I Am Not Taking Complaints About My Face
Why the term ‘womanface’ is wrong
Madeleine Kearns published an April 16, 2023 opinion in the National Review. This is a transphobic article targeting trans women. (It doesn’t mention trans men. All the same, I’m not taking complaints about my face, either.)
I want people to understand what transphobes mean when they say “womanface” and why it is nonsense. I can get at a large part of it just by dismantling this one brief opinion column.
Starting from biological essentialism
Kearns sets out the definition of “woman” as someone who has “female anatomy.” Then she refers to a broad category of “female impersonation,” i.e., “men who impersonate women.” How does the impersonation happen? By pretending to have anatomy they don’t have, or what? Well, she doesn’t say, so no one can know what she’s talking about. She refers to one trans woman in this article, and she misgenders her as “he.”
Regarding biology, she says she doesn’t believe “essentialism” (the idea that personality and ability is “all predetermined by sex”) but instead she wants “realism” (the idea that…
