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I think a lot about how parts of cultural and lesbian feminism/separatism created transphobic theories in the 70's and how those later grew into more complicated ideologies and organized anti-trans movements. Parts of lesbian feminism are a source of societal transphobia.
Right-wing Christians and other transphobic groups have co-opted anti-trans theories developed by lesbian feminsts in an attempt to reach people with more liberal and left-wing politics. There's even direct collaboration between the Christian Right and some lesbian feminists.
Most lesbian feminists I knew, including those with anti-trans views, are horrified by collaboration/co-optation by the Right. Still, I don't think a lot of them are willing to examine why right-wing Christians find transphobic feminist theories so useful.
Seeing the Right join forces with lesbian feminists really made me rethink a lot of my beliefs. In theory trans people reaffirmed patriarchy, but then I watched Christian patriarchy use "trans-critical" feminism and lesbian feminists to attack trans people.
Eventually I decided that transphobic feminism was more in line with patriarchal values than a threat to it. That some lesbian feminists were choosing to work with right-wing groups because they really do have some kind of common ground with each other.
And vice versa with the Christian Right turning towards cultural feminists. They're both freaked out by postmodernism, gender deconstruction, sexual ambiguity, and body modification. They both want stable binary gender categories linked to biological sex.
They both idealize a kind of natural order that they see trans people threatening. There's often some nostalgia for the past. A lot of lesbian feminists want to go back to when they had a thriving movement and/or to some mythical Amazon matriarchy.
Certain tendencies in lesbian and cultural feminism have long had the potential to support rather than challenge patriarchal gender. People have been criticizing them for that reason for decades now. But this seems like a whole new level.
I want to understand how and why this happened, not only to resist transphobia but to understand how a political movement that set out to fight for liberation can end up reinforcing oppression instead. It's something I'll probably be thinking about for some time to come.
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