Why can't we be friends?

Feministing has picked up a couple new bloggers recently, and among them is the brilliant Jos Truitt. I am rrreal excited about this--I saw Jos speak about transfeminism at Hampshire College's Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference this spring, and took away a whole new way of looking at gender identity, feminism and equality. She posted a piece on Feministing Community about TransFeminism, which is basically a summary of what she said at the panel I went to.

She states that feminism has a long history of excluding transwomen, and questions why this is. She bases her piece on the assumption that "in patriarchal cultures the oppression of women through exclusion, marginalization, and violence is oppression of people who have failed to be men." In other words, women are not oppressed because they are women, but because they are not men. She continues, pointing out that transwomen and ciswomen have a lot in common in terms of goals: ending patriarchy, freedom of gender expression for all, an end to violence against women (and everyone who has failed to be a man). All of this basically goes to say that because transwomen and ciswomen are both hurt by patriarchy in very similar ways, there is no reason that they can't work together towards common goals. She concludes:

The transgender community experiences a sort of oppression that fits very well into the analysis of patriarchy that is foundational to feminism. Feminism, stripped of transphobic ideas that are antithetical to the philosophy and goals of feminist politics, has a lot to offer the trans community. And the trans community has a lot to offer feminists. We can bring an understanding of the gender binary that calls for the dismantling of a system generally viewed as natural, fundamental, and unquestionable, a system that is an essential tool of the patriarchy that feminism exists to oppose. But in order to do so we have to stop targeting each other, start listening to each other, and unite on the issues we share.

This argument goes a long way towards helping understand gender oppression and inequality in general. This re-thinking and re-defining of what patriarchy is and how it works really leaves no justification for exclusion of transwomen in the feminist movement. Under this analysis, exclusion of transwomen is simply divisive and harmful to the movement.

UPDATE: Check out Jos's latest post, on hate crimes legislation. It is characteristically brilliant.