TERF

I think this is very interesting and important to talk about.
So feminine body language is actually restricted body language.
Is there anything typically feminine that involves taking up a lot of space with your body/voice?

I've only become aware of it in the last few years as my consciousness has been raised about it tbh.

I sometimes catch myself using really deferential body-language around men, which I don't use around women. And they don't even notice I'm doing it, they take it as their right. (And neither do I till I catch myself.) What I find fascinating about this is how gendered basic things like movement are - things you would think are innate, because they're so normal, but no, we learn how to sit, stand, walk. I remember round about the age of 11 ish the policing of my body language started - don't sit like that, don't walk like that etc. Boy's body language doesn't get policed like that. Women's body movements start being restricted when we reach puberty and by the time we're adults, we've internalised the restrictions and they come naturally to us and we don't notice them. Women who don't use feminised body language stand out and are noticeable. And disapproved of by men.

I think it's partly the male gaze, that sense of intrusion by a stranger who has been socialised to appraise and rate me in terms of my sexual acceptability. I resent it in mixed changing areas (same way I resent men flicking their eyes up and down my body when they talk to me), but as all of us do, I adapt to it and find ways to avoid the intrusion and accept that it's part of being in a mixed changing area. You wouldn't be in the same mind frame if you thought you were in a same sex area, so the need to suddenly start adapting the way you do in the company of men, would be a huge intrusion.

Women's space is different from mixed - ie male - space.

Men are trained to take up space, to own space. If we look at how they sit, stand, walk, where they feel dominant they take up more space and where they do not feel dominant (like being with senior men, older men, richer men etc.) they take up less space. This is probably also true of women. When we are in spaces with each other, we are more comfortable in those spaces as we feel we have an equal right to occupy them. We move differently in them.

When we're with men, we shrink ourselves, we keep out of their way, we defer to them and they don't even notice we're doing it (and actually most of the time we don't either, it's so internalised that it's automatic). When men aren't around, we relax in the space.

Knowing there may be someone around who calls himself a woman but has a penis and has been socialised to appraise me, would mean that there is one less space in the world where I'm allowed to feel safe, comfortable and to own the space on an equal basis with the other users of the space.

Buffy, you might find what Sheila Jeffreys and Julie Bindel have to say, on trans politics, interesting. Good luck with your diagnosis.

[[https://senate.aph.gov.au/submissions/comittees/viewdocument.aspx?id=571cefa9-9b5d-4727-8df0-c6bfdfa9add7 Submission to the public consultation on the Human
Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill]]

Transgender Activism: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective

www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/2298/full

Comment on harmful practices: the transgendering of children as a harmful emerging practice in Australia

Allowing Alex's sex change shows up a gender-biased Family Court

Gok Wan had nothing on this guy, he was horrible. Such a massive twat.

Is it male gaze that we are talking about here? I'm not saying that as in men-looking-at-women per se but in the politics of who looks at whom and in what context? That's certainly at play when I'm thinking about why I don't want gay men or straight men in my changing room, not because of sex and desire so much as the politics of looking, the problem of subject/ object relationships and the way that is gendered. Not sure where that leaves transwomen?

OMG he wasn't Gok Wan was he?

Yes you're quite right.

I guess I'm thinking in terms of coercive sexual situations which starts off with chatting up, intruding on personal space etc. But that may be totally invalid and you're right, I have met gay men who are all over women treating them in a way they wouldn't tolerate from a straight man and using that thing of being gay, as a carte blanche to overstep boundaries.

No, I don't think we should be providing these various groups access to women only space.

Not sure I like the idea that gay men are somehow less threatening just because it implies that sexual violence and intimidation is about desire and not control. I've met a horribly, entitled-to-female-body gay guy, he was like a prototype Trinny and Susannah, all grabbing boobs and commenting on clothes.

I think oogling etc is about power and entitlement and not about actual desire

That is true of a gay man in a man's changing room.

He too is not safe from male violence.

Should we provide gay men with a refuge from men by inviting them into our naked spaces as well?

It makes at least as much sense, possibly more. A gay man is not interested in women sexually. A transwoman with a penis who claims she is a lesbian and has been socialised to think sex is her right, may be. The gay man might be preferable in terms of feeling safe.

However, I don't really see why women's safety should be compromised for the sake of men or those who say they are women but grimly hang on to their penises.

God this is so hard, this discussion.

I don't want to share my naked spaces with people with penises. Am I like, terrified of penises? I'm pretty certain Germaine Greer writes scathingly on this. But I'm also sure she's not saying, get into my sauna with me, pantrans women.

At the same time, I'm fairly certain that if I were a transwoman I'd be pretty terrified of hetrosexual males, who are horribly violent towards people who in some perceived way undermine masculinity. I would not want to be a transwoman in a male changing room.

God this is so hard, this discussion.

I don't want to share my naked spaces with people with penises. Am I like, terrified of penises? I'm pretty certain Germaine Greer writes scathingly on this. But I'm also sure she's not saying, get into my sauna with me, pantrans women.

At the same time, I'm fairly certain that if I were a transwoman I'd be pretty terrified of hetrosexual males, who are horribly violent towards people who in some perceived way undermine masculinity. I would not want to be a transwoman in a male changing room.

I think there are right-wing women who find it more acceptable to believe the "born in the wrong body" rather than accept gender non-conformity, and especially more acceptable than homosexuality.

The irony is, it's the women who call themselves feminists who support them.

I presume right wing women don't give house-room to this nonsense?

On an individual level, it makes no difference if a man declares himself as a woman and dresses in particular ways. I am a great believer in the principle that if someone is doing no one any harm, they should be allowed to live as they want.

It only becomes an issue in women only spaces, for example communal showers with pre op MtoF who have penises. Or when it comes to feminism and we are told that we should be focussing on Trans issues.

Most MtoF simply get on with their lives. It is a small but very vocal minority who cause lots of problems. And they can only do so because they are supported by women.

Buffy good luck with your diagnosis

It's a difficult issue and it's made more difficult because a lot of people are clearly suffering and need solutions for the problems they face.

liberationcollective.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/a-feminist-critique-of-cisgender/

sexnotgender.com/2013/09/23/if-transwomen-are-women-then-what-does-being-a-woman-mean/

I really like both these articles around the issue.

Elizabeth Hungerford who wrote these articles also co runs a facebook group that brings Trans people and radical feminists together, to help build bridges. You don't have to join to read it. I have found it interesting to read how there are some Trans people who don't agree with the dominant view either.

Just not in the UK but in some parts of the US and Canada you can. Not sure about other countries.

Basil I've heard seemingly rational people say that it wouldn't happen, because of the stigma associated with being trans and especially that men would not give up their elevated status as men "just" to access women's spaces. Of course, they wouldn't be giving up anything because everyone can see, using the eyes on their heads, that they are men and they would continue to be treated as men for every purpose.

It seems to me if I believed that (which I don't) I would not want to remove the stigma associated with being trans because that would be dangerous for women.

To be clear, I don't want trans people to be stigmatised nor discriminated against, but as a feminist I'm going to put women first.

Basil it's not just marginal loons. This is very real in the US and Canada and the political basis of it is gaining ground here.