More on the "universal girlhood" myth

Here are two more links that debunk the idea of a universal "female socialization" -- a tactic TERF'S often used to discredit and exclude trans women from feminist spaces -- but speak to all kinds of intersecting identities:

It’s evident that at least for many trans women, internalization of a male identity is rejected entirely, and to insist that these women experienced something so wholly apart from female socialization that they cannot possibly understand the experiences of other women is to hold her to a ludicrously strict standard of how she was supposed to have experienced female socialization, a standard that a great many cis women themselves would not meet. Are you to say that all cis women internalized the prescriptive cultural messages of the female gender role? Because if not (the only realistic position), there’s no way you can exclude such a trans woman from your clubhouse on these grounds without also excluding any cis woman who managed to dodge the bullet of fully-internalized female socialization. -- Natalie Reed

Now, there’s so many issues and problems with “female socialisation”. It comes from the belief that all women have the same socialisation, which, if a group claims to be intersectional in their approach, is nonsense. A white woman does not have the same “female socialisation” as a black woman. There is not one shared experience that we all digest and thus result in the same perspective. Not to mention, internalised misogyny is a thing. If “female socialisation” gave anyone who identifies as a woman insight into anything, than wouldn’t pro-life women not exist? Wouldn’t women who firmly believe that they belong in the kitchen and men belong in all positions of power not exist? Of course not. -- Boldy Go

I received a mix of typical "girl" and "boy" messages growing (fear strange men = girl; don't cry= boy), plus a lot of other ones that have nothing to do with gender, so I think discussions like these are invaluable. (One that sticks out in particular is a working-class distrust of authority bred by a lack of agency. One reason I don't "fit in" within the feminist blog world is that most of them have an implicit trust of authority figures - doctors, police, etc. That surprised at first, until I realized that the loudest voices are also the most privileged. Those institutions work for them, therefore, they have no reason not to trust them.)