Excluding non-binary people from women’s spaces is transphobic.

I am writing this piece in the wake of some important conversations I had around International Women’s Day. I see International Women’s Day as a day for celebrating all Women and non-binary people and for revving up for some more patriarchy smashing. But wait, I hear some people say, “Isn’t including non-binary people in women’s events taking up space meant for women?” No Karen, it is not.

Let’s think about this shall we. Everyone experiences their own gender differently, but the commonality between non-binary folks is that we don’t feel our experience to match entirely with either gender on the binary man/woman spectrum. Non-binary folks may feel they have elements of both genders in the binary, they may, or may not feel a stronger element of one gender. Some non-binary people may experience gender in a way that feels entirely different from a man/woman experience. Some people experience gender in different ways at different times. As we know, there are a whole heap of ways to experience gender. I can’t speak for all non-binary people. So I’, mostly going to talk about me. I am a genderqueer/non-binary, lesbian (awesome eh?).

When I stepped into my non-binary identity and started to use they/them pronouns I was immediately made to feel uncomfortable in women’s spaces and encouraged to take up less space, or even to leave. How does that work? Do you have to be a ‘pure’ 100% womany woman to be in a woman’s space? Are they going to try and measure my percentage of womanyness and give me a score on how much space I can take up based on that? It was a bit shocking to realise that in many supposedly queer spaces there wasn’t really any recognition of non-binary identities in their fullness. For me it seemed I was being put in the ‘trans man light’ box. This was dramatically more so the more masculine presenting I was. Turns out that our oh so right on assertions that someone’s presentation is not tied to their gender falls apart with non-binary people. It’s like folks, including queer folks, can’t place us on the binary, so they look for indicators for the ‘nearest approximation’…..within….the binary, terrifyingly often because it makes them feel they have a sense of how to interact with you socially and sexually. Terrifying much?

This became exponentially worse when I had top surgery. At one point a long term lover expressed concern that they “felt uncomfortable with how I interacted with their breasts now that I didn’t have any” (I shit you not). I mean, I am 100% sure that ‘who had the boobs’ had nothing to do with it and there is zero chance she would have said this to me had I had a mastectomy due to, for example, cancer. No friends, what she was really saying was “I am uncomfortable with how we interact sexually now I see your body as more male.” This despite on the run up top surgery my being clear that ‘maleness’ was not my aim and not what I wanted. This despite discussing my strong lesbian identity and also despite explaining that I felt less that I was removing my breasts and more like I was ‘changing them about a bit”(I even wrote a poem about this). Alas, none of this actually mattered, because gender stereotypes, including trans stereotypes are so deeply entrenched that immediately a person who has top surgery is put further along the “man scale.”

We are better than this fellow queer people! (At least I truly hope we are) We charge about the internet taking on the gender essentialism of transphobes. We constantly proclaim that genitals and presentation do not define gender, and yet loads of queer people are gatekeeping who is ‘enough woman’ to be in women’s spaces.

Of course there is the argument that the ‘non woman’ bit of us is somehow bringing danger into the space. (feel free to take a moment to reflect on how TERFY that sounds). The reason women and non-binary people need safe spaces is because of patriarchy and male violence. Non-binary people face misogyny and transphobia from men. We don’t have a secret patriarchy card in our pocket (although I have joked that I might have, sadly, when I asked, they wouldn’t give me one). We can’t separate out the different parts of our gender. We need women’s spaces to heal from the trauma of misogyny. We need that aspect of our being to be recognised and treasured and not seen as “not enough”.

Queer communities have a real problem with ‘not enough ism’ don’t they? There is a whole bunch of people who seem unable to get past how people look, what they wear and who they date. There are a whole bunch of people expecting others to signal some proof they are ‘really’ supposed to be in queer spaces. All of which kind of flies in the face of the whole point of safer spaces.

I am assigned female at birth (AFAB) lots of assigned male at birth (AMAB) people have even worse problems regards women’s spaces. They are treated as though they are ‘half arsed transwoman’ clinging to patriarchal privilege. This response is deeply linked to what the person wears- ie, femme up, might be ok to come in. Don’t femme up and we will treat you like a man trying to invade women’s spaces. Hm… so the part of this person which experiences womanhood is not actually valid if they look too masculine and they must really be a man trying to occupy a woman’s space? Who does that sound like? Oh, the TERFs again.

Any which way you look at it, any argument that seeks to justify the exclusion of non-binary people from women’s spaces is alarmingly aligned with TERF logic. That in itself really should get you thinking.

Of course, as every non-binary person experiences gender differently, some non-binary people will not feel comfortable in women’s spaces. Some non-binary people will not identify with women’s experiences. That makes sense. We are all different. But clearly, those people are not going to try and be in women’s spaces in the first place. Why would they? Oh wait…to abuse women or erase them…..Oh hark, I hear the TERF alarm again.

As for me. Fortunately my confidence has increased dramatically since I first found my non-binary identity. This being the case, it will not go well for anyone who tries to erase any part of my gender identity. I wish the same for my non-binary siblings.