Go Fund Me addiction part 2

So the TRAs have set up their own Go fund me page as a reaction to all the hate speech, £200 raised in 11 hours of a £50,000 target.

For what?

Jack Monroe has told Pink News that anyone who donated in the name of a trans person has been refunded and blocked from further donating.

How does Jack have so much sway with gofundme? I remember a while back there was a fundraiser for some poor kid who had been refused cancer treatment and had to go abroad, and so many of the donations were in the names of Teresa May and o0ther various Tory members. Its always been a large part of gofundme that people can donate in other peoples names. Why is this one campaign any different, and how has she managed to get people blocked from donating/ I can kind of understand them refusing donations done in false names, but not refusing to let the original donator donate again.

Yeah apparently the current Parliament is the most LGBT in the world! 45 out MPs of 650. And the ones from the 2015-17 Parliament were more likely to hold their seats than the average MP too.

You can break it down further within that category. There are 36 men and 9 women, so gay and bisexual men are probably over-represented. Not sure whether lesbians are or not. And obviously there is nobody trans. But LGBT as a whole, is not a group that appears to need any kind of special measure to get a representative number of MPs elected.

DH is going to donate to this when he gets paid, in his actual name, which is extremely uncommon. Have told him about all the doxxing stuff and that and also about the phishing email I received after donating. He says he has no issue with supplying them with his social media accounts, and if they show up at his work or even try to contact them, his boss will tell them to fuck off. So yeah.

I'd support disability only shortlist's, with sex dysphoria included as a mental illness. I'm sure that will go down well with the TRAs

Good points. But I fear it's either that or they'll be on women's.

LGBT shortlists?

The only thing is, Stonewall calculate that around 6-7% of the population are LGB - so LGB people aren’t particularly underrepresented in Parliament. And, correct me if I’m wrong, as far as I know LGB people have never asked for their own shortlists! So the lists would probably be dominated by the “T” - who I think are about 0.3 of the population or something?

That’s the trouble with these kind of well-meaning interventions. I understand the thinking behind women-only shortlists (we are 50% of the population), but if you have trans lists (disguised as LGBT lists) then surely it would only be fair to have them for every minority group that wants them?

I can't imagine any trans woman would want to be on a trans short list. After all it would be an immediate acknowledgement that they are not really women wouldn't it?

Whatever would they then do for validation?

Further, I would not want a shortlist designed to promote people who subscribe to what I consider to be a very anti-woman, anti-child and anti-science ideology.

I agree

I would not support all-trans shortlists.

Apart from what Eamonn said about many other minorities not getting their own shortlists, it needs pointing out that (unlike, say, deaf people) 'trans' is a very heterogenous category that has no objective qualities for membership. It's based completely on the individual's say-so. It's a PR move by the trans lobby (a very successful one) to cast all trans-identifying people (let's face it, they mean TIMs) as vulnerable and marginalised. When in fact when it comes to TIMs the opposite is often the case - many are wealthy white men who have spent half a lifetime accumulating power and money off the back of their white, male upper-middle class privilege.

I saw someone on twitter saying that 'transwomen' had never had even one MP, so what were those privileged women complaining about re the shortlist? This demonstrates the power of the word 'transwoman' to reverse the reality of sexism: 'transwomen' (i.,e., males) have been in Parliament since the beginning of Parliament. Unlike, you know, actual women.

Further, I would not want a shortlist designed to promote people who subscribe to what I consider to be a very anti-woman, anti-child and anti-science ideology. I would only consider voting for a trans-identified candidate if he or she had specifically repudiated current trans ideology, for the same reason that I would not vote for Christian candidate unless I was sure that he or she did not subscribe to fundamentalist Christian ideology. Otherwise I would worry that once in power they would do their best to enact policies that hurt women.

Transphobia and Transphobe are meaningless terms really aren't they. I'm a Transphobe because I'm straight and wouldn't want to sleep with a Transwoman because imo they're male. 95% of the population would likely agree with me so we are all Transphobes.

How are they planning to fight It? Force folk to sleep with them?

I didn’t have my initial donation refunded, but the whole fiasco did prompt me to make another one.

Fortheloveofscience - I have one good friend and two acquaintances IRL who are trans (they all say transsexual not transgender) and they are all like that too. I do think there's a big difference.

I would support the following three bands of affirmative action shortlists:

Women (sex based only)
LGBT
BAME

I'm certainly not against trans shortlists in theory (though given their actual percentage within society I also agree with analogies I've seen on this board such as 'why not Malaysian only short lists' or 'deaf only shortlists').
It is the practicality of how it would work that puts me off.
Especially if to be trans all one has to do is self define - so the trans only short list would be open to any chancer who wanted, and every narcissistic AGP who wanted a platform to normalise their fetish.

That would mean the reality embracing, lovely trans people - such as for theloveofscience's friends, or Miranda Yardley still wouldn't have meaningful representation. And worse - the people supposed to be representing them may be doing active harm.

It would turn the whole concept into a joke (at best) which wouldn't help trans people and may well increase incidents of transphobia, as the outrageous demands - and increased exposure - of some of the trans candidates peak transed people who were already inclined to be violent and hate filled.

There can't be trans only shortlist until a definition of trans is nailed down - a set of criteria that you have to fulfil to be considered 'trans enough' to run - and that can't be met by >90% of the population (after all - according to the stonewall definition - we are all trans). But a set of rules and a hard definition is antithetical to the trans movement as it stands right now. So it's all a bit of a moot point.

Laurie Penny. She surely has the intelligence to understand the argument. I guess just cannot afford to change her public view, but some of her comments sound like a parody: ''Also- while we're on this, someone tell me, what's a shorter non-essentialist way to refer to 'people who have a uterus and all that stuff'?" [Her on Twitter]

Jack is the worst kind of attention seeker
She/he/they need constant validation and will get it from any group, throwing others under the bus without a second glance

And all LGBTQ+ shortlist as well as AWS would work though - at least as a way of ensuring fair representation. There'd be enough candidates I'm sure.

It wouldn't of course solve the tricky problem of how can a TW remove representation for women whilst ensuring the TW voice remains heard above everyone else's....

It would mean the party had to take whoever offered - which might mean a shortlist of raging AGPs, who self define as 'Martha' on a Tuesday - and who everyone in the local area can see quite clearly for what they are.

Ok I see your point. LGBT shortlists?

very happy to support an all-trans shortlist -think that is important. The irony of all of this is that women would be [and have been historically] trans people's fiercest supporters. This new aggressively misogynist voice of Trans Activism, supported by white 'cis' men, seems really dystopian.

The same issue relates to all women shortlists in Arts [as well as Tech and Sport etc]. In arts now, many grants are open to 'self identifying' women.

I'd be very happy to see a trans shortlist, for both trans identified males and females.

So the trans people I know IRL are simply gender non-conforming individuals, who present as the opposite gender but acknowledge that they haven’t changed sex. Several are very politically astute (and active) and would make great representatives, but there isn’t an obvious place for them. White men still dominate British politics, and my trans women friends would never be comfortable standing on an AWS. They do feel that their voice is being blocked, both by the privileged men and the loud trans activists trying to shoe-horn them into boxes they have no interest in being in. For that reason I don’t think an all-trans shortlist is a terrible idea, as long as they are in addition to places reserved for women not instead of.

So 50% of transfolx attempt suicide, but 50%> succeed?
Yeah, I'll support their GFM for a stats course. Who wants to set one up?

Lol

Where are the Transmen in politics? Doesn't anyone realise it is the male socialisation of Transwomen that gives them the bravado and self
importance confidence to push themselves into politics and the public/social media sphere? I am really hoping at some point these men are going to wake up and feel really stupid for throwing women under a bus like this. They' aren't, are they.

You know, if there was a campaign to set up that acknowledged that AWS ought only to be open to women, but that wanted to give trans people a fair crack of the whip by setting up some trans only lists, open to trans identifying males and females alike, I'd consider slinging them a fiver.

Not going to happen because lets face it. men have been whinging 'what about the men' whenver you mention DV statistics for donkeys years and they have yet to start any male refugees, this isnt about services for them, this is about taking them away from women or expecting women to do it all for them. Thats why the massive tantrums when we say NO.

Surely the trouble with trans only shortlists is that only a teeny percentage of the population are trans - so if you need a shortlist of only trans people from one local area - in one party -who want to be involved in politics...there really might not be enough local trans people to make that a reality.
It would mean the party had to take whoever offered - which might mean a shortlist of raging AGPs, who self define as 'Martha' on a Tuesday - and who everyone in the local area can see quite clearly for what they are. As there are so many more non-trans people than there are trans - these ordinary people might not much feel like being represented by 'Martha' - and so they would give their vote to another party.

ATS in certain areas might actually kill the party off in those areas.

It would be reasonable to have a trans officer, distinct from an lgb one and a women's one - where the officer had to be trans - which would in effect create ATS for this one office. But they could only exist in places where there were trans people who were engaged enough in politics to actually bother running for the post. It might be that some clps would be unable to return one.

But on a bigger scale - especially when it comes to national representation -expecting the constituents to accept such a narrow list of possible representation - and then vote for 'Martha' to be their MP - would be setting a course for disaster.