Missing piece. Vacant space. Emptiness.
I have a condition called MRKH which means I was born without a womb.
within the confessional umbrella I have made work about my own psychological response to learning this such as; I’ve pulled out all my feathers.
The
Personal
is
Political.
However in more recent years references to condition has been in the context of trans women.
In terms if my hormones and chromosomes, I am female but I do not have the biology.
I have no uterus.
I have ovaries not connected to anything
and technically,
in medical terms,
do not even have a vagina.
Question:
Does that make me less of a woman?
TERFs assert that without the same cookie cutter biology it is impossible to understand or to have been part of the age old experience of the oppression of women.
Well it did not exempt me from rape.
Because it is not the presence of the biology but the perception that is the thing that marks you.
Despite the fact that my becoming pregnant is a physical impossibility, that capture of women by making them bear children was still the motivation ignorance my rapist. He thought he could trap me in this way, that is the cornerstone of female oppression, because he assumed I could carry children.
And just like with me,
Once a trans woman passes as a woman,
they are treated
like a
woman.
I use my situation to argue on their behalf because it makes a mockery of the claims of biology being paramount.
My relationship with my gender has been strange and wavering in the years since I learnt that my anatomy was incomplete.
But I’m always aware, despite being able to empathise deeply, I cannot know the anguish of being trans in this world.
This being true, I still think my experience has something to offer in advocating for trans and non binary people.
Due to this diagnosis, I have had to do a lot of thinking about my own gender, sex and biology.
I think some of the conclusions I have come to are of value in unfortunate debate regarding trans rights and the validity of such an identity.
It must be incredibly painful for trans people to have their being be a matter of debate. All I can do in that regard is try to help win the argument so we can stop debating whether trans people are valid.
They are.
Trans and non binary people are more than valid they are valuable, they bring a new perspective to the world to which we should be eagerly listening, as it has only just begun to be heard.