In late September TransGriot writer Monica Roberts took Gloria Steinem to task for her writings in the 1980s about transpeople.
You long time TransGriot readers know I’m not a feminist and I cringe when I hear Black women even say the term because of its history of marginalizing women of color to the point they left the movement.
And don’t even get me started on its outright hostility to trans women, which is why I identify as a womanist.
And yes, it’s time to unmask another one of the feminist icons, Gloria Steinem as a transphobe.
–Roberts
Steinem wrote at the time, “At a minimum, it was a diversion from the widespread problems of sexual inequality.” She writes that, while she supports the right of individuals to identify as they choose, she claims that, in many cases, transsexuals “surgically mutilate their own bodies” in order to conform to a gender role that is inexorably tied to physical body parts. She concludes that “feminists are right to feel uncomfortable about the need for and uses of transsexualism.”
–Roberts
Steinem concluded the article with the famous quote:
If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?