TERF

Thanks. Loving the clarity from Beachcomber and Calmet.

One thing that I am curious about is the numbers involved here... what sort of numbers of people fall into each category?

It feels like there is a frivolity and disrespect in seeing womanhood as a state primarily associated with sexual fulfillment, whereas for some of us there is still a struggle to associate womanhood with humanity, bodily autonomy and even physical survival.

Still have nothing useful to add but am learning so much, thanks all

Excellent post, Beachcomber.

X posts with calmet who managed to say the same thing in a third of the words!

This is key - Now a significant number of those who are "identifying" as women, don't just want to get on with their lives, they also want everyone else including strangers, to recognise they are women.

We all have to join in whether we think it is a fantasy or not and when we try to cling to reality for the sake of our own sanity, safety and rights we are bigoted, transphobic, etc. (Hence TERF)

Transsexualism has been hijacked.

I support lesbian and gay people getting married. But actually I agree that that does erode the acceptance of what a Christian marriage traditionally meant. I am happy with that erosion, but I can see the point of view of those who are not.

I have a MtF trans relative and she has written so clearly about an absolute internal sense of gender, from a very early age. It seems so arrogant to contest this - yes there may very well be people who do not have absolute internal gender - they may even be a majority. But it seems wrong for me to say that "it isn't real" about anyone else's experiences.

allhailqueenmab, what you say here, IMO, highlights the pernicious difference between transsexualism and transgenderism.

Pre post moderism and queer theory, a person like your relative who struggled with 'feeling like a woman in a man's body' would take on feminine dress, take synthetic sex hormones and possibly have a 'sex change operation'. And sometimes that would make the person feel better. Ok, good that the person felt better and it isn't that big a deal if they want to 'live as a woman'. The person would be called 'a transexual' and it would be taken as said that they were a male person who imitated women/lived as a woman in order to feel better in themselves. Hormones, dress, make up, trappings of femininity would help with this attempt to 'live as a woman'. It was clear to everybody that an attempt was being made to change sex with the crude tools available - surgery, hormones, dress, etc.

It was generally accepted that you cannot actually change sex and that the crude attempt made a person feel better and more at peace with themselves, but it didn't make them actually of the other sex. Male to female transsexuals couldn't menstruate, get pregnant, didn't have ovaries, uteri and vaginas, etc so it was pretty obvious that they weren't biological females - they were transsexuals living as women.

Then, in steps GENDER. The most fundamentally patriarchal concept known to woman and man. And in steps, QUEER THEORY and POST MODERNISM. And transsexualism got a face lift - how old fashioned and boring to talk about biology and reality and sex! How essentialist! None of those concrete things matter anymore because we have gender, identity politics, agency, choice, individualism and a whole ton of bullshit about inner identity trumping physical reality to the extent that if you decide you are a woman, that makes you an actual biological female.

Enter 'transgenderism' - a concept based on a social construction i.e. something that is made up . Gender itself is not real. It is an idea, a concept, an abstraction. Gender roles exist, the gender hierarchy exists, gender stereotypes exist but gender itself is utterly made up.

Gender does not trump sex. Because sex exists and gender doesn't.

If gender trumped sex I could disappear female oppression in the snap of a finger - females would just have to declare themselves as masculine and we would never be oppressed, raped, sold, abused, controlled and subjugated due to our sex ever again. Awesome!

Except it isn't real. Gender isn't real so we cannot disappear female oppression via queering gender.

However we are supposed to accept that when men queer gender that makes them female. That makes them the same as biological females. That makes them actual females. Because, gender.

Because gender (which doesn't exist) trumps sex, trumps reality, trumps rational thinking. And, most importantly, the patriarchal notion of gender trumps the biological reality of sex only when it suits patriarchy. Gender does not trump sex when it comes to oppressing females. A female who rejects gender will still be oppressed due to her sex. Which sounds like women not having their cake and not eating it, whilst men get to have their cake and eat it, doesn't it?

But women must accept the above because it is nasty and transphobic not to. We must accept that gender trumps sex except when it doesn't. We must accept that gender trumps sex when it comes to transgenderism but it doesn't when it comes to female oppression.

So while radical feminists can have sympathy with the idea of transsexualism and feeling you are in the wrong body, we call bullshit on gender; and therefore on transgendrism. Feeling like your penis is female does not make it so. Feeling like a neovagina is a vagina does not make it so. Feeling like a neovagina is a vagina does not make it so. Feeling like you have the right to enter female safe spaces because you think that your penis is female or your neovagina makes you female, and that females must accept your 'inner gender identity' (even females who argue that gender doesn't exist) makes you a gaslighting misogynist.

I understand what you are saying about the definition of women. The reality is that years ago when a tiny number of men were saying they wanted to transition to women, this was a side issue. Most of these MtoF's had full surgery, and then tried to quietly get on with their lives. These are the classic transsexuals.

I think their feelinsg are real, I think their interpretation of what these feelings mean is wrong. But they largely got on with their lives and caused no harm to anyone.

In the last two decades there has been a struggle between transsexuals, and a new type of person calling themselves transgender. A struggle transsexuals have lost. Transsexualism was very narrowly identified, so only a small number of people were ever going to meet the criteria, and it was virtually all men. Now the Trans umbrella has widened to encompass auto gynophiliacs, MtoF who "identify" as a woman but don't want surgery, and a variety of others who are simply gender non conforming.

Now a significant number of those who are "identifying" as women, don't just want to get on with their lives, they also want everyone else including strangers, to recognise they are women. So you get situations where a MtoF with a penis wants to be able to use a women's changing room. It isn't about often about practicalities, because a separate changing room e.g. family room, will be rejected. The purpose is to get others to recognise them as a woman. This is where the issues arise, because it conflicts with the needs of women.

The second issue is about FtoM transitioning. We have very quickly went from a position were this was rare, to becoming more commonplace in lesbian communities. And unsurprisingly this is alarming to many feminists.

The third issue is "Trans" children. There is a big difference between an adult in their 20's deciding they are Trans, and parents deciding their 6 year old is Trans. That is a very alarming development and not one we should ignore. I think this is the kind of thing future generations will look back at and think WTF were we thinking.

I am so conflicted about this.

Essentially the radical feminist view seems to be to be correct and important, from a rational perspective.

YET

I have a MtF trans relative and she has written so clearly about an absolute internal sense of gender, from a very early age. It seems so arrogant to contest this - yes there may very well be people who do not have absolute internal gender - they may even be a majority. But it seems wrong for me to say that "it isn't real" about anyone else's experiences.

I think where I have to come out the other side of this, and it is uncomfortable for me to do so, is that: in general, intellectually and politically (though not personally or socially) I just don't really care about that small vocal minority of trans women. This feels wrong because in so many other cases it absolutely flies in the face of what I believe, to say that a minority don't matter because they are in a minority. So I feel very conflicted saying this, but this, for now, is where I come out, because

I feel that the way that trans discourse is inflected seems to reinforce damaging notions of strictly, sometimes almost parodically performed reactionary gender;

I think this is ultimately harmful to women and girls above all, and women and girls are whom I am primarily concerned with;

I think that there is a deep philosophical and political untruth in conflating a refusal to perform society's expectations of you on the grounds of your assigned sex and gender (hurray!) and feeling a "right" to appropriate woman-hood as a born male (get lost);

I feel this personally (as well as politically and philosophically) because my personal experience of trans women is that they have reaped the social and material benefits of being male for so long, and internalised that sense of being of the ruling class (as well as the actual material benefits that accrue to ambitious men in the work place who do not have to deal with sexism) to the extent that I feel very little in common with them. Here I am definitely on a sticky wicket politically as you can't base things on "be decent to people that queenmab feels affinity to". I recognise this;

Recognising this is what makes me doubt my position so intensely - am I just saying "I am not comfortable with this", and what has that to do with justice?;

The other logical problem I have with this is that, for instance, on gay marriage, I feel that people who object to it on the basis that it weakens the whole notion of marriage are a bit bonkers. I accept that if you hold certain religious (for instance) beliefs, you will not consider two people of the same sex to be genuinely married; but I do not get how this weakens that person's sense of "real" marriage. Here I seem to be taking the opposite view in that I am attaching a real importance to the precision and integrity of the category of "woman", and throwing in a bunch of people who don't feel they belong in "men" does have a harmful impact on the category. I need help with this idea;

It feels very unkind not to be hospitable to people who are so vulnerable to abuse and violence etc. That is my big emotional problem with this. I feel guilty, essentially. I think I feel a need to be personally as kind to everyone as I can be and yet to separate this from my view that all who may legally be called trans women are not necessarily in all senses of the word women, on a philosophical and political basis.

Phew, I am still in a muddle but feel better for putting all that down.

I highly recommend this article on FTM transitioning by Sheila Jeffreys.

FTM transsexualism and Grief

And something people don't like to talk about is the gendered nature of transgenderism.

So for example puberty blockers used on girls will generally inhibit growth thereby making a female who is likely to be smaller than men in general, even smaller than she would have been. This is clearly NOT going to make her have a more male like appearance in adulthood.

Plus, as we have already touched on, it is entirely different action for a member of the privileged class to choose to impersonate the subjugated class than it is for the subjugated to impersonate the privileged.

Plus when we add in society's high level of lesbophobia, it is no wonder that young non gender compliant women want to be men. They are not stupid they see that women are both subjugated by gender and punished for not complying and accepting our lowly status and position as a member of the sex caste.

This is a subject of great concern and one you hear little about. Notice that all the spokespeople for the trans movement are MtT. And the vast majority of the time people speak about transgenderism as though they are speaking about both males and females, when the reality is that they are generalizing on the basis of MtT issues and experiences.

I am gobsmacked that liberals, third wavers, etc generally appear oblivious to the gendered nature of transgenderism and speak about it as though it is one thing. (A bit like like how many people fail to separate homosexuality and lesbianism.)

I would hate to be a non compliant girl growing up in the current culture of pornification, queer theory, sex positivism, noeliberalism and patriarchal capitalism/consumerism. Chuck in social media, the internet and pop culture plus the backlash against the women's movement of the 70s and the erosion of the gains made by lesbians and what you get is girls rejecting femaleness. I don't blame them. But what needs rejected is gender and sexism, not femaleness. The whole thing is hideous.

Wow good job parents of that 6 yo girl, you decided to raise her according to one outdated gender role instead of the other! What century is this again?! YY Really why can't she just be allowed to be a child.

Just read this immaculate confection of social justice bullshit: "Gender-variant male, anti-terf, anti-swerf, anti-misandry."

Not anti-misogyny though? So disturbing. It's just another angle to the oppression of women, isn't it.

This is the child abuse scandal of our times. It's also rank homophobia.

Apart from the horror of giving kids drugs to block puberty, how are these kids going to cope when they are teens and have to deal with sexual health issues or accept that straight kids won't date them after years of their parents indoctrinating them?

What...
'I am six and I'm a transgender kid. I am a cool kid'

In the UK, the Gender Identity Research & Education Society claims that a school of 1,000 pupils should expect around 10 children to be gender variant to some degree.

Wtf does gender variant mean? Is it the new word for a tomboy?

Ha! At least it makes it quite clear what they'll be talking about at their meetings.
Maybe time to start another group, for people who are mainly concerned about the oppression of women.

Some great tweets from Sarah Ditum today that are relevant to this thread:

-'Just read this immaculate confection of social justice bullshit: "Gender-variant male, anti-terf, anti-swerf, anti-misandry."
-Or, translated: "Man, anti-female-only-spaces, pro-prostitution, anti-feminism." Isn't social justice vocab MAGIC.'

She's bang on the money there, I think. TERF has been eagerly adopted by MRAs because it's the most respectable way to deny women the right to meet. It's not surprising you often see it in company with other misogynist expressions.

The desire of some transpeople to be a sexualised object, AKA woman in patriarchy, is indeed both highly disturbing and extremely misogynistic. And, yeah, you do make yourself pretty unpopular if you try to discuss it. Talking about the sexual fetish element of transitioning is verboten (unless you are trans and it is your sexual fetish).

Then again it is no less taboo to talk about how some trans people seem to be rejecting bodies that abuse happened in or transmen rejecting the sexualised object status of womenhood by rejecting their femaleness. Or homosexuals not allowing themselves to be homosexual (and others not letting them).

In fact it is all taboo other than talk of an 'inner gender identity'.

donkey that being seen as a sexualised object excites them

This is an important point and one that must not be discussed, according to trans activists. Paris Lees has been published saying how it's great to be groped on a bus, etc. It's really vile and it's important to discuss why this is and how it affects women.