaganda and legislature roll out, feminism is of the utmost importance, and no one can be left behind.
Feminism, though often considered a hot topic and even a bad word to some, is simply the belief in and movement toward the complete equality of the sexes. Feminists believe that women should have the same access to jobs, economic engagement, health care and social justice as men, and this applies to all women and gender-nonconforming femme individuals.
Trans women and gender-nonconforming femme folks have historically been left out of the feminist conversation. Feminism came about as a reaction to the mistreatment and oppression of cisgender women at the hands of men, and had its official genesis in 1848 — a time when the concept of being transgender was not openly discussed or even acknowledged in this nation.
“The only goal of feminism should be fighting for the equality of all women, not cherry-picking which group of women get to experience advocacy.”
With time, as mainstream society learned more about transgender folks and what it means for someone to identify with a gender different than the one assigned to them at birth, the inclusion of transgender folks in the feminist movement became a polarizing issue. While many progressive, cisgender feminists recognized the innate femininity of trans women and the need to include trans folks in feminist activism, others rejected the idea of including trans folks in the feminist movement completely.
Often, these trans-exclusive feminists — also known as trans-exclusionary radical feminists or TERFS — defend their stance by saying that because trans women are not born with the ability to menstruate and become pregnant, they cannot possibly understand or experience the physical, emotional and social struggles that come with “real” womanhood, which they claim is the basis of feminism.
The TERF movement is an abhorrent, counterproductive and harmful excuse for feminism — it is hate and oppression attempting to disguise itself as empowering to cisgender women. The trans-exclusionary movement revolves around pushing extremely harmful narratives about trans folks, specifically trans women, claiming that they are confused, predatory or will never be real women because they were not born with female sex traits.
The dictionary definition of womanhood is “the state of being a woman.” Womanhood is not defined by one set of characteristics; it is experienced differently by each unique person and is not limited to those born biologically female. The disgusting rhetoric that TERFs spread about trans women not only causes significant harm to the trans community but also brings great setbacks to the feminist movement.
The TERF argument invalidates the experiences of trans femme individuals and alienates a large community of cisgender women who have physical differences or are unable to have children, completely disregarding the wholeness of womanhood.
Feminism includes solidarity among all women and advocacy for the groups of women that face oppression in different and disproportionate ways. Trans women and femme individuals who identify as trans are one of the most vulnerable communities in the world and are disproportionately impacted by violence as well as greater risks to their physical and mental health.
These women risk their lives each and every day to freely express their femininity and gender identity and are still excluded from feminist conversations. Now more than ever, trans women must be acknowledged as an integral part of the feminist conversation and cisgender women must protect their trans sisters.
Feminism is useless if it is only serving a select group of women. The only goal of feminism should be fighting for the equality of all women, not cherry-picking which group of women get to experience advocacy. Additionally, to weaponize the movement in its entirety in an attempt to bring invalidation and harm to trans women is an abomination of the ideologies that feminism was built upon and will continue to set back the strides made by feminists throughout history.
Trans folks are here to stay. Trans women and gender-nonconforming femme folks have always and will always be a vital part of the fight for equality, and to silence their voices is to degrade the feminist movement as a whole.
Reach Astrid Thorn at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @CSUCollegian.
