Transexual voices - twitter thread

Through here I have found other GC TS, on twitter links provided, but to be honest they are few and far between in comparison to the TRA's on Twitter, I have to be careful as my employer would sack me in a heartbeat if ever exposed, not hard for them to expose me as I follow fellow seafarers and related organisations.

Well they appear, sadly, to have imploded. Stephanie Hayden was a member (inclined to T*rfy talk as far as I could see) and has issued a rather self-serving statement blaming the break-up on the founders' 'attacks' on the trans community. Likely to be more to it than that but it's a pity that the GC transsexual voices have lost a platform. One step forward, two steps back.

I don't know that they have any more authority than anyone else.

They're a group of TS who have taken a stand against self-ID because it's bad for them. That's fine as far as it goes and I never expected to agree with them further than this.

I agree with your critique Miranda but because I never considered them 'allies' as such in the first place I haven't wasted any time with them. I don't think they're wasting their own time because they're speaking up for their own interests. This looks like TS infighting and not much to do with women.

Even if I disagree with some things they say, they're another voice against self-ID so I hope they don't piss off, I hope they keep fighting.

To be clear, the problem I had (have) with TSVoices was whether this group, which claimed moral authority over rank and file transgenderists, was any different. As I pointed out in my short critique, it really wasn't (isn't) because when things get close to the bone(r) they have been threatening ('choose your enemies'), gaslighted and even, as putative allies, delineated women into 'reasonable' and 'unreasonable'. If they would like to be honest and address the points I and others have made, fine. If not, I wish they'd just piss off and stop wasting everyone else's (and their own) time.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3340188-MN-is-a-Hate-group-apparently

OK - here I go again with my tigger-like positivity but I think this second version deserves appreciation. Much clearer about the context, about our different biological starting point, about the attacks on GC feminists and on women's rights generally. Direct response in the follow-up tweets to Lisa and Miranda acknowledging their criticisms. It's bloody difficult to get a group of people to agree on a complex and important text, and to do it quickly. All credit to them. More .

Update:

"Following lengthy debates, majority of the members of TSVM have seemed to agreed on the following more neutral and better balanced statement" (continues)

twitter.com/tsvoices/status/1031286943047458817

Agree agree. This is a positive development but it confers no obligations on us whatsoever.

Don’t feel naive. It’s good to have hope. It’s why we are fighting, after all. For that hope.

Agree too.

Yes to everything you say Pencils. I'm resolutely determined to stay hopeful on this one.

They're not our 'allies' but there may be political alliances to be made and the two are different. I felt the same about #tsraincrew and about the signatories of the TS letter in the observer. I feel the same about the right wingers some GC feminists are forming alliances with.

Agree, Pencils.

Well they're not GC feminists, they're TS. They're not speaking up for women they're speaking up for TS. That's absolutely fine, everyone knows it's only feminism that has to fight for the rights of every other group too. Other groups are allowed to campaign on their own issues and centre their own needs, which is what's going on here. It's just business as usual.

TS have a lot to lose for themselves if self-ID goes through. Regardless of what we think about them, they have a legitimate voice in this debate, and much as it might piss us off they're more likely to be listened to than we are.

I get the impression the person who wrote these tweets is not a native English speaker so I'm not sure it's fair to pick apart the specific words or phrases they use.

Lisa Muggeridge is spot on, it's too little too late and they haven't properly addressed the harm to anybody but themselves, but in terms of this specific consultation, this specific battle, voices like theirs might just swing it.

I've been saying for ages there needs to be a TS voice speaking against self-ID for themselves, on their own terms (as opposed to just using the platforms provided by women's groups), so I'm pleased to see that voice growing from a few quarters. I'm pleased this group are making these statements, even if they don't give much thought for women or our rights, or children and safeguarding. Even if it's too late to prevent a backlash.

They're not our 'allies' but there may be political alliances to be made and the two are different. I felt the same about #tsraincrew and about the signatories of the TS letter in the observer. I feel the same about the right wingers some GC feminists are forming alliances with.

I don't really trust 'allyship' as such, especially between groups with natural conflicts of interest. A lot of cracks get papered over and things become unsayable in the effort to be 'good allies'.

Political alliance is different. You can join forces to campaign on just the issues where your interests happen to intersect while never having to compromise on the other stuff. You can table your differences rather than pretend they don't exist.

Miriam Ben-Shalom talks about this in an for DGR Women's Caucus where she discusses the founding of Hands Across the Aisle.

I feel sad that I was suckered in to feeling positive about this at the start. I naively thought it was a genuine attempt to try and redress the balance by a genuine trans group who shared our fears.

Greater minds have taken the trouble to educate me/others via this thread and I am thankful for that, if not a little despondent, at the false hope.

I have never seen any feminist abuse of either their allies or indeed others and I have been following this since Conway Hall refused to host a rad fem conference in 2012. The idea that there is abuse on both sides is pernicious nonsense. To disagree, and even to disagree passionately and viscerally, is not to abuse as long as no-one is silenced. It is the trans allies and trans advocacy groups who are seeking to silence, bully and intimidate.

I'm the woman that talked to @tsvoices on the 16th of August from via my @gendercritical Twitter account.

When I explicitly asked them to denounce the TRA's violence against women, they said the following:

"We condemn all forms of violence. Male violence ESPECIALLY as we encounter it MORE OFTEN. Transgender violence as it may appear to be on our behalf too. Radfems VERBAL ABUSE OF THEIR ALLIES too."

Tell me again why should any woman take this bullshit?
Like, what violence do you experience from females IRL?
Like, female violence is "radfems abusing their allies"?

They're idiots. The whole bunch of them and their accounts are not worth of our time. If you listen what Lisa M had to say about it - you're gonna figure that out too.

Printscreens of the active accounts that derailed lots of women (and still do) on Twitter are in the attachment.

Reasonable women = "be a good girl"

Fuck that.

Exactly, and what is a reasonable woman? Who gets to decide who is a reasonable woman?

I did not like the use of the term 'reasonable women'. It smacks of a hierarchy of value judgement. They can't pick and choose, they must take the rough with the smooth. Women are what they are.

Exactly this.

My point is, if you’re going to claim to be different, you actually have to be different. And they are claiming they are different to TRAs, because gender dysphoria, yet they use the same reversals etc and members claim ‘woman’, ‘lesbian’ and ‘mother’. They have no authority. They are rank and file transgender activists.

YY Miranda. I was clutching at straws to see if they would do anything differently.

Lisa's video was absolutely brilliant. I have looked at a few more. I have read and looked at so many things and know so much of what is going on, but she has put it into a context.

I feel so much more confident of what I know now.

We need to get those stickers out there and the links to the websites.

I liked that blog post Miranda

The situation where you live with people being a bit of a dick because at least they're not a full-on raving misogynist arsehole is one that is very familiar to me and I imagine most women.

Perhaps a lot of us are a bit too habituated to it

I did not like the use of the term 'reasonable women'. It smacks of a hierarchy of value judgement.

cf India Willoughby's comment in her Pink News article April 2018 ;
(extract)
"Mumsnet’s reputation for transphobia is fully deserved. Hardliners openly strategise ways to make life tougher for trans people: Passengers warned not to travel on sleeper trains because they might end up in the same sleeping berth as a woman who’s trans. Support gathered to stop trans women being allowed on Labour’s all-women shortlists. National meeting organised where they can clap and cheer their hatred.

It’s all very similar to the way the National Front used to operate.

I’m sure most people who use the site are decent folk. They want nothing to do with the rabid mouth-frothing going on by so-called “feminists.”

And I say so-called “feminists” quite deliberately. It’s the point which is paralysing anyone doing anything about the situation. Because these radical groups are hiding under the “feminist” banner, Government and other institutions are reluctant to question them. They don’t want to be perceived as attacking “women’s rights.” (continues)
www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/04/24/india-willoughby-transphobia-opinion-worried-for-my-life-mumsnet/

Like I said, the account’s responses are male chauvinism. Nothing new here.