Following on from the TERF thread...

TiggyD it must be great to be in the group who get to do the defining and who get to be entirely dismissive of a group of women's extremely thoughtful, profound and painful analysis of themselves and their existence as; "Garbage In - Garbage Out".

I'm sick of this idea that the vast majority of transwomen are shrinking violets who just want a peaceful life and who are 100% respectful of bio females, totally, always (even when they are imitating us and fetishizing our oppression and enjoying putting on the shackles of femininity) and that it is only a tiny fringe of extremists who are the problem.

I have been reading stuff written by transwomen for years on various threads, blogs, articles, etc for years, plus talking to transwomen in real life through volunteer work I do with prostitutes. With only a few notable exceptions they have all shown; male entitlement, the ubiquitous obliviousness to that male entitlement, exertion of male privilege and an expectation of female cooperation with anti-female gender identity bullshit and get a tendency to become angry/upset/distressed/gaslighty/rapey/emotionally manipulative/aggressive/threatening/sulky/guilt trippy/suicidal/narcissistic ragey/abusive/domineering etc if that cooperation is not forthcoming or not doormatty enough.

In other words, they act just like men as a class. Which isn't terribly surprising is it really.

To be fair I have had some very interesting and mutually respectful discussions/disagreements too but not many compared to the discussions I have had that follow the above schema.

Now TiggyD it is great that you have lovely trans friends and have nice days out with them. But you are a man and you don't actually need to care very much about any of this because it doesn't affect your (already limited) human rights and your status as not quite human (this is reserved for women you see). You have the buffer of being in the dominant class - which to my mind makes it pretty goddamn cheeky of you to tell us what to think or what is or is not "garbage".

Your "garbage" is my rights, status, existence and humanity.

allhail and Beach well put.

We must engage in delusion, we must use double think, we have to submit to gaslighting and a positively Orwellian worldview that we can see to be patently false because we know who we are and it is not how we are defined in male dominated gender culture.

Exactly this. A huge lie is being constructed around us, that there is no material reality of being a woman, and it is being demanded that we not only say nothing about this lie but that we positively affirm our belief in it. I would like to have confidence in society that as this issue becomes publicly discussed, people will see the lie and reject it. However history makes me pessimistic about this. I can imagine when foot-binding first started in China, women must have thought that this could not take hold. I'm sure they would have been beyond despair at the thought it would last 800 years. It is very worrying that children are being raised with this gender dystopic nonsense.

Some things I don't care about:

• what transwomen are thinking inside their own heads but not expressing in public dialogue or activism

• whether random men on t'internet care about what I think.

Some things I do care about:

• women being attacked and abused for defining their own sexual boundaries

• women's rights and safe spaces being eroded to benefit

• focussing feminism on women.

Every other minority or oppressed group has extremists and they also have moderate voices. Even when the extremist voices are picked up in the mainstream press (e.g. the Daily Mail), the moderate voices will be picked up in other press and usually it is the moderate voices who are given the serious airtime / platform (e.g. Guardian, Times, Question Time etc). With transactivism, these people you say are extremists with extreme views are the only voices being heard, they are the ones popping up in the Guardian, the New Statesman and liberal feminist blogs. They are also the same as the views heard IRL activism (with actual talking out loud to other people) around issues such as communal space policies. I don't care if these are not representative of what other transwomen think. These are the voices which are affecting women and they can't simply be brushed off as extremists.

I think you have got to the crux of it allhailqueenmab.

Women are defined by men and that definition exists to validate manhood.

What defines women is decided by men. And what men want us to be is determined by what they want themselves to be.

And that is why feminists are angry with trans politics. Because we are yet again being defined by and for men in order for men to construct a definition of themselves which suits them.

It is deeply patriarchal and profoundly misogynistic. Plus we are being told that the small amount of space that is grudgingly allotted to us is up for grabs to any man who wants to be in it. And we are privileged bigots when we object to no longer having any space or sanctuary free from those who oppress, abuse, exploit, dominate and define us. And we must also participate in the male fantasy that we don't actually really materially exist in any meaningful way or in a way founded on a female perspective, on self-determination. We must embrace our own disappearance because a small group of men want to have our very selves. We must engage in delusion, we must use double think, we have to submit to gaslighting and a positively Orwellian worldview that we can see to be patently false because we know who we are and it is not how we are defined in male dominated gender culture.

Reminds me of this dworkin quote;

“The essence of oppression is that one is defined from the outside by those who define themselves as superior by criteria of their own choice.”

Flora"tiggy are you serious or do you perhaps not realise how condescending that post is?

I'm not interested in collecting a group of token trans friends so I can brag about how cool I am. I'm interested in real friends and feminism. The type that puts women first. I couldn't give a fuck what trans people think about skateboards."

I'm suggesting that if you only read the stuff written by extremists about their extreme views on the subject you're hardly going to get an idea about who/what trans people are. And if I know your views are based the rantings of idiots who don't represent they people who they purport to speak for, why should I care less what you think on the subject?

The computer term GIGO applies. Garbage In - Garbage Out.

You didn't mean to post twice, that was the patriarchy at work, DT.

But - have you really stopped asking women out? Women you know?

Obviously I meant to post twice. :o

On top of that, being a man, you have never experienced the same level of threat that biological women have experienced. In fact, you are a threat. And women will treat you that way, for our own safety.

I picked that out of a brilliant post by CaillinDana not because I disagree, but because it's true. I've stopped asking women out since I started reading MN because I don't want to be the cause of a woman's discomfort.

On top of that, being a man, you have never experienced the same level of threat that biological women have experienced. In fact, you are a threat. And women will treat you that way, for our own safety.

I picked that out of a brilliant post by CaillinDana not because I disagree, but because it's true. I've stopped asking women out since I started reading MN because I don't want to be the cause of a woman's discomfort.

This is what I think you think, Kim.

• That cis privilege greatly outweighs male privilege
• That feminists who place greatest importance on the liberation of women, as opposed to being sensitive to trans women, are wrong and unkind
• That everyone should be more concerned about making trans women feel better than anything else, as they are “top victims” in the victim hierarchy (a misunderstood notion I don’t hold, but ascribe to you, because you keep telling us how bad your victim hood is as an argument towards how right you are)
• Which means that trans women of all kinds should be fully integrated into all existing female spaces; and any attempts, for whatever reason, by women to retreat and separate themselves from transwomen with penises, are unkind and damaging as they cast doubt on the womanhood of transwomen, which is a very great injury to do to transwomen, greater or more important than any other real or potential injury to anyone else

What really bothers me about this position – whether or not Kim holds it, I may of course be wrong and am guessing, but some transwomen hold it – is the fourth part. What gets me about this is not that we should all be sensitive to transwomen, of course we should. But that the way that women must do this is to make themselves absolutely available – their spaces and communities must not just not be offensive but must be actively open and available with no further space to retreat to. This is exactly the lot of women through history under patriarchy. Hate us if you must; laugh at us if you must; but that we must be simultaneously hated, laughed at and always willingly available, offering ourselves up to the abuse is what is so difficult.

If men really hate us and they do - why don’t they leave us alone? I used to think. I understand it better now: that masculinity depends upon femininity for its very existence; that women exist in society in a certain way vis a vis men is a huge part of how they define themselves, and for some, what makes life worth living (barely an exaggeration).

And this being-available-as-an-instrument-for-someone-else’s-gender-identity is what is happening here. It isn’t enough not to insult transwomen, to use correct pronouns and so on. We have to be willingly passively available, as a group, as a class, as a community, to make sense of that person’s gender identity – for that person, it is as if we exist entirely to perform that role. As if: the individuals who make up the class “women” exist, in a particularly gendered way in society, in order to be a body that the transwoman can be part of and thereby define herself.

I sometimes feel as if, for Kim, the Feminist section exists for her to demand full acceptance into it, and thereby validate herself, rather than as a bunch of posters who may or may not agree with her and have all their own personal and political agendas; and all the terrible hurt she feels is because, by failing to do so, we have just not done our job.

Kim, if you start a support thread, support is what you will get.

Kim, you said

"I have my opinions - but I know what will happen. In truth, I'm scared to air them because of the response."

(this is very similar to what I remember you saying on the other thread - so there is no point in telling people to go there to find out what you think)

Can I just say that this attitude is actually making things more hurtful to you than they need to be, not less.

If you come out and state your views, clearly, even if they are anti-rad-fem, we will all have to respect you, even if some posters argue with you.

If you deliberately refrain from stating them, even as you know what they are in your own head, then you are making everything personal. You are putting yourself in a position where you feel disliked instead of disagreed with.

You are also making it hard for everyone to respect you or your position, because you won't say what it is. It makes you look vague, inconsistent and whiny.

Here is what I said on the other thread:

• Just go and start a support thread, it can be all about you and no one will argue with you on it.

• Stop trying to make threads that are feminist threads about trans issues into support threads for kim.

• you actually want to discuss trans issues with feminists, including radical feminists, in which case just come out and say what you think and stand by it.

Kim you are right that many discussions of gender politics on here end up the same way - they end up being rather a lot about Kim.

If you are sick and tired of repeating the same things to the point that it causes you distress, perhaps you should stop causing yourself that distress.

Gender politics is a class issue. We all have a right to discuss it and we have the right to discuss it in a trans critical manner if we see fit. Doing so is not a personal attack on you Kim.

I think generally on here it is understood that there are basically two sorts of threads; support threads/threads about an individual's issues, and general discussion/analysis threads. It can be silencing when a poster posts stuff about individual distress on an analysis thread because most people don't want others to be distressed. Especially when we are women because we are socialised to be caring of others and to not prioritize ourselves. We are also socialized to think that we must express ourselves in ways that don't rock the boat or cause upset, particularly to men/males/male bodied people/people who are not female.

I doubt there are many (indeed any) posters who would be crass enough to post class analysis or radical feminist views on a support thread for a trans person who started an individual thread about transgenderism with regards to them and their personal distress, issues and difficulties.

On the other hand it is silencing when an individual insists that their personal distress be a major factor in how a political/analysis/general discussion thread may or may not be framed.

I sincerely doubt that a transman attempting to do the above in a male dominated space would be given much attention or accommodated. But then that dynamic is so much less likely to occur than the other way round...

I don't really understand why we are moving from what trans activists are thinking and doing to what trans women are thinking and doing.

Surely the people who are harming women in this situation are trans activists as a group?