The term ‘essentialist’ gets thrown out quite a bit as the tenets of radical feminism rub up against the new gender zeitgeist.  Let’s look at a common argument that genderists make while interacting with Radical Feminists.

 – Genderist: For not wanting women reduced to their genitals, you seem to care a lot about what kinda genitals trans/NB people have.

“Feminism can’t be boiled down to “not wanting women reduced to their genitals” it’s about not wanting women and girls to be raped, murdered, beaten, abused, exploited, disenfranchised, oppressed, and treated as subhuman by men (males) on the basis of our sex (female). Women’s oppression arises from our biology so sex matters. Saying women have vaginas and men have dicks isn’t reducing them to those body parts – it’s just correctly identifying that they have them. 

—

This is such a tired argument. Reducing someone to their genitals would mean associating behaviours with the biological sex and then expecting people to behave the way their biological sex prescribes. But we have gender for that. Focusing only on biological sex frees people from gender norms. But it also highlights that one of the two sexes is oppressed on the basis of their biology. Neat, huh?“

Going by observable features isn’t even a particularly radical notion.  What is radical is someone asserting that *you* have to buy into another individual’s subjective interpretation of reality – outside of totalitarian states, this sort of shit just doesn’t fly.

[Source:RadFem Chronicals]