The misogyny continues in Manchester's Gay Village

Do straight men get any abuse at all if they refuse to have sex with a bepenised trans women? If not, why not?

My guess would be they don't and the reason they don't is misogyny, also women are generally smaller weaker and easier to intimidate and overpower.

This makes me think i wouldnt want to step foot in the village as a straight woman either, after all, lesbians dont wear speshul arm bands yet, so what they are doing is creating a penis-havers-zone. Not only are women-only zones now being invaded, but women are being blocked/harassed out of other zones. When will the world wake up?

It feels like a return to public and private spheres where men/penis havers are welcome anywhere they choose to be whilst women are ' allowed ' into public spaces only by the grace of penis owners else they ought to stay in private spheres - no presence, no voice. It's basically taking us back in time and it's nowhere near as fun as Marty McFly made it look.

OP just to say, I’m not suggesting that you should have to do anything personally about this. I totally get it if you don’t want to be exposed like that. I’m really hoping there might be women’s groups who will take it up though.

Also the picture of that meme needs to be clicked on to see the full message about TERFS being removed- it’s not just the cutesy heart picture with the scary message .. it gets worse and more specific.

Wow.

That twitter thread is eye opening. Suggest that is screen shotted. An elected Labour councillor using the word TERF?

A sexist, homophobic term of abuse. And which is encouraging the silencing and demonisation of women just for asking questions or having opinions. That’s appalling.

OP the Local government association www.local.gov.uk issue guidance to local authorities - I wonder if they might want to do so now, about supporting women’s rights to speak in this climate and evidencing the threat to lesbian spaces and women’s free association by this dogma.

www.local.gov.uk

LGA will also have some kind of equality policy which i’m going to assume does not support women being silenced. I notice from the LGA site that they are supporting women’s suffrage 100 years- a victory for women over oppression based on their sex.

All the Manchester and Salford MPs should know about this exclusion of lesbians but also the support it seems to be getting at official levels. Plus the Secretary of State for housing, communities and local government. (James Brokenshire MP) should know.

This is a local issue in a literal sense (because women should feel free to use the places they want to use in Manchester) but also it’s a national issue. This is absolutely the logical conclusion of this toxic dogma which is making any non-compliant women fair game (because they are ‘TERFS’)

Note the language used in the meme that was tweeted approvingly as having been put up around Manchester venues which purport to be lesbian-friendly:

‘Will be removed and barred’

Not: ‘will be asked to leave’. Or just ‘will be barred henceforth’ or ‘is not welcome’.

They will be physically removed.

OK so who the fuck gave venues and their door staff the right to touch women, let alone physically remove them just for peacefully asking questions or having an opinion?

I think we know the answer- male fucking entitlement gave them that authority.

They may as well have written that women who do not say the right things should be ‘dragged off by their saggy old tits’.

It’s absolutely chilling and totalitarian. This is incitement to silencing and manhandling women. (Deliberate choice of words there)

You have only to look at the Dr Rosa Freeman threads to see what is happening to women who speak up.

The TERF label is used by sexist angry men as a way to ‘other’ women so it’s then OK for those men to terrorise women. It’s unacceptable and an appalling message for any elected man (or women) to promote.

I was half expecting a load of TRA misogynists to protest FiLiA in Salford but it seemed to go under their radar.

I might have left the odd sticker in Canal Street though.

Unfortunately I'm not surprised to read this. My employer has an area office in Manchester and we had to attend LGBTQ equality training. It was run by a local organisation and was heavily biased towards the T. They barely mentioned anything else.

Im Mancunian and sad to hear this. I always thought gay and lesbian people were both welcome in the village.

This makes me think i wouldnt want to step foot in the village as a straight woman either, after all, lesbians dont wear speshul arm bands yet, so what they are doing is creating a penis-havers-zone. Not only are women-only zones now being invaded, but women are being blocked/harassed out of other zones. When will the world wake up?

This thread for example had academics on it (? who might be able to set up some place to gather views/experiences of lesbians around this current atmosphere or could advise on who/how this could be done?)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3335045-Professor-Rosa-Freedman

Or contact get the L Out
getthelout.wordpress.com/contact/

I don’t know if any of this is helpful to you OP you might just have wanted to come on here to talk, sorry! I just find it so awful that women are being treated like this and forced out of public spaces that they should feel comfortable in. I know it’s never been perfect but this sounds like a whole other level.

Oh no. This is so wrong.

Though i’m not confident any more in public bodies acting on their equality duty appropriately, I would still suggest contacting the council who are at least keen to be seen as hot on equality: www.manchester.gov.uk/info/200041/equality_and_diversity

Also the EHRC: it is their job to monitor and advise on this exact type of situation: (though they are promoting the FLAG study on their Twitter at the moment which is a completely nonsensical piece of ‘research’ unless you believe sex and gender are the same thing.) so not very hopeful of action but they should not be allowed to ignore this.
mobile.twitter.com/EHRC/status/1060167235191406596

And UN women who are acting on VAWG and want women’s stories: mobile.twitter.com/UN_Women/status/1070144489963118592

It would also be great if this erosion of lesbian spaces and places was more documented and researched because it doesn’t seem that the public sector bodies are doing much about it. Obviously some media coverage would be helpful.

Sorry to @JonnyBest but he may have media ideas.

You might get somewhere with feminist academics and historians- there are threads on here - will find one.

Also there is a field of academia which looks at spaces used by LGB and T people:
www.ssqrg.rgs.org/fellow-research-register/

I can’t say which if any of these academics would be gender critical enough to get it but you could approach them and suggest this topic as a research project.?

You won’t be the only one feeling this way. I would be horrified to see anti- TERF posters up everywhere in the supposed gay village. What a load of sexist, narcissistic aggressive shit.

And if you feel immediately unsafe in a given situation, contact the police.

OP

That's awful. I hadn't heard of Tangerine and had a google.

I thought the below article was quite illuminating. There's a whole section on how the author find the violence against the female character to be 'satisfying'.

White feminists might be inclined to read what Sin-dee does as violence against women but Sin-dee is not in a position of power over Dinah. And it was satisfying to watch.
www.autostraddle.com/a-trans-woman-of-color-responds-to-the-trauma-of-tangerine-301607/

I am so tired of this 'She was asking for it' narrative against women. I'm not in Manchester but that would make me nervous too about visiting the village. It's bloody disgraceful how lesbians are being bullied and intimidated in what should be their community.