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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Dear Transactivists

87 replies

Estellesylvia · 29/09/2018 06:17

This is a message, not to trans people, but to the transactivists who are doing everything in their power to silence women.

To the woman hating men who hide their loathing of women behind transactivism, and who cannot bear to hear us speak up and defy them. To the Serena Joys, the women who join these men in fighting to undo the gains that women have made in the past one hundred years. You are traitors to your sex.

In a week where a billboard stating the definition of woman has been removed for containing hate speech, and a women’s rights group have been stopped by a local council from gathering to meet, I want to send a clear message to the transactivists who are so desperate to silence us and who I know read Mumsnet. And I know I speak on behalf of many thousands of women, in ever growing numbers.

You will NEVER silence us.

You can ban us, from here, from social media. We will create new accounts. You can bully venues into cancelling our meetings. We will meet in each other’s living rooms, in parks, in the street if we have to. You can take our posters and billboards down. We will put up a hundred more in their place, every time.

And every time you try to silence us, you draw more attention to our cause, and we are joined by many more women, and men, who see your hatred and misogyny, and speak out against it.

We know you have the media and politicians and money and power on your side, and we are ordinary women, organising at grass roots, on a shoe string.

But you will never, ever silence us. No matter how hard you try. We will never stop fighting and the more you try to stop us, the more determined we become. We’re the great granddaughters of the suffragettes.

I have no doubt this post may be removed, as women are no longer allowed to stand up to bullies on Mumsnet. Even so, the sentiment will remain.

You will NEVER stop us.

OP posts:
AngryAttackKittens · 29/09/2018 12:18

In an odd way I suppose we should thank them for pushing so many women towards feminism by their sheer pisstaking overreach. At a certain point even the "nicest" woman has had enough.

scotsheather · 29/09/2018 12:12

Great message, if only those activists read it.

We've seen the effects of silencing women. metoo, Saville, presidents club. Just saying Wink

seafret · 29/09/2018 12:01

And AWAS and Trans extremists; at the end of the day, no matter what tactics you use... WE WILL STILL BE THE WOMEN, THE ADULT HUMAN FEMALES

Your annihilation tendencies are not a long term strength, but your absolute and fundamental weakness. YOUR WEAKNESS. We see it.

To anyone else caught up in the distress and confusion of gender or mental ill-health, I encourage you to show WOMEN with your words and actions the compassion that you wish us to show you. By respecting us, not forcing us. You may still not get exactly what you want, but you have no right to take it anyway.

You can choose not to be yet another abuser of women. Above all else, you can choose to be a good, kind, fair, thoughtful, balanced, ethical, respectful, responsible SAFE human being, and to look in the mirror and see that.

tobee · 29/09/2018 11:53

Always worth re posting

Dear Transactivists
MsMcWoodle · 29/09/2018 11:48

The one thing I would like to know, if silverbirch or anyone else can answer, is why males who feel they are women have a right to refuse to share spaces with males.
Yes - when apparently women don't have that right!

Elephantinacravat · 29/09/2018 11:46

The one thing I would like to know, if silverbirch or anyone else can answer, is why males who feel they are women have a right to refuse to share spaces with males.

Ha! In all my time on this topic, I have never even thought of it worded in that way!

OvaHere · 29/09/2018 11:41

The one thing I would like to know, if silverbirch or anyone else can answer, is why males who feel they are women have a right to refuse to share spaces with males.

Yes. Male women are the only type of women who are allowed to say no to males. Funny that! Anyone would think it's males making the rules up.

Elephantinacravat · 29/09/2018 11:32

No one came back to lay out what rights trans people don't currently have then?

MsMcWoodle · 29/09/2018 11:28

My message to transactivists is that I have nothing but contempt for you.
I'm not talking about people who genuinely have gender dysphoria and don't want to be persecuted. I support them.
I'm talking about the many tras who are gleefully trying to dismantle women's rights, we know who I mean.
To them I say, the direction is one way. When people see what you are doing they can't unsee it.
The one thing I do love about you guys is the way you constantly show us who you are.
Keep it up.

Hyppolyta · 29/09/2018 11:27

The one thing I would like to know, if silverbirch or anyone else can answer, is why males who feel they are women have a right to refuse to share spaces with males.

But females who also dont want to share with males are called bigots, and worse.

If males having gendered spaces is a basic human right, why do you feel having sex segregated spaces is not also a human right?

TheCraicDealer · 29/09/2018 11:19

I believe you will find yourselves on the wrong side of history, like every other time people have felt the need to exclude and demonise a minority group.

I keep seeing this being trotted out on twitter. I can only imagine that this argument tries to appeal to our perceived desire to be "right" and progressive, and conflate the campaigns for women's and gay rights with Transrights. They are nothing alike. There was nothing within the aims of those early campaigns that impinged on the rights and safety of other groups.

Compare and contrast that with the impact on women and girls who can no longer rely on single sex youth groups, school changing rooms, shelters and prisons, notwithstanding the real danger to young people that encouraging them down a medicalised irreversible path with little or no gatekeeping will do. Stap it.

ShotsFired · 29/09/2018 10:38

It really is tiresome when people are so rude they can't even be arsed to read the actual words before they leap in with their ready made denunciations and suggestions of phobia and bigotry.

It shows them to be nothing more than ill mannered and overbearing.

Estellesylvia · 29/09/2018 10:17

Whenever you try to bring up examples like Karen White you are just batted aside as giving 'extreme examples' and told to stop whipping up hatred. Not a thought is given to the victims of men like Karen White.

But as I said in the OP, we will keep on saying it till it gets through. We won't shut up about this, ever.

OP posts:
MsBeaujangles · 29/09/2018 10:08

Silverbirch

My involvement in supporting trans people stretches way beyond wishing them well.

I am directly involved in helping young people with gender dysphoria navigate a very distressing condition. I work with schools to help them promote acceptance of gender non conformity. I work with trans parents whose transitioning impacts on their families. Without exception, no person I have worked with has ever questioned my commitment to making life better for them and those around them. This is despite me acknowledging their natal sex, recognising that it can only be changed in the eyes of the law and being clear that my work involves balancing their interests with those around them. Not one has experienced this as transphobic, yet when people express these views on social media, many people shout bigot/ transphobe.

Attempts to silence women is going to provoke more anger and, in my view, promote anti trans sentiment. Prioritising one group's interests over another's is similarly going to promote a backlash - be that trans people's interests or women's. Denying women the opportunity to discuss sex specific interests through attempting to remove the label/definition that has always been used for them is not going to remove sex specific interests.

I think I am in a privileged position as I am able to improve outcomes for trans people and people with all sorts of life challenges. In doing so I don't engage in adversity top trumps. Women and girls face all sorts of adversity. Trans people face all sorts of adversity. Much of the time, generic interventions help all. Sometimes, what would work for one can impact negatively on another and nothing good comes from ignoring this or responding to emotional or physical manipulation to prioritise one group over another.

LangCleg · 29/09/2018 09:58

I acknowledge a trans woman as a fellow woman.

I don't and neither does at least 82% of the population.

I support their place in society, their right to medical care, their right to express their true selves, their right to the protection of the law and I believe them to be as worthy of acceptance and respect as any other person.

Disingenuous, manipulative straw man. So does every "bigot", "transphobe", "witch", "TERF" of my acquaintance. Every feminist in creation celebrates gender non-conformity. They just don't believe that people can change sex or that male people should be able to appropriate women's rights on the basis of gender non-conformity.

KnotsInMay · 29/09/2018 09:49

“I acknowledge a trans woman as a fellow woman. I support their place in society, their right to medical care, their right to express their true selves, their right to the protection of the law and I believe them to be as worthy of acceptance and respect as any other person....To any trans people reading this, please know you are valuable, worthy of equal rights, love and respect”

I agree with all of that. But I will not be silenced by TAs whose mission it is to erase the currency of biology and replace my own definition of myself with theirs. And I will not be silenced by that, or allow their misogynistic abuse on social media or their assault in free speech to take my voice away.

FlowerpotFairyHouse · 29/09/2018 09:42

I can never understand when people blithely repeat twaw even when it’s pointed out that includes people like Karen White, David Challenor, Marie Dean who are convicted predatory men who have sexually assaulted women /children.

I genuinely think it is because they don't realise/accept these men are just as valid as TW as old skool transsexuals.

This is where the 'bigot'/t**f labels come in. They think that is us being alarmist/scaremongering/hateful/deliberately escalating something to a ridiculous nth degree because of course they don't accept those people as TW and neither would anyone else. Silly.

The whole thing seems so ridiculous to people that they just don't bother to look into it because it is clearly a nonsense.

deepwatersolo · 29/09/2018 09:35

SilverBirch, it is cute that you self-identify as a feminist, but as long as you can‘t define what a woman is, you have no concept that could enable you to support women‘s rights. But hey, self-ID is for free. The rest of the world just doesn‘t have to buy it - just like the women with penises hoax.

Mrsr8 · 29/09/2018 09:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Theswaggyotter · 29/09/2018 09:29

I can never understand when people blithely repeat twaw even when it’s pointed out that includes people like Karen White, David Challenor, Marie Dean who are convicted predatory men who have sexually assaulted women /children. Their dressing in their women /little girl costume is part of a fetish, a paraphilia which we cannot accept in normal society. Do you really think they are women silver ?

Totally agree with you OP

AngryAttackKittens · 29/09/2018 08:55

Maybe we should start calling ourselves gender atheists. I accept that you have a right to believe that either you yourself or other people have a "gender identity", but I just don't believe in a sense of gender that's separate to one's body. You have the right to your beliefs, but they're bugger all to do with me and there's no good reason why I should be obliged to pretend to share them, or why organizations should be forced to do so either.

RiverTam · 29/09/2018 08:47

Silver trans people have all those rights. The only right they don’t have is to foist their personal beliefs on other people and insist everyone else accept them for the sex they believe (but of course never will be) they are.

If this personal belief can be forced on others and made legal then I take it you’re ready for others to be? Happy to be forced to accept Christianity and live in a country where Christian doctrine dictates the law? We’re still in the process of moving away from that after 1000 years of it. But you’re ready for the roll back, right? Happy to muck in and make it happen?

Woman = adult human female.

Estellesylvia · 29/09/2018 08:41

I have seen very little transphobia here.

Criticism of individual transpeople’s behaviour, yes.

Standing up to transactivism, yes.

That is not transphobic.

OP posts:
YeTalkShiteHen · 29/09/2018 08:28

That’s where we all are, isn’t it? Apart from the people with very dubious motivations.

I thought so, but given that we’re all being labelled transphobic and attacked regularly for trying to explain where we’re coming from I felt it needed to be said (for the millionth time sadly)

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 29/09/2018 08:28

Yes to lydia

Exactly right...words mean something

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