Transfeminism
The group organized in direct action, focusing on violence against transgender people, such as the murder and rape of Brandon Teena, a trans man.
The Transsexual Menace organized protests and sit ins against the medical and mental pathologization of trans people.
[4][7][8] In 2006, the first book on transfeminism, Trans/Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out edited by Krista Scott-Dixon, was published by Sumach Press.
"[9] Early voices in the movement include Kate Bornstein, author of 1994 Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us,[10] and Sandy Stone, author of essay "The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto", which included a direct response to Janice Raymond's writings on transsexuality.
[19] Transfeminism incorporates all major themes of third wave feminism, including diversity, body image, self-definition, and women's agency.
[21] Nicholas Birns categorizes transfeminism as "a feminism that defines the term 'trans-' in a maximally heterogeneous way.
Marginalized women of trans background and affect have had to prove that their needs are different and that mainstream feminism does not necessarily speak for them.
[24] In 2006, the first book on transfeminism, Trans/Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out edited by Krista Scott-Dixon, was published by Sumach Press.
[9] At the 2007 Transgender Leadership Summit, Alexis Marie Rivera, spoke about her personal experiences with transfeminism as a young Latina trans woman.
[27] Transfeminists argue that trans people and cisgender feminists confront society's conventional views of sex and gender in similar ways.
In fact, they argue, many feminists seem perfectly comfortable equating sex and gender and insisting on a given destiny for trans persons based on nothing more than biology.
[28][29] Transfeminism aims to resist and challenge the fixedness of gender that, as many of its supporters believe, traditional approaches to women's studies depend upon.
Transfeminists often criticize the ideas of a universal sisterhood, aligning more with intersectionality and with the mainstream third wave's appreciation for the diversity of women's experience.
[37] There have been a number of documented occasions when the trans people portrayed as bad actors were in fact the victims of overreactions by others.
"[42] Radical feminist Janice Raymond's 1979 book, The Transsexual Empire, was and still is controversial due to its unequivocal condemnation of transgender surgeries.
[50] The initial response to the boycott states that the MWMF believes that "support for womyn-born-female space is not at odds with standing with and for the transgender community".
Nixon's attorneys argued that there was no basis for the dismissal, citing Diana Courvant's experiences as the first publicly transgender woman to work in a women-only domestic violence shelter.
[52][53][54] Transgender women such as Sandy Stone challenged the mainstream second-wave feminist conception of "biological woman".
During informal discussion, members of L.O.O.T expressed their outrage that in their view a "sex-change he-creature...dared to identify himself as a woman and a lesbian."
A prominent example is Sandy Stone, a trans lesbian feminist who worked as a sound technician for the lesbian-feminist Olivia Records.
The Violence Against Women Act now "explicitly protects transgender and lesbian, gay, and bisexual survivors", such that domestic violence centers, rape crisis centers, support groups, and other VAWA-funded services cannot turn away any person due to their sex, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation.
[62] Many transfeminists and traditional feminists also propose that this diagnosis be discarded because of its potentially abusive use by people with power,[64][better source needed] and may argue that gender variation is the right of all persons.
[67] She proposed retaining the category and focusing efforts on legitimating mental illness and improving acceptance of trans people, leaving aside the diagnosis question.
For example, there are both trans and cis persons who express themselves in ways that differ from society's expectations of feminine and masculine.
