The latest edition of my column DANGEROUS SPACE for @xtramagazine.bsky.socialxtramagazine.com/health/detra...
OPINION: The mainstream “detransition” conversation is informed by transphobia, ignorance of trans history and collective denial of trans lives. Until we reckon with those realities, we won't resolve ...
Unexpected chance to experience the amazing intersection of @razorfemme.bsky.social#GritLit2024@stelliform.press! 🤩 I should leave the house more often.
glad tegan and sara are organizing against anti-trans laws. more people need to understand transphobia is spreading in canada too. read their open letter: teganandsarafoundation.org/open-letter
But what does "gender critical" feminism really propose in the way of a future? Why, nothing more than a return to the "good old days" of restrictive gender norms, except this time even more rigidly legally enforced. Simply put, conservatism.
And to deny the claim to trans rights on a moral basis, "gender critical" feminism is required to frame trans people as morally suspect as a whole - as interlopers & predators rather than a minority group of human beings whose value & interests are equal to those of the majority
And as with all conservative approaches, "gender critical" feminism's law&order proposals hinge on the prioritization of one group's safety (or perception of safety) over another's rights. To justify this, the latter group's claim to those rights must be denied on a moral basis
"Gender critical" feminism, like all carceral feminisms, puports to rescue the common person from their anxieties with the imposition of an old-fashioned law & order approach: Ban trans women from public space, legislate gender affirming medical care out of existence
"Gender critical" feminism appeals to the terror of the common person who is already exploited by an elite-dominated patriarchal society. It gives them a scapegoat - the trans woman - to blame for the loss of psychological security in a socioeconomically devastating landscape
The trans-positive left has its own issues with carceral thinking, but the point remains that "gender critical" or "terf" feminisms' core logic is abt identifying the spectre of a so-called wolf among sheep, an enemy that must be rooted out & destroyed - the logic of conservatism
Carceral feminisms comprise the branch of feminist activism whose core methods of social problem-solving are to increase the power of the state/society to control & dominate: Police, prisons & social shaming, all core elements of the carceral (& gender critical) feminist playbook