How can you be trans and a lesbian separatist? Isn't it the predecessor of modern terfism? What about non-lesbian trans/queer people and intersectionality? I'm genuinely really curious and asking in good faith
Okay, first and foremost. In a personal sense we do not mean like trans/lesbian separatist. We are a trans lesbian separatist as in we are only somewhat comfortable with cis lesbians. (Tho we are much more comfortable with them than any man. Including trans men) secondly, while we are usually really reticent to answer questions like this with a reading suggestion, I would highly highly recommend reading The Combahee River Collective, particularly Combahee River Collective Statement for a better understanding of the concepts behind “intersectionality” as well as lesbian separatism. Thirdly, it is important to realize that like modern terfism is like nothing like the terfism that would have evolved from those second wave separatist spaces, most of it these days comes out of the third wave liberal feminism and people like Julie Bindel and Sheila Jeffreys, like modern terfs are not radical feminists in the second wave sense, they have nothing in common with the types of lesbian, materialist feminism that would have composed “radical feminism” in its original sense (besides a hatred of trans women) fuck most of them are not lesbians (and often not even feminists) it was the original radical feminists who coined the term terf in order to differentiate their spaces from that ideology.
The reason why we are a trans lesbian separatist is based on a materialist approach to feminism lesbianism and transmisogyny (you know you never see the word translesbophobia anymore, because nobody cares and are often really uncomfortable with understanding their role in it as well as the larger role it plays in like Capital, Civilization, Patriarchy etc.) as well as the personal (often traumatic) experiences we have interacting with, well really any space in the world, but for this sort of thing specifically queer spaces. We could talk a long time about the experiences I and other trans lesbians I know have had in these spaces and how it has informed our worldview, but we’ll try to summarize instead. The prevalence of transmisogyny, misogyny, lesbophobia, of patriarchy is so vast and outreaching and so often like frankly not discussed in a meaningful way. Like let’s be honest here like patriarchy and it’s worldview is what has caused and continues to cause radical movements of all kinds to collapse or create some new horrible scenario and any attempts at actual materialist feminist analysis of these situations is either watered down to the point of meaningless or is ignored on the basis of people being afraid of terfs (but like only the specter of terfs, since so many of these people saying these things are more than happy to wield transmisogyny) but actually looking at and really having an analysis of these power dynamics leads to an understanding that like we have to create an alternative, any meaningful analysis of this situation must include attempts at actually building and practicing a better life, a better world. For trans lesbians, given our most of the time bottom of the barrel status in any space, this leads to a conclusion that no one is going to take care of us except for ourselves. That we need to create and hell deserve spaces in which we are not surrounded by the types of people (read all tme people and those others who will bring tme people around regardless of peoples comfort with that) who will explicitly wield those power structures over us. Spaces with which to care for ourselves, look out for ourselves, practice forms of consensus and new ethics that will allow us to create a better lives for ourselves as well as being a model for the better world we are trying to create. (It’s important to remember that radical feminism, materialist feminist, lesbian feminism whatever is born from the same cloth as communism and anarchism) constantly trying to appease men (and hell Cafab tme people), and straight people, and those willing to wield that power of translesbophobia over us is never going to make them not hate us or not be ready to throw us under the bus as soon as it benefits them and their power structures to do so. Why waste that energy? It is better spent taking care of ourselves and our sisters. It’s with this worldview as a base that we can better put the analysis of intersectionality into practice in our lives.
