“A perfectly reasonable piece” was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s response regarding J. K. Rowling’s extensive 3,600-word essay that chronicled her personal history with abuse and tripled down on her long-standing transphobic views. In an interview in The Guardian, Adichie went on to further her opinion, stating that social media and the “American liberal orthodoxy” were to be blamed for the censorship of J. K. Rowling’s views. It might seem puzzling to many feminists as to why Adichie, an incredibly important and beloved frontier of the current feminist movement, would voice her support for J. K. Rowling’s heavily scrutinized trans exclusive opinions, but her response wasn’t a revelation to many, nor was this her first time expressing such trans exclusive beliefs.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a prominent Nigerian writer and feminist, is the author of various critically acclaimed books such as Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) and Americanah (2013). Perhaps her most noteworthy work is the book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists, adapted from her famous TEDx talk of the same title. Widely regarded as the defining discourse of 21st century’s feminism, the book was distributed to every 16-year-old high school student in Sweden to “work as a stepping stone for a discussion about gender equality and feminism”. Adichie’s TEDx talk was sampled in the song “***Flawless”, where Beyoncé declared herself as a feminist for the first time. A move that undoubtedly cemented her as an important figure of the modern feminist movement and popular culture.
Her TEDx talks on gender equality and the dangers of single stories (oversimplification of particular experiences leading to an incomplete and inaccurate stereotype) made her a representative of feminism, that at its core was inclusive. During an interview on Britain’s Channel 4 News in March 2017, when asked an age-old question (regarding femininity and trans women) whether it “mattered how you have arrived at being a woman, whether it made you less of a woman?” Adichie was swift to reply, “When people talk about a trans women-women, my feeling is that trans women are trans women. If you’ve lived in the world as a man with the privileges that the world accords to men and then change-switch gender, it’s difficult for me to accept that we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning as a woman.”
“I think trans women are trans women and that I think there is a difference between trans women and women who are born female, and apparently in liberal orthodoxy, you’re not supposed to say that. Because in the quest for inclusiveness, the left is willing to discard a certain kind of complex truth.”
All at once, her feminism disregarded the experiences of trans women worldwide. Her statements borrowed the rigidly linear ideologies of the binary-gender essentialism, similar to that of many trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) that at its root denied trans women of their identities, implying they weren’t ‘real’ women. Trans men and non-binary trans people were left out of the dialogue altogether. Adverse reactions ensued in the media and online after the interview aired, with trans people condemning her harmful remarks. Despite the criticism, she reiterated the same school of thought, in a Facebook post meant to “clarify” her remarks. Adichie, an ally of LGBTQ rights in Nigeria, seemed perplexed in the New Yorker Festival interview with David Remnick, that anyone would ever equate her to being transphobic. She chidingly laughed off the criticisms,“I think trans women are trans women and that I think there is a difference between trans women and women who are born female, and apparently in liberal orthodoxy, you’re not supposed to say that. Because in the quest for inclusiveness, the left is willing to discard a certain kind of complex truth.”
Her continuous refusal to learn from trans women’s experiences exhibited the ignorant ways cisgender privilege and perception harmed trans identities and contributed to further their erasure. That when it came to trans women’s identities, Adichie didn’t have any issues reverting to the same single-story narratives that she had found to be dangerous. According to her, gender was not biology but sociology. Which meant that cisgender women suffered the oppression and struggles (unique to their gender) from a young age, and trans women had experienced the privileges that the world had granted to men. As a cisgender trans ally, this generalization deeply lacked basic logic for me. Was there only one exclusive experience of “womanhood”? Is womanhood only defined by the specific type of trauma and oppression one endures? Therefore, invalidating the womanhood of trans women because they had suffered differently than us?
So certain was Adichie with her ideology, that she didn’t bother to understand how her stance translated to the experience of young trans kids who were socialized akin to their gender identities. Or how masculinity and toxic masculinity adversely affect trans people’s lives, either in internalized ways that harm their gender expression or in violent ways that harm their very existence. Violence faced by transgender and gender non-conforming people has increased exponentially over the years with trans women being affected the most.
Adding to the decades worth of negative representations of trans people in popular media, governments making trans healthcare inaccessible, the fatal epidemic of violence faced by trans people rising every year, bathroom bills that threaten their public safety: the last thing the trans community needs is for cis-feminists to assume authority and invalidate their identities. Time and again, prolific feminists like Adichie and J. K. Rowling question the womanhood of trans women. Some of their arguments range from basic biology (that has very little relation to gender identity) to calling trans men as “lesbians who transitioned because of patriarchy”, implying it as a distinct form of conversion therapy.
“The response is not to debate, the response is to silence.” was Adichie’s reply to the backlash. A statement that proved exactly how cis-privileged women negotiated the presence and identities of trans people in their feminism: as a debate. At the crux of this issue are the followers of feminists like Adichie who idolize, preach, and internalize such statements that not only question trans women’s womanhood but add to the stigmas against them. Adichie supporting J. K. Rowling’s harmful views normalises excluding transgender activism from mainstream feminism and, spreads wrong connotations of what being a trans ally means. Being a trans ally means listening and learning from the lived and real experiences of transgender people. Feminists must recognize that feminism cannot exist without intersectionality, that trans men are men, non-binary people are non-binary people and, trans women are women.
(Cover Image by Cathy Renna)
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