Hacker News Reader

Comment by jolux | Hacker News Reader

I really don’t like how discussions on issues like this always seem to devolve into an argument over the underlying “culture war” issues, and I’d like to try and disambiguate this issue and others like it as I see them.

I’m a trans woman. Two things can be true here:

1. Adichie is transphobic.

2. Whatever the harms of her transphobia, the other person referenced in this post behaved egregiously outside of professional and personal norms in attacking Adichie, and this behavior is not appropriate in any circumstance.

Too often I think people complain about how they are treated on social media, or about “ideological orthodoxy,” as a proxy for defending opinions that they understand to be offensive. But it’s perfectly reasonable to think both that Adichie’s opinions on trans people are offensive, and that the offense does not justify the aggression she received here.

View on HN

I think the point is that I haven't seen anything to imply that Adichie is transphobic. This is taken from her Wikipedia page:

> In 2017, Adichie was criticized by some as transphobic, initially for saying that "my feeling is trans women are trans women."[44][9] Adichie later further clarified her statement, writing "that there is a distinction between women born female and women who transition, without elevating one or the other, which was my point. I have and will continue to stand up for the rights of transgender people."

Now granted, there may be more to the story that I am not aware of, but stating that there actually are differences between "women born female and women who transition" shouldn't be considered transphobic, it should be considered acknowledging reality.

Tautologies are transphobic.

I'm a man and my neighbor is a man. I don't think we're the same. But thinking a born-woman and a trans-woman are different is wrong and oppressive? Transphobic is an easy word to flaunt to target people who have different opinions. I find it unbelieveable that someone could think impossible to make a difference while not having any problem with trans people. To label people transphobic for having this single opinion is itself bigotry.

I mean this as a genuine question - do you think it offensive to say that “a trans woman is a trans woman?”, meaning that their life experience is not identical to a cis-woman?

> 1. Adichie is transphobic.

I'm a trans woman too. Can you please explain to me how "trans women are women" is transphobic?

I have said "I am a trans woman" many times in my life. Can you please explain whether I was being transphobic at those times?

Many thanks.

> I have said "I am a trans woman" many times in my life.

Me too!

> Can you please explain to me how "trans women are women" is transphobic?

The relevant statement is "trans women are trans women," which is how Adichie responded when asked if trans women are women. Of itself that statement is of course not transphobic, it's a tautology.

The problem is that in this case "trans women are trans women" and "trans women are women" are shibboleths for a set of beliefs about whether trans women should be seen as women (like lesbian women) in the eyes of society and the law. When people say "trans women are trans women," and go on to say that because we're trans we shouldn't be allowed in women's bathrooms, and other spaces for women, with the unspoken implication being that we aren't "real" women, I think that's transphobic. I don't know all of what Adichie believes. I know she finds JK Rowling's views reasonable, and that she has hinted at agreeing with them before (such as in this instance.)

Those two things could be simultaneously true.

Are they?

> Adichie is transphobic

Maybe we can start by defining exactly what it means to be "transphobic", so we can decide both:

1) whether someone is or not transphobic;

2) how bad it is to be transphobic.

So how do you define "transphobic"?

Maybe we can start by growing up and not caring how people define the insult of the day, even less whether they spit it at us, and less still about whether they are offended by our opinions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com