Would I call myself a feminist? On one hand, yes. I am woman. Hear me roar. On the other hand, though, feminism has taken a turn in recent years such that I now question the movements aims. Specifically, I am speaking of fourth-wave feminism, where a focus on Gender Identity Politics (GIP) has resulted in the promotion of a problematic set of terms that limits rather than includes, that expels rather than welcomes. Perhaps most challenging for me is that the premise of fourth wave feminism’s inclusion chips away at how I define my own gender, so I felt the need to speak out.
How did I get to this point? For most of my adult life I’ve always advocated for a “live and let live” perspective. If someone believes that their birth identity differs from their true identity, who am I to judge? If this person finds peace and happiness in expressing their unique sexual preference and identity, I feel happy for them. I also believe firmly that they deserve all the rights and freedoms of every other living human on the planet. One’s identity should never limit their ability to live fully, to pursue employment goals, or to seek relationships that add richness to their lives. Because I feel this way, I have no qualms with “coming out” parties for all the acronyms, pronouns, and identities – that is, as long as they don’t negate my own biological identity, rights, and future possibilities.
I began thinking about this troubling deconstruction of “female” after I recently read a Tweet somewhere that went something like this: “There is nothing that I hate more than a feminist.” It was in reference to a woman who was accepting an award in film, an industry monopolized by men. Among other things, her speech addressed a field where she had to work diligently – and at times harder than her male comrades – to get to the position of power that she now holds. As a woman in the Fine Art field, a field similarly dominated by men for centuries, I can understand the sentiment. In my opinion the art world today has attained a more level playing field, as exceptional female artists have reclaimed a greater stake. Although there are still industries that are not as fortunate, the progress in equality for women nevertheless grows with every generation.
I was raised in a household unique for its time, as my sex was never positioned as a hinderance on my ability. I was taught to believe that whatever I put my mind to I could achieve with effort and diligence. That’s not to say that my life was without trial in regard to my biology, as I was at times confronted with teachers and certain family members who believed my sex was my handicap. For example, my grandfather disliked me because I was smart and girls were not supposed to be smart. Then there was my guidance counselor in high school, who told me that I should consider a trade school because women didn’t belong in university. Fortunately, my mother and father’s belief in me held more weight, and I was brought up to believe in myself and the fact that what was between my legs would not determine my career or lack thereof.
Part of this confidence perhaps stemmed from the growing equality of women that had been achieved over generations. There were, for example, the hard-fought campaigns like the suffragettes (early 1900s) who fought for women’s right to vote, the Women’s Liberation Movement (1960-80’s) that effected political and intellectual change, and the Riot Grrrls of the 1990s, who were a hardcore punk movement bringing feminism into a male-dominated music scene. In recent years we’ve experienced what is considered the fourth wave of feminism (2012-present day) that was first coined by the “Me Too” movement and includes doctrines on gender identity equality. Pivotal to this fourth wave of feminism is the element of the inclusion. Women’s movements throughout history have been accused of rejecting women of color as well as trans women, but the fourth wave prides itself on racial inclusion and gender diversity or non-binary gender inclusion, including the LGBTQ2S+ pronouns and recognizing transgender women as “real” women. This shift toward such an inclusive platform is really crucial, because women of every color and identity have experienced hardships all over the world.
The practice of inclusion is a great in theory, yet ironically, the effort to create equality within the GIP movement has resulted in the growing erasure of the identity of biological females. Hints of this cancelation can be seen in the way the words we use are defined. Instead of woman, girl, mother, or female, the GIP would rather call biological females pregnant person, birthing parent, menstruator, chest feeder, ovulator (not even a word), uterus haver, or bleeder. These terms reinforce the very objectification of women that feminists have worked to abolish for a century. Transgender women, however, are still able to refer to themselves as women. Is there really any question why biological women are getting upset about this? Why a feminist in her 70s who’s worked diligently over the course of her life to fight the patriarchy is now upset that a group of men who chose to transition to women have decided that biological women should be dehumanized and objectified? All I can see here is the irony, because as they cancel women they are also canceling themselves.
When Caitlyn Jenner won “Woman of the Year” award in 2016, I didn’t feel much about it, other than acknowledging the ridiculousness of it. A transgender woman, having lived as a woman for less than a year, received an award that prior recipients received for living as females their entire lives. This isn’t transphobia talking (again, if Caitlyn Jenner has found her happiness, that is great); rather, it is just to note how her journey – and her celebrity – perhaps skewed the symbolism of the award (tell me the recipient of “Woman of the Year” from the year prior from your own memory and I think my point is proven). More recently, though, I thought back to Jenner’s acceptance of this award when world-renowned singer Adele was called transphobic when she accepted the Artist of the Year award. This award used to be subdivided in to “Best Male” and “Best Female” categories, but in receiving the ungendered version she stated, in short, that she understood the gender neutrality of the award but was still proud to be a female artist. Being proud of being a successful, world-renowned female musician in an industry monopolized by men is not transphobic, in the same way that being proud to be a successful transgender person in an industry monopolized by men is not female-phobic. They are completely unrelated.
Adele’s story opened the floodgates of my evolving education in the land of transgenderism and transphobia. All of a sudden, the term “transphobe” was being thrown around like a frisbee. People of every gender identity or lack thereof started accusing successful, self-made women of being transphobes simply for acknowledging their journey to success in industries monopolized by men. Heterosexuals were being called transphobes if they didn’t find transgender people sexually attractive. I don’t find short men attractive; does this mean I’m a short-phobe? On that same note, I have thick thighs, if a man doesn’t find that attractive does that make him thigh-phobic? These might seem extreme examples, but these hypotheticals point to the potentially problematic ways we use such terms.
My lukewarm response to cases like Caitlyn Jenner and Adele bubbled into boiling anger, though, when I started learning about young female athletes losing titles and medals to transgender women. I think we can all agree that a young, athletic man who has gone through puberty and has trained athletically as a man will be stronger and faster than an athletic woman. Admittedly, being on hormone treatments after such training may decrease the male athlete’s testosterone and musculature while increasing fat. This transformation, though, will not magically turn his body into a woman’s body, thereby making the competition unequal and unethical. Even in a sport like CrossFit, where female competitors have often been criticized as looking like men because of their musculature, there is still separate categories for male and female competitors because of the inequality of their biology. Why is this the case? Because there is a biological difference between men and women.
To put it another way: there is a reason why there are no transgender male athletes competing on biological male teams. I have yet to hear the same controversy being used in relation to transgender men. Moreover, I haven’t heard of a transgender man winning “Man of the Year” or “Best Male Actor” or even making the cut on a male athletic team, let alone winning an actual medal. Regardless of the hormones and surgeries the transgender male consumes, if he was born and lived a large portion of his life as a female, his biological makeup would simply not include the musculature or bone structure to compete against athletic men.
The problem here is the pressure that this places on biologically female athletes. These young women are living in fear of losing not only their scholarships but the very sport in which they’ve trained their entire lives. If they say nothing, they run the risk of steeper competition for scholarships in the future; if they instead choose to stand up for their rights and acknowledge the inequality of competing against a transgender woman who’s lived the majority of her life as a man, how will that statement be received?
I have heard of women being called transphobes should they question a man’s ability to give birth. Should a transgender man decide to get pregnant, he then has to stop his hormone treatment and revert to a female hormone cycle in order to conceive. And yet, society seems to cancel out biological women yet again by claiming that pregnant transgender men can give birth. My intention in pointing out these truths is not to in turn cancel transgenderism or their right to equality but rather to seek a real solution to achieve that equality.
I am a woman, and I am proud to be a woman. That shouldn’t be used as a weapon against me. It should be celebrated as an achievement in a world that has subjugated women for exactly that. As a woman in my generation, I have been raised with socially constructed ideas of what women do with their lives and bodies, such as getting married and birthing children, but I am also seeing those constructs evaporate amongst the young ladies of today as they are choosing their life paths for themselves. I too chose to live my life differently than what was considered socially acceptable at the time and was treated differently because of it. My biology was used as a weapon back then too. Thankfully I am from a generation where a century of women and men before me fought for my rights and freedoms to such an extent that in the end it was my choice as to whether I abided by those socially constructed ideologies or not. This was a luxury not afforded previous generations of women, yet it is at risk once again today in the tricky terminology advocated for in fourth wave feminism. In the end, the fourth wave of feminism is using the transphobic argument to recreate the very bigotry and exclusion against women that the transgender and non-binary community have themselves experienced, inflicting further pain and suffering unnecessarily.
We are living in a crazy, topsy-turvy world right now. Sometimes I think that our planet has travelled through a wormhole into a parallel universe where everything is upside down and everything that I thought I knew about humans and our evolution was wrong. I’m honestly shocked that we need to grapple with bigotry veiled under the trending term of “inclusion,” as hate, segregation, and exclusion have never contributed fruitfully to the evolution of humanity. The world is a big place and there is more than enough room for more than two base categories of celebration. The truth that even I hate to acknowledge is that until biological men and women are on equal playing fields across the board we need to reassess how we categorized identities, not to exclude some but rather to really include everyone. Particularly when it comes to athletic competitions, having transgender categories would be the epitome of inclusion. It would be the ultimate recognition of who they are wholly, without needing to cancel anyone to get it. It would be an acknowledgement of their differences, which is what makes them beautiful and worthy of celebration. Rather than cancel the humans who remind you of what you are not, why not celebrate you completely by honoring everything that you are.