The “Penis Police”: Lesbian and Feminist Spaces, Trans Women, and the Maintenance of the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System

Earles, Jennifer

doi:10.1080/10894160.2018.1517574

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…This is also supported by the fact that a major portion of the GWGLU comment thread is spent debating the relationality of lesbian and trans identities (section 5.1). The framing of the debate within specifically lesbian and feminist terms signals its interdiscursivity with the wider debate surrounding trans identities within women's spaces (Earles, 2019;Hines 2017;Phipps, 2016;Westbrook and Schilt, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Go home to the second wave!’: Discourses of trans inclusion and exclusion in a queer women’s online community

Bailey

2022

Discourse, Context & Media

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Go home to the second wave!’: Discourses of trans inclusion and exclusion in a queer women’s online community

Bailey

2022

Discourse, Context & Media

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“…Original theories of radical feminism were also marked by a focus on sexuality, specifically in the pursuit of a distinctive practice as produced by and for women (Earles 2019). That is perhaps one of the reasons that radical-lesbian feminists evoked emotion through poetry in the coming-out and being-out process.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To be sure, Salon feminists also focused on bodies and, more specifically genitals (Earles 2019). However, it was perhaps their poetic methods of coming out and being out that was so attractive to the trans women who attempted to join, but who were ultimately excluded.…”

Section: Tumblr As the Entry Point For Understanding Radical Feminism Onlinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some argue that lesbians are systematically erased and ignored within male-dominated LGBTQ+ activism and that trans activism harms women (Compton 2019). Others agree that it is precisely essentialism and the allegiance to biology that has stalled the feminist movement (Earles 2019). As I will argue, however, both groups consider coming out or declaring oneself as lesbian and/or trans as crucial for the realization of self.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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The Poetics of Coming Out and Being Out: Feminist Activism in Cis Lesbian and Trans Women’s Poetic Narratives

Earles¹

2019

Humanities

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While coming out or the telling of sexual selves for LGBTQ+ people is often seen as the final step toward living a free and healthy life, lesbians who also identify as feminists embark on a life-long journey in which the plot ebbs and flows around activism and mobilization. Their goal is not only to come out, but to be out. Both cisgender radical-lesbian feminists and trans feminists consider coming out as not only crucial for the realization of self, but also an important tactic for taking up space and intervening in a heteronormative world. But, while the original theories of radical feminism advocated a fierce anti-essentialism, some contemporary radical feminists continue to focus on biology and questions like “what is a woman?” I hope to refocus the question to ask: how are narrative audiences, discursive forms of text, and spaces important for feminists as they realize lesbian or trans identities and communities? Data come from a historical printed newsletter by self-described radical feminists practicing lesbian separatism and two current micro-blogs, one surrounding radical-feminist narratives and the other around trans feminism. Through a textual analysis, I show how self-proclaimed radical feminists and trans feminists use poetic and emotive writing to produce different kinds of narratives about coming out and being out in different spaces and for unique audiences. Ultimately, these discursive forms are important for communities as members’ stories challenge and are impacted by public narratives of gender, essentialism, and cis- and hetero-normativity.

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“…Drawing in part upon feminist arguments in Raymond (1979), TERFs argue that gender derives fully from the biological sex, which is dependent on a person's chromosomes and thus is binary and immutable (Riddell, 2006;Serano, 2016); it follows in their biological reductivist reasoning that a transgender woman is a man. As a result, TERFs frequently make claims seeded with anxiety about the encroachment of transgender women into women's spaces and rights (e.g., participation in sports or use of restrooms), as well as the need for biological tests of gender (Earles, 2019). 2 For many TERFs, their rationale is embedded with real but misdirected fear of violence against and subjugation of women.…”

Section: Terfs In Online Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The subtle language of exclusion: Identifying the Toxic Speech of Trans-exclusionary Radical Feminists

Lu¹,

Jurgens²

2022

Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms (WOAH)

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Toxic language can take many forms, from explicit hate speech to more subtle microaggressions. Within this space, models identifying transphobic language have largely focused on overt forms. However, a more pernicious and subtle source of transphobic comments comes in the form of statements made by Transexclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs); these statements often appear seemingly-positive and promote women's causes and issues, while simultaneously denying the inclusion of transgender women as women. Here, we introduce two models to mitigate this antisocial behavior. The first model identifies TERF users in social media, recognizing that these users are a main source of transphobic material that enters mainstream discussion and whom other users may not desire to engage with in good faith. The second model tackles the harder task of recognizing the masked rhetoric of TERF messages and introduces a new dataset to support this task. Finally, we discuss the ethics of deploying these models to mitigate the harm of this language, arguing for a balanced approach that allows for restorative interactions.

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The “Penis Police”: Lesbian and Feminist Spaces, Trans Women, and the Maintenance of the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System

Cited by 16 publications

References 14 publications

‘Go home to the second wave!’: Discourses of trans inclusion and exclusion in a queer women’s online community

‘Go home to the second wave!’: Discourses of trans inclusion and exclusion in a queer women’s online community

The Poetics of Coming Out and Being Out: Feminist Activism in Cis Lesbian and Trans Women’s Poetic Narratives

The subtle language of exclusion: Identifying the Toxic Speech of Trans-exclusionary Radical Feminists

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