Originally scheduled on the 10th Day of the 16th Day Campaign Against Gender Violence by Prajnya, today, we had Nadika Nadja organize a Twitter Spaces on "Critiquing Exclusionary Feminism, Re-imagining Solidarity". A few of the discussion points are outlined below:
- A significant part of the discussion looked into this new idea of trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF) which is now resurfacing as 'gender-critical feminism' that only considers "biologically female women and men" as men and women thereby making feminist spaces exclusionary. We also had Ragamalika who mentioned how this one BBC article portrayed transwomen as assaulters of ciswomen and that they are basically men. The article also said that giving rights to transwomen takes rights away from ciswomen. Nadika responded to that saying there are a number of movements in the US and UK, and in parts of India about gender-critical feminism, which is replacing the term 'TERFS'. It gives the impression that transwomen are not women. Spaces must exist only for 'biologically female women'. There are a lot of people behind GC, especially British media because there are people like JK Rowling, for instance. You expect certain influential people to have a nuanced understanding and not be GCs. The article by BBC also quoted a survey that said transwomen forced cislesbians to have sex with them, however, the survey only consisted of GC folks.
- This brings about a certain kind of dissonance in how we view solidarity, even in spaces that are queer-friendly and among ciswomen who are queer. The whole idea of the trans movement and the trans rights movement is that self-determination is the most important thing. People also say that we have to respect women and not reduce them to walking talking vaginas and wombs but at the same time reduce them to walking talking vaginas and wombs but at the same time in terms of trans people.
- Dr. S.Shakthi asked why there was a sudden uptake in the number of GC-related information. Nadika responded that there is a growing number of right-wing movements across the world. Like Judith Butler had mentioned, there exists a correlation between fascist ideas and authoritarian GC regimes.
- A lot of conversations by GCs and people who are somewhere there [can be categorised as GC], is that they believe one isn't a woman because they haven't had their periods. Raga spoke about how there is a reduction in the experience of womanhood and gender to just that one thing (periods). It seems to be a very convenient topic of discussion. That, if you haven't had your periods, you don't know what "we" go through. These statements also don't acknowledge that people assigned female at birth have different experiences. But, these experiences are all clubbed together based on whether an individual gets their periods and how painful it is.
- One important thing is to look at where these exclusionary conversations start from. The easiest thing is to blame European colonialism where there is a cataloging and classification of everything. This leads to forming categories that are simple, wide-open but also, restrictive. That is where this idea of the biologically essentialist view comes from (on what defines one as a man and woman). Nadika sees colonialism and the early capitalist industrial revolution to be something that led to this exclusionary space. Because these periods are also tied to the idea of productivity - producing a child is important in a capitalist colonial society. Only one who can engage in productive and reproductive work is a woman, thereby excluding transwomen from the idea of woman and transmen from the idea of manhood.
- The idea of intersectional feminism (looking at factors like ethnicity, race, ableism, etc) is that they critique a certain kind of feminism practiced by white women who just want political rights. The exclusion comes from the perspective of who or what can be 'feminine' enough and whoever falls outside of these labels will not be included in the feminist movement. These ideas also exclude people who think they fall inside the boundaries because they don't adhere to the 'norms' prescribed by TERFs and GCs.
- We also had listeners chip in about how there is a fear of loss of power and it is critical to address and tackle it by talking about the importance of accessibility to rights. Additionally, you also have the feminism portrayed by the popular culture where privileged people (or, even, cis people acting as trans folks on-screen) which is worshiped.
- The discussion also spoke about how sports views trans folks, about the debate around college hostels being gender-neutral and on toilets being gender-neutral.
- We talk about building solidarity, but with all these differences, where do you see solidarity coming from? What are the things we can do to build solidarity? Where do we start building this idea of solidarity from?
- The listeners responded that there are quite a few ways, they believe, helps strengthen solidarity, and reimagine movements - passing the mic and giving space to people who are marginalized, being open to unlearning and taking responsibility as well as understanding that it is essential to have uncomfortable conversations with people who have similar privileges as you. Empathy and kindness are also very important here.
- Nadika and Raga also highlighted that when we talk of marginalised folks joining various spaces to talk about their experiences, there is a lot of labour that is put in to explain where a person is coming from. There is enough knowledge and information on the internet to understand this. Additionally, there is also a perceived power difference in the space someone else is organising.
- We also had with us Nidhi who spoke about how it is necessary to understand the ways in which ableism affects persons with disabilities. It is important to see if we can think about bodies and minds that work differently, but also that it is not something we can accommodate just by being nice. One must actively see it structurally rather than just as something each of us can do to make it okay.
- The concluding remarks were that a lot of feminists, feminist organizations and institutions grapple with understanding intersectionality and queer issues. Grassroots feminist organizations must actively take steps to ensure their actions are inclusive. We have made it a fight of power rather than a fight of rights, and a fight for equality. It almost seems like there is a queue to fight for your rights. The fight isn't a token system. People must step out of their own bubbles, and not just focus on their own struggles and have to start listening.
