Posie Parker in the USA

@jackholyoake Yes, I did see that comment. It still doesn't explain to me why it was a good idea to attend (from a UK perspective at least). I would be willing to bet £100 000 that not a single UK newspaper or TV programme will pick up on that woman's predicament. I have absolute sympathy with her but I still don't understand how PP et al being there makes any difference to that. And I don't believe for a second that the Heritage Foundation was literally the only place that would host such a meeting. Of course I understand why parents in the US want to draw attention to their plight. I don't understand how PP et al helps them or helps women in the UK. I think it's terrible strategy. It has set us back months. This is obviously a personal opinion and maybe I will be proved wrong. There is no right or wrong here as it's about philosophy, values and political strategy.

@Annehutchison. Sorry, bit of a Mumsnet newbie so not sure how to reply directly. I'm not making a comment about what lefties should or should not think or how they should respond. I'm just saying that from a personal point of view I know this will make it harder for me to convince the people that I know.

@Rowantrees I am not surprised that the Twitter stuff got lost. I think that was completely predictable. The focus was always going to be on the right wing stuff. That's why I think it was bad strategy.

nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2019/02/andrew-sullivan-the-nature-of-sex.html?__twitter_impression=true

I have had so many messages from people who have actually read the exchanges as they are written and not how they’ve been twisted around

I haven't twisted anything around and neither am i a bitch

I am entitled to my opinion on posts

And anyone who is prepared to pm you support but is refusing to support you on the thread isnt really worth listening to

I suspect everyone else will have the good sense not to reply to your post

From Jackies link:
“In 1907 a split occurred in the WSPU, leading to the formation of the Women’s Freedom League (WFL). Unhappy with Emmeline Pankhurst’s approach – particularly the advocacy of violent actions – the WFL favoured peaceful lawbreaking such as demonstration, disruption and refusal to pay taxes and complete the census.”

We should consider refusing to complete the census, if this shit is still unresolved in 2021.

I was staying quiet as this thread is the only time strangers on the internet have genuinely upset me. There is no other word for what some of you have been than bully.

Trying to ostracise me and my experiences because I’m not ‘one of you’ It’s obvious and awful and a deliberate attempt to silence me.

I have had so many messages from people who have actually read the exchanges as they are written and not how they’ve been twisted around. People who aren’t on ‘my side’ who can see this twisting and turning and the deliberate bitchy behaviour. I will not be returning to FWR but I did not want to leave without letting you all that you are not as subtle as you think.

But yes, keep telling me i wasn’t nice enough I wonder if men are chatting about how little sympathy Dave gave Frank when discussing things? I somehow doubt it.

Responding to a post about someone’s trauma whilst saying they’re ‘sickened at my question’ with an explanation of why I asked the question initially is ‘heartless and cold’ etc but responding to my post detailing my personal abuse and assault with ‘I don’t care, so what’ even if she was not responding to the part about the abuse is acceptable?

FWR is not a ‘nice’ place, questions and debates are emotive and someone will get offended by pretty much everything that is said on that, on whichever side. I stand by my initial post on abortion/rape and think that difficult or emotional topics should not be avoided for the chance of upsetting someone.

Anyway - Enjoy rubbing shoulders with anti-abortion, anti- working woman, anti-contraception, anti-black/Asian organisations, I’d rather stand with TRAs than those assholes.

I'm so sorry to hear what happened to you, Oxy, and also sorry that you had to read such a coldhearted, dismissive response in a space like this where that really shouldn't be happening. Most of us care and understand why being asked to justify your discomfort around unknown males is so hurtful and so infuriating.

Still not indulging those who'd like to see infighting around Posie, or Jean, or anyone else. The tactics are obvious and I think everyone should be wary of taking the bait.

And ... sisters .. may I remind you all of the history of women's struggles?

What is happening now is nothing more than what happened then ... ant together they won

www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/articles/suffragists-and-suffragettes

Genderism privileges subjectivity over material reality. That is the antithesis of leftist politics.

That's the definition of 21st Century leftist politics.

Something like this perhaps needs to be said.

Just as Douglas Murray makes no apology for sitting on a platform with a communist to oppose Islamism, neither should a feminist apologise for sitting om a platform with a mainstream conservative to oppose TRA ideology.

Somewhat ironic that Posie Parker can be condemned for sitting on a platform with an American Christian organisation, when individual American Evangelicals are some of the biggest supporters of TRA ideology for homophobic reasons: they find their teenaged sons are gay, but rationalise it by saying their sons are just their (straight) daughters trapped in a boy's body, and start pushing hormone blockers on them. The sons (already racked with guilt over being gay, which they've been taught is a wicked sin) willingly take that route out of "evil". No TRA has ever rejected these additions to the ranks of TW. Nor has any TRA ever condemned theocratic Iran doing the same thing at state level on an industrial scale; instead Iran is lauded as "progressive" for conducting transition on state healthcare!

If this is willy-waving over being "more left-wing than thou" where is the condemnation of that?

As someone who remembers the days of coathangers and possible bleeds to death in emergency departments it felt to me like a series of valid questions.

It was a disgraceful false binary is what it was. "You've just been raped? That's terrible. So why are you worrying there's a TW in your refuge?"

Has bad thing X happened to you? Why on earth are you worrying about thing Y, which could very well escalate into equally bad or even worse thing Z (but which hasn't happened yet)?

keeponspinning This is what the meeting held at Heritage Foundation was about:

from GrinitchSpinach parallel thread:

"Here is the protest outside Twitter:
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2366769483443018&id=100003299679086&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FD8guU5XQ0R&_rdr

1) When the week of action was announced (with hashtags) nothing was said of speaking at these events. Initially we were told the trip was about confronting Twitter about misogyny IIRC.

When Meghan Murphy spoke during the protest outside Twitter she said that she was filing a lawsuit against Twitter.

Its seems that some aspects of events in Washington have received a massive amount of attention and others more deserving have got a bit lost.

Actually, if you read Datalounge, a LOT of gay men see a threat posed by genderism and specifically a threat to lesbuans from TW "cotton ceiling" rhetoric.

Political analysis, that should read.

The sudden conflation of UK and US politics does seem to have caused a lot of issues.

This was just posted on a parallel thread by GrinitchSpinach
"Oho! Andrew Sullivan, the prominent gay political commentator, took notice of the Heritage panel:

"It might be a sign of the end-times, or simply a function of our currently scrambled politics, but earlier this week, four feminist activists — three from a self-described radical feminist organization Women’s Liberation Front — appeared on a panel at the Heritage Foundation. Together they argued that sex was fundamentally biological, and not socially constructed, and that there is a difference between women and trans women that needs to be respected.

And it’s true that trans-exclusionary radical feminists or TERFs, as they are known, are one minority that is actively not tolerated by the LGBTQ establishment, and often demonized by the gay community. It’s also true that they can be inflammatory, offensive, and obsessive. But what interests me is their underlying argument, which deserves to be thought through, regardless of our political allegiances, sexual identities, or tribal attachments. Because it’s an argument that seems to me to contain a seed of truth. Hence, I suspect, the intensity of the urge to suppress it.

...

Transgender people pose no threat to us, and the vast majority of gay men and lesbians wholeheartedly support protections for transgender people. But transgenderist ideology — including postmodern conceptions of sex and gender — is indeed a threat to homosexuality, because it is a threat to biological sex as a concept.

We just have to abandon the faddish notion that sex is socially constructed or entirely in the brain, that sex and gender are unconnected, that biology is irrelevant, and that there is something called an LGBTQ identity, when, in fact, the acronym contains extreme internal tensions and even outright contradictions. And we can allow this conversation to unfold civilly, with nuance and care, in order to maximize human dignity without erasing human difference. That requires a certain amount of courage, and one thing I can safely say about that Heritage panel is that the women who spoke had plenty of it.

nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/andrew-sullivan-the-nature-of-sex.html

from:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3490776-Women-Stand-Up-in-Washington-D-C?msgid=84618271#84618271

So your lefty friends decide what is right wing via association rather than political analysts? Doesn't sound very lefty to me

Genderism privileges subjectivity over material reality. That is the antithesis of leftist politics.

Oh, final point. I think it's terrible strategy. Maybe it's good for the US, I don't know but I don't think it's good political strategy here in the UK.

My personal perspective as someone who is left leaning.

In addition to anything else in my case I have two issues with this

1. When the week of action was announced (with hashtags) nothing was said of speaking at these events. Initially we were told the trip was about confronting Twitter about misogyny IIRC. This meant that anyone sharing that hashtag became associated with the Heritage Foundation and the their other actions. This has irritated me but I've realised it's mainly my fault for not doing my research properly. Joining a campaign when you have no say in that campaign and there is no accountability probably isn't the best idea. At least in political parties there is party conference etc.
2. I now feel like all of the time I have spent convincing my leftie friends that it is not right wing and exclusionary to oppose trans ideology has been wasted and I'm right back where I started. Of course this won't be an issue for everyone as everyone has a different peer group but my aim was to try to win over people on the left in particular.
3. The definition of the word 'woman' is now associated with the right whereas organisations like Woman's Place were doing a good job of making it a left-wing issue.

To a degree most of this is my fault for not asking the right questions about the campaign in the first place. Luckily I got a bad feeling early on and distanced myself. Still, it's irritating.

Can I just say also I REALLY miss Magdalen Berns's contributions to the debate? Of course I'm mostly hoping she's OK and recovering from her radiotherapy and surgery. Her Stonewall video is my go-to when talking to people about the issues. It's a thing of beauty and the clarity of her rhetoric is second to none.
This ^^

Magdalen Berns:
RE: "TERF Wars"... Receipts Please?

I have a lot of respect for the big GC personalities, those left on twitter and those blogging separately elsewhere. The latest spats have disappointed me because rather than stating reasons for disagreement and moving on there's a need to knaw at the wounds and slip into deeper and deeper digs, some of them getting really bloody rude using awful name-calling (on all sides). Maybe it's the way twitter or social media is set up that it's so easy to just post one more riposte when it achieves nothing but division.

The counter seems to be "women don't have to be nice" which is true but it's reducing the debate into playground taunts. We're going to struggle to claim we're "adult" human females if we're acting like 12 year olds.

Personally I think he who sups with the devil should use a long spoon and so whilst I understand the reasons for hooking into the Heritage Foundation it's fundamentally morally wrong - in my opinion - but everyone is entitled to theirs.

I think most people see that difference needn't divide. I was moved by Posie's video and I think she's a force of nature, and whilst I don't agree with everything she does I applaud her courage. I respect Jean's decision not to attend the event, and the work she's done for DV victims is brilliant. Lisa M must have a brain the size of a planet and I always find her work an education - both truly challenging and authentic... None of us are perfect.

Can I just say also I REALLY miss Magdalen Berns's contributions to the debate? Of course I'm mostly hoping she's OK and recovering from her radiotherapy and surgery. Her Stonewall video is my go-to when talking to people about the issues. It's a thing of beauty and the clarity of her rhetoric is second to none.