Earlier this month an event in Fitzroy called ‘Pussy Power’ – an all-female DJ line-up – was boycotted by activists who claimed such an event title actively excluded transgender-identified people even though the by-line read ‘gay straight transgender friendly party.’

The event name itself was bold but not overly remarkable considering it was drawing attention to the ‘all femme DJ line-up.’ I was excited, so was my date, and then we were disheartened. I grabbed glimpses of the debate on the Facebook page over the name being offensive to transgender people on the day of the event, saw its subsequent change to the innocuous ‘Let’s Go Dancing’ and then a few hours before it was meant to start, the event was cancelled. No warning and no explanation given.

‘Pussy’ has always been a dirty word. If you’re a ‘pussy’, you’re weak, you’re a girl and you throw like one too. In the context of a party highlighting female DJs it was meant to be subversive, a tongue-in-cheek alliteration, a literal call to party, a reclamation in the vein of feminist punk band Pussy Riot. At least that’s how I read it. I understand that language creates our reality and a term like ‘pussy power’ could be read as exclusionary because not all people who identify as women have a vagina. However, when it’s coupled with a by-line announcing inclusivity, surely reactions should be context-driven. Not to mention that pussy power of any kind it is still marred in a long, yet-won battle over the gender inequity that having a vagina produces. And what about transgender women who do choose to have sex reassignment surgery and have vaginas, or transgender men?

Yes. Gender is a socially constructed idea; I hear you and I agree. What we understand to be male and female changes across culture and history. Our toy and clothes aisles should move with the times. One’s biological sex does not necessarily define the gender they feel most comfortable with, nor what they do, how they act or how they look. But when one sector of the queer community denounces the use of the word ‘pussy’ and shuts down a whole party celebrating women of all sexualities and gender identities, that’s when I have a problem. An all female line-up of DJs is a rare enough thing in the glorified male-dominated world of vinyl and CDJ pushers, and women should be celebrated, femme women included.

Yes, transgender inclusivity is important. I’m an all-out ally having recently been at the forefront of the push to get Brunswick Baths to include a third gender option on their gym forms and I’ve written blog posts on transgender issues under the guidance of transgender friends. So, I’m no one-eyed bigot flailing around with her gender privilege on one side and white privilege on the other. But it leaves me wondering whether women with vaginas will become the new silenced majority in favour of those whose womanhood doesn’t include one (constructed or otherwise). Why does it always have to be us or them? Riki Wilchins cautions us about the need to ‘accept a wider vision of gender’, that doesn’t create a ‘hierarchy of queerness’ in which some can be ‘more oppressed or needy than others’ and the very real divisions this can create within already marginalised groups.

Must we carry our internalised phobias with us and project them onto each other with the kind of divisive abandon that Tony Abbott does? As a lesbian identified woman, I battle with my internalised homophobia every time I unconsciously leave the gender of my lover out of conversation. I wage war with my internalised sexism each time I make silly assumptions that a colleague mentioned in conversation is male. All this even though I have spent almost two decades learning and teaching about gender and sexuality.

All women are subject to marginalisation no matter their class, race, sexuality, gender identity, religion or ability. The gender pay gap in Australia has risen to an all-time high of 18.8% or $298.10 per week in many workplaces, except for traditionally female-dominated ones. Men still occupy the majority of the positions of power, even at institutions like the University of Melbourne, where I work, which actively teaches against and seeks to negate patriarchal privilege. Transgender women do experience more discrimination than biological women, but all women experience it.

Broader conceptualisations of what ‘woman’ is and what they can be are sorely needed, but that doesn’t include throwing the biologically female or surgical constructed baby out with the bathwater. In the words of transfeminist activist Julia Serano, ‘To believe that a woman is a woman because of her sex chromosomes, reproductive organs or socialisation denies the reality that every single day, we classify each person we see as either female or male based on a small number of visual cues and a ton of assumptions. The one thing that women share is that we are all perceived as women and treated accordingly.’