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Another feminist, who I respect, has called me out on the ways we drive away older feminists, and generally we drive away good people. I think that, as trans womyn, so many of us are so used to being hurt by bad allies, that we drive away all allies, which hurts them and hurts us even more.
We expect that other feminists understand trans feminism and our constantly-shifting language, even if we don’t all understand intersex feminism, or womanism, or sex workers’ feminism, or the other outgroup feminisms we should be working besides and/or among. We are all someone’s bad allies. and should try to be better allies.
We sometimes take the worst anti-trans works of the second and third waves and take them as representatives of the rest. We sometimes take the pro-trans works and take them apart because their theory isn’t our theory. We too often ignore all the other works and the ideas from these older feminist traditions.
Look at how cisheterosexist empires have tried to destroy our communities and our histories. Look at how many of us thought we were all alone. Look at the generations trans womyn have spent rebuilding our community and redefining our understanding of ourselves. Well among these outgroup feminisms we have one of our wider communities, and in their history we have one of our histories, and if we destroy this we are doing the cisheterosexist empires’ work for them.
I don’t want to do that any more. Do any of us?
[cross-posted from tumblr]
We expect that other feminists understand trans feminism and our constantly-shifting language, even if we don’t all understand intersex feminism, or womanism, or sex workers’ feminism, or the other outgroup feminisms we should be working besides and/or among. We are all someone’s bad allies. and should try to be better allies.
We sometimes take the worst anti-trans works of the second and third waves and take them as representatives of the rest. We sometimes take the pro-trans works and take them apart because their theory isn’t our theory. We too often ignore all the other works and the ideas from these older feminist traditions.
Look at how cisheterosexist empires have tried to destroy our communities and our histories. Look at how many of us thought we were all alone. Look at the generations trans womyn have spent rebuilding our community and redefining our understanding of ourselves. Well among these outgroup feminisms we have one of our wider communities, and in their history we have one of our histories, and if we destroy this we are doing the cisheterosexist empires’ work for them.
I don’t want to do that any more. Do any of us?
[cross-posted from tumblr]
