We're getting there, believe me. (Image from femonade.)
The basic idea is that FCM has a well-formed piece that happens to not work, which is a shame because I actually agree with most of what she's written in her introductory matter. It also sounds like she's dealt with or at least heard about some shitty trans folks, which always sucks because hurt people hurt people & all that.
FCM's opening salvo is a "where do I even begin," but she eventually decides so I'll cut right to that: pregnancy, of course. She writes, "i will go right into what appears to be the following implied statement, being made by redacted trans: lesbian women must sometimes negotiate birth control when having sex with other women, if they do not wish to become pregnant." (Nocaps & emphasis in original.) FCM claims this implication is absurd, but her reduction falls apart because:
Abstinence Is a Form of Birth Control
I get where she's coming from, but I mean, she's just wrong here. Lesbian women only have to negotiate birth control when having sex if that sex could possibly result in pregnancy. There are many ways to have sex that cannot possibly result in pregnancy. I mean... just ask a lesbian?
Moreover, many trans women get dysphoric at the idea of penetrating with our girldicks (or whatever we individually feel like calling them), and also get intensely dysphoric at the thought of getting someone else pregnant, and so try not to do anything that would make that happen. Furthermore, hormone replacement basically nukes your balls, rendering trans women mostly sterile in as little as two to three months, and ejaculatory volume goes way down as well. I'm aware that all it takes is one, but the point isn't that trans women can't possibly impregnate - the point is that many trans women don't do things that could cause a pregnancy, and it's fairly easy for us to do so.
Now, FCM might object here that the above paragraph counts as "negotiating birth control," since even though maybe no pills or prophylactics are used, pregnancy is still an issue on the table that needs to somehow be addressed. This objection is fair on the surface, but flawed in the substance: if "not doing things that could result in pregnancy" (i.e. abstinence) counts as "negotiating birth control," then cis lesbians also negotiate birth control by abstaining from pregnancy-causing activities and her argument falls apart. If "not doing things that could result in pregnancy" doesn't count as "negotiating birth control," then trans lesbians don't necessarily require the negotiation of birth control and her argument falls apart. (This is leaving aside the matter of trans lesbians having sex with each other, to which I think FCM would have no such objections.) So either way, her argument is self-defeating and only holds up by equivocating on whether abstaining from pregnancy-inducing activities counts as "negotiating birth control."
Quick Takes
There are a bunch of little points that don't take a lot to get through, so I'm lumping them all together here: FCM's next point is that no trans women ever need to do anything to avoid pregnancy, which is true. However, it's also true of women who have had hysterectomies or are otherwise infertile, which robs the point of force.
FCM then begins a rapid-fire series of questions with: "yellow [trans women], orange [trans lesbians] and blue [men] are the only ones that can get anyone else pregnant... why might that be?" For the same reason that trans men, trans gay men, and women can become pregnant: barring infertility or medical intervention, they're born with the equipment. This is irrelevant, though.
The next rapid-fire question is, "why does yellow [trans women] have something in common with blue [men], while at the exact same time having nothing in common with white ["people who must sometimes negotiate birth control to avoid becoming pregnant], even when living in trans-world where there is any such fucking thing as orange [trans lesbians]?" Leaving aside the hyperbole (it's not nearly as cut-and-dry as that), it's perfectly normal for there to be variation between groups of people, and we all have more commonalities than differences anyway.
FCM also asks, "why oh why are lesbian transwomen different than lesbians?" Because people are different sometimes. Duh.
Her final question is, "in this trans universe, where lesbian women must sometimes negotiate birth control when having sex with other women if they do not wish to become pregnant, do political lesbians not exist, where a political lesbian is a woman who decides to be a lesbian for political reasons, including not being subjected to unwanted pregnancy and reproductive harm via the penis?" Sure, political lesbians exist - but then that's running sexuality off of politics, instead of, I dunno, personal attraction & taste? I get where she's coming from, but she's putting the cart before the horse: if your sexuality is subordinate to your politics (and not independent of them), and part of your politics is "no preggers," then of course you're not going to have sex with people who might get you pregnant. That's fine, but many trans women can't impregnate anyone for surgical reasons - if your politics are "trans women are icky," then I guess you'll still swear off of us anyway, but it's for obvious transphobia this time and not any principled reason.
Her final question is, "in this trans universe, where lesbian women must sometimes negotiate birth control when having sex with other women if they do not wish to become pregnant, do political lesbians not exist, where a political lesbian is a woman who decides to be a lesbian for political reasons, including not being subjected to unwanted pregnancy and reproductive harm via the penis?" Sure, political lesbians exist - but then that's running sexuality off of politics, instead of, I dunno, personal attraction & taste? I get where she's coming from, but she's putting the cart before the horse: if your sexuality is subordinate to your politics (and not independent of them), and part of your politics is "no preggers," then of course you're not going to have sex with people who might get you pregnant. That's fine, but many trans women can't impregnate anyone for surgical reasons - if your politics are "trans women are icky," then I guess you'll still swear off of us anyway, but it's for obvious transphobia this time and not any principled reason.
Finally: the Amazing MS Paint Diagram
OK, so we've got that diagram up above, which is really the whole reason I wanted to respond to this post. But I had to talk about all the other stuff first, because FCM's whole argument is about taking this diagram and running some bits to logical conclusions. And I'm all for that! Now that I've shown how her arguments proceeding from the diagram fall pretty flat, I want to make a couple corrections to the diagram itself - specifically, these two parts:
You can go ahead and click those for larger versions if you want, or check out the original again, but here are the simple corrections I want to make:
Note that infertile women also don't overlap with white or pink, either. But I
won't draw any unwarranted conclusions from that, unlike some people I know.
Pretty simple fix, I think.
Bottom line being, to paraphrase FactCheckMe herself: "I'm humoring TERFs, and there's still no problem."
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