Now the term FGM is cissexist? WTAF?

Thanks for the links. I'm not sure what I make of this whole thing. It's like an idea which sounds reasonable when applied to an individual is being tested to destruction.

In the light of that Twitter exchange it does sound like the whole thing may have been a vendetta.
As for the Twitter exchange itself, either CCP is being (understandably) excessively prickly or the student is being disingenuous, but either way, it just goes to show what a nightmare Twitter is as a place to discuss feminism.

I had to look her up, too.

Ah, didn't know about the Sarah Brown connection.

It's been suggested it was a vendetta of CUSU's members who are active in women's union. It seems also to have a great deal to do with Sarah Brown, who is a Cambridge city councillor, so it wasn't just students.

But, I do think CUSU might have felt this way on their own. I think, from looking at their website, they might well feel that someone who criticises the word 'cis' is someone who should not be allowed to speak.

I don't think that's good, but I accept they're entitled to write open letters (it'd be absurd not to).

What I do not think is ok, is the way I have heard this represented: either 'evil transphobe woman threatens us all,' or 'Cambridge [town? university? students, many of whom probably don't know this is happening?] has no-platformed a feminist who spoke out on trans issues'.

Neither is true.

She spoke about internet abuse, which is important and which she obviously knows a lot about. She wasn't trying to speak out on trans issues, and she wasn't no-platformed. It wasn't even a university event!

I'm sorry if this isn't terribly coherent - I just feel that, once again, what is happening is that groups of women are being pitted against one another.

Yes. Not to be confused with the Cambridge Union which is also a student union but posher and less inclined to angry open letters.

As in, the Cambridge university student union?

Ah, so it was a personal vendetta from the CUSU campaigns' officer? That is disgusting.

www.varsity.co.uk/news/7663

About caroline Criado Perez being protested.

There's a good piece on it here by Jane Fae - it's a fuller explanation from the NS article Puffins linked to.

There's also an article by Miranda Yardley, a gender critical TW, on when the TA's shut down a debate she was due to appear on due to her feminist type views on gender.

This is about no platforming in general. But includes some thoughts about Julie Bindel.

This, by SGM, talks about Julie Bindel as well, being no platformed because a TW refused to be on the same stage as her for a debate.

Has anyone got any links to blog posts or news articles about feminists being shut down because of their views on transgender issues?

I agree. But I feel quite angry that obviously all the students didn't agree, and yet it is being portrayed in lots of places as something 'Cambridge' or 'Cambridge students' did - not something a group of people did. I'm not even sure many students knew of it, because it wasn't an exclusive university or student event.

Yes, I heard it was a great success. But she should never have been attacked like that in the first place. If they disagreed with her, they're meant to be students FFS, they can apply some of that critical thinking to explaining why she's wrong - there is no need to go straight for the ducking stool.

heart, she spoke, she was very good, someone in the audience spoke up to say that not everyone agreed with the idea she shouldn't speak, and suggested anyone in the audience who was a Cambridge woman student/member should feel free to make clear if they didn't feel represented by the statement against CPP. This was received with loud applause, so, plainly, plenty of people were glad she came to speak.

And yes, it's alwaysmen telling feminists to check their cis privilege. I wonder how many of them invited a transman down the pub for footy or entered a 'homosexual' relationship with one?

Tbf flora it is difficult for teenagers to get up at 5am

The whole thing was laughable wasn't it? 'I had to get up early and take a bus! I am so oppressed!'

Then he was surprised he wasn't allowed in to meeting fir students! I was expecting him to say a meeting he had with the dean or something with the way he was setting it up!

He had to get up at 5am, get dressed and get on a bus? Oh the horror.

I'm with AsA, the women cheering make me want to cry. This seems to be a middle class thing where a certain type of women (and sometimes men) look to identify those who are more oppressed than them. They are falling over themselves to call each other out to check their privilege. The number of white men denigrating "white feminism" makes me

I'm trying to work up the spoons to write a blog post about CUSU and their treatment of CCP. I was campaigning for trans* inclusion at my university LGB soc at the end of the last century when the spotty undergrads' understanding of identity was restricted to learning to spell their own names, so they can call me TERF if they like and I shall laugh as I tell them to fuck off.

The ludicrous thing is that I don't know any actual trans* people who support this level of dickwaddery over FGM being cissexist etc. And it makes them scared to support feminist causes because of the worry that feminists blame them for it, in the same way that I sometimes don't want to describe myself as a radical feminist because of the unpleasant things some have said in the name of radical feminism. But this stuff seems to be cis / not-trans (pick your preferred adjective) student slacktivists who are desperate to be more-right-on-than-thou and are essentially exploiting the very real distress of trans people as a mast to pin their rad colours on.

You can imagine why that blog post hasn't been written yet. Twitter would feed me to the lions. Which is no excuse not to get on with it.

MyEmpireOfDirt Ah yes, that analogy is racist, according to the white TA's.

They don't tend to perform femininity so ironically I don't TA see them as real women.

Saw one of them talking about a feminist who was younger than them, they said something about how they (the TA) was more woman than the feminist as they'd been transitioned longer than the feminist had been alive.

The fact that they think it's a competition about who is more woman is just bizarre.