I am not trying to argue that the feminist movement as a whole does not contain lots of trash people. The movement is still dominated by upper and middle class cishet white women who look out for their own interests above all else. My phrasing could be better. The argument isn't directed at people outside the feminist movement, but at trans-exclusive people who identify as feminist. I will always contest to them how they can possibly claim that title while reducing women to their genitals and rejecting the socially constructed nature of gender, as well as ultimately reproducing violence against women. I believe the feminist movement has the obligation to exclude these people from our spaces, and that includes rejecting their right to continue associating with us and using our label.Galloism wrote:Threlizdun wrote:Except feminism is literally defined by the struggle for the empowerment of women, all women.
Show me where feminism is defined as the struggle for the empowerment of ALL women, including trans women, in official universal definition accepted by all persons. Go.Someone who only cares about the empowerment of one group of women (cis women, white women, heterosexual women, rich women, etc.), has abandoned the fundamental premise of feminism.
In that case, feminism probably doesn't exist in any meaningful sense.It is important for social movements to critique those who we cannot expect to have our back, especially when they are actively engaging in violence against members of our community. If someone tells me that they are a feminist, yet they deny my very femininity and ally with conservative sexists against me, then I'm going to call them a liar. The word becomes meaningless when diluted to mere self-interest of your own group to the exclusion of all other women and nonbinary people.
It's absolutely fine to critique them. I encourage it. What I will not let you do is pretend they are not part of the movement when in every meaningful way they are. That's a way to deflect criticism, not allow it.
They are part of the feminist tradition as a social movement, but they make an open mockery of the principles of empowerment of women and nonbinary folks and the abolition of the patriarchy. Members of the feminist movement get to define their own terms and police their own spaces. This increasingly involves telling TERFS that they are not welcome in any capacity.