Feminist views on transgender topics

[23] Anarchist feminist Emma Goldman also spoke favourably of the institute's work, writing in one of her letters to Hirschfeld that it was "a tragedy ... that people of a different sexual type are caught in a world which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life.

[47] The notion that human sex is not a naturally discrete binary, and that this conception is the result of gendered cultural and political processes, was later taken up and developed by authors like Anne Fausto-Sterling[48][49] and Judith Butler.

[55] Other feminist authors like Cressida Heyes have embarked on projects of "finding grounds for solidarity" between trans and cisgender women, considering "woman" a family-resemblance concept rather than an essential or univocal one.

[74] In a 2022 lecture at Oxford University, MacKinnon continued to express her support for transfeminism and transgender sex equality, and criticized the postmodernism, liberalist anti-stereotyping approach, and anti-trans feminism.

[76] Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell has said that "the thought that the relationship between character and reproductive bodies might change has long been present in feminism," citing de Beauvoir as well as Mathilde Vaerting.

"[82] In a 2020 paper in Feminist Criminology, Nishant Upadhyay of University of Colorado, Boulder argued that "transphobia is enmeshed in white feminism's colonial and white supremacist epistemological frameworks, and that their transphobia, in turn, continues to reproduce gender as a colonial myth" and that the "reduction of the category of 'woman' has been long challenged" by "Black, Indigenous, women of color, Third World, and transnational feminists for decades, if not centuries".

[84] Caterina Nirta of Royal Holloway, University of London has argued that both trans people and feminists would benefit from abandoning "the categorical compartmentalisation of identity and spaces.

[90] In a 2013 interview with The Advocate, she repudiated the interpretation of her text as an altogether condemnation of gender-affirming surgery, stating that her position was informed by accounts of gay men choosing to transition as a way of coping with societal homophobia.

[36] Raymond maintained that this was based in the "patriarchal myths" of "male mothering", and "making of woman according to man's image", and that transgender identity aimed "to colonize feminist identification, culture, politics and sexuality.

[95] In a response to related remarks by Elizabeth Grosz, philosopher Eva Hayward characterized this type of view as telling trans people who have had gender-affirming surgery: "Don't exist.

In their view, this begins at early socialization, and transgender youth, especially gender-nonconforming children, often experience different treatment, leading to a fear of reprisals as they attempt to please their family and peers and navigate their understanding of their gender and societal expectations.

[113][114][115][116] A 2004 opinion piece by British radical feminist Julie Bindel titled "Gender Benders, beware" printed in The Guardian caused the paper to receive two hundred letters of complaint from transgender people, doctors, therapists, academics and others.

[119] Complaints focused on the title, "Gender benders, beware", the cartoon accompanying the piece,[failed verification][120] and the disparaging tone, such as "Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals.

[131][132][133][134] In her book Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, Kathleen Stock described those whom she considered gender-critical feminists as being critics of gender in the sense of social stereotypes.

[153] In June 2021, the Association for Women's Rights in Development said that the sex-based rhetoric employed by trans-exclusionary radical feminists "misuses concepts of sex and gender to push a deeply discriminatory agenda.

"[15][163][167] In January 2019, The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, hosted a panel with members of the self-described radical feminist organization Women's Liberation Front opposed to the US Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

[163] Bev Jackson, one of the founders of the LGB Alliance, once argued that "working with The Heritage Foundation is sometimes the only possible course of action" since "the leftwing silence on gender in the U.S. is even worse than in the UK."

She later clarified these comments, saying she did find links to The Heritage Foundation "problematic" due to their support for "anti-women policies", "Yet it was their publicity that made it possible to launch a gender-critical movement in the U.S."[168] In a 2020 article in Lambda Nordica, Erika Alm of the University of Gothenburg and Elisabeth L. Engebretsen of the University of Stavanger, said that there was "growing convergence, and sometimes conscious alliances, between "gender-critical" feminists (sometimes known as TERFs - Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists), religious and social conservatives, as well as right-wing politics and even neo-Nazi and fascist movements" and that the convergence was linked to "their reliance on an essentialised and binary understanding of sex and/or gender, often termed 'bio-essentialism.

"[170] In a 2021 paper in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Hil Malatino of Pennsylvania State University said that gender-critical feminism in the US has "begun to build coalition with the evangelical Right around the legal codification of sex as a biological binary" and that "popular news media frames transphobia as part of a rational, enlightened, pragmatic response to what is variously called the 'trans lobby' and the 'cult of trans.

"[176] The International Alliance of Women along with its over fifty affiliates worldwide support LGBT+ rights and have expressed concern over "anti-trans voices [that] are becoming ever louder and [that] are threatening feminist solidarity across borders.

[184] The Argentine government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina included trans-inclusive gender-based measures, with Minister of Women, Genders and Diversity Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta stating that "trans people are particularly vulnerable in our country.

[194] In May 2021, over 110 women's and human rights organisations in Canada signed a statement supporting trans-inclusionary feminism, stating that "trans people are a driving force in our feminist movements and make incredible contributions across all facets of our society.

Nixon's attorneys argued there was no basis for the dismissal, citing Diana Courvant's experiences as the first publicly trans woman to work in a women-only domestic violence shelter.

[232] In response to the letter, several different feminist organisations, such as the Syndicat du travail sexuel, the Collectif NousToutes, and the Collages féminicides Paris, who Stern had previously been involved with, issued statements condemning transphobia.

According to Lucas Platero of King Juan Carlos University, the 2009 conference resulted in a shift towards a feminism that placed greater emphasis on criticising the gender binary and that was "more queer, more decolonial, and intersectional.

"[255][256] In 2021, a split in the Spanish left-wing coalition government occurred over the Legislative Proposal for the Real and Effective Equality of Trans People, with United Podemos Minister for Equality Irene Montero advancing the bill that would have included the introduction of legal gender recognition via statutory declaration (therefore responding to long-lasting demands for full depathologization) as well as legal recognition of non-binary identities.

However, Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo argued that the bill "could put at risk the identity criteria for 47 million Spaniards."

[263][264] The UK government's 2018 consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 became a locus of conflict between trans-exclusionary radical feminists and advocates for trans acceptance.

[274][275] A 2020 paper in SAGE Open said that "the case against trans inclusion in the United Kingdom has been presented primarily through social media and blog-type or journalistic online platforms lacking the traditional prepublication checks of academic peer review".

"[14][278] Journalists from The Guardian's US edition wrote an editorial repudiating their UK counterpart's stance, stating that it "promoted transphobic viewpoints" and that its "unsubstantiated argument only serves to dehumanize and stigmatize trans people".