Thank you for lucidly unpacking the concept of gender socialization in the way it is touted by feminists like Adichie to undermine trans women and trans feminine people.

I have frequently taught Adichie’s work — particularly “We Should All Be Feminists” — in introductory gender courses, and found myself rationalizing and making excuses for her cissexism. For example, when in the above TED Talk/essay she defines a feminist as “a man or a woman” or mentions biological differences between men and women, I chalked this up to her not wanting to overwhelm her audience by challenging the gender binary, or that doing so would have been outside the scope of her talk.

As an educator, I can no longer make excuses for her.

Following the comments you cite above, I realized that her feminism is quite simply ciscentric and has always been so. What is even more troubling is the defensive posture she assumed when she was criticized for her statements that trans women are separate and therefore unequal in comparison to cis women. This is ironic given her other popular Ted Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” is about the harm implicit in reducing people to a singular narrative, and she did exactly that by presenting a narrow and limiting vision of “womanhood.” I was additionally troubled by the fact that she did not seem open to rethinking her ideas about trans women or shifting her understanding of feminism to be inclusive.

I am left wondering if I should continue to teach her work — it might be useful for the very reason that it could open a discussion of the cissexism inherent in much of feminist thought — or if my students would be better served by a different text…