Patriarchal Realism, TERFism, and Doom Feminism: A Dissection of Second-Wave Feminism’s Flawed Idols
- Isabella P.
- Apr 5, 2023
- 12 min read
Updated: May 20, 2023
This essay was written for a senior seminar taken at the University of Denver about Adrienne Rich and her contributions to the feminist world. My professor, Dr. Turner, was an excellent source of encouragement throughout this project. Though I am a feminist, acknowledging the lack of intersectionality in second-wave radical feminism, performing somewhat of a "movement autopsy", if you will, is crucial to the progression of gender and women's studies in academia.
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Adrienne Rich is one of the most influential feminist poets of the modern era. She wrote poetry through many identity shifts, starting out as a housewife living in the 1950s and dying in 2012 as an open lesbian who embraced her Jewish ancestry. Her seemingly endless open-mindedness and willingness to correct herself is a trait she possessed that many feminists found, and still find, admirable. She constantly re-examined her own works, criticizing her own poem “The Diamond Cutters” later in her life as tone-deaf and oblivious to the real struggles of diamond cutters living in Africa-- she admitted that she could not have known these struggles at the time. However, there are other harmful ideas Rich held that would never be corrected or addressed later in her life. These are illustrative of the flaws in second and third wave feminism that still pervade women’s spaces today.
Feminist ideology has centered heavily on gay rights and lesbianism, both as a political motive and as an apolitical state of natural attraction, since the second wave. After the beginning of the 21st century, it has shifted more toward transgender rights and the inclusion (or explicit exclusion) of transgender women in women’s spaces. Rich’s failure to address the existence of transgender people could have, like many other feminists of her time, been attributed to an innocuous lack of knowledge on transgenderism, but Rich’s lack of involvement in the transgender community was proven to be more disingenuous than many would assume. Janice G. Raymond’s novel The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male cites Adrienne Rich multiple times as an avid supporter and an encouraging figure through Raymond’s writing process. Raymond writes in her introduction, “Adrienne Rich has been a very special friend and critic. She has read the manuscript through all of its stages and provided resources, creative criticism, and constant encouragement.” Rich’s involvement with the essay does not end with her support and encouragement of Raymond’s work. In the chapter “Sappho by Surgery”, Rich is cited as describing transgender women as men “who have given up the supposed ultimate possession of manhood in a patriarchal society by self-castration” (Raymond, 113).
Fourth-wave feminism is characterized with its strides made toward transgender inclusion and is widely considered to have begun in the 2010s. Adrienne Rich died in 2012. For this reason, modern feminists may be tempted to attribute Rich’s ignorance to the times she lived in-- it is true that the harsh exclusion of transgender women in the feminist sphere certainly did not end with Rich and Raymond-- but this is a fallacious perspective. Even in 1979, Raymond’s book received scathing criticism from supporters of, and those within, the transgender feminist community. Carol Riddell, a well-known transgender feminist, published a pamphlet titled “Divided Sisterhood” that criticized The Transsexual Empire the year after its publication date. Sandy Stone, also a lesbian-feminist transgender woman, would respond to Raymond’s scathing chapter about her with the publication of her essay The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto in 1987. The Transsexual Empire is notorious to this day for its hateful and paranoid nature and was notorious in 1979 for the same reasons.
Aside from the negative response many feminists had to Raymond’s book, multiple feminist figures from that period, cisgender and transgender, still viewed transgenderism as a natural state and gender reassignment surgery as a right for transgender people. Andrea Dworkin, despite her own controversial and fallacious views, was one such case. “It would be premature to and not very intelligent to accept the psychiatric judgement that transsexuality is caused by faulty socialization,” she wrote in her book Woman Hating, published 5 years before The Transsexual Empire. “More probably transsexuality is caused by a faulty society. Transsexuality can be defined as one particular formation of our general multisexuality which is unable to achieve its natural development because of extremely adverse social conditions” (Dworkin, 186). This proves that transphobia, especially transmisogyny, was not an unheard-of concept in second-wave feminist discourse.
As a major player in feminism, Rich’s ideology was not merely an effect of transphobic paranoia in the feminist sphere-- it was also a direct cause of it. Her involvement with The Transsexual Empire’s publication would help bring the “transgender issue” to the mainstream media’s attention. A New York times article by Thomas Szasz and a review published by Sarah Hoagland, published in 1979 and 1980 respectively, both commended the book as a commentary on the patriarchal infiltration of feminist spaces (Szasz, 3) (Hoagland, 537). Riddell herself brings up the influence of this book on transgender rights in her pamphlet, stating that the book "did not invent anti-transsexual prejudice, but it did more to justify and perpetuate it than perhaps any other book ever written” (Riddell).
This is an unfortunately common case in feminist ideology even today. Anti-trans feminist sentiments are rampant now and have continued to exist as a countermovement in near-direct correlation to the trans rights movement. “As a feminist I am profoundly concerned by anti-trans feminist rhetoric,” Dr. Sally Hines, a Professor of Sociology and Gender Identities at the University of Leeds, writes. “I find the current volatile temperament of feminist political discourse hugely worrying. Despite strong historic and contemporary links between many sections of feminist and trans communities, the anti-transgender sentiments expressed by some leading journalists and amplified through the use of social media are extremely problematic. While anti-transgender feminists are a minority, they have a high level of social, cultural and economic capital” (Hines). Social media would not have existed as a means of communication in the 1970s, meaning that publishing books, pamphlets, and speeches would be how feminists achieved social capital. Rich’s involvement in Raymond’s writing process, as one of the most influential feminists in the second half of the twentieth century, would be a driving force in the widespread support surrounding the essay in anti-transgender feminist spaces.
Riddell’s “Divided Sisterhood” supports Dr. Hines’ assertion that there has been a strong solidarity between transgender and feminist communities and discourses since the beginning of second-wave feminism. “Janice Raymond denies a significant history for trans-sexualism before the 1950s, since her theory demands that. But such a history does exist, and a brief outline is available in a book she cites from, the Trans-sexual Phenomenon” (Riddell). She continues by describing how people who would be described today as transgender have existed across all historical periods, all human-inhabited continents, and all cultures. (Of course, whether they would fit into the modern definition of “transgender” is debatable, but the same can be said for lesbian, gay, and bisexual historical figures. They lived in an entirely different social sphere than our modern Western society, and their identities aligned accordingly.) In accordance with the historical precedent that proves that being transgender is not a particularly new or widely accepted phenomenon pushed by capitalism or the patriarchy like Raymond claims, 2021 has been a record year for anti-transgender legislation-- as of March of 2021, there were 82 anti-transgender bills introduced in the 2021 legislative session, surpassing the previous year’s 79 bills and marking the record for the highest number of anti-transgender bills introduced of all time. These include sports bans, multiple anti-medical care bills, and forced adherence to students’ assigned sex at birth in public schools (Ronan). These bills, of course, are advocated for by staunch conservatives. When a so-called progressive ideology finds an incredibly large overlap in its agenda with conservatives and fascists, it is clear to see that it no longer is advocating for true social progress, instead seeking stagnation at best and oppression at worst.
Raymond’s essay, and Rich’s support of it, follows a narrative of paranoia that can still be seen today in anti-trans feminist spaces. It is largely venomous in its rhetoric, treating transgender people as a tool and topic of debate rather than real individuals, and it is not difficult to see why when the basis of Raymond’s view on transgender people requires seeing them only as tools of the patriarchy and warped medical establishment. “Thus it is important, in a transsexual context, to examine the whole issue of control,” she wrote. “Presently, the controllers are the gender identity clinics and the transsexual experts who staff them…It is not inconceivable that such clinics could become sex-role control centers, for deviant, nonfeminine females and nonmasculine males, as well as for transsexuals” (Riddell, 136). The flaw in this sentiment is that it assumes that these clinics functioned as an extension of the mainstream patriarchal medical field rather than in opposition to it. Gender-affirming surgery was first publicized with Christine Jorgensen, a transgender woman who went through a series of operations between 1951 and 1952. It is important to note that the common public attitude toward Jorgensen was at first one of medical wonder. It was not a political support of transgender individuals as much as she was widely considered a marvel of science. This was during the Cold War, when an emphasis on S.T.E.M. education and achievements took precedent above all else. Conformity to tradition was especially expected from Americans during this time, with homosexuality being considered a trait of the Communists that was explicitly targeted as a deviant behavior. “Those familiar with the history of the Cold War persecution of gays know of the lavender scare’s parallels with the red scare,” historian Naoko Shibusawa writes in her article, “The Lavender Scare and Empire: Rethinking Cold War Antigay Politics.” “Like communism, homosexuality was seen as a threat to national security.” So how do we reconcile the idea that Christine Jorgensen was a celebrity during a time of extreme antigay, and by extension anti-transgender, sentiment? Of course, transgender individuals could not be excluded from the extremely homophobic sentiments pervading America at the time.
Rather than being supported by the media, Jorgensen was treated not like an individual, but a science experiment. When journalists contacted Jorgensen’s surgeon and learned that the surgery did not provide her with a uterus, ovaries, or any of the traits that would have made her a “real woman”, she was discarded as a “mutilated transvestite” and a “limp-wristed homosexual”-- and, much like Raymond’s perspective on transgender women, was accused of seeking out publicity through her operation. She was still legally considered a male and was unable to marry because of this (Poole).
The field of gender-affirming surgery was and still is incredibly stigmatized. Gender-affirming surgery was considered incredibly experimental and gender identity clinics were few and far between. Between 1960 and 1980, there were only 9 clinics that existed in the United States, and all were open for ten years at most. Many closed after fewer than five years of operation. Most were terminated involuntarily. The Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma ran for four years before the board of directors of the Baptist General Convention in Oklahoma voted 54-2 to close gender reassignment surgery, forcing it to close its doors to transgender patients seeking GAS in 1977 (Fritz and Mulkey). When these clinics, already few and far between and always viewed by the public with a skeptical eye, could no longer justify themselves as “research clinics”, they were promptly closed. During these times, the idea of a person being able to medically change their sex was interesting to the common American at best and repulsive at worst. This does not mean that transgender people were commonly accepted or seen as anything more than experiments instead of people. They were certainly not tools of the patriarchy or an imagined “totalitarian regime” or “pharmacracy”, as Raymond words it on page 149 of her essay. The only reason they were allowed to exist at all was because the scientific wonder of gender affirming surgery, then called “sex change operations”, justified the existence of the clinics’ patients that were then considered mentally ill and disturbing. Any feminist should know that being objectified is in no way evidence of privilege and power.
For both Rich and Raymond to reduce what it means to be a woman to a person’s genitals is incredibly ironic and antithetical to the feminist movement. Aside from this contradicting and denying the existence of intersex cisgender women, the portrayal of individuals born with penises as inherently predatory oppressors implies that people who are assigned female at birth are inherent victims. This is the same rhetoric used by anti-feminists-- women naturally have a subservient personality while men have a more domineering one. Rich, Raymond, and every anti-transgender feminist are closer to having misogynist authoritarians as ideological cohorts than they realize. The idea that transgender women are, as Raymond again described it herself, “deviant males” insinuates that human beings should be inclined to act a certain way purely because of their biology and genetics. This is the root idea of every fascist ideology and is further accentuated by Raymond’s conspiracy theory-level claims that gender identity clinics exist in order to create “female-identified men” to replace “true, biological” women and render them extinct for the sake of the patriarchy. In fact, these clinics justified themselves through conformity and experimentation in order to continue to exist, as shown through the way they forced transgender people through gender conformity programs. This was not because these clinics were extensions of the patriarchy, but because they had to bargain with the patriarchy in order to continue existing. This again proves that both trans women and cisgender women are victims to the patriarchy rather than transgender women being a tool of it (Riddell).
It is important to note that Rich never discussed transgenderism in an academic context. There is only one piece of evidence that she held transphobic beliefs, but this is an incredibly damning piece of evidence originating from a work that is full of what would now be considered hate speech in many spaces. This piece of evidence is cited from a private conversation that Raymond had with Rich, not an essay, poem, or formal interview. This shows that Rich was aware of the existence of the transgender community, had a strong opinion on it, and chose not to share this opinion in any of her own works or in any environment outside of a casual conversation with another person. As tempting as it is to speculate, there can never be a definite answer on why she would choose to do this- but what we can glean from this is that Rich, for some reason, did not go out of her way to share her opinion on the transgender community in any way that extended outside of personal conversations.
This is not to say that Rich’s stance on the transgender community did not seep into her works at all. While she did not give a blatant stance, poems like “A Woman Dead in her Forties” and books such as Of Woman Born essentialize the female experience to the body. She describes succumbing to breast cancer as “dying a woman’s death.” This is not the only instance of Rich’s hyper-focus on the body as what defines the feminine experience. This theme is ubiquitous throughout all her works. To look for “evidence” of Rich’s transphobia in her works would be moot and ultimately fruitless. There is not evidence of Rich’s personal transphobia so much as there is evidence that her work centered cisgender women and did not include transgender ones. Even in centering cisgender women, her work still defeminized multiple groups of cisgender women and is ultimately a regressive stance to have about all women. The idea that certain physical traits and an innate “feminine” personality is what makes a woman is not revolutionary. It is a repackaged way to uphold the ideas that the patriarchy has on women, looking at these as inalienable truths that can be defeated through separatism rather than dissecting them as Eurocentric and entirely social ideas that can be unwound through social progress. “Capitalist realism” is a term coined by Mark Fisher, which is defined as “the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but that it is impossible to imagine an alternative.” Many leftists struggle with this, feeling as if there is no way out of the system they abhor. The problem with Rich and Raymond’s ideology (and radical feminism as a whole) would then be a “patriarchal realism”, or the idea that there is no viable alternative to patriarchy. Most radical feminists propose political lesbianism and separatism from men entirely, implying that men can never evolve, can never acknowledge their position in the social caste, and will always innately, biologically, be the oppressors of women by nature. This darkly nihilist view, centered entirely in trauma and self-indulgence in pain and rage rather than true feminist praxis, is not beneficial to women; neither is gatekeeping who can be a “true” woman who has experienced “real” suffering in such a way that allows one to close out anyone who disagrees with them and create an echo chamber of a community that will eventually destroy itself from the inside out.
As a feminist poet, especially, Rich’s anti-transgender ideology cannot be deviated from her works, because her exclusion of transgender women ties directly to her theory. Knowing that Rich was in no way supportive of transgender women paints all her feminist poetry as exclusionary, even when it is not blatantly so. This is not to say that Rich’s ideology in no way contributed to the progression and evolution of the feminist movement and only hindered it. (Though, of course, an idea must first be pitched before a counter-idea can develop.) It is to say, however, that refusing to acknowledge Rich’s unsavory ideas, be informed of them, or inform others of them is to choose inaction and complicity.
To avoid criticizing Rich’s ideology today is to continue to invite transphobia into feminist spaces. In order to create a safer space for all women, cisgender or transgender, it is necessary to acknowledge her harmful ideology and her regressive views toward transgender individuals, especially in how they have contributed to regressive thought in feminism overall today.