Digital Transgender Archive

Spotlight: Women’s Spaces and Transgender Controversies

Rites of Passage Title StripIn this 1993 volume of Rites of Passage, Dallas Denny interviews performance artist, author, and gender theorist Kate Bornstein concerning Bornstein’s then recent commentary on the contentious inclusion of transgender persons in lesbian separatist spaces. Bornstein was actually facing a lot of antagonism within the transgender community following her article in which she emphasized compassionate and considerate activism toward trans-exclusive radical feminists instead of intrusive tactics to incorporate trans women into womyn-born-womyn spaces. Many persons construed her call for compassion as an assertion that trans women did not belong in womyn-only spaces—conceding to radical feminist ideas.

The conflict between transgender women and lesbian separatists has a long history and is explicitly theorized and documented in Janice Raymond’s book, The Transsexual Empire (1979), and even more recently in Sheila Jeffreys’ work, Gender Hurts (2014). At stake in these debates is who can actually claim the identity of “woman,” whether it is just to maintain women’s spaces that are explicitly trans-exclusive, and, to some extent, the validity of transgender identity itself.  Is “woman” even a meaningful social category when women can be so diverse (racially, ethnically, socioeconomically, religiously, sexually, etc) and the role of women can be so historically and culturally dissimilar?  Certainly, inclusion can be tough when both groups feel on the defensive from mainstream society.