Chapter 8

Inclusion and exclusion on Reclaim the Night

In this chapter, I will consider the inclusion or exclusion of groups other than men on RTN; namely, trans people and also people involved in or supportive of the industry of prostitution. These two issues rest on the more theoretical debates I explored earlier in Chapter 5. They are an example of how seemingly very abstract and academic conflicts can have real ramifications in practical activism. In this chapter, I will try to outline, for those not immersed in the feminist scene, just what these conflicts are all about. For those activist organisers reading this book, I will try to provide some possible arguments that could be useful when defending RTN marching, specifically women-only RTN marching. I will also provide some feminist arguments against the industry of prostitution, though these will not please those queer or third wave activists who see that industry as a potentially positive site of women’s empowerment, economic and otherwise. In fact, it may be the case that my views on this industry will only fulfil stereotypes about radical feminists, because indeed I do consider the so-called sex industry to be a form of male violence against women and a symptom of patriarchy. That does not mean I am anti-sex or anti-women’s agency, as I shall attempt to explain. Hopefully, this analysis will help others reading this who also share those views, who are also forced to justify them on a regular basis and who are sick of being called prudes or otherwise as a result. In this chapter, I will also state my own stance on the very controversial issue of trans inclusion in feminism and provide my own take on the supposed, and surprisingly well publicised, current rift or dispute between some trans activists and some feminist activists.

The perceived exclusion from RTN of trans people, that is, people who identify as transexual or transgender, and of people involved in the sex industry, form two of the current feminist fault lines I have observed in the contemporary Feminist Movement. It was often the case that those activists who were concerned about trans exclusion were also concerned at the potential exclusion of people involved in prostitution or the sex industry. Often they linked these two issues, usually because they felt that feminism, or at least some types of feminism, were jointly hostile to these groups of people. Those aligned to queer politics often held this view, such as these quotes from activists Corrie and Brooke illustrate.

. . . trans women and sex workers have been excluded in the past and there has not been enough conversation and working together to ensure that all those who experience discrimination and violence are included.

(Corrie)

Sometimes people on the march are not very tolerant, particularly when it comes to showing open support of women who identify with sex workers. I have been shoved, sworn at and threatened with the police because I walk with the sex-worker contingent.

(Brooke)

Some RTN marches in a variety of cities do purposely choose routes past lap-dancing clubs, for example the London RTN, which for several years marched past the Spearmint Rhino lap-dancing and pole-dancing club. This club is situated on Tottenham Court Road in central London and was planning an expansion into other UK cities. For some activists, marching past these sorts of venues is difficult though, and they were opposed to marchers shouting slogans or chants against the sex industry. This was partly because they felt such shouting could be seen to be blaming or shaming the women working in such premises, something nobody would want to do. It was also partly because they felt such opposition was misguided and lacking in critiques of the role of capitalism in creating the sex industry.

I also hate the shouting at the lap-dancing clubs that happens in my city. They do this yet completely ignore the bars paying below a living wage, meaning that often for some women it makes more economic sense to become a sex worker. There is such a powerful anti sex-work lobby, which is fine, but no acknowledgement of the economic reasons behind this.

(Babin)

For several activists though, it was the divisions between feminists of different standpoints on this issue which caused them most discomfort, rather than the complex arguments for and against the industry of prostitution. Some activists also described anger or disappointment when groups in support of the ‘sex industry’ attended RTN. For example, groups such as the International Union of Sex Workers or IUSW, whose campaigning tool is to protest while carrying red umbrellas and forming a bloc on marches and events. Also, the English Collective of Prostitutes, who are a sub-group of W4H, a long-standing organisation described earlier in the chapter on the history of the UK Second Wave. W4H frequently distribute their flyers at feminist events, including at RTN, and particularly in London where they are based. Danielle for example had attended several RTN marches and did not like to see such groups on the marches at all because of her political stance on the global ‘sex industry’.

. . . there is nothing right about it, and prostitution in my opinion cannot be defended as a job. It is a form of exploitation, slavery; and a very specific one. I don’t like the red umbrellas one bit.

(Danielle)

It is hard to explain to those not involved in activism just what a fierce divide this is in the Feminist Movement. It is not a new one. It goes back to the 1980s and 1990s and what were misleadingly called the ‘sex wars’, where feminists were divided on issues of prostitution, pornography and sexual practices such as sadomasochism (Long, 2012). During that time, it became common to refer to feminists who were positive about prostitution and pornography as ‘sex positive’. Therefore, feminists who problematised these industries were often rewarded for their troubles by being called ‘anti-sex’. This is a misleading and mistaken label of course, as feminists who take this standpoint do not generally see the industry of prostitution as being much about sex, but instead about power and exploitation. It is worth going over this simplistic pro- and anti-sex binary, because, like most things, it is not that simple.

As you will remember from the Seven Demands, since 1974, the UK WLM has been profoundly positive about sexual liberation; it was never and is not in any way anti-sex. In 1974, at one of their national conferences, that year held in Scotland, the Sixth Demand was agreed – this called for the right of all women to define their own sexuality and for an end to discrimination against lesbians. Our movement has never been against sex, it has been for women’s rights to explore, enjoy, express and identify their own sexuality free from the patriarchal double standards that try to police their behaviour. This double standard aggrandises men for engaging in sexual behaviour, while shaming women for doing the same. It is the patriarchal standard that requires women to walk a tightrope between slut and prude, judging them at every turn. Throughout the ages of patriarchy, all across the world in fact, it is clear that men as a class hold a fear and fascination of the female body and female sexuality. This fascination and fear has led to men trying to control women’s bodies and their sexuality in varying degrees from blunt to subtle. Feminism has always struggled against this and continues to do so. This is why so many feminists oppose the multibillion-dollar global ‘sex industry’, not because they are against sex, but because they are against the presumption of a male right to sexual access to women’s bodies.

This is not an agreed standpoint however, far from it. Not all feminists take that view on the so-called oldest profession (which incidentally is not the oldest occupation, as that honour goes to agriculture). Regardless of its age, the length of time an oppression has been in existence is not grounds for its continuation, it is surely more reason to overcome it. The problem is that feminists are not even agreed whether it is an oppression in the first place, and so prostitution has long been a contentious issue in the WLM, splitting feminist individuals and groups. This division can be summarised briefly as being between those who have the aim of abolishing prostitution versus those who promote prostitution as work like any other. This division is often known as an abolitionist versus legalisation dichotomy. This is a reductionist and misleading split however, because prostitution is not technically illegal in the UK anyway, although most activities associated with it are, and also because many feminists cannot fit easily into one side or the other. To provide some background to this feminist fault line, put into context for those not familiar with the activist scene and also for those activists who would just like to know more about the arguments on either side, I shall now explore this dichotomy in more depth. This should also hopefully provide some useful arguments for those activists who are facing conflicts in their RTN organising or other activist groups and hopefully set the record straight on some of the lies and myths which surround this division in the movement.

Beyond the binary: How to argue against prostitution and for women in prostitution

Abolitionists are those who believe in the criminalisation of demand for prostitution, with a view to reducing prostitution, or perhaps ending it in the future. This is not just a feminist argument; many socialists and anticapitalists also subscribe to this view and look towards a future without the prostitution industry. Abolitionists usually view prostitution as a cause and consequence of inequality, including gender inequality; they do not view it as work like any other. This is a political stance – it is not a religious, moralistic or conservative stance.

Many feminists, including abolitionists like myself, advocate what is called the Nordic approach, calling for the complete decriminalisation of all those exploited in prostitution and instead for the criminalisation of demand. In 1999, Sweden outlawed the purchase of sexual acts in prostitution, effectively criminalising punters, while decriminalising all those selling ‘sexual services’. Other countries, such as Norway and Iceland, followed suit in later years and more are considering adopting such a law. What does this law mean then, in practice? To put it plainly, because statistically speaking this is a profoundly gendered industry, the law means that women are not criminalised, but the men are. This move was in line with Sweden’s understanding of prostitution as a form of violence against women and a symptom of inequality, as well as being part of their commitment towards tackling global sex trafficking. Any such legal move must of course go alongside a large and dedicated financial investment in both harm-minimisation and exit services, and this is no less than what those people exploited and harmed in prostitution deserve, many of whom have been let down consistently by the very state services that should have protected them. I will cover what harm-minimisation and exit services are later in this section.

On the other side of the debate is the so-called legalisation argument. This is the argument for prostitution to be viewed as a legitimate business and for the whole of the ‘sex industry’ to be able to operate legally, for example in legal brothels. It is an argument usually made by groups referred to as sex-worker lobby groups, sex-worker rights groups or self-titled ‘sex-positive’ groups. These groups usually view prostitution as work like any other. These groups are usually opposed to abolitionist groups. They often argue that only the full legalisation of the whole of the ‘sex industry’ can make women – and men and young people, and trans or queer people and indeed all those people involved – in prostitution safer.

However, given the current legal situation, where in the UK prostitution is not illegal anyway, this ‘legalisation’ approach is perhaps better and more accurately referred to as an argument for brothelisation – for the establishment of legal brothels operating as businesses. The argument that prostitution is work like any other is usually followed by the assertion that the decision to enter this industry is a matter of individual choice with which the state or anyone else should not interfere, but should only facilitate that choice to be enacted as safely as possible. Such a stance harks back of course to the earlier discussions in this book about the importance and reification of ‘choice’ in some third wave and post-feminist approaches. Groups like the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) or W4H describe prostitution as ‘consenting sex’, which ‘should not be the business of the criminal law’ (ECP, 2014). Groups like the IUSW also view prostitution as a worker’s rights issue and promote prostitution as a legitimate business. Both groups commend the approach taken in New Zealand, where brothels of varying sizes from small owner-operated ventures to larger chains are allowed to operate legally, though the ECP favour small owner-operated ventures over larger big business brothel chains. The latter are thriving however under this regime. Recent news coverage in local papers in Auckland, New Zealand details planning applications for a 15-storey brothel to be developed in the city’s main business district for example; a brainchild of two entrepreneurial brothers in the brothel industry, a plan they have currently put on hold (Dougan & Fletcher, 2014; Gibson, 2012).

It can be enlightening in fact to study the local newspapers of towns and cities in all countries where brothels have been legalised to see what is happening on the ground. In Queensland, Australia for example, local papers recently reported on complaints from legal brothels regarding being undercut by the illegal sector, resulting in the closure of three legal brothels (Solomons, 2011). The legal sector is not a panacea however, it does not guarantee women’s safety; for example, a woman is reportedly suing a legal brothel in Melbourne, Australia after being threatened with a gun for refusing to have unprotected sex (Medew, 2011). A survey in Australia found physical safety still the highest concern for women in legal brothels (Norma, 2011). Women are still raped, assaulted and attacked in legal brothels and tolerance zones. And, in countries which have legalised, this happens behind the closed doors of legal profit-making brothels paying a licence fee to the state; therefore making the state a pimp.

If the UK were to follow the example of legalised brothels, such as in New Zealand, Amsterdam and Australia, what do we expect would happen to this so-called industry? Is it not common business sense to assume that when an industry is legalised and promoted, when it can freely advertise and set up anywhere in our towns and cities, that it will therefore grow, that it will expand? And, if the industry grows, who will fill the new ‘vacancies’ that will be created? More women, children and men in prostitution; we have to ask ourselves if that is the sort of outcome we want. There is also the argument that wherever there is a legal sector there will always be an illegal or so-called underground sector. There will always be those that do not wish to register as sex workers, those that do not want to or cannot afford to pay taxes, those that are working illegally without papers, those who are immigrants or trafficked, pimped or under age.

Legalising prostitution turns it into a business, turns it into a career option and turns pimps and traffickers into legitimate businessmen overnight. Legalising prostitution removes any obligations to provide exit services from what becomes a profession like any other. It can give a green light to organised crime and it formally defines women as commodities, as objects of exchange for men’s presumed natural needs. Yet many sex-industry lobby groups and individuals see no need to reduce or end prostitution, and believe it should be a legitimate business – just made safer than it currently is. This is where what is called harm minimisation comes in. This term refers to practical interventions, such as CCTV and other security measures, better police responses to crimes against those in prostitution, free contraception, specialist sexual health care etc.

There is probably agreement, regardless of political stance, that those in prostitution have a right to this kind of protection and support. People in the UK for example are entitled to their rights as citizens generally, and to their human rights whatever their immigration status, regardless of how they make an income. This is where what is called harm minimisation can play a role. No feminist that I know would argue against harm minimisation. Nor are feminists arguing against a better police response when prostituted women report crimes, including rape. All women deserve a better police response when reporting rape. Everybody has the right to support after rape, including support to prosecute if they so choose. Feminists are certainly not arguing against services such as free contraception, drug and alcohol counselling, access to safe legal abortion, benefits advice, housing, laundries, refuges, needle exchanges etc.

All these examples of harm-minimisation services are sadly vital as long as prostitution continues to exist – whether legal or illegal. But importantly, the feminist argument highlights that we must always and also look towards harm ending, alongside harm minimisation. Society cannot, and should not, be satisfied for ever more with merely piecemeal and temporary fixes to the scars that prostitution leaves on our society and on the bodies of those chewed up within it: the women murdered, missing, raped, battered and those who find tragically that the only way to exit this industry is to take their own lives. To continue with only harm-minimisation approaches is to merely maintain a whole class of people in sexual service to the other half of the population and thus sustain this fundamental injustice; an injustice which makes a mockery of claims to equality. And while these debates go on, back and forth and fiercely contested in Student Union debates and as the topics of women’s groups and CR groups, the situation continues. Tonight on our streets, up to 5000 young people will be exploited in prostitution (HO, 2010) to fulfil a demand we are told to accept as inevitable. Children continue to be groomed and pimped, with the average age of entry into prostitution worldwide estimated at around only 14 years old (Silbert & Pines, 1982). Women, children and men in this industry continue to be disproportionately affected by violence, including sexual violence, with Canadian studies suggesting that women in prostitution face a homicide risk 40 times higher than the national average (SPC, 1985).

Abolitionist feminists view the industry of prostitution as a cause and consequence of inequality, not as work like any other. There is of course, the familiar anti-capitalist argument that all of us are coerced to work, regardless of what job we are in. This argument asks what choice or consent any of us can really have or give in a world blighted by inequality, by sexism, racism and homophobia. Ours is a world scarred by the masculinisation of wealth and power, where all too often women and children pay the highest price. In such a world there is certainly a question over the extent of our agency, when the vast majority of us have to work for a living at best and survival at worst, whether we like it or not.

Some sex-industry lobby groups that subscribe to this valid anti-capitalist stance then use this argument to classify prostitution therefore as work like any other. They argue that all workers sell their labour, whether they are journalists, waiters, academics or prostitutes. To argue in this way removes any gendered analysis from debate about prostitution, which is wrong, because prostitution is markedly gendered. The vast majority of those in prostitution are women and the vast majority of punters are men. This, and other signs of the symptoms of structural inequalities, cannot be overlooked. It is also offensive to people earning money through prostitution whose ‘job’ is very different to the more privileged life of a journalist or academic.

We should save powerful words and terms to describe what they are meant to describe lest we dilute or demean the meaning, but unfortunately, this is often not common practice. To take just a few examples, currently so many things are referred to as ‘rape’ which are not rape, such as ‘Facebook rape’ when someone hijacks a logged-in Facebook page and posts inappropriate material or jokes, or environmental destruction referred to as ‘the rape of the earth’ or even, football matches, such as the German defeat of Brazil at the 2014 World Cup, referred to as ‘the rape of Brazil’. The same is true of the word ‘pimp’, which has tragically come to refer to the practice of making something better or improving something, such as ‘pimp my ride’, meaning souping up or customising a car, or trainers that are ‘pimped’; there was even a soft drink for a while called ‘Pimp Juice’ sponsored by a US rapper called Nelly. The term ‘pimp’ actually describes someone who makes money out of the prostitution of others; it can describe a controlling or violent person who actively prostitutes others. The fact that this term has become so glamorised is telling and should highlight the importance of language. Let us call prostitution prostitution and nothing else; let us call rape rape, and nothing else.

Unfortunately, activists reported time and again that terms such as prostitution were generalised and minimised; that debates around the violence of prostitution were reduced to issues of worker’s rights alone. To return to the common refrain that prostitution is work like any other then, this was actually one of the most frequent arguments that activist organisers in local RTN groups told me they faced and they were often unsure how to respond to this challenge. Feminist arguments against the industry of prostitution hold that there is a difference between selling one’s labour and selling access to one’s body. Survivors of prostitution often say the same. A builder or plumber labours with his or her body, she sells her labour which is a product of her physicality, including her mind. A journalist or academic labours with their body too, thinking, writing, delivering lectures, travelling to conferences etc. But this is not the same as selling access to one’s body. Goods are produced by labourers through the labouring of their body – their body is not the good itself. Some would then point to dancers, or artists who use their own bodies in their art. But the same argument can apply, as dancers produce dance, and artists produce art with their bodies – their body is not the good in and of itself.

The boundaries of the body are enshrined in law, our bodily integrity is universally understood; everywhere but in debates about prostitution it seems. Most of us would understand that there is a difference between being punched in the face and being raped. Our law treats these two violent assaults differently, because the latter is understood to have breached bodily integrity – it is a violation of bodily boundaries. We understand the body as a possession in some ways, but we do not understand it as a possession in the same way as a car, or a mobile phone or a house. If your house is burgled, this is a violation on your property and is treated seriously in law, but it is not treated the same in law as a violation on your body, as common assault, as rape or sexual assault. Most of us would be very upset and angry if our computer or car was stolen for example, but we would understand that this is a very different crime to a crime on our body, and the two would be treated differently under the law. Therefore, it should become clear that the body is not commonly understood as just a tool, or possession or product. This is partly why labouring with one’s body and making one’s body into a good itself are two very different things. To put it bluntly, being a builder does not involve making one’s body sexually available to one’s employers; the same is true of journalists, academics, waiters etc.

Feminists who take the abolitionist stance, which includes many radical feminists, are not saying that earning a living through prostitution does not involve labour of the body and mind, it certainly does. It is probably one of the most difficult ways to earn a living and many people struggle to even earn a living in this ‘industry’; many experience it as merely survival, and all too many do not survive it. But debate around prostitution cannot and should not be shut down by turning to the refrain that all work is like prostitution – because it patently is not; and the great majority of people understand this. I remember one survivor who is now a writer and campaigner summarising this argument well when she was asked if prostitution was not just a job like any other that nobody particularly likes but does for the money, as with cleaning. She replied that perhaps prostitution was a little like cleaning – if all cleaners were forced to do their cleaning work with only their tongues (Mott, 2009). Therefore, I disagree with the supposedly socialist sentiment expressed by some that all work is prostitution, because it is not. Prostitution is prostitution, and it is demeaning to those involved in it to argue any otherwise and to do so only minimises the struggles those people face.

Those of us who take the abolitionist stance are also often accused of removing agency from women, of making women into victims and stigmatising people who earn money through prostitution. It is argued that any legal controls of prostitution just further stigmatise the people in it, making their lives harder and more marginalised and this sentiment is used against feminists expressing uncertainty or doubt about the continuation of the prostitution industry. It is important to understand that it is not feminists though, but patriarchal society, obsessed as it is with a fear of and fascination with women’s sexuality, which attaches a stigma to those in prostitution. It is a form of what the late feminist academic Mary Daly would call a ‘patriarchal reversal’ that this stigma is not also attached to those who buy sexual services in prostitution – punters, who are overwhelmingly men. Within patriarchy, men’s sexuality is not degraded by buying sexual access to others, whereas women in prostitution are degraded. This patriarchal reversal is visible in other areas too of course, though it often goes uncommented, proof itself of its grip on culture. Take for example so-called celebrity sex-tape scandals involving singers such as Tulisa Contostavlos in 2012, or reality TV star Lauren Goodger in 2014. It is the case that, although usually ex-boyfriends publicise such footage without the knowledge and permission of the woman involved, the woman is the one expected to be somehow shamed, embarrassed, ‘caught out’ or ‘exposed’ by such material; and indeed often is. Questions are asked in the media about whether such tapes will hurt, launch or hinder careers or how women may ‘recover’, ‘come back from’ or ‘take control’ of the fallout from this exposure. Yet nobody stops to wonder why we do not have the same expectations and assumptions about the man appearing in the film, and his various body parts and sexual acts which are suddenly publicised to the world for all to see.

Patriarchy has constructed women generally as object to men’s subjectivity, and associated women with nature, with the body and with sex. Women in prostitution are forced to bear the brunt of this dualism. This is not a construct of feminists. Feminists oppose such patriarchal constructs. Feminists do not support campaigns that stigmatise or attempt to shame women in prostitution. Feminists do not think that being in prostitution or having once been in prostitution is anything to be ashamed of. It is the men who choose to buy access to women in prostitution who are stigmatising people in prostitution by commodifying another human being. In fact, in a hopeful display of some kind of conscious or unconscious realisation of this inequality, punters themselves often report feeling ashamed of buying sexual services in prostitution (Bindel, 2010b).

As well as supposedly stigmatising people in prostitution, radical feminists with an abolitionist stance are also accused of supporting the criminalisation of women, through police controls. In fact, the history of RTN even plays out in these charges, with some groups using RTN as an example of radical feminist demands for increased policing. I have already dealt with these charges however, in Chapter 4, and shown how this was never a demand of the early RTN marches or the broader Feminist Movement during the Second Wave. No feminist I know is arguing for those in prostitution to be criminalised. This is just one matter on which I am sure there is agreement, regardless of political stance. I am sure that whatever approach one takes, even if one is firmly on one or the other side of this divide, we can all agree that those involved/exploited/working in this industry should not be criminalised. Feminist groups are in fact calling for decriminalisation of those in prostitution. We would like to see crimes such as soliciting to be removed from the statute and for any records for these offences to be wiped, as having such a record only further inhibits women from entry into the formal labour market, training or education and unfairly brands them a criminal. Feminist groups are not calling for women in prostitution to be criminalised, and feminist groups do not support the fining or imprisoning of women or the serving of anti-social behaviour orders on women in prostitution.

Radical feminists are also accused of suggesting that everyone in the sex industry is a powerless and passive victim devoid of any choice or agency. No feminist I know is arguing this. It would be nonsensical to suggest that all those people – women, young people, men – earning an income through prostitution are forced or coerced in the bluntest sense. However, the fact that there are probably some people successfully navigating the ‘sex industry’ without any negative experiences, for both the love and the money of it, should not negate the fact that research suggests this is far from the experience of the majority.

It is possible to be against sweatshop labour for example, but still acknowledge that countless families depend on an income from it; ditto with child labour. It is possible to be against the global illegal trade in body organs, but acknowledge that for too many people, this illegal industry sometimes becomes a choice in an environment of very limited options. Presumably, nobody would seriously argue that an illegal trade in body organs is fine, as long as people are operated on with sterile instruments. The fact that people find ways to make money when they need it in our imperfect world does not render those ways unquestionable – the exchange of money does not make everything ok.

While prostitution seems to have become some sort of liberal ideal, often heralded as a haven of choice and empowerment for women, trafficking for the purposes of prostitution is generally seen as undesirable. It is usually acceptable to say that one is against trafficking, although some sex-industry lobby groups do try to suggest that this is extremely rare and they prefer to talk about ‘migration for sex work’. Indeed, reliable statistics are hard to find when dealing with an illegal trade where people are hidden or hiding and I do not deny that some government attempts at statistics can never be anything else than guesses. Difficulties in measurement do not mean it does not happen though, and sometimes the efforts of sex-industry lobby groups to dismiss research and policy on trafficking read like denials. Whatever stance one takes however, it is fact that both prostitution and trafficking have one key thing in common, and that is demand. If men in Britain did not wish to buy sexual access to women, children and young men, then nobody would be trafficked into or within the ‘sex industry’ in this country; in fact, prostitution as an institution would cease to exist.

Abolitionist feminists are also accused of not caring about the safety of women in prostitution. We are told that only full legalisation can protect people in this industry. Yet there are other ways to protect people in the industry as long as it exists. For example, it is possible to implement both harm-minimisation and exit services. This is not an either/or argument, though it is often reduced to such by proponents of the sex industry. It is not necessary to legalise and normalise the whole of the sex industry in order to provide exit and harm-minimisation services, and we should be wary of those groups who frame the debate in this way and threaten such an ultimatum. Exit services are interventions aimed at supporting those who want to get out of the ‘sex industry’ to get out. Interventions can provide support with housing, education, training, benefits, counselling, family mediation, police support to prosecute abusers be they pimps or punters etc.

Exit services are important and necessary because the so-called sex industry is an industry built on the inequality of women, it is built on the deep fissures of inequality that in fact characterise society at every level, inequalities of class, race and wealth. It cannot be coincidence that evidence suggests that the majority of those in prostitution around the globe are women, are poor women, are Women of Colour, are migrant women, are young women, are mothers, are homeless women, are First Nation women, are women without papers. The ‘sex industry’ is an industry that harms those in it, which damages those in it and it is not surprising then that global research finds that around 90 per cent of those in it would leave if they had the economic freedom to do so (Farley et al., 2003). A 2007 study in Germany also found that most of those surveyed in the prostitution industry said it was only a temporary solution to a difficult financial situation and they wanted to get out as soon as they possibly could. Securing this economic freedom must then be one element of all feminist campaigns against the industry of prostitution.

The answer to poverty and marginalisation is not to negate our social responsibilities and hand over this authority to the multibillion-dollar ‘sex industry’. Brothels and strip clubs in our communities are not providers of drug rehabilitation, of rape trauma counselling, of housing. Lap-dancing clubs in our communities are not providers of higher education and they are not providing a public service by recruiting young student women struggling to pay the high fees and expenses now associated with completing a university education. The answer to the latter situation for example, is to unite together and fight for the return of the student grant and for free education for all – not to turn to the often criminal ‘sex industry’ as if it is some sort of safety net for women, when it is usually the very opposite.

It is time to envision a society, and a world, without prostitution. This may sound idealistic, but the theory matters, the direction of travel matters, the aspiration matters, because if we can’t envision such a society, then we cannot even begin to build it. Those of us who accept that prostitution is not a positive feature of society, and those that agree that it is not a positive career option for women, children or young men, must then tackle and reverse the social and economic conditions that enable prostitution to thrive. Our society has failed people who need refuge, who need safe housing, who need food, who need health services, who need money to survive, who need childcare, who need justice to be served on rapists and abusers. We have raised girls who think their worth is based on their attractiveness to the opposite sex, we have reduced women to nothing more than sex objects; we have brought up boys to believe that women are second class. Thus, we have created a conducive environment for prostitution. This is not natural, it is not inevitable and it can be reduced, maybe ended; at the very least it can be challenged, rather than glamourised, normalised and condoned.

The real question about prostitution is the question of men’s rights and, whether we as a society believe that men have a right to buy and sell women’s bodies or whether they do not. We know that people will do what they have to do to survive and to make money, this is not rocket science, it is not a feature of people’s sexuality or sexual identity. People make desperate choices to provide for their children, to keep a roof over their heads, to feed their families or just to make an income – and they should not be criminalised for doing so when their situation and/or vulnerability is exploited within prostitution. But why do men choose to buy women’s bodies, men who are often in full-time employment, in relationships and in a position of relative privilege? And why do we as a nation protect and condone that choice as if it cannot be helped, as if it is a feature of our human biology that some of us are born with a price on our head and others with a birth right to buy us?

Imagine if every country stood up and said that this is not acceptable, as Sweden has done, stood up and said that every woman is worth more than what some man will pay for her and that we will criminalise rather than condone men who assume a right to buy the body of another human being. If our laws are lines in the sand, if they define collective aspirations, then ours are clearly lacking on this issue. This is despite the changes in the Policing and Crime Act 2009 under the last Labour government, which were indeed a step forward, for the first time directing the eyes of the law onto those who fuel prostitution – punters. This victory was a result of tireless campaigning by women’s groups, led by the feminist, abolitionist ‘Demand Change’ campaign. Nevertheless, these changes did not go far enough and those exploited in the ‘sex industry’ are still being branded as, and treated as, criminals, with all the increased vulnerability that engenders.

Rather than simply throw our hands in the air and legalise the whole of the ‘sex industry’, some genuine vision and ambition is needed here. It is time to choose which side we are on, because the multibillion-dollar ‘sex industry’ is doing fine and well; it does not need our support, it certainly does not need our protection. But around the world, exploited in prostitution, there are women, children and men who do, many of whom can see no end to their situation, so we must. We must make it happen; we must end one of the oldest human rights violations our world has known and relegate this blot on our humanity to history.

I do not expect everyone to agree, and even in the small sample of activists I met, the views differed greatly as their own voices show. On both sides, it seemed there was shared frustration with the way the debates are held, with some activists saying they just tried to avoid the issue because they could not handle aggressive critiques from either stance. I do think there are meeting places between the different sides though, particularly over demands to stop criminalising those in prostitution and for better safety and exit services. I hope this brief discussion of some of the arguments aids in the pursuit of that goal, and also reassures all those feminist activists out there who feel uncomfortable about the so-called sex-positive approach to prostitution, and all those readers who on a common sense and gut level know that prostitution is not something they would wish on anyone and is not an ‘industry’ they would like to see normalised or expanded. However, it is indeed difficult to build shared platforms across this feminist fault line when the destination is not agreed upon. As long as groups continue to promote the idea that a world with prostitution is preferable to one without it, it will be difficult for many feminists to get on board, especially radical feminists.

Another area of disagreement between activists and within the feminist scene generally is on trans inclusion. There was a perception, voiced by a minority of the activists, that as well as being unwelcoming to those in prostitution, RTN marches and feminist spaces more broadly are implicitly or explicitly closed to trans-identified people – by which they sometimes meant trans women, and other times meant transgender or non-gender normative identified people more broadly. This was another area, like that discussed above, where often there were shared views and common ground, but where many sidestepped the issue altogether whenever they could because the debates on this topic have become so fierce, especially online. Again, it is difficult to explain to readers not immersed in feminist activism just how controversial this topic has become. Feminist conferences are being picketed and boycotted when they are not open to trans women – meaning transexual women, and others are being attacked for perceived exclusion or lack of welcome. Some feminists refuse to include trans women in women-only space and some trans people disagree with women-only space at all. RTN marches are being counter-protested, with alternative marches following formally organised ones and regular calls for boycotts of certain RTN marches appear across feminist blogs, publications and commentary in mainstream media. There are insults and harsh words on both sides, with some activist organisers and feminist commentators receiving death threats and rape threats from queer and trans rights groups and individuals on the grounds of transphobia. It is hard to uncover what exactly lies behind such animosity, but it has become simplified as a battle between trans activists and radical feminists. This is yet another misleading reduction of the actual and more complex debates and disagreements which are unfolding. It also unfortunately serves to cordon off a surprising amount of shared ground as well as divert attention from shared enemies.

Boundary changes: The inclusion of trans women on Reclaim the Night

Many RTN marches today are explicitly advertised as trans inclusive or as open gender. This means that it is made clear in the publicity and advertising materials that those who identify as trans men or trans women, as transexual or transgender, or those who reject any sex or gender label, are welcome on RTN, and in women-only spaces, all ‘self-defined women’ are usually invited. As I stated in Chapter 5, there is a difference between the terms ‘transexual’ and ‘transgender’. In this book, I use the term ‘transgender’ to refer to those people who identify as non-binary and who cross the lines of socially constructed gender. I use the term ‘transexual’ to refer to those people who are legally and socially recognised as the opposite sex to that which they were labelled at birth. The term ‘trans’ has however become a shorthand to refer to both transgender and transexual people, and indeed anyone who considers their presentation and identity to be non-gender normative. In my mapping of RTN marches over the years from 2004 to 2012, I recorded that 20 marches made explicit statements about trans inclusion generally. The shift towards the breaking down of borders around the category of ‘woman’ and the expanding of boundaries around RTN was a shift that was seen as both positive and negative by the activists I met. Often, those who argued in favour of the inclusion of men on RTN were also the most passionate advocates for trans inclusion. In fact, the two issues were often conflated because those in favour of male involvement were usually against excluding any allies for RTN, regardless of their sex or gender identity. In all the discussions I had, I identified three key arguments which were raised in favour of explicit trans inclusion on RTN – usually referring to transexual women, but sometimes referring to any transgender or non-binary identified people, including people identifying as men, male or as trans men.

1. Trans women are disproportionately affected by violence and harassment, at least as much, if not more so, than women who were assigned female at birth. Given their experiences of street harassment and violence, the RTN march is highly relevant to trans women.

2. Trans women identify as women and have likely experienced discrimination on the grounds of their identity as women. As such, they should be welcome on RTN to protest against sexist discrimination and harassment.

3. Trans women are women; RTN should be inclusive to all women. To exclude this particular group of women would be bigoted and prejudiced.

None of the activists I spoke to stated explicitly that women who identify as trans women should be barred from RTN. However, there were a small minority of activists who raised concerns about trans inclusion. It was common for there to be tensions around this issue generally though, regardless of personal view or stance; and these tensions were most often raised by organisers who struggled to build a mass march and appeal to an audience of many different political standpoints.

Activists themselves sometimes used terms such as gender queer or non-binary to refer to their own sex or gender identities. Some also used such terms to refer to their politics. When discussing trans inclusion, some activists used the term ‘cis’ to describe their identity too. They used this term to refer to women assigned female at birth who still currently identify as women and as female. The term ‘cis’ was used to differentiate between trans women and non-trans women, by which I mean transexual women and women who are not transexual. The use of this clarifying precursor subjects the category of ‘woman’ to the same treatment as that of ‘trans woman’, requiring a defining term before any reference to the category of ‘woman’ at all. The use of the term ‘cis’ is also intended to highlight the supposed privilege of women who have been recognised as female since birth. Such women are not seen as generally having their sex or gender questioned in daily life or in official contexts. This is in stark contrast to trans women, who may experience such questioning regularly. For many queer-identified activists, the terms ‘cis’ and ‘trans’ carry the same meaning of hierarchy as the terms ‘gay’ and ‘straight’. That is to say that cis is to trans as straight is to gay.

For some activists, the shift towards greater inclusion on RTN and in feminism generally was positive and overdue. Twenty-year-old Heidi, who identified as a queer feminist, was in a relationship with a trans woman when I met her and particularly welcomed changes in feminist spaces and organisations that made trans women feel welcome. She argued that this was not always the case, historically or currently.

. . . the thing I don’t like about the Feminist Movement is that loads of them are horribly transphobic.

(Heidi)

I met Heidi in a Student Union café as she was currently studying for an undergraduate degree. She was relatively new to feminism, describing herself as being involved for around two years. She was highly critical of London RTN and of many elements of radical feminism, as she perceived them. Similarly, another young activist, Babin, also described a despondency with what she saw as a hostility to trans women, through acts of omission, which meant that trans women were not explicitly welcomed on London RTN.

I boycotted the London RTN in 2010 after it refused to put the words ‘self-identifying women’ on any flyers or promotional materials. I don’t go where my friends feel unsafe, and my friends because of this action felt unsafe.

(Babin)

Several other activists actually singled out the London RTN in particular when discussing the issue of trans inclusion. Although the organising committee of London RTN always answered individual or press enquiries on the subject confirming that all women were welcome, including trans women, this stance was not advertised on the London RTN flyers or website. In 2011, the London RTN organising committee decided to clarify the stance by adding an inclusivity statement on the website for RTN. This statement invites all women to join RTN, and lists different types of women, such as older women, girls, religious women and trans women.

Prior to the publicising of this statement in 2011, there had been regular calls for boycotts of London RTN, counter-protests and anarchist ‘black blocs’ against the march for example. There were also many articles and comments on the online UK feminist magazine The F Word, berating London RTN as transphobic. Perhaps due to this coverage, some activists I spoke to had actively chosen to become involved in explicitly queer, or queer feminist organisations, perceiving these to be more inclusive.

There’s definitely like, a different character to the feminist group I’m involved in, which is quite queer and quite focussed around including trans people and stuff you know, who are more affected by stuff to do with getting attacked at night than cis women are. So I think it’s really important to include them. And I think trans men should come as well, and people of non-standard gender presentation should be able to come as well.

(Heidi)

Clevedon agreed that trans women are disproportionately affected by violence. An anti-capitalist feminist in her early thirties, she argued that:

. . . transwomen are disproportionately impacted by violence against women, and transphobia should not be tolerated in the Feminist Movement.

(Clevedon)

Representing quite a common view, a young activist called Abigail was not sure whether trans people were necessarily more affected by street violence, but she felt that they were at least as affected by it as non-trans women generally. Therefore, she argued for trans inclusion, including trans men.

Violence against trans people, trans women especially, but also trans men and non-binary gendered trans/genderqueer people, is at least comparable to violence against cis women. To have a march that explicitly or implicitly excludes these people, or doesn’t actively include them, is something I find troubling, especially as the structures in place which allow violence against cis women are often the same which allow violence against trans people.

(Abigail)

As already mentioned, no activist explicitly stated that trans women should be barred from RTN. On the question of mixed versus women-only RTN, many activists were more concerned that RTN marches remain women-only at all. When they addressed the issue of trans inclusion, they were in favour of publicly stating that women-only included trans women. Some organisers of RTN expressed sadness and frustration with debates over inclusion, not due to the issue itself, but due to the problems that conflicts over this issue caused for busy volunteer organisers. Catherine recounted her experiences of organising RTN in her city in the North of England.

I hate being called transphobic. I have no idea where this idea comes from and I don’t care. I just want the derailment of this movement to end. RTN in my city is fully inclusive to trans women as women. Cis and trans men can fully engage in the support rally. Yet I get abuse from various groups saying that we are not this at all [meaning trans inclusive], go figure. It just feels like any derailment will do, facts regardless.

(Catherine)

Charlotte also felt that the issue of trans inclusion often ended up overshadowing RTN marches and threatened the existence of any march at all due to the hostility encountered by activist organisers who were usually already overstretched.

And all we get is shit, and every time we send out a press release to The F Word, we just get two lines back saying ‘is it open to trans women’. You know, nothing saying: hello, well done, great to see you are organising this again. No, nothing like that, just this one-liner. I just don’t understand it. It just angers me; it’s always that I just think, what is you have against feminism?

(Charlotte)

Only four activists raised reservations about trans inclusion in women-only RTN: Sheila, Epstein, Shulamith and Cordelia. I met Shulamith in Bristol while she was visiting family there, on a trip from her home in Yorkshire in the North of England. Aged 47, she worked in the voluntary women’s sector and had been involved in feminism for over 20 years. She was concerned that the issue of trans inclusion had impacted negatively on the possibility of women-only space at all. She was exasperated with political theories and standpoints that she felt viewed sex and gender as fluid and a matter for self-definition alone. She felt that such theories, and she named queer theory in particular, had impacted negatively on her politics and her campaigning, but she did not know how to tackle such arguments.

Similarly to Shulamith, Epstein also felt that theories and politics on transgender inclusion had impacted negatively on women-only space and on the visibility of women as a political group or class.

It’s been co-opted by pro sex industry, trans and postmodernist views. Women have been taken out of the picture.

(Epstein)

Sixty-five-year-old radical feminist Sheila was the activist who brought in most political theory to her standpoint on trans inclusion. Sheila was against trans inclusion, but this came from a place of wishing to protect women-only feminist space for women assigned female at birth. She was very committed to women’s empowerment and advancement, and she spent most of her time working in progressive socialist organisations, and was particularly active in older people’s forums and in campaigns against cuts to benefits and rights for disabled people. Many people will feel that Sheila’s stance against trans inclusion in women-only feminist space is transphobic, meaning a fear or hatred of trans people. I do not believe that Sheila, or many feminists who also take her stance, are motivated by a fear or hatred of trans people.

These four activists who had reservations or mixed views about trans inclusion all expressed a great deal of compassion for people who feel bodily distress and who cannot live comfortably in their skin. They extended that compassion to everyone affected and limited by the binary gender system though, not just trans people. This is partly why much radical feminist theory is against the system of gender at all and would ideally see it demolished. In defending women-only spaces for women assigned female at birth, Sheila referred to feminist political theory on separatism, from writers such as Marilyn Frye (1983). She worried that some trans women might be motivated to join women-only spaces because of what she saw as a legacy of male privilege and she worried about what effect that lived experience of male privilege, however temporary and however varied or marked by experiences of prejudice, might have on how trans women related to other women or used women-only space. Thinking back to our earlier explorations of the term ‘essentialism’, and of some of the critiques of feminism, it is necessary to clarify that the phrase ‘male privilege’ refers not to some aspect of biology, but to all the social, cultural, institutional and legal benefits that come from being labelled male in a sexist, patriarchal culture where men as a group dominate. These sorts of difficult discussions are important, because acknowledging our backgrounds, lived experience and varying levels of privilege can help us to find common ground and enrich our own perspective. This surely is the whole point of having an intersectional approach.

These four activists were the only participants who explicitly raised reservations over trans inclusion in women-only space and Cordelia expressed that she was actually unsure of her views either for or against such inclusion. It should be noted that several of these participants had taken part in RTN marches which were either mixed or women-led mixed marches and were in fact marches explicitly open to trans women. By far the most common view among the activists I spoke to was a pragmatic concern with protecting and maintaining some women-only presence at all on RTN marches, be that through a women-only lead or a women-only section. Within that women-only space, the majority of activists were clear that trans women were and should be welcome and included.

However, RTN is a very particular event. It is a public event; a one-off march that takes place in the streets of towns and cities. I cannot speculate whether activists would have felt differently about the inclusion of trans women in other women-only spaces or settings. Certainly, this issue continues to be a contentious one in feminism, with views hotly debated for and against. Recently, these arguments were aired publicly in disputes over two events, which usefully highlight the main causes of conflict and the differing views on different sides of this fault line within feminism. The first event was a women-only radical feminist conference in London in July 2012 and held again in 2013, which were both not open to trans women. Transexual women were explicitly not eligible to attend and the conference was advertised as only being open to women who were assigned female at birth. The second such event was a women-only workshop on girlhood sexual abuse, also not open to trans women, which was within a wider mixed conference that was open to all, held in Manchester in June 2012.

The issue of trans inclusion was also in the mainstream press and the blogosphere in January 2013, due to a perceived transphobic comment made by journalist Suzanne Moore (2013a). In an article critiquing capitalism, neo-liberalism and the current coalition government in Westminster made up of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties since the 2010 general election, Moore urged women to unite in solidarity against austerity. She linked this to struggles against sexism and critiqued sexual objectification of women in the media, culture and advertising. Asserting that women feel pressured to fulfil an unattainable standard of beauty, she casually remarked that this standard bears a similarity to the body of a ‘Brazilian transexual’. In a swift and angry response, many readers alerted Moore to the high levels of transphobic murders in Brazil, suggesting that such a serious issue should not be used humorously and casually to make a broader point about body image. Moore emphasised that she had never intended to belittle the serious issue of transphobia or transphobic murders (2013b). Unfortunately, journalist Julie Burchill then wrote an article for The Observer newspaper, in defence of Moore, which used offensive and transphobic terms for trans women and only succeeded in enflaming the issue.

Coverage like this moved the debate temporarily out of the activist niches in feminism, out of the corners of the World Wide Web and into the mainstream gaze. Many of the activists I spoke to considered the issue of trans inclusion a new issue and an additional fault line that activists of the resurgent generation were having to wrestle with. This is not strictly the case though, as the issue of trans inclusion can be seen to have arisen in local women’s groups and collectives from the 1970s onwards. So, despite the perceptions of younger activists, this is an ongoing issue and conflict, one that continues to unfold today; indeed, perhaps the division today is worse than it ever was. Readers who are not involved in feminist activism may know nothing about this conflict and indeed may wonder what all the fuss is about. Those readers who are involved in feminism and in activist organising such as RTN may also be wondering just where this cavernous fault line began to fracture and what lies behind it. So just where did this animosity between trans activists and radical feminists begin and what is at the root of the still often hostile relationship between some trans/queer groups and some feminist groups?

Bridges over turf: Charting divisions between feminist and trans politics

It is only relatively recently that feminist theory in general has started to address the inclusion of trans people in the movement. As I have stated earlier, when I use the term ‘trans’ in this discussion, I mean self-identified transexual people. I use this term to refer to individuals who have sought out legal and medical recognition for the sex which they identify, where that is different to the sex they were legally assigned at birth. Transexual people gain legal recognition for their identity and can alter their birth certificates to reflect the sex they identify as. These rights were won relatively recently in the UK under the Gender Recognition Act in 2004 and the rights of trans people are protected in the single, combined Equality Act of 2010. From an academic perspective, but also from a feminist perspective, the former is a clumsily worded act, because of course it is actually referring to biological sex characteristics, rather than socially constructed gender. Unfortunately, this conflation of the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is all too common, as I have already discussed in Chapter 5. This conflation has led to the term ‘transgender’ being widely used as an umbrella category for transexual people, but also for all those people who identify as non-gender normative. This means anyone who considers their gender as different to what society would see as the norm for their sex, so it includes queer or non-gendered identities and those people who consider themselves cross-dressers or transvestites for example. This umbrella term therefore includes an awful lot of people. However, there is in fact an important difference between the terms ‘transexual’ and ‘transgender’, and this is why I argue that the two terms be treated as distinct and are not conflated under one umbrella.

I can see why it is easier to have one overarching term that includes any individual who views their identity as non-gender normative, but my concern is that the conflation of these terms conflates biological sex and gender and therefore naturalises and essentialises gender. The word ‘trans’ just means to cross, as in transnational or transport. So transexual means to cross the currently recognised lines of sex and transgender means to cross the socially constructed lines of gender. It is possible to cross the lines of gender without identifying as another sex to the one assigned at birth however. Any female person who is not appropriately feminine by all the current narrow definitions is crossing the lines of gender for example. Likewise, any male who is not appropriately masculine by present standards is crossing the lines of gender.

As mentioned above, despite the Gender Recognition Act having the word ‘gender’ in the title, it really applies only to transexual people, as do the extended sex discrimination laws on sex reassignment and gender recognition. These include making it illegal to discriminate against people in the workplace on the grounds of their trans status for example. The act in the UK recognises individuals who have what is, again misleadingly, called a ‘Gender Recognition Certificate’, which is a legal document provided by a ‘Gender Recognition Panel’ that confirms the person’s identity and legal status as male or female. That status is then binding and they will live the rest of their lives and conduct all interactions with state and other institutions as the sex they have been recognised as, including for example in the criminal justice system, pension, welfare benefits and marriage rights. To put it plainly then, a trans woman who was assigned male at birth will be legally recognised as female and a trans man who was assigned female at birth will be legally recognised as male. There are many stages to go through before then though, and individuals are required to demonstrate that they live as the sex they identify as for at least two years. They must also provide medical evidence of their status, for example a clinical diagnosis of what is called gender dysphoria.

It is not a requirement that the applicant has had surgery to transition though, which may surprise some readers, as there is often a perverse focus in our media and culture on what is bluntly and colloquially called ‘sex-change surgery’. Unfortunately, the bodies of trans individuals, being seen as gender different and as breaching the social norms of sex and gender, are often pathologised and viewed almost as public property for the public gaze. This ugly attitude continues in the way that trans people frequently recount being asked about their body by peers in social situations; a rude intrusion that would rarely be asked of someone who did not identify as trans. In reality, trans individuals will have different relationships with the medical institution – some may choose to have little intervention, while others may seek extensive surgical treatment. What used to be called ‘sex-change surgery’ is now more correctly referred to as sex-reassignment surgery. This terminology takes into account that many individuals do not feel that they are ‘changing’ their sex in a way, because they have long identified and felt an identification with that sex. They are therefore using surgery, hormones and other interventions to make their bodies more congruent with how they see themselves and to make their bodies more liveable places.

Foundational early texts, from radical feminists such as Janice Raymond, in her infamous 1979 publication The Transsexual Empire, are now decidedly out of date in many respects. Law, policy, psychology and medicine have changed dramatically in this area since the 1970s. Yet it is this book that can perhaps be seen as the most public beginning of the great divide between feminist and trans movements, or at least the most famous symbol of it. It has been described as ‘a radical feminist attack on trans people’ (Whittle, 2000:59), and shortly after its publication, a defiant and angry reply was written by Sandy Stone, called ‘The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto’. Lawyer, scholar and trans activist Dr Stephen Whittle describes Stone’s manifesto as a publication which ‘takes apart the feminist attack on trans people’ (2000:59). Why was the book so controversial? Reading the literature around it, there appear to be two main criticisms. Raymond is accused firstly of suggesting that transexualism is a purely modern phenomenon and a construct of the medical profession. Secondly, she is accused of arguing that trans women are not ‘real’ women and that trans men are not ‘real’ men. She does indeed say both of these things in her book. She also refuses to respect the self-definition of trans writers and activists, referring to trans women with male pronouns and trans men with female pronouns, a petty act with which I cannot agree and which I feel has no valid political purpose. It is wrong to make trans people shoulder the burden of the problematic binary gender system and wrong to pointedly refuse to recognise their sexed and gendered identity while recognising that of others in this universally imperfect institution.

To start with her first argument, Raymond does not seem to be attempting to silence the long, rich and diverse history of gender variance around the world, but she is more interested in the history of the medical institution and its role in policing gender norms. That is in fact the main focus of her book. There have of course been and are still many cases where the Western binary gender system is simply not in operation, or where it is breached by its own members. Much has been written about individuals who lived as the opposite sex in the past and some who practiced bodily modification to gender the appearance of their bodies in line with cultural norms. In Victorian England there were women who joined the armed forces or other careers that would have been barred to them had their sex been known; there were female husbands and music hall male impersonators. There are numerous examples from around the world where gender looks very different to how it does in the West. There are the Native American Indian Berdache people for example, known as two-spirits, who were able to choose the sex role they wished to live in, regardless of biology (Roscoe, 1994). Or the Albanian sworn virgins, women who took on a male role in a highly patriarchal society, living as a man in cases when an heir is missing or where a family is left without a male head of household (Young, 2001). There are all the wealthy women and men in history whose status gave them the freedom to dress as they wished, including in clothing reserved for the opposite sex, as well as to relatively openly pursue same-sex relationships (Summerscale, 2012; Whitbread, 2010). These and so many more could be seen as examples of transgenderism, and can be found around the world (Feinberg, 1996).

In her book, Raymond argues that contrary to transgender examples however, transexualism as it is currently understood is a relatively recent phenomenon and a construct of the medical profession. She argues that while there may have long been a history of people wanting to have a physically sexed body other than the one they were born with, or making attempts to change it, that desire usually remained unfulfilled until medical science made it a relatively safe possibility and the law made it official. Such medical interventions have been developing since at least the 1930s though and, by the 1960s, the famous gender identity specialist and physician Harry Benjamin had published his influential guidelines on treating transexual-identified individuals (1966). A criticism of Raymond’s book has been that her focus on the medical developments attempts to paint the medical industry as the creator of the trans identity and condition, and not only that, but as some sort of evil henchman of patriarchy jumping at the chance to actually physically construct stereotypically gender-conforming men and women through the Gender Identity Clinics and sex-reassignment surgery. This suggestion is considered to remove agency from all the trans-identified individuals who make choices about the medical services they can access and who also increasingly play a role in shaping them, including through those who are in the professions of medicine and psychology themselves. Thus it is pointed out that many people actively seek out and control the services they receive from the medical industry, and that they actively want those interventions, rather than it being foisted upon them as if they are some sort of doll-like victims of an evil patriarchal creator. As the scholar Judith Butler said in interview in 2014, ‘surgical intervention can be precisely what a trans person needs – it is also not always what a trans person needs. Either way, one should be free to determine the course of one’s gendered life’.

However, when reading Raymond’s book it is important to remember that she was describing Gender Identity Clinics and treatments of the 1970s, which have been vastly changed since, mainly due to the commendable campaigning work of trans activists themselves. Those very trans activists also saw first-hand a system that, in some ways, needed changing. Several trans activists themselves have fiercely critiqued the medical responses of the past. Roz Kaveney wrote in 1999 that many older trans people will likely remember how ‘well intentioned doctors used to be even tougher than they are now when it comes to deciding what is appropriate behaviour in our gender of preference and making access to surgery and other aids to transition dependent on meeting their requirements’ (1999:150). Zachary Nataf raised similar critiques in 1996, ‘the gender clinics reinforce conventional, conservative, stereotypical gender behaviour and notions of an unambiguous, fixed and coherent gender identity, although the experience of most transgendered people is that identity actually evolves and changes’ (1996:20). Also in 1996, Carol Riddell complained about, ‘all the ghastly gender-amendment training which transexuals have to suffer’ (1996:179). The recent UK Trans Mental Health Study 2012 found that some respondents reported gender policing by UK Gender Identity Clinics and barriers being put in place by clinicians with stereotypical views of ‘appropriate’ gender presentations. More recently, in a radio interview in 2014, the scholar Zowie Davy, who studies the rights and recognition of transexual people, noted that if some trans people do pursue stereotypically gendered roles and appearance this may be because they still feel pressured to do so as a condition of receiving the medical interventions they seek.

Raymond is certainly not the only one then to have made critiques of the gender-normative responses of the medical industry, but it is significant that she was not making them from first-hand experience, whereas trans activists were. While it was not raised in anything approaching a sympathetic or respectful manner in Raymond’s book, the issue is one which must be raised. All of us, not just trans people, should be concerned with how gender is being defined in our institutions, laws and also with how and when individual gendered behaviour and choices can be pathologised and turned into a medical disorder, mental disorder or disease to be treated with often invasive surgery and procedures.

As for Raymond’s second argument, the suggestion that trans people are not ‘real’ women or men, it is not difficult to see why trans activists as well as others found this offensive and sought to criticise her book and with it radical feminism. Of course, reading Raymond now, from a post-Butler and queer perspective, we can also see theoretical problems with her argument. As I explained previously in Chapter 5, if we understand that all individuals are trying hard to be the gender they have been assigned, then there is really no such thing as ‘real’ women or ‘real’ men. Sometimes the sexed and gendered identity that feels right for us matches the one we were given at birth, and then we will experience different pressures and policing to those individuals for whom that is not the case. But within a rigid sex and gender binary, almost everyone will be subject to some sort of pressure and policing to live up to and in line with gender and sex stereotypes of what ‘real’ women and men look like. While females who identify as women and as feminine, and males who identify as men and as masculine may experience less gender policing because they are conforming to the required congruence of sex and gender within the current status quo, their gender displays are still a result of cultural training and they still have to work at being ‘real’. So how does Raymond define real women and real men?

Despite many of the criticisms that have been made of her work, she does not actually make this definition on purely biological grounds. By that, I mean she does not simply say that real women are those people born female and that real men are those people born male. Perhaps not anticipating the decades-long storm that would surround her book, she provides a rather vague definition of who real women are, simply saying that we know when we are one. ‘It is important for us to realise that these [questions over the definition of woman] may well be non-questions and that the only answer we can give to them is that we know who we are’ (1980:114). But we can do better than this, reading further into her work, it is clear in fact that she defines women and men mainly on the grounds of lived experience. She says that what defines a woman is the life-long experience, from birth, of being categorised as female and treated as a woman by a patriarchal society. This definition is what enables Raymond to argue that trans women are not women in the same sense as non-trans women, because they will not have had this lived experience since birth, even though some trans people do gain recognition for their identity at quite young ages. Raymond argues that what makes a woman is the ‘total history of what it means to be a woman or a man, in a society that treats women and men differently on the basis of biological sex’ (1980:18).

So that is just a tiny and much-simplified snippet of the tortured history. More thorough discussions can be found in some of the texts from transexual and transgender activists and scholars themselves, such as Leslie Feinberg’s Transgender Warriors (1997) or Susan Stryker’s Transgender History (2008). But what of these debates now and why have these tensions lasted as long as they have? Today, most of the feminist debates about the definition of woman and the inclusion of trans women take place online, like much feminist theorising and arguing. There are still feminists today who take Raymond’s line, often radical feminists, such as the feminist academic Sheila Jeffreys who recently published the first comprehensive feminist text on this area since Raymond’s 1979 publication with her 2014 book Gender Hurts. Some feminists do argue that trans women are not ‘real’ women, and there are feminists who therefore claim that trans women ‘invade’ women-only feminist space due to a sense of entitlement, based on years of socialised male privilege afforded to them while they were identified as male.

While I do not use or condone such language and while I believe it is simplistic and essentialist to claim that trans people are not ‘real’ men or women, life histories and trajectories do matter, including one’s sexed and gendered history and trajectory. To varying degrees and extents, trans women will have spent some of their early life inhabiting the male sex class. It is this fact that some radical feminists focus on and emphasise. It is important to understand the complexity of this though, and the individual life experiences behind those words – ‘to varying degrees’. Many trans women recall a youth marked by experiences of homophobia and vicious gender policing for example. If they were brave enough to express their gender and/or sex identity early, that selfexpression was often read by others as inadequacy or as sheer refusal to do gender correctly in line with current norms. Many trans people therefore do not consider or experience their life as one marked by privilege and power in any way. In fact, we should expect exactly the opposite to be the case given the severity of gender policing and the impossible ideals promoted in our culture for all sexed and gendered bodies. This does not mean that trans women have not experienced some degree and extent of male privilege, however tenuous that may be, and it should not mean that these differing life experiences of power be shut off for debate, reflection or analysis in feminist space.

Another reason that some feminists argue against trans inclusion in feminist space is on the grounds that women assigned female at birth may feel unsafe with trans women. This is not because they would perceive them as a threat necessarily and not because trans women would ever necessarily be a threat, but because the fact of their history as male-bodied may be traumatising or problematic for women who have been harmed by men with male bodies. I can understand that position and it is a logical concern in a world so scarred by male violence, a backdrop that we surely cannot ignore. I can also understand why for many trans women the very idea that they would be a threat to other women is hurtful and upsetting; but there is a context which goes beyond individuals and that context should be considered in these debates. That context is the fact of sex inequality and the epidemic levels of male violence against women. I myself have worked alongside trans women as feminist sisters and comrades, women who I have never felt threatened by, women of integrity who I have found supportive and understanding. Many of the activists I spoke to recounted similar experiences. Pointing out the context of male supremacy which gives women good reason to fear or mistrust people who have previously inhabited the male sex class, however temporarily, is not the same thing as pointing the finger at individual trans women within feminism and branding them personally as a problem or a threat of any kind. It is the fact of sex class in the first place that is the problem; it is the fact of male supremacy in the first place that is the problem.

A further argument raised by feminists who promote the right to spaces for women assigned female at birth is that increasingly fluid understandings of sex and gender mean that transgender-identified people may have little or no medical intervention and thus their bodies may retain the sexed characteristics they were born with, which others may read as one sex or another. This can create problems in women-only spaces, for example at women-only festivals or in women-only accommodation. Women may justifiably not expect to see bodies they read as male in such spaces, even if the individual in question self-defines as female. The difficulty is then how to respect people’s self-identification as one sex or another or neither, while also respecting the right of women assigned female at birth to self-organise in their own spaces.

I am well aware that this concern may seem slightly contradictory to a broader and more idealistic desire for an end to gender policing altogether, and for the right of all individuals to define however they wish without that definition being linked to or dictated by their physical bodily characteristics such as their genitals. However, this worthy aspiration, an aspiration I obviously adhere to, is troubled by the context of male supremacy in which we live. It is not troubled by feminists or radical feminists. This aspiration and idealistic future vision is held back by the history and present of unequal relationships between men and women, not by feminists or radical feminists. We therefore have to navigate a path between that aspiration and the current status quo. Self-identification matters, but bodies matter too. They matter because sex equals rank, because bodies have become a battleground, and because women are so often denied any integrity over theirs, in sexuality, labour and reproduction for example. Where rape is a weapon of oppression and where sexual violence is a tool of control, the male body can never be neutral. This is partly why it is necessary, right and important that space for women assigned female at birth be protected and maintained. Ultimately, the right to self-organisation must be paramount. Just as trans women should have the right to organise politically together, so should women assigned female at birth. Both are members of oppressed groups under patriarchy and taking space separately is as important as working together to defeat that shared enemy. It should be noted also that these two styles of organisation are not mutually exclusive.

Outside of the blogosphere, it is relatively rare that debates on the divisions between trans and feminist movements get an airing at all. Feminists such as journalist Julie Bindel and academic Sheila Jeffreys are two of the few feminist voices to address the issue publically. They experience much hostility for doing so. As Jeffreys wrote in a recent newspaper article: ‘Whatever the topic of my presentation, and whether in Australia, the UK or the US, transgender activists bombard the organising group and the venue with emails accusing me of transhate, transphobia, hate speech and seek to have me banned’ (2012). They are criticised partly because both have questioned the pathologisation of children and young people in the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, they have critiqued the early prescription of hormones and also publicised cases of trans people who felt they had been misdiagnosed. Meanwhile, for those individuals who see a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and hormone treatment for themselves or their child as vital to enable them to even continue living, it is unsurprising why critiques of this medicalised response are sometimes difficult to hear.

Complex and subtle feminist theory about the social construction of gender, the policing of gender norms and the punishment of individuals who do not conform will be cold comfort to those seeking help here and now with physical and emotional distress. Studies such as the recent Trans Mental Health Study 2012 testify to the high levels of harassment, discrimination and abuse that trans-identified people face as well as to higher than average levels of suicide. The majority of those who took part in the study, 84 per cent, reported considering ending their lives and a shocking 48 per cent reported that they had attempted suicide at some point in their lifetime. Brutal statistics such as these only confirm the urgency of feminist attention to the institution of gender, rather than providing reason to shut down that attention. It is vital that feminists, trans-identified or otherwise, consider and critique the medicalisation of gender in the case of trans-identified individuals, and scrutinise the role of the state and the medical industry in gender policing. Incidentally, we should be able to do that without setting up a picket outside Gender Identity Clinics and blockading people from accessing support and treatment – which no feminists are doing as far as I know. We must also be able to critique the social construction of gender, and the naturalising of gender, without that debate being shut down in case it offends those individuals who experience their gender as biological, or as natural and as the way they were born. We must be able to critique the essentialising of sex and gender; we must be able to disagree with the notion of hard-wired femininity in newborn babies or womanliness in the brain for example, or neurological preferences for pink dresses. While I respect that some individuals do experience their gender as biological and do feel that their brains were hard-wired from birth to be female and feminine, or male and masculine, it is certainly not everyone’s experience, whether they are trans or not. In addition, many trans people do not explain their gender identity as biological; many trans people actively subvert sex and gender norms and are far removed from some stereotype of gender-essentialist dupes.

As a radical feminist, I firmly believe that the binary gender system makes life hard for everyone, not just trans-identified people. Everyone arguably has gender dysphoria to some degree because nobody finds their gender easy and nobody does it perfectly because perfection is an ideal and, by definition, unattainable. I remain positive about radical feminism, despite all the criticisms and hostility against it, because I think that radical feminist theory has answers about how we can move beyond that gender binary. I would hope that beyond the binary, should we ever see such a world, all people would feel free to identify however they wished, and would not have to conform to rigid rules or alter their healthy bodies in invasive and sometimes dangerous medical procedures. In a world beyond the gender binary, it would also be inconceivable to cross the lines of gender because there would be no gender battle lines or territories to cross in the first place. A more tolerant world might allow people to be whatever gender they wish, including none, and be a place where gender presentation is not seen as necessarily having anything to do with the biological, sexed features of bodies, much less be dependent on them. Further into the future still, stretching our imagination and vision even further, we may try to consider a world without gender at all; a world without a system of sex rank. I would hope that such a future world would mean less distress and less body hatred for all of us, including trans-identified individuals. However, we are clearly not living in that kind of fluid world right now. Under the present status quo, it is not surprising that individuals are affected by gender dysphoria. It is only right then that all individuals can use and access what institutional remedies are in place currently to navigate such an experience. Rather than focussing on the individuals who seek such remedies, it is the gender system itself that should be our focus of action; it is that which should be problematised, questioned, critiqued and challenged.

This shared enemy is an example of commonality between some radical feminist theory and some trans theory and activism. Where this commonality ends, and where the real root of the conflict lies, is in the reclamation of gender and the positive promotion of gender. For many feminists, any attachment to gender only weds us further to a system which violently oppresses women and leads to the heartbreaking statistics on male violence that we are aware of. Yet much in queer theory attempts to reclaim gender positively. Judith Butler for example recently argued in an interview that gender can be a site of rebellion, self-determination, creativity or enjoyment. ‘If gender is eradicated, so too is an important domain of pleasure for many people’ (Butler, 2014). She went on to trouble any demand for a world beyond gender, which is a common radical feminist demand. ‘I think we have to accept a wide variety of positions on gender. Some want to be gender-free, but others want to be free really to be a gender that is crucial to who they are’ (ibid.). I have a problem with gender being seen as a domain of pleasure, when for half the population it signifies dominion under patriarchy, where masculinity inscribes superiority and femininity inscribes inferiority. Gender is what turns individual human beings into subjects or objects, into oppressor and oppressed; it is unlikely it can be reclaimed. Therefore, I support the radical feminist argument that it is gender itself that is the problem and assert that we must aim to move beyond gender in the future.

Meanwhile though, out there, in the real world, none of us live in a vacuum and most of us experience our gender identity and our sexed identity as an intrinsic part of who we are as an individual. Judgements about our sexed identity are made by others about us based on a very quick reading of our gender presentation. These judgements are often made in a nanosecond, and they involve a brief scan for visible, recognisable gender stereotypes. Tick tock goes the brain of the viewer and beep beep go the ticks against various gendered features as others read our gender. Short or long hair, trousers or skirt, make-up or not, these are the sort of signs people scan for in order to make a snap assessment about our sex and gender identity. These are often harsh judgements, and they are not always right. Sometimes we do not get correctly read by others as the sex or gender we identify. This can happen to anyone of course, but it is generally seen to affect trans people in particular. This is why the term ‘cis’ has come to have such resonance, because it is seen as a privilege to be able to go through life and not have one’s sex and gender identity questioned or misread on a regular basis, be that in daily interactions such as shopping or when engaging with institutions such as banks, local authorities, health services or schools. However, the usage of this term, ‘cis’, has become another site of conflict between some trans activists and some feminist activists. There are many feminists, including many radical feminists, who simply refuse to use this term, and I am one of them.

It is quite normal at feminist conferences or meetings though to hear someone stand up and describe themselves as White, straight and cis, for example, meaning that they identify as White, as heterosexual and do not identify as transexual. The term is also in common usage on feminist blogs and online magazines. It has almost become taboo not to use it, with those of us who refuse the term often labelled as transphobic and urged to ‘check our privilege’. As I mentioned earlier, when the term ‘cis’ is taken to have the same hierarchical relationship as the latter in the straight/gay dualism, refusing to use the term is likened to a White person refusing to accept their complicity and benefits in a White supremacist society, or a heterosexual person refusing to accept their privilege when compared to a gay or lesbian person in a heterosexist culture. I do not believe such analogies hold and so, despite such assertions, I personally still choose not to use this term for two main reasons. Firstly, the usage of the term unfairly and incorrectly implies that all non-trans identified individuals are some sort of Stepford Wives – gender-normative conformers who have no trouble with the current binary status quo. In actuality, as I have already discussed, most people struggle to fit into the narrow requirements of gender and this can cause great distress for many people, women and increasingly now, men too. As a result, women diet, self-harm, spend hard-earned money on plastic surgery and vast arrays of cosmetics. Men also diet, abuse steroids and develop injuries or disorders through overtraining, struggling to look like the models on the cover of men’s health magazines.

Secondly, given that women face a gender pay gap, underrepresentation, epidemic levels of sexual violence and regular harassment alongside objectification in the media, being assigned female cannot be seen as some sort of privilege for non-trans women. While not being challenged about one’s sex and gender identity in interactions is a privilege of sorts, compared to those who do face this, it is not a privilege by default enjoyed by all non-trans individuals. Because my gender presentation is more masculine than most women for example, I am often read as male. Added to this, I look a lot younger than I actually am, and as a result of my appearance, am often read as a young man or teenage boy. In most of my daily interactions, I am not read as a woman. I regularly get questioned in women’s toilets, I have also been questioned in doctors surgeries and hospitals and run into problems when navigating such health institutions. I have been stopped at passport control because staff did not believe I was using the correct passport, I have problems using identification and bankcards with gender pronouns and I have experienced harassment and violent assault, both verbal and physical, because of my non-normative presentation.

These arguments are rarely considered by those queer and trans activists who casually label, reject and dismiss feminists who protest this widespread and often enforced adoption of the term ‘cis’. To reject this term is a political standpoint; it is not transphobic. However, around the UK, activists are experiencing abuse and harassment, and are having their activist work discredited simply because they have political problems with using the term ‘cis’. It is a difficult position to take for feminists around the country, including those who are organising RTN marches which they wish to make as inclusive as possible. This is yet another example of where theory moves beyond abstract debate and actually impacts on activism and activist organising. Although these topics may often seem removed, and may seem more suited to a gender studies syllabus, they are actually at play currently in activist’s daily lives and indeed have impacted on my own activism. I have been involved in organising inclusive mixed events for example, where it was clearly stated that all self-defining women were welcome and all people of any sex or gender identity were welcome, including men. I have also organised women-only events, advertised as being open to all self-defining women. Yet after the mixed events, I have been questioned about why trans men were not made to feel more welcome for example, or why the space was so unrepresentative of people with no sex or gender identity. Just like too many of the RTN activists I interviewed, I also have felt a sense of frustration, a sense that nothing will do; a sense that any women-only space at all is by default seen as reactionary in some way, as out of date and out of time.

I refuse to call time on women-only space. I applaud the efforts of those volunteer activist organisers who prioritise the creation and maintenance of rare women-only spaces and events, often at great personal cost to themselves and under great suspicion and hostility. While in general I support the opening up of women-only feminist space to all women, including trans women, I also believe in the political right of self-organisation for all oppressed groups. In summary, I believe that women assigned female at birth have a right to organise in progressive political spaces should they see a need to do so and I would not dictate to activist groups who they should and should not invite to their own events. Likewise, trans women have a right to self-organisation in their own groups and spaces. I consider women assigned female at birth to be a group, just as I consider trans women to be a group, and as both groups are oppressed, both should have the political right to self-organisation. The fact of differences between women does not invalidate the unity of the WLM. We are used to sharing our experiences and working with other women based on some shared elements of our identity. Lesbian women work together in the broader movement, Women of Colour work together in the broader movement, older women work together in the broader movement and younger women also work together.

We know that having diverse perspectives on all the different positions of women under and within the system of patriarchy can only enrich our understanding of how to take that system apart. Having different angles on patriarchy, including different positions of personal privilege, is what will help us find cracks in the system, those places where it needs to be fixed first, as well as where it might be vulnerable. Such perspectives will help us to identify urgent targets of action and effective appropriate methods of activism. Therefore, I do question the politics of those that seek to attack and dismantle vital, powerful and useful women-only feminist spaces like RTN marches, including when they use trans inclusion as a vehicle to do this. Hostility and prejudice can go both ways of course; harsh words are exchanged by people on both sides of this so-called division or dispute. I have witnessed hostility and stereotyping by feminists towards trans individuals, as well as outright prejudice and bigotry against trans people. I have also witnessed anti-feminism from trans and queer-identified individuals and groups, including rape and death threats and misogynistic insults. None of this aggression is acceptable, from either ‘side’. It also seems a desperate shame and a distraction when queer theory and trans activism has borrowed so heavily from early feminist theory, a debt rarely acknowledged, and when feminism too shares a deadly enemy in the binary Western gender system. In the next chapter, I shall move on to look at some of the ways that together, we may all begin to change that system. I shall explore and explain some of the reasons why, despite all the conflicts, feminists continue to organise against male violence against women and continue to build spaces, like RTN marches, where feminist CR and movement building can occur.