Are Transsexual Women "Real" Women? Yes.
OPINION | Lesbian Notions 
by Paula Martinac
April 17, 2001

Are transsexual women "real" women? It's a tedious question that male-
to-female transsexuals often run up against when they're open and 
honest about their personal history. But the life experiences of many 
MTFs make them more aware of how gender roles and sexism work than a 
lot of so-called "real" women.

I've never met a transsexual woman who didn't have a feminist 
consciousness. I'm sure there are some, but it makes perfect sense 
that many trans-women would be attracted to feminism as a philosophy. 
After all, feminism by definition seeks to break down the barriers 
society has set up based on gender.

It's infuriating, then, that some feminists and lesbians continue to 
question the "womanhood" of MTFs. I support the concept of "women-only 
space," but I'm concerned that this legitimate policy is sometimes 
used to discriminate against trans-women. 

The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, for example, still maintains a 
policy of trans-exclusion that sounds eerily like the "don't ask, 
don't tell" policy of the U.S. military. An official festival handout 
states, "No womon's gender will be questioned on the land." However, 
the flyer goes on, the festival has the right to deny admission "to 
individuals who self-declare as male-to-female transsexuals." In 
theory, one of Fred Phelps's daughters could attend Michigan, while an 
open feminist trans-woman could not.

In another galling example, a women's rape crisis center in British 
Columbia recently refused to allow Kimberly Nixon, a transsexual 
woman, to train as a peer counselor. The staff assumed she wouldn't 
understand violence against women because she was born male. According 
to a center spokesperson, Nixon could not possibly have faced the 
unique mix of social, psychological, and biological factors that 
"shape women's experiences and ... the world's perception of us." 

But, in fact, the experience of many transsexual women turns the 
meaning of being "born" female or male upside down. Many MTFs talk 
about knowing they were "female" from a very young age. "Growing up," 
Nixon told a reporter for Canadian Press, "I had the sense and burden 
of being female and the burden of being aware of ... all the issues 
women deal with." 

The exclusionary policies that feminist and lesbian groups institute 
toward transsexual women rest on two false premises. First of all, 
because the world once viewed MTFs as boys and men, it's assumed that 
they enjoyed male privilege. Yet the opposite may actually be true, 
given the many stories transsexual women tell about the intense gender 
oppression they experienced before surgery.

According to Australian trans-feminist Julie Peters, transgender male 
youth tend to be regarded "as feminine or different boys and are 
denied entry into male power structures; they are vilified, 
ostracized, and bashed." Misunderstood or rejected by their families, 
they sometimes take to the streets, where they're at high risk for 
drugs and prostitution and often learn early on about sexual violence, 
just like many girls do.

The second false premise is that only "real" women can fully 
comprehend female oppression. But what about the "real" women who 
think feminism has nothing to do with their lives? And don't forget 
the "women-born women" who actively oppose abortion rights, or who 
accept their church's dictate that wives submit to their husbands, or 
who voted for George W. Bush. 

Now compare those "real" women with trans-activist Riki Wilchins, 
Executive Director of GenderPAC. In a recent editorial, Wilchins 
called on activists to build "a broad-based and inclusive national 
movement for gender rights." Gender, Wilchins states, is a basic human 
right that unites everyone from "a boy-dyke with buzz-cut blue hair" 
to "an FTM fired for transitioning on the job" to "a soccer mom 
banging her head on the glass ceiling" to "a gay man genderbashed ... 
because some bigot thinks homosexuals are unmanly."

We can learn a lot from reading the work of cutting-edge activists 
like Wilchins. But even older trans-women, who transitioned long 
before the founding of the National Organization for Women or the 
riots at the Stonewall Inn, have gone through their own transformative 
process and come out as feminists. 

In an engaging new memoir called The Woman I Was Not Born to Be, 
Aleshia Brevard, a former drag performer and actor, describes her own 
personal journey. Glancing through the book's photos of Brevard 
boasting long, painted nails and a cinched-in, hourglass figure, you 
might be tempted to rehash the old feminist complaint that MTFs simply 
reinforce gender stereotypes rather than break them down. 

But, in fact, Brevard has a strong feminist sensibility. After 
transitioning, she slowly came to realize that the role she envisioned 
for herself as a Donna Reed-style wife was too limited. Instead of 
clinging to the belief that "a good woman must be docile and long 
suffering" and invariably attached to a man, she recognized that she 
could be happily fulfilled as an independent 
woman. 

The liberation of her mind, Brevard says, took much longer than the 
physical reconstruction of her body. Her experiences and those of 
other trans-women hold important lessons for feminists and lesbians 
who remain stubbornly hung up on biology.

Paula Martinac is the author of seven books, including The Queerest 
Places: A Guide to Gay and Lesbian Historic Sites. She can be reached 
care of this publication or at LNcolumn@aol.com.