Paris Lees article re: Ldn underground

Eradicating sex as a class is not dismantling gender roles. My comment got deleted so I'll post it here instead.

Exactly. It's not dismantling gender, it's elevating it to ever more ridiculous levels.

and rise of intersectional feminism is making real progress in moving towards a more gender-neutral society"

How can people not see that the exact opposite of this is true. I'm sure Paris sees it. Deliberately conflating millennial 57 variety gender nonsense with trans.

"Radical feminists say they have been trying to abolish gender for the past 40 years – with limited success, it seems...

...Thankfully, the transgender movement and rise of intersectional feminism is making real progress in moving towards a more gender-neutral society"

Yeah. Thank fuck some men came along to feminist properly for us, we were making such a dreadful hash of things before that

Exactly, Lotta! So regressive.

That Jill Soloway interview sounds incredibly depressing. You hate heels, make up and dresses - then ditch them without apology. You are still a woman. FFS. It's scary that people who consider themselves progressive and enlightened are coming out with rubbish like this

Oh the comments on this are a delight.

to coin a phrase - arse about face

the material reality of inequality between men and women existed before the ideological underpinning of gender to justify it
the categorisation of people into two unequal groups.

"The theory is that gender is a social construct that places men and women in two distinct categories, which inevitably creates a power imbalance from which men benefit and women lose out. Do away with gender and you do away with the two-tier system that has oppressed women for millennia."

so, in one sense, I agree. But I very much disagree with the unspoken idea that gender just happened along so humans divided everything into two piles and then it all went to sh1t in a heirarchy

the heirarchy and power imbalance came first when men realised they could breed and control workers tp tend their flocks in the same way they could breed the flocks

"Gender is over. Dead. Kaput. Finis. Indeed, in 2017, to have a traditional gender identity – like boring old “man” or “woman” – is to mark oneself out as achingly unhip. Gender is fluid now, you see. Last year the Fawcett Society Found that 44% of British people now believe that gender is not binary but can be expressed as a range of identities – with almost half of young women holding this view. Perhaps they are looking to the plethora of gender fluid stars such as Ruby Rose, Miley Cyrus and Will Smith’s son Jaden Smith – who has been the face of Louis Vuitton’s womenswear. Gender fluidity is officially a thing."

Fashion.

Fashion, fashion, fashion. Sorry Paris, but by saying something is "now", you are kinda heralding in its "over". What is achingly unhip now will soon be retro and revered. And reverted to. Because fashions pass, as the next one is brought in. You think that you are giving transactivism momentum that will be unstoppable, but as the Comments section highlights, you are being dismissed as frivolous - as all fashions are. The Transtrenders will move on to something new (adulthood, hopefully) and you will realise your tactics were just plain wrong. Soz.

QuentinSummers

Ah, I see. Yes I agree.

I'm not really debating the effect s of oestrogen or testosterone. More that the debate is always framed in terms of testosterone.
I don't think human nature is as simplistic as testosterone = aggression. That's why I think the biological definitions of male/female/intersex are most useful.

If testosterone causes aggression and oestrogen causes gentleness, then why do you transwomen commit violent crime at exactly the same rate as their male counterparts?

The testosterone thing is annoying me recently. Why are we saying testosterone causes aggression? Could it not be that oestrogen causes caring

Or is it a much more complex interaction of biology and culture such as was beginning to be explored in the 80s before postmodernism destroyed the university?

The testosterone thing is annoying me recently. Why are we saying testosterone causes aggression? Could it not be that oestrogen causes caring? All these trans women who say they are gentler, maybe it isn't lack of testosterone, maybe it's addition of oestrogen.
I don't know if it makes sense. It's another thing where I think female is defined by a lack of maleness (no penis, no testosterone) rather than as a category with its own different attributes (vulva, oestrogen)

Branleuse

Not just the left. I see many people under the impression it's feminists too. Presumably libfems.

Giving feminism a bad name.

"Wearing heels, dresses and make-up made her feel so uneasy in her own skin that she stopped doing it and now identifies as gender queer

When I first started reading about all this twaddle I did wonder if 'gender queer' was the way for me. I've never bothered with heels or make-up and I don't wear skirts or girly clothes... but then I realised that it left the gender binary intact. So I identify as a woman.

what really pisses me off about stuff like this, is the comments always seem to assume its the left pushing the transgender thing

In terms of boundaries, I didn't mean you personally! I meant transwomen.

It's all so bonkers, isn't it?

It is bonkers. And this is what happens. You end up analysing a single point down the rabbit hole. When really the issues are very simple.

For me, now, the main issue is no means no. And if I have to justify no to suit you, then you are already violating my boundaries.

In terms of the differences in male and female brains. This ideology makes women keen to find no single difference between men and women, apart from biology.

Whilst we all know that there are hormonal differences. And then we get involved in how the hormonal differences dictate behaviour.

But still, none of it is innate across the board. You get some men with low testosterone, some women with high testosterone. Some men with high testosterone are very gentle, some aggressive.

So although it's interesting, from a feminist point of view, it's irrelevant from a transgender point of view.

What is innate is biological function. Across the board. Of course with the exception of intersex, which Lees brings up, yet again, to disprove the binary.

I suspect there are, aside from the obvious, some innate differences between men and women, but society exaggerates these differences through strict roles and rules to the point of caricature

Datun Society does not exaggerate biological differences. It assigns a role to those differences. Gender.

I agree the article is tripe that doesn't make sense overall, but this is confusing me.

I think I'd broadly agree () with Paris' statement. "Aside from the obvious" I would assume means anatomy. But I think it's possible that there are some other differences, eg. a link with testostorone and aggression, which are massively exaggerated by society in the form of gender stereotypes. And I do believe socialisation is overwhelmingly the biggest factor in behaviour, so that dictates how any slight differences are expressed. Using the aggression example - suppose we had a truly equal society - no gender stereotypes, everyone expected to conform to the same standards of behaviour. If there was a biological difference that means men are more likely to have certain physiological (leading to emotional) responses, we might find that men show more self-soothing behaviours during conflict, or something. Rather than actually being more aggressive.

[Argh I feel like I'm mansplaining/derailing or something - I'm a woman and that's not my intention!]

None of this makes any sense with what Paris believes though. They don't appear to believe biology actually matters. Yet believe that incredibly slight (and disputed) differences in the brain somehow override "obvious" biological differences. They adhere to the strict rules of gender that they claim are problematic.

It's all so bonkers, isn't it?

All this just seems so utterly regressive in many ways and it's like nobody can see it. I heard an interview with Jill Soloway, the very talented and accomplished writer of the show Trans Parent, and she was saying that wearing heels, dresses and make-up made her feel so uneasy in her own skin that she stopped doing it and now identifies as gender queer. What a backwards view of women, that these objects are somehow definitive of being female. So you tell little girls who aren't stereotypically 'girly' that they don't actually have to be girls, because being a girl means pretty dresses and that's basically it? That there is no strength or positivity in actually being female?

My DH was listening to the interview too and said, jokingly, 'so my mum and all the wee grannies on Sauchiehall Street who wear slacks, don't wear make up and have short hair, are they gender queer'?

How can those on the 'right side of history' not see how women and girls get shafted and belittled again and again in this debate?