Transfeminist Possibilities and Remembering the 1970s

Abstract

Memories of 1970s feminisms often conjure negative feelings associated with “the difficult decades” wherein “radical/separatist lesbian-feminists articulated their identities in ways that eschewed coalitions in search of greater ideological purity” (Stryker 91; Samek 233). Narratives of the “difficult” 1970s and 1980s often focus on the rise of identarian consolidation wherein the broad imagination and praxis of feminist communities and politics became synonymous with trans-exclusive radical feminists (or TERFs). Narratives of the so-called incommensurability of feminist and trans identities and politics continue to hold sway as TERFs and gender criticals (GCs) continue to predominate public discussions of trans experience. When recollecting the historical structures and articulations of trans antagonism within feminist communities and their relevance to our contemporary political climate, we might remember the reactionary fissures in addition to visions of trans inclusion and solidarities. As trans historian Susan Stryker emphasizes, “[T]here was nothing monolithic about second wave feminist attitudes toward trans issues. The feminist second wave simultaneously espoused some of the most reactionary attitudes toward trans people to be found anywhere while also offering a vision of transgender inclusion in progressive feminist movements for social change” (109). Particularly in this moment wherein TERFs and GCs openly espouse political linkages with fascist politics through their denouncements of “gender ideology” that also deny trans people’s place in the past, we are moved to remember historical moments of transfeminist possibility. By transfeminist possibility we mean the felt potentiality of relationships that affirm trans people’s lived experiences and allow for even temporarily changed social worlds. Transfeminist possibility, especially its articulations with 1970s feminisms, matters in the face of contemporary arguments that, on one hand, either naturalize exclusionary feminist imaginations or, on the other hand, act as if feminist history was never coformed through the labor and struggles of trans and queer people. Rather than continue the focus on lesbian feminist violence against trans people, we revisit two moments of transfeminist solidarity across difference and focus on the transfeminist potentiality of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera’s Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries’ (STAR) community organizing in addition to Beth Elliott’s experiences at the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Conference. Our reflection builds from trans historian