Cis Feminism in London '09

Reprinted with permission from the blog of Helen G. Bird of Paradox

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Next weekend sees the Feminism in London '09 event. There are various workshops and discussions on a range of subjects: for example, racism and sexism, self-defence and assertiveness training, activism training, etc. — and nearly thirty speakers scheduled. Any self-identified woman, whether cis or not, would surely find something of interest there.

But what's this on the front page of the website?

If you are a woman or a pro-feminist man, come along to join the discussion.

Any trans woman seeing that will surely already hear the alarm bells ringing. It shouldn't need restating that the word "woman" defaults to meaning "cis woman" and excludes trans women as a consequence. And "pro-feminist man"? I wonder if that includes trans men?

But there's more. At the bottom of every single page of the website is this little gem of transphobia:

Some workshops may be for women only.

I see. And which workshops might they be, then? Close reading suggests that there is, in fact, only one workshop which is open to cis women only, and it's the Rape and Sexual Violence workshop.

Because, as we know, trans women never suffer rape and violence.

Scratch the surface and the same old hidden agenda can be seen. Biological determinism: if you were born male-bodied, you will only ever be male. And its corollary — if you were born female-bodied, you will only ever be female — is the flipside. The thinking, if that's the word I want, is fundamentally cis sexist. The implication is that, irrespective of how we self-identify, to cis people we are always and forever the gender we were assigned at birth. It's interesting that a self-styled feminist event should choose to implement such an essentialist policy. Whatever happened to the idea that gender is entirely socially constructed? And what happened to the feminism that preached equality for all and an end to oppression and discrimination?

And what all of this means in the context of the event is that a transman will be welcome at the Rape and Sexual Violence workshop (because cis women have decided that he's "really a woman"), but not a trans woman (because cis women have decided that she's not).

But then I suppose it would be foolish to expect anything else of an event organised by the rabidly transphobic London Feminist Network. The same people who were last seen supporting transphobic bigot lifestyle journalist at last year's Stonewall U.K. protest, and who are no doubt already gearing up for the annual Reclaim The Night (But Only For Cis Women) march next month.

Frankly, if this is state of feminism in Britain's biggest city in the 21st century you know what you can do with it.

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