Dealing with inflammatory posts re Trans on MN

The real breakthrough would be if we stopped explicitly training them to do it.

Indeed. They don't all just individually decide that maybe violating women's boundaries would be a fun hobby. The culture is saturated with it.

what if we just started trying to train men not to do this?

The real breakthrough would be if we stopped explicitly training them to do it.

But this would require a massive cultural revolution in pornography, mainstream film and television, popular music, etc

Sometimes one is very well aware that the sealion is a lost cause, but is also aware that the lurkers are not and may benefit from seeing the sealion's "points" debunked.

Trans 'folk' usage - useful sealion indicator

Eh? Perhaps? Perhaps not.
I use it now and then. Why? I was using it 30 years ago when the majority male workforce bosses enjoyed calling the men workers to a meeting by shouting "ladies". On it's own, it's an inclusive word. No one "owns" it.
Language changes, don't drop the thread to unnecessarily snide remarks about "spotting" people, stick with the issue.

I think you can spot a sea lion by its need to get a fish.
And people here are starting to throw them to one. Don't go too far off track on the theme of your thread.

Personally, it's a turn off to me, when I read sealions putting up links that have poor statistical basis, a microscopic or undisclosed sample base and dodgy funders of research.
Oh, and the use of "experts" to tell me what my lived experience has already taught me.

Yes. It's part of the backlash. That's why MRAs have hopped on board.

It's really important to separate our (emotional and practical) response to the plight of individual transgender / transsexual / gender non conforming people, from an analysis of the role that manipulation of their plight can play for old fashioned patriarchy.

(My view of this is very shaped from having tussled with an abusive relationship for 13 years. But then that isn't exactly a niche position so while it makes it personal it doesn't make it irrelevant.)

I just read this: "Even if a strange man in my intimate space wouldn't dream of physically attacking me the chances are relatively high that he will leer at me, make a distasteful remark, tell me to 'cheer up', or do something subtly intimidating in order to enjoy my reaction." and thought YY, it's all this crap.

Then I thought, not realistically, but purely as a thought experiment: what if we just started trying to train men not to do this? Could we rehabilitate public space for all people? Would it seem less important, or even unimportant, to have somewhere to go, if you weren't being constantly belittled and humiliated in general public space? Could we collectively just stop putting up with it somehow, train men to stop glorying in their power and making us feel uncomfortable? If you appease, you get more shit; if you oppose, what would happen?

The answer that came immediately to me from my experience of my relationship was: you might get a partial, passive-aggressive accommodation to your reasonable assertive requests - but it would be followed with a massive and "apparently unrelated" backlash punishment in some form just a little way down the road. You might have to look quite hard to see the way in which the incidents are related but they will be, in some subtle way. You'll find yourself materially punished - something that mattered to you to have or to do will be taken away - and it will be done in a way that puts you on the back foot and creates a cloud of attention and sympathy around the other person and a cloud of guilt and obligation around you.

THIS IS WHAT WHAT IS.

When women do try to redeem violent men by the quality of their love everyone blames them and says 'why didn't she leave?'

I usually just ask if people think that women and girls only spaces should exist? - most do, tho they don't necessarily know why they think this - and take it from there.

Absolutely to this. People all over the world in whatever cultures, times and places all know on a conscious or subconscious level that women and girls need some private spaces for safety and dignity.

This is really well understood, yet for some reason people arguing on what they think is the 'pro Trans, anti-TERF' side are often disingenuous about this - I've seen posters even on here pretend they think it's fine for teenage girls to have boys in their sleeping quarters and sharing facilities on school trips, 'what could possibly go wrong', etc. and express wide-eyed bemusement at the very idea of needing single-sex toilets.

EVERYONE knows, really, why we need these things. And everyone knows what a woman is, and what a man is.

It's bewildering how quickly it's become the thing to pretend otherwise - how quickly the TRA agenda bullshitted people into the pretence that it's all a bit fuzzy and 'not straightforward' and so on.

We need to try and get this woolly thinking and (what began as an essentially kind-hearted) pretence gradually turned around, and we won't do that with a trade of escalating insults across the barriers.

#TGLWGH

Unless one is talking to the Dalai Lama I don't think expecting them to love everyone is reasonable.

I think Sue in particular would benefit from a read of the Shroedinger's Rapist post and the comment after it. But yes, even lovely men who I'm completely sure wouldn't hurt me I don't want to get naked in front of unless we have a sexual relationship. My dad? My brother in law? My nephew? Nope!

This is my problem with this. Because it is not two way

I mean, we may be able to give empathy but by not sacrificing our own needs. And that may mean just saying no.

Going both ways - there doesn't seem to be much / any coming back from TRAs towards women.

By insinuating we aren't being loving enough is insinuating we are being hateful. Whereas we are rightfully maintaining boundaries.

YY Tallulah. But public space isn't for us, is it? It's for men.

It's not just about schroedinger's rapist though is it. Even if a strange man in my intimate space wouldn't dream of physically attacking me the chances are relatively high that he will leer at me, make a distasteful remark, tell me to 'cheer up', or do something subtly intimidating in order to enjoy my reaction.

Being female in a public space already carries a high risk of being frightened and shamed. Why should we accept a rule change that will make this worse?

It's a demand that women abandon any boundaries that inconvenience other people. Which is not a very kind of loving thing to ask of anyone.

I understand what is being meant; empathy and compassion. But with empathy and compassion, boundaries and mutual respect still remains.

This is my problem with this. Because it is not two way, it's simply a tactic to silence objections and achieve a desired outcome. It's entirely self centred or centring the feelings of a particular group (speaking generally here, not about anyone in particular). And that is a red flag.

The "lets channel love" thing is quite chilling and manipulative.

"If you really loved me you would do this for me."

I understand what is being meant; empathy and compassion. But with empathy and compassion, boundaries and mutual respect still remains. And empathy and compassion goes both ways in adults. Children/ teens are the only people who haven't fully developed the capacity to do this.

No one who is gender critical is denying empathy and compassion towards individuals with gender dysphoria. This thread was set up to analyse maintaining boundaries- which women are used to surrendering so much they are often naive to it - and remaining respectful.

I'm pleased it appears to be maintaining this.

I'm thinking about my own username which was a pun on the fact I can't stand zoflora and have realised I'm actually a radical feminist, once I really investigated and read about what it stood for. Is it offensive? I've never included terf in my username as I feel the term is utterly pointless.

I've posted this link before but since we have some new people it may be worth doing so again.

kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/

Magical thinking, innit?

"There are, however, important difficulties with abuse-focused objections to self-determination."

There is if you constantly focus on the abuser rather than the abused.

One in five women will be the victim of some kind of sexual violence in their life. The argument that Sue is making is like the likelihood of the person who abused that woman walking through the door of the toilets.

Not that the woman's boundaries should be maintained, to keep out all men.

Because it is all men. The harmless ones and the predators.

It's not about deciding, from the outside, who is harmless and who isn't. It's about women never, ever being able to tell. So the default position is caution with any and every man.

Perhaps if I had tried harder to see the love in my abusive partner he wouldn't have hurt me so often.

If it was possible to make all the men in the world harmless via positive thinking women would have done so long ago. It may be possible to convince yourself that nothing bad will happen to you if you're just shiny and positive and loving enough, but unfortunately this is unlikely to convince predators not to hurt you. As a life strategy I wouldn't recommend it.

Oh women are only see abusive men because they don’t see love, if they loved enough they wouldn’t see the hate

Well that’s a new one. Or maybe a reeeeeeally old one...

As kittens said upthread, it's a strength not a problem that we have many different voices expressing our arguments in many different ways. We don't all have to agree on tone or on emphasis. Different tones and different emphases will chime with different hearers.

I agree that we have to be clever how we couch things.

AntiGrinch

I think that's an excellent analysis