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    SessoMatto (Yes, I'm really fun at parties.)Maiysha Kai
    3/12/17 4:05pm

    I doubt this will make it out of the greys, but:

    “Who Gets to Be a Woman?” It’s an age-old query (shoutout to Sojourner, yet again); but it’s one we should likely ask of a feminist movement that featured trans celebs in a march characterized by pink “pussy” hats atop primarily cisgendered white heads.”

    and

    “What is it we stand to lose by sharing the designation of “woman”?”

    How does this square? So, the designation of “woman” should be more open (personally, I totally agree) but there is something wrong with the women’s march celebrating trans celebs *as women*?

    Naw. That’s progress. Getting the cis white women to come out in force is important - in raw numbers, if for no other reason. I’ve been an activist since I was a teen, and no one cares what I think. If you get Suzy Soccermom in the street, people take notice. When the cispepo celebrate and include trans women, that is a victory.

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      Maiysha KaiSessoMatto (Yes, I'm really fun at parties.)
      3/13/17 12:07pm

      I absolutely agree that it’s progress. My point was actually that the Women’s March was seen by many as being very “genital based” in its marketing (i.e. https://mic.com/articles/166273/how-the-women-s-march-s-genital-based-feminism-isolated-the-transgender-community#.5fBG4H4li), leaving many trans women (and WoC, in general) feeling marginalized, so featuring trans celebs at times seemed more like a ploy for good optics than genuine inclusion.

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    HumboldtGenesisMaiysha Kai
    3/12/17 1:23pm

    I’m very disappointed in Adichie’s words. It just goes to show that even the most “woke” and intelligent amongst us have a lot to unpack. And while I am not the most evolved in my thinking on gender (I have a lot of homework to do), I’m thankful that my transgender and gender queer friends have opened my eyes and mind to the complexities of manhood/womanhood, maleness/femaleness, and masculinity/femininity. I understand that it’s difficult to dismantle what’s been so deeply ingrained in your mind, but I’ll never understand willfully withholding basic human compassion to the people who need it the most.

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    SkitchMaiysha Kai
    3/12/17 2:32pm

    I am so glad you wrote this today and will be passing this along promptly. Yesterday I was with a group of feminists, and I brought up the conversations I was having with my trans friends regarding Adichie’s words (which very much upset me). The one woman in the group who defended the idea that trans women can never truly be women because of things like periods, pregnancies, abortions, etc. was an older black woman. It was really disheartening, and the older white women around nodded their heads in agreement with her as if she was the sage elder they needed, despite the fact that I was the only one at the table who was/is queer. I tried to so hard to reframe the conversation, but the minute she validated TERF ideas, it was over.

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      rothecheSkitch
      3/12/17 5:45pm

      The one woman in the group who defended the idea that trans women can never truly be women because of things like periods, pregnancies, abortions, etc. was an older black woman

      To say that menstruation or pregnancy are what defines womanhood is inaccurate; there are cisgender women who don’t menstruate, who won’t experience pregnancy, either by their choice or not. On the latter, I’m one; I guess that woman would think I’m not truly a woman because of that...?

      Or no, she wouldn’t, because I’m cisgender, so I’m not questioned.

      I’m white, middle-class, Australian and older. I don’t want to settle into that middle-aged complacency that lets me dismiss anything that doesn’t accord with my experience as wrong or flawed, so I read and meet different people and challenge my ideas. The more I do that, the more I realise that we all have different experiences as women—there is no experience that all women, 100 per cent of us, share... except that we all face our lives as women. Transwomen included.

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      Skitchrotheche
      3/12/17 7:15pm

      My wife and I had a similar conversation over breakfast. We’ve decided not to have children. Are we excluded as “real” women now, according to our friend? (Based on some of her ideas on homosexuality, I think the answer, sadly, would be yes.) What about women who can’t or don’t menstruate? What about women with hormonal issues? What about women who don’t have breasts? What about women who can’t have children? It’s absurd to define womanhood by such narrow physical attributes, particularly when not even cis women share those. I can’t abide the idea that womanhood is defined entirely by what our bodies do or what they look like. It’s complete bullshit.

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    TheDrDonna Wants a Buppet of CopcornMaiysha Kai
    3/12/17 8:49pm

    I was disappointed that even in Adichie’s response to the outcry over her words, she couldn’t bring herself to say “trans women are female” or, perhaps less controversially, “trans women are women.” Given the specific criticisms that were being leveled against her, “Trans people are included in feminism” is simply too weak and too noncommittal. It’s possible to talk about how (late-transitioning) trans women had different experiences in their childhood without excluding them from womanhood, but she doesn’t seem able even to do that.

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    the evil queenMaiysha Kai
    3/12/17 2:43pm

    I kind of feel like the backlash to Adichie’s words more harmful than what she actually said

    I work with trans women helping them with their transitions and my clients struggle with is that a lot of the behaviors that they have that were socially acceptable when the world perceived them as men become socially unacceptable and they have to deal with sexual harassment for the first time in their lives and I think that the argument that trans women don’t experience male privilege or male socialization invalidates the experiences of a lot of trans women.

    Also, I think there are a lot of cis women who are genuinely willing to accept trans women and the oppression that they face as vaild but also feel that a lot of the oppression and sexism they face as linked to reproductive and when they look at their lived experiences and the lived experiences of trans women and see two very different experiences and when they see something like what Adichie said called transphobic the message that they get is that you can talk about your lived experience of sexism or you can be an ally to trans women but you can’t do both and that turns people away from including trans women in their feminism

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      Turtle_Futhe evil queen
      3/12/17 6:15pm

      I agree, trans women and cis women share an overall lived experience of being women.But, trans women have to deal with certain type of misogyny and transphobia that make their experiences different from those of cis women. And likewise cis women have to deal with certain kinds of discrimination that trans women don’t experience or are even aware of until they begin to transition.

      At the same time, I can understand why trans women are very against being told they were afforded some type of male privilege, because they never wanted nor accepted that privilege.

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      TheDrDonna Wants a Buppet of Copcornthe evil queen
      3/12/17 8:55pm

      Well, one of the issues is that there isn’t a unique single “woman” experience, and there also isn’t a unique single “trans” experience. To say that cis women and trans women have different experiences in *all* cases sort of presumes a uniformity of experience that doesn’t exist. That includes reproductive issues: many cis women experience infertility or simply don’t live in a way that reproductive issues affect them, and yet nobody is saying that they aren’t women. So why is it ok to use that to exclude trans women? Also, just for what it’s worth: there are people who transition as young as 3-4 years old. Is it really logical to claim that even they experienced “male socialization”? I find the concept of male socialization wishy washy in the extreme, and based more in people’s heads or anecdotes than reality.

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    RhiRhiMaiysha Kai
    3/12/17 1:50pm

    Maiysha, as a Transgirl I have to thank you for this article. I came out 3 years ago knowing how often I am in danger because of who I am, but I know I am in no where in near as much danger as Transgirls of color. We all need allies and I have a tight group that protect me, dayto day. Every day I see another death of a “sister” because of the lack of knowledge and fear mongering. So again thank you and much love for spreading knowledge.

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    Tabby GevinsonMaiysha Kai
    3/12/17 3:09pm

    Perhaps my respect for Adichie is clouding my judgement, but I think the backlash to her comments is predicated on a misunderstanding of her intent.

    IMO she wasn’t saying that trans women are lesser, nor was she denying the extraordinary levels of bigotry that trans women too often endure. She was saying that a woman who previously identified as male has a different life experience than someone who was born female and always identified as such.

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      TheDrDonna Wants a Buppet of CopcornTabby Gevinson
      3/12/17 9:15pm

      But, in either her original statement or her follow up, she couldn’t even say “trans women are women” without the qualifier “trans”. Her follow up also completely neglected to say that, instead saying that feminism should include trans people, which is substantially different. She is speaking on a minority she doesn’t represent, and also in a context where her words are very similar to those of cisgender, trans-excluding feminists who have done significant harm to trans folks. I don’t think she actually hates trans people or wants to deny them rights, but she is waaaaay out of her depth and ignoring a lot of the historical issues between the trans community and (certain) feminists.

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    EmpressJadeMaiysha Kai
    3/12/17 7:27pm

    There’s a lot of that cissexist TERF mentality even amoung the “wokest” and “intersectional” of feminists spaces. That’s why I keep my distance. If you don’t support all women then your feminism is a joke.

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    basuraMaiysha Kai
    3/12/17 6:48pm

    Trans people are mentally ill. I am not mentally disordered and I will not live according to someone else’s mental illness. Changing gender is not a thing. Men who want to wear dresses, wear makeup etc can do whatever they want, except make me pretend they are being women. MTF trans is misogyny. FTM trans is flattery.

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