Not just a few

From the Huffington Post UK:

A transgender student is set to make history and represent the UK’s female students by running to become the National Union of Students’ women’s officer.

Anna Lee, a student at Lancaster University who describes herself as a “queer trans disabled lesbian woman”, is the first openly trans woman to stand for election in a national role. Lee is currently her students’ union’s vice president for welfare and community, and says she is “passionate” about equal rights.

There’s a Facebook page for her campaign.

“I never believed that running to be national women’s officer was a possibility,” she said in a Facebook post. “I felt that I had hit a glass ceiling. Now, I find myself in unchartered waters, and some shards of that glass ceiling will undoubtedly hit me.

“I know the Women’s Campaign is ready. I know NUS is ready. I’m not convinced that the rest of society is.”

I don’t see why it should be. Why not have a national trans people’s officer instead? Or two of them? I don’t think a trans woman should seek to represent women, because trans women don’t have the common or garden version of the experience of growing up female in a still sexist world. They have the experience of being trans, instead.

“But – when the transphobic ‘feminists’ come and try to tear me down, I will just fight harder and with the help of amazing activists we will show them, together, that the NUS Women’s Campaign demonstrates a progressive approach to inclusive feminism.”

The maths student’s pledges include fighting for a “statutory, gender neutral sex education” for students, decriminalisation of sex workers, and lobbying for a debate in parliament over tampon tax in SUs.

Lee accuses mainstream feminism of “constantly” forgetting about trans women, and says the NUS should be fighting for all women, “not just a few”.

She wants to be the women’s officer and the very first thing she does is bash feminism. What good is an anti-feminist women’s officer? She wants to be the women’s officer and she considers women to be “just a few”? She wants to be the women’s officer and she thinks women are some tiny trivial minority that doesn’t count?

This is where trans activism is right now: constantly bashing women and feminism, and demanding that feminism put trans women first. It doesn’t have to be that way, it never had to be that way, but that’s how it’s playing out. It’s sad and destructive and pathetic.

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