The Woman Question

In: TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Volume 3, Issue 1-2, p. 246-253

Abstract

Abstract
The author was inspired to write this article in light of the ongoing and recent claims by some radical feminists that trans women are not women. This is much more than a debate among differing theoretical positions. Women have been threatened, both trans* and cis women. The vitriol on both sides is alarming and undermining of the feminism we all share. Rather than write an academic, philosophical treatise on the meaning of "woman," the author wrote this from her first-person experience, as someone who was "born female" and identifies as a woman but is often socially read as trans* (a trans man). The author aims to articulate a radical feminist understanding of women that shows trans women are women in concrete, personal terms.