I'm just kinda bullshittin here but i feel like in the 60s and 70s there was a real ebb in the ideology of gender bioessentialism, due in no small part to the existence of a vital, radical feminist movement. i think it's been able to come back full force now because feminism in the west has been reduced to either a lifestyle brand or a thin excuse for fascism.
In many ways you're right, but even back then parts of Lesbian seperatism had shitty, shitty takes. Janice Raymond was openly transphobic before it was cool and was ostracised from many Feminist spaces because of it. Dworkin had to put down Biological essentialist views as early as the late 70s (Warning, some SWERF shit here. Dworkin had some very traumatic experiences as a sex worker, and it resulted in a problematic but not entirely unsympathetic opposition to any and all sex work and pornography)
I'm just kinda bullshittin here but i feel like in the 60s and 70s there was a real ebb in the ideology of gender bioessentialism, due in no small part to the existence of a vital, radical feminist movement. i think it's been able to come back full force now because feminism in the west has been reduced to either a lifestyle brand or a thin excuse for fascism.
In many ways you're right, but even back then parts of Lesbian seperatism had shitty, shitty takes. Janice Raymond was openly transphobic before it was cool and was ostracised from many Feminist spaces because of it. Dworkin had to put down Biological essentialist views as early as the late 70s (Warning, some SWERF shit here. Dworkin had some very traumatic experiences as a sex worker, and it resulted in a problematic but not entirely unsympathetic opposition to any and all sex work and pornography)