Can you be a fully trans inclusive feminist?

[Imdunfer]

Inspired from another thread where it was out of place so I brought it here.

Someone seemed to claim that it was possible to be both be a feminist and to be trans inclusive, where by trans inclusive they mean males in women's spaces and shortlists (the attitude to sport wasn't stated).

I don't believe that you can truly be both, do you?

What do you define as a proper academic circle- and are you part of one?
If not how do you 'know' nobody in these circles thinks like this?

Excellent point. The whole belief system is a childish, simplistic fantasy.

I think the phrases "proper academic circle" and "nobody thinks like this" are probably mutually exclusive.

Biting my lip and going with the cringy sixth-form "proper", no "proper academic circle" worth its salt would respect the idea that thinking in any particular way is beyond the pale. Speaking some stuff, maybe. Thinking it through first, though, before perhaps discounting speaking it on the basis of that thought? No.

Being theoretically open to thinking through anything and everything is what makes them "proper".

Edited for typos and to add... I recognise the apparent paradox of Lexible arguing that academic crircles would never think in what Lexible sees as a close-minded way and me saying, Yeah, actually, they would! But what Lexible's saying seems to be that this debate about what defines feminism lacks validity, on the basis that Lexible themself sees the GC side as reductive and extreme. And I'm saying that that claim in itself is worthy of debate. Especially in a context in which there have been "proper academic circles" who've shut it down because they see it as anathema and to hell with truth (Stock, Bindel etc.) That word "proper" reflects exactly the same right/wrong, black/white attitude, with a smattering of decorum floating around the connotative edges (it's just not proper). Now that's anti-intellectual.

Being female is nothing to do with a “sense” of being female.

It’s our chromosomes, in every cell of our body, it’s having a body geared towards producing eggs, it is having a body that is never going to produce sperm.

Being male or female is not a feeling or a sense. Male and female are used all across the animal and plant kingdoms to mean the two distinct variations of a species that reproduces sexually.

Male and female are words that have quite clear and objective meanings in science, in medicine, in the natural world, outside the circles of true believers in gender ideology.

Agree wholeheartedly
Mouldy, lexi and now totino (who I think might be a youngster)
Have I missed cupboards and Lack? Howse that happen I wonder?

The usual patronising, condescending diatribe from them is so predictable, it's boring. I cannot bothered reading such rubbish in any great detail.
And as for posters talking of 'genuine' or was it 'sincere'? TW and non genuine: wow possibly sounds a little transphobic.

Again- why are these posters wanting to allow men into womens' spaces?
Do they hate women too?

Feminism cannot centre men. Or it wouldn't have been 'invented' ☺️

It's weird because they always say they would know who the liars are and who really really means it and is truly really and wholeheartedly pretending to be the opposite sex. Unlike us thickos who just can't work it out properly.

I wonder how the ‘sense of female/always women’ people explain the documented cases of older people with dementia identifying back as their birth sex?

You’d think that if they knew, they’d let everyone else know so that we could make sure the fraudulent ones couldn’t keep ruining everything for the true transes.

but the sense of being in a female body, then some trans woman experience a form of that

Anything a male person is sensing is, by definition, not something that is unique to being female. It is something that both sexes experience (or possibly only male people).

Are these the posts you were referring to?

-start-

totino · 07/10/2026 18:52

Was away from my desk, but I'll try to reply. I don't think trans woman are ever men. I don't think in general that there is "male" brain and "female" brain, but I think the brain knows whether you're a man or woman. It's been explained to me comparable to phantom pain, when you feel a limb that's missing. The brain scans for a body that should be a certain way but it's not, which is why gender dysphoria exists, and why people transition. I think that's completely authentic and I think it's probably always been around, like how we used to call depression "melancholia" and seizures "having visions", things like that.

I don't think all trans women are meek little lambs because women aren't all meek little lambs. But I don't believe in "trans women are a danger because males are a danger" because I don't believe men are born inherently more sexual, more violent, that they "can't help themselves". Men commit the most crimes, the most violence because they can, because they are the dominant group in society. There's a lot of toxicity around what "being a real man" is, and a lot of bonding rituals around harming and dominating women. A trans woman is neither welcome to this bonding nor does she want it, since she does not consider the men her peers. "Trans women" were once considered effeminate men and "real" men beat them. As they still do.

This is also why I don't think discussion between GCs and trans-inclusive feminists are very productive. They can be interesting, but ultimately we have all heard each other's arguments and we don't agree.

totino · 07/10/2026 19:05

Oh I have no doubt that the original categories of woman/man were based around the reproductive system, it's an easily observable thing. But observations can be incomplete, they can be expanded on, especially in such a long time and with all the things we learn about human nature. I think a definition of woman/man that centers on the reproductive system is incomplete. Most people are cis, so the observation that most women will fall under XX/ova and most men will fall under XY/testes is still correct, it's not the complete picture. You think that the reproductive element should be the deciding factor and I don't. I've written elsewhere about how I think it works psychologically.

totino · 07/10/2026 19:27

I don't think the reproductive system should be the deciding factor. It will be true for most people, but not all.
I believe in most cases it's quite direct. Being addressed as a boy and becoming alienated because that's not what you are. Being referred to as a daughter and thinking that's not right. A consistent experience of alienation that can be alleviated by transition.

-end-

Because there is nothing in these posts that provides any evidence or analytical thinking about why some male people are female when they say they are.

The concern is when statements such as the following are made:

“Housing sex criminals will never be an easy topic, but I actually do think you can tell the difference between someone who is sincere and someone who lies out of desperation. Especially is a risk assessment is performed. It's also true that trans women as a group are not the ones committing rapes in prison, even if rapist trans women exist. (It's known that it's the male staff.) But for the record I believe cis women can also be rapists. And they are also in prison.”

It is concerning, because generally when people consider answers such as these, the question arises that if this is how those male people ended up being placed in female prisons.

Because some people who support that happening believe the soundbites they are told or they read. That they centre a group of male people to such a degree that when someone who repeats platitudes like ‘risk assessment will make sure no male inmates with transgender identities will harm female prison inmates’, those making such statements never drill further to understand how that is going to happen. How does risk assessment work? Where is the rigorously tested process to discover “ who is sincere” and* who is “someone who lies out of desperation.”*

It is all just so dismissive of the needs of female prison inmates. It fully centres the needs of those male people.

And why? Because if at the same time, a person believes that some male peopele have never been ‘male’ and always been ‘female’ then of course it is completely acceptable to repeat the fallacies of ‘it is only male staff abusing female inmates’ and the ‘women do it too!’ fallacy.

Is it because some people don’t want to know the truth? That despite all the reports to the contrary, they maintain this line of ‘those in authority or who must reallly be knowledgable know what they are doing’? Which is an appeal to authority.

Or is this where people show ( I cannot believe that they ‘have’) no understanding that some opinions are not formed from even a shred of evidence and some opinions are formed fully on known and proven facts and science, but that to some people, an opinion is an opinion so all opinion should be treated as if they hold the same value?

Is this why we keep being told that it is all just a matter of opinion and differences of opinion?

Because opinions can be dismissed and therefore dismissing statements of established fact as opinion means that someone can comfortably believe that their position on an issue will not support harm to others. All I can see in these posts is the reproduction of soundbites coming from activist groups that have no foundation in evidence. One reason is because it is a comfortable position to simply believe that a group you are politically interested in is supporting an evidence based position and not one merely from from ideology or philosophical theory.

Yet, anything that people will point out will be dismissed as opinion. Meanwhile, female people are harmed in prison by male inmates who should never have been there

I just saw this on twitter imdunfer and thought of this thread.

https://x.com/runthinkwrite/status/2108208439809671619?s=46

from Jon Pike

-start-

“This is odd.
A handful of people in GC ranks learned some of their politics, decades ago, in @workersliberty. (Today it's sometimes difficult to know who is most embarassed about this - us or them)

Socialist Organiser - as it then was - differentiated itself from the Socialist Workers Party in many ways but one was in relation to sex and feminism. From 1972 the SWP had a special women's newspaper: Women's Voice, but closed it down in July 1982. Women's Voice had, apparently, gone off the rails politically and was not recruiting to the Party sufficently. It was too focussed on specifically women's politics and insufficiently on class politics. There was a long, and, for some, formative debate about the relationship between socialism and feminism.

People in Socialist Organiser, back in the early 80s learned that this decision was wrong. In particular, it was important to assert the 'right of women to organise autonomously.' To that end, SO maintained its own newspaper 'Women's Fightback' And, though it's a bit sporadic, the paper remains to this day.

But what's this? On their website the AWL have posted this weird article, by a trans-identifying male, which questions the name of the paper. The AWL are considering changing the name of their women's paper - by dropping the, er, woman bit.

They assert that 'Feminisim is not just for women' and express their dismay that the title 'Woman's Fightback' causes some alarm that its a GC publication.

The point of this post is to draw attention to this very strange article, but also to show how far the politics of the group have shifted - it is publicly abandoning what seemed to be a well rooted commitment to socialist feminism and to women's autonomy. (You might say that commitment went years ago, but this makes it pretty explicit).”

-end-

https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2026-09-25/our-name-and-our-feminism

I will post the article in another post. It is an article written by a man who wants to remove the word woman from a women’s publication.

OMFG. They want to erase us.

here is part of the letter from this link

https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2026-09-25/our-name-and-our-feminism

-start-

Women’s – Belonging to, relating to, or intended for women.

Now, fighting for an end to the systematic oppression of women obviously relates to women, as does this publication. That fight is intended for women: both in terms of women obviously being interested in the end of their oppression, and women being the drivers of that fight. But that fight is also not intended for women alone…

FEMINISM – NOT JUST FOR WOMEN

While the majority of the work that goes into producing Women’s Fightback, and our feminist work more generally, is done by women (and other non-men oppressed as women), men do also contribute to Women’s Fightback, help to produce and propagate the publication, and read and fight for the demands that we publish. This is essential. Not least because, unlike general class struggle, women are not such a majority as the working class as whole.

That does not mean that we need men to ‘selflessly intervene’ to end women’s oppression, but rather that men need to be interested in ending misogyny and patriarchy – and there is plenty that should interest men towards that end, beyond simply caring for women.

Patriarchy and misogyny harm men. Patriarchy demands that there be clear demarcation between ‘men’ and ‘women’, which not only means that its enforcers must ensure that there are behaviours that women should not possess, and levels they cannot ‘rise’ to, but also means that, conversely, there are behaviours that men should not possess, and levels that they cannot ‘sink’ to. Men, obviously, use these misogynistic standards to threaten and coerce women into subservience, but they also use them to threaten and coerce more reluctant men into their intended role as fellow enforcers of patriarchy. After all, the less that patriarchy is enforced, the weaker it becomes. This results in bullying and violence between boys and men that often leaves lasting scars.

The men who present particular threats to patriarchy, are harmed particularly. The oppression of gay and bisexual men stems from this misogyny, and this is why the harshest punishment is reserved for those men who are most ‘overtly queer’ – to privately transgress what is ‘expected’ of a man is excuse enough for ridicule, but even more severe attacks are aimed at those who publicly challenge the default assumption of heterosexuality, and the expected form of family (and women’s place within that family) that follows from that assumption.

Even men who are relatively unimpacted by patriarchy and misogyny can benefit directly from women’s liberation. Contemporary feminist demands such as: free 24-7 childcare; expanded parental leave for both mothers and fathers; and reduction in working hours without a loss in pay, to increase the time parents can spend with children – all directly benefit men.
It is in the interests of men to fight back against women’s oppression, and so to that end, the fightback certainly relates to, and is intended for men, too.

While some women may respond to this by saying ‘Feminism should focus on women’s oppression, not men’s problems’, part of women’s oppression is directly caused by the harm that is done to men being passed from those men onto women. Men brutalise women, in part, to demonstrate to themselves or their peers that they are ‘domineering’ and ‘manly’; and when men’s misogynistic hazing of each other results in men with emotional deficits, it is primarily women expected to resolve that deficiency for the men in their lives.

As such, these struggles are not separate from the fight against women’s oppression, but integral to it.

WHAT IS A WOMAN?

In my attempt to define ‘Women’s’ above, I didn’t make an attempt to actually define the word ‘women’ – both because an adequate definition of a woman is too complicated to fit in this article, and because the relentless deluge of disingenuous ‘What is a woman?’ invocations, used as a stick to beat trans women for at least the past decade, have made the question rather tedious. But if we are using the word in the title of our publication, it’s worth reflecting on what it means.

One of the catalysts of our discussion on the name ‘Women’s Fightback’ was the experience of some of our comrades, who reported that, when selling copies, some people assumed it to be a transphobic ‘feminist’ (or so-called ‘gender-critical’) publication – which is why we began integrating the trans flag into the front-cover design.
Now, we should not allow transphobes’ transmisogynistic weaponisation of the word ‘woman’ make it a tainted word, but I think that part of the reason that defining a woman has become such a go-to part of the transphobic playbook is because we do a poor job of defining the word ourselves. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – after all, there are likely more possible definitions of the word ‘woman’ than there are women, but I think it may be cause for further reflection.

As a trans woman, but also a gender abolitionist, my own relationship to my identity as a woman is complex. It is a label that I’ve had to fight to be granted to me, but also a label imposed onto me, that I find restrictive and inadequate. It is in some ways something I’ve used to signal who I am, but I also recognise that it is a social, not a personal, categorisation. I am not a woman because I ‘choose to be a woman’, but because society places me into the category of ‘woman’ (even when it insists that it does not). A more in-depth exploration of womanhood will have to wait for another time, but I hope this at least highlights the somewhat competing definitions that even a single person can hold simultaneously, and how it can be difficult to reconcile those definitions.

There are more urgent matters to focus on than how we define women, but transphobes have taken this space because we have, to some extent, left it open for them. I think that if we are to keep the name Women’s Fightback, we should be thinking about how we reclaim the word ‘woman’, rather than simply hoping that transphobes will eventually hand it back.

WOMEN’S FIGHTBACK?

Overall, I do feel that the name Women’s Fightback fails to fully capture the scope of the publication, and I think it risks not engaging men who assume our feminism to be none of their concern. If a better name comes along, I may well support it. But I also feel that feminists have already given ground that has allowed transphobes to weaponise the word woman, and that dropping the word woman from our title, without addressing the underlying issue that enabled transphobes to weaponise the word in the first place, only gives them further ground.

And more important than the name itself, is the discussion and explanation of our anxieties around keeping or changing the name, which may very well be a reflection of some disagreement in our underlying politics that we have yet to explore and reconcile. In any case, I believe that it’s worth taking this opportunity to become more conscious about what our feminism actually stands for, and what aspects of it we may be taking for granted and leaving underdeveloped.

-end-

“As a trans woman, but also a gender abolitionist, my own relationship to my identity as a woman is complex. It is a label that I’ve had to fight to be granted to me, but also a label imposed onto me, that I find restrictive and inadequate”

So, a male person acquires the language of female people, and then of feminists, but then has decided that female language is not quite right for him. He chooses to then change the language to suit himself. And in doing so, cares not for any harm he has caused to female people. It is all about himself and his belonging.

It is certainly not a new dynamic. We have seen this over and over again.

These were some of the first published anecdotes

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5445899-break-it-down-for-me-2-general-break-it-down-archive-thread?reply=151123204&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

The letter is a doozy.

It is rather illustrative from several different aspects.

I think it is enlightening. It frames women’s oppression as the oppression of femininity and so claims that feminism must include any man who is in any way considered effeminate.

However, I think women have challenged gender norms very successfully over the last 100 years. Men have been less successful, but that is their problem to solve.

In contrast, women can’t change the fact that being female has physical consequences and women will always need to fight for rights that men don’t need. I think it often takes time to acknowledge this, and it’s intrinsically ‘awkward’ because rights are in fact pie and men do give something up when women claim resources.

"an adequate definition of a woman is too complicated to fit in this article"

Er, no. No it's not.

Wouldn’t it save an awful lot of time and money if there was a simple test that could distinguish who was lying about anything!

All those lawyers, sentencing courts and appeal courts would be out of business. Nobody would ever be wrongly convicted or wrongly escape punishment.

Or is it only those who call themselves trans who are all sincerely and utterly truthful all of the time?

Extraordinarily telling. We saw this kind of thing coming a mile off.

Reminiscent of Shon Faye and his “shifting constellation”

Old Butters was keen on his constellation of data points too

OFFS!

Thank you HoaB, that is very eye opening. I did think we had a problem now with feminism as well as woman, I didn't realise it was so bad.

There is so much to object to in that article but I'll go straight to the root.

A more in-depth exploration of womanhood will have to wait for another time.

The whole argument is based on the definition of a woman.

Giving your conclusions without defining the core fact on which they are based is like a zoologist insisting that a duck billed platypus is a bird because it has a beak and lays eggs.

From the article

As a trans woman, [...] It is a label [...] that I find restrictive and inadequate.

Nothing will ever be enough. Everything will always be restrictive and inadequate. There is no freedom and peace and satisfaction to be had by going down the 'trans rabbit hole', because no matter how much you mangle the language, no matter how many female spaces you invade, no matter how much you impose yourself on society around you, deep deep down you know that you are a man, male, and always will be. You cannot fix yourself by changing the world around you.

I am not a woman because I ‘choose to be a woman’, but because society places me into the category of ‘woman’.

You are 'choosing' to be a transwoman. Society would not place you in that category if you didn't insist upon it. Society does not pick upon some random effeminate men and decide that they are transwomen. It is something the individual chooses.

I’m a tad Jimmy Hill that “society places him in the category of a woman”. Do we know who he is? Would love to see a photo.

I am not a woman because I ‘choose to be a woman’, but because society places me into the category of ‘woman’.

The very epitome of wishful thinking.

The definition of women is far too complicated to put to paper, but society instinctively recognises that a man is a woman?

We cant describe them, but we know a woman when we see one.

I think half of them what to be us, the other half want women to disappear as a word.