Ah yes, the age-old arguement, fashioned sharply by the blade of the second-wave, echoing in third-wave...feminists beware!
Gender.
What is gender?
Why do we desire it? I ask Kate BOrnstein this question every single night, as I stare at her book "Gender Outlaws" but she can't asnwer - covers don't speak well.
But I read the pages between.
And then I stare at my fellow sisters, brothers, trans and variant and defined alike, and wonder why we are in this mess?
Am I a feminist? Yes.
Am I a woman? No.
Do I have a vagina? Vulva? Menses? Yes.
Am I a woman? No.
Am I a man? No.
Does it matter? To you....perhaps.....
Because in this society we find it imperative to define gender - that box we check beside our name along with address and D.O.B. - that term applied to our genitalia by a physician upon the exit of utero - not something we got to chose, like our hair color (day by day) or our style of clothes - and then we decide to fashion a movement on it.
Is feminism a "woman issue?" Yes...because we still live in a gendered society, where it seems imperative to follow gender Dichotemy - black/white it's all so basic.....
and yet it's not.
Because when we exclude men's experiences - we exclude a portion of our society.
Am I a lesbian? Yes.
Do I work alongside folk who are heterosexual, bisexual, omnisexual, pansexual, asexual? Yes.
Do I care more about one or the other? No.
Why? Because if only the minority was fighting, who could say somethign was getting done? Are the leaders minorities? yes....but dominant culture that allies and feels the pain of those in suffering and oppression - thsoe willing to sacrifice personal safety and comfort for the good of a people - deserve my respect, attention, and allowance into my life.
Those willing to sacrifice privilege, after acknowledging it, should be welcome with open arms.
Perhaps we cannot completely understand one annother, but we can work together.
Not to mention this - Transgendered Women (male-female) are often negated from the experience of "woman only" spaces because they are not "True women" is this reality, or seperatist gender definition?

i don't think a man can be a feminist any more than i think a white person can be a black panther. the distinction for me is not purely technical in the sense that "you have no vagina, therefore you can't be a feminist"- it's more about the experience of living as a woman that allows you to shape and lead the movement. i am straight and i don't think it would be right for me to go around posting on some lgbtq board about how i support them and therefore i deserve to be able to scrutinize them and they need to hear me out cuz we should be building "equality" between people of different sexual orientations. what do y'all think?

(i strongly request that men not derail the topic and allow women to address it.)