My instincts are to welcome gender non conforming ideas and folk because the world needs more kindness and less constraining gender roles

I’m a woman and a feminist. I have studied social science and social theory. I have personal experience of misogyny, sexual harassment, rape, miscarriage, abortion, childhood abuse, mental ill health, IVF and infertility. Those experiences have been embodied.

My instincts are to welcome gender non conforming ideas and folk because the world needs more kindness and less constraining gender roles.

That said, I have experienced being told that using the words woman and mother at a breastfeeding support group is transphobic and I find this ludicrous and offensive.

Non binary and trans folk are of course entitled to use words such as chestfeeding parent etc but the idea that talking about breastfeeding and mothers is transphobic when these are experiences that women (not all women of course) have had forever is ludicrous. Social constructionism in meaningful as a critique but we cannot disembody ourselves even if our dysphoria makes this an attractive option.

I’ve talked to friends. I don’t talk much on social media about this.

Kittycat