Yes, Gender is a Fact
But here’s what that actually means.
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Sigh… another week, another ignorant, bigoted celebrity crying that mean trans people who just can’t take a joke are “canceling” Black people and women for punching down on them.
There are numerous levels of ignorance in the proclamations of “team TERF” Dave Chappelle. One is the implication that Black and trans are mutually exclusive. I’ve seen this attitude frequently from Black cis people on social media, sadly, even in my liberal circles.
Being a Black trans person myself, and living and working in a city with a number of Black-led trans organizations, I know firsthand that supporting and lifting up trans folks is not at all in conflict with supporting and lifting up Black folks. The idea that being trans or queer is a “white thing”, a plot to emasculate Black men, or to weaken the Black family, is simply garbage.
Nor is being pro-trans in conflict with being pro-woman, because trans women are women. Supporting trans women takes nothing at all away from cis women. Defining womanhood as “wombynhood” reduces a woman to her body parts, implying her primary function is baby-making. And acknowledging the fact that trans men and nonbinary people can and do get pregnant also takes nothing away from cis women.
But perhaps the most ignorant and unintentionally ridiculous statement of all in the “team TERF” rant is “Gender is a fact”. My reaction to that statement is yes… and? Because what gender means to me is simply this: Some people are women, some people are men, and some people are nonbinary. Those are the facts.
