# Does Germaine Greer's non-acceptance of trans women damage her historic legacy as Feminist?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-germaine-greers-non-acceptance-of-trans-women-damage-her-historic-legacy-as-feminist/735693>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 25, 2015, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-germaine-greers-non-acceptance-of-trans-women-damage-her-historic-legacy-as-feminist/735693 "2015-10-25T03:18:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-germaine-greers-non-acceptance-of-trans-women-damage-her-historic-legacy-as-feminist/735693/61 "2015-10-27T22:11:46Z")

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> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> That means she was wrong. Not wrong to keep advocating for women, not wrong for declining to make others’ priorities hers, but wrong for _opposing_ a stroke for justice in American history. The Fourteenth was a little more complex than just ending slavery, but the Fifteenth was very simple. It did not address all the ways that the right to vote could be and was denied to various kinds of Americans, but the step it took was unequivocally a good one, a step toward justice. Anyone who opposed it for any reason would have been wrong. Just as, say, a (brave) nascent gay-rights activist would have been wrong to oppose the first American marriage equality struggle, the one that overturned anti-miscegenation laws, for failing to address gay marriage.
> 
> For the record, women at the time did have the right to vote in several states and territories, or jurisdictions thereof–and the _overall_ women’s voting cohort was enlarged by the Fifteenth Amendment, in that non-white women were added in those jurisdictions.

To me, its more of a solidarity thing. The idea that oppressed people should stick together. i.e. if you are going to throw a group under the bus with “well, I’ve got mine” that isn’t any more right than saying “hey, if you are getting yours, I want mine to, or I’m going to speak out about you getting yours.” Both were happening.

I think the right pragmatic choice was made, getting the people the vote that they could get it for. But I’m disgusted by the lack of solidarity that was shown at that time, the dismissive attitude towards women’s suffrage.

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