Transfeminism, or trans feminism, is a branch of

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

focused on

transgender women A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria (distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person's gender identity and their ...

and informed by transgender studies. Transfeminism focuses on the effects of transmisogyny and

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...

on trans women. It is related to the broader field of

queer theory Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (formerly often known as gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term "queer theory" is broadly associated with the study a ...

. The term was popularized by

Emi Koyama Emi Koyama (born 1975) is a Japanese-American activist, artist, and independent scholar. Koyama's work discusses issues of feminism, intersex human rights, domestic violence, and sex work among many others. Koyama is best known for her 2000 essay ...

(involved in the ISNA) in ''The Transfeminist Manifesto.'' Transfeminism describes the concepts of

gender nonconformity Gender nonconformity or gender variance is gender expression by an individual whose behavior, mannerisms, and/or appearance does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A person can be gender-nonconforming regardless of their gender ident ...

, notions of

masculinity Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there i ...

and

femininity Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

and the maintaining of

gender binary The gender binary (also known as gender binarism) is the classification of gender into two distinct forms of masculine and feminine, whether by social system, Culture, cultural belief, or both simultaneously. Most cultures use a gender binary, ...

on trans men and women. Transfeminists view gender conformity as a control mechanism of

, which is maintained via violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals as a basis of patriarchy and transmisogyny. Tactics of transfeminism emerged from groups such as '' The Transexual Menace'' (name from the

Lavender Menace Lavender Menace was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and their issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970. Members included ...

) in the 1990s, in response to exclusion of transgender people in Pride marches. The group organized in

direct action Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...

, focusing on violence against transgender people, such as the

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

and

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...

Brandon Teena Brandon Teena (December 12, 1972 – December 31, 1993) was an American transgender man who was raped and later, along with Phillip DeVine and Lisa Lambert, murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska, by John Lotter and Tom Nissen. His life and death are ...

, a trans man. The Transsexual Menace organized protests and sit ins against the medical and mental pathologization of trans people. Trans people were generally excluded from first wave feminism, as were

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

s and all other people considered "

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

Second wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred t ...

saw greater level of acceptance amongst some feminists, however "transsexuality" was heavily excluded, and described as an "illness," even amongst feminists who supported

gay liberation The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoff ...

Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

and fourth wave feminism have generally been accepting of transgender people, and see trans liberation as an overall part of women's liberation. In 2006, the first book on transfeminism, ''Trans/Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out'' edited by Krista Scott-Dixon, was published by Sumach Press. Transfeminism has also been defined more generally as "an approach to feminism that is informed by trans politics."

History

Early voices in the movement include Kate Bornstein, author of 1994 ''Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us'', Bornstein, Kate (1994). "Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us." and Sandy Stone, author of the 1987 essay " The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto", which included a direct response to Janice Raymond's writings on transsexuality. Stone, Sandy (1991)
The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto
. In ''Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity''. At the beginning of the 21st century,

published the ''Transfeminist Manifesto'' and later a website. Krista Scott-Dixon and Julia Serano have published transfeminist works, and in 2016, Susan Stryker and Talia M. Bettcher produced a special issue of Transgender Studies Quarterly dedicated to transfeminism.

Patrick Califia Patrick Califia (born 1954), formerly also known as Pat Califia and by the last name Califia-Rice, is an American writer of non-fiction essays about sexuality and of erotic fiction and poetry. Califia is a bisexual trans man. Prior to transit ...

used the word in print in 1997, and this remains the first known use in print outside of a periodical. It is possible or even likely that the term was independently coined repeatedly before the year 2000 (or even before Courvant's first claimed use in 1992). The term gained traction only after 1999. Jessica Xavier, an acquaintance of Courvant, may have independently coined the term when she used it to introduce her articles, "Passing As Stigma Management" and "Passing as Privilege" in late 1999. In the past few decades, the idea that all

women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

share a common experience has come under scrutiny by

women of color The term "person of color" (: people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is associated with, the United States. From th ...

s, and

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

women, among others. Many

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

people are also questioning what gender means, and are challenging

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

as a biological fact. Transfeminists insist that their unique experiences be recognized as part of the feminist sphere. Transfeminism incorporates all major themes of third wave feminism, including

diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

body image Body image is a person's thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The concept of body image is used in several disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, psycho ...

, self-definition, and women's agency. It also includes critical analysis of

second wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred t ...

from the perspective of the third wave. It critiques mainstream notions of masculinity and argues that women deserve equal rights and shares the unifying principle with other feminisms that gender is a

patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...

social construct used to oppress women. The "trans" in transgender has been used to imply transgressiveness.

Nicholas Birns Nicholas Birns (born May 30, 1965) is a scholar of literature, including fantasy and Australian literature. As a Tolkien scholar he has written on a variety of topics including " The Scouring of the Shire" and Tolkien's biblical sources. His analy ...

categorizes transfeminism as "a feminism that defines the term 'trans-' in a maximally heterogeneous way." The road to legitimacy for transfeminism as a concept has been different and more vexed than for other feminisms. 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. Contrarily, trans women must show their womanhood is equally valid as that of other women, and that feminism can speak for them without ceasing to be feminism.

Radical feminist Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other ...

Janice Raymond's resistance to considering trans women as women and as participants in feminism is representative of this obstacle. Her career began with '' The Transsexual Empire'' (a book-length analysis of

transsexual A transsexual person is someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desires to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (incl ...

women) and she has often returned to this theme.; The second edition includes a new forward that describes her transgender-related work after the publication of her thesis project as the first edition in the late 70s. In 2006, the first book on transfeminism, ''Trans/Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out'' edited by Krista Scott-Dixon, was published by Sumach Press. At the 2007 Transgender Leadership Summit, Alexis Marie Rivera, spoke about her personal experiences with transfeminism as a young Latina trans woman. She discussed her journey from early transition, where she believed she had to take on the role of housewife, to where she was in the present moment. She asserted that, for her, transfeminism is about taking on feminine gender roles because she wants to, not because she has to.

Compared to other feminisms

Common foundations

Simone de Beauvoir once said that biology does not and must not equal destiny.

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she ...

, ''

The Second Sex ''The Second Sex'' () is a 1949 book by the French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, in which the author discusses the treatment of women in the present society as well as throughout all of history. Beauvoir researched and wrote th ...

'' Feminists have traditionally explored the boundaries of what it means to be a woman. Transfeminists argue that trans people and

cisgender The word ''cisgender'' (often shortened to ''cis''; sometimes ''cissexual'') describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not ''transgender''. The prefix '' cis-'' is Latin and ...

feminists confront society's conventional views of

sex Sex is the biological trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male and a female gamete fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inheri ...

and

in similar ways. Transgender liberation theory offers feminism a new vantage point from which to view gender as a social construct, even offering a new meaning of gender. Transfeminist critics of mainstream feminism say that as an institutionalized movement, feminism has lost sight of the basic idea that biology is not destiny. 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. Courvant, Diana "Thinking of Privilege" In 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. Transgender people are frequently targets of anti-trans violence. While cis women also routinely face violence, transfeminists recognize anti-trans violence as a form of gender policing.

Differences

Transfeminism stands in stark contrast to mainstream second-wave feminism. Transfeminists often criticize the ideas of a universal sisterhood, aligning more with

intersectionality Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these intersecting and overlapping factor ...

and with the mainstream third wave's appreciation for the diversity of women's experience. According to Julia Serano femininity in transgender women is noticed and punished much more harshly than the same behaviors in cisgender women. This

double standard A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for situations that are, in principle, the same. It is often used to describe treatment whereby one group is given more latitude than another. A double standard arises when two ...

reveals that the behavior itself is not as problematic to many critics as the existence of trans people. Julia Serano refers to the breed of misogyny experienced by trans women as ' transmisogyny'.

Access to feminist spaces

Though little acknowledged, trans people have been part of feminist movements. 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.See Koyama at http://www.confluere.com/store/pdf-zn/mich-handbook.pdf

Lesbian feminism and transfeminism

In ''Living a Feminist Life'' (2017), Sara Ahmed imagines lesbian feminism as a fundamental and necessary alliance with trans feminism. Ahmed argues an anti-trans stance is an anti-feminist stance and one that works against the feminist project of creating worlds to support those for whom gender

fatalism Fatalism is a belief and philosophical doctrine which considers the entire universe as a deterministic system and stresses the subjugation of all events, actions, and behaviors to fate or destiny, which is commonly associated with the cons ...

(i.e. boys will be boys, girls will be girls) is deleterious.

Radical feminism and transfeminism

Some radical feminists have expressed anti-trans viewpoints. For example, in ''Gender Hurts'' (2014), Sheila Jeffreys argued that trans feminism amounted to men exercising their authority in defining what women are. Some radical feminists are supportive of trans rights. The radical feminist writer and activist

Andrea Dworkin Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen sol ...

, in her book ''Woman Hating'', argued against the persecution and hatred of transgender people and demanded that

sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their gender identity. The phrase is most often associat ...

be provided freely to transgender people by the community. Dworkin argued that "every transsexual has the right to survival on his/her own terms. That means every transsexual is entitled to a sex-change operation, and it should be provided by the community as one of its functions."

Allegations of transphobia in radical feminism

Radical feminist Janice Raymond's 1979 book, ''The Transsexual Empire'', was and still is controversial due to its unequivocal condemnation of transgender surgeries. Raymond says, "All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves .... Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive." In the early 1990s Michigan Womyn's Music Festival ejected a transgender woman, Nancy Burkholder,Van Gelder, Lindsy; and Pamela Robin Brandt. "The Girls Next Door: Into the Heart of Lesbian America", p. 73. Simon and Schuster, After that, the festival maintained that it is intended for " womyn-born-womyn" only. The activist group Camp Trans formed to protest the

transphobic Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender or transsexual people, or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to social ...

"womyn-born-womyn" policy and to advocate for greater acceptance of trans people within the feminist community. A number of prominent trans activists and transfeminists were involved in Camp Trans including

Riki Wilchins Riki Anne Wilchins (born 1952) is an American activist whose work has primarily focused on the impact of gender norms. Background Wilchins founded the first national transgender advocacy group ( GenderPAC). Their analysis and work broadened ...

, Jessica Xavier, and

Leslie Feinberg Leslie Feinberg (September 1, 1949 – November 15, 2014) was an American butch lesbian, transgender activist, communist, and author. Feinberg authored '' Stone Butch Blues'' in 1993.

. The festival considered allowing post-operative trans women to attend; however, this was criticized as

classist Class discrimination, also known as classism, is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper class at the expense of ...

, as many trans women cannot afford genital surgery. Since this incident, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival has updated their community statements page. This page now includes a list of links to letters and statements such as their August 2014 response to Equality Michigan's Call For Boycott and a list of demands in response to the Equality Michigan call to boycott. 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". Kimberly Nixon is a trans woman who volunteered for training as a rape crisis counselor at Vancouver Rape Relief in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1995. When Nixon's transgender status was determined, she was expelled. The staff decided that Nixon's status made it impossible for her to understand the experiences of their clients, and also required their clients to be genetically female. Nixon disagreed, disclosing her own history of partner abuse and sued for discrimination. 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. In 2007 the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear Nixon's appeal, ending the case. Perelle, Robin (February 14, 2007). Rape Relief wins: Supreme Court refuses to hear trans woman's appeal.'' Xtra'' Transgender women such as Sandy Stone challenged the mainstream second-wave feminist conception of "biological woman". Stone worked as a sound engineer for

Olivia Records Olivia Records is a record label founded in 1973 in Washington D.C. which centers female musicians. Its founders included prominent lesbian figures Ginny Berson, Meg Christian, Judy Dlugacz, Jennifer Woodul, Kate Winter and five others. Olivia ...

from about 1974 to 1978, resigning as the controversy over a trans woman working for a lesbian-identified enterprise increased. The debate continued in Raymond's book, which devoted a chapter to criticism of "the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist." Groups like

Lesbian Organization of Toronto The Lesbian Organization of Toronto (L.O.O.T. or LOOT) was a lesbian organization founded in 1976 and disbanded in 1980. The group was Toronto's first openly lesbian feminist group, and its members elected to open Canada's first Lesbian Centre. ...

instituted "womyn-born womyn only" policies. A formal request to join the L.O.O.T. was made by a male-to-female transgender lesbian in 1978. In response, the organization voted to exclude

trans women A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria (distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person's gender identity and their ...

. 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." In their public response, L.O.O.T. wrote:

A woman's voice was almost never heard as a woman's voice—it was always filtered through men's voices. So here a guy comes along saying, "I'm going to be a girl now and speak for girls." And we thought, "No you're not." A person cannot just joined the oppressed by fiat.Ross, Becki (1995). ''The House that Jill Built: A Lesbian Nation in Formation.'' University of Toronto Press,

Radical transfeminism

Some transgender women have been participants in

lesbian feminism Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logica ...

and

radical feminism Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other ...

. A prominent example is Sandy Stone, a trans lesbian feminist who worked as a sound technician for the lesbian-feminist

. In June and July 1977, when 22 feminists protested Stone's participation, Olivia Records defended her employment by saying that Stone was a "woman we can related to with comfort and trust" and that she was "perhaps even the Goddess-sent engineering wizard we had so long sought."

Issues within transfeminism

Inclusion in mainstream feminism

According to Graham Mayeda, women who identify as

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...

feel that issues of equality and female importance becomes less significant when the biology of trans people, specifically, male-to-female trans people, is mentioned. He noted that these feminists feel that the biological nature of trans-females confuse "women only" boundaries and could contradict or disrupt feminist goals of establishing a voice in a

world. Groups such as the Lesbian Avengers accept trans women, while others reject them. 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.

Gender dysphoria

Gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to inconsistency between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender i ...

describes the condition of people who experience significant

dysphoria Dysphoria (; ) is a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction. It is the semantic opposite of euphoria. In a psychiatric context, dysphoria may accompany depression, anxiety, or agitation. In psychiatry Intense states of distress and uneas ...

with the

sex assignment Sex assignment (also known as gender assignment) is the discernment of an infant's sex, typically made at birth based on an examination of the baby's external genitalia by a healthcare provider such as a midwife, nurse, or physician. In the v ...

that they were given at birth, or the

gender role A gender role, or sex role, is a social norm deemed appropriate or desirable for individuals based on their gender or sex. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity. The specifics regarding these gendered ...

s associated with that sex. The term "gender identity disorder" (GID) is also frequently used especially in the formal

diagnosis Diagnosis (: diagnoses) is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in a lot of different academic discipline, disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine " ...

used amongst

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

s and

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

s. Gender identity disorder was classified as a medical disorder by the ICD-10 CM and DSM-4. The

DSM-5 The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition'' (DSM-5), is the 2013 update to the '' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'', the taxonomic and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiat ...

uses the less pathologizing term ''gender dysphoria'', and the

ICD-11 The ICD-11 is the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). It replaces the ICD-10 as the global standard for recording health information and causes of death. The ICD is developed and annually updated by the World H ...

uses the term ''gender incongruence''. Many transgender individuals, transfeminists and medical researchers support the declassification of GID because they say the diagnosis pathologizes

gender variance Gender nonconformity or gender variance is gender expression by an individual whose behavior, mannerisms, and/or appearance does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A person can be gender-nonconforming regardless of their gender identity ...

, reinforces the binary model of gender, and can result in stigmatization of transgender individuals. Many transfeminists and traditional feminists also propose that this diagnosis be discarded because of its potentially abusive use by people with power, and may argue that gender variation is the right of all persons. When arguing for the previous diagnostic category, pro-GID transfeminists typically concede past misuse of the diagnosis while arguing for greater professional accountability. In many situations or legal jurisdictions, transgender people have insurance coverage for surgery only as a consequence of the diagnosis. Removal would therefore increase patient costs. In other situations,

anti-discrimination law Anti-discrimination law or non-discrimination law refers to legislation designed to prevent discrimination against particular groups of people; these groups are often referred to as protected groups or protected classes. Anti-discrimination laws ...

s which protect legally disabled people apply to transgender people only so long as a manifest diagnosis exists. In other cases, transgender people are protected by sex discrimination rules or as a separate category. This economic issue can split advocates along class lines. At the 2006 Trans Identity Conference at the

University of Vermont The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, commonly referred to as the University of Vermont (UVM), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont, United States. Foun ...

, Courvant presented an analysis of this controversy. She noted that "eliminationists" must decide whether their efforts to destigmatize trans people conflict with efforts to destigmatize mental illness and whether removing the GID category would actually help with the former, while disrupting the current, albeit limited, insurance regime. Conversely, "preservationists" must address the problem of faulty diagnoses and improper "treatment". She proposed retaining the category and focusing efforts on legitimating mental illness and improving acceptance of trans people, leaving aside the diagnosis question.

Social construction of gender

Citing their common experience, many transfeminists directly challenge the idea that

is an entirely social construction. Instead, they view gender as a multifaceted set of diverse intrinsic and social qualities. For example, there are both trans and cis persons who express themselves in ways that differ from society's expectations of feminine and masculine. Talia M. Bettcher states in her 2014 essay "Trapped in the Wrong Theory" that "while the actual appeal to native gender must be rejected from a transfeminist perspective, the socially constituted denial of realness must be taken with dead seriousness." Decolonial trans feminists identify the

as an aspect of Western

epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

and tool of colonial power. Integrating knowledge and experiences from muxe, hijra, faʻafafine,

two-spirit ''Two-spirit'' (also known as ''two spirit'' or occasionally ''twospirited'', or abbreviated as ''2S'' or ''2E'', especially in Canada) is a umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a trad ...

, and other indigenous

third gender Third gender or third sex is an identity recognizing individuals categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither a man nor a woman. Many gender systems around the world include three or more genders, deriving the concept either from ...

systems into trans feminist thought counters both

individualist Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and a ...

and universalizing conceptualization of gender.

References

Works cited

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