My space or yours

Women born women  only spaces are widely criticised – most frequently  because they are perceived as being transphobic or creating a hierarchy of gender. But I don’t think this is necessarily the case – it depends on the purpose of the space.

Let me set out what the purposes  are of a possible woman’s ‘safe’ space.  

1.      To allow women to have a safe space without men where they can enjoy the company of other women without the psychic and physical intrusion of men.

2.      To provide a safe space where women feel free of the threat of violence (physical/sexual or psychological) by males.

3.      To provide a supportive space where women can gain strength by their common experiences. 

So who gets to come in to this space? Who IS a woman. What if the space is women born women only?  Well in that case I wouldn’t be allowed in because when I was born, I was very much a baby. A female baby according to my birth certificate. I am now an adult, so as a human being I am presumably by one of the definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary ‘adult female human’ at least,  a woman.

Do I regard myself as a woman though? What is the definition of ‘woman’ by society at large? My own experience - I  get referred to as ‘she’  in the street. Sometimes I get referred to as ‘Mrs’ at places like the dentist though this seems to be a courtesy title used for any perceived female over the age of 20 on the grounds that I would be insulted if I was married and they assumed I was single. The reverse  possibility doesn’t seem to have occurred. Or maybe they just can’t read Ms. Whatever.  It seems that to society at large I am a ‘woman’.  

Now this is all despite the fact that I am not what you would call ‘feminine’. I have  very short hair, don’t wear make up and my habitual attire is combats, jeans, hoodies and trainers of some kind. Indeed a group of teenagers on the station recently loudly remarked – I was obviously intended to hear -  ‘She looks like a boy’ .  They may have been earnest disciples of Judith Butler, but on the balance of probabilities I think  they were probably attempting a homophobic insult, on the grounds that any identifiably biological female who looked like I did must be a lesbian.

They were correct there -  as was the drunken builder on the train who shouted at me ‘You look  like a lesbian’ When I confirmed that I was indeed a lesbian, he proceeded to shout ‘You’re a lesbian, you’re confused, you want cock’ at me, displaying a somewhat shaky grasp of the  whole concept.  So I don’t fit into the gender role of woman – heterosexual and ‘feminine’.  And from my own point of view I wouldn’t say I identify with the gender woman (or the gender man either) in any significant way either - Am I a woman? Let’s think about why I experienced this type of  abuse. The salient point about me isn’t that I was identified as a ‘woman’ but that I was perceived to be a  biological female. Who wasn’t acting in my expected gender role of ‘woman’.   But if I had been acting in my  expected gender role – if I had had long hair, was wearing high heels, a pretty dress and make up I would still experience abuse and discrimination. True the drunken builder and the teenagers wouldn’t  assume I was a lesbian  - which would be unfortunate for me because I am a lesbian and I don’t actually want people to think I’m heterosexual. But the drunken builder would probably have assumed by my attire that I was sexually available (hell he thinks even lesbians want cock)  and harassed me on that basis.  

So back to my safe space. Who gets to go in it? Biological females. Because the basis on which discrimination and abuse of the type I’ve just described is experienced in our society isn’t gender  but biological sex. It is abuse of biological females by biological males.  That’s the point of my space – a place where I and others can feel safe from this.

But what about intersex people? Can they come in? The truth about biological sex is that there are not simply two biological sexes. Biological sex is as much a construct as ‘gender’ – the difference being that it rests on the interpretation of physical bodies.  However people with  intersex conditions will be assigned a ‘sex’ at birth. This is not necessarily a complete and truthful description of their biological sex. But someone who is assigned a  ‘female’ sex at birth will be socialised and have the life experiences of being ‘female’. And will therefore commonality of experience with the other perceived/assigned biological females. If you have been assigned male at birth and have been treated as biologically male all your life, you will not have commonality of experience.   

What about transmen – can they come in? Well they started out life as (perceived) biological females and therefore have commonality of experience with biological females,  and therefore should not be excluded on those grounds - but having rejected the gender identity and sometimes the biological sex of woman I would have to ask why would they want to?  

But what about a transwoman  born biologically male who has undergone physical gender reassignment? Surely they ARE treated as a biological female by society.  Well from the moment of reassignment  - assuming they ‘pass’ convincingly – they will indeed experience the  same discrimination as those biological females assigned female at birth. But they will only experience this if  they are perceived as a born biological female and not as a transwoman – if they are perceived as a transwoman they will experience  discrimination on that basis.  And prior to their physical transition they will have been treated as biologically male by society and enjoyed the privileges that brings.  So though they may have some commonality of experience post transition, pre transition they have the experience of living with male privilege – even if they don’t want it.  

Many transwomen’s  reply to this would be that they have always known they were a woman. But they were perceived by society at large to be biologically male, and consequently treated as a ‘man’ however they themselves identified – and they will have absorbed male privilege, whether they wanted it or not.  The other problem here is that if we accept  the transwoman into the space after she has had her genitals surgically reconstructed, why shouldn’t we accept her before? She is after all the same person.  And if that is the case what is to stop any biological male saying he is a pre operative transsexual woman? 

My imaginary transwoman may insist at this point  that to insist only biologically female/assigned female at birth people are ‘women’ is creating a hierarchy of gender – insisting that only such persons are ‘real’ women. But by accepting the existence of the gender ‘woman’ and stating that she belongs to it the transwoman insists that she herself is a ‘real woman’ merely that the source of the ‘realness’ is gender rather than biological sex.  Furthermore the space will only create a hierarchy of gender if the purpose of the space is to define who is a ‘real woman’ – if its purpose is other it will not do so.   

My putative transwoman may say at this point that her personal identity as a woman leads to discrimination in society, because the gender ‘woman’ itself is discriminated against. There is a degree of validity in saying that it is the gender ‘woman’ that is the target of hostility, rather than ‘women’ -  as a major source of homophobia against gay males is their perceived ‘femaleness’. But the transwoman – if she is perceived as such -  is likely to suffer discrimination in the same way as the gay male  – as a male who has assumed an (inferior) ‘female’ gender.  The discrimination stems from being perceived as ‘male’ with an inappropriate gender. (Perceived) Biological Males expressing the  gender ‘man’ are the only group not to experience discrimination on the grounds of gender.  Females will experience discrimination whatever their gender expression. They will only escape this if they can actually ‘pass’ as biological males.  

Lastly my imaginary transwoman might say that in any group of women there will be a diversity of experience, some will be black, some will have disabilities, some will be lesbians, some will be working class. This is undoubtedly true. It would also be true of a group of people with disabilities, a group of black and minority ethnic people, or any other group – any group of people will have  a diversity of life experience within it. The point again is the purpose of the space. Each group will be defined by the fact that all members have at least one point of common experience, and those who do not have that experience will be excluded. The purpose of the group is to bring together those with that common experience even though their other life experience will inevitably be diverse.  

The crux of the matter – who gets treated as a ‘woman’ and how this affects your self perception and psyche, and where the threat/discrimination comes from. I am a ‘white’ person and have absolutely no experience of what it means to be ‘black’ in our society. And I never will have.  If I were able to convincingly ‘pass’ as a person of Asian or Afro Carribean origin by the use of make up I might be able to experience briefly some idea of what it means to experience racism. But I would have not experienced this from birth and incorporated it into my very being.  Even if I were to somehow permanently change my appearance I would still have incorporated the experience of years of white privilege into my consciousness.  So should I be allowed into a safe space for BME people who experience racism? No because even if I am not  racist personally  I am of the class of people who are racist, and my presence stops it being a safe space.  

To attempt to define who is a ‘real’ woman is pointless – womanhood, like race and disability is a socially constructed category. The social disadvantages attached to womanhood, being of a non ‘white’ race or of being ‘disabled’ are very real. We need to consider who is of the socially constructed class of woman and therefore experiences these disadvantages. 

Isn’t this all getting too complicated?  Can’t I just allow anyone who identifies as a woman  into my space? A lot of us, no matter what our biology,  experience discrimination on the grounds of not fitting into accepted gender roles. So how do we decide who identifies as  a woman? Let’s see -  the drunken builder fancies coming into the space,  lots of women there for him to harass,  Does he identify as  a woman? He says yes – so we have to let him in.  

Of course there are huge numbers  of biological males who aren’t violent. Unfortunately they don’t have this tattooed on their forehead. So the presence of any biological male is a potential threat and destroys my safe space.  

Who decides who can come into a space? How about the people it is there to protect? The biological females, and /or those assigned female at birth who have experienced  the threat of violence, sexual violence, harassment, poverty and a host of other abuses as a result of their (perceived/assigned) biological sex.  All biological females, (as defined by society) from our birth onwards live under a very real  threat of violence/sexual violence from biological males – because we are female and of the class of people who may be abused. For some of us this threat manifests itself in real violence, for some it does not, but we all live under the threat.  We’re on constant hyper vigilant alert for it, which is why a safe space needs to be a male free one.  

Yes by now some of you are jumping up and down yelling ‘transphobia’ no doubt. If the purpose of the ‘women only’ space were to define who is a ‘woman’ it could authentically be called transphobic. However the purpose of this space is to provide a safe, supportive space. Any ‘women only’ space will exclude some people  - unless it is open to anyone who identifies as a woman – which will inevitably include (perceived) biological males.  The only genuine safe, supportive “women’s” space for many is one that excludes biological males. It’s more a case of androphobia, if anything. And it’s a phobia with a very real origin. 

That may seem very unfair to those who are born biologically ‘male’ but don’t identify with their male body or male gender role. But it is equally unfair to those biological males who aren’t violent – they are tarred with the sins of violent males. The problem being that we don’t know which is which. And for many  women who have experienced sexual violence,  a space free of biological males IS the only space guaranteed to be safe.
 

So for some the safe space is not  a women’s space.  It is  a biological female/ treated as female by society from birth space.  This may seem unfair to some people. But we all have the right to say who is allowed into our personal space.  To say otherwise is to deny the right to autonomy to those classed as ‘female’. To say otherwise is to say that the only group not allowed to define their own space are those (assigned/perceived) biological females. Because it’s my space and my body – not yours.