Miranda Yardley's contribution to the Woman's Place meeting on Tuesday

Sorry, shameless placemark as I want to reflect on this and come back when I've thought it through. There is some incredibly interesting stuff here.

What happened with Helen Heaton, btw? I thought they were an ally.

TruScum

Do you think that dismantling gender would stop gender dysphoria?

Donkey so say: men who have the delusion that they are women

I think this is an accurate description.

Donkey its interesting that you're feeling uncomfortable and that things have gotton a bit personal. Trans people and their views are frequently discussed on here. I can't see what's uncomfortable about discussing his views that he expressed in a public meeting.

surely if Miranda Yardley believed that it was all bollocks, why transition in the first place?

Obviously I can only speak for myself here but, for me personally, I don’t feel I’ve ‘had a change of heart’ or have been conflicted suddenly by recent events.

My ‘transition’ was always more about getting away from my own detested body, as far from it as possible. Surgery brought some relief after years of therapy failed to (though definitely didn’t cure it either)

I don’t ‘do’ the makeup/heels/parody thing.

I never believed it made me an actual woman.

I had a lot of strong female role models growing up and thinking about it maybe I did try to emulate them.

I met my husband a long time after ‘transitioning’. He is very much a gay man and would be extremely bemused if anyone suggested to him that he was straight because I’m a transsexual.

The problem with this is that you are expecting the general public to understand the feminist discourse that underlines gender.

And they don't.

Feminists understand this. And many women. But the vast majority of people don't. And they're not going to devote the slightest bit of time to trying to understand it.

I completely agree with trying to move the Overton window. But, to do that, people have to listen.

And, when talking about the demands and claims that transactivists make, having an actual transwoman refute them is incredibly useful.

Everyone saying how it is important to be polite and respectful to those demanding we deny reality ... how about being respectful to the young lesbians suffering corrective rape, the children being sucked into trans beliefs, women in prisons and shelters and sports, women whose husbands have disappeared down the AGP rabbit hole, women who believe we need to be able to name men and women for what we are.

We need to be able to name reality, not to tiptoe round it for the sake of abusers and call it "respect".

You cannot hold both these at the same time apart from on an incredibly superficial level. You either respect the men driving the trans machine or you respect those harmed by it and stop pretending that men can ever be women.

I think we need to be much more direct about refusing to accept that the problem of what to do about TIMs has anything to do with us.

Transwomen are women - no, males who identify out of masculinity do so because masculinity is not accommodating their ways of being men.

Women are excluding TIMs - no, men are excluding them, that's why they have come to us in the first place

Women are bigoted because we won't accept TIMs as women - no, men are bigoted because they won't accept effeminate males as men

The only argument we can usefully make here is: this isn't about women. This is about how to define manhood and how to define masculinity. Men need to deal with it.

(TIFs reasons for transitioning obviously are about women but we've barely had a chance to think about that yet)

surely if Miranda Yardley believed that it was all bollocks, why transition in the first place?

I don't wish to speak for Yardley (and I'm uncomfortable with how personal this thread has gotten), but you're not making allowances for the fact that people can change their perspective and beliefs over time, often in very radical ways.

Ultimately, I think women can only rely on one another in this fight: men, whether they be trans-identified or not, always have the option of changing their minds, stepping away, deciding that women and our issues aren't worth the trouble.

Nevertheless, if men want to speak up I think that's good, we do need male voices questioning this and defending women's right to speak, and Yardley has been a consistent ally of women on this - it's just that I'm aware, as we all are I guess, that genuine solidarity from men with women is rare, and they have the option of backing out of this fight if they wish, while we don't.

I was really pleased to see Michael Conroy announce the meetings for GC men LangCleg

We can tell men they aren't women but men have to be the ones to figure out what they are instead.

TheUterati I agree with you that this debate needs to be led by women. If Miranda Yardley is now of the opinion that we should call a spade a spade, why the surgery, the feminine name and the insistence that we use female pronouns up until now? I am deeply sceptical- surely it's like a turkey voting for Christmas and I really wonder whether Miranda Yardley has the same aims and objectives as women. It could be something akin to India Willoughby's aversion for drag queens on BB- some sort of feeling that her kind of trans is okay but others are not. I am not sure, but surely if Miranda Yardley believed that it was all bollocks, why transition in the first place?

I do think there is a large degree of delusion here but I think we have gone too far to be able to simply refuse to acknowledge the existence of trans people altogether. That ship has sailed and that fight should have been made 20 years ago. Instead, it is important to stress that the rights of trans people cannot encroach on the rights of women and to maintain the right to segregate on the basis of biological sex in appropriate circumstances.

I'm perfectly capable of liking someone, and appreciating their contribution to the debate, without having to "fawn" over them, I don't think it's an either/or opportunity, and as much as I appreciate where you are on this, I don't think it helps characterising it in that way

Thanks Annie. I agree.

And where does this leave us, I don't know. It's a strange process the whole thing.

It is. But it's here and it's real. I don't think there are any right answers. But I do take TheUterati's point that we must guard feminist spaces.

We (as in society we, not feminist we) need multiple approaches to this. But it seems, at the moment, only feminist space has even begun to approach it.

WPUK, although run by socialist feminists, seems to want to build solidarity bridges through a multi-community approach. This is not a bad thing. But I completely understand why some women would only want to be active in exclusively feminist ways and spaces.

There is a guy on Twitter, Michael Conroy, who is organising gender critical meet-ups for men. Very early days but you know - there's another approach in the works separate to feminism that may eventually grow and develop to an extent it takes some of the pressure off feminists.

I like this thread. It's quite challenging but it's drawing out some excellent posts that are helping me to develop my own thinking.

That post above was responding to TheUterati, if that wasn't clear.

I'm sighing because I feel like I'm making the same points over and over.

And feminists wouldn't get very far in advancing our arguments using the language you suggest. Not just because it would instantly get most people's backs up, but because it suggests the problem is with a few delusional men, when in fact the problem is ultimately about societal beliefs around sex and sex roles (including sexuality). That is what feminists need to keep the focus on.

And of course we mustn't use Newspeak like 'transwoman'. You are right that language shapes cognition. We need to be as precise as possible and as neutral as possible (hence 'delusional' not really being helpful), always dragging the language back to the material reality of sex, which is what trans Newspeak aims to obscure.

Actually I agree with everyone

I agree with Donkey's analysis, ArcheryAnnie's position wrt Miranda Yardley and TheUterati's warning that we must watch our female socialisation like a hawk.

Just marking the thread... sorry.

I just want us to think about it, question it and examine what we are saying and doing, why we are saying and doing it and what the risks are.

I'm perfectly capable of liking someone, and appreciating their contribution to the debate, without having to "fawn" over them, I don't think it's an either/or opportunity, and as much as I appreciate where you are on this, I don't think it helps characterising it in that way.

And I will resist any insistence on ideological purity by "our" side, just as I will ridicule it in theirs.

It's OK if we don't all agree on this. It really is.

Donkey so say: men who have the delusion that they are women.

Easy.

Using 'trans' in any form, is dangerous. It is reifying it. It is making it into A Thing. It complicates things. And, importantly, it is using the preferred terminology of TRA (even if the exact way 'trans' is used is not to their liking).

It shapes our thought.

And where we are now is, even in gender critical feminist circles, women look for the good ones, they differentiate, they fawn over them. THAT needs to be examined. And we need to be on guard against it.

And - you don't need to sigh at me, and I am not 'banning' anyone from using any word.

Thanks Tallulah! I have a 2-year-old, so I'm an expert in the Maisie canon

Good spot DonkeySkin

Then why have a separate term for them?

Why don't we just call them men?

(sighs) Because we sometimes need to distinguish them from non-trans-identified men for the purposes of a political conversation around this issue.

People who call themselves 'trans', who identify with this ideology, exist, and we need the language to discuss that. You can't ban feminists from referring to 'trans' anything and then expect us to be able to participate in this debate.

I take your point about not wanting to reify the ideology by adopting its terms uncritically. That's why (as I explained upthread), I use 'trans-identified' rather than 'trans' - to highlight that being 'trans' is about identification with a belief system, rather than an inherent characteristic of human beings.

Are we gaslighting ourselves?

Sometimes we are. But I do think the insistence on sex is what will save us from getting confused.

I actually find the concept of 'transgenderism' something of a relief to the extent that it makes visible the problem of gender. I found the previous mainstream position that men and women have achieved equality and all this gender stuff is some kind of feminist delusion even more insidious and gaslighty.

What we need to establish, first and foremost, is that they don't refer to sex, which remains the signifier of sex class and the determiner of sex-based protections. If we can succeed in this, the whole question will be somewhat depoliticised which might render it more amenable to disinterested investigation.

Absolutely, Tallulah (is your name a Maisie reference - specifically, the one where she drives a bus?). I think this is the key line of attack that feminists need to focus on when attempting to change the narrative.

I might start a thread on this topic as I think it is such an important point.

Great thread. I've also had conflicting feelings. I admire Miranda's writing and support for women. I'm also a bit uncomfortable at the adulation the "good trans" people attract and how much of that is our female socialisation.

I was at the meeting and was also a bit uncomfortable that Miranda got more positive attention than Julia Long for basically saying the same thing. It also struck me how -and I'm not being unkind here - extremely male he and Kristina and Debbie look; none of them remotely pass as female. So the way we behave around them, whether we want it consciously or not, is always coloured by that.

Whatever personal journey Miranda is on, who knows? But he no longer seems to see himself as female in any way to be honest. And where does this leave us, I don't know. It's a strange process the whole thing.