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Womanhood is an organising mode through which societies are hierarchised/policed. Saying that under white supremacy, BW are positioned outside the category of "woman" isn't a denial of our personhoods. It's an analysis of the violence enacted against us in the name of "womanhood"
These categories are not empty of meaning. They're dominant ways through which exceptional violence has been made possible against BW. Stolen maternity under slavery & colonialism, forced sterilisation & everyday misogynoir characterise how "womanhood" is leveraged against us.
Whether you *personally*, as a cis woman, are redefining womanhood for yourself is really by the by. We're talking about structures of violence, not individual engagements with femininity.
We're talking about the impossibility of being inaugurated into a category that was constructed *to legitimise our subjection*. We're talking about how we abolish the terms of that subjection.
For someone's womanhood to be seen as "legitimate", someone else has to reside outside that category. We have been the ones who have been subjected to brutality to legitimise what it means to be a woman.
Lives are on the line here. Black non-binary people and Black trans women are speaking about the spectacular violence that is directed their way and how cis BW also enforce/uphold these logics in order to police a category that is also violent against us.
"Womanhood", as a dominant category under white supremacist patriarchy, was never meant to house us. It can't be rehabilitated to sooth your feelings or because you want to "redefine" it within the scope of your personal life. You cannot opt out at will. You can only dismantle it
