Between trans people and feminist activists, the eternal debate

• Since the beginning of August, Family Planning has found itself at the heart of a huge debate for having used the image of a pregnant transgender man in a communication campaign as well as the slogan, "Au Planning, les men can also be pregnant.

• Following this communication campaign, the place of trans people in feminist movements is once again contested by certain activists.

  And the battle resurfaces between intersectional feminisms and feminism claiming universalism.

• But then what is stuck?

  Answers with Emmanuel Beaubatie, CNRS researcher who conducts work on gender and sexuality, and Karine Espineira, media sociologist.

The relationship between JK Rowling's tweets, Marguerite Stern's stories and Dave Chappelle's sketches?

Transphobic comments that bring an old debate back to the fore: the place of trans people in our society.

The subject is not new and it is not the first time - far from it - that a minority has suffered the wrath of the masses.

Especially since since the beginning of August, Family Planning has relaunched the tweeting machine after using the image of a pregnant transgender man in a communication campaign as well as the slogan, "Au Planning, men can also be pregnant.

Since then, the debate has resurfaced on the legitimacy of trans people to take part in the feminist struggle.

A legitimacy contested by some feminist activists.

The fight against patriarchy, the abolition of mechanisms of domination or even the right to dispose of one's own body, seem to be common objectives for all of them, don't they?

But then what is stuck?

Between “misunderstandings and the desire to understand”

According to Emmanuel Beaubatie, sociologist, researcher at the CNRS who conducts work on gender and sexuality, it is important to remember that these debates are not new: “They are old, but recurring.

They return regularly in different forms.

To grasp its current contours, you have to go straight back to the 1970s, when the book by Janice Raymonde, a professor of American feminist studies, was released.

"In

, Janice Raymond depicts trans women as men infiltrating feminist circles in order to make them disappear", recalls the sociologist to

.

Same socio-historical analysis on the side of Karine Espineira, sociologist of the media.

"Transitude, or the fact of being trans, was perceived as a marginality in the 1960s, slipped into a question of society in the late 1970s and became a social movement in the 2000s".

For the one who is the co-author with Maud-Yeuse Thomas of the book

the story between trans people and some feminists has for decades been "strewn with both misunderstandings and the desire to understand". .

A three-headed debate

And not easy to understand everything.

Indeed, Emmanuel Beaubatie believes that there are three debates… at the heart of the debate on the place of trans people in feminist circles.

In the first place, it is a question of evoking the question of biology: “certain feminists, called 'essentialists', consider that it is biology alone which determines the membership of the group of women.

This feminist current notably distinguishes “women” from “females”.

“Only women, that is to say human adult females, can be pregnant”, thus advanced these activists in a forum published at the end of August on the site of

.

An approach that the sociologist considers "deeply paradoxical".

Indeed, according to Emmanuel Beaubatie, the history of feminist struggles has long been, precisely, that of freedom from assignments to biology.

Secondly, there is the question of “socialization”.

Reference is made here to how trans people were raised before they transitioned.

"Because they were initially socialized as boys, trans women are sometimes, for this reason, still considered to be men by certain feminists," explains Emmanuel Beaubatie.

But we can also have the opposite reasoning: trans people have been women or have become women.

»

Third part of the debate: “anti-trans feminists often claim to be “universalists”, that is to say that they consider that feminist struggles are or should be the same for all women”, details the sociologist.

An ultimate, unique and universal fight which would therefore tend to exclude women who do not recognize themselves in this global vision of feminism.

Here is finally (and unfortunately) the classic dynamic of power, domination and exclusion that we find quite commonly in the functioning of groups.

A favorable context?

Family planning controversy, feminist demonstrations that turn violent, advent of the neologism “Terf” (understand in English “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” or “radical feminists excluding trans people”), etc.

In recent months, the tone has gone up a notch between the two “camps”.

Beyond the Family Planning poster, it is, according to Karine Espineira and if we are to believe Marguerite Stern, a collage that would have brought the debate back to center stage.

The text ?

“Sisters not cisterfs”.

The so-called initiator of these collages against ex-Femen feminicides, Marguerite Stern, has become one of the symbols of the split between trans people and part of the feminists.

She is also the co-author, with Dora Moutot (creator of the Instagram account @tasjoui),

Emmanuel Beaubatie believes that there was not a trigger, strictly speaking, but rather that the socio-political context is deleterious: "We note a strong extreme right-winging of the political spectrum which is accompanied by a profusion of uninhibited violence towards the collective struggles of minorities.

".

We have thus seen the appearance of new terms or new concepts, including “gender ideology”, “Wokism” or even “Islamo-leftism”.

These speeches, according to the expert, "provide fertile ground for the resurgence of violent remarks against trans people".

A common enemy

But, then, is a convergence of struggles possible?

On this subject, our two experts are unanimous.

“Convergence has been around for a long time, without publicity.

Our example is not lonely.

We have many comrades whom we support and who support us,” says Karine Espineira.

Far from being a horizon or even a utopia "in most feminist spaces, the convergence of struggles between trans people and cisgender women - that is to say non-trans - is already at work", abounds Emmanuel Beaubatie .

Our dossier on feminism

And the reason is quite simple, the existence of a common enemy: patriarchy.

"Trans and feminists are able to think about their condition and have identified the patriarchy as responsible for many of their oppressions", confides Karine Espineira.

And Emmanuel Beaubatie concludes: “It is indeed patriarchy which, because it differentiates and hierarchizes men and women, makes gender transitions so unthinkable and condemnable in the eyes of many.

»

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