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Feminism: Sex & gender discussions

When did the dialogue change?

61 replies

Whatonearth07957 · 18/05/2021 18:38

Feel I have to pre-empt this by saying absolutely everyone should not be discriminated against for sex and gender. But when did it get accepted that women's sex based rights should be eroded. I watched Sky news need this morning and zero challenge to the assertion trans were the most marginalised group. Surely there can be a 3rd way approach that protects women only spaces that are based on safety? I just don't get why this is controversial and you are somehow an evil zealot to be concerned about this. It seems as though all dialogue is completely polarised. I'm second guessing myself but with consent and safety measures adaption is possible but not if concerns can't be reasonably addressed?

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Manderleyagain · 18/05/2021 19:20

It's been a long time developing, but I think an awful lot changed and it became unquestionable between 2012ish and 2017. That would be my guess. But I think we all realised something's up at different times. Some people realised what was coming before then.

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Whatonearth07957 · 18/05/2021 19:42

I only really became aware after the aggression from JK Rowling's essay. It seems so unnecessarily angry and designed to terrify anyone from asking straightforward questions about how best to protect *women and you can't even seem to distinguish that word anymore.

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Blackopal · 18/05/2021 19:46

Creeping in for years with it escalating madly in the last seven, I think.
When was the Spartacus thread? That was around the time people started to take notice for many.

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ZuttZeVootEeeVro · 18/05/2021 19:50

But when did it get accepted that women's sex based rights should be eroded.

When it became legal to change sex on a birth certificate?

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Whatonearth07957 · 18/05/2021 20:13

Birth certificate? Is that even possible? Clearly I know very little and there's not much I can do other than vote but no one discusses anything anymore. Its Piers Morgan identifying as a penguin or rabid aggression. I feel sorry for lesbians as the most marginalised group.

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Childrenofthestones · 18/05/2021 20:29

Maybe when Zuby, to prove the point, self declared himself female to take the women's snatch and clean world record, then promptly self declared himself male again.

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Ereshkigalangcleg · 18/05/2021 20:44

I'm reading the Transsexual Empire by Janice Raymond, right now. It was published in 1979 and then republished in 1994. The same dynamics were there, out of the mainstream. It's free to read, on her website.

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Lemmen · 18/05/2021 21:43

It changed after Stonewall did I think.

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FrankButchersDickieBow · 18/05/2021 21:46

Transwoman most marginalised and vulnerable in society.

Transwomen killed in the last year = 0
Biological women killed in the last year = 2 a WEEK minimum.

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FrankButchersDickieBow · 18/05/2021 21:51

Should have stated, my comment above applies to the UK

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OneEpisode · 18/05/2021 22:15

In the UK Stonewall became a trans charity (Theoretically also LGB) in 2015.

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AnotherLass · 18/05/2021 23:20

I think that it was a long time rumbling away in the background but then it exploded exponentially since about 2015. That was when Stonewall got in on the act, but I don't want to attribute too much to Stonewall because exactly the same thing happened in many other countries at the same time.

The difficult question is - why did it spread everywhere at this particular point in time? Maybe the Internet, but it has spread in non-English speaking countries as well.

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Bluefinger · 18/05/2021 23:25

I'd say about 2015 like others, that was the time frame it became a thing here.

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Waitwhat23 · 18/05/2021 23:33
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Whatonearth07957 · 18/05/2021 23:38

www.spectator.co.uk/article/mps-are-finally-engaging-with-the-gender-identity-debate hopefully this will start to change soon if more speak out but cancel culture means most will keep our heads down 😓

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stumbledin · 18/05/2021 23:49

This has been explored on other threads and maybe we need a sort of history archive.

It was any issue back in the 70s, but in the euphoria of Women's Liberation when things seemed(!) to be moving towards women's autonomous rights, I dont think anyone thought trans identity would be anything other than a very small group.

But what we didn't take into account was the politicisation of trans issues by queer politics. This in fact is what started the trend (deliberate strategy) to erase the word sex and substitute gender. By erasing women as a biological reality and instead saying it was gender, a choice, men could no longer be accused of being the sex class oppressor of women, because sex no longer mattered.

Women's Studies became Gender Studies, and 2 or even 3 generations of students were educated (brainwashed) into the thought process of gender identity and individual rights over collective rights. These students then moved into the media, politics, education - and campaign groups. (The editor of the Guardian says queer politics informs every decision she takes.)

When Women's Liberation fell apart after the National Conference in Birmingham the grassroots networking and sharing of information and joint campaigning also stopped. But queer activism didn't.

Queer activists actively practiced entryism into areas of influence. The real power isn't the networks that are named and seen. They are the private networks, in much the same way that Men's Clubs probablly had more power than Parliament.

Fast forward a few years / decades and you get the culmination of this lobbying resulting in the GRA. And this is the lynch pin that has undermined women's rights. Because even though everyone knows it isn't actually possible, you could get a certificate to say you had changed your sex.

So while we (women) were all asleep or still nursing our grudges since Birmingham trans activists, actively supported by MRAs were infiltrating everywhere. Reallly important to remember how convenient the trans arguement is for MRAs.

One veryimportant tool for them was language. Newspaper no longer reported someone's sex but their gender. Prostitutes became "sex workers". The later woke rainbow haired militants are effectively the grandchildren of those early queer activists.

Not being rude but mumsnet was quite late to the growing catastrophe. But, not just because of the individual input, it because one of the few, or possibly only place where women could openly discuss the threat to women as a sex class by the GRA. So that when the consultation was announced (with MPs and queer activists convinced they would get self identity enshrined and sex deleted as a protected characteristic) MN FWR was hugely important in creating the groundswell against what was about to happen.

And since then, amazed that anyone had not fallen for their analysis the whole trolling, threatening, silencing, banning, of gender critical politics started an all out war on women. And because they were so well entrenched by now in so many places of influence, there basically was only mumsnet providing a platform for women.

So this isn't just about the influence of Stonewall who as an organisation have grown because of the pervading influence of queer politics ie why would they (apart from the money) change an organisation created to protect people who were same sex attracted suddenly start campaigning for people who said sex wasn't real.

If you have the time listen to Selina Todd talk about how queer politics spread its tenticles and created the ground work for trans activists.

As someone said at the time it was ironic that a socialist feminist historian was confirming 40 years later what radical feminists were saying / warning at the time it started. ie Janice Raymond.

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DisillusionedTech · 18/05/2021 23:57

I remember commenting around 2004 that a trans colleague seemed to have a 1950s view of womanhood. However at the time I thought they were an outlier in terms of having that view and trying to impose it on me

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stonecat · 19/05/2021 00:05

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Thecatonthemat · 19/05/2021 00:30

Really useful history Stumbledin to remind us oldies of what happened way back ,but also for younger sisters who are new to this. But for years in the eighties and nineties women and lesbian groups were disrupted and destroyed over these men’s presence and entryism. In the early 2000s when the T was more or less added to the LGB without our consent was just continued colonisation .

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safeornotsafe · 19/05/2021 01:37

I would've said the most marginalised group are the disabled but they're so marginalised they're basically invisible.

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NiceGerbil · 19/05/2021 04:50

I think it's about the tagging onto other groups. Taking their arguments and ideas and twisting them.

LBG obviously
Feminism
Anti racism
DSD groups

Over and over the arguments made by these groups are twisted and thrown back at those who came up with them. The language as well. In such blatantly offensive ways.

Assigned at birth. Very relevant to those with DSDS. Repurposed to make sex in general guesswork. Fallibie. As if all the women who give birth without midwives docs present would have no idea of the sex of the baby.

A feminist one is. Women don't need to look like this or that. We can look and dress how we want etc.
Becomes. If someone is 6'4 with male body shape, a beard and wears standard male clothes. To assume they're not a woman is awful! Policing how women look is s tool of the patriarchy...
Etc etc

It's shit.

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CrazyNeighbour · 19/05/2021 05:23

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EdgeOfACoin · 19/05/2021 05:40

I started noticing a lot of TV programmes and news reports about trans children in 2014. For me, as a non-academic who runs in not-especially-woke circles, 2014 is the year when trans issues became mainstream.

However, it is only this year when I've seen pronouns being used in people's signatures as work (as opposed to on Twitter or Instagram).

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WarriorN · 19/05/2021 06:49

@stumbledin do you know when this happened?

Women's Studies became Gender Studies, and 2 or even 3 generations of students were educated (brainwashed) into the thought process of gender identity and individual rights over collective rights

I know two people in the area, about 5 years apart. One is noticeably more GC than the other. Who is GC but has had to teach GS at uni and so can give the other side. Eldest is now 49.

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WarriorN · 19/05/2021 06:50

(Great post too btw)

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