Terms & Concepts: Transfeminisms This partial list of terms provides basic information to support further discussion and reading. Language is constantly changing; we encourage you to continue researching. Please note all terms should be chosen by a person for themselves.

Liberation & Solidarity Frameworks Feminism: (1) “Feminism is a movement to end queers, intersex people, trans men, non-trans sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” – bell women, non-trans men, and others who are hooks, Feminism Is for Everybody, 2000. sympathetic to the needs of trans women and (2) “Feminism is the political theory and practice consider their alliance with trans women to be that struggles to free all women: women of color, essential for their own liberation. Transfeminism … working-class women, poor women, disabled stands for trans and non-trans women alike and asks women, lesbians, old women—as well as white, non-trans women to stand up for trans women in return. Transfeminism embodies feminist coalition economically privileged, heterosexual women. Anything less than this vision of total freedom is not politics in which women from different backgrounds feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement” – stand up for each other, because if we do not stand Barbara Smith, “Racism and Women’s Studies,” for each other, nobody will” – Emi Koyama, “The 1979. Transfeminist Manifesto,” 2000. Intersectionality: “Intersectionality was a lived (2) “Trans feminism is a commitment to social reality before it became a term. … Intersectionality is justice, rooted in that understanding of power an analytic sensibility, a way of thinking about relations and experiences of oppression based on identity and its relationship to power. Originally gender identity and expression.” – Pauline Park, articulated on behalf of black women, the term “Transfeminism: Speaking My Truth to Power,” 2012 brought to light the invisibility of many constituents Trans-Inclusive Feminism: (1) “Our struggle should within groups that claim them as members, but not focus only on making the feminist movement often fail to represent them. Intersectional erasures more inclusive – this is about making trans people are not exclusive to black women. People of color and other marginalized members of the feminist within LGBTQ movements; girls of color in the fight movement a central part of it. We can’t just call out against the school-to-prison pipeline; women within transphobic attitudes – we have to allow trans immigration movements; trans women within people a non-tokenized voice and space in our feminist movements; and people with disabilities movement” – Laura Kacere, “Why the Feminist fighting police abuse — all face vulnerabilities that Movement Must Be Trans-Inclusive,” 2014 reflect the intersections of racism, sexism, class (2) “Transphobic feminism ignores the identification oppression, transphobia, able-ism and more” – of many trans* and genderqueer people as feminists Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Why Intersectionality Can’t or womanists and many cis feminists/womanists Wait,” 2015. with their trans* sisters, brothers, friends, and Transfeminism: (1) “Transfeminism is primarily a lovers; it is feminism that has too often rejected movement by and for trans women who view their them, and not the reverse” – Feminists Fighting liberation to be intrinsically linked to the liberation Transphobia, “Statement of Trans-Inclusive of all women and beyond. It is also open to other Feminism and Womanism,” 2013.

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Oppressions & Systems Gender Identity & Expression Cisgenderism: The system of oppression that Sexual and romantic orientation are separate from reinforces the belief in only two, biologically based gender identity and expression. People of any sexual genders, thereby negating, punishing, and excluding and romantic orientation may be cisgender, all transgender and genderqueer people. transgender, or genderqueer; they may have any gender identity; and they may have any gender Gender Binary: The separation of females and males expression. into two socially distinct categories that are viewed as “opposite” from one another and diametrically Assigned Sex: The sex a person is socially considered opposed. Gender binarism discourages the crossing to be at birth, often based on interpretation of a and mixing of gender roles and gender identities. person’s external genitalia. Gender binarism reinforces gender-based Cisgender: A term used to describe a person whose stereotypes and devalues people with transgender, gender identity is the same as the sex assigned to intersex, or nonbinary identities. them at birth. Heterosexism: The system of oppression that Gender Expression: Is how you express your gender reinforces the belief in the inherent superiority of through how you dress, walk, talk, and the language heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships, you use for yourself. You can show your femininity, thereby negating, punishing, and excluding lesbian, masculinity, androgyny, femme or butch identities, gay, bisexual, and asexual people and their or all or none of these. Your gender expression is not relationships. dependent on your gender identity. Misogyny: A cultural attitude of hatred of women Gender Identity: Your innermost sense of yourself as and femininity. a woman or a man or both or neither with identities Misogynoir: “The intersection of racism, anti- including agender, genderqueer, gender fluid, etc. Blackness, and misogyny that Black women Your gender identity is not dependent on your experience” – Moya Bailey anatomy. Sexism: The systematic, institutional, pervasive, and Genderqueer: A term used to describe a person routine mistreatment of women and feminine whose gender identity is neither woman nor man people. This mistreatment creates an imbalance of and is between, beyond, or a combination of genders. A rejection of the social construction of power in society that renders women and feminine people disadvantaged. The belief that maleness and gender, gender stereotypes, and the gender binary masculinity are superior to femaleness and system. femininity. Transgender: An umbrella term that describes Transmisogyny: The intersection of transphobia and people whose gender identity and/or gender misogyny that systematically targets trans women. expression is different from the sex they were “When the majority of violence and sexual assaults assigned at birth. People who identify as transgender committed against trans people is directed at trans may describe themselves using one or more of a women, that is not transphobia—it is trans- wide variety of terms including genderqueer, misogyny” – Julia Serano, “Trans Woman Manifesto” nonbinary, and transgender. Gender and Sexuality Center Student Activity Center (SAC) 2.112 Campus Location: 2201 Speedway Phone: (512) 232-1831 www.utgsc.org | [email protected]