Trans People Deserve Better

"Gender critical" feminism doesn't help women but it does help the far right

Photo by Thiago Rocha on Unsplash

Author’s note: This piece was greenlit and then later dropped by a British newspaper, so I’ve decided to publish it here instead. Trans-exclusionary and “gender critical” takes are extremely prevalent in the British media. I therefore wrote with the assumption that many readers might not realise that such views are seen as fringe and extreme by the vast majority of feminists outside the UK (and by many within the UK too). My aim was to show readers who may not have spent much time thinking about trans rights, just how far outside the mainstream of feminism the “gender critical” feminist movement really is. Those already well-versed in these questions will probably find my arguments quite basic, and yet, sadly, this stuff still needs to be said.

In the hours and days following the assassination of American right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, MAGA commentators hastened to point the finger at left-leaning organisations in general, and trans people in particular. The shooter was not transgender, but the mere suggestion he might be was enough for prominent Trumpian figures like Laura Loomer or Elon Musk to declare the trans community “a national security threat,” or a “terrorist cell.”

This marked the escalation of a rhetoric that far-right movements worldwide have increasingly been placing at the centre of their messaging over the past decade or so, portraying trans people (and the LGBTQ+ community as a whole) as a danger to women, children, and the traditional family unit.

In the UK, the political divide over trans rights is not as clear-cut. While Reform and many conservative groups have, like their American counterparts, opposed what they call the “transgender ideology,” it is under a Labour government that the trans community now faces potential new restrictions. What surprises many left-leaning and liberal observers outside Britain is that much of the pushback against trans rights over here comes from feminists who do not, at least on the face of it, align themselves with Farage, Trump, or Orbán, yet have become prominent voices in trans-exclusionary politics.

These feminists, often called “gender-critical” or “radical feminists,” believe that biological sex is an unchangeable reality that should guide laws and policies, rather than what they see as the more nebulous and subjective idea of gender identity. Their views clash with much of the feminist philosophy and movements of the past several decades. Of course, feminism has never been a monolith, but many feminist scholars and activists, both in the UK and elsewhere, have found that gender-critical perspectives both misunderstand and misrepresent what gender studies and medical research actually say about these issues.

One of the main points of contention is that gender-critical views boil womanhood down to anatomy, chromosomes, or the capacity to bear children. The question “What is a woman?” has become a kind of gotcha, used by both right-wing grifters and gender-critical feminists, to expose what they see as contradictions in gender theory. Anyone who challenges the supposedly common-sense sex-based definition (“a woman is an adult human female”) is accused of relying on subjective and flimsy “feelings” about gender as a social construct.

In reality, a great number of scientists reject the idea that anti-gender claims are grounded in science or common sense. In 2018, for example, thousands of them, including over 700 biologists, more than 100 geneticists, and nine Nobel Prize-winners, signed a letter condemning the Trump administration’s plan to legally define gender based on genitalia at birth. The scientists denounced this proposal as “fundamentally inconsistent not only with science, but also with ethical practices, human rights, and basic dignity.”

Unlike anti-gender feminism, many feminist movements have long tried to move beyond definitions that reduce women to their biological attributes. Feminist philosopher and central figure in gender studies since the 1990s Judith Butler recently summarised this point in their book, Who’s Afraid of Gender: “feminism has always insisted that what a woman is is an open-ended question, a premise that has allowed women to pursue possibilities that were traditionally denied to their sex.” Or, as feminist philosopher Carol Hay put it in a 2019 New York Times column: “Any attempt to catalog the commonalities among women… has the inescapable result that there is some correct way to be a woman”. The scary question then becomes: who gets to decide what that is?

Thinkers who take gender seriously do not treat it as a vague feeling that anyone can adopt on a whim, nor do they deny the realities of biology. At the same time, they recognise that what it means to be a woman is shaped not only by biology but also by norms, expectations, and interactions, all of which vary across history and culture and fall under the umbrella of gender.

Much of the feminist literature since the early 1990s recognises that conversations about sexism and misogyny cannot be separated from the ways racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism interact. This is what civil rights advocate and feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw meant when she introduced the concept of intersectionality in 1989 (though the idea had existed long before then) as “A prism for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other.”

Anti-gender feminism, however, by insisting that all women fit under the same immutable, sex-based definition of womanhood, seems to have missed the memo. It leaves no room for the notion that different forms of misogyny can be experienced by different women, including trans women. As writer Shon Faye argued in her 2021 book The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice: “The concept of women as an undifferentiated global female sex class, more or less exploited in the same way for the same reasons, can only work by downplaying or minimizing any internal distinctions or hierarchies or exploitation within that class. Yet black and indigenous (or otherwise anti-colonial) feminisms render such a specious consensus on universal ‘female experience’ largely untenable”.

Trans Pride UK campaign

While anti-gender feminism is a relatively fringe movement in the grand scheme of global feminism, its real-world impact is huge. British anti-gender feminists recently celebrated what they considered a great victory. In April, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the term “woman” in the Equality Act refers to a person’s biological sex at birth and not gender identity. This means that the definition of “woman” should not include trans women. The ruling has been invoked to restrict the spaces trans people can access meaning that trans women would be barred from women’s single-sex spaces, and trans men from those designated for men. There are many reasons to be deeply sceptical that this would constitute a victory for anyone.

Research has consistently shown no link between trans inclusive policies and a decline in safety in toilets or changing rooms. This decision will not make women safer, but it will undoubtedly endanger trans and non-binary people, who already face higher rates of harassment and violence, as well as anyone who doesn’t conform to narrow expectations of how men or women should look.

Even if we were to set aside its alarming real-world implications for trans and non-binary people (and to be clear, we shouldn’t), very little practical thought has gone into this ban. Are business owners expected to demand that people carry their birth certificates to prove they’re using the “right” toilet? Should people’s genitals be inspected before they can use a public loo? And who gets to decide if a woman looks womanly enough?

Supporters of the ban have vaguely gestured toward creating “third spaces” for trans people, without acknowledging that this would exclude them from the countless places that lack such facilities and would force them to out themselves every time they use a public toilet, exposing them to greater harassment. The logical outcome of such measures is the removal of trans people from public life.

It’s easy to forget that the constant public debate over trans people’s right to exist is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the UK alone, media coverage has exploded, from a few dozen articles a year in the early 2010s to more than 7,500 in 2022, with the majority of them negative and presenting trans people as a threat. This upsurge in sensationalist and exclusionary language in the past decade or so should give us pause. Who does this serve?

When this wave of hostility began gaining real momentum in 2017, journalist and activist Owen Jones noted that the representation of trans people as dangerous was “chillingly familiar,” reminiscent of the moral panic surrounding gay and bisexual men and women in a not-so-distant past: “The tropes are the same. Back then, gay people were sexual predators; a “gay lobby” was brainwashing children; being gay was a mental illness, or just a phase; and gay rights was political correctness gone mad.”

The vilification of trans people, framed as a danger from which cis women must be protected, serves the far right’s agenda. In the United States, trans people are scapegoated for a range of societal problems from gun violence (based on made up figures), to the recent government shutdown. This also extends to anyone who fails to fit within traditional definitions of femaleness and maleness. See for example J. D. Vance’s remarks about “childless cat ladies”, or MAGA podcasters’ discourse on “beta males” referring to men who do not embody a toxic form of masculine dominance.

In the UK too, so-called “debates” about trans rights (that seldom centre the experiences of trans people) serve as a convenient distraction. While trans people are vilified and othered, questions of rising inequality and injustice under a historically unpopular Labour government remain unaddressed.

While some British feminists have proclaimed Trump a “feminist icon” (yes, really) for his anti-trans policies, I would hope that the vast majority of feminists, “gender critical” or not, would not see themselves as ideologically aligned with a man who bragged about “grabbing women by the pussy” and praised the US Supreme Court for overturning abortion rights. Yet when feminism retreats into exclusionary logics, it cuts itself from the alliances that have historically kept it alive, and people like Trump are counting on that.

As always, thanks for reading.

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