The Basics of Radical Feminism

So, basically, there are a whoooole bunch of different things that we consider sex characteristics. Primarily:

exactly two chromosomes (either XX or XY), 

one kind of gonadal tissue (testes or ovaries – these are the bits that make reproductive cells & hormones), 

all external/internal genitals that correspond with that gonadal tissue and are within a certain measurement range 

hormone levels within a certain range

secondary sex characteristics (like hair growth/patterns, development of breasts)

There’s not a super agreed-on definition of what does and does not count specifically, but if all of these things don’t match what the expected model of a man/woman should be, that generally counts.

Now, we also don’t have great data on how many people are intersex because we can’t decide what counts, but the numbers are usually around 1 in every 2,000 people at the lower end to 1 in every 100 people or more at the higher, with that lower figure usually including only people with visible genital atypicalities at birth (so not everyone). 

In percentages, that means somewhere between 0.05% - 1% of the population are intersex. For comparison, residents of Rhode Island make up 0.32% of the American population, and about 1% of all people are redheads. 

It’d be silly to argue that redheads are just exceptions to a hair color rule or not a significant enough part of the population to reclassify a blond hair/black hair binary, right? Or that there aren’t enough RI residents to conclude that “living in Rhode Island” is statistically meaningful and that we should sort them into either Massachusetts or Connecticut, whichever one someone lives closer to. 😉

Human chromosomes are binary: X and Y. We do not produce a third chromosomal type. Each person receives 46 chromosomes at conception: 23  from their mother’s egg and 23 chromosomes from their father’s sperm cell. Of course, sometimes this goes wrong. Transcription and translocation errors, meiotic disjunction, deletions, etc. will cause physical and developmental abnormalities rather than new sexes. An extra copy of any chromosome is known as Trisomy. Having an extra copy of chromosome 21 causes Down’s Syndrome. Having an extra copy of chromosome 18 causes a rare, mostly fatal condition named Edward’s Syndrome. An XY male having an extra X is behind the intersex disorder known as Klinefelter’s Syndrome. An XY male having an extra Y is known as Jacob’s Syndrome. XX females can also have duplicate Xs in their cells, known as XXX or XXXX (which is actually a tetrasomy) syndrome, sometimes also written as 47,XXX to indicate their abnormal number of chromosomes. A chromosome can be missing completely, as in a monosomy disorder like the intersex condition Turner’s Syndrome, or partially, as in those with deformities at chromosome 15 resulting in Prader-Willi Syndrome. It is important to understand that these are mistakes, rather than intended outcomes. A normal and healthy human development will not have these random and inherited genetic errors.

Human gametes are also binary: human females produce ova and human males produce sperm. We do not produce a third type of gamete. There are some conditions causing the development of the “wrong” internal gonads, but these will rarely be functional and most are removed to avoid cancer risks later in life. The most common side effect of intersex disorders is infertility. It doesn’t matter if the individual doesn’t want children, technically reproduction is the point of evolution and sterility is not regarded as a biological advantage for any member of a species. This is further evidence intersex disorders are not deliberate outcomes in sex development.

Even intersex disorders follow the sex binary of our species: NCAH, Turner’s, Triple X Syndrome, MRKH are examples of female intersex disorders. Klinefelter’s, Jacob’s, PAIS/AIS are examples of male intersex disorders. There are intersex disorders presenting different symptom sets in males and females, like Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and Kallmann’s Syndrome, as well as other urogenital issues classified as disorders of sex development which don’t alter phenotype, like hypospadias. The confusion comes from two things:

people mixing up genotype (how we’re born) and phenotype (how we look externally)

people mixing up sex (how we’re born) and gender (how we’re organized socially)

A common defense for transgender rights is to counter the claim of “there are 2 genders because there are 2 sexes” with “gender is a spectrum because sex is a spectrum”. A few years ago the trans community and allies did not deny their biological sex (the basis for their dysphoria and medical transition) or anyone else’s, but for whatever reason, this is popular pseudoscience now on the left. They’ll even invoke non-mammalian species like birds, lizards, and clownfish to argue against the idea of human sexual dimorphism. Human sexes are a continuum, not a spectrum. Intersex disorders do not represent different sexes but rather disordered variations on the two sexes. Without two human sexes, intersex disorders couldn’t even exist. It’s because our species has two pathways that these disorders present with the characteristics and symptoms that they do. And rather than argue if a man has low muscle tone and small testicles, he’s less of a man, we should appreciate that intersex disorders don’t change who we are.

ooh okay! i got time

here is 61 posts where trans women have called lesbians terfs/transphobic for not wanting to have sex with them, harassed / guilt tripped / threatened them for being lesbians, etc

here is a trans woman exposing himself in a female changing room, and another, though yall said this wouldnt happen

another thing u said wouldnt happen! here is a trans male raping women in a female jail.  actually, 49% of trans prisoners have been convicted of sexual assault!

interesting how you say we are murderers. can u name 1 radfem murderer? while you think, here is a trans one! and another, who tried to kill people because he got rejected by a woman - sounds like a plain old incel! in fact, trans women have the same criminality patterns as men!

i have tags for all of these things: trans violence, trans rape, male violence, trans misogyny, trans lesbophobia, trans homophobia … hope i answered ur question sufficiently! have fun reading :)

positive STD statuses and/or the last time you were tested

your marriage/partners. Also, probably should be honest about going through a divorce.

if you’re not a virgin - people use this to sleep with virgins, so creepy and nasty, just tell the truth if you’ve had sex before

your drug addiction - no, not weed you morons. if you are a meth addict, or a heroine addict, etc etc, you need to disclose that before you have sex with someone. this is a big deal, and people have a lot of reasons to say “no” to sex with someone with a drug addiction that has nothing to do with their ideas of morality concerning drugs.

the last time you took drugs and what drugs - like if you took a line of cocaine 15 years ago in college, that’s not what I’m talking about. if you got high 6 hours ago, don’t try to pass off that you didn’t. don’t try to convince someone you’re fine to have sex with because you’re “def coming down.”

if you are or are not using birth control

lying about your identity. (don’t try to pick up people by telling them you are someone else entirely that is so fucking creepy)

if you want to try something unusual/dangerous during sex with them. it’s extremely manipulative to act like you’re on the same page about the sex you want to have with someone and then half way through tell them you want to cuff them to the bed or use a whip or something. it’s hard to say “no” to someone when their penis is literally inside of you, and rapists know that. So just be fucking real with people if you’re into weird kinky shit so you can have sex with like minded people instead of tricking uncomfortable people who are suddenly at your mercy.

“Consent violation”, “scene gone wrong”

Too much words for blatant rape. They really likened it to a mundane boundary crossing.

Pilots freeze and crash their plane and it's a tragedy. Armed police panic and shoot the wrong person and it's the stress of the job. Doctors get overtired and prescribe the wrong meds, and it's the pressure and the hours.

But women who stupidly believe their man loves them and cares for them and has their best interests at heart and who go blank, forget the safe word or even cry and beg for him to stop? Entirely their own fault. No benefit of the doubt. Definitely not his fault for prioritising his orgasm over her bodily integrity, physical and mental health.

Saw this pop up on Twitter last night and thought I'd share. Wasteofenamel (trans woman) tweeted about cis women complaining, Riamuofficial (radfem woman) engaged with the tweet, and Wasteofenamel replied with ableism and misogyny. This led to all of Wasteofenamels followers becoming increasingly misogynistic and ableist towards Riamuofficial. All posted below.

If we assume all men are guilty, we're paranoid man-hating harpies who are unfairly demonizing an entire sex.

… it fucking is. And its atrocious and I feel for these women so much.

Notice the way it says they love the game, as though they obvious solution - if it were sexist - is to get rid of the whole league, not have them dress appropriately. And it gets worse.

The top bit just makes me so sad because you know they aren’t going to stay for the athleticism… also the fact that he recognises treating them like the guys is a good thing, but not so similar that they are allowed to have their bodies covered??

So help me Jesus

They are not even getting paid! Sex sells he says, basically he sells them and they don’t even see the money!

men usually kill their kids in august because that’s right before school starts and on sundays before they have to give their kids back to their partner who they have shared custody with

family breakup is cited as the most common cause, followed by finances

they usually kill because they’re self righteous, disappointed, anomic, or paranoid

the last paragraphs should be read verbatim for the full effect

men as a sex are so obsessed with masculinity and violence that they’re willing to murder their partner and children in a final effort to remain in a position of power. that’s terrifying, and i’m almost sure that it’s not only family annihilators that think like that, but a far too large percentage of men. these men were normal enough to marry and raise a family for years before deciding to kill them on a whim. their wives loved them and their children trusted them only to end up six feet underground. i’m scared of men. i’m scared of what they’re capable of and their complete lack of remorse.

On 24 October 1975, 75,000 women in Iceland left their jobs, children and homes and took to the streets for a general strike that was billed “Women’s Day Off”. In Reykjavik, 30,000 women marched up the Laugavegur (wash road), as a women’s brass band played the marching tune from Shoulder to Shoulder, a British TV series about the suffragettes which had recently aired in this small Nordic nation. Flyers fluttered against clear autumn skies: “We march because it is commonly said about a housewife: ‘She is not working, she is just keeping house’,” they read. “We march because the work experience of a housewife is not considered of any value in the labour market.”

For Icelandic men, this day became known as the “Long Friday”. With no women to staff desks and tills, banks, factories and many shops were forced to close, as were schools and nurseries – leaving many fathers with no choice but to take their children to work. There were reports of men arming themselves with sweets and colouring crayons to entertain the swarms of children in their workplaces, or bribing older children to look after their siblings. Sausages (easy to cook, of course, and a hit with children the world over) were in such demand that shops sold out; children could be heard giggling in the background while male newsreaders reported the day’s events on the radio.

Many of the greatest successes of feminism have come in moments when boots were on the ground; and our bodies elsewhere to the posts ascribed to women by patriarchal capitalism. In the UK, public reaction to the sexual violence meted out against the 300 women who marched to parliament demanding women’s suffrage on 18 November 1910, Black Friday, was instrumental in gaining the vote for women. The 1968 strike by Ford’s women sewing machinists at Dagenham, which was followed by 1970 strikes by women clothing workers in Leeds, were landmark labour-relations dispute that triggered the passing of the Equal Pay Act 1970.

Yet domestic labour has always been a tricky injustice to protest against. It takes place in the privacy of the home, making it difficult for women to see each other doing this work and to collectively acknowledge that men do not share equally in its burden (and they don’t: the average British woman still contributes 60% more washing, wiping and childcare a week than the average British man, even as the pandemic has increased this work to around nine hours per day). And there can also be dire consequences if we withdraw this labour: children uncared for and vulnerable relatives unfed.

“A women’s strike is impossible; that is why it is necessary,” claims Women’s Strike Assembly (WSA), an activist alliance that, to mark last week’s International Women’s Day, called for a series of banner memorials to be erected around the UK to declare why #westrike as women (or, just as importantly, why we can’t). In a manifesto published in November, WSA wrote: “We strike because we are tired of our labour being taken for granted. We strike because we now have to do a triple shift: our paid work, our unpaid domestic labour and educating our children during the pandemic.”

In Liverpool, Bristol and Edinburgh women gathered, last Monday, in socially distanced clusters toting their banner memorials. “#westrike because we are tired. Very, very tired,” a banner in Liverpool read and a memorial painted by Bristol Sisterhood stated, simply: “Fuck macho bullshit, women on fire.” Many of the social media protests, however, indicated why last Monday saw no wholesale abandonment of women’s posts. “I am a freelancer and I would not get paid (or lose my client!). But I’m striking with my compañeras in mind and spirit,” one IWD banner read, and another: “I cannot strike but I lit a candle in solidarity.”

Recent years have seen a flowering of strikes against gendered labour in Spain and South America. In 2018, six million women joined Spain’s 2018 “Dia Sin Mujeres’ (day without women), including Madrid’s Manuela Carmena and actress Penelope Cruz, as “feminist men in solidarity” staffed a network of collective nurseries. Old-fashioned mother’s aprons, the symbol of the strikes, were stitched in solidarity workshops and strung from balconies. But, in Britain, women’s general labour strikes have been conspicuously absent.

Selma James, the cofounder of 70s marxist activist project Wages for Housework, has a theory to account for this lack. She points out that as the power of unions dwindles, the climate in Anglo-Saxon countries is less hospitable to gestures of withdrawn labour, even as feminist identity marches gain broader support. Without union protection, British and north American women who strike from paid work risk losing their jobs; to the single mum on the breadline in a pandemic, strikes, in this context, seem the preserve of privileged white feminists.

For all this, calling political attention to the pandemic’s third shift is an urgent project. Only 36% of British women have been able to continue working full time alongside their caring responsibilities during the pandemic, compared to 66% of men, and mothers are more likely to have quit or lost their job. As the pandemic recedes over a nation of shattered women, there will be opportunities for direct action. Women’s March, Pregnant Then Screwed and Women’s Strike Assembly, among others, are calling for protests and marches to highlight the structural sexism that’s left women bearing the brunt of reproductive labour during this year of crisis.

James, in the meantime, advocates a daily constellation of “small resistances”: banging pots and pans at your window; stringing up a banner and apron; radically lowering domestic standards.