The relationship between feminist and trans theory and politics issurprisingly fraught. The goal in this entry is to outline some of thekey philosophical issues at the intersections, and this can beaccomplished only by attending to the history thereof. This entry willtherefore follow a roughly chronological order, although there willalso be some deviations in the timeline to provide sustainedphilosophical engagements on specific points. While the earlytheorizing about trans issues did not occur in the discipline ofphilosophy, some of it has been included because of its philosophicalcharacter and pertinence to subsequent disciplinary discussions.Further, because much of the theory arose from on-the-ground politicalengagements, this entry will mention those engagements. And foradditional coverage on the topic more broadly construed, see thegeneral entry ontrans philosophy.

Although there are many topics that might be covered, this entry willfocus on some of the most general sets of questions. The first areprima facie metaphysical ones. They include the questions what womenand men are – questions which might be understood as questionsabout concepts, meanings of terms, or kinds. They also include thequestion whether trans self-identifying claims are typically valid(e.g., whether a trans woman who says she is a woman, is a woman).Sometimes this last sort of question is framed as the question whethertrans women are women and trans men are men. However, since some transwomen and men self-identify as nonbinary, the initial formulationought to be considered more precise.

The second set of questions are prima facie political ones. Theyinclude questions how the oppression of women and the oppression oftrans people ought to be understood. To put it differently – ifboth women and trans people can be oppressed through gender then itwould appear that multiple forms of gender oppression are possible. Ifso, how ought this be theorized? Are feminist politics and transpolitics necessarily at odds with each other? Is it possible for transforms of oppression and sexist forms of oppression to intermesh witheach other? What might an intersectional trans feminist look like?

A note on terminology. “Trans terminology” has continuedto change over time and at any given time has been subject topolitical and semantic contestation. For example, while“transsexual” continues to be a term ofself-identification for some, for others the term is outdated andoffensive. One consequence of this is that any straightforwarddefinition of an expression risks eliding these changes and takingsides on these contestations. For the reason, the terms will often bediscussed throughout the entry by placing them within their historicaland political location and then using them as appropriate to that timeand place. When more general terms are required, the contemporaryexpressions ‘trans,’ ‘trans woman,’‘trans man’, and ‘nonbinary’ will be used,recognizing that this deployment risks anachronism. The expression‘nontrans’ will be used in place of the expression‘cis.’

• 1. The Wrong Body Account
• 2. The Lesbian Separatist Perspective
• 3. The Beyond the Binary Account
  • 3.1 TheEmpire Strikes Back
  • 3.2 Gender Trouble
  • 3.3 Beyond the Binary 2.0
  • 3.4 Transfeminism
• 4. Early Disciplinary Perspectives
• 5. The Feminist Philosophical Purview
  • 5.1 Initial Responses
  • 5.2 The Feminist Purview 2.0
• 6. Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers
• 7. Gender-Critical Feminism and Philosophy
• 8. Decolonial Feminism/Decolonizing Trans
• 9. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. The Wrong Body Account

The Wrong Body Account consists of two main claims. First, that transgender dysphoria is to be accounted for as an incongruence betweengender identity and body. Second, that gender identity is eitherinnate or immutable from an early age. There is also a third claimthat may or may not be endorsed – namely, that the innateness(or immutability) of this gender identity validates trans claims tobelong to this or that gender. This last claim has tended to be voicedby some of those trans folk who have endorsed this account (Hausman1995, 141–174, Prosser 1998, 99–134). The voicing of it bymedical practitioners, by contrast, has been more mixed (contrastBenjamin 1953, 13 and Hamburgeret al 1953, 392). The generalidea, at any rate, is that, prior to transition, a trans woman is awoman “trapped inside” the body of man and a trans man isa man “trapped inside” the body of a woman. The solutionto this medical condition consists in the various technologies oftransition including access to surgical and hormonalinterventions.

Two intertwined intellectual developments served as preconditions forthe view – namely, the field of sexology – the“scientific” study of human sexuality – and thedevelopment of hormonal and surgical procedures for changing sexcharacteristics. Some of the most notable thinkers in sexology includeKarl Heinrich Ulrichs (1864 [1994]), Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1886[1965]), Havelock Ellis (1905 [1942]), and Magnus Hirschfeld (1910[1991]). The idea of being trapped in the wrong body can be traced toUlrichs, although it is deployed in a less contemporary way as what wenow call gender identity and sexual orientation are not distinguished.Meanwhile, as early as the 1910s Eugen Steinach was experimenting with“transplantation” on animals and by the 1920s and 1930s,hormonal and surgical treatments were being made available to humans,largely through Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science(Meyerowitz 2002, 16–21).

In the United States, however, there was a reluctance to provide suchtreatments owing to concerns about violations of ‘mayhem’laws. This was ungirded by the view that trans phenomena were purelypsychological in character and ought to be treatedpsychotherapeutically to “cure the mental illness.” Bycontrast, in Europe, the prevailing view was a “bisexualitytheory” which maintained that there was a physical blend of maleand female in all human beings and that special cases yielded a“mixed-sex” condition which in some cases justifiedsurgical intervention (Meyerowitz 2002, 98–129).

This began to change in the early 1950s with ChristineJorgensen’s well-publicized transition and U.S. celebrity. In1953, two articles were published, one by her endocrinologist in theU.S., Harry Benjamin, another by her Danish endocrinologist, ChristianHamburger, psychiatrist, Georg K. Stürup, and lead surgeon, E.Dahl-Iverson. Both articles argued that the desire for medicaltransformation in “transsexualism,” as Benjamin called it,and “genuine transvestism” (“psychichermaphroditism,” “eonism” (as Hamburgeretal called it), could not be altered through psychiatric treatmentand likely had a somatic basis. Benjamin spoke of a “femalepsyche in a male body” (1953, 12), and Hamburgeret al.characterized “eonists” as having a “fundamentalfeeling of being victims of a cruel mistake – a consequence ofthe female personality in a male body” (1953, 391). In additionto arguing against the application of ‘mayhem’ laws toprevent access to medical procedures, they also argued against lawsprohibiting public cross dressing and in favor of legal recognitionconsistent with “psyche.”

In 1966, Benjamin published the landmarkThe TranssexualPhenomenon. Meanwhile, that same year saw the opening of theJohns Hopkins University program for sex- reassignment surgery, withJohn Money as the lead, ushering in a period of large university-basedgender-identity clinics which lasted until the end of the seventies.By the time the Johns Hopkins program closed in 1979, the HarryBenjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (since renamed TheWorld Health Professional Association for Transgender Health or WPATH)had been formed and had approved standardized criteria for thetreatment of transsexuals. A year later,transsexualism wasadded to the DSM, the same year thathomosexuality wasremoved from it. (In 2000, transsexualism was replaced by genderidentity disorder in the DSM-IV and in 2013, this was replaced withgender dysphoria in the DSM-V).

Work by John Money, Joan Hampson, and John Hampson (1955) onintersexuality, the state of having both female and male biologicalcharacteristics, converged with the emerging view about“transsexualism”. Their work purported to evade the debatebetween psychology and biology, arguing that while the capacity tolearn a “gender role” (like a language) was biologicallygrounded, the specific native role learned (like language) wascontingent upon social environment which became “lockeddown” at a very early age (1957). Subsequently, the expressiongender identity was coined by Robert Stoller and RalphGreenson in 1964, which helped terminologically separate the notion ofsocial role from psychological sense-of-self. Stoller defined thelatter as “the sense of knowing to which sex one belongs”(1964, 220). It was ultimately taken up by the likes of Money andHarry Benjamin (Meyerowitz 2002, 117–9), and while debate overetiology continued, views allowing for both biology and socialenvironment in determining gender identity gained somewhat greaterprominence (Meyerowitz 2002, 119).

Meanwhile, feminist sociologist Ann Oakley, drawing on Stoller’swork, contrasted ‘sex’ as a biological term and‘gender’ as “a psychological and cultural one”(2015 [1972], 115) in what was one of the earliest feministdeployments of the term ‘gender’ to characterize thesex/gender distinction. Prior to this, expressions such as ‘sexrole’ and ‘sex role stereotype’ tended to be used byfeminists and many continued to use those terms long after. Indeed, asdiscussed below, some feminists will come to be critical of the verynotion of gender. The issues, far from terminological, concern thequestion whether the cultural phenomena designated by expressions like‘sex role’ and ‘gender’ are exhausted by theirfunction in subordinating women or whether they also operate in otherforms of subordination and can be repurposed in acts ofresistance.

2. The Lesbian Separatist Perspective

Lesbian Separatism is a species of radical feminism where radicalfeminism itself understands women’s oppression as arising due topatriarchal arrangements, regards sexist domination as the fundamentalform of oppression, and which advocates a remaking of society. It isworth noting that several radical feminist thinkers have explicitlyendorsed trans affirming feminist views, including Andrea Dworkin(1974) and Catharine A. MacKinnon (2023). Further, Loren Cannon (2016)argues that Shulamith Firestone’s (1970) radical feminist visionof the future – one in which reproduction is facilitated bytechnological advancement – has begun to be actualized in transaffirming communities and greater recognition of trans lives willyield greater strides towards the revolution Firestone envisioned.

Moreover, prior to the rise of separatism, lesbian perspectives ontrans issues were mixed. One of the earliest controversies occurred inthe San Francisco chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis in 1972 over theparticipation of Beth Elliott (a transsexual woman who was serving asvice-president) (Bettcher and Stryker 2016, 276). The side thatfavored inclusion appealed to the Wrong Body Account above to arguethat transsexual women were women, while the side that supportedexpulsion did not endorse a feminist perspective, such as lesbianseparatism (Córdova 1972). Meanwhile, the LesbianTideCollective in Los Angeles, led by Jeanne Córdova, articulated athird position that argued common cause in the fight against mandated“sex roles” and in favor of self-definition (TideCollective, 1972) – a view that anticipated the transgenderparadigm of the nineteen-nineties (see below).

These perspectives were overshadowed, however, when controversy ensuedat the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Conference in Los Angeles. As BethElliott took the stage as a performer, the Gutter Dykes, a group fromSan Francisco protested the presence of a “man” on lesbianseparatist grounds (Stryker 2017, 129–131). While theparticipants ultimately voted that Elliott could continue performing,Elliott did not stay for the remainder of the conference. The keynote,Robin Morgan, charged Elliott, “as an opportunist, aninfiltrator, and a destroyer – with the mentality of arapist” (Morgan 1977, 181).

Lesbian separatism itself arose in response to mainstream feministlesbophobia. In 1969–70, Betty Freidan, President of theNational Organization for Women (NOW) purged lesbian feminists fromleadership positions, concerned about “lesbian baiting.”This, in turn, led to a “zap” at the Second Congress toUnite Women in 1970 (Stryker 2017, 125). Led by Rita Mae Brown, the“lavender menace” seized the stage while distributing thepamphlet “The Woman-Identified Woman” (Radicalesbians 1970[1988]). Against the view that concerns about prejudice againstlesbianism distracted from the mission of feminism, this documentargued that such prejudice was integral to sexism, and hence centralto feminism. The essence of sexist oppression, in this view, is themandated heterosexual relation with men through which women aresubordinated. The second main idea is that women are conditioned toform self-identities that involve identification with their oppressorsand that, consequently, it is critical for women to develop newself-identities by learning to love women and by becomingwoman-identified, breaking away from relationships with men.

The lesbian separatist position (as well as any radical feministposition recommending the undoing of socialization under patriarchy)prima facie conflicts with the Wrong Body Account discussedabove at least insofar as the latter regards gender identity as fixedfrom an early age, the former endorses the project of changingone’s identity from man- to woman-identified later in life,suggesting the mutability of gender identity. In other words, thelatter treats as fixed certain identities that can be rightfullycritiqued from a feminist perspective. However, one might argue, asdid Beth Elliott, that there is a distinction between gender identityas the sense of knowing to which sex one belongs (as per Stoller andGreenson), and the internalization of sex stereotypes. It is thelatter, she says, not the former that is required to be mutable(Elliott 1973).

Janice Raymond’sThe Transsexual Empire (1979) is themost systematic development of the lesbian separatist perspective ontranssexuality. She regards medicalization of gender variance and thegender identity clinics as nothing but vehicles to further securesexist sex roles. Thus, for her, a sexist society is “the firstcause” of transsexuality (1979, 16). The role of the medicaltreatment of transsexuality is to turn men into “women”and women into “men” when they cannot be normed into theirnatally assigned sex roles. Raymond’s solution to “theproblem” of transsexuality which she sees as promoting thesurgical violation of bodily integrity, is to “morally mandateit out of existence” (178) by working against sex roleoppression through education and consciousness raising(178–185).

For Raymond, the phrasetranssexual empire applies to thepatriarchal medical establishment which perpetuates sex-roleoppression through surgical intervention. (She uses the wordempire to refer to “a political unit having a territoryof great extent, or a number of territories under a single sovereignauthority” (xv). She sees the medical “empire” asincluding numerous specialties such as urology, gynecology,endocrinology, and so forth. She also sees the collaboration ofpsychology and psychiatry in hiding what she calls the sovereignty ofthe medical “empire” by making it appear that there issome need for transsexual medical intervention, as well as theinvolvement of lawyers and legislators. However, it is the medicalestablishment, for Raymond, which possesses this sovereignty. So, itis the medical establishment which is the unifying authority of the“transsexual empire” (ibid.)).

Raymond rejects trans self-identifying claims by asserting thatmembership in the categorywoman is determined by (1)chromosomes and (2) the individual’s history of experience beingassigned to a sex role (1979, 4, 18, 114). In light of this, Raymondmaintains that transsexual women are men and transsexual men arewomen. One worry with her view is that the two criteria can comeapart. For instance, individuals born with Complete AndrogenInsensitivity Syndrome have XY chromosomes yet will typicallyexperience female socialization because their external morphology isfemale. A possible solution, endorsed by Germaine Greer, is that suchindividuals is to commit to the first criterion alone (1999,74–79). However, such a position runs against the actualexperiences of the individuals involved – living as women– as well as the spirit of lesbian separatism itself. In thefirst edition ofEmpire, Raymond, by contrast, admits thatsomebody without XX chromosomes yet with the history of being raisedas a woman would be “practically a woman” (1979, 115),although she later reframes this history in terms of bodily eventslikely to occur to somebody with XX chromosomes (e.g., menstruation,childbirth) (Raymond 1994, xx).

The argument behind the second criterion centers on the idea that‘woman’ (or ‘womon’) is a term beingreclaiming in the face of sexist oppression. For somebody who has notexperienced that oppression to self-identify with the term would beboth appropriative and semantically empty, analogous to a white personclaiming to be black (Raymond 1979, 116). While this argument hasforce, there are two possible responses. First, many trans womencertainly do experience sexist oppression after they transition andnot a few trans women transition fairly young. At some point, areclamation of the term would seem viable (Bettcher 2017a, 402).Second, the term ‘woman’ can be used in multiplyoppressive ways. For instance, it can be used as an instrument ofracism by centralizing white norms of femininity (e.g., fragility), oras an instrument of homophobia by centralizing heterosexist norms offemininity. This suggests that the term can be reclaimed alongmultiple vectors of oppression and to the extent that there exists adistinct form of trans oppression – Bettcher suggests“reality enforcement” and the centralization of genitalia–the term could be reclaimed on that basis alone (Bettcher2017a, 402, see below for further discussion of “realityenforcement”).

Crucial to Raymond’s position, however, is the view that anysort of oppression that trans people face is the side effect of sexistoppression – that is, is a form of collateral damage. This viewleads Raymond to ignore trans-specific forms of oppression andresistance. The actual struggle of some scientists and surgeons tomake surgeries available to transsexuals, for instance, is ignored inRaymond’s account (Riddell 2006). Such advocates for transsexualsurgery were in the minority (certainly in the U.S) and themselvesexperienced hostility and marginalization. This means that whatRaymond calls the transsexual empire was not monolithic. And given themarginalization of these advocates for transsexual surgery,it seems that the medical establishment was not especially friendly totranssexuality (Riddell 2006). Generally, transsexuality was andremains largely unaccepted in society. Contrary to Raymond’sview, it is largelynot endorsed by “thepatriarchy.”

Meanwhile, Raymond herself engages in oppressive behavior towardstrans people by constructing monolithic, stereotypical representationsof trans individuals in ways that foreclose the possibility ofregistering the actual variable experiences of trans people (on thispoint see Riddell 2006, 152–3, Stone 1991, 298, Heyes 2003,1095). Most egregiously, she writes, “All transsexuals rapewomen’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact,appropriating this body for themselves. However, the transsexuallyconstructed lesbian-feminist violates women’s sexuality andspirit, as well. Rape, although it is usually done by force, can alsobe accomplished by deception” (104).

She points to ways in which (some) transsexual women take uptraditional sex roles (and are thereby complicit) on the one hand(77–79), and yet goes on to criticize lesbian-separatistidentified transsexual women who have eschewed such roles asoppressively masculine (102–6). In this way, she trapstranssexual women with a double-bind: Either they take up traditionalsex roles and are thereby sexist or else they eschew these traditionalsex roles and are thereby sexist (See Califia 1997, 102, 104–5;Serano 2007, 49). Such a theory isn’t equipped to accommodatethe actual variable experiences of transsexual women trying tonegotiate gender in a sexist and transphobic world. In this way,Raymond’s theory erases the actual experiences of transsexualwomen through monolithic, ideologically-driven representations ofthem. Moreover, because Raymond sees transsexuality as essentially a“male” phenomenon, her discussion of transsexual men isminimal. She argues that transsexual men are mere tokens who are usedto prop up claims that transsexuality is a universal phenomenon andthereby hide its true patriarchal character. In this way, theirtranssexuality is largely dropped out of the picture (xxiii,27–28, 140; for further critique see Califia 1997, 100–1,Serano 2007, 48). This allows her to avoid discussing transsexual menin any depth at all. And this means that the complex, variable,everyday experiences of transsexual men do not get represented in thefirst place.

3. The Beyond the Binary Account

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, a new framework forunderstanding trans experience emerged in reaction to the Wrong BodyAccount and, in particular, to the pathologization of transsexuality,and to anti-trans feminist perspectives such as lesbian separatism– namely, the beyond the binary account. It consisted of thefollowing three claims: First, there exists a form of gender-basedoppression, usually targeting trans people, intersex people, and othergender variant people that is distinct from sexist oppression. Second,trans people, intersex people, and gender variant people areproblematically situated with respect to thegender binary.(The binary applies to the man/woman, male/female, masculine/feminine,and the alignment of the preceding). Third, those who are so oppressedought to become visible to contest the presumption of gender binarism.In this view, it is not the body that is wrong, but, rather, theoppressive culture.

This moment witnessed the popularization of the word“transgender” as a broad umbrella term – bringingtogether different “gender variant” people (includingtranssexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens and kings, some butches, andothers). Originally, the term “transgenderist” had beenused by Virginia Prince to refer to somebody who “lived fulltime” in their preferred gender without availing themselves ofany medical interventions (Stryker 2017, 154). But this expansion ofthe term aimed for unity in the face of hostility toward those whowere gender “non-normative”, those who transgress thebinary.

The account itself encompasses many variations since the notion of astrict binary may be contested in several respects including itsinsistence on exclusiveness, exhaustiveness, invariance, and thealignment of male/man/masculine and female/woman/feminine. Further,the very categories themselves or any categories whatever may becontested as politically controlling. For instance, while LeslieFeinberg (1992, 1993, 1996, 1998) emphasizes the historicalpersistence of transgender people as a distinct kind of people oroppressed group, Kate Bornstein (1994) emphasizes the constructed (andoppressive) nature of gender categories as a whole, the desirabilityof viewing gender as fashion, and the importance of moving toward amore consensual gender system.

Two major theoretical views form the basis of this paradigm, eachhaving had a profound impact on gender scholarship. First, SandyStone’s “TheEmpire Strikes Back: APosttransexual Manifesto” launched the inter- andmulti-disciplinary field of trans studies. Second, JudithButler’sGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion ofIdentity (1990) trailblazed early queer theory. These arediscussed below.

3.1 TheEmpire Strikes Back

In 1977 a controversy erupted in lesbian-separatist circles, led byRaymond, over Sandy Stone, an openly transsexual woman and an engineerwho had been working at Olivia Records (an all-woman recordingcompany). Both she and Olivia were then explicitly targeted by RaymondinThe Transsexual Empire. After leaving Olivia, Stone earnedher doctorate under Donna Haraway at Santa Cruz, and in 1991 publisheda reply to Raymond and what would become the founding essay intransgender studies, “TheEmpire Strikes Back: A(post)transsexual manifesto” (Stryker 2017, 115).

Stone takes up a third position in opposition to both the medicalizedview of transsexuality characterized by Benjamin’sTheTranssexual Phenomenon and the feminist critique offered inRaymond’sThe Transsexual Empire. The fundamental moveof the essay is to see transsexuals as a kind of “oppressedminority.” While Stone does not position transsexuals as a thirdgender, she does propose that transsexuals “currently occupy aposition which is nowhere, which is outside the binary oppositions ofgendered discourse” (1991, 295). Because Stone wishes to avoidappeal to a pre-existing class of individuals who are then oppressed,she represents transsexuality as agenre of discourse. Theidea is that traditional medical discourse about transsexualityconstitutes a distinctive, regulatedway of talking andtheorizing which Stone calls agenre. (Contrast, for example,traditional medical discourse on transsexuality with Raymond’sfeminist discourse on transsexuality). Stone is suspicious ofappealing to a group of individualsprior to the workings ofa particular discourse (that is, one which is conceived of asindependent of a particular discourse) since, goes the postmodernworry, such an appeal to this group of individuals would nonethelessbe at the same time providing an account of themwithin adiscourse – a discourse which could be shaped by ideologicalcommitments. Instead of trying to make such a move, then, Stoneidentifies a group of individuals as represented through traditionalmedical discourse about transsexuality.

Drawing on the autobiographies of some transsexual women, Stone findsherself in agreement with Raymond in worrying about what she sees asthe uptake of sexist stereotypes by (some) transsexual women (1991,289). However, shealso notes (some) transsexualwomen’s insistence upon a male/female binary and the absence ofany middle or more complex gender ground (286). Beyond this, shecriticizes the subjectivity-erasing, blanket claims in Raymond’swork along with the implicit denial of transsexual subjectivitydiscussed above (298). What is lacking, according to Stone, is spacefor the discourse of transsexualsas transsexuals. She pointsto ways in which the medicalization of transsexuality has requiredboth the uptake of sexist behavioras well as theacquiescence to a strict gender binary. In this way, she argues,transsexuals have been complicit in telling a story within a genrethat does not necessarily reflect their own subjective experiences(1991, 295). At the same time, argues Stone, transsexuals have alsodeveloped their own subcultures as well as distinctive practiceswithin those subcultures that entirely run against the officialaccount of transsexuality (such as helping each other know what to sayand how to act in order to get medically designated as a transsexual)(291–2). The solution, Stone argues, is for transsexuals tobegin telling their own stories (295). This requires minimally, thatpost-operative transsexuals come out as transsexual and forego passingas (non-transsexual) men and women (298–9). The traditionalmedical requirement that one construct a plausible non-trans historyto hide one’s past, for Stone, undermines the possibility ofauthentic relationships. Because the injunction to forego passing asthe (non-transsexual) sex one has transitioned into runs entirelyagainst the prevalent discourse of transsexualityas such,Stone represents the political move aspost-transsexual(299). She sees that while many transsexuals are complicit in thisdiscourse, they nonethelessgo beyond it by attempting, forexample, to assist each other in “working” the medicalregulations (as explained above). Thus their experiences and actionsoutstrip the “official” medical accounts oftranssexuality. Yet this “outstripping” is renderedinvisible in any complicit attempt to fit into a medical account whichrequires that one’s status as transsexual be ultimately deniedin everyday life (through this construction of a false history). ForStone, eschewing this discourse is important because it hides thecomplex, variable experiences of different trans people who are oftenpositioned in contestatory ways vis a vis this discourse. The move isnot designed to find some one authentic and uniform account oftranssexuals beyond the medical discourse. It is, rather, to clear theway for discourses from which it is at least possible to speak and tospeak politicallyas a transsexual.

One crucial difference between Raymond’s and Stone’s viewsabout gender (or sex roles) turns on the former’s contrastbetweenintegration andintegrity. Integration, forRaymond, involves putting together parts to form a complex whole(1979, 163). She sees androgyny as a kind of blend between masculineand feminine and she argues that transsexual surgery also brings aboutsuch blends (constructing the individual into a kind of hermaphroditicbeing) (1979, 165). By contrast,integrity involves a priorwholeness from which no part can be taken away (193). For Raymond,true liberation cannot be secured by any mere blending of sex roles.Rather, it must be secured through atranscendence of sexrole altogether (164). Stone, however, doubts the promise of purityand instead celebrates gender mixture, drawing on DonnaHaraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1983, 1991) andGloria Anzaldúa’s theory of the mestiza (1987).

Haraway’s postmodern image of the cyborg is intended to raiseworries, derived largely from writings of women of color, aboutsingle, monolithic (identity-based) accounts of oppression/liberation.According to Haraway, the difficulty with such theories is that theyare partial in their account of the world (while assuminguniversality) and so end up ignoring (and even promoting) certainforms of oppression (1991 [1983], 156). The cyborg, then, is acollection of disparate, incongruent parts: Each individual containsmultiple elements of oppressor and oppressed. As a metaphor, it isintended to refuse postulations of original innocence and utopianfuture (1991 [1983], 151). Instead, resistance for Haraway is possibledue only to the possibility of the cyborg’s turning against theintentions of its maker in a dystopian environment (151).

This notion of mixture is also central in the work of Anzaldúa,who speaks against an emphasis on purity and in favor of the notion ofmixed race (unaraza mestiza) (1987, 99). Sherecognizes herself as a border dweller, torn between the demands ofconflicting cultures (for example, anglo and Mexican) (1987, 100). Theexperience of being caught in the confluence of multiple culturesleads to a kind of multiplicity or fragmentation of self. For example,one might be represented in a racist manner in dominant white forms offeminism and in a sexist manner in dominant forms of racialresistance. This tension between conflicting cultural perspectivesyields the possibility of “double” or“Mestiza” consciousness which involves the capacity to seeoneself in accordance with the dominant ways in which one isoppressively represented and constrained in different, and oftenconflicting ways (101–2). It is precisely the capacity to beconscious of this plurality of the self, in Anzaldúa’sview, that allows for resistance, since there is an awareness whichoutstrips the multiple forms of oppression by viewing them together,as well as in conflict (1987, 102). Such a consciousness also allowsfor the possibility of “linguistic terrorism” – thecreative blending of disparate languages and cultures in ways thatwork against the monolithic character of each (1987, 75–86).

3.2 Gender Trouble

The political landscape began to change during the late nineteeneighties and early nineteen nineties as the HIV/AIDS pandemic wasdevasting gay male communities in the U.S. and the horrors ofhomophobia were on vivid display. Many lesbians began to work closelywith gay men and the new issue-driven activism of ACT-UP overshadowedearlier identity-based politics. Judith Butler’s seminal workemerged out of this context.

Aside from arguing against the identity-based politics on the groundsthat identity categories were inherently normative and exclusionary,Butler aimed to answer concerns that queer enactments of gender (as ina butch-femme relationship or in gay male drag) merely replicatetraditional patriarchal norms. Certainly, lesbian separatist viewssuch as Raymond’s had led to the purging of butch and femmeforms of gender presentation in feminist communities.

For Butler, such a view presupposes a heterosexual bias obscuring theway in which gender is re-worked in queer contexts. What they have inmind is that in queer subculture gender practices do not always havethe same meaning that they do in mainstream cultural contexts. Forexample, feminine presentation in some queer contexts may involve adegree of irony not found in mainstream instances of that femininepresentation. To treat queer gender practices as simply repeating ormiming non-queer practices without any significant change in meaningis to understand all gender practices in a way that assigns dominantheterosexual meanings to it.

Queer gender performance, far from replicating patriarchal norms, cansubvert such norms by exposing their non-natural, imitative character(1990, 174–80). Sometimes queer gender performance can involveirony and/or parody through exaggeration. (Good examples of this canbe found in early films by John Waters, such asFemaleTrouble). Queer gender can make fun of heterosexual genderpractices by exaggerating them and parodying them in such ways thatmake them seem theatrical and contrived. And gay male drag, forButler, can show that feminine presentation is not the sole propertyof female individuals. Once it is recognized that such behavior isonly contingently assigned to groups of individuals, the very ideathat gay drag merely involves imitation of heterosexual women as theoriginal assigns a priority to the latter over the former. Thisprioritization, for Butler, reflects a heterosexual bias. And, so forButler, feminist identification ofall gendered behavior asinherently sexist (as, for example, found in Raymond’swork) is nothing short of a heterosexist tendency to attach a primacyto heterosexual gender performance.

Butler’s account of gender aims to call into question thepre-existence of a group of individuals (i.e., women, females) priorto the enforcement of gender role. Instead, in Butler’s view,biological sex is culturally instituted and in this sense“gender all along.” Prima facie this view seemscounter-intuitive. However, in Butler’s view, whenever wediscuss the body, we are also always representing it in culturallyspecific and normative ways. To speak of the biologically sexed bodyas somehow prior to particular discourses about it is to, in so doing,nonetheless ironically speak about itwithin some particulardiscourse and hence to represent in some way. According toButler, sex is culturally instituted by representing the body as thenatural container of some inner, gendered self. Sex isunderstood as the bodily indication that concealed within it is theessence of either a woman or a man. For Butler, this view is false. Tothe extent that this view is pervasive and regulative of humanconduct, one can – in this sense – say that sex issocially constructed.

For Butler, behavioral manifestations of gender are often taken toexpress a prior gender identity that is contained within a naturallysexed body. Thus, feminine behavior is seen as expressive of an innerfeminine core (contained within the body sexed female). On thecontrary, in their view, such performances simply serve to generatethe fiction of a pre-existing gender identity as well as the fictionof the sexed body qua natural container of this identity (1990,178–9). This is to say: Behavioral manifestations are prior togender identity and sexed body (rather than the other way around). Theillusion of a stably sexed body, core gender identity, and (hetero)sexual orientation is perpetuated through repeated, stylized bodilyperformances that areperformative in the sense that they areproductive of the fiction of a stable identity, orientation, and sexedbody as prior to the gendered behavior (173).

This allows Butler to answer the charge that queer gender performancesmerely replicate sexist gender role behavior. In their view,all gender behavior is imitative in character. Heterosexualgender identity involves an instability that it attempts to coverover: While it purports to be grounded in a naturally gendered core,it amounts to nothing more than repeated attempts to imitate pastinstances of gendered behavior (1990, 185). Thus, there is also asubversive potential of queer drag and camp gender performance, in herview, insofar as it can parody and therebyexpose thisconcealed imitative quality (1990, 174–6). As a consequence,Butler welcomes the proliferation of queer gender behaviors thatre-signify, parody, and expose the mechanisms by which the fiction ofnormative heterosexist gender is created (1990, 184–190).

3.3 Beyond the Binary 2.0

Despite the ascendance of the Beyond the Binary Model, there weretrans scholars, such as Viviane Namaste (2000, 2005, 2009), JayProsser (1998), and Henry Rubin (1998a, 2003), who worried that theparadigm didn’t accurately capture the realities of transsexualpeople and, in particular, didn’t leave much space for transpeople who didn’t self-identity as “beyond thebinary” at all (Namaste 2005, 7). These critiques were connectedto several other concerns – both theoretical and political. Thework of Jay Prosser (1998, 69) attempted to rehabilitate the WrongBody Account in a way that could enter into a dialogue withButler’s views (1990, 1993). Politically, there was concern witha transgender politics of visibility and, moreover it’saffiliation with a queer politic (Rubin 1998a, 276).

The backlash did not merely occur in the theory books. For example, inthe United States, various forms of transsexual separatism, werevoiced mostly on online social networking sites and blogs. In thistype of political view, transsexuals particularly those who haveundergone genital reconstruction and who choose not to disclose theirtrans history, see themselves as non-consensually subsumed under the‘transgender umbrella’ and wrongly associated with gendernon-normative people (such as cross-dressers) (Cooke 2007). While thetransgender umbrella was supposed to include transsexuals, there werethose transsexuals who had nothing but distain for the term which theysaw as coopting them into a political vision that was not their own.In disavowing the term, they were disavowing a politics.

By 2011, at least, some had started to discuss the “death”of the “transgender umbrella” due, in part, to thesetensions and due also to the emergence of many youth who wereself-identifying as ‘nonbinary,’‘genderqueer,’ ‘agender,’ and so forth (Allen2011). The ideas that circulated in the nineties had now become livedpossibilities for young people who were increasingly attracted toidentities that opposed the traditional ones. Around this time, a newumbrella term – ‘trans*’ – emerged, motivatedby the erasure of nonbinary people from transgender politics (Bussell2012). While “transgender” had been deployed as anumbrella term for those “beyond the binary,” the dominanceof self-identified transgender men and women who do political workunder the category “transgender” had seemed to require anew iteration of the beyond the binary vision (although, this time,rather than drag queens and kings, cross dressers, and butches, it wasnonbinary-, agender-, gender fluid-, and genderqueer-identifiedindividuals who contested the binary).

Julia Serano’s ground-breaking 2007 book,WhippingGirl, played an important role in this changing landscape bymitigating the tensions (above) by attempting to bring the Wrong BodyAccount and the Beyond the Binary Account into harmony. By appealingto the notion of an innatesubconscious sex, Serano helpsmove past the requirement that one “always knew”one’s internal sex or gender (78–82). And by recognizingwide variations in nature, she helps obviate concerns about thepathologizing nature of the Wrong Body Account. By postulating innateinclinations to express one’s gender in a wide variety of ways,Serano can say that the insistence on male/masculine andfemale/feminine binaries was too sharp while also claiming thatmasculinity may naturally clump towards male, femininity towardsfemale.

Under Serano’s influence, a queer “smash the binary”politic is replaced by one centered on privilege – the privilegeof non-trans, or, as they were now named “cis” people.Serano deploys the termcissexualism to indicate theadvantaging of those for whom biological sex and subconscious sex arein alignment. The termcisgenderism, by contrast, indicatesthe assumption that males ought to be masculine and females ought tobe feminine (where masculinity and femininity are constituted by theset of attributes typically associated with males and femalesrespectively) (90).

Serano proposes “oppositional sexism” as a vector distinctfrom what she calls “traditional sexism.” She defines thelatter as the belief that males and masculinity are superior tofemales and femininity and the former as the belief that male andfemale, along with masculinity and femininity, constitute exclusivecategories) (2007, 12–3) and she coins the expressiontrans-misogyny to capture forms of discrimination whichpertain specifically to trans women which principally target theirperceived femininity who effectively lie at the intersections of thesevectors (13).

One concern with this model, however, is that traditional sexismalready seems to involve not only the devaluation of femininity, butalso its enforcement as exemplified by the numerous double-binds towhich women are subjected (Frye 1983). That is, Serano’sdistinction of the two vectors yields an account of “traditionalsexism” that is too meagre (Bettcher 2021). Another concern isthat, for Serano, while some forms of femininity may be sociallyinstituted, many feminine attributes may also be biologically grounded(2007, 339). In Serano’s view, many (nontrans) feminists haveengaged in negative assessments of femininity (viewing it as strictlyan imposed artifice) and thereby implicated themselves in a form ofsexism. Indeed, Serano claims that any feminist critique of transfemininity is inherently anti-feminist (2007, 360). The worry is thatSerano under-estimates the degree and depth of female subordination.While she may be right to raise worries about the ways in which thebehavior of trans women has been unfairly judged, a position whichallows for no analysis of politically problematic gender behavior atall seems to seriously impair feminism’s critical force.

3.4 Transfeminism

The Combahee River Collective’sBlack FeministStatement (1977 [1981]) constitutes one of the earliestrejections of lesbian separatism. Arguing for the unacceptability ofabandoning their black men in the struggle against racism, thecollective articulates the basic idea of what Kimberlé Crenshawwill later call ‘intersectionality’ (1989). In additionalto being oppressed due to racism and sexism, argues the collective,black women experience forms of intermeshed forms of oppression thatcannot be separated into discrete vectors. For instance, they write of“racial-sexual oppression, which is neither solely racial norsolely sexual, e.g., the history of rape of Black women by white menas a weapon of political repression.” Further, black womenexperience forms marginalization when feminist movements arecontrolled by white women and black liberation movements arecontrolled by black men. Instead, the collective insists upon anintegrated analysis of racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism.

Drawing on this idea, Emi Koyama regards characterizes trans feminismas “primarily a movement by and for trans women who view theirliberation to be intrinsically linked to the liberation of all womenand beyond” (2003, 244). In this view, trans oppressionintersects with sexism oppression and other forms of oppression suchas racist and classist forms of oppression. Through thisintersectional transfeminist lens, Koyama discusses the controversyconcerning the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and the‘womyn-born womyn’ policy which excluded trans women. (In1991, the same year Stone published her manifesto, Nancy JeanBurkholder was denied entrance to the Land at Michigan Womyn’sMusic Festival, leading to protests the following year and theformation of Camp Trans in 1994.)

Specifically, Koyama criticizes the efforts of some post-operativetrans women to accept a “compromise” policy which wouldhave admitted only post-operative trans women. Such a policy, arguesKoyama, would unfairly advantage those trans women with greatereconomic resources, and is consequently both classist and racist(2006, 700). Koyama also argues that even if it is true that non-transwomen require their own space, this does not preclude the admission oftrans women into the festival, since while women of color have specialexclusionary space on the land, this does not require that white womencannot enter the festival at all (701). Moreover, Koyama points out,such special space for women of color does not exclude those women ofcolor who can pass as white (and thereby receive certain privileges)(701). Indeed, Koyama argues, the exclusion of trans women isinherently racist insofar as it is uses differences in experience torule out trans women, a policy which can only make sense if it ispresupposed that feminist solidarity requires a monolithically sharedexperience (704).

Cameron Awkward-Rich (2017, 836–7), however, points to the waythe experiences of trans men and trans masculine people more generallychallenge the notion that the purview of feminism is determined by thecategory woman. Trans men and trans masculine people can be subject tosexist oppression and attempts at socialization as girl as childrenand, further, can be subject to sexist violence even after transition.Since they can be subject to sexism, they ought to be subjects offeminist concern, despite the fact that they are not women. Observingthat while both Stone’s and Koyama’s manifesto promise asequel centralizing trans men, none have ever been forthcoming,Awkward-Rich suggests that Koyama’s model merely replicatestraditional intersectional forms of feminism while obscuring thedeeper challenges posed by trans men and masculine individuals totraditional conceptions of feminism. (For related discussion see Hale1998b, Rubin 1998b, Salamon 2010.)

4. Early Disciplinary Perspectives

C. Jacob Hale’s work in the late nineteen-nineties is among theearliest instances of disciplinary trans philosophy and, reflective ofthe time, articulates a largely beyond-the-binary conception of transexperience. Hale defends the view that the categorywoman iswhat Wittgenstein called a family-resemblance concept. This positionenables Hale to then argue, pace Monique Wittig’s contentiousclaim that lesbians are not women (1992), that some lesbians arewomen, others are not, and for some there is no fact of the matter(1996, 115). Similarly, Hale argues, there is no single feature whichcan distinguish between butch and ftm individuals and that bothcategories are family-resemblance concepts (1998a, 323). If so, claimsHale, it would be better to speak of a border zone where thecategories partially overlap with each other than to search for a firmboundary between the two (323).

Drawing on María Lugones’s notion of‘world’-travelling (Lugones 1987), Hale speaks of“border zone dwellers” – individuals who live at theedges of multiple, overlapping identity categories. For Hale, borderzone dwellers, those who occupy ‘dislocated locations,’may fit within different categories (‘man’,‘ftm’, ‘butch’, ‘genderqueer’etc.) that attach to different cultural ‘worlds’ (1998b,116–7). However, since these border zone dwellers are marginalwith respect to the categories, their fit in all cases will be onlylimited and tenuous. (Hale thereby modifies Lugones’ conceptionof ‘world’-travel, which does not postulate such a tenuousfit into categories, instead, emphasizing the multiplicity oflanguages and systems of meaning (117)).

In one of the earliest pro-trans feminist discussions, Naomi Scheman(1997) proceeds with the assumption that marginal lives “arelived, and hence livable” (132). She considers theunintelligibility of her own secular Judaism under Christianormativityinsofar as a Jewish people conceptually required byChristianormativity, and yet rendered unintelligible by itsrepresentation of all religions as entirely conversion-based (1997,128). By contrast, she argues, heteronormativity requires a“natural” binary of women and men, transsexuals areparadoxically defined by an insistence of having always been the othersex all along and thereby required to deny their own histories(138–9). Just as individuals may convert to Judaism, Schemansuggests, transsexual women may be understood to “convert”to womanhood. In both cases, such individuals are no less real thanthose who have been assigned the categories at birth (144). (While sherecognizes that transsexuals do not choose their gender, as one mightchoose to convert to a religion, she also suggests that by viewingsex/gender as more analogous to Jewishness in this respect, some ofits oppressiveness might be undermined (145)). Such converts, Schemanexplains, count every bit as much as women as those who have been“perinatally pinked” – that is those who haveexperienced oppression as female from birth (141–2).

Cressida Heyes continues this project of finding grounds forsolidarity. Heyes argues that both Raymond (and Bernice Hausman, notdiscussed in this entry) are caught in the grip of a picture whichprecludes any examination of their own gender privilege whileforeclosing the possibility of perceiving trans resistance (2003,1095). This foreclosure is accomplished through assimilating alltranssexual subjectivity into to a hetero-patriarchal medicaldiscourse about transsexuality (2003, 1095). Using Feinberg’sbookTrans Liberation as an example, Heyes also raisesworries about a transgender politics which says that individual genderexpression ought not be subject to criticism, restriction, oroppression. She observes that gender is not merely an aesthetic styleor expression of an isolated self. It is relational and often embeddedin problematic systems of oppression. What is missing from accountswhich merely tout gender freedom of expression, Heyes argues, is arich “ethics of transformation” which distinguishesbetween progressive transformations from those who are oppressed andmarginalized and hegemonic (i.e., dominant; oppressive) forms ofgender that only further oppression and marginalization (2003,1111–3). In this way, she seeks to find some middle, commonground.

5. The Feminist Philosophical Purview

The late 1990’sand early 2000’s saw several feministphilosophers responding to the challenges of Butlerian queer theoryand the upshots of intersectionality – both of which appear toundermine the view that the purview of feminism can be set by theconcept of woman. The former regards the concept as serving a regularfunction that performs various exclusions. The latter (“theproblem of difference”) suggests that there is no unifyingcategory at all. On the supposition that ‘woman’ does notmean ‘adult, female human’ but rather something social,(since this that would appear to go against the feminist insight thatwomanhood is not a fact of biology, but, rather, a fact of culture),there do not appear to be any features all women have in common. Thisis because all social features such as status, role, and so forth, areinflected by racial privilege and oppression (as has already beenexemplified by the failures of lesbian separatism to address racialoppression). Initial responses did not centralize or, in some cases,even include the question of trans inclusion. This changed in the twothousand teens.

5.1 Initial Responses

In Nathalie Stoljar’s view (1995) the problem of difference canbe solved by endorsing a family-resemblance analysis concept of woman.She also endorses resemblance nominalism – the view that tokensconstitute a type by participating in a resemblance structure, and shesays that the concept woman applies to that type. Stoljar says thatthe type is constituted through several exemplars and that anindividual’s membership in the type is determined bysufficiently resembling some exemplar. Notably, Stoljar suggests thatat least some trans women might count as exemplary, while alsosuggesting that others will be “hard cases.” (While shedoes not state this, this also means that some trans men will be“hard cases”). In this way, her account might be describedaspartially trans-exclusionary.

Sally Haslanger (2000 [2012]), by contrast, proposes an ameliorativeaccount. Rather than providing a description or analysis of theexisting concept of woman, she asks what concept feministsoughtto use in light oftheir goals of ending sexistoppression. In doing so, she advocates a revisionary way of using‘woman,’ for feminist philosophers, that ostensiblydeparts from the ordinary way of speaking. In Haslanger’s view,woman ought to be defined in terms of subordination. Specifically, sheproposes that onefunctions as a woman in some context justin case one is subordinated on the basis of presumed female sex (i.e.female biological role in reproduction) in that context (235). And shesays that one is a woman just in case one typically (“regularly,and for the most part”) functions as woman (234). Notably, thisleads to the exclusion of trans women who are presumed biologicallymale and the inclusion of trans men who are presumed biologicallyfemale. (Haslanger’s view would prove to be tremendouslygenerative, particularly in teens and twenties).

For Linda Alcoff (2006), the biological division of reproductive rolesin humans serves as the basis for a distinction in objective type(174). In her view, women are characterized by a “relationshipof possibility to biological reproduction, with biologicalreproduction referring to conceiving, giving birth, andbreast-feeding, involving one’s own body” (172). Thisrelationship of possibility is partly hermeneutical, by which Alcoffmeans that reproductive possibilities shape a life, shape the horizonof possibilities, by which an embodied individual experiences themselfin relation to their future (175). This account seems to suggest thatno trans women would count as women, since no trans women would havethe right hermeneutical relationship to biological reproduction (whileall trans men would).

Finally, Mari Mikkola (2009, 2016) argues that no answer to thequestion “What is a woman?” is required to determine thefeminist purview. Rather, feminists need only rely on the intuitionsof ordinary language speakers to determine the concept’sextension. With regard to trans people, however, Mikkola admits thatintuitions may fail us. However, she later goes on to propose that thetrans inclusion question is ultimately going to be settled by nontransfeminists in negotiation with trans people and is hence political, notsemantic. For example, it may be determined for the purposes ofimproving treatments of ovarian cancer, trans women do not count aswomen, while trans men would. One worry with this proposal is theasymmetry in supposing that whether or not trans women are includedwithin the feminist purview is an open question, while this is not thecase for nontrans women. Another is the oddity in supposing that theinclusion of trans women is to be determined, in part, bynontrans feminists when the reverse is not true.

5.2 The Feminist Purview 2.0

Stephanie Kapusta (2016) argues from a decidedly trans perspectivethat misgendering inflicts moral, psychological, and political harmson trans people. More pointedly, she argues that any philosophicalanalysis of the concepts woman and man, including feminist ones, thatwould lead to the misgendering of some group of trans people, if suchan analysis were broadly implemented in society, is unacceptable froma trans political perspective. It is notable, then, that attempts atanalysis in the twenty-teens were far more attentive to transidentities.

Partially in response to Haslanger’s ameliorationist account,Jennifer Saul provides a more descriptivist semantic contextualistanalysis of the term ‘woman’ that centralizes trans andintersex people (2012). Saul’s aim is to make a case aboutmethodology – namely, to show how political considerations, suchas doing justice to trans women’s claims to be women have abearing on how one does philosophy of language. While she proposesthat the referent of ‘woman’ as ordinarily used isdetermined by context in a rule-governing way such that in manycontexts trans women count as women, it is also not an account shefinally endorses precisely because she does not think it does justiceto the claims of trans women in a non-trivializing way. Specifically,she notes that while it will be true that trans women are women insome contexts, it will not be true in others and that, moreover, incontexts involving restrooms that matter will have to be settled byextra-semantic moral and political considerations.

However, Esa Díaz-León (2016) attempts to addressSaul’s reservations (mentioned above) by adopting a semanticcontextualism that is not dependent upon the particular beliefs of theattributor about the relevant standards at play to make determinationsabout, say, restroom use, but, rather, the objective features of thecontext itself where the relevant standards are those that arerelevant for practical purposes. Thus, argues Díaz-León,the considerations Saul takes to be extra-semantic are semantic afterall. One worry is that regardless of the success ofDíaz-León’s account, there will still be contextsin which trans women do not count as women and that therefore transwomen will still be marginalized roughly in the way that they aremarginalized in the family-resemblance account (Bettcher 2017b).

Meanwhile, Katharine Jenkins (2016), criticizing the transexclusionary upshot of Haslanger’s account, attempts areformulation of it. The problem, according to Jenkins, concernsHaslanger’s “focal analysis” (i.e., its centralizingof gender-as-hierarchy). While Haslanger recognizes multiple senses of‘woman’ (e.g. gender identity), anything other thangender-as-class would be merely secondary. Jenkins, by contrast,defends an account withbranching target concepts,gender-as-class and gender-as-identity. She argues that both areequally important in providing a feminist account of oppression. Whilethe former is intended to capture external forms of oppression, thelatter is intended to accommodate the possibilities of internalizedoppression (and resistance).

She changes Haslanger’s analysis offunctioning as awoman in some context to an analysis ofbeing classed as awoman in some context and then she provides a“norm-relevancy” account of gender identity according towhich female gender identity is “an internal ‘map’that is formed to guide someone” classed as a woman through thesocial and/or material realities that are, in that contextcharacteristic of women as a class (Jenkins 2016, 410). In this view,somebody with a female gender identity will experience feminine normsas relevant to herself – that is, as something that can becomplied with or resisted. One worry about Jenkins’s account ofidentity, is that some trans women may not have such a gender identitydefined in this way prior to any experience in the world as women(since they haven’t been socialized as women) and that,therefore, they won’t count as women in this account after all(Bettcher 2017a, see also Adler 2017, Barnes 2022 for criticism).

6. Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers

In work largely orthogonal to the preceding, from the midtwo-thousands onwards, Talia Mae Bettcher develops a trans feministaccount of trans oppression that, she claims, does not reduce to thebeyond the binary account (discussed above). She begins with thedeceiver/pretender representation of trans people (the view that transpeople are either trying trick people into believing they aresomething they are not or that they are openly pretending to besomething they are not). She argues that this representationconstitutes a double-bind – either come out as a pretender orrefuse and be exposed as a deceiver (2007). This bind, Bettcherargues, is grounded in what she calls the appearance-reality contrast(“appearing to be a man, is really a woman”) and she dubsthis phenomenon by which trans identities are invalidated“reality enforcement.”

The appearance-reality contrast arises, argues Bettcher, due to arepresentational relation between public gender presentation andprivate genital status. That is, public gender presentation invasivelycommunicates genital status (2007). Crucially, for Bettcher,“genital status” is not a biological feature, but, rathera moral one insofar as genitals and information about them are subjectto socially determined boundaries on privacy and decency (2012b). Itis for this reason that “reality enforcement” is anabusive phenomenon that cannot be reduced to the verification of somebiological truth.

Bettcher argues that reality enforcement cannot be accommodated in theBeyond the Binary Account and that the Wrong Body Account, whileflawed for naturalizing social phenomena and distorting transexperience, can be understood as a resistant gesture in response toreality enforcement when deployed by trans people and therefore not asreactive as hitherto supposed (2014). She also argues that thecommunicative function of gender presentation is grounded in (hetero)sexist and racist sexual violence and sexual manipulation, therebyproviding an account of trans oppression that she feels accommodatesan intersectional analysis in a way that the Beyond the Binary Accountcannot (2007, 2016). This analysis is expanded by Francisco Galarte(2021) in a Chicano context and Andrea Pitts (2022) in an indigenouscontext.

Drawing on María Lugones’s (1987) notion of ontologicalpluralism, Bettcher argues that alternative practices exist in transsubcultures (“worlds”) that do not replicate the abusivestructure in the dominant “world” and that stand incontestation to it (2014). These extra discursive practices underwriteand are interwoven with the discursive practices of genderattribution. In trans “worlds”, Bettcher argues, claimslike “x is a woman” function like“x is sad” rather than “x istall” (2009). The former, unlike the latter, involvesprivileging first-person, present tense avowals with first-personauthority (FPA). This authority, rather than epistemic, arguesBettcher, is grounded in an ethical demand for “takingresponsibility” of one’s attitudes by “publiclycertifying” them and gender avowals specifically are instancesof taking responsibility for one’s existential self-identity(2009). Preceding the so-called transgender tipping point of 2014,Bettcher’s work sets the stage for explosion in trans philosophythat would follow it.

7. Gender-Critical Feminism and Philosophy

While there had been earlier efforts to promote philosophy written bytrans philosophers, critical mass was not achieved until after theso-called ‘transgender tipping point’ of 2014. (Theexpression was originally intended to refer to the increased positivecultural visibility trans people, as exemplified by the appearance ofLaverne Cox on the cover ofTime magazine in May 2014. Giventhe political backlash against trans people since then, thequalification “so-called” appears warranted). Theexpression ‘trans philosophy’ began to circulate aroundthe time of the Trans Experience in Philosophy Conference in Eugene,Oregon in 2016, as trans and nonbinary graduate students and juniorprofessors began to produce work in the nascent field (Zurn 2016).

It was also around this time that controversy surrounding trans peoplein the profession seemed to explode. Most notable was a controversy in2017 that rocked the journalHypatia when it published anarticle by a white nontrans woman who argued that the legitimacy oftransgender entailed the legitimacy of “transracialism”(Tuvel 2017). The publication of the article sparked a backlash– a public letter demanding its retraction due to its lack ofgrounding in the relevant literature by trans philosophers andphilosophers of color, and then a backlash against the backlashdecrying attacks on academic freedom (Kapusta 2018, Dembroff 2020).Other moments included a heated engagement between gender-criticalfeminist Kathleen Stock and trans feminist philosopher, Talia MaeBettcher, as gender-critical feminism was beginning to make itspresence known in the profession of philosophy. (See Dembroff 2020 forfurther discussion of these issues).

Gender-critical feminism expresses concern over the focus on theconcept of gender which it takes to obscure sex-based oppression. Inthis view, any other form of gender-based oppression is merely acollateral effect of the oppression of women. Although details vary,it is typified by its rejection of trans self-identifying claims andright to access segregated spaces that align with their identities.Gender critical feminism can be regarded as continuous withtrans-exclusionary forms of radical feminism, although it need notbe…. It needn’t, for instance, regard sexism as thepreeminent form of oppression, nor need it advocate a totalreformation of society.

This form of feminism appears to have arisen around the time thepublic statement “Forbidden Discourse: The Silencing of FeministCriticism of Gender” (2013) was circulated, signed by prominentradical feminists (Stryker 2017, 226). While ostensibly a protest ofunfair suppression of any radical feminist critique of trans genderpolitics, this radical feminist critique was notably conflated withfeminism per se and touted the importance of excluding trans womenfrom feminist space. This statement was followed by SheilaJeffreys’sGender Hurts (2014), which while largelyrehearsing the arguments of Janice Raymond, also provides a morein-depth discussion of transgender men – effectively arguingtransition is motivated by a response to patriarchal domination andabuse.

Gender-critical feminists played a crucial role in the defeat of aproposed reform to the UK’s Gender Recognition Act (2004) whichwould have shifted the criteria for a Gender Recognition Certificatefrom a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria to that ofself-identification. The Government Consultation of 2018 led toconsiderably controversy, with gender-critical feminists providing themost prominent voice in opposition to the reform. In the wake of thedefeat of the reform, anti-trans sentiment and legislation has been onthe rise in the UK. Two of the most prominent gender-critical feministphilosophers are discussed below.

According to Kathleen Stock, the term ‘woman,’ in itsordinary use, means ‘adult, female human.’ While shesimply asserts this claim, Alex Byrne (2020) has defended the closelyrelated thesis that the biconditional ‘S is a woman iff S is anadult human female’ is true in all possible worlds. His thesishas subsequently been disputed on several grounds. One general concernis Byrne’s undefended assumption that terms such as‘woman’ have one “standard” meaning, ratherthan possessing meanings that are contextual determined or that arepolysemous (Dembroff 2021). Other grounds involve the ‘adult,female human’ formulation itself and its application to transwomen. Heartsilver (2021) argues that even if Byrne’s analysisis correct, trans women who engage in certain gender affirmingtechnologies may still count as women. Arvan (2023), by contrast,engages in traditional conceptual analysis to argue that‘female’ and ‘adult’ are ambiguous betweensocial and biological senses, that ‘woman’ is onlyinterchangeable with ‘adult female’ in the gendered(social) sense, and that trans women therefore count as women. (Seealso Dembroff 2021 for discussion of the social sense of adult andBettcher 2025 for a position related to Arvan’s). Adopting ananti-ameliorationist position, at any rate, Stock argues thatfeminists ought not permit any revision in the meaning of the term,since sex is real (i.e., not merely socially constructed) and sincesex differences matter.

Some of the reasons Stock (2021) cites for the importance of trackingsexual differences between male and female humans include therelevance of biological differences to medical treatment as well as tosocial barriers conditioned by those differences (e.g., pregnancy). Byrefusing to use sex terms to name biological categories, and byrevising terms like ‘woman’ away from their allegedoriginal meaning, Stock claims, valuable information would be lost.Notably, however, she does not consider the possibility of using thedistinction between ‘cis’ (or ‘nontrans’) and‘trans’ to help track such information – adistinction which would prima facie seem to secure more information,rather than less.

Stock (2021) also argues that public restrooms, changing rooms, andthe like ought to be segregated on the basis of “biologicalsex.” She argues that the reason for such segregation is theoverall greater physical size and strength of males relative tofemales and the tendency of sexual aggression of the former towardsthe latter. In light of this, because trans women are biologicalmales, Stock claims, they ought not be permitted into spacesdesignated for females. Finlayson, Jenkins, and Worsdale (2018 –see Other Internet Resources) argue, however, that it is far fromclear that biological factors alone contribute to male violenceagainst females and that socialization would also appear relevant.Given that trans women have different gender identities, theirexperience of socialization is going to be different, and because ofthis the inference from male violence to the potential violence oftrans women is questionable. Notably, Stock (2021, 2022) does notaddress this argument, nor does she take into account theevidence that policies allowing trans women access to women’sfacilities does not lead to any increase in risk to nontrans women(Hasenbushet al 2019).

Holly Lawford-Smith defends a gender-critical feminism which sheregards as a continuation of, yet distinct from, and a revival ofradical feminism (2022). She represents this radical feminism asentirely trans-exclusive, thereby ignoring the inclusive positions ofsome radical feminists. Notably, Lawford-Smith expressly rejectsintersectional feminism on the grounds that it generates too manyissues for feminism to accommodate (2022). Instead, she argues, thatissues caused by intermeshed oppressions ought to be divvied up amongdifferent identity-based groups or referred to a single group devotedto intersectional matters. While lesbian separatism did not, ofcourse, use the term ‘intersectionality,’Lawford-Smith’s position would require its rejection since itregards women’s oppression as secured through compulsoryheterosexuality.

Lawford-Smith (2022) regards women as asex caste. In thisview, biological sex is not socially constructed, and gender consistsin norms that are assigned to the sexes to subjugate females.(Contrast this with Butler’s counter-proposal that these normsare those that secure heterosexuality while abjecting queerness). Inher view, then, while the oppression of trans men is due to theirbeing women and thereby part of the oppressed caste, any oppressiontrans women is a collateral effect. Specifically, trans women who passas (nontrans) women, will be subject to oppression intended forfemales, while trans women who do not pass will be punished forfailing to abide by norms of masculinity – norms which helpsecure the subordination of women. One concern is that Lawford-Smithdoes not recognize distinctive forms of trans oppression that do notconform to this dichotomy (Killmister forthcoming). Another is thatshe does not even recognize that trans women who do not pass or whoare out as trans are subject to various forms of sexism and sexistviolence (Killmister forthcoming). For a thorough critique ofLawford-Smith’s metaphysics, see Killmister forthcoming.

Like Stock, Lawford-Smith argues for sex-segregation on the basis of“biological sex.” However, unlike Stock, Lawford-Smithaddresses the argument (above) from Finlayson, Jenkins, and Worsdale(2018 – see OIR). Lawford-Smith’s strategy (2022) is todismiss the notion of gender identity as merely philosophical,disregarding its deep roots in sexology and psychology, and insteadembracing the controversial theories of Ray Blanchard whodistinguished trans women into those with “autogynephilia”and those who were homosexual (see Serano 2020 for a summary of theviews as well as the concerns). Like Stock, Lawford-Smith does nottake into account the evidence indicating that trans-inclusivepolicies leads to no increase in risk of violence against (nontrans)women (Hasenbushet al. 2019).

8. Decolonial Feminism/Decolonizing Trans

While the concept of intersectionality recognizes the intermeshing ofvectors of oppression such as racism and sexism, decolonial feminismsituates these intersections historically in the emergence ofsettler-colonialism and slavery. The most influential theorist in thistradition has been María Lugones (2007, 2010, 2020). Drawing onAníbal Quijano’s work, Lugones recognizes “thecoloniality of power” and “the coloniality ofmodernity.” The former involves the worldwide imposition ofracial categories and thereby the racialization of the social areas oflabor, collective authority, sex, and subjectivity/intersubjectivity.The latter involves the naturalization of European ways of knowing andwith that the representation of Europeans as “culturallyadvanced” and non-Europeans as “primitive.”

Lugones (2007) breaks from Quijano by bringing out his assumptionsthat the social area of sex involves male heterosexual access tofemales. Specifically, he presumes the inferiority of females, sexualdimorphism, and heterosexualism. According to Lugones (2007), however,these are not natural facts but features of the Eurocentric-system.Lugones (2007) then posits what she calls the colonial/modern gendersystem in which there is both a light and dark side of the gender thatis of a piece with the imposition of race. While the light sideinvolves the presumptions of female inferiority, sexual dimorphism,and heterosexualism, the dark side involves deviancy and deficiencywith regard to the light. In other words, while the gender system wasimposed on those who were colonized and enslaved, they were notsituated on the light side. This, in turn, raises concerns about anypolitics which focuses on the light side of gender exclusively.

In subsequent work, Lugones (2010) develops this view in two importantways. First, using ‘gender’ in the sense of the culturalcorrelate of sex, she argues that those on the dark side were nottaken to have gender. Instead, “sex was made to standalone.” Because of this, maintains Lugones, anatomical femaleson the dark side were not constituted as women, anatomical males werenot constituted as men, and through these respective failures neitherwere constituted as human. Second, using ‘gender’ to namethe system of power in which gender (above) and sex wereco-constituted racially, Lugones rejects the presumption of genderuniversality – namely that all cultures have “genderrelations.” In light of the latter, Lugones is suspicious of thepossibility of resistance through the gender system and, morespecifically, any resistant reclamations of womanhood since suchresistance would obscure the way in which gender was imposed oncultures without any such correlate. Consequently, Lugones (2020) isspecifically critical of queer and trans theory for presuming genderuniversality and for promoting the proliferation of genders as a modeof resistance (see Butler).

Brooklyn Leo (2020), however, raises worries about Lugones ownpresumption of “cisness” and her erasure of both theoppression and resistance of Two-Spirit peoples under colonialismthrough her own account which, as discussed above, merelydistinguishes between anatomical males and females and cannottherefore register violence specific Two-Spirit people. Moreover, Leocontests Lugones’s claim that resistance is not possible throughthe colonial/modern gender system, pointing, for instance, to the workof C. Riley Snorton (2017) . Snorton argues that the racist treatmentof black people as fungible and ungendered was utilized for purposesof escaping slavery through cross-dressing and passing. Indeed, arguesSnorton, the development of these practices paved the way for what isnow called “transgender” so that trans and blackness areinextricably bound together.

Meanwhile, Bettcher (2025), developing her own account more deeply,attempts to answer Lugones’s challenge to trans theory bysituating “reality enforcement” within the colonial/moderngender system. Specifically, Bettcher argues for the constructednessof nakedness, recasting the contrast between public genderpresentation and genital status as a contrast between proper (clothed)and intimate (unclothed) appearance which together constitute what shecalls “the physical person.” Bettcher introduces thenotion of interpersonal spatiality – the thought that allsensory and discursive encounters between us admit of closeness anddistance as determined by boundaries – and argues that physicalpersonhood is a function of an abusive system of interpersonalspatiality (“the folk system”) which admits of adistinction in types of boundary structures (morally male and morallyfemale) which she calls “moral sex”. Bettcher argues thatthis system was a feature of the colonial/modern gender system wherethose on the dark side were dehumanized through associations betweennakedness and “primitivity” and denials of modesty.Further, Bettcher proposes that while gender may not be universal,interpersonal spatiality likely is and that this opens the door toresistant possibilities of refiguring elements of the colonial/modernsystem by redeploying them in resistant forms of interpersonalspatiality.

9. Conclusion

While early (nontrans) feminist perspectives on trans issues weremarked by hostility, trans studies and politics have emerged incomplex reaction and interaction with feminist and queer theory andpolitics as something to be recognized. As time has passed, it seemsthe possibility of productive interplay between feminist and transtheory and politics as well as solidarity between trans and nontransfeminist is being realized. However, as trans people have becomeincreasingly visible a resurgence in anti-trans sentiment has madethese developments more challenging.

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• “Why we use the asterisk”,CandiuessellCorner

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