http://madamenoire.com/820952/chimamanda-adichie-catches-flack-for-comments-about-trans-women-and-male-privilege-laverne-cox-raquel-willis-respond/Tl;dr is in the URL description.
This quote's being reproduced everywhere:
“When people talk about, ‘Are trans women women?’ my feeling is that trans women are trans women. I think the whole problem of gender in the world is about our experiences, it’s not about how you wear your hair or whether you have a penis or a vagina, it’s about the way the world treats us. And I think if you’ve lived in the world as a man with the privileges that the world accords to men, and then sort of changed, switched gender, it’s difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning in the world as a woman, and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are. And so, I think there has to be–And this is not of course to say this– I’m saying this also with, sore of a certainty that transgender people should be allowed to be. But I don’t think it’s a good thing to conflate everything into one. I don’t think it’s a good thing to talk about women’s issues being exactly the same as the issues of trans-women, because I don’t think that’s true.”
Folk are clamoring for transwomen to speak on transwomen topics. She's since issued an apology.
My thoughts are: 1. Wow, I'm not used to Adichie speaking in circulatory language. 2. She must have felt flustered; stratifying women's issue by post-op and choice is probably what fueled the fire of critiques. 3. Yes, trans-women are women with individualized experiences needing more validation and intersectionalism among feminists; she could have easily went the pathway of "no-story is the same" rather than this weird sexual/gender disentanglement. But since she seems to be the white liberal's pillar of Black feminism (next to Beyoncé), it is great to see her chopped down a bit to size so that more voices are raised.
Edit: Right, Laverne Cox's tweets are more than dope (#maleprivilege in the transcommunity), my fave is: "he irony of my life is prior to transition I was called a girl and after I am often called a man." Her management of speaking to issues in mainstream outlets is so fucking classy, yo.
