Laurie Penny's Mirror World

Lplurker
But isn't that the problem at the heart of this? There IS no way to prove someone is trans. Requiring people to act out stereotypes is clearly wrong but what other way is there - what test is there that would separate abusers, frauds and opportunists from genuine trans people?

Good post gendercritter

Hi Laurie.

I think it's a good thing you're here. There are a lot of decent and extremely clever women here. I don't mean to sound patronising when I say you could learn a lot from them.

I have to be honest, I cannot fathom for the life of me how an intelligent, educated woman could take your position.

I am gender-critical and strongly against self-id. I only wish trans people peace and love and happy lives, as does everyone here I think, but just because you don't bear someone any ill-will, doesn't mean you should be forced to let them in your self-spaces. Vulnerable women - particularly rape victims - deserve to have society care about their needs. I absolutely do not trust organisations to make good decisions in this regard. Absolutely no way. Women get screwed over without thought. Many of us are voiceless in society. Look at Brendan Cox and Jimmy Saville and every child in care out there who is currently being coerced into sex by predatory men in their community. It is still ongoing.

I am gender-critical for many, many reasons but here's just one for you: I have complex medical conditions and I was once sexually assaulted by a highly respected doctor. He sedated me as it was underway so I still don't know fully what he did to me.

I have quite frequent operations. When I come round from an anaesthetic, and I'm confused and scared and not at my most assertive, I want to know I can always ask to be cared for by by female nurses and carers only. Self-id would jeopardise that. Women like you are throwing women like me under a bus. It is simply not acceptable. You do not seem to realise the harm you are doing. And no, I know not all trans people are predators. The few I have known have bern lovely. But predatory men will exploit self-id and it's pretty hard to tell in advance who they are.

Debate happens every day. There was no need to announce yourself

Yes. No-one knows who I am. I don't feel the need when I am trying to educate myself.

Why ARE transwomen women? It's clear that transgender women are women even tho they present as male. You need to tell us what your new definitions of man and woman are.

A lot of people on here have been worried about the direction of transactivism for a long time. So one thing you need to know - if you haven't spotted it - is that the most prominent transactivists frequently make misogynist remarks. There's India Willoughby, for example, saying that women who don't shave their legs are "dirty" and that she feels "sorry" for men because of the Counting Dead Women site, which lists the numbers of women murdered by men. There's Munroe Bergdorf, who addressed another woman as a "hairy barren lesbian". There's Lily Madigan who, as Liam Madigan, had a Twitter profile with the words "Savile's apprentice" and "rape.com". There's Shon Faye, who tweeted to a lesbian: "enjoy your erasure".

I am struggling to see why you think it's in the interests of feminism to ally ourselves with these people. Can you explain what you imagine we might have in common?

"APAB- I think it would have been very dishonest of me to pretend to be someone else on this board."

Nonsense. You wanted everyone to know it was you. You have no idea who I am and it is entirely unimportant for me, or you, to announce ourselves.

But you are looking for attention and publicity. And pats on the back from the trans lobby. I have no doubt you will get it playing the fan girl. You are by no means the first: Jack Monroe did the same. She received no abuse. She debated with us and ultimately accepted she was female. But then ran back to twitter calling us bigots and bitches. Because Jack can't accept not being with the zeitgeist, which unfortunetely for women, is currently the trans agenga. All evidence points to you being the same.

This debate happens every single day on this board. You could have quite easily debated under another name. Will be waiting to see how long it is before you run back to twitter screaming about transphobic so called feminists.

Still. There is hope.

We can talk about why you think transwomen are women if you like.

Yes let's do.

I find that absolutely astonishing after the examples I gave you

I don't find it astonishing. It just further confirms my opinion that we are not being engaged with in good faith. Laurie has her mind made up. And has an eye on what her weeping trans friends and the TRA and Labour misogynists she hangs about with would think if she conceded even a tiny bit.

"What I don’t believe is that trans activists are any more or less violent than any other group of activists I’ve encountered."

I find that absolutely astonishing after the examples I gave you. I'm quite a lot older than you and have been involved in activist politics since a young age. I've never seen anything like this wave of transactivism, which is absolutely vicious. Most activism, including gay activism, is pretty good-humoured. Even people demonstrating against extreme right-wing racists haven't gone to the lengths that transactivists are going to in order to silence debate.

When Venice Allan tried to organise an event about the GRA at Millwall Football Club, the club was bombarded with phone calls trying to get them to stop hosting the debate. A staff member at Millwall said they had never seen anything like it.

The truth is that you call yourself a feminist but you are allying yourself with a group of people who want to silence feminists through intimidation, verbal abuse, threats and physical violence. Why you choose to do that is something only you know. But the fact that you refuse to condemn the activists who attacked Maria Maclachlan and Helen Steel speaks volumes.

Quit playing the victim Penny. We are allowed to critique your work as a journalist and your motivations for coming onto these boards. Stop asking us to educate you - take a look at threads on mumsnet if you need to learn.

You are either ignorant of these debates (which is shocking considering your public positions) or disingenuous in your appeals for education. Considering your very public work on such matters I would assume the latter. Just because we're women doesn't mean we have to be nice to you. You advocate policies which would be extremely damaging for many of the most vulnerable women in society. Can we not talk about that?

We can talk about why you think transwomen are women if you like.

This shit show will not damage feminism.

The purpose of feminism is liberating us from waves of male domination, just like this one.

It's depressing, and baffling, to hear that a doctor can see trousers and think they're men's-only clothing. I guess I'd like to see people in charge like that working from a greater evidence base. I get the impression that many doctors don't feel the medical profession has robust conclusions about disphoria yet (from reading e.g. Marget McCartney in the bmj).

I sympathise with your friend, however, I definitely don't see self id as the perfect solution to any of this.

When a woman prisoner in a women's prison encounters a transwoman prisoner with a functional penis, who is in prison for raping women, how do the thoughts outlined in your last speech help them?

Woman is not a political category. That is a completely bizarre statement.

APAB- I think it would have been very dishonest of me to pretend to be someone else on this board.

As far as I’m concerned, ‘woman’ is a political category based on many things, most importantly but not exclusively the material reality of reproductive difference. This does not mean that trans women do not experience misogyny- any more than it means that any woman or girl who is not actively able to reproduce for any reason does not experience it.
My experience as a woman who grew up ‘as a girl’ is very different from the experience of my trans friends who grew up ‘as boys’- but it is also different from the experiences of my female friends who did not grow up white, or middle-class.
We can acknowledge these differences and still fight patriarchy. I passionately believe that the campaign against trans inclusion damages feminism, and thereby all women. I know we’re never going to agree on all of this but I sincerely hope that some of us at least can hang on to what we have in common and give each other the benefit of the doubt.

What basis for changing your legal gender should there be other than gender dysphoria?

Or to put it another way, if a trans person doesn't have gender dysphoria, then what does "trans" in this particular case actually mean?

Debate happens on this board every single day. There was absolutely no reason for you to announce yourself.

It's not that hard. The truth is your compass. The truth is: no one changes sex. No one has a different sexed brain in their body. These are facts. Work the rest out from there. Use critical thinking. Work it out.

What basis for changing your legal gender should there be other than gender dysphoria? Why would your subjective ideas of what a woman is and your feeling that you didn't want to be a man (again entirely based on regressive stereotypes) be indulged in any other case?

APAB,

I came here to learn and to listen- and perhaps out of some misplaced notion that if we talked to each other like human beings something good might happen. I certainly didn’t come here because I enjoy being yelled at, or to promote myself.

SewSwiftly- yes, those are active discussions within the trans community, too. I agree that the idea of innate masculine and feminine characteristics is deeply regressive- all I can say is that there are many ways to be trans, and many ways to express gender. Dysphoria is a different and related thing, and it’s very hard to adequately express to someone who does not experience it at all. But it’s not all about presentation and performance- trans women face many of the same pressures and stereotypes in that way that other women do.

For example- one thing the current GRA does is oblige trans women to ‘prove’ they are living ‘as their chosen gender’ for two years, enough to satisfy doctors who sometimes have old fashioned ideas. This often involves playing up to exactly the tired stereotypes all of us could do without. I have one trans friend who was told by a doctor that she wasn’t committed enough to transition because she turned up to the assessment wearing trousers. That’s one of the reasons the GRA change might be helpful!

Why are you doing here? If you want to learn, then read the board. If you wanted to debate, there was no need to announce yourself.

Looks like a massive step in self promotion to me.

How is that family’s struggle any business of hers?

Because Susie Green took her child abroad at 15 for a life changing invasive surgical procedure on their 16th birthday which would be illegal in the U.K. and shortly afterwards was ruled illegal in Thailand. Why do you think that might be? And yes, it's a safeguarding issue.