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Meet the transgender activist who called Caitlyn Jenner a 'fraud,' had 'healing' interview with Rose McGowan
Ashlee Marie Preston (Photo: Ashlee Marie Preston/Quinn Lemmers for Yahoo Lifestyle)
To mark the International Day of the Woman on March 8 and Womenâs History Month, Yahoo Lifestyle is exploring notions of feminism and the womenâs movement through a diverse series of profiles â from transgender activist Ashlee Marie Preston to conservative campus leader Karen Agness Lips â that aim to reach across many aisles.Â
You may know transgender feminist activist Ashlee Marie Preston as the one who publicly called out Caitlyn Jenner in a video that went viral in 2017.
âYouâre a f***ing fraud,â Preston told her, as Jenner â a frequent target of anger within the LGBT community because of her GOP sympathies â moved away from Preston, who had approached the celeb in the audience following a Trans Chorus of L.A. event.
In hindsight, that moment feels like âan unfortunate experience,â says the activist â who has since made a name for herself by having served as editor in chief of the feminist publication Wear Your Voice; by snagging Rose McGowan for an hour-long âhealingâ interview on her Revry podcast, Shook, following her well publicized run-in with an angry transgender audience member in NYC; and for announcing her run for office in California (though she soon dropped out of the race).
Preston has mixed feelings over that viral moment with Jenner, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle, because of how she felt a bit like an appointed âattack dogâ by some â particularly as a black woman. âIt was very similar to the way that America celebrated black women in Alabama when they showed up and blocked Roy Moore,â she explains. âPeople will often weaponize black rage when itâs convenient for them.â
The interaction also wound up overshadowing the âloving, healing, proactive, supportive unifying contributionsâ Preston says she had made as an activist over the past dozen years, and did not show her âdepth.â
To that point, she says, âPeople were blown away with the Rose McGowan interview, because they thought I was going to come in and rip her to shreds and show off. And what they found is that weâre not perfect, and we canât ask people to hear us and see us if we canât see other people.â
With the Jenner video, though, âThere were people who felt that it was a publicity stunt or that it was divisive â âOh [Jenner is] a trans woman, we should embrace her, stop this infighting.â But itâs not infighting if you were never in. The thing people failed to recognize is [she is] someone who is benefiting and profiting off of the pain of others,â she says. âThereâs a quote by Zora Neale Hurston: âAll kinfolk ainât kinfolk,â meaning just because people are African-American does not mean they are working toward the betterment of the African-American community. And so my own version of that is: Everybody LGBTQ ainât always for you.â
The run-in did serve to highlight the complexities of identity politics within the womenâs movement, she says, as well as kick off a conversation that needed to happen â regarding how members of oppressed communities, as they finally achieve some power, will often too easily shut the door in the faces of those who still need lifting up.
The best way to combat misogyny is to not allow it to control our narrativeâŚâĄď¸ . . . . . . . . #unity #rosemcgowan #healing #growth #resist #kisses #solidarity #womenshistorymonth #women #feminism #feminist #trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #gay #lesbian #bi #losangeles #pic #picoftheday #daily #instagood #instadaily #rosemcgowan #truth #metoo #timesup #hollywood
A post shared by Ashlee Marie Preston (@ashleemariepreston) on Mar 6, 2018 at 10:49am PST
 âWhen [Jenner] came up, all of a sudden, now not all, but a great deal of white trans women, were at the top of the food chain, and they werenât being respectful ⌠and basically sided with Caitlyn. They were even saying borderline racist things,â she says, âand what we found was the same dynamic shift that happened when gay rights became a thing, and gay white men forgot about the lesbians that fought for them during the AIDS epidemic.â
Of those who came out against Preston after the Jenner video went viral, she says, âIronically, they were hoping to benefit from Caitlyn Jenner, and were OK with the crumbs that fall from the table. But what is the generation behind us going to eat?â
A similar logic could be applied to conservative women who believe that feminism can and should be expanded beyond the realm of its original progressive roots. Itâs an argument Preston isnât buying.
âFeminism is about improving the quality of life for all women. And if youâre not actively dismantling racism, not actively dismantling discrimination based on class and economic position, you are part of the problem, and youâre benefiting from the oppression of other women,â she says. âTherefore, as a conservative woman who is supporting those who work against those interests, you cannot be a feminist.â
She adds, âI think itâs one of those things where, if youâre not careful, you actually promulgate the very things weâre working against.â
That goes for some progressive women within the feminist movement too.
âAs women, weâre not a monolithic people. So I think what itâs really about is giving people space to express their identities and their experiences, and when we look at it with that understanding, it really creates more unity,â she says. âMaybe it was a lot easier to define feminism in the â60s and â70s, because black women still didnât have voices. ⌠And I think what often happens is we forget that there are identities that carry more privilege within the womenâs movement â and what happens is sometimes the experiences of women of color and trans women tend to be put to the back. Thereâs a lot of myopia.â
With more radical feminists, Preston says, and women who cannot bear the idea of transgender women in a female âsafe space,â they feel âthat trans women pollute it,â and someone born with a certain [male] privilege canât possibly know oppression.
âWe push back against that and say, not only do we know what thatâs like, but we also have to deal with transphobia on top of it, we also have to deal with racism on top of it,â she says. âWeâre not saying that cisgender women donât have struggles that theyâre born into â weâre just saying we also have struggles that weâre born into, and this isnât a choice and this isnât a gimmick and itâs not a way to insert the patriarchy into feminist spaces. Itâs a way for us to actually come together and really demonstrate what it means to be inclusive of the experiences of all women.â
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Tamika Mallory of the Womenâs March is a fan of Louis Farrakhan, and people are outraged
Trump-loving women protest the Womenâs March: âA feminist is someone who is kind of hatefulâ
Faces of Power to the Polls, the Las Vegas Womenâs March: âOur voices are finally being heardâ
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#women's history month#_author:Beth Greenfield#_revsp:yahoo_lifestyle_wellness__643#feminism#caitlyn jenner#_draft:true#_uuid:c8b61721-3545-30c6-bf6d-d54c7c8f1720#LGBT#transgender#ashlee marie preston#_lmsid:a0Vd000000AE7lXEAT#_category:yct:001000395
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