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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

New Trans thread as requested by HQs.

605 replies

oilfilledlamp · 17/04/2012 22:49

Please forgive the intrusion but I've been out tonight and only recently got back. I wanted to respond to MadWomanintheattic earlier when she posted

"If I were an mtf trans (pre op or post op) the last place I'd want to fetch up is in a women's refuge, because of the potential for making other people feel ill at ease. But nothing is clear cut, really.

How often does this happen, really? Has there been any research into prevalence and motivation?

OP posts:
Nyac · 17/04/2012 23:46

Kimberley Nixon was oppressor. Why would you take Kimberley's view on anything or expect anybody else to?

Nyac · 17/04/2012 23:45

Well it's written by Gwendoline Allison, Bull, Housser & Tupper LLP and Professor Christine Boyle, University of British Columbia School of Law, not VRR people.

madwomanintheattic · 17/04/2012 23:45

Yy. Unless you are the someone who is prepared to do desperate things for equality. I can see the difference. But I'm equally sure Kimberley Nixon would see a parallel.

Nyac · 17/04/2012 23:44

Mind you F4J also liken themselves to the suffragettes.

It was the one area white middle class men couldn't claim any foothold in whatsoever - being victims of oppression. So they had to invent some for themselves.

madwomanintheattic · 17/04/2012 23:43

Yy, sorry, read the RR account now. Their account naturally differs slightly from the legal summary. I don't like the 'no logical or scientific ' basis for their beliefs line though. I can understand why they left it out of their account.

Nyac · 17/04/2012 23:43

An XY person attacking a women's rape relief centre and dragging them through the court for years, is not like women fighting for our right to vote.

The former is an oppressive act, the other is part of women's fight for freedom.

madwomanintheattic · 17/04/2012 23:41

I think the judge realised perfectly well what her agenda was, which is why he ruled in favour of RR. She was already working as a rape crisis counsellor in an organisation that accepted mtf, so her targeting RR was absolutely and solely as a political move. I can see why you'd do something like that but I can equally see why the judge found it reprehensible in this context.

MooBaaWoofCheep · 17/04/2012 23:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Nyac · 17/04/2012 23:40

I'm putting this separately as it will probably be deemed "transphobic" which is appalling in itself.

I'm a rape victim. I would be horrified to be counselled about that by someone who had either previously had a penis or still had their penis. It would be extraordinarily triggering, and would say to me that no place is safe.

Nyac · 17/04/2012 23:37

Vancouver Rape Relief didn't win on a technicality. They won because Canada's Supreme Court rule that VRR were reasonable and rational in providing only born female rape counsellors for women who had been raped and that they had acted in good faith excluding Nixon from the training programme.

You have to ask why someone would target a rape crisis centre operating on a shoestring budget to demand their "rights" in this instance. Rights that the court ruled did not in fact eixst.

Here's a link:

www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/learn/resources/vancouver-rape-relief-society-v-nixon-2005-bcca-601-summary-decision

I think the trans debate will get bigger and bigger unfortunately. Most people don't subscribe to the view that being a woman is a feeling or a mentality, and will be unaware that that is now the legal definition of it. As more and more of these sorts of cases appear, it will be harder and harder to justify the wholesale redefinition of "woman".

madwomanintheattic · 17/04/2012 23:37

Ach, and that 'trans almost rapist' only wanted a move to a woman's prison because he was being actively prevented from fulfilling the RLE elements of transition. Not for any other reason, so resorted to the only legal recourse available.

I have zero sympathy for anyone convicted of strangling their boyfriend or attempted rape, but to say it was an mtf trans trying to get access to a woman's prison doesn't give a clear picture. Even the fail is trying to be fair.

Pan · 17/04/2012 23:36

oil - I thought it was that case, that was referred to on the previous thread, and I know this case pretty well. Your post remains inauthentic on a few grounds re implying exhorbitant costs to NHS for example, and your claim (factually untrue) that she is fighting for a return to a male prison. You've made that up entirely.

night. no I mean, night!

Thistledew · 17/04/2012 23:36

No matter how much you love hip-hop, a black man will feel aggrieved if you claim the right to call him nigger on the basis that you have a particularly fine suntan.

oilfilledlamp · 17/04/2012 23:34

Moo No one is threatened, no more that the women who don't feel threatened by men either. I don't see what your point is. Many women with abnormal chromosomal differences do NOT like to be put into the same category as women born men, who had no chromosomal differences at birth. How very insensitive of you to lump the two together.

Phobia means an irrational fear of something insignificant.

OP posts:
madwomanintheattic · 17/04/2012 23:33

Oh Lordy, I missed the bit where he ruled in favour of Rape Relief by comparing their beliefs to religious conviction and articles of faith, such that their beliefs 'did not require logical or scientific demonstration for their validity.'

I'm not sure that's not equally problematic, tbh.

oilfilledlamp · 17/04/2012 23:29

Oh Pan, wait:

This isn't the case I was thinking of and YES !! it's a link to the daily male/fail but it illustrates my point:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1201947/Transsexual-killer-Keeping-mens-prison-violates-human-rights.html

OP posts:
madwomanintheattic · 17/04/2012 23:27

So in the initial case, Kimberley Nixon was awarded damages, and Rape Relief (the organisation that excluded her) was 'referred for sensitivity training' by the judge. And in fact, the final appeal, which RR did win, was on a technicality that questioned Nixon's motives for wanting to join the solely born women rape relief, as a political move to vindicate her status as a woman, as she left a successful job as a rape crisis counsellor in a collective that accepted mtf in order to do so. (have shortcut the interim 'experience' debate and how not for profits get around the equal accessibility rules)

Bindel's stuff looks really dated. Interesting that so much has changed since 2004 though. Or not.

Nyac · 17/04/2012 23:21

Woman used to mean "adult human female". It doesn't anymore. We haven't found out what it does mean, but it doesn't have anything to do with human biology.

MooBaaWoofCheep · 17/04/2012 23:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Pan · 17/04/2012 23:17

am also def. off to bed. Can't see this thread still in existence by sun rise.

DowagersHump · 17/04/2012 23:17

Best bit of that article, oil, is this:

"I thought the one battle we feminists won fair and square was to convince at least those left of centre that gender roles are made up. They are not real. We play at them. We develop traditional masculine or feminine traits by being indoctrinated, not because we are biologically programmed to behave in those ways.

Feminism is supposed to be based on the premise that prescriptive gender roles are a cause of women's oppression."

Indeed.

And now I'm going to bed, fully expecting this thread to be deleted in the morning too. Or just my post, for daring to quote a journalist Hmm

Nyac · 17/04/2012 23:15

It's true, as I said on the other thread, the Gender Recognition Act made men legally women if that's what they decided they were.

The 2010 Equalities Act has made it illegal for us to disagree with that or to point out that there was a prior meaning of woman that didn't rely on a man's "feeling" about himself.

There's been a political coup against women. We are now, as I've seen someone else put it, the group formerly known as women. How we define our reality now is a new question.

Pan · 17/04/2012 23:14

oil - can you do a link to that case please? I have some professional knowledge of these cases and I am doubting the authenticity of the details of your post.

Nyac · 17/04/2012 23:13

Do we really call men who rape and kill women "she" just because they say they are?

I have such a problem with that.

MooBaaWoofCheep · 17/04/2012 23:11

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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