Inconvenient nuance

Assimilationists want to be accepted by a society that demands for things to be simple and easy to understand. To achieve this, they want to provide simple categories and fit everyone into these. (Even if they have to grind the edges off of some people to make them fit)

As a practical example: assimilationists are very fond of the “born this way” narrative for gay people. Sexuality is immutable. This is convenient for dissuading people from practices like conversion therapy. But it is an oversimplification, or more directly, a lie.

We know that sexuality can be fluid. We know it can change. We know that it’s possible for people to repress their sexuality too. The reason we should not have conversion therapy is not so simple as “it’s literally impossible for it to work” and is actually the more moralistic, less objective “it’s a violation of autonomy to try to change someone’s sexuality against their will”.

The truth is more annoying to argue for, because its less palatable to mainstream society. And don’t get me wrong, simplifications can be useful for introducing people to new ideas. Consider most primary school educational content, it’s not the whole truth but it builds the foundation for more complex truths later on.

If you’re talking to a conservative, by all means use these simplifications. But don’t fall for them yourself! Don’t mistake them for accurate descriptions of reality.

I want to say some things which I believe to be true, but which liberals would think are dangerous ideas:

• Trans men can be lesbians
• Using slurs is ok as long as you have the right to reclaim them
• Trans women can be faggots
• Lesbians can be attracted to men
• You can fuck people you aren’t attracted to

I think generally speaking, queer liberationists should be pretty comfortable with these statements.

Ok, with that background, now I want to talk about something more controversial. Again, this is a potentially dangerous idea, but I wholeheartedly believe it to be truthful and I believe it is important to engage with as leftists.

Trans women are women, but they are (in some ways) different to cis women.

This really shouldn’t be controversial. Look at it from this perspective: I think every trans person will say that they have unique perspectives that come from being trans, which cis people will not relate to. Trans women have lived experiences that cis women lack.

Ok, but now consider a less comfortable perspective: cis women may have experiences that trans women may not have.

Some things I’ve noticed:

• In my experience, trans women tend to throw around gendered insults like “bitch” more readily than cis women. We have a right to use these terms of course, since we are women. But while other trans women might find it affirming to be called a bitch, perhaps we should be more careful when referring to cis women as bitches. And does the fact that we have more recently earned the right to use these terms make us a bit too eager to use it?
• Trans women tend to have different ideas around personal safety than cis women. Personally I have the opinion that some of this is irrational and comes from the “fear culture” that AFAB people are raised with, but that’s through my own lens. An AFAB person is likely to instead explain it based on their experiences being catcalled or stalked, and it would be wrong for me to deny this perspective.
• Trans women talk about ewphoria from receiving sexism, catcalling, etc… Cis women don’t usually experience this, and so these issues are likely to affect cis women in ways that many trans women won’t quite understand.

Fundamentally, in order to practice intersectionality right, there are circumstances where as well as recognising “women” and “trans people” as being oppressed classes under the kyriarchy, we also sometimes need to consider “AFAB” as its own class. Or “people who were perceived as female by strangers during their teenage years”. There’s actually no limit to how numerous or how specific the classes we consider in intersectionality can be. Any class that has different lived experiences can be considered.

I am sick of trans women being dismissive of AFAB perspectives, because we’re women and so we’re in our lane to talk about these things. Especially when those AFAB people are also trans / non-binary, so we already know that they understand the trans perspective.

Ok, but now to backpedal a little bit, we HAVE to be careful about where we apply this kind of analysis. TERFs would absolutely love to consider “AFAB” as a crucial class in intersectional analysis. You have to think critically and use judgement to understand which classes are relevant to a topic, and when people are speaking outside of their lane.