Woman kicked out of Labour's Women's Network party because her views might make a MALE feel unsafe

In the times now

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/feminist-campaigner-venice-allan-kicked-out-of-labour-christmas-party-pqkqnfr76

it is possible the meme was made by the very person who then publicly shared it

That would make perfect sense! That meme struck me as being made by someone of low intelligence, which certainly wouldn't apply to all the regular posters tirelessly and patiently posting on these issues.

It staggers me that people don't realise that Facebook is public domain, don't post anything you're not prepared to defend or apologise for. To be fair to Venice though she did instantly apologise and it would appear to be a case of entrapment.

TW have rights though

I agree. I think that's a good basis for an argument as well, "what rights don't trans people currently have?"

If you listen carefully the TRAs often argue against themselves too, which can be used. Eg on the one hand, it takes years to get hormones / surgery so we don't need to worry about children Vs fighting for immediate access to these things

I think there are different aims here.

There is the main aim, of alerting the general public to what gender critical feminists are saying about the removal of women's rights and the imposition of gender identity and what this will mean in practice: rapists in women's prisons; male bodied TIMs as guide leaders, as intimate carers for your nan, in women's hospital wards etc; indoctrination into the ideology at primary schools. If you ever see these practical consequences discussed in the mainstream and outside of the pro- or anti- transactivism bubble, almost everyone is against them.

And then, for Labour members, there is the battle to prevent the Party introducing a self-ID definition of woman without any debate or vote at conference. Which appears to be the current big push - using Lily Madigan as the test case - by activists.

If we allow this to become a childish and crude meme battle (or selfie battle), then the general public is likely to turn off to both sides. They'll say - weirdo men in dresses vs weirdo feminazis so who cares? We need to stick to factual consciousness-raising with the wider public. And to win the Labour Party battle, as others have said, requires actual organising - CLP motions, emails to our MPs or prospective candidates and all the rest of it.

Either way, crude memes and secret Facebook groups that are more about bitchery than organising, aren't the way to go.

I like your post It's,

I think the common factor with all of these is that it is not at all about being negative about transpeople, it is about protecting women's rights (and TW too)

TW have rights though. You could give them every right in the universe and there would still be a complaint. I'm not feeding this spoilt childish group. Many trans women are appalled by the TRAs approach. It achieves nothing but negativity - TRAs thrive on this.

Celebrating the birth of a child will soon be anti trans.

Personally, I vote Labour because I think they have more of a conscience when it comes to those who are socially and economically deprived

Yes. But the TRAs transcend politics. In public they are (afaik) supported by every party. This isn't about which party to vote for to support women in this because officially none of them do.

We need to transcend politics too. This isn't a left or a right issue. We need enough MPs of all colours to actually think about what this all.means.

^n other words, women be nice and know thy place, especially when it comes to social media. Men will be forgiven for a misplaced tweet or several, but for women it's an entirely different matter. Those tweets will stay forever and just cement the idea that women are stupid and only those women with lady brains and a penis are the ones that really matter.°

Yes. Exactly. It sucks and is deeply unfair but it is what it is.

Lots of men don't vote either and men did fight and die for the vote for them.

Don't feel bad about it. Time It is what it is.

Personally, I vote Labour because I think they have more of a conscience when it comes to those who are socially and economically deprived.

Perhaps we need a single issue party like UKIP. So at least everyone who wants to spoil their votes (which I have seen mentioned a lot) has somewhere to put their disapproval?

So what can we do to stop TRAs positioning themselves as vulnerable, oppressed victims?

I'm not sure we can really - we need to find another way.

Personally I keep posting evidence of their acts of abuse

I'm not sure how constructive that is as it feeds into the whole feminists hate everybody thing.

They are not vulnerable and oppressed though. This is as obvious as the fact that they are not women

The problem is, to many people this is not always obvious with the whole old fashioned biology argument.

I think this is something we need to really think about - we have a lot of experience on MN of which arguments work and which ones don't.

Personally, some arguments that I think work better are (andve not thought too hard about these so may well be wrong):

How do you tell the difference between a predatory male pretending to be a transwoman and a transwoman? (Neatly avoids accusing TIMs of being perverts)

Sports

TIMs in women's prison. Lian Brady.

NHS suicide stats

Gender gap / VAWG anything that is a study of imbalance between the sexes.

Girl Guiding trans guidelines esp the not telling parents

Scottish schools guidance esp reporting unsupportive parents to SS

The fact that the proposed.xhamges to the GRA (as Jane Fae said) won't make any real difference to transpeople. They already have rights and the current GRC requirements are a reasonable compromise to protect two vulnerable groups

I think the common factor with all of these is that it is not at all about being negative about transpeople, it is about protecting women's rights (and TW too)

The Labour Party is a parody now. As a woman I could not vote for them. Which leaves not much choice at all. I won't vote. Oh wait, all those women that fought for the vote, and now I don't feel that any political party represents me - a white, middle aged, working class woman. Others inclusivity is resulting from others being excluded.

But it's one thing asking feminists to not be inappropriate. Difficult but at least possible.

In other words, women be nice and know thy place, especially when it comes to social media. Men will be forgiven for a misplaced tweet or several, but for women it's an entirely different matter. Those tweets will stay forever and just cement the idea that women are stupid and only those women with lady brains and a penis are the ones that really matter.

Perhaps one of the actions should be to avoid social media altogether. An echo chamber soon becomes boring.

This forum isn't an echo chamber, that's the problem. We disagree in a civilised and intelligent way. We listen and we contribute.

We solve problems. I'm sure we can solve this one.

We have a great forum to speak relatively freely here on mumsnet. But anyone not here is forced into secret Facebook groups if they want to chat in the same way. And Facebook is much more oppressive for gender critical women, MTF trans infiltrate anywhere remotely female centric and it's very demoralising. Women get deleted and banned for expressing the mildest gender critical comment. It's awful. I've seen so many female centric groups do this.

it is possible the meme was made by the very person who then publicly shared it

I believe that this is the case too.

I know. We can't stop people doing what they want in private groups. And I don't think we should try. People did think those doxxed groups were secure, however naive that seems to outsiders. And sometimes people say inappropriate things because they need to vent, to keep their sanity. We can challenge the ridiculous creeping idea that mockery or disagreement makes anyone "unsafe".

Just don't join the groups. I know there is infiltration going on so I refuse to bite. I'm not at all uncomfortable with the Times getting on board with this either. The Labour Party is a strong movement, with just as many problems as the Conservative Party. Neither are going away.

They are not vulnerable and oppressed though. This is as obvious as the fact that they are not women.

But it's one thing asking feminists to not be inappropriate. Difficult but at least possible.

How do we stop TRAs posing as feminists and being inappropriate? Afaik (I wasn't in the doxxed group) it is possible the meme was made by the very person who then publicly shared it.

But the TRAs will get other people on board, those who are influential. They know exactly what they are doing and exactly how to do it. They have infiltrated every aspect of a woman's life and have no compunction on destroying the hard earned wins that many women spent time and effort and money working for.

If you cannot win with the backing of those with influence, the argument is lost.

I'm never going to compromise. Because that would be a win for them and a loss for me.

So what can we do to stop TRAs positioning themselves as vulnerable, oppressed victims? Personally I keep posting evidence of their acts of abuse.

But we are not trying to argue with TRAs, we are trying to argue with everyone else.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine is right saying this and in other comments. This is not a competition in being right, it's a competition in being persuasive, and the target of the persuasion in the general public. When they come to look at this, you want to be seen as the sober sensible side making coherent arguments against the irrational side coming out with nonsense and abuse.

I agree with ItsAllGoingToBeFine. Of course there’s a double standard as menthol says. But what this means in effect is that most of the population, who don’t know much about what’s going on, are being told over and over and over again that “TERFs” are bullying harmless peaceful marginalised trans people. We need to be aware of that and aware that anything which even vaguely looks like that’s what we’re doing is going to be screenshotted and used as evidence of what mean meanies we are.

As the saying goes, there is no arguing with stupid

But we are not trying to argue with TRAs, we are trying to argue with everyone else.

I'm not ranty at all. Labour will get my vote but they will not get my money or my time.

I refused to buy South African products back in the day, as did many people and also Jaffa oranges. Yes this boycott did result in the poor getting no jobs, but I wasn't going to fund hatred and racism and thereby keep the status quo.

Trust me, no matter what way you bend to be accommodating or 'clever' about it, it will not work. I been there and got the badge and the T shirt.

As the saying goes, there is no arguing with stupid.

MentholBreeze did you bother to read the rest of my post?

That meme was childish and crude and if private facebook groups were secure, would be unlikely to cause any bother. But like as not, it is now being used against feminists to highlight our terfiness and it reflects poorly on our cause.

I know it isn't fair. I know we are held to different standards. But they will use anything to discredit us. We need to be smarter, because being right is quite apparently not enough.