Womyn-born womyn

History

This term was developed as a response to the increasing presence of transgender women accessing women's only spaces. This was both due to the greater prevalence of transgender women in western societies as well as the increasing visibility. Whereas transwomen have been present in women's only spaces for decades, it is only recently that many wish to do so without living closeted lives. Some cisgender women are uncomfortable with the presence of transgender women in women's only spaces and the resulting conflict led to the adoption of 'woman-born-woman' (or 'womyn-born-womyn') policies by some groups.

Scope

These policies state that in the affected women's only spaces, transgender women are excluded. Specific policies may vary with some choosing to only exclude pre-operative transwomen. However, this inevitably results in classist discrimination, as sex reassignment surgery or SRS is generally not covered under many public and private health insurance policies. This functionally results in the situation where only transgender women of greater financial means can afford to pay the tens of thousands of dollars that SRS requires. So 'women-born-women' policies that are based on operative status may effectively exclude only impoverished and disenfranchised transgender women and may also selectively exclude transgender women of color who are disproportionately impoverished.

In addition to excluding transgender women, such policies have also been more recently used to exclude female bodied persons who either have a male gender identity (transmen) or who are in some way gender variant, such as bois, butch lesbians, and other people who are gender non-conforming.

Examples

There have been several notable instances where transgender women have been denied access to or even been evicted from women's spaces.

• Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
• Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter
• The Crones

Arguments

Supporters of 'women-born-women' policies cite several reasons that such policies are necessary and appropriate.

• Transgender women do not have the experience of growing up female in a sexist society and therefore cannot fully understand the female experience.
• Transgender women have benefited from male privilege and therefore should not have access to such spaces.
• Transgender women may make other women in the space feel uncomfortable, especially in the case of pre-operative transwomen.
• Policies that do not exclude transgender women would allow men to enter the space if they simply wear stereotypical women's clothes and claim a female gender identity.
• Many women's only spaces provide a safe shelter for women who have been abused or sexually assaulted. Such women might feel threatened by the presence of transgender women.

However, critics of such policies argue that:

• While transgender women did not grow up with physically female bodies, they did grow up with female gender identities and thus should not be considered 'second-class' women any more than would a woman who grew up with other physical differences.
• Although transgendered women did not experience sexist repression growing up, they experienced other forms of repression which are its equal, viz. society's insidious transphobia
• If exclusion of transgender women because of access to male privilege is appropriate, then banning female-bodied people who are gender variant makes little sense.
• Thus far, cisgender males have not claimed female gender identity as a means to access women's only spaces. Using this theoretical risk to exclude an entire class of women from women's spaces is not appropriate.
• While transgender women may make cisgendered women uncomfortable, the discomfort of the majority is not an acceptable reason to exclude minorities. This is exemplified by the struggle for people of color to access 'white's only' spaces in the pre-civil rights south. While the white majority was certainly made uncomfortable by access of persons of color to public accommodations, the discomfort of the majority was not adequate justification for denying rights to the minority.
• Transgender women are not only subject to the same sorts of sexual assault and partner abuse as cisgendered women, but are in fact at higher risk of interpersonal violence because of their transgender status. Exclusion of this most vulnerable population of women from shelters and support services is not appropriate.

Other Issues

Establishing women-born-women policies results in other difficulties in addition to the problems faced by transgender women. Enforcement of such policies is not always straightforward. Some female-identified but gender variant women, such as butch lesbians, boidykes, etc have reported privacy invasions due to questions whether or not they were indeed 'women-born-women.' Paradoxically the major victims of such policies are less likely to be the small population of transgender women, but the far larger population of gender variant women such as butch lesbians.

Because such policies take as a given that sex is a binary division even in biology, they make intersex individuals invisible. As many as one child in a hundred is born with a physical intersex condition. Many of these people are raised as girls and most identify as women in adulthood. Such individuals may often however, have ambiguous bodies or genitalia. These female identified women may be the inadvertent victims of such policies as well.

While some transgender women may be less able to pass and thus unable to access women-born-women spaces, other transgender women after complete SRS may be completely unrecognizable as transgender. Indeed some transwomen have reported being evaluated by examinations from gynecologists who remained unaware of their transgender status. Thus, for some transgender women, accessing women's only space is possible as long as they remain closeted. So, far from ensuring that all transgender women are denied access, the policy is for some transwomen much like the don't ask, don't tell policy in the US military.

See also

• List of transgender-related topics
• List of transgender-rights organizations

External links

• National Association of Women and the Law Paper
• Egale Canada Backgrounder on Nixon v. Vancouver Rape Relief
• Press For Change briefing paper