I think where a lot of cis women run into difficulty with trans issues is that for a long time, trans women in feminism was framed as about inclusion, like inviting the Ugly Girl to sit with you at lunch. Many cis women think it’s about their kindness and not about the *power.*

In other words, in the late ‘00s and early ‘10s, cis women who were getting used to the idea of trans women were often seeing this as about extending a hand of friendship to people who are lost equal partners in feminism, women on equal footing but somewhat different experiences

The reality that cis women often seem to struggle with is that cis women actually have a form of power over trans women and are our oppressors as much as cis men are. Acknowledging this was not the responsibility many such cis women thought they were signing up for.

You could see this reflected in a great deal of writing about trans inclusion in feminist scenes over this period, with cis women and the occasional TME trans person talking about how yeah, trans women have male privilege, but we still have a role in feminism

I remember one appeal to trans inclusion about 10 years ago (by an cis woman) arguing that trans women aren’t really women, but we aren’t EXACTLY men either, and so we’re kind of our own thing that have some shared interests and similar oppression with cis women

You can also see it still today with how often even highly progressive cis women seem legitimately taken by surprise at the idea to say they can function in an oppressor role toward trans women, as if they’ve never considered it

The way so many cis women seem to go about their feminism without any thought to responsibility toward trans women—including how they casually talk about bodies, sexism, and the origin of misogyny—speaks to a sense that trans women should deal with our own stuff in a parallel way

I think the notion that cis women are above us in the social hierarchy—and not slightly either, but by quite a dramatic degree—still is difficult for many cis feminists to swallow both emotionally and intellectually

Honestly this is still present in how TERFs are framed as exclusionists rather than exterminationists, as closer to close-minded snobs than what they really are: the mouthpieces of a violent hate movement