Her assessment of Twitter robbing people of their human elements as they become “angels jostling to out-angel one another” won acclaim from a large number of readers for its eloquent takedown of what is pejoratively known as “cancel culture.”
But while the author’s take on the micro-blogging platform dominated the final section of her three-part essay, the crux of the piece—entitled “It is Obscene: A True Reflection in Three Parts—discussed the betrayal she endured at the hands of a former associate.
More specifically, she recounted how somebody with whom she once enjoyed a close relationship had publicly turned against her on Twitter following her March 2017 interview with the U.K.’s Channel 4 News, in which she was asked about her views on trans woman.
The Nigeran feminist found herself caught in a whirlwind of controversy when, while discussing femininity and feminism, Adichie stated that “trans women are trans women.”
Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News asked her: “Does it matter how you’ve arrived at being a woman? I mean, for example, if you’re a trans woman who grew up identifying as a man—who grew up enjoying the privileges of being a man—does that take away from becoming a woman? Are you any less of a real woman?”
Adichie responded: “So when people talk about, ‘are trans women women?’ my feeling is trans women are trans women. 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 switch 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.”
“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,” she continued. “What I’m saying is that gender is not biology—gender is sociology.”
As outrage over Adichie’s statement mushroomed—with critics taking her statement to mean that she didn’t see trans women as “real” women—the writer, who had earned a reputation as a staunch ally of the LGBTQ+ community, sought to clarify her stance.
In a lengthy message posted on Facebook on March 12, 2017, she wrote, in part: “I said, in an interview, that trans women are trans women, that they are people who, having been born male, benefited from the privileges that the world affords men, and that we should not say that the experience of women born female is the same as the experience of trans women.
“This upset many people, and I consider their concerns to be valid. I realize that I occupy this strange position of being a ‘voice’ for gender rights and so there is an automatic import to my words.
“I think the impulse to say that trans women are women just like women born female are women comes from a need to make trans issues mainstream. Because by making them mainstream, we might reduce the many oppressions they experience.
“But it feels disingenuous to me. The intent is a good one but the strategy feels untrue. Diversity does not have to mean division.
“Because we can oppose violence against trans women while also acknowledging differences. Because we should be able to acknowledge differences while also being supportive. Because we do not have to insist, in the name of being supportive, that everything is the same. Because we run the risk of reducing gender to a single, essentialist thing.”
“I have and will continue to stand up for the rights of transgender people,” she added. “Not merely because of the violence they experience but because they are equal human beings deserving to be what they are.
“I see how my saying that we should not conflate the gender experiences of trans women with that of women born female could appear as if I was suggesting that one experience is more important than the other. Or that the experiences of trans women are less valid than those of women born female. I do not think so at all—I know that trans women can be vulnerable in ways that women born female are not. This, again, is a reason to not deny the differences.”
Stating that “gender is a problem not because of how we look or how we identify or how we feel but because of how the world treats us,” Adichie discussed the differences in growing up with the identity of a male or female.
Ultimately, she concluded: “To acknowledge different experiences is to start to move towards more fluid—and therefore more honest and true to the real world—conceptions of gender.”
In a November 2020 interview with the U.K.’s The Guardian, Adichie waded into the row surrounding fellow writer J.K. Rowling, after the Harry Potter author faced criticism for a series of tweets she’d posted in June of that year.
Among her tweets, Rowling said: “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.
“The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women - ie, to male violence - ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences - is a nonsense.
“I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.”
Rowling followed up with an essay on the matter, which Adichie told The Guardian was “a perfectly reasonable piece,” adding: “Again JK Rowling is a woman who is progressive, who clearly stands for and believes in diversity.”
In Adichie’s own new essay, which was published on her personal website on Tuesday, the author reiterated her stance, as she said: “I fully support the rights of trans people and all marginalized people… I have always been fiercely supportive of difference, in general.”
Going back to her fateful 2017 interview with Channel 4 News, Adichie admitted that the “feminist cheerleader” role that had been bestowed upon her often made her “cringe.”
“Now I get sent every book that has anything to do with gender,” she explained. “I mean, I joke about how now even books about gardening somebody will send it to me and say, ‘Well, it’s a metaphor for gender relations, the roses and the lilies.’
“But I don’t feel that I am the authority on feminism—and I don’t necessarily want to be. So I’d like to think of myself as a storyteller who, from time to time, will talk about what she’s passionate about, which is feminism.”
Newsweek has contacted the National Center for Transgender Equality for comment.
