Legitimate Concerns
Angela Rayner, Toilets & Categorisation
Recently, Labour MP Angela Rayner was asked on the radio by a 19 year old trans woman if she thought that Labour would do a better job for trans people than the Conservatives have. As part of her reply, she stated “Transgender Women’s Rights are Women’s Rights”. As is to be expected, today on Twitter “Transwoman” is trending.
Most of the discourse is what you would expect - trans women being called men, and being accused of deception and sexual deviance. Occasionally, there’ll be some half hearted attempt to acknowledge our “humanity” but it’s always undercut with: But that gives you no right to invade a woman’s space. You are a man.
It’s exhausting to read, mainly because almost every reaction to the call shows a wilful refusal to engage in the actual complexity of the topic. A common sentiment is something like: How are trans women “women”. Can they have babies? Can they get abortions? Can they menstruate? Etc. This is usually followed by someone reminding us that you “can’t change your sex!!!”. But by using those biological signifiers as entry points to “womanhood”, I can’t help but feel like it reduces women down to those very things. I think ultimately, at this point, it’s sort of useless to point this out though, because a lot of people have seemingly decided that that’s an alright thing to do. “Yes, my womanhood is defined by my reproductive organs. And I’m fine with that”.
Meanwhile, it’s trans people who are so often accused of having the “regressive” outlook on identity. Our attempt to live authentically to how we feel is reduced to an apparently calculated “impersonation” of womanhood. In reality, most of us would prefer to have no labels whatsoever - and just be free to total self expression that isn’t dictated by words and categories. Unfortunately, that isn’t the world we live in right now.
We are accused of “believing we can change our sex” when again, the reality is more so that we don’t care about sex. To me, my chromosomes are inconsequential. Why should they dictate how I move through the world? I know most gender critical people don’t believe in “gender”, but unfortunately for them - that only ends up making them sound like extremists. Gender is a well established concept at this point, and dismissing it feels like when people say “I don’t believe human beings need food to survive. I only eat air”. You’re doing yourself no favours at all.
To me though, the single most egregious part of this whole “conversation” at the moment, is the refusal to acknowledge trans women’s day to day lived, social experience. Whether you think of me as a “legitimate” woman or not, the idea that you would put my inability to menstruate OVER the very real, tangible fact that I am perceived as, and treated like a woman every single day of my life - is sort of disgraceful. Again, it only goes to show that the gender critical mindset is one obsessed with labels and categorisation. It’s a deeply conservative point of view, which rejects philosophy and thinks intersectionality is “woke woo woo”.
While you’re debating exactly how many signifying facial features or skeletal shapes are required in a person to authorise them membership into “womanhood”, I’m literally being harassed in Iceland Supermarket by a creepy guy in socks and sandals.
If “womanhood” is what gender critical people say it is, then I’ll be honest with you - I don’t want it. If being a “woman” is to align myself with their kind, I reject that outright. It might sound like a cliche sentiment, but above everything I just want the freedom to be myself. But most importantly, I want a societal infrastructure that ALLOWS me to do that without degraded, or seeking to define me as something I am not. That is why we fight for access, because the alternative is societal exclusion. Those who petition for trans women to use men’s toilets KNOW that we won’t. So, they also KNOW that it will force us out of public life. They KNOW that a “third toilet option” or “widespread unisex spaces” is an unrealistic pipe-dream. They remember a time when trans people were less visible, and they miss those good old days. Again, conservative.
One thing people are forgetting that Rayner said was “Women have legitimate concerns”. Although I definitely appreciate Rayner’s willingness to publicly come out in support of trans people, to me, this part reads like someone attempting to not alienate a gender-critical voter base, while also having to confront the human, social reality of the the clearly hurt and worried 19 year old trans person on the phone. It also sort of undermines the sentiment a little bit, considering that the “legitimate concerns” she’s referring to are usually something close to “trans women are men and rapists”.
Trans Women are like Cis Women is one, very major way. Our concerns are also legitimate. And if you can’t see that, I’m sorry to tell you - you are a bad person.