Woman attacked by transactivists at speakers corner - part deux

uglyswan

I would like to share my "peak trans" moment, if that's all right. I've been a radical feminist (in the sense that the root, the material basis for women's oppression lies in their reproductive capacities and determines their position in the economic, social and political matrix we call the patriarchy) since forever really and I'd always assumed that the trans/cis dichotomy was more of a secondary contradiction that would automatically resolve itself as soon as we overcome patriarchal oppression. I wished trans people well in their struggle and even welcomed it as a sign that they were attempting to dismantle gender roles and render them obsolete. I honestly don't know why I thought that was their intention. And so I thought the gender-critical movement were just a load of meanies refusing to extend their solidarity and protection to people who were basically on the same side.

But then (and this was at an embarassingly late juncture) I realised that transactivism was not attempting to tear down the walls of gender, but rather to shore them up, reify them, and ultimately to enshrine them in legislation - legislation on a feeling, a private language! A ridiculous, nonsensical concept backed by nothing but transparently made up arguments about the female brain (there is no such thing).

So I'd like to apologise to everyone who argued with me on the FWR threads - you were right and I was wrong. So very, embarassingly wrong .

badbadhusky that same brass neck is in evidence in the government's Transgender Equality Report, where trans groups said quite openly that they need trans specific groups to address their distinct concerns and experiences, while at the same time arguing against the right of women to have access to women only groups/services to address our distinct concerns and experiences.

I'm just relieved to see that there's so much more exposure of the issue now and that so many more women are waking up to what's going on. So far the TRAs have used threats and intimidation to try and silence the relatively few women who were aware of what was going on but if the numbers reach a certain point then that just won't work any more.

I think he's comparing to many countries in Europe where women may sunbathe topless, there are mixed public saunas, and just generally more public environments where unclothed bodies are experienced. In the US, to a greater degree even than the UK, unclothed bodies are either sex-segregated or sex ualised. There aren't really any public spaces where the naked body is seen. Nudity on US television is almost always in the context of a sex scene and is considerably more regulated than violence. Many US men only see naked women in porn before they have sex (there's a lot of interesting studies on this), so it's very closely linked, culturally.

busyboysmum

What was he getting out when he says that sex and nudity are more closely bound in the US? Is this part of the locker room issue?

ooops meant to bold that, it's not a link.

Love this comment from a gay man, so well put:

[[marcos July 12, 2017 at 4:10 pm

Second wave feminist theory is a rock that has helped me as a gay man to describe my experience and offer up guidance in a patriarchal and hetero-dominant world.

Gender theory on the other hand, is not ready for prime time. Feminist and queer theories do not seek to redefine men and hets in terms that accommodate women and queers. Yet gender theory seeks to redefine women and queers in terms of gender rather than sex in order to center around trans and accommodate them.

Theory does not work that way., When you are small minority, LGB 10% on a good day, trans .5%, then it is okay to be a theoretical or statistical outlier. Only the insecure of these small groups would require the larger population reconceptualize itself in terms favorable to the minority order to feel safe.

As a gay man, I am not normative relative to the general population because our numbers are small. Homosexuality is normal because it falls within the distribution regularly. The need to reinterpret normal as normative is a fool’s errand.

As a feminist, I know that there are women who have been traumatized by men and seek the original safe space, penis-less. This offends the trans women. But in the US where nudity and sex are comingled, fewer clothes equates to greater intimacy. As intimacy increases, then the power to deny consent likewise rises. At a certain point, with sex and nudity closely bound, demanding that women associate in clothing-free spaces with penised people borders up on nonconsensual intimacy.

Ditto for this notion that we are obligated to have sex with trans people who are gendered the same as our sexual orientation/preference. Every individual has the autonomy to determine their boundaries in the regard to sex and intimacy. Suggesting that anyone is owed sex is offensive to the basic principles of feminism.]]

I've just asked my mother who runs a trans women's group hmm whether non trans women are allowed in (except her of course, queen handmaiden) and she said 'no of course not they have different experiences' and I said 'so they are different' and she said 'oh sentimental I wish you'd drop it you're really getting on my nerves'

I know I shouldn't, but this just made me laugh out loud at the sheer brass neck of TW needing a closed group to discuss their different experiences and yet denying women the very same support. I really should be at the point now where this shit doesn't surprise me any more, but it does. There needs to be an equivalent for cheeky fucking neighbour (CFN) in this context. I am so over my peak, I'm a dot on the horizon, and yet...

SWERF is pretty horrible. It implies that women who support prostitutes, who think that prostitutes are exploited and want to protect them, are actually anti-prostitute. The term "whorephobic" is also used, believe it or not.

Julie Bindel gets referred to as "Swerf" (as well as "Terf") a lot. And she has worked tirelessly for the rights of women who have been coerced into prostitution.

The whole thing is a mad, topsy-turvy view of the world. As with the extreme end of transactivism, I feel the agenda is being driven by men's rights activists - misogynists who want to protect their right to pay vulnerable women for sex. They seem somehow to have fooled a swathe of the "left" into supporting them.

SWERF is another misleading term.

Feminists, whether radical or not do not exclude sex workers from their narrative.

It's one of those issues that always centres around choice. Should a woman have the autonomy to be able to sell her own body?

But, like a lot of this, it's not that simple. It is usually not a choice made from a position of neutrality.

Men want to rent women's bodies, and our system allows them to exploit women and do just that. It's objectification at its zenith. Women are no more than a holes for sale.

Personally I'd like to see prostitution disappear, women are not commodities. And should not be in a position where they have so little money, they have to sell themselves.

But in the absence of that, the Nordic model is favoured. You make the punters the criminals, but you don't prosecute the prostitutes.

So which ever way you look at it swerf is wrong. It's focusing on the people who exploit the women, not the women themselves, who are usually victims.

I can't imagine why an ideology that is run by misogynistic men wants to vilify feminists for objecting to the commodification, exploitation and objectification of women, which only benefits men...

Oooh I'm a swerf and terf.

Sounds like a mop.

I think it's believing it shouldn't be legal. For some reason it seems to go hand in hand with being a terf in the mind of many tra.

Sentimental
Simplified version is that Lib fems believe that women have the right to choose prostitution, and that it is work the same as any other, bodily autonomy and all that. Rad fems believe that it is exploitation and generally support the Nordic Model, which prosecutes the pimp and the johns, but not the women.

Sorry for the x force of habit

Off topic but I've been seeing the term SWERF bandied about which I believe is Sex Worker Exclusive Feminist.

How do you join that club? Is it thinking sex workers aren't women or that they can't be feminists or that you don't think it should be legal????

X

Ach she's hard work but I love her.
I think like a lot of handmaidens it all just comes from a place of being desperate to belong and be accepted.

Also she has no boundaries which meant I read lots of feminist literature very early on in life. We read 'the woman on the edge of time' together as a bedtime story when I was about 11.

SentimentalLentil

That sounds like one hell of an upbringing. And I'm bloody impressed with your clarity of thought.

maxthemartian

Bruce Jenner addressed a room of people, with a funny story about how he was nearly caught trying on his under age daughter's clothes.

It was an amusing anecdote that everyone laughed at.

None of them had the slightest notion of autogynephilia.

I would bet everything I own that he didn't just try them on, but masturbated into them before everyone came home. And they would not have been shorts and T-shirts.

Had those people actually seen what he did, I doubt they would be laughing. Using your daughter's clothes to facilitate your sexual fetish is a huge boundary violation. He went on to call his daughters burdens, I believe? And I think there is now a rift.

He ticks every single box for AGP.

He also dominates and controls the narrative around him, both online and in person. Something that women everywhere do, right?

He is in a very strange position. The most famous transwomen on the planet. If he came out and echoed what transactivists say, he would be publicly vilified. So he is unable to openly toe the party line.

Transactivists hate him. Both for not supporting what they say, and because, despite that, he comes across sometimes as something of a laughing stock.

Being Glamour magazine's woman of the year was a huge mistake, in my opinion. Compounded by him saying the hardest part of being a woman is deciding what dress to wear.

Oh she's not a lesbian anymore.

She had a long term relationship with one woman from when I was about 3-13 and has been married to two men since then.

She says she was a 'political lesbian' whatever that means and is definitely straight now (her words).

My formative years were spent in the LGB community but it's difficult to explain that to someone as my mother is as straight as they come now.

Your mum sounds hard work SentimentalLentil. I have one of those too so you have my sympathies.

That's the thing isn't it datun. Women wouldn't want to go to a meeting to discuss tw experiences because we know we haven't had those experiences and so we have nothing to contribute. Start a discussion group about experiences of female puberty, or misogynistic prejudice in the workplace, or for female sexual abuse survivors and you'd be inundated with TW.

she's been throwing me under the bus for men my whole life

Not surprising. So many lesbians I know do this. They know where the power is like any other woman.

SentimentalLentil

Don't think there are many, because it doesn't serve the validation issue. Although, the cotton ceiling 'workshop' was just for transwomen.

I can't imagine many women wanting to go to it, to be honest.

I've only seen one comment online where transwomen were infuriated that women wanted entry to their trans-only meeting. But all the comments underneath were what meeting, I've never seen such a meeting? Etc.

I've just asked my mother who runs a trans women's group whether non trans women are allowed in (except her of course, queen handmaiden) and she said 'no of course not they have different experiences' and I said 'so they are different' and she said 'oh sentimental I wish you'd drop it you're really getting on my nerves'.

I don't know why I'm surprised to be honest, she's been throwing me under the bus for men my whole life.

It's the threats of violence but then with a smiley face which I find quite chilling. Like it's a perfectly rational, sane thing to do.

Yes the toilets was another thing that annoyed me about the recent Guilty Feminist episode on this. They all said oh I don't care who's in the cubicle next to me. Then a minute later they said I suppose now if you saw a man go into the women's toilet you would think it weird/strange/feel something bad might happen and you could go and tell a member of staff and they would investigate whereas if it was all gender neutral there would be nothing you could do. But then they didn't say, ok actually maybe I do mind then! They just started talking about women gossiping in the toilets