Another college student group hosts a violent, transphobic cupcake party

Remember that time when a college women’s group in New Zealand nearly killed all their trans women students with horribly violent vulva cupcakes? Well, hold on to your hats, because it’s happened again, this time in California, U.S.A! It seems that Scripps College hosted a violently transphobic event called Project Vulva in which participants were invited to….decorate cupcakes and talk about vulvas. As we all know, when a bunch of privileged college students get together to bond over snack foods, trans women literally die.

Let’s look at some highlights from their Facebook event page:

This commenter says “Right like this entire event is so incredibly violent to trans women specifically. I’m so disgusted.”

College students sitting around a table, decorating cupcakes and talking about vulvas…how violent!

“The term ‘transgendered’ is highly offensive, Kelly. There’s nothing wrong with penises. And having one doesn’t make a person more or less powerful than anyone else. Equating genitalia to a person’s gender is and always will be transphobic.”

This person claims that having a penis doesn’t make a person more or less powerful than anyone else. Phew! I’m so glad that people with penises no longer own most of the world’s money and property, hold most of the positions of power in government and business, have the power and ability to control and purchase female bodies…oh wait! They still do. Also, why is the term “transgendered” offensive? Isn’t that what they’re called? I just can’t keep up with all of this violent nomenclature. The word “transgender” is fine but add the “ed” to the end and suddenly it’s HIGHLY OFFENSIVE. (Since when were oppressed people actually oppressed by morphemes anyway?)

“Because instead of saying something about how the wording of this event excludes trans women, and further normalizes transmisogyny and violence against trans women, you’re trying to say that I somehow don’t understand the event description, and are trying to spell it out for me. I don’t need your help parsing out the finer details of this garbage, cis, white event. A trans woman is telling y’all this makes her feel uncomfortable and that’s not enough for you to rethink your stance on this? You’re gross, this whole thing is gross, have fun with your ugly cupcakes.”

You heard it, folks. Vulva cupcakes further normalize transmisogyny and violence against trans women. College students getting together to bond over snack food is “garbage, cis and white.” Now, it’s entirely possible that this event will have a lot of white people at it, and maybe the icing will all be white and pink icing, which could perhaps make this a “white” event. However, we don’t know this for sure, and maybe the organizers actually did make sure they purchased a variety of icing colours in order to make sure women of colour felt included at the event? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. But the word “white” here is most likely being used because males who transgender tend to call women who understand biology “white feminists.” Apparently, an understanding of human anatomy is inherently racist. There is a lot of confusion over what intersectionality means these days. It’s supposed to mean an analysis of the way race and class intersect with women’s oppression, not an excuse to invite people with dicks to every goddamn student gathering at every college on the planet. And I like how he calls this a “cis” event even though the organizers specifically referenced trans individuals with vulvas in their event description. It’s like the very mention of a vulva is automatically “cis,” even though trans men have them. Obviously, the word “cis” means something that doesn’t specifically validate trans women’s identities.

“As someone with a vulva, I think this event was created exactly because people call us “gross” when we talk about them. It can be taken offensively, but it isn’t meant that way. All genders and all vulva-owners and non-vulva-owners are invited! It’s an attempt to normalize and celebrate a body part that is talked about as dirty and disgusting, often. Reproductive systems are really cool, and we should be able to talk about them without tying them to a gender, which this event doesn’t do! The word women is not in the event description. Calling the cupcakes gross kind of underlines the problem this event is trying to fix…vulvas are awesome! Just like all genitalia!”

“I…….am so glad I didn’t end up going to Scripps. There are so many terfs at that horrible school. ^This is a prime example of a trans women exclusionary radical feminist. If your feminism is centered around gendering of genitalia, then it’s surface level and harmful feminism at best. Ariel is a trans woman. And this entire event is focused on excluding women like her and it’s disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself, Jillian.”

This is just….ludicrous. Here is this woman perfectly adhering to transgenderist dogma by calling women “vulva-owners” and refraining from mentioning that people who have vulvas are female, and it’s still not good enough for trans activist Kasie. Apparently, just talking about vulvas at all, even while refusing to acknowledge the truth about the biological femaleness of that body part, makes someone a TERF. I don’t even get it.

Two commenters in this thread have talked about how it’s wrong to “gender” genitalia. Let’s talk about the transactivists’ mantra that “genitals do not equal gender,” shall we?

When trans activists say this phrase, what they really mean is that genitals do not equal sex. They are unable to differentiate gender from sex, but we know what they’re saying here: they’re saying that a person with a penis can be a woman and a person with a uterus and ovaries can be a man.

I would propose that the statement “genitals do not equal gender” is actually a true statement, if you actually understand what gender is. Gender is a social construct. It is the cultural enforcement of masculinity on men and femininity on women. It is true that your genitals do not determine which sex stereotypes you will identify with. But this is not what trans activists are saying. They are not trying to divorce sexed bodies from cultural constructions so that we can all be free from these constraints, they are trying to enforce the idea that anyone who is “feminine” is female and anyone who is “masculine” is male, regardless of their actual sexed body. It turns out it’s actually the radical feminists who are trying to divorce sexed bodies from cultural constructs so that we can all be free to express ourselves as we are. It is the trans activists who are trying to assign sex stereotypes to men and women.

This sentence is such a gem: “If your feminism is centered around gendering of genitalia, then it’s surface level and harmful feminism at best.” What this person is trying to say is that feminism should not acknowledge the sexed bodies of males and females and what it means to be male or female in a patriarchy. Even though feminism is exactly that—it’s fighting back against sex-based oppression, which necessitates naming sex differences. However, if you understand that gender is a harmful social construct that oppresses the sex class female, then you realize that this sentence actually makes perfect sense, from a TERFy point of view. If your feminism involves assigning a socially constructed gender role to genitalia (i.e. biological sex) then it’s harmful. Because assigning a socially constructed gender role to someone based on their anatomy is oppression. It’s the exact oppression that Totally Excellent Real Females are, in fact, fighting.