- Julia Serano

Cultural feminism is arguably the worst strand of feminism, but unfortunately it's everywhere.

In Whipping Girl, I describe it as being
invested in oppositional sexism but flipping traditional sexism, such that women are now deemed inherently "good" and "pure," and men inherently "oppressive" and "dangerous."

Cultural feminism forms the backbone of "gender critical"/TERF ideology, but it also informs mainstream feminism, for instance, in the idea that there would be no violence or other societal ills if female politicians ran the government, or if every company had a female CEO, and so on. It's extremely anti-intersectional. And it's obviously bullshit, as many women commit acts of violence and act oppressively toward other marginalize groups.

But it's popular because it's simple and it paints cis women as victims who are entirely free of any culpability.

- Julia Serano

This is so important for every trans person & ally to learn. I remember when I first made this blog, I accidentally reblogged a TERF post every once in a while and didn't realize it at all until ppl started making me aware. In hindsight, the issue wasn't that I wasn't well-informed about terf dogwhistles or that I didn't have enough of them blocked, although that was a big part of it, it was because I wasn't taking all forms of sexism equally seriously. If you on some level believe that women are purer & safer & better people than men, that male sexuality is scary & predatory or that one can be "tainted" by masculinity, you're going to be an easier target for TERFs.

It's so important that we as trans & queer people approach this "cultural feminism" as Serano calls it with zero tolerance. Only that way we can keep our spaces safe & welcoming for everyone & give TERFs no chance.

The only way out of this, as far as I can see, is for us as a trans community to explicitly (and loudly) reject cultural feminism—both its essentialism and its zero-sum conceptualization of gender-based oppression. If we did this, then we could all openly discuss our experiences with oppositional and traditional sexism (and the intersection thereof) without other trans people presuming that we’re implying that they have not been impacted by these forces—or worse, that they must be one of our “oppressors.”

More Posts from Ilyanposting and Others

ilyanposting

11 months ago

when people say transitioning is expensive they're talking about the commute to jupiter to get more stupider

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ilyanposting

11 months ago

the cis maternal urge to treat your trans son’s body like an extension of your own body, and to react to said trans son’s physical transition as if they might as well have just started hacking away at your own body with a rusty axe, really is something else.

my mom hasn’t seen my chest post-op at all because the idea of it is so awful to her that the one time we took my bandages off with her present, she ran across the hotel room to hide from it and started crying to my brother about it (yes, with actual tears). she drove an hour and a half with us at 5:30am to my post-op just to sit in the waiting room because she refused to come in and see me after the surgeon took the bandages off. my dad has been the only one helping me with recovery things like changing bandages and monitoring healing because she still won’t look at my chest.

and she says that’s because she loves me and cares about me. love is when you treat the body your child can finally live in comfortably like it’s your worst nightmare. apparently.

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ilyanposting

8 months ago

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ilyanposting

8 months ago

''trans men wont suffer as much if you forcefully out them'' could you say that to an actual trans mans face though or can you only say it online? could you say any of this hateful shit if you had to actually articulate it face to face with a real person or are you only comfortable when its wrapped up in comfy internet discourse buzzwords?

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ilyanposting

11 months ago

To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)

To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)

Dir. Beeban Kidron

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ilyanposting

5 months ago

where are those startups that are disrupting the glasses industry

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ilyanposting

5 months ago

Lou Sullivan's books for free! 🏳️‍⚧️💜

1. Information For The Female To Male Cross Dresser And Transsexual, 3rd Edition

2. We Both Laughed In Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan 1961-1991

3. From Female to Male: The Life of Jack Bee Garland

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ilyanposting

3 months ago

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ilyanposting

5 months ago

Aight, so a suspect has been caught. In the next couple of days we’re going to be bombarded with a cavalcade of information about Luigi Mangione. As we start this period I want everyone to remember:

Luigi Mangione is a living, breathing, human being. He has followed people you don’t like, held beliefs you disagree with, and possibly voting for politicians you think suck.

He still shot a man with the blood of millions on his hands. He still caused an outpouring of rage that caused BCBS to roll back its ghoulish anesthesia policy.

Carve that into your fucking minds. Mass media is about to do its damnedest to remind us to hate each other, not the top .001%. Do not let them do this. Y’all understand what I’m saying? Here, lemme spell it out more clearly: