Intersectionality

[ellaoldie]

Can someone with more knowledge of feminist theory than me clear up a point of confusion. I've seen accusations that feminism which excludes trans women is not ( sufficiently) intersectional.

Surely the factor/axis that race, fertility, culture, age intersect with is biology? What other factor would connect all the groups? So a feminism that excludes biology as the common factor cannot by definition be intersectional. Is that right?
Or is thete another non-biological axis on which group "trans" intersects with group ""woman"? I'd be interested to hear from any experts in theory of feminism.

Intersectional feminism concerns how other areas of disadvantage or oppression intersect with feminism: race, disability, etc.

TRAs and clueless libfems (who have no intellectual basis that forms their feminism) try to harness intersectional feminism to include men who identify as women. This is bollocks because feminism isn't about men, regardless of how they identify.

I don't know if some of the previous discussions about Crenshaw and intersectionality might be useful for you.

www.mumsnet.com/SearchArch?mustmatch=crenshaw+intersectionality&dontmatch=&nickname=&src_displ_option=s_m_d_m&fromDate=&toDate=&topicmode=All&availtops=-1

Among the more extensive threads:
Can someone explain why intersectional feminism might be problematic?
Transwomen are women' and the irony of intersectional feminism

Transwomen aren't women. So they don't intersect with feminism.

Just call me Gloria Steinem

To answer the second part, what TRA's like to claim is that we don't think transpeople are 'real', or we believe they don't have a right to 'exist'.

Transpeople intersect with women on the axis of homo-sapien, so of course they have the right to exist and live their lives without fear.

I'm no theorist, never mind expert in theory. But -

I would say that anyone who claim that feminism which excludes trans women is not intersectional just plain doesn't know what they're talking about. They're so desperate to virtue-signal their inclusivity that they're prepared to hijack intersectionality. Well, they're hijacking feminism already, so why not?

Lastly, TRAs often claim that they are "widening the bandwidth of woman". Women have been fighting to widen the bandwidth of woman for decades. TRAs could do boys men a massive favour by widening the bandwidth of what it means to be a man, thus freeing men from gender stereotyping. But they don't want to do that

Sorry to bang on. As you see, I am no academic

Somebody else will hopefully put this better than me but isn't it just another line of argument appropriated from race theories? This appropriation is particularly distasteful in that I think Kimberle Crenshaw's theory came about in order to highlight that a factory which was happy to hire black men to do manual labour but not black women in its offices was in fact discriminatory (data on sex and race of employees would not show that up). We will need something similar in the future when data on gender shows that there is a 50/50 split in a boardroom when in fact 100% are biologically male.

Intersectional feminism should include trans identifying biological females, of course. Trans people do experience particular issues and it is right to address them.

TRAs and clueless libfems (who have no intellectual basis that forms their feminism) try to harness intersectional feminism to include men who identify as women. This is bollocks because feminism isn't about men, regardless of how they identify.

This this this.

Intersectionality has been hijacked by TRAs.

A very basic explanation of intersectionality as espoused by Crenshaw is: women face oppression. Black people face oppression. Black women are therefore oppressed due to both sex and race.

The same kind of analysis can be applied to disabled women, homosexual women, etc.

The TRA definition of intersectionality only works if you unquestioningly accept the TWAW narrative in which case it goes like this: women face oppression, transwomen face oppression, therefore transwomen are oppressed both due to their trans status and their sex.

Thanks for responses - and links@

Agree Transplants et al. If feminism intersects with anything and everything that may constitute oppression or disadvantage, then it becomes human-ism or mammal-ism or anything-on-planet-earth-ism.

For it to be related to or a part of feminism it (surely) has to have female human ness in common and as its basis.

The issues that transwomen face are difficult and complicated for sure, but stem almost entrely from their being trans/ males who do not feel male.

Not a feminnist scholar (obvs) but just common/ educated sense isn't it?

The main issue I gave with people misrepresenting intersectionality is that they use it to exclude biological women.
The obvious example was the endless tweets about needing to be intersectional and be inclusive of trans women by not posting images of uteruses on International Womens Day.
Except if you're not talking about issues related to uteruses, you're excluding the vast majority of biological women. That's not what intersectionality is.
There are always issues that directly affect some women but not all -- rape, FGM, abortion rights, domestic violence etc.
Yet it's only the trans activists who are going round telling other activists: 'Be intersectional. Consider me when you talk about issues that don't affect me'
This is why I find the 'Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist' term so ironic.
It's not the feminists doing the excluding here, it's the TRAs who are trying to exclude any issue relating to female biology or experience from 'feminism'.
Bloody cheek tbh.

The reason there is no debate is that they really get irate when all this is pointed out.

The same people who insisted that men must be included in Feminism in the name of equality are now claiming that men must be included in Feminism in the name of intersectionality. Different century, same old misogyny.
5th rule of misogyny: Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.

I agree with previous posters.
It depends on your definition of feminism. If feminism is for females, then it will necessarily include trans men/non-binary individuals who are female born. If your feminism is for anyone who "identifies as a woman," then you will not find a single unifying factor in the category "identifies as a woman" group apart from that everyone will answer "yes" if you ask them "are you a woman?" So it may be a little difficult to find what the greater unifying causes for the feminist activism ought to be.
I personally think intersectionality has been mis-applied. The way I understand it is that it is NOT a tool to sub-divide people into micro-identities, but actually a lens to look at how various forms of discrimination might be amplified and work together. So that in feminism we are mindful of the fact that other forms of discrimination may have an effect on misogyny/sexism and make certain combinations of identities uniquely experienced. An example of this might be racist stereotyping of Asian women. But the crucial thing to remember is that for feminism to work there has to be a way to analyze the experiences of women, specifically, and that within the category of women's experiences we are now introducing completely separate factors to do perform such work, because race or medical conditions have no bearing on whether someone is of the female sex. We need a definition which unifies females somehow. Otherwise it's just "people-ism". The only reliable way to do this is the fact that they belong to the female sex. The only thing I can hypothesize that I have in common with a female in Niger is that we are both of the female sex. If your feminism is for females, then you might analyze whether misogyny has any bearing on females who have a different gender identity, which does make it intersectional and inclusive of trans people. However, trans women would be considered to have a journey that is specific to male-bodied individuals, because females cannot (by definition) become trans women. When are we to speak of the biological factors that unite females if we cannot do so within feminism? Who is to speak for biological females, if feminism will now?

YY WibblePod

Someone on another thread, Erishkigal maybe, suggested calling TRAs and women/ anti female activists. Because excluding women's issues seems to be at the heart of their agenda and/or becasue they cannot bear not to be the 'most centred' group.

Crenshaw explained her position on the matter and the transgender advocates respected her every bit as much as they do intersex people who tell them not to conflate trans with intersex. Not at all.

The intersection of feminism and trans rights is transmen, surely? Who are indeed disadvantaged by being both female and trans.

According to the genderists ideology the transmen are in the oppressor class and so must be excluded.

It's funny to note that gender ideology seems to say that biological females oppress trans women (who again by definition must be biologically male) at all times, whether females identify as women or not.

What did Crenshaw herself say about intersectionality and trans, then? I have looked but can only find people referencing her.

It is in one of her interviews. I will see if I still have it.

As someone more eloquent than myself put it...

Those who call themselves intersectional feminists try and claim that radical feminists never cared about additional barriers and oppression faced by black women. They claim "terfs" are "white feminists" which means they only focus on prudish bourgeois concerns. But it's all a farce. It's actually the other way round. So called intersectional feminists are all about helping Muslims access halal lipstick and ensuring men are able to pretend to strangle women during sex.
We should call "intersectional feminists" welfs: women exclusionary Liberal feminists.

So called intersectional feminists are all about helping Muslims access halal lipstick and ensuring men are able to pretend to strangle women during sex.

This. Or actually get away with strangling them, if they are "anti carceral feminists".