Collective Memory and the Transfeminist 1970s

Abstract

Abstract As we witness a resurgence of white supremacy and fascism and the emergence of new, transformative justice movements, this article encourages a more mixed-up understanding of 1970s feminisms. Many historians have offered nuanced ways of narrating trans and feminist pasts that compel us to consider processes of exclusion past and present. Yet it seems that historians had barely begun to scratch the surface of 1970s feminist history before an ever-evolving set of binary characterizations started to eclipse feminisms' multivocal and multivalent complexities. How did “1970s feminism” enter collective memory as an exclusionary thing distinct from the experiences, labor, and critiques by feminists of color and trans and queer people of the same era? And why, when existing nuanced narratives might invite us to deeper analysis, are stories of exclusion and abjection so magnetic? More to the point, how might we highlight the mixings in the past and envision a less polarized present?