> In 2017, Adichie was criticized by some as transphobic, initially for saying that "my feeling is trans women are trans women."[44][9] Adichie later further clarified her statement, writing "that there is a distinction between women born female and women who transition, without elevating one or the other, which was my point. I have and will continue to stand up for the rights of transgender people."
Now granted, there may be more to the story that I am not aware of, but stating that there actually are differences between "women born female and women who transition" shouldn't be considered transphobic, it should be considered acknowledging reality.
Otherwise what you're left with is people feeling that their only option to not be considered transphobic is if they say "trans women are women and are the same as cis women", which gets at the heart of why people are so concerned about public discourse today.
Because the right to call yourself "trans woman" has been widened to the point of including people who didn't undergo any gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy. And yes, I don't think that those "trans women" are, or should be considered, women. Actually, not even "trans".
You say this very lightly but it's obvious to me that you haven't really considered the consequences.
For example, you say "people who didn't undergo any gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy". But you don't seem to consider that those are medical interventions. I think if you thought of them in that light, you would be a little more thoughtful about demanding that people undergo medical interventions for any reason, no less as the price of being recognised as their claimed, or lived gender.
Such requirements are common. In some countries in Europe until very recently transwomen were not allowed to change their papers to identify them as women and to declare the female names they used everyday unless they could demonstrate that they had been rendered surgically sterile, by castration. Germany was one such case.
I wonder also if you have a slightly romantic idea of surgery and hormone therapy. The truth is that surgery doesn't magically transform a man into a woman, no matter what some surgeons want us to believe. Some transwomen will always look like men, no matter how much they cut off and throw away. Others, will look like women without having taken any hormones in their entire lives. I know that's hard to believe, but it's how it is. The human species is only very lightly sexually dimorphic and some males can pass for women, and some females for men, with very little intervention. In the case of transwomen, for many it is enough to remove their beard (by electrolysis or photolysis) and take care of their hair, to be immediately identified as women by everyone that sees them. On the other side, history is full of females who cut their hair short, wore pants and lived the rest of their lives as men.
But, I know the above is hard to believe so OK. Just please try to keep an open mind and remember that you don't automatically know everything there is to know about transwomen (and transmen).
At the end of the day, it's their decision what to do with their body, not yours. All that is asked of you is to respect their decisions and treat them with the same amount of respect as you'd treat any other non-trans individual.
If we meet in public and you say "Hi, my name is Michael" I can only assume that that's objective fact. If I then say "You know, you don't really seem like a Michael. I think you're more of a Denise based on what I've seen." You would be right to take offense for disregarding your own right to self expression based on my own interpretation of your person from the limited information gathered in a first impression.
This is a very similar thing, except by the time someone is out as trans you can best believe they've spent years agonizing about whether it's even a good idea to do so knowing they'll face this kind of a conversation every time the topic comes up around people who they aren't close with / are not sympathetic.
An attribute that can change based on someone's feelings is definitely not objective. And all of the genders that are neither male nor female were invented in the last few decades, so membership in one can't be factual. Likewise, membership in a construct called "gender" which is divorced from biological sex was also invented within the last century, so that can't be said to be factual either.
Objective [1]:
1. Of or relating to a material object, actual existence or reality.
2. Not influenced by the emotions or prejudices.
3. Based on observed facts; without subjective assessment.
Fact [2]:
1. Something actual as opposed to invented.
2. Something which is real.
Furthermore, from a scientific standpoint, there's not really any such thing as a clean binary division between male and female. Chromosomes get messy, and even absent issues with the X and Y chromosomes themselves [2] there's some fun stuff with the SRY gene [3] and hormonal receptors in utero that can affect gender identity and presentation [4].
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history [2] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9396296/ [3] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20184645/ [4] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6235900/
Actual intersex conditions occur at a rate of approximately 0.018%. [1] This is a pathology, not a third category.
I don't think there is much to read into “trans women are trans women, and are in some ways different from cis women” from this author. I certainly don't read “we should be allowed to discriminate against trans women because they are different.” out of it and thus I'd consider the interpretation to be a strawman: its easier to attack the author for it but I don't think its what she meant.
I think this gets at her point in the last paragraph, "the assumption of good faith is dead." If we interpret what the author said as the latter statement we are assuming it was said in bad faith.
Where does Chimamanda advocate for discrimination against trans women? Because there is nothing in your source that implies that.
Also, that is only a motte in liberal circles. Saying "I have and will continue to stand up for the rights of transgender people" is not necessarily a no-brainer moral stance for the general population.
There's a fantastic book about this written by Julia Serrano called 'Whipping Girl' [2] that goes over these things and more and describes these phenomena as 'Transmisogyny' - trans individuals being subject to both misogyny and misandry depending on the situation, and sometimes both when it's convenient.
[1] - https://freedomforallamericans.org/legislative-tracker/anti-...
[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Whipping-Girl-Transsexual-Scapegoatin...
https://juliaserano.medium.com/debunking-trans-women-are-not...
Have you ever characterized something which you don't necessarily agree with, but appears genuine and well argued, as "reasonable"?
Her words. I read it. In the essay Rowling says explicitly that she doesn't think trans women should be allowed to use women's bathrooms or women's shelters, dismisses concerns about suicide rates in the trans community, and lumps in advocates for trans rights with Donald Trump and incels as part of a new wave of anti-feminist sentiment sweeping the liberal west.
I didn't find it well argued or reasonable, it's a rehashing of tired arguments that transphobic people have been making on Mumsnet and Fox News in the US for years.
I'm a trans woman too. Can you please explain to me how "trans women are women" is transphobic?
I have said "I am a trans woman" many times in my life. Can you please explain whether I was being transphobic at those times?
Many thanks.
Me too!
> Can you please explain to me how "trans women are women" is transphobic?
The relevant statement is "trans women are trans women," which is how Adichie responded when asked if trans women are women. Of itself that statement is of course not transphobic, it's a tautology.
The problem is that in this case "trans women are trans women" and "trans women are women" are shibboleths for a set of beliefs about whether trans women should be seen as women (like lesbian women) in the eyes of society and the law. When people say "trans women are trans women," and go on to say that because we're trans we shouldn't be allowed in women's bathrooms, and other spaces for women, with the unspoken implication being that we aren't "real" women, I think that's transphobic. I don't know all of what Adichie believes. I know she finds JK Rowling's views reasonable, and that she has hinted at agreeing with them before (such as in this instance.)
Are they?
Maybe we can start by defining exactly what it means to be "transphobic", so we can decide both:
1) whether someone is or not transphobic;
2) how bad it is to be transphobic.
So how do you define "transphobic"?
I’m a trans woman. Two things can be true here:
1. Adichie is transphobic.
2. Whatever the harms of her transphobia, the other person referenced in this post behaved egregiously outside of professional and personal norms in attacking Adichie, and this behavior is not appropriate in any circumstance.
Too often I think people complain about how they are treated on social media, or about “ideological orthodoxy,” as a proxy for defending opinions that they understand to be offensive. But it’s perfectly reasonable to think both that Adichie’s opinions on trans people are offensive, and that the offense does not justify the aggression she received here.