First of all, because her writing is awesome, and secondly, because she's leaving Freethought Blogs and I honestly have no idea how much longer her writing will be up.
Which is unfortunate, because I only just discovered her amazing blog about a week ago, and in that short time I've found myself reading her stuff compulsively - partially because it's just good, substantive writing, and partially because... well, honestly, a week ago I didn't know a goddamn thing about transfeminism, or transgenderism in general, or the long, embarrassing conflict between the trans community and a lot of second-wave feminists, including the facepalm-worthy transphobic comments of a couple of famous british feminists just a couple of months ago, or the equally facepalm-inducing talk of an "alliance" between the "men's rights" movement and certain trans people. And now - heck, I still don't know much about any of that, but at the very least I've become aware of just how much I don't know, which is of course the first step towards learning more.
And that's occasionally a refreshing and necessary thing to be made aware of. I can't really speak for other people, but me, I often find myself reading and re-reading books and articles that are well-written, informative, substantial... and ultimately just confirm ideas and ideologies I'm already familiar with so I can pat myself on the back and remind myself how smart I am, and how correct my opinions are. It's a nice feeling, and it is all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking you're learning something when you're really just experiencing the sweet, sweet rush of confirmation bias.
But it's also a really nice feeling, in a completely different way, to suddenly find out how much you don't know, and how much of your ideology might potentially be wrong, and to force yourself to find out more and to rethink things. This is sort of what I had to do when I first started reading Natalie Reed a week ago and was suddenly introduced to transfeminism. I had thought that I understood all the essentials of feminism more or less completely, and had never thought much about how compatible feminism was (or wasn't) with transgenderism because I had never bothered to learn about transgenderism. And no, I didn't suddenly find a neat, perfect answer to this question because it's not as if feminists or trans people have reached some sort of universal consensus. (The idea behind transfeminism is that they are compatible, and actually strive for very similar goals, but not all feminists or trans people subscribe to this.)
Natalie Reed, however, does an admirable job of explaining transfeminism and calling out the flawed logic behind some of the more sexist tropes found in trans philosophy, as well as some of the (embarrassing) transphobic remarks from certain feminists. And while I'm still not sure if I agree with, or even completely understand, everything on Natalie Reed's blog, it is absolutely worth reading... especially if, like me, there's a lot you still have to learn about transgenderism. I'm not going to attempt to parrot any of it here, because being a straight cis male I would do a terrible job, so you should just go read her blog now (this might be a good place to start; then read this and this), and then read as much of it as you can, before they take it down.
I'll just leave my favorite quote here:
"What gender you “are”, whether or not you “are” trans (or “really” trans), your “gender identity”, your “brain sex”, your socialization, your genitals, your chromosomes and your doubts can all go fuck themselves if they’re not making you happy."
Word.
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