While this may be a thing, what I have observed is that those most concerned with feminism in tech offer pretty consistent solidarity with their trans brothers and sisters. I don't believe this was invoked in good faith. Next level concern troll.

Thanks for discussing this issue and offering links, too.

Why thank them for providing you sources strictly on one side of the issue? Here's a self-identified "radical feminist" take on it: http://againstallevidence.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/cant-we-a...

  > self-identified feminist

as opposed to what? Certified feminist?

You can be a human, you can be someone with the flu, but you can't really "be" a feminist, or any other political "ist", being that there's no agreed-upon definition of the word. So it's more productive to talk in terms of people "identified as" X.

Just 'Feminist and transphobic' somehow seemed wrong language-wise. That might just be because English is not my native language though, so I've edited the comment.

It calls into question one's worldview as a feminist if you are busy discriminating on gender expression.

It seems logically inconsistent.

Whether it is logically inconsistent depends on how you define several terms. Of course everyone is going to choose definitions that make their points of view self-consistent... so that obstacle needs to be cleared first. You very quickly fall down a relativist hole.

The best way out of that hole is to describe things literally, with as little interpretation as possible.

For example, if you interview a hypothetical person Alex, and Alex claims to be a feminist, then you could write: "Alex, a self-described feminist, ..." but should perhaps avoid writing "Alex, a feminist, ..."

The first only relies on you, the audience, and Alex agreeing on the very basics of the English language. The second implies some sort of agreement between you and Alex on what it is to be a feminist; basically you are injecting your assessment of Alex's beliefs. In the first, the audience may disagree with Alex, but they should have very little room to disagree with you. In the second, the audience disagreeing with Alex pulls you into the fray as well.

You will find irrational extremists on either side of every political issue. In the case of gender relations, you have the religious right and MRA wackos on one extreme and the mysandric, transphobic "RadFem" fruitcakes on the other.

Much of "radical feminism" holds that gender isn't about expression, and that you can't switch genders as much as you can switch races. This makes people extremely uncomfortable, of course

Do you agree with the following definitions commonly used when discussing gender issues?

Sex: Assigned biological category -- male or female: designated at birth by visual assessment of anatomy based upon presumption of reproductive role.

Sexual Orientation: Term for an individual's physical and/or emotional attraction relative to their own sex such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or straight.

Gender: The social meaning given to biological sex.

Gender Expression: External characteristics and behaviors associated with gender that are socially defined and associated with masculine or feminine. For transgender people, their gender expression doesn't match their biological sex.

Transgender: People who identify with a gender that is different from their biologically assigned gender.

Intersexed: Describes people who are born with external genitalia, chromosomes, or internal reproductive systems that are not traditionally associated with either a "standard" male or female.

Cis-gender: People who identify with the sex or gender they were assigned at birth.

Gender is generally assumed to be defined as that part of 'sexual identity' which is a social construct and hence changeable.

When I say "gender" I mean the thing as described here (i.e. Rachel's working definition of it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot8cBm0YmXo

I think the phenomenon is brought up in discussions of sexism in the tech industry disproportionate to the degree to which it occurs. I don't think people who typically bring it up are actually concerned with the issue, but rather want to poke a stick at the notion of feminism itself.

Nice job bringing up one side of the issue. Here's the other:

http://againstallevidence.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/cant-we-a...

http://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/the-on...

http://radfemriseup.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/30-women-meet-f...

http://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/shared...

I'm not sure whether your first sentence is meant as snide, but given the quality of your posts on gender issues in general I'll assume you're just taking the opportunity to elucidate the logic behind both viewpoints.

I do have to say that as a person somewhere on the trans* spectrum some of those posts do feel rather hateful towards 'my kind' though.

You specifically posted links equating radical feminist concerns with queer theory/transactivism with "transphobia," cheapening real transphobia, given that the links I posted (have you read them? I recommend them) illustrate that "radical feminist" desired exclusion of transwomen from conferences, etc, is not motivated by hatred, but a gender politics that doesn't have much to do with queer theory/transactivism specifically.

If you think I'm saying bigoted things (or trans*-spectrum-phobic), I'd appreciate knowing where I've done that so I can learn not to.

I simply shared two wikipedia articles on the topic to refer to a somewhat impartial source and added an article which illustrated the existence of a transphobic fringe within the feminist community.

I didn't intend to make any statement concerning exclusion or condemnation of transwomen from conferences; although it seems like you did jump to that conclusion. Neither did I explicitly mention 'radical feminism.'

As for feedback; the part that's hurtful here is that while the article I posted seems to take great care to attempt to perform a level-headed in-depth deconstruction of transphobia in the feminist community and painstakingly ensuring to criticise specific behaviour by specific people rather than the feminist community as a whole.

Many of the articles you linked invoke a variety of ad-hominems, strawmen and generally mostly seem aimed at eliciting a certain emotional response towards the trans community.

Actual transphobia (like the rampant homophobia, specifically against lesbians, before it) in "feminist" communities is tragic, just as it is anywhere. I don't mean to excuse bigots, only to provide context for the discussion of the political exclusion of (rather than emotional, bigoted marginalization and violence against) transwomen from women-only spaces, which is the overall topic at hand here and the concern of many radical feminists.

As I suspected we're mostly on the same page then with the main difference being (if I'm correct) that I interpreted radical feminists as the subset of feminists who hold radical beliefs rather than referring to a specific 'radical feminist' belief system and its views on trans* issues (whose existence I was not aware of until now.)

I see now, I assumed a different motivation on your part than there was in reality. I apologize.