Citation needed. https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1320709191741313026

Also, I've made the argument many times, that by insisting that you refer to trans women as men and trans men as women, you're unable to talk about men and women clearly.

An argument that she supports earlier in her own thread. Maya and other anti-trans people's goal is to move people, especially trans women, from one category to another, so as to limit their influence. https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1320709160120582145

Her argument is that because trans women are men, as far as sex, and gender is how society treats people because of sex, there's no way to talk about women, in a feminist sense, in a way that includes trans women. But this is absurd.

The important thing to understand is that her model has sex, then gender derives from sex. But that's not the case. Our understanding of sex and gender is linked and each one influences the other.

Most trans feminists will agree that the sex is at the root of much of women's oppression. It's not hard to see how a desire to control women's reproduction leads to cultural norms that help you do just that. That's not particularly controversial.

But that's not to say that sex ACTUALLY matters in reality to anyone trying to enforce those norms! Trans women still get judged by the same norms! I know, I know, "We can always tell", but that's a rickety foundation to build on, frankly.

And this feeds back. Our understanding of what women 'should be' is influenced by the cultural desire to see them a certain way. You get evopsych types explaining that women be shopping because they have gatherer genes and so on.

Remember that science is a human endeavor and is influenced by culture in the same way that every other human endeavor is. And you see tons of examples of this in history, where things we think are absurd now were scientific reality in the past.

So, the call is to use more precise language that describes the actual reality of bodies when it's warranted. A notion that Maya and the like strongly reject. Why? Because she's not wrong that it dilutes her power. https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1320709200738222080

By bundling gender norms and, say, menstruation together, Maya is able to exert as much power over issues that impact, say, trans men or nonbinary people, and so on as she is over other cis women's issues.

Now, anti-trans people will claim that 'cis' women have no power because they're oppressed under patriarchy. But clearly things like race, class, disability, gender conformity, and so on do actually matter regarding how one is treated!

Which is why you see TERFs being primarily white, middle-upper class women, in media or very occasionally academia. Because they've secured a relative position of power and they're terrified of losing it, even if they can't show HOW it would harm them.

So, back to the beginning. She doesn't show how inclusion of trans women breaks these things. She just wants us to take it for granted that it does. Women cannot have solidarity if we include women with different bodies, I guess? https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1320709191741313026