DILF
Did I Leave Feminism?
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In this sharp manifesto, veteran author and activist, Jude Doyle, reunites feminist and trans politics through a common belief: that all people deserve to have the final say about who they are…
When Jude Doyle began his transition in the summer of 2020, he had a very public career as a feminist—winning awards from women’s organizations, writing for women’s magazines, publishing books on “women’s issues.” Then, after a decade in the movement, he had to walk out in front of the public and tell them he had never been a woman at all.
Doyle offers a seldom-heard and much-needed transmasculine perspective on feminist subjects, drawing together strands of intersectional feminist theory and queer and trans politics to show that all their struggles are the same struggle: The fight for gender-marginalized people to maintain autonomy and full selfhood in a patriarchy that is always eager to hollow us out and use us to further its own agenda.
DILF offers a strong rebuke to trans-exclusionary feminisms that seek to drive a wedge between gender-marginalized communities. Using interviews, critical analysis, and Doyle’s own personal experience, DILF proves that feminism is a vital and necessary tool for breaking free of patriarchal control, whoever you are.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This formidable polemic from cultural critic Doyle (Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers) argues for trans people's meaningful place within the feminist movement. Doyle explores the limitations of mainstream feminism's essentialist understanding of "male dominance and female oppression," and jousts with the "TERF" assertion that "trans existence" is "a threat to women." He does so by analyzing influential second-wave thinkers (Andrea Dworkin, Shulamith Firestone), as well as anti-trans texts like Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage. Doyle takes on the latter works with pointed precision and a biting sense of humor (on Shrier: "If I ever need anyone to write a cheery brochure for a prison camp, I know who to call"), but his argument is most incisive when invoking his own experiences as a trans man. These range from obtaining testosterone at a Planned Parenthood clinic to deflecting prying online comments about his husband's sexual identity ("Does that guy have to pretend he's gay now?"), and add up to an evocative demonstration of how stereotypes about gender and battles for bodily autonomy affect trans and cis people in overlapping ways. Doyle concludes with a call for burying the hatchet—if all feminists acted as "one cohesive constituency, we could have what it takes" to overthrow patriarchy's violent enforcement of expectations around gender, he writes. The result is a heartening call for feminist solidarity.
