I've never heard of Kay Coles James before but going from what is in the article, she is expressing a concern that legally recognising the gender of trans women (but not trans men?) risks disenfranchising non-trans women further.
This is an existing concern of many, that must be discussed. I disagree strongly that recognition of trans women takes away something from other womens' rights (if nothing else because there are so few trans women), but the opinion seems to be widespread enough that it must be confronted, and by that I don't mean with knee-jerk reactions and twitter flamewars. Like, really debated. So that it can be put to rest and we can all move on to more productive debates.
But, calling someone who expresses that view a transphobe and a racist is not debating them.
This is an existing concern of many, that must be discussed. I disagree strongly that recognition of trans women takes away something from other womens' rights (if nothing else because there are so few trans women), but the opinion seems to be widespread enough that it must be confronted, and by that I don't mean with knee-jerk reactions and twitter flamewars. Like, really debated. So that it can be put to rest and we can all move on to more productive debates.
But, calling someone who expresses that view a transphobe and a racist is not debating them.