I agree with some of what you say. Thing is people are throwing out the "transhophic" accusation to ANYONE who says ANYTHING they don't like on trans discussions. I used to smart at it, recoil as i hate bigotry and intolerance. Now i shrug it off, it has become meaningless to me. Some people know being called transhobic will hurt and shame people and they do it deliberately to shut you up, discredit you, marginalise you. I don't care if i get called transhopic - not any more.
Exactly. 'Transphobic' has no meaning any more, it's just what pretty much everyone who isn't trans is now referred to as.
Things that are actually transphobic:
⁃ to ridicule, harass, or intimidate a person for being trans.
⁃ to attack a person for being trans.
⁃ to hate a person just because they are trans.
⁃ to refuse to hire someone just because they are trans.
⁃ to exclude trans people from places that are open to all men and women just because they are trans.
⁃ to exclude trans people from opportunities that are open to all men and women just because they are trans.
⁃ to deliberately misgender a person after they have told you how they wish to be referred to. (Even if you don't personally believe that someone born a he can become a she, misgendering to someone's face is unnecessarily rude -- the problem is with the overall movement, not with individuals).
Things that are not transphobic:
⁃ to talk about women's rights, pregnancy, abortion, menstruation, birth control, motherhood etc as women's issues.
⁃ acknowledging that a person raised as a man will have benefitted from male privilege whether they think they are a woman or not.
⁃ to have spaces and opportunities specifically aimed at women where male bodied people may not participate.
⁃ to not want people who are male-bodied to enter spaces specifically for women when the only thing that distinguishes them from men is that they say they they are women.
⁃ to limit trans women's access to activities and opportunities open to women only where being raised male or being male-bodied provides a significant advantage to trans women over women.
⁃ to want to keep safe spaces for vulnerable women where male-bodied people may not go (DV shelters, rape crisis centres, hospitals, prisons).
⁃ to maintain single sex areas in bathrooms, changing rooms, communal showers etc where male-bodied people cannot enter.
⁃ to say you are a woman without particularly 'identifying' as a woman.
⁃ to ask to be referred to as a woman and not a ciswoman.
⁃ to want to be referred to as a woman and not a person (see: articles on midwifes changing wording to 'pregnant person' or 'birthing individual).
⁃ to view penises as male organs and breasts and vaginas as female organs.
⁃ to not be attracted to people with a penis if you're a straight man or lesbian, and to not be attracted to people with a vagina if you're a straight woman or gay man.
⁃ to not believe that a person can physically change sex. As long as you don't go around doing any of the things listed as transphobic above, it's still OK to not believe that a person cannot change sex.
⁃ believing that it is damaging to allow young children/young people to take potentially dangerous hormones.
⁃ to believe there is no such thing as a male brain or a female brain.
⁃ to not believe that trans women know what being a woman feels like, or that trans men know what being a man feels like. I am a woman and I do not know what being a woman feels like. Being uncomfortable with your body/sexual characteristics and not conforming to gender norms is not the same thing as knowing how it feels to be the opposite sex. Being feminine =/= being a woman; being masculine =/= being male.
Much of what we are told is transphobic is also contradictory. It's transphobic to say a penis is male and a vagina is female, yet people have surgery to change their penis or vagina because they don't agree that it matches their gender. Why is it OK for a trans person to be uncomfortable with their penis to the extent that they have it removed, but it's not OK for me to be uncomfortable with a penis in a woman-only space? If gender doesn't exist, how can you feel like you are one gender or another? Why is it OK that a straight trans woman doesn't want to have sex with me because I'm a woman, but it's not OK for a lesbian to not want to have sex with a trans woman who has a penis?
The trans movement has the potential to be incredibly damaging to women and if it sounds like I'm repeating what's been said a million times, it's because what is being repeated isn't being heard. Of course trans people need and deserve rights. Everyone needs and deserves rights. But one group's rights MUST NOT impinge upon the rights of another group. I have no problem with trans people whatsoever. I have no problem with trans people whatsoever -- it's their body, their mind, their life. They should be protected and they should have their opportunities and facilities and their safe spaces. But not at the expense of another large group of people (women). We could very easily create spaces and opportunities and facilities for trans people, but that's apparently not enough. We could talk about 'women and trans men' where women's issues are being discussed that may also affect trans men. We could talk about trans women when referring to achievements of trans women instead of referring to them as 'the first woman to....' etc. But none of that is apparently enough. Trans people want all the rights of a 'special' group without it being acknowledged that they're a group distinguishable from the general population at all (like trying to talk about gay rights while simultaneously saying you have to refer to just 'people' so it's impossible to tell that there's a difference between gay people and straight people). It's really not an easy thing to reconcile while being fair to everyone, but the solution isn't to marginalise women. It can't be.
As the trans movement tramples all over women's rights, there is something wrong and people should be talking about it ad infinitum until there is a change. People often say 'substitute trans for black and it's the same as racism' but it's not. If you want a race analogy, it's more like a group of white people identifying as black and insisting on shutting down black rights and eliminating the word 'black' from anything targeted toward black people because 'some black people are white'. Everything is geared towards putting the rights of trans people over the rights of women. Trans women's rights erases women by forcing women to accept that there will be male-bodied people in women's spaces (and women must not complain, because transphobic); trans men's rights erases women by changing the way issues that are specifically related to having female organs are spoken about by replacing word that refer to women with gender-neutral language (and women must not complain, because transphobic).
There have been many instances of reporting in the news of organizations pushing a move towards gender neutral language recently. There have been some that have pushed for people to stop using words that refer to men (like 'mankind' for example) in favour of gender neutrality. But despite years and years and years of women campaigning for rights and to be considered equal to men, this change and desire for gender neutrality in language only came about so that trans people would not be made to feel uncomfortable. Trans rights are already considered above women's rights. So until the trans movement stops erasing women, I will keep saying these things.
I am not hateful. I'm concerned for our future. What people refer to as a 'post-gender' society is a misnomer. A post-gender society, if things continue the way they are, is not post-gender at all. It's post-women. A society that puts men, women who feel like men, and men who feel like women, over and above all women. And women aren't even allowed to complain.