Men who parade how "feminist" they are but who can fuck right off...

He's not just transphobic if he believes that but misogynistic (holding women to different standards to men) and homophobic (treating lesbians as if they do not have autonomy and choice over their sexual lives)

Trans people are harassed, assaulted and murdered every day and it sure as fucking isn't the feminists doing it.

I completely agree, and I always wonder why transactivists blame feminists when they should shove the blame where it lies.

A message to Owen Jones: if you think it's transphobic for a lesbian to refuse to suck a transwoman's cock but it's not transphobic for a gay man to perform cunnilingus on a transman then I'm sorry mate, you're transphobic. If you can't process this simple thing then you're not as clever as you claim.

I completely understand why lesbians don't want to have sex with transwomen and I support them. If that makes me a transphobe then I shall wear that badge with pride.

You know what I care about? I care about how 70% of trans people are harassed when wanting to use the fucking toilets. I just don't go in public because I'm terrified.

Can you cite a source for this?

Can you imagine being scared to go for a piss?

As a woman who has been raped by a man in a public toilet, yeah, I can "imagine" how it feels to be scared to go for a piss. Especially now that men can gain access to women's toilets by saying that they feel like women. And as a woman who has been raped by a man in a public toilet, I would challenge a man if I saw him going into the women's toilets - if you see that as "harassment," so be it. Yours is not the only pain in the world, sorry to say.

hear hear

flirtin you're not wrong about the patriarchy and how much damage it is doing to so many, and I'm sorry and furious about what a crappy impact it has on you

Amen, flirtin.

I'm so sorry it is so shit.

I really, really, really hope all of this gets better (for you and everyone else), and soon. And I'm really angry for you.

Can we smash the patriarchy now?

I'm fucking sick of this. the thing that upsets me the most at the moment with being trans is all this, it's taken up way too
Much of my mental time and emotion and i have lost all the fucks I could give.
You know what I care about? I care about how 70% of trans people are harassed when wanting to use the fucking toilets. I just don't go in public because I'm terrified. Can you imagine being scared to go for a piss?
I'm scared of being subjected to violence just because I am trans. I'm scared my kids will be bullied because of me and this stupid, shitty patriarchal society tells everyone I'm a freak.
I hate being asked what's in my pants, or how I have sex, like its a totally ok thing to ask me instead of a gross invasion of privacy. I hate as well that I feel
I have to answer the latter to prove that me and my husband have a healthy sex life, because it must be hard for poor him or whatever shit they think.
I'm angry because I have to wait over two years for an appointment for a consultant. Can you imagine your doctor saying to you, 'well you have X, but you have to wait two years for an initial appointment and who knows how long after that for actual treatment.'
I'm fuming that I have to ask my husband's permission for a gender recognition certificate like bodily autonomy? Anyone?
Trans people are harassed, assaulted and murdered every day and it sure as fucking isn't the feminists doing it.
I hate the fact that I think this way, and think, 'FFS haven't you better things to rage about than how women's services are called
Womens services becaue it excludes transmen?' because it reminds me of dudebro neck beard wankers bitching when feminists champion causes they deem unworthy because "aren't there better things to be worrying about?" but honestly there is so much ahit I have to go up against and there is no more room in my head for feminists vs trans activists.
The patriarchy is the cause of all this. My issue is with the patriarchy.

Never knock "turd-dar". Tony Blair fell foul of my turd-dar too .

As you were….

Ooh and here's another great post from Stewie:

Here

LOL Grimble.

Here's a great article by a gay man taking OJ to task

Gay man to gay man

I've always struggled to like Owen Jones when people were lauding him all over the place. I thought it was because I am not a natural left winger. Now I know that it was because I clocked him from the get go as a turd. If you wait long enough people will eventually catch on….

LOL yes please, been meaning to read it for years!

Anyone want my copy of Chavs?

Hmm I'm not sure VoyageofDad counts because AFAIK he hasn't ever presented himself as a feminist ally has he AA? He belongs on a different list....

Owen Jones needs to fuck off to the end of fuck and then fuck off some more. Odious little shit.

Yes it's interesting how much rage these lefty men have when women challenge them on their shit - it's like they take it really personally, there they are being our champions and we're not grateful, we're telling them they're doing it wrong.

I almost prefer out and out sexists.

Or nobbers like Russell Brand, who is beginning to grow up and realise what a nob he is and how if he is ever to be a decent person who can live with himself, he needs to do the reading about how not to be an average bog-standard man.

Owen Jones's behaviour on twitter last night, where he continued to goad and post about his awful experiences with "transphobes" and how he listens to women who support transwomen, really underlines how shallow the support of his type of lefty man is when it comes to feminism. He obviously sees himself as, not only a good guy, but a guy who is prepared to tell other men they should be good guys too. His reactions on twitter, especially last night, demonstrate a kind of rage that he, who deigns, on behalf of women, to tell other men they should listen to women, is being challenged by women. It does seem like a kind of rage. He's had to fall back to the quite ludicrous position that he's been subject to homophobia because telling the truth would demonstrate that he is stooping down from his position of privilege and telling women what they should think and do. And he really doesn't like it when they don't do as they are told.

the few trans* people i know in RL who are willing to talk about this stuff are just trying to get by and minimise how much they are disadvantaged at work and avoid abuse and violence that transphobia attracts

we all seem to understand how we have shared experiences and different experiences, shared and different needs. we all seem to accept that there are things we don't want to share with each other too. we've been able to discuss how i am of the opinion that gender is a construct by society that doesn't serve anyone well, which some trans people seem to agree with, and others don't, whilst also acknowledging that people have to live in this flawed society right now and no one wants them to experience abuse, violence, suicidal thoughts etc so we have to minimise that as much as we can

it's only ever been online that i have encountered this idea that something that can be described as for/about women should be limited to those where women's and transwomen's needs and experiences overlap, or theories that include entitlement to women's bodies, and that minimising the harm and disadvantage that trans people experience should include trampling all over women's rights. it shook me because while obviously i don't expect all trans* people to be or need or want or feel the same, it was so divergent from the conversations i have had in RL. which makes me feel that i have been making assumptions about what trans people need and want and feel, but i can't reconcile some of these "new" requirements with what i understand other women need and want and feel, and what i understand the trans people i know in RL need and want and feel, and it's all very conflicting and confusing.

The thing is, surely it's damaging to trans women to insist that trans women and biological women are the same. Trans women presumably have psychological and medical issues that need addressing?

kim I think a lot of the time we are arguing at cross purposes on this issue.

We're not saying that you do not know what you feel like. We are questioning what it actually means to 'feel like a woman'.

And what I have come away with is that most born-women can't really pinpoint what it is that all women 'feel' like, except in terms of our physical, biological attributes. Most of us say, well I feel like me, a person.

So all anyone can say is that 'I do not feel like I fit society's definition of 'man' (or 'woman').

Which as far as I can see brings us back to sex is a biological fact and gender is social construct.

X-posted with loads and loads of people! I type too slowly!

When we were talking about this on the Mary Beard thread, I was having similar thoughts to kim. This stuff is really hard to read when you've always tried to be basically nice, especially to people who are having a hard time. I understand, though, that not everyone is nice (erm, obviously) and that a lot of feminists have had really had experiences with transactivists.

Leaving aside the language of privilege, I see that transwomen have been socialised as men, albeit men who have not fitted the patriarchal gender binary, and that this socialisation gives them a certain sense of entitlement to space and voice that other women don't necessarily have. I also see that not fitting the patriarchal gender binary is an uncomfortable way to be, and not at all fun. When women talk to transwomen about privilege, I can see why those transwomen might say "what fecking privilege? I too am oppressed by the patriarchy". I can also see why the response is rather dismissive, given that transwomen were socialised as men and boys.

I am very angry that Rachel's article about recovery after rape attracted such rage from people who wanted her to recover in their way and not hers - and I do think that the women who run women's only spaces should be able to make a distinction between transwomen and other women. And I'm very angry that I'm nervous about saying that with my real identity in case I get harassed online for it.

I guess Flora could easily point out again that I am just refusing to call a spade a spade, or a man a man (and she's right) - but I am refusing in the interests of detente, compassion, a desire to accept another's lived experience. I find this whole area of argument divides me from feminism. I suppose you could say that that's what transactivists are trying to achieve, but I choose to resist them my way rather than the high way. I know feminists didn't choose this fight - transactivists did - but I won't fight it by saying kim is a man when she identifies as a woman.

Maybe I should just stop. I have no idea where to go with this.