everyone loves to hate terfs until they realise that it actually entails rejecting bioessentialism entirely and then suddenly you’re “taking things too seriously” and you “don’t have a sense of humour” like i’m sorry but saying protect the dolls doesn’t make you immune to terfism it has seeped into every corner of mainstream feminism and unless you’re actively searching it out and checking your own biases you will always be at risk of sharing a space with terfs
“Only women can—” nope. “But all men—” nah. “The divine femininity of—” gonna stop you right there. “Everyone born ama—” if you finish that sentence I’ll kill you. “Men don’t experience—” you’re wrong. “Gender isn’t real but sex is imm—” *loud incorrect buzzer*
It also goes without saying that bioessentialism inherently can’t be trans inclusive no matter how hard you try. “All men including trans men—” probably not. “This is only a woman’s issue—” is it really? “Afabs only—” why? “All trans men are like—” what? what are they like? finish the sentence i dare you.
Id like to point out how before trans people became part of the popular discourse, feminism was kinda devoutly AGAINST bioessentialism. One of the big things people were pushing for is that women are just as capable as men, that there wasn't some fundamental difference between sexes that made a meaningful difference in what someone was capable of.
Now that trans people are part of the discourse, a lot of people have fallen back onto bioessentialism as the easiest justification for transphobia. This rhetoric isnt just harmful for trans people, its regressive for feminism as a whole. Nobody wins in a bioessentialist world aside from the people trying to uphold the patriarchy
