I am Janice Turner's No 1 fan - another excellent article

"The Blog of the Day is interesting ... LesbeMums talking about LGBT discrimination."
I had a quick read. I usually avoid Stonewall since they went all T. Reading the blog, the focus on being 'nice' and 'education' is really one part of what is just plain wrong about the current state of the LGBTFuckKnowsWhatClusterFuck......People just are gay (get educated) doesn't really help. Because after all, we have known for even longer that some people are female (so just get used to it). But that didn't stop sexism!
If you don't understand what underpins homophobia, then you won't solve the problem. Reducing it all to , be nice, cos they (be that lesbian, gay, bi, trans whatever) are just born like that and can't help it, they're no threat to you so BE NICE.....................
Fuck being nice. Why homphobia and why transphobia, it's all part and parcel of understanding why the patriarchy.

And I don't totally agree with the 'gay people are just born this way' line either. God, gay liberation really died a death...............
"But gay liberation does not just mean reforms. It means a revolutionary change in our whole society. Is this really necessary? Isn't it hard enough for us to win reforms within the present society, and how will we engage the support of straight people if we get ourselves branded as revolutionaries?
Reforms may makes things better for a while; changes in the law can make straight people a little less hostile, a little more tolerant-but reform cannot change the deep-down attitude of straight people that homosexuality is at best inferior to their own way of life, at worst a sickening perversion. It will take more than reforms to change this attitude, because it is rooted in our society's most basic institution-the Patriarchal Family..........."
Gay Liberation Front Manifesto, 1971.

Lancelottie, I think I would agree with you that 'masculine' and 'feminine' can have an generalised anatomical sex basis to them - a masculine jaw, feminine hands etc. I think transfemme and transmasc, however, go beyond that and infer the aesthetics of masculinity and femininity - so stereotypical expectations of long hair and lipstick.

I don't think that transfemme and transmasc are more accurate terms for transgender as they don't encapsulate the foundational issue of there being an sense of sex vs. a sense of gender as two disparate things - "aligning the body with the mind". On the NHS, transgender people who desire genital surgery, are required to live a year in their "preferred social gender role". For the majority of transgender people who do not have this surgery, living as in the social gender role, enables them to be socially read as their desired sex, rationalising their sense of self.

Of course this is in line with stereotypical notions of their desired sex in order to reduce that disparity. Perhaps in a future where women had liberation and gender didn't exist in the way it does now, people that are transgender or have gender dysphoria, would also have a different experience with different medical facilitation for their sense of self.

All of this redefining of terms, development of adjectives into proper nouns and encroachment of women is through the "female penis" nonsense. Surely no medical body that is part of the evaluation and treatment/management/facilitation of transgender people, supports that. It is problematic however, when the NHS itself, calls it male to female/female to male transitioning.

The Blog of the Day is interesting ... LesbeMums talking about LGBT discrimination.

I've always thought (and feel free to shake me out of some ingrained assumptions on this one) that masculine and feminine referred largely to natural appearance, with 'masculine-looking' women being taller than average, more straight up-and-down, more muscular or solid, stronger and maybe craggier of feature; and 'feminine-looking' men being smaller and slighter than average, with softer, rounder features and smaller hands and feet.

I don't tend to think of clothes or make-up -- though I think I'm biased against the incongruity of delicate clothing and makeup set against rougher features (male or female), whereas a porcelain-faced youngster in bovver boots and army fatigues doesn't strike me as odd in the same way.

Hmm. Will examine my prejudices a bit more, as that's somewhat incoherent.

I agree Errol, I'd prefer people weren't labelled for how they present at all but it's far less damaging than the female penis narrative.

I think transmasculine and transfeminine are far more accurate terms for transpeople than transwoman or transman. It's referring to gender rather than sex.

I'd tend to agree, except that ... trans which 'masculine' or 'feminine' gender stereotype? Just suppose for a moment it was valid to assign each characteristic as m or f (which it isn't!). So the good at maths and spatial awareness trait would presumably be classified as 'masculine', having long hair and sometimes liking a pretty frock would be 'feminine', wearing trousers and sensible boots 'masculine', shouting down other people 'masculine' ....

I think transmasculine and transfeminine are far more accurate terms for transpeople than transwoman or transman. It's referring to gender rather than sex.

SummerflowerXx

I know. I've actually depressed Myself, typing that.

Wow, I think if you take the point that the purpose of women is to be lesser, then that explains an awful lot. In all aspects of life.

Datun - I agree and I don't think we should underestimate their role and influence as TRAs.

YetAnotherSpartacus

Yes, I've come across people like that too. It's quite startling.

I was talking yesterday to DH about it all. I said it's not as though there is a huge conspiracy with secret meetings and recorded minutes designed to keep women down. Because that is the way it sometimes sounds when feminists talk about it.

It's that it starts with an assumption about women. Definitely that they are 'lesser'. That they are, or should be subordinate. And that they are there for a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is practical - housework, raising children, sex. Other times their purpose is to be treated as lesser.

Misogyny has a purpose, and that purpose gives the misogynist a good feeling.

You can then, quite easily, see how it plays out.

YetAnotherSpartacus ... But why

Datun - I'm not sure but I think our perspectives may potentially differ slightly on the trans issue because you have encountered it in cyberspace where I think the older AGPs are the loudest. I've encountered it in activist and 'social care provision' (for want of a better phrase) spaces where the loudest voices are activists and those who have a burning desire to groom save children. These spaces, in my view, are dominated by individuals who overtly or covertly hate women / are misogynistic. As I have said before, many don't even bother with trying to look like a woman - they just make vague statements about being 'trans' or 'queer'.

Call me an advocate of conspiracy theory, but I think 'why' is because;

• they want to control women.
• they realise that controlling women partly involves making threats against their ability to keep their children (just like MRAs)
• they want to control the children for their cult (yes I know this is hyperbole, but it gets the point across).
• they are consumed with their own power and access to power and they love the power they currently have.
• they are intent on creating ideas and ideals about what appropriate femininity / 'being a woman' is (just like the MRAs) - and not surprisingly this is almost identical to the model feminists have been challenging for decades - and it is a model that empowers men and disempowers women.

It is this mob who are also pro porn and prostitution because this is also about controlling women. They are the ones who call us whorephobic if we talk about the harms of prostitution for women.

My bet is that they have every intention of accessing women's spaces too, though, just like AGPs.

As for whether SS are overloaded or not - I think the 'suicide' rhetoric will come into play here as a device to persuade...

This is just something I'm mulling over but it seems that most of the older AGPs (those with wives, etc.) I have come across (not many) are too busy preening and primping to worry about the activist stuff beyond sexual access to women and or treatment for acceptance of them (in fact, it's mostly about them).

There's a cross-over category too, I know.

Social services are massively overstretched. A case where a child is well looked after, but has gender identity issues and the parents do not rush to the GIC is not a safety issue and should not be categorised as such. It only becomes a safety issue because CAHMS is massively overstretched and it is easier to put children on drugs than address the underlying psychological issues.

The custody case where this was brought up found against the mother transitioning her child. But winning that case will have cost the father tens of thousands of pounds. Not all parents have those resources. And if the law stood on the side of the mother and SS, he would not even have been able to bring it to court.

Do they apply to transfeminine to men who don't conform to their idea of masculinity?

hingedspeculum

You're kidding?

So they've actually managed to get a trans into a description of someone who isn't? And apply it to a woman who doesn't conform to their idea of what a woman should be?

Bloody hell. More effing liberties.

Crap, someone will be labelling me as that. I am a woman: ovaries, uterus, xx chromosomes, all the rest of it. I wear quite a lot of 'men's' clothes (literally - handmedowns from dad and brother; men's coats and jackets because they have enough pockets, sometimes buy men's shoes because they are cheaper and I have size 8 feet.)
Sometimes I get called Sir. It doesn't bother me in the least, because it's just random passers by, shop staff etc. In the past, I have 'dressed as a man' (once in an amateur film, along with some other crossdressers and a couple of transpeople - we were all playing characters, having fun and everyone was nice to each other.)

I actually have some concerns for those people who, like me, sometimes like to 'be' another person but are perfectly comfortable with our actual selves. I would hate to be categorized as 'trans' and/or pressured to choose between hormones/surgery/namechange and lipstick/deference/high heels...

Transmasculine is an overarching umbrella descriptor of females (I am loathsome to have to preface that with biological..) who identify with masculinity but do not necessarily identify as being men. I think it can describe transmen as well specifically, as well as those who do not have gender dysphoria or are trans.

I didn't see the thread with Shon, myself, but if it was in regards to children, then I would think transmasculine refers to girls once upon a time referred to as tomboys.

YetAnotherSpartacus

Puberty blockers, followed by cross sex hormones, ensuring life long medical reliance and permanent sterility?

It's not the first time I've heard that.

But why?

Datun I think that is exactly what they want, but with the child removed from the parents on the grounds that parents are failing to provide adequate medical care. This is only what the TRAs want, mind, it's not what he government wants.

YetAnotherSpartacus

And how far does that go? Given puberty blockers have to be given before puberty. Can we see them being administered by the state? Against a parent's wishes?

I'm thinking it could never be.
But take a look at one of these threads two years ago and what many people thought would never come to anything.

She sees a situation where a five-year-old claims they are the opposite sex and the school have to affirm that, despite what the parents say. Because it's a protected characteristic

It was this that brought me here a year ago now, not in relation to the Act, but but in respect to what the TRAs want, which is for parental non-recognition of 'trans' children to become a protection issue with SS getting involved to 'protect' the child from parents who disallow blockers in particular.

Is there now a text for the Act? I haven't seen it.

Blocked me too. Must be the Terf blocker. If you log and post the @handle into the search box, you can see his account. Or create another one. I'm sure it's nothing much interesting though

AFAIR it was a reference to children...

Shon blocked me, so we may never know

Today 19:06 Albadross

Oh, please someone explain what the hell 'transmasculine' is?

Shon Faye has just tweeted that at me

I can't be certain, because there is a new word every day.

But is it a transwoman who exhibits masculine characteristics?

Neatly cutting off at the pass any attempt to accuse transwomen of acting like men?