TERFs and the Rhetorical Ownership of Trans Bodies
By: Dr. Thomas J. West Iii
Tags: Queer, LGBTQ, LGBT, Transgender, Feminism

TERFs and the Rhetorical Ownership of Trans Bodies

This is both a great and a terrible time to be a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF, for short). On the one hand, they have more visibility than ever, with renowned author JK Rowling making clear that she’s a fellow traveler, after years of being cagey about her TERF affiliation. On the other, such people are being rightfully called out for the ways in which they are perpetrating harm against the increasingly-vulnerable trans community.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when Elliot Page’s coming out as trans and non-binary ignited yet another firestorm among TERFs, in both the UK and the US. For some reason, these people just can’t seem to stand the idea of people living their lives on their own terms. Equally strangely, they seem to see trans people as some sort of existential threat to their own well-being which, in their own eyes at least, gives them free license to say and do whatever they want to, particularly on social media.

What did surprise me was the way in which the outrage was framed. It soon became clear that, for many lesbians in particular, Elliot’s coming out as trans was somehow a betrayal, a loss of a role model with which they had to contend and that they had to process. The popular Twitter user Sister Outrider, for example, wrote: “If coming out as transgender brings the actor formerly known as Ellen Page any measure of peace, then I am glad for them. But my heart also breaks as the lesbian community grows smaller. Again. And loses a role model. Again.”

There are so many problems with this line of thinking that it’s truly hard to know where to start. To begin with, note the condescending way in which Sister Outrider frames Elliot’s coming out: by deadnaming him and referring to him as “the actor formerly known as Ellen Page.” There’s also something more than a little condescending and belittling about the idea that coming out is designed to give Page “peace” rather than, you know, affirming their fundamental sense of self. It’s also staggeringly arrogant of folks like this — and, make no mistake, Sister Outrider is not alone — to feel as if they have any right to claim people like Page as their own, as if they are nothing more than an icon, not a real flesh-and-blood person with their own emotional needs that should be considered. Role models are certainly important for marginalized communities, but that shouldn’t blind us in the general public of a recognition that they are people first, and we should think about and treat them accordingly. This type of awareness is especially important for those who command a significant social media following, as they have the power to shape, and to distort, public discourse and perception.

Most pernicious, perhaps, is the implication that somehow someone becoming an icon for trans folks is, somehow, a strike against lesbians. It is, after all, the LGBTQ+ community or, more simply, the queer community. The last I checked, we were all in this together. It isn’t a zero/sum game, in which the gain of one has to be at the expense of others. This is dangerous thinking, and it weakens the alliances that should exist between the various constituent parts of the community, by pitting us against one another. I would expect this sort of rhetoric from those who would oppress or delegitimize us, but to see it coming from within is both dispiriting and infuriating. It’s also just plain wrong, since it’s not as if there’s any shortage of lesbian role models in popular media.

At the same time, I’m not at all surprised by this rhetoric turn among those members of the queer alliance who happen to also be TERFs (or just transphobic in general). For some time now, it’s become increasingly clear that the ties that bind the various pieces of the queer community together have begun to fray, particularly with the increasing number of people who aren’t as beholden to the old categories around which so much queer political and social organizing has taken place. Unfortunately, this has resulted in significant backlash from some members of the old guard, many of whom clearly see this movement away from rigid categories as some sort of threat to their political goals and respond accordingly. Given the rather tenuous position that trans folks have always occupied within the broader coalition — this, despite their being in the forefront of organizing and activism — it’s not at all surprising that they would become the object of such dislike. While I would have expected this sort of thinly-veiled transphobia from gay men — who don’t have a sterling track record when it comes to trans rights (see also: Andrew Sullivan) — I am honestly surprised that some lesbians have also jumped on the trans-hating bandwagon.

Don’t get me wrong. As someone who grew up in the late ’90s and early ’00s, when labels and categories like “gay” still held some of their old power, I too feel a little disoriented by the changing contours of gender and sexuality and the ways in which the generation after me — as well as some of my fellow millennials — have challenged my ways of thinking about these issues. However, I’m also someone who has long thought that this was, in many ways, the goal of a radical queer and feminist agenda: to free us from the tyranny of essentialism, to open up new worlds of identity and belonging. Rather than responding with sadness, as Sister Outrider and others have done, we should celebrate this moment of trans visibility. And, rather than attempting to frame this as some sort of loss for one constituent part of the queer coalition, we should hold it up as another sign of our ever-broadening inclusion, another mile-marker in our march of progress.

This is perilous moment for all of us queer folks. While there will always be the impulse to turn on and devour our own, we need to work against that tendency, to recognize that we’re all in this together.