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Friday 18 May 2012

Statement on RadFem2012: *All* women together for liberation.

RadFem 2012 is a radical feminism conference being held in London in July. Its website proclaims “women together for liberation”, but as it turns out, they don't mean all women. RadFem's participation policy states that the conference is open to “women born women living as women”. This is a change from an earlier policy of being open only to “biological women”, which – as one wry Tweeter commented – presumably refers to women who work best at 40 degrees. Either way, this policy clearly discriminates against trans* women who might wish to participate in the conference. A trans* woman may live as a woman, experience the pressures, discrimination and inequality associated with being woman, but according to RadFem 2012, they are not quite enough of a woman to be welcome at the conference. This, quite clearly, is discriminatory, disgusting, and – we believe, and very much hope – totally out of step with what most feminists think.

Royal Holloway Feminism Society has members who hold a wide range of theoretical perspectives on feminism – and probably even more who prefer to define themselves as “feminists” rather than as “___ feminists”. As a group, we have different views on many things, including on the importance of women-only spaces in feminist campaigns. One thing that we can all agree on, though, is that transphobia has absolutely no place in our idea of feminism. Equality and transphobia cannot live side by side: you cannot fight for one whilst displaying the other.

We are an active feminist group, and our members have attended several different feminist conferences, and many other feminist events in the past year. However, we will not be supporting or recommending that our members attend RadFem 2012, because we believe that doing so would implicitly support the transphobic stance of the conference. We would encourage other feminist groups to take a similar stance. We suggest that the organisers of the conference rethink their policy, because by excluding trans* women, they will be missing out on the participation of many passionate, dedicated feminists, both trans* and cis, who refuse to be associated with such a transphobic policy and believe that all women should stand together for liberation.

12 comments:

  1. I don't get this, I have a great respect for people who want to claim some space for themselves to spend some time together, for whatever reasons.
    If I, as a lesbian, wanted a lesbian space just for lesbians for 6 hours of my life, am I being disgustingly discriminatory?

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  2. It is pro-female to exclude males from a female-only space. Females have a 100% right to establish a boundary. Trans women should respect this.

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    1. Bugbrennan is a well-known anti-trans radfem herself, so duh...

      FYI transsexual women are women.

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  3. I personally think rad fems have every right to their own space. It's when they invite ALL women except *YOU* including non lesbians BTW that discrimination is taking place.
    Oh yes, transwomen are not women. That's trans misogyny. And fundamentally ignorant. Oppression of other minorities does not set you free.

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  4. I don't think anyone would have a problem if a group of cis women wanted to have a cis-women-only meet-up, but that's really not what RadFem2012 is doing. They're saying something very nasty and bigoted about trans women, and what's even worse, they're trying to make it seem that their bigotry is part of feminism, even though most feminists would strongly disagree with it.

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  5. bugbrennan.com - yes it is pro-female to not allow males in a women only space but trans women are not men they are women so that arguement just does not make sense to me.

    What we have here is trans women who expereince more mysogny and more sexism and more inequality than any other group of women in our society experiencing that very same thing from a group of feminst women, who in my mind should absolutley know better than this! This event is feeding into the very thing they are trying to break down - oppression!

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  6. bee3line - I think it would be more akin to you holding a lesbian-only space, and then turning lesbians away from it because you don't think that they are lesbian "enough"!

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  7. Trans women ARE women and should not only be invited but welcomed with open arms. I shocked by the comments that trans women should respect the 'women only' space. They ARE women. That is bigotry pure and simple. It is also discrimination and I hope some trans women sue!

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  8. How should women's spaces deal with trans women? Welcome them in and give them a big fluffy pillow and chocolate. ;)

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  9. How odd that they are turning away trans men too ("...living as women")! They can clearly recognize MALE gender when they see it, even in someone assigned female at birth. And yet they actively exclude trans women.

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  10. Greetings from Brighton Feminist Collective. So awesome to see other groups take a stand against people who seem to think that it's ok to oppress others whilst fighting oppression themselves! Here's our article on it :)

    http://brightonfeministcollective.org.uk/articles/feminism/brighton-feminist-collective-why-we-cannot-support-radfem-2012

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