Recently I've seen a lot of discussion in wlw and feminist spaces about how some women are told they're not allowed to be women. Obviously, that's true for trans women, but these people weren't talking about trans women.
It's also probably true for intersex women, but I don't know enough about being intersex to form an opinion on that. And even if I did, my opinion wouldn't mean anything because I'm dyadic.
And it might be true for women of color as well, but...see above. I'm white, my opinion on that doesn't mean anything.
The women I'm talking about, the women usually talked about in these discussions, are gender nonconforming women and wlw who are transmisogyny-exempt.
Given that I'm both and also that I'm nonbinary, I thought I should offer my two cents on it.
This post is entitled "The Push" because it refers to being "pushed out of womanhood."
So, first of all, it's fucking hilarious that there are cis people implying that there is a systemic, societal problem in which they are pressured into being trans or nonbinary and that this is somehow seen as preferable to being a cis person - even a cis butch or cis tomcat.
Except it isn't, really, all that hilarious, because it leads to trans/nb people thinking their gender is just a sign of internalized misogyny and/or homophobia. It also leads to other people thinking that, including parents and guardians of trans kids, romantic and sexual partners, and the professionals who we rely on to provide us with the hormones and surgeries we often need to survive.
Second, I can sympathize with being "pushed out of womanhood". Developmental disability, and disability in general, is seen as a white boys' club, which leads to anyone who isn't a white male, especially a bourgie cis white male, having difficulty accessing diagnosis, accommodations, and medical care. Not to mention, disabled women and girls are excluded from "girl time" type things and solidarity with other women because of how we are unable to perform proper traditional femininity (i.e. not wearing makeup or dressing a certain way because of sensory issues and lack of energy, coming across as cold and callous because of low empathy, not showing adequate interest in feminine things).
Of course, there's also homophobia. There really isn't any room under compulsory femininity for same- and similar-gender attraction. Not only because of the misogyny enacted from how men take it as a personal insult that some women center other women in their romantic and sexual lives, sometimes preferring each other over men, but also by how we're excluded from bonding and forming friendships with straight women.
As women, we're socialized to be affectionate. That's why in female friendships, straight women will kiss each other on the cheeks, hug, sleep in the same bed together, compliment each other's appearances, slap each other on the ass, tell each other they love each other, and call each other girlfriends (kill me now). But I haven't felt comfortable doing any of that with straight girls in years because when they find out I'm bi, they immediately distance themselves and get suspicious that any of that is a sign I have a crush on them.
Would it be the end of the world if I did? Plenty of straight people are in m/w friendships where one person has an unrequited crush on the other, and they still remain friends, still hug one another, etc.
And wlw tend to be a lot more respectful of other women's boundaries than straight men are, so why is it that when we have a crush on a straight woman, we're the ones seen as predatory? It's not like we go around whining about the friendzone when a woman won't fuck us, or wax poetic about women being shallow sluts if they're not interested, or cry about how it's unfair because we're Nice Girls™. We know what it's like to have our boundaries disrespected, so I have no idea why straight women would rationally think we're more likely to disrespect theirs.
Beyond that, femininity and womanhood are so defined in relation to men, which alienates lesbians, bi women who don't want to date men, women who are questioning between lesbian and mga, and wlw in any of those categories who simply happen to currently be in a relationship with another woman - especially if they're butch.
Other effects of this include bi women being told that our sexualities will inevitably revolve around men (and thus alienated from the LGBT community and denied resources to deal with homophobia, since other LGBT people believe this too), does and femmes being oversexualized for the male gaze, bi/mga tomcats being told we're not really mga because mga women aren't supposed to look "ugly" and obviously being attracted to multiple genders means our first priority should be to make ourselves appealing to men, and mga women who used to identify as lesbians being tokenized to "prove" that all women secretly want and need men.
It's not like all of that comes from men or straight women either. I've seen countless femme-identified wlw get sucked into liberal, choice feminism and then use their platforms to alienate butch, tomcat, and gnc wlw from womanhood. Even gnc women ourselves sometimes do it, which is just sad.
So. Uh. Yeah. I can understand what these feminists, these wlw, are talking about when they claim some non-trans women aren't allowed to be women.
But at the same time, it's really badly phrased. None of this is really about me being told I'm not really woman-aligned or that I HAVE to identify as transmasc. None of it is about cis women being pushed to identify as trans, and honestly every cis woman who says it is is just promoting TERF rhetoric. It's not about not being seen as a woman. It's about not being seen as a PROPER woman, due to compulsory femininity and its intersections with other forms of oppression, homophobia and ableism in my case.
Non-trans women aren't pushed out of womanhood. In fact, in the case of woman-aligned nonbinary people who are coercively assigned female at birth, we're pushed into it.
While I'm not seen as a "proper" woman for being disabled, gnc, and bi, a woman is also the only gender I'm allowed to be. Because, you know, transphobia is a thing and I'm not strictly that. As demonized as disabled gnc wlw are across the board, it's still preferable to be all of that while being cis than to be all of that while being nonbinary or a trans woman.
As much as I'm alienated from femininity and as much as those things complicate my gender, no one is stopping me from saying "I'm a woman" while doing any of it, while being any of it. No one is preventing me from using she/her pronouns for being a disabled tomcat - instead, those pronouns are forced on me because of cissexism.
Sure, there are cis wlw who used to identify as nonbinary and/or transmasculine because they had complicated relationships with femininity and were confused about what dysphoria was, but that doesn't make it a systemic problem and it doesn't mean that ANY cis person is persecuted for being cis. They're still cis and they're not pushed into NOT being cis. They still have privilege over non-cis people of any gender alignment and any assigned sex, and the conflation of female birth assignment with womanhood works in their favor at our expense because, even with the existence of patriarchy, it's still seen as more favorable for those assigned female at birth to be women than any other gender.
Even if they struggle with gender roles, cis women are not going to be oppressed for STRICTLY identifying with womanhood. Not when nonbinary people can also face misogyny AND are oppressed and marginalized under transphobia, something cis people created in the first place, on top of that.
This doesn't really translate the same way for woman-aligned nonbinary people. I have questioned whether I was actually woman-aligned and received discrimination from other nonbinary people for being binary-aligned.
But I also recognize that's more of an intracommunity problem among nonbinary people than an actual force of oppression coercing me into distancing myself from my assigned sex, and cis women are apparently incapable of doing that - or they think we need them to save us and then butt into conversations where they don't belong.
The discrimination I receive from other nonbinary people comes from their internalized transphobia. Because of our androcentric society, masculinity is seen as neutral and a blank slate and is therefore considered the default when it comes to androgynous presentation and identification. Because of gender roles, it's also associated with men while femininity is associated with women. Thus, because I'm nonbinary and aligned with womanhood, I'm seen as trying to distance myself from being nonbinary and not fully accepting my gender.
There is a very long history of cis women pretending trans people are persecuting them. From TERFs screeching about the cotton ceiling and how "genderists" take everything away from cis women, to conservative women supporting bathroom laws because trans women (and people perceived as trans women) will supposedly rape them while pissing, to "pure" Christian women rallying for trans people to be burned as witches for violating the norms of Puritan and medieval European society, to white female imperialists daintily fanning themselves while their husbands, fathers, and brothers slaughtered black and brown people and destroyed their systems of gender, cis women's irrational fear of trans people has always been used to force us into submission and self-hate and provoke violence against us.
So no, I really don't care about cis women who feel like they've been "pushed" into being trans or who once identified as trans to distance themselves from misogyny, as if transphobia is a minor problem that's hardly worth worrying about, as if being a cis woman is the absolute hardest thing in the world, as if being trans/nonbinary and a woman are mutually exclusive.
Cis women don't give a fuck about me or what I or any other woman-aligned nonbinary person has to say on the subject of internalized misogyny and compulsory femininity leading to women feeling like they're inadequate as women. They'd rather pretend they're uniquely victimized while woman-aligned nonbinary people are somehow totally unaffected or like any experience common among non-cis women is theirs to claim.
And I'm sick of it. I'm sick of their entitlement, their whining, their victim complex. It's irritating as hell and they don't even care that forcing people into strict gender roles is a double-edged sword with the ability to benefit them even as they're harmed by it - meanwhile, woman-aligned nonbinary people and trans women are harmed twice over because it's used to enforce both transphobia AND misogyny.
There is no "push" forcing non-trans women out of womanhood, whether we're cis or nonbinary (but ESPECIALLY not for cis woman). The closest equivalent would be gender roles, heteronormativity, ableism, intersexism, white supremacy, and patriarchy sending societal messages that some women are Women Lite™ or not properly feminine - and that, contrary to popular cis belief, doesn't only harm cis women.
This obviously hits trans women harder because of transmisogyny. They, along with intersex women, the only ones who are widely, institutionally told they're not allowed to be women because it's not only about telling them they can't be women. It's about telling them they have to be cis.
Despite what cis women's privileged, entitled ignorance tells them, they're not ever told they CAN'T be cis just because they're oppressed under misogyny. Not only that, but to varying degrees they benefit from being told that everyone assigned female at birth HAS to be strictly a woman. After all, it's what they already are.
It's also probably true for intersex women, but I don't know enough about being intersex to form an opinion on that. And even if I did, my opinion wouldn't mean anything because I'm dyadic.
And it might be true for women of color as well, but...see above. I'm white, my opinion on that doesn't mean anything.
The women I'm talking about, the women usually talked about in these discussions, are gender nonconforming women and wlw who are transmisogyny-exempt.
Given that I'm both and also that I'm nonbinary, I thought I should offer my two cents on it.
This post is entitled "The Push" because it refers to being "pushed out of womanhood."
So, first of all, it's fucking hilarious that there are cis people implying that there is a systemic, societal problem in which they are pressured into being trans or nonbinary and that this is somehow seen as preferable to being a cis person - even a cis butch or cis tomcat.
Except it isn't, really, all that hilarious, because it leads to trans/nb people thinking their gender is just a sign of internalized misogyny and/or homophobia. It also leads to other people thinking that, including parents and guardians of trans kids, romantic and sexual partners, and the professionals who we rely on to provide us with the hormones and surgeries we often need to survive.
Second, I can sympathize with being "pushed out of womanhood". Developmental disability, and disability in general, is seen as a white boys' club, which leads to anyone who isn't a white male, especially a bourgie cis white male, having difficulty accessing diagnosis, accommodations, and medical care. Not to mention, disabled women and girls are excluded from "girl time" type things and solidarity with other women because of how we are unable to perform proper traditional femininity (i.e. not wearing makeup or dressing a certain way because of sensory issues and lack of energy, coming across as cold and callous because of low empathy, not showing adequate interest in feminine things).
Of course, there's also homophobia. There really isn't any room under compulsory femininity for same- and similar-gender attraction. Not only because of the misogyny enacted from how men take it as a personal insult that some women center other women in their romantic and sexual lives, sometimes preferring each other over men, but also by how we're excluded from bonding and forming friendships with straight women.
As women, we're socialized to be affectionate. That's why in female friendships, straight women will kiss each other on the cheeks, hug, sleep in the same bed together, compliment each other's appearances, slap each other on the ass, tell each other they love each other, and call each other girlfriends (kill me now). But I haven't felt comfortable doing any of that with straight girls in years because when they find out I'm bi, they immediately distance themselves and get suspicious that any of that is a sign I have a crush on them.
Would it be the end of the world if I did? Plenty of straight people are in m/w friendships where one person has an unrequited crush on the other, and they still remain friends, still hug one another, etc.
And wlw tend to be a lot more respectful of other women's boundaries than straight men are, so why is it that when we have a crush on a straight woman, we're the ones seen as predatory? It's not like we go around whining about the friendzone when a woman won't fuck us, or wax poetic about women being shallow sluts if they're not interested, or cry about how it's unfair because we're Nice Girls™. We know what it's like to have our boundaries disrespected, so I have no idea why straight women would rationally think we're more likely to disrespect theirs.
Beyond that, femininity and womanhood are so defined in relation to men, which alienates lesbians, bi women who don't want to date men, women who are questioning between lesbian and mga, and wlw in any of those categories who simply happen to currently be in a relationship with another woman - especially if they're butch.
Other effects of this include bi women being told that our sexualities will inevitably revolve around men (and thus alienated from the LGBT community and denied resources to deal with homophobia, since other LGBT people believe this too), does and femmes being oversexualized for the male gaze, bi/mga tomcats being told we're not really mga because mga women aren't supposed to look "ugly" and obviously being attracted to multiple genders means our first priority should be to make ourselves appealing to men, and mga women who used to identify as lesbians being tokenized to "prove" that all women secretly want and need men.
It's not like all of that comes from men or straight women either. I've seen countless femme-identified wlw get sucked into liberal, choice feminism and then use their platforms to alienate butch, tomcat, and gnc wlw from womanhood. Even gnc women ourselves sometimes do it, which is just sad.
So. Uh. Yeah. I can understand what these feminists, these wlw, are talking about when they claim some non-trans women aren't allowed to be women.
But at the same time, it's really badly phrased. None of this is really about me being told I'm not really woman-aligned or that I HAVE to identify as transmasc. None of it is about cis women being pushed to identify as trans, and honestly every cis woman who says it is is just promoting TERF rhetoric. It's not about not being seen as a woman. It's about not being seen as a PROPER woman, due to compulsory femininity and its intersections with other forms of oppression, homophobia and ableism in my case.
Non-trans women aren't pushed out of womanhood. In fact, in the case of woman-aligned nonbinary people who are coercively assigned female at birth, we're pushed into it.
While I'm not seen as a "proper" woman for being disabled, gnc, and bi, a woman is also the only gender I'm allowed to be. Because, you know, transphobia is a thing and I'm not strictly that. As demonized as disabled gnc wlw are across the board, it's still preferable to be all of that while being cis than to be all of that while being nonbinary or a trans woman.
As much as I'm alienated from femininity and as much as those things complicate my gender, no one is stopping me from saying "I'm a woman" while doing any of it, while being any of it. No one is preventing me from using she/her pronouns for being a disabled tomcat - instead, those pronouns are forced on me because of cissexism.
Sure, there are cis wlw who used to identify as nonbinary and/or transmasculine because they had complicated relationships with femininity and were confused about what dysphoria was, but that doesn't make it a systemic problem and it doesn't mean that ANY cis person is persecuted for being cis. They're still cis and they're not pushed into NOT being cis. They still have privilege over non-cis people of any gender alignment and any assigned sex, and the conflation of female birth assignment with womanhood works in their favor at our expense because, even with the existence of patriarchy, it's still seen as more favorable for those assigned female at birth to be women than any other gender.
Even if they struggle with gender roles, cis women are not going to be oppressed for STRICTLY identifying with womanhood. Not when nonbinary people can also face misogyny AND are oppressed and marginalized under transphobia, something cis people created in the first place, on top of that.
This doesn't really translate the same way for woman-aligned nonbinary people. I have questioned whether I was actually woman-aligned and received discrimination from other nonbinary people for being binary-aligned.
But I also recognize that's more of an intracommunity problem among nonbinary people than an actual force of oppression coercing me into distancing myself from my assigned sex, and cis women are apparently incapable of doing that - or they think we need them to save us and then butt into conversations where they don't belong.
The discrimination I receive from other nonbinary people comes from their internalized transphobia. Because of our androcentric society, masculinity is seen as neutral and a blank slate and is therefore considered the default when it comes to androgynous presentation and identification. Because of gender roles, it's also associated with men while femininity is associated with women. Thus, because I'm nonbinary and aligned with womanhood, I'm seen as trying to distance myself from being nonbinary and not fully accepting my gender.
There is a very long history of cis women pretending trans people are persecuting them. From TERFs screeching about the cotton ceiling and how "genderists" take everything away from cis women, to conservative women supporting bathroom laws because trans women (and people perceived as trans women) will supposedly rape them while pissing, to "pure" Christian women rallying for trans people to be burned as witches for violating the norms of Puritan and medieval European society, to white female imperialists daintily fanning themselves while their husbands, fathers, and brothers slaughtered black and brown people and destroyed their systems of gender, cis women's irrational fear of trans people has always been used to force us into submission and self-hate and provoke violence against us.
So no, I really don't care about cis women who feel like they've been "pushed" into being trans or who once identified as trans to distance themselves from misogyny, as if transphobia is a minor problem that's hardly worth worrying about, as if being a cis woman is the absolute hardest thing in the world, as if being trans/nonbinary and a woman are mutually exclusive.
Cis women don't give a fuck about me or what I or any other woman-aligned nonbinary person has to say on the subject of internalized misogyny and compulsory femininity leading to women feeling like they're inadequate as women. They'd rather pretend they're uniquely victimized while woman-aligned nonbinary people are somehow totally unaffected or like any experience common among non-cis women is theirs to claim.
And I'm sick of it. I'm sick of their entitlement, their whining, their victim complex. It's irritating as hell and they don't even care that forcing people into strict gender roles is a double-edged sword with the ability to benefit them even as they're harmed by it - meanwhile, woman-aligned nonbinary people and trans women are harmed twice over because it's used to enforce both transphobia AND misogyny.
There is no "push" forcing non-trans women out of womanhood, whether we're cis or nonbinary (but ESPECIALLY not for cis woman). The closest equivalent would be gender roles, heteronormativity, ableism, intersexism, white supremacy, and patriarchy sending societal messages that some women are Women Lite™ or not properly feminine - and that, contrary to popular cis belief, doesn't only harm cis women.
This obviously hits trans women harder because of transmisogyny. They, along with intersex women, the only ones who are widely, institutionally told they're not allowed to be women because it's not only about telling them they can't be women. It's about telling them they have to be cis.
Despite what cis women's privileged, entitled ignorance tells them, they're not ever told they CAN'T be cis just because they're oppressed under misogyny. Not only that, but to varying degrees they benefit from being told that everyone assigned female at birth HAS to be strictly a woman. After all, it's what they already are.
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