I struggle with spaces intended for women. There are women’s collectives everywhere in all forms, ranging from book clubs to fashion clubs to creative spaces to the spaces I’ve unfortunately come to dread most, certain feminist clubs. The purpose of having spaces devoted to women is often so that they may express, share, discuss, create and collaborate with a heightened sense of safety and respect within said space. They can be immeasurably useful, comfortable places for women to tell their stories and share experiences, especially since the other women in the conversation may relate back. Discussions between women confirming that their personal experiences with misogyny are real and their subsequent feelings are valid can be comforting, since casually talking about such in public spaces may grab the attention of male colleagues who seek to insert their personal truth on the topic- this being a form of what has been coined “mansplaining”. Such a term (albeit controversial as heck) has come to form because of women communicating with each other, sharing experiences of men trying to explain or insert their unwanted/already culturally omnipresent thoughts in conversations with women. Women’s spaces have proven to be of value, though I think we can do better.

I have a weird relationship with women’s spaces because I’m femme, AFAB, but not a woman. I’m a non-binary trans person. For me, this means I move through life in many ways similar to that of cis women, almost always being perceived as a woman and therefore experiencing intensively similar forms of misogyny as cis women. I could walk into any women’s only space and fit in perfectly-- so long as I lied about my gender identity. In short, women’s-only spaces present new problems to trans and gender-nonconforming people when we acknowledge that femininity is not exclusive to women. And frankly, it’s highly regressive.

Safe spaces for women imply that it's just women who are under attack by a misogynistic societies and cultures; however, it's not just women, but rather femininity, especially as it applies to one's gender expression. I’ll take it that if you’ve read this far, you and I can probably agree that cis women are particularly susceptible to cat-calling. This is undoubtedly a problem and it’s important to have safe spaces for women to discuss such experiences. However, I and statistics from the Office for Victims of Crime would argue that a trans woman, AMAB non-binary person, or gender-nonconforming man wearing a dress casually walking the sidewalks has a greatly heightened threat of harassment, assault and murder, and at rates far above those of cis women.

Side note- beautiful artist duo Alok Vaid-Menon and Janani Balasubramanian have a marvelous Facebook page in which they share their gender-nonconforming experiences in poignant writing, often depicting lived scenarios of street harassment.

Despite such ugly statistics it isn’t an uncommon scenario for trans women, especially those who are not cis-passing, to be rejected from women’s-only spaces. Second-wave feminist space-defining phrases such as “womyn-born womyn” exemplify this. With this, places that declare themselves purposed to support girls and women not only exclude, but often alienate and invalidate people who could similarly benefit from having an accepting space for their femininity. Ironically, those who most direly need accepting spaces are often not allowed in them.

A phrase that came to be in the 70s and has revived in popularity is "The Future Is Female." However, I would argue, with evidence from Jaden Smith’s recent photoshoots wearing skirts and dresses and Young Thug’s recent surge in attention from his Twitter comments regarding gender plus his womenswear-wearing Calvin Klein campaign, it’s not that the future is female, but rather that The Future Is Femme. The difference? Gender identity versus gender expression. When we break down that it is not solely women, but rather anyone who takes on feminine forms of expression that is at a greater likelihood to be ridiculed, belittled, harassed, threatened, attacked- it becomes less a matter of making the world a safer place for women and more-so a safer place for femininity. If our current wave of feminism wishes to fully embrace intersectionality, we cannot achieve that if we do not embrace femininity as it occurs throughout all queer and gender-nonconforming communities.

In making such a demand for women’s spaces to upgrade with the times, we may arrive at various slippery slope what-ifs. But what if a man just wants to intrude in our conversations, and all he has to do to join in is wear a dress? What if it makes women uncomfortable? What if all of the misogyny we intended on keeping our space clean of ends up coming through? Bear with me as I unravel these what-ifs.

The first what-if falls victim to the same logic of not allowing trans women into women’s restrooms out of fear of the highly improbable while being highly transphobic- that it’s just a “man in a dress”. I have to what-if right back: What if it is a trans woman who simply wants to be apart of a safe space? Pay mind to the fact that it could be a non-binary person. Or it could be a gender-nonconforming person, i.e., a man wearing a dress. In which case, there shouldn’t be any issue so long as they are there with full respect to the space and acknowledging of the ins and outs of their privilege as to not talk over others. If they continually encroach on other members’ identities and voices, or if it does turn out to be a man simply wishing to talk over femmes, you have every right to vote on/have a board decide to vote them out.

What if I told you that the concept of women’s-only spaces not only makes me uncomfortable, but also less safe, further marginalized, invalidated, and therefore turns me off from respecting the principles of women’s-only spaces if they can’t provide for me a solid reason as to why my mere gender identity should not permit me and likewise folks into them as to broaden their advances and feminist goals? All of that aside, it’s worth thinking long and hard over why introducing a greater variety of unfamiliar shapes of femininity would make cis women uncomfortable. Change is hard, but can be made easier when you accept others who want to join in, have exceptional reasons to join in, share the same goals and values that the already-established space in front of them has to offer, and from there cis women can even learn about misogyny as it impacts people who aren’t cis women. In some ways I can understand the appropriateness of having people who identify as women, are intersex, and are AFAB non-binary being apart of certain meetings exclusively due to legitimate trauma that involves men (i.e. triggering discussions regarding abuse and harassment specifically as it occurs to femme people from men/masc people) and therefore men would not be appropriate at such meetings. As far as I can tell though, such discomfort and decision to act on that discomfort instead of broadening who may enter these spaces is a form of transphobia and non-intersectional feminism.

Maybe if the world were that black and white, using the simple filter of claiming a space to be women’s-only to avoid potential disruption of said space would be appropriate. However, we can cover far more ground in fighting misogyny if we not ignore the grey areas. Misogyny occurs in far more ways than just one, to intricately varying identities. If we can agree that there are victims of a patriarchal society who are in need of safe spaces, there should be no hesitation to let them in when they’re literally dying in the streets before you. In fact, ignoring the grey areas in this way in an attempt to maintain “purity” in these spaces is, simply put, transphobic. Once again, if a women’s-only space is nicely organized and formatted to know how to handle conflicts in conversation by having strong policies on how the members of the community interact, the only problems should come in the form of temporary growing pains.

My suggested solutions for these spaces is to change the language from the peak interest being gender identity and making it focused on gender expression, from women’s spaces to femme spaces, from women to femmes. Adopt introductory activities at the beginning of group sessions that ask for one’s name, pronouns, and maybe throw in rotating questions, like their favorite cereal or a story from earlier in the week. Introduce policies of respect for each person’s identity, as it applies to gender as well as their other important intersectioning pieces. Nobody should walk into a safe space and feel that intricate pieces of their identity aren’t welcome and are not to be respected. The discussions that happen within these spaces will prompt the challenges of learning and understanding. Note that these solutions are not radical structure changes, just simple formalities. Yet, they go a long way as to express inclusion, solidarity, and respect for one’s whole self, and not that of women’s-only spaces, which ask me to leave my gender identity at the door.