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By Violeta Alegre

Photos: Presentes Archive/Ariel Gutraich and Isa Solas

Yesterday I was shared an image posted on Instagram: a group of women are asking for the organization of new slogans for March 8th.

What they argue: biologism

The call to action comes from RadFem (the name is a play on words with Radical Feminism). What is their argument? This group considers "Woman" to be the only political subject of feminism. In this way, they revive a discussion that once again hegemonizes gender identities by placing them within the male/female binary. That is, defining them by genitalia.

This proposal to separate men (= machos) from the movement is motivated by the idea of ​​bodies with penises versus bodies with vaginas; we already call this “biological determinism.” And who are these men (= machos)? Well, all bodies with penises. That is, it continues to be argued that genitalia determines gender identity.

Gabriela Mansilla, from Free Childhoods, #8M march, Buenos Aires, 2018. 

We don't hear these same feminist voices questioning heterosexuality as the only sex/relationship/affective system, a system sustained by hegemony. They want the "macho" removed from their spaces, but not from their homes or their beds.

They are overwhelmed by inclusive language. They say it makes "Woman" invisible. And when faced with any inclusive expansion like "femininities," they feel attacked, labeling any dissenting identity as misogynistic, as if it were the dominant male.

We transvestites are attacked from both the right and the left.

We trans women are attacked from the right with "Bolsonaro-style" rhetoric. But when that gets tiring, they also resort to the left, since feminist left-wing organizations also support these discourses..

Our extermination has never been carried out with explicit messages like, “Go and kill them for who they are.” But symbolic messages of hate have been the order of the day in the transphobic murders of our sisters. Adam Dieng, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, says: “ Genocide is a process. The Holocaust didn’t begin with the gas chambers. It began with hate speech .”

March #8M, Buenos Aires, 2018. 

"We don't want to be this humanity anymore."

We have to endure being referred to as "a transvestite" in police reports every day. Or being singled out in the media with comments like, "You're missing this to be a woman (referring to a vagina)," or "If you get married, wear white, adopt/have children, cut it off! Or do you even use it?" Or having the medical system experiment on our bodies, pressuring us with, "Decide, do you want to keep having erections or do you want a vagina?"

They devalue us, stigmatize us, and despise us for not conforming to a heteronormative identity, but we continue to respond: "We no longer want to be this humanity." 

March against transvesticide, Buenos Aires, June 2018, Isa Solas.

We could write an enormous list of these hate speeches, these death-producing acts that ultimately result from action or inaction. We have long identified them in this world, as it is currently structured. But what happens when they arise from within? From individuals who identify as feminists?

This transphobic discourse is doubly dangerous today: in a Latin American context of setbacks in rights, of political persecution of lesbians—let's not forget Marielle Franco (the Afro-Latin feminist councilwoman who was murdered )—and of gay men—let's remember that Congressman Jean Wyllys recently had to resign after receiving death threats.

READ MORE: Activists on alert over Bolsonaro's anti-LGBTI+ measures

To transvestites - like the episode of hatred and physical violence that our comrade Lara experienced in Lezama Park - and the beating and arrest on Friday, January 25 of Alma Fernández and the daily arbitrary arrests of several comrades - and so many attacks and acts of violence that have increased and threaten the lives of people who dissent from this heteropatriarchal system.

READ MORE: #BuenosAires Attack on trans activist in San Telmo

In response to this type of transphobic demonstration, we request that the organizing committee of March 8th issue a statement and take action to ensure the participation and safety of trans and travesti women in the activities leading up to and during the March 8th demonstration.

FEMINIST ALERT, inside and out. Trans women have learned from feminism. Feminism has learned from trans women and gender/identity dissidents: we will never go back to the dungeon, nor to biologism!