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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Reconciling competing rights

317 replies

GaspingShark · 19/04/2018 20:26

Let me start by saying I do know what it's like to have my experience disbelieved, invalidated and gaslighted on an large scale, though not as a trans person or a victim of sexual assault. I don't have PTSD but I do know what it's like to have triggerable sources of distress, again, not as a trans person or a victim of sexual assault.

For me, equal rights must include the right to define your own experience, without gatekeepers, and to be very hesitant to consider people delusional.

So I am unsure about this. I would be ashamed of trans friends seeing me saying stuff such as "I err on the side of including them as much as possible", because I don't think that kind of recognition is mine to confer.

OTOH, I don't know if therefore that means I'm not recognising sexual assault survivors distressed by the fear of male people in women-only contexts.

Is this reconcilable, or does it mean one side just has to grin and bear it? I'll read this thread carefully but due to my bad management of a health condition I can't promise to tend it beyond the OP atm.

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 14/05/2018 15:48

My chronic mansplaining services are not required

Well, no!

MadBadDaddy · 14/05/2018 15:40

[Latest: Kettle accuses Pot of cultural appropriation!] :

"expecting to control that with emotional blackmail "
"demanding, obnoxious, and disingenuous"
"appropriating the experiences"
"I don't know what they were hoping to achieve apart from wind people up"

:) My chronic mansplaining services are not required. Any 'time wasted' was yours to waste or not. Speaking of which...

GrinBiscuit[paid work]

Ereshkigal · 14/05/2018 11:27

Their behaviour on this thread has been demanding, obnoxious, and disingenuous.

Agree. I don't know what they were hoping to achieve apart from wind people up.

JoanSummers · 14/05/2018 11:03

Of course @GaspingShark is the only person with a disability here, it's not like they've been wasting the time of anyone else with disabilities or carers work to do..
Hmm

Ereshkigal, they don't know what they're talking about and seem to be here to waste people's time for shits and giggles. Their behaviour on this thread has been demanding, obnoxious, and disingenuous.

If they hadn't identified themselves as female I'd assume they were a clueless chronic mansplainer tbh.

Ereshkigal · 14/05/2018 10:06

And your description of "trans people" is disingenuous because from previous convos you're not including cross dressing sexual fetishists. Unlike Stonewall.

flowersonthepiano · 14/05/2018 10:03

Gaspingshark

I think you may be underestimating/minimizing the degree of concern among those of us who are gender critical with, "they are more scared of us than we are of them". We aren't going on about this for shiggles you know!

And tbh, I do think the way things are going is totalitarian. And I think a lot of people who call themselves gender rights activists are appropriating the experiences of those with gender dysphoria (who I don't disbelieve) for their own purposes. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not suggesting you belong to the appropriating group.

Ereshkigal · 14/05/2018 10:01

think right now most trans people would settle just fine for you privately disbelieving them.

Sorry that doesn't work for me. I will continue to advocate for women's rights to speak about our sex based oppression without having to silence ourselves or walk on eggshells around male feelings. Because you know what, expecting to control that with emotional blackmail is abusive.

GaspingShark · 14/05/2018 09:40

I don't think the MN posse is capable of recognising a good faith argument. You consistently mistake doubt for obfuscation. And I'm pulling the disability card here but it's just not possible for me to address every single question or concern everybody on this thread offers me.

The Inquisition, as I understand it, spent hundreds of years torturing and murdering people in the pursuit of totalitarian conformity and the maintenance of existing power structures. I can see why you think that the insistence that everybody believe exactly the same intangible thing parallels trans people, but IME the science is undecided, they are more scared of us than we are of them and I know myself that constant disbelief of one's experience drives people crazy. I think right now most trans people would settle just fine for you privately disbelieving them.

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 14/05/2018 09:07

But do keep avoiding every question or point made. I don't think you're capable of a good faith argument.

Ereshkigal · 14/05/2018 09:06

Christ you're hard work. I didn't make a direct comparison between the Inquisition and trans issues. You did. I said it was an example of something which aimed to reorder society for a "net benefit" as certain people believed it to be based on their subjective personal faith position. And that justified "disadvantaging" others.

I don't give a fuck about your yoonique identity, btw. Just that you keep redefining yourself in an obfuscatory way.

GaspingShark · 14/05/2018 08:46

I thought you didn't see yourself as gay but just "partaking". Make your mind up.

I don't have to make my mind up. Not everyone experiences life in such fixed terms as you seem to require. "Partaking" doesn't necessarily imply dilettanteism, and the lesbian community as a whole has never expected me to pass a test or disclose exactly what degree of interest I maintain in the devil's sausage before they let me in. I'm a little fazed at your continuing attempts to get me to account for my sexuality, it's none of your business but you can add yourself to the list of people who have made me feel uncomfortable by pushing at it, it includes plenty of entitled men and no trans people.

The Inquisition, well, no, really, if you're asking me to differentiate transgender people from the power and reach of the Inquisition while warning against hyperbole, I'll have work out where on earth to start because I just wasn't expecting it.

OP posts:
LightofaSilveryMoon · 13/05/2018 23:46

I certainly know that the "Transwomen are women #nodebate Burn the witch!" approach is problematic to me, as an ordinary woman who got born with a cunt and was raised and socialised accordingly.

Why are there people putting great effort into telling me that I am wrong, and that women and girls include people born with a penis?!

No!

I am a woman, because of my biology, and just No - people with a penis are men!

No. End of conversation - NOT an opener for a discussion.

Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 22:56

So you are comparing the Inquisition to trans rights.

Without hyperbole, point out why that indirect comparison isn't relevant? It's an analogy of the pitfalls of faith based beliefs, and I think if you were genuinely exploring this, you'd think about it.

Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 22:53

Clearly we have a situation where I think my approach is less harmful and you think yours is.

It would seem so, yes Smile

Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 22:52

I hope we will then find that it's fine and inch towards more integration in the same way as they did with the gays and our biologically nonsensical unprocreative fucking.

I thought you didn't see yourself as gay but just "partaking". Make your mind up.

thebewilderness · 13/05/2018 22:18

The bottom line is that I don't believe we're reordering society to benefit a minority of people while disadvantaging another protected group. I believe there's a net and indeed overall benefit.

The attempt is to reorder society back to the 1850s where the male half of the population was at a clear and distinct advantage over the female half.
This is not the first time in history that a concerted effort was made by men to erase women from the historical record.
When men finally stopped arguing that women were sub human animals that men planted their seed in and acknowledged women might be human not much changed for women. Aristotle has a lot to answer for.
Currently organizations are arguing that it is men's right to buy and sell women. Amnesty International, if you can believe it.
This discussion is not happening in a vacuum. This is part of the ongoing war on women.

JoanSummers · 13/05/2018 21:41

Hey @gaspingshark did you say whether you think third gender spaces should be sex segregated yet? Or what sex segregation is actually for?

I've lost track of which questions you've evaded answering :/

GaspingShark · 13/05/2018 20:01

So you are comparing the Inquisition to trans rights.

Clearly we have a situation where I think my approach is less harmful and you think yours is. I've said in previous threads that third spaces are the only way to go for now. I hope we will then find that it's fine and inch towards more integration in the same way as they did with the gays and our biologically nonsensical unprocreative fucking.

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 19:43

No. I'm saying that your love of Joy Division is a personal belief, which you deliberately picked to be non offensive. Unlike the Inquisition, an institution founded in some people's personal beliefs, which aimed to reorder society to the detriment of others. For a net benefit to society. As they saw it. Subjectively.

GaspingShark · 13/05/2018 19:39

Actually I think I compared the Inquisition to your appreciation of Joy Division? Based on both being founded in a personal belief.

I've been awake for 25 hours so forgive me if I'm not understanding you.

Are you suggesting I'm under the impression that I can kill or torture people if they say they don't like Joy Division? Because by and large I just look at them like they're crazy and leave it at that, really I do.

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 19:20

And Ereshkigal you just compared trans rights to the Inquisition and then wondered why I didn't respond to your finally crafted comparison, did you?

Actually I think I compared the Inquisition to your appreciation of Joy Division? Based on both being founded in a personal belief?

MadBadDaddy · 13/05/2018 19:12

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."

FlyTipper · 13/05/2018 17:22

gasping shark: why do sex segregated spaces exist in the first place?

GaspingShark · 13/05/2018 16:54

As a rule, flouncers don't say they'll come back. I consider the possibility I'm wrong. Do you?

And I still don't understand why you think I'm Australian. Or a wolf…

OP posts:
womanformallyknownaswoman · 13/05/2018 16:35

I think that was a flounced exit - it's all your fault FWR - you are all wrong and you didn't treat me right and I know better than you what you should do and say and you're all mad

witches and bitches in short

I'll flounce off now…flounce flounce

What big eyes you have Grandma...