I didn’t know we had arseholes like this “on our side”.

But I think being misread as aggressive is at least as likely to be good pr in the long term

I hope you are right. It is exhausting having to be perfectly benign whilst fighting for survival.

To me, whataboutery means misdirecting the argument (e.g. women are subject to sexual abuse: but what about the men who are subject to sexual abuse?)

I would say that a big part of whataboutery is about minimisation by false equivalence, as in - let's not focus on the massive f*cking elephant in the room in order to give equal attention to the little mouse.

Its not necessarily a conscious misdirection tactic, it can be just a plain old manifestation of entitlement and lack of concern for the pain of the disadvantaged group.

And this lack of concern doesn't even need to be malicious, it just naturally occurs because the disadvantaged group's pain is generally invisible to the privileged, since the privileged do not share it. They only know it as a story they have been told, not something they personally feel or experience.

eg- Women are oppressed by being relentlessly reminded of their bodily violability by the acts and expression of men, such as harassment, rape, misogynist turns of phrase, etc, yet born males can't get their heads around it eg- Paris Lees thinks it is actually a compliment to be reminded of their (medically constructed) violability.

and I don’t believe Katrina’s done that.

I wonder if this could be through socialisation to have greater sympathy for males than females that you don't see it?

Her tweet is still about the woman. It makes a passing reference to trans dignity at work but that is not the main thrust of her tweet, which is clearly on the side of the woman.

I beg to differ. The tweet says:

"Patients have a right to access single-sex clinicians for routine intimate examinations & transgender people have a right to dignity at work. Neither should've been put in this situation but a nurse should show more sensitivity to women's needs."

The opening sentence is a shocker in this context.
Minimising the utter shocking, violating and disgusting cringy experience of a woman being presented by a bloke with a delusion to perform an intimate exam as just a 'right of access' to a particular type of service.

My mind was filled with questions of 'why?' - 'why would a TIM want to perform intimate exams on women as part of his job?', 'why would a TIM not see that he would make women feel uncomfortable by doing that job?', 'why are we in a situation where this TIM is able to impinge on the safety and dignity of women in a vulnerable state as part of his job?'.

This woman patient was put in an utterly undignified position. If she wasn't assertive enough to refuse and complain, she could have ended up deeply traumatised by the experience. I - as a woman- was not thinking about this situation as simply a 'patient's right of access to a service'. My concern was a woman's right to 'not be abused' by medical staff - a far bigger deal. Kristina did not mention the dignity of the patient at all. Just her right of access.

To add insult to injury, Kristina then brings up the inappropriate 'dignity' of this dodgy TIM perv at work. Jaw-droppingly inappropriate in that context!

The second sentence "Neither should've been put in this situation but a nurse should show more sensitivity to women's needs."

Looks like more false equivalence - but there is some ambiguity. Does Kristina mean that the TIM shouldn't be employed in that role of medicine, or that we should think about the feelings of the creepy TIM as much as those of the woman patient? The former I agree with, the latter I vehemently oppose.

And also "a nurse should show more sensitivity to women's needs" - surely it should read 'a trans identifying male should show more senstivity to women's needs, especially when they are working in roles such as nursing'. But of course there's the issue of twitter and lack of characters.

I don't know Kristina, but I think there was a fair bit of male-entitlement, what about the men and minimising women's oppression in that tweet.

Too many "awful"s there. But they truly are!

As a man, I used to think that radical feminists were nasty b*tches for their comments on TIMs and their deliberate "misgendering". Why can't they just be kind to this group who were so much more vulnerable and deserving?

When I started reading on the trans issue (GallusMag especially) then it slowly dawned on me that (i) there's no obligation on feminists to soothe men's feelings, (ii) however rude they were, it was nothing compared to the vile hatred emanating from TRAs.

Charlie Hebdo is a good parallel, I think.

If you want to see how awful look up Katelyn Burns' twitter timeline. Or visit an awful, doubly ironically named group on Facebook called "Feminists United". Which is probably run by a TA as many mainstream feminist groups are.

The trouble is, twitter has been awash with arseholes saying the patient herself should have been more mindful of the trans HCP's feelings and calling her a TERF (and worse, of course) for not respecting the HCP's identity. I can completely understand why some women saw this as whataboutery / false equivalence. I can understand the anger.

YY. That's my position on it too.

Patients have a right to access single-sex clinicians for routine intimate examinations & transgender people have a right to dignity at work. Neither should've been put in this situation but a nurse should show more sensitivity to women's needs.

The way I read it (and I RT'd it), the main point was that neither should have been put in this position - the trans HCP should not have been sent to do the smear in the first place. This would have respected the woman's right to a same sex HCP and preserved the dignity of the trans HCP.

The trouble is, twitter has been awash with arseholes saying the patient herself should have been more mindful of the trans HCP's feelings and calling her a TERF (and worse, of course) for not respecting the HCP's identity. I can completely understand why some women saw this as whataboutery / false equivalence. I can understand the anger.

I don't know much about Kristina, so far she seems to be a great ally. She is trans though and so of course will have issues she cares about that are to do with trans. It would be very unreasonable to expect her to drop all that just because she is supporting gender critical feminists.

I get what you're saying about 'writing for the lurkers' OP but I don't think women should be constrained by that. We're allowed to get angry and we're allowed to disagree robustly, even with each other and with allies.

I do agree OP that there are better people to be angry with. And there's nothing pathetic about speaking up for someone you think is being unfairly attacked.

But I also feel that male allies who will only be allies as long as we suppress our beliefs and feelings about what is happening to us are not really much of a help (I have no reason to think Kristina is in this category)

I am angry and pissed off with the way women are treated in our society but don't think Kristina is the problem. The trans debate is a distraction from many of the material issues.

The message from society to women is something like "you're not allowed to be angry because we don't want to be forced to take your concerns seriously"

YES.

And yes, that was robust debate - I've seen worse in AIBU.

If you look at twitter conversations towards feminists on the issue you'll see actual abuse (private messages even worse).

Kristina blundered in with 'dignity for the man who wants to violate your boundaries' and ends with 'all about me' - it's insensitive, and is going to provoke anger.

The message from society to women is something like "you're not allowed to be angry because we don't want to be forced to take your concerns seriously"

The conflation of anger and aggression (when it's women doing it) is obviously bollocks and a silencing manoeuvre.

But the real lie is in the idea that aggression isn't a good strategy and is bad PR. One glance at who succeeds in this fucked-up world and how demonstrates that this is nonsense. Aggression is respected much more than reasoned debate, which is why men do it and why they don't want women doing it. I don't specially want us doing it either so I don't know what the solution is. But I think being misread as aggressive is at least as likely to be good pr in the long term

We probably need more angry women tbh, calm hasn't got us anywhere has it and it wouldn't have got us the vote 100 years ago.

Very good point Damn and I totally agree.

I also think that when women are cross and assertive they are perceived as 'aggressive' whereas men [and TIMs] are seen as justly angry and their words and feelings are given more credence.

That is a robust discussion, not abuse. I like Kristina but they are coming from a very different perspective and there will be clashes. I worry that trans ness grants men saint like status, even when they are trying to gain access to naked women. I mean who knew that THE most oppressed would be cross dressing men.

Women will disagree, why shouldn't they? There is this pressure on women that before we speak we must be peeeeeeeerfect, look at Hilary.

If we veer even slightly into cross it is shocking. W are so used to male voices and angry male voices that we just absorb them. Angry women though, wow, society is not ready for them.

I engage on Twitter a lot and I stick to calm, factual and polite. We probably need more angry women tbh, calm hasn't got us anywhere has it and it wouldn't have got us the vote 100 years ago.

Sorry rambling now.

When we get 'too angry' it is never great PR for the cause- even though we have a fuckload to be extremely angry about.

^This

Women are sick and tired of it and they aren't being nice about it any more. I confess it warms my crotchety old second wave heart.
I disagree that it is bad for feminism when women stand up and say eff you to those who play whataboutism.

^And this

I also didn't see any 'arseholes'... just women who are fed up and are not willing to play nice anymore. And if that is shocking for you, have a bit of a think about socialisation of women contrasted with the TERF hate that is seen on a regular basis, almost to the point of not being very shocking anymore.

Like when the argument is skirted around by people: "well of course any patient should be able to reject care for any reason" without acknowledging that the point is because it was a male identifying as a woman. I've seen the same done with the cotton ceiling. "Well of course no one should be forced to have sex with anyone, you can reject someone for any reason". Yes, but the point here is that a lesbian is a homosexual female. It's important not to let people fudge it like that.

There was someone on the original mumsnet thread making the same whataboutism argument. Sure the patient matters but this nurses dignity was insulted when the patient refused to submit to him.
Women are sick and tired of it and they aren't being nice about it any more. I confess it warms my crotchety old second wave heart.
I disagree that it is bad for feminism when women stand up and say eff you to those who play whataboutism.

Yeah. I'm going with socialisation. Firmly.

What other situation would you be expected to take into account the feelings of somebody of that ilk.

And I'm going with Kristina's male socialisation firmly too. I mean - how male is it to overlook the shudder inducing transgression of women's boundaries and think about the TIM's presumed indignity in that context , let alone tweet about it? Its just - What about the men? What about the men? Lip service to women... but... What about the men?

You don't think it seemed minimising to make a statement about 'dignity at work for transpeople' in the context of a story about a pervy, work-place, vulnerable-woman's-boundary violator TIM? Really ???

Yeah. I'm going with socialisation. Firmly.

What other situation would you be expected to take into account the feelings of somebody of that ilk.

if I was Katrina, I’d be very hurt to be spoken to that way by people who I am trying to support.

Of course - but then I think Rachel Dolezal probably felt hurt by the way she was treated too.

In fact I have been stung badly myself when I have made inappropriate comments - blundering around out of my depth, and yes, it hurts, but - I fucked up. So did Kristina.

I struggle to find anything offensive in Katrina’s tweet.

You don't think it seemed minimising to make a statement about 'dignity at work for transpeople' in the context of a story about a pervy, work-place, vulnerable-woman's-boundary violator TIM? Really ???

The moral of that thread is that if you have pent up anger, when you let it out be aware who/what you're targeting.

Indeed nauticant - because this can definitely put off potential allies.

When you're making statements in public, have an eye on how it will look to disinterested bystanders.

And I would go further. Antfeminist MRAs are always on the look out for new ways to divide and conquer- so wrongly interested bystanders are equally concerning.

I know what you mean!

I can't believe that twitter is taken as seriously as it is. To me, it is a sign that the world is going to hell.

Gender critical women, especially lesbian feminists as I believe most of the posters were, are constantly being gaslighted and emotionally blackmailed on social media. As well as bullied for their sexuality in the case of lesbians.