TW are the most vulnerable? Errrrr....

@Juells

I can't please everyone. Using the word 'woman' to refer only to AFAB women (or women born women, or XX women, or women with a uterus or adult females) when discussing trans women means there's an opening for TRAs to jump in calling transphobia and ignore every other point I've made. I would rather make minor sacrifices over language and stand a chance at having a debate. I would not refer to you personally (or in fact any other woman) as an AFAB woman outside of making the distinction from trans women.

@IamtheOrpheliac

(assigned female at birth) women

I'll fight against anyone who describes me as an AFAB woman. They are not on my side.

IamtheOrpheliac

Quite possibly the most sensible post I've read on here. Thanks!

Well some good points have been made following my comment and I don't mind being surrounded by a few straw men from time to time. Perhaps I've given Crispbuttyfan a night off.

I hate the 'x group is the most vulnerable/oppressed group in society' thing. The oppression Olympics is a waste of everyone's time. For one thing, context is important. There are almost certainly situations where trans women are more vulnerable than AFAB (assigned female at birth) women, the opposite is also true. As has been pointed out already, both groups are at risk from male violence. So the focus should be on male violence and not on who is 'more vulnerable'.

In my experience the 'more oppressed than you' line does get thrown out to silence any debate or disputes. It is something that I have seen used more by TRAs, but that's not to say feminists don't do it. There is no award for being the most oppressed. It shouldn't be a hierarchy because that's too rigid a model to account for a nuanced human experience. When people experience different forms of oppression, one form cannot be claimed as 'worse' than another, because the context matters. It shouldn't be about trying to one up each other, it should be about acknowledging the oppression both groups face and trying to rally against it. Again, the key issue is male violence and toxic masculinity, it shouldn't be women and those identifying as women fighting against each other.

I'm not sure if there any useful statistics on transphobic violence, but most violence is neither transphobic nor misogynistic, it's male-on-male, it's not obvious that by presenting as trans that you would increase your risk of violence, if by doing so remove yourself from the default violent masculinity.

Note that transgender hate crime is the most likely of all forms of hate crime to be 'online' (i.e. internet-based), and that police hate crime statistics are based on reporting, not actual crime so are completely useless.

The CPS stats are better, and show there was a fall in transgender crime referrals from the police, from 98 to 87 in 2016-17.

This compares to 1305 LGB referrals. Thus LGB hate crimes (actual potentially prosecutable crimes) are 15x higher than T crimes.

The definition of 'transgender' is very confusing, but LGB less so - the figure is around 1.7% of the population, so this would imply a transgender population of 0.1%. The TRA charities use figures much higher than this, typically around 0.5% at a minimum, often 1% or higher.

So it seems that transphobia is much less of a risk than homophobia, however TRAs have very very very loud voices, so their propaganda get taken as fact.

So broadly speaking the ACTUAL occurrence of transphobic violent hate crime is close to zero, as overall the % of LGBT crimes (they don't split out T) that were violent is 60%, whereas for racial/religious crimes it is 88%. Fully 30% of LGBT crime was 'public order offences' (very minor in sentencing terms), whereas just 7% of racial/religious crimes were

It's worth noting that while there are just 263,000 Jews in the UK, but there are around 600 religiously aggravated prosecutions of which around half (the CPS doesn't bother to keep proper statistics distinguishing anti-semitism from Islamophobia, whereas, naturally, transphobia gets its own special category separate from LGB) are believed to be of anti-semitism.

So clearly it's far more dangerous to be Jewish than to be transgender.

The Labour party seems rather less concerned about anti-semitism than about transphobia, to put it mildly.

sarah

If you had said

White middle class transwomen and white middle class women

that would have made more sense to me

plus of course the umbrella is very wide.

How much extra violence is a male presenting transwoman at risk of?

"Seems like the idea of 'intersectionality' has been subverted into a cynical means of disempowering those women who might conceivably have gained a modicum of influence in the wider world."

Yes.

Specifically there is NOTHING to suggest that Hersi's murder was transphobic, but it's automatically suggested, as if people are murdering transgender people constantly, so transphobia is the default explanation.

It's nonsense and it should be repudiated.

OleannasWimple, most transgender murder victims are sex workers. Transphobia is IMMEDIATELY raised, like the second the case is publicised.

But there's NEVER any mention of misogyny when female sex workers are killed.

Not only that, the transgender victim is accorded FAR MORE dignity than a woman would be.

Hersi was found dead in a cheap hotel in Hounslow and got lots of humanising detail in the reports.

Murdered female sex workers are described simply as 'prostitutes'

X-post with TerfinUSA's excellent post

there are no known cases of transphobic murder in at least the last decade

I think it's not yet clear whether the murder at Heathrow earlier in the year should be classified as an instance of transphobic murder

www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/tributes-paid-to-victim-found-stabbed-to-death-in-hotel-near-heathrow-a3796261.html

I don't want to be a human shield for a TIM. Trans should campaign for their own spaces.

Also it helps that transphobia plus crime is counted as a hate crime, while misogyny isn't.

My understanding of the data that exists on violence against transwomen in the UK is that they are less likely than men to be assaulted, and where they are assaulted it is usually transwomen who are involved in sex work. And, repeating because it can't be said enough, the violence is coming from MEN not FEMINISTS

". I have no science to this but I am prepared to believe that transwomen are more likely to be targeted for random attacks and hate crimes than, for example, a white middle class woman."

This is a load of crap though.

TW have male strength and may be subject to more male sexual attention than other men, but not to more than biological women.

Nearly all rapists are men and the vast majority of rape victims are women.

It's instructive to look at what happens with TW sexworkers vs what happens with female sexworkers - female sex workers are almost exclusively the victims in transactions with their (nearly always male) clients, whereas it's very easy to find cases of deaths of clients in transactions with transwomen sex workers.

E.g.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/drunk-tourist-collapses-dies-during-7984562
phuketwan.com/tourism/phuket-ladyboy-kills-punchy-italian-tourist-12383/
www.chiangraitimes.com/pattaya-ladyboy-assaults-irishman-with-high-heeled-shoe.html
pattayatoday.net/news/news-from-around-pattaya/danish-tourist-assaulted/
phuketwan.com/tourism/phuket-englishman-turns-high-heel-13628/
www.pattayamail.com/news/ladyboy-uses-his-high-heeled-shoe-to-attack-polish-woman-45839
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3558652/Thai-police-warn-gangs-ladyboys-targeting-tourists-wave-muggings-German-man-attacked-robbed.html

There are certainly NOT a similar volume of reports of violent female prostitutes in Thailand.

The idea that TW are at equal risk to white middle class women is frankly ludicrous.

The risk, for example, of being the victim of transphobic murder in the UK is essentially zero. No transgender people are killed at all in most years, and there are no known cases of transphobic murder in at least the last decade.

On the other hand at least a hundred 'white middle class women' are killed every year by their partners. 50% of women murder victims were killed by their partners. For men the figure is just 3%.

Men kill men. Men kill women.

But don't make insulting comparisons between transwomen and 'white middle class women'. It's basically the same argument that MRA/TRAs use about 'white middle class women' being privileged.

The privilege to be murdered by your husband.

In the main, they are seeking validation as women, not safety.

I don't think UK trans identified males are more risk of violence than any women, and it's obvious when they hand wave away our concerns as if it's something they've never thought about.

That's not what I'm doing Sardine. I'm a white middle class woman. I was considering whether I would be more or less fearful if I were a man dressed as a woman. I don't know if I live in a back water compared to others but I see copious amounts of male homophobia (and I don't really see transphobia as a separate thing). I'm certainly not saying white middle class women are priveleged or trying to shut anyone up. I have never ever heard anything a TRA has said other than what is quoted on here and I have never accepted any of it. I dont see things in black and white terms though and I won't apologise for that.

Seems like the idea of 'intersectionality' has been subverted into a cynical means of disempowering those women who might conceivably have gained a modicum of influence in the wider world.

Isn't it the very lovely Miranda Yardley who posts regularly about not being assaulted, offended or otherwise noticed while using men's loos? I know the statistics for murders across population groups was discussed a while back, does anyone brilliant know the statistics for assault/police recorded harassment across population groups?

As has been often mentioned before, it can seem as if when mtf people transition and start to pick up the crap that born women live with from early childhood it's a shocking discovery, and they don't realise what proportion of it is just 'normal' for women in terms of social and physical vulnerability.

I just wish this all led where the problem is and could lead to a concerted focus on reducing male violence.

The idea that "white middle class women" are super privileged even compared to men and so they should "sit down" is ridiculous.

It's the "white feminist" thing where anyone who disagrees is called a "white feminist" (even when they are black ).

It's supposed to be shaming and make women stop talking.

The abuse of theories around intersectionality is revolting - appropriation. Idea that white feminists should listen to black feminists, and rich ones should listen to poor ones etc is good, obviosuly, and true, it's been mispurposed (appropriated) though.

Thing about VAW against women is that it is women and girls as a class globally who are at risk.

Some women and girls are more at risk, but none are safe.

The idea that "white middle class women" are somehow immune to bad / criminal behaviour from men is peculiar. If a girl is walking down the street and a man shouts "suck my cock" at her, he isn't interested in her socal class at all. It's not a thing. And while that may not be criminal (or maybe it is?) it is interesting that for some people verbal abuse is seen as a crime and for some it's not.

I think most men are wilfully blind to the reality of lives of women and girls, even the ones who then say they are a member of that group. Pay for cabs to get home safely? Steet harassment is empowering? But being ridiculed because of what you look like is literal violence?

Why so many women are swallowing all this is beyond me.

have no science to this but I am prepared to believe that transwomen are more likely to be targeted for random attacks and hate crimes than, for example, a white middle class woman

So why is it just transwomen and then a specific type of woman?

Is that because if you stop saying middle class white women and just say women that the likelyhood of being attacked goes up dramatically?

Or are you telling middle class white women on here that transwomen are a more likely target

This I think is because the sort of things that are done to men have historically been recognised as criminal but the sort of things that are done to women

This is an interesting point - see #MeToo for testimony of the scale of non-criminal but invasive, harassing, power play shit that women endure.

I haven't personally been non-sexually physically assaulted, fortunately, though of course I have a litany of sexual assault, starting in my early teens. I doubt most men or transwomen have a similar list, so perhaps there is an element of shock in discovering just how vile some men can be? As well, of course, as reading mis-gendering and deadnaming as "literal violence"