Are feminists getting played?

my one personal wish in this fight is that women would stop wasting their time arguing with twats on Twatter.

There will always be twats on twitter.

The problem is that Jo Swinson, Jess Phillips and Stella Creasy don't seem able to talk about the impact of biological sex.

And hence why you should allows challenge the corruption of the integrity if language and where groups are dehumanised and look out for reversal narratives.

It's authoritarianism v liberalism innit.

Noting that this 'liberal identity' shit is an authoritarian movement pretending to be a liberal one and categorically isn't liberal in nature.

It's just another linguistic corruption.

All these linguistic corruptions are ways of hiding political intent from people and their own best interests, because they generally hide something unpalatable to the population.

This isn't unique to the trans issue or feminism. It's about creeping authoritarianism across society.

Feminism happens to be a concept that is a facet of liberalism. It only appears to manifest throughout history as a significant force in society at times where society is in a period of relative political stability and at peace.

Liberalism isn't something that can only flourish because of women's power. It can only flourish with the support of men and women.

I think the desire to separate feminism off as a separate political force misses the point. Authoritarianism encourages hierarchical rather than flat power across the board. So it affects other areas such as race, nationality, religion, class etc.

All those things where rights emerged as a reaction to abuses of power.

That's why it serves the interests of all those groups to stand together and protect each other. It's the whole 'first they came for' shit.

History repeats.

I'm inclined to think it's a big deal and we're being played.

I concur. You can't just ignore it, because destroying the meaning of the word 'woman' is bound to destroy feminism. At the same time this fight takes so much energy from other important issues.

Distracting the enemy with an issue he cannot ignore but which must be addressed and is thus consuming valuable resources is, actually, a tactic regularly employed in warfare.

... if gender was rendered meaningless because of trans and then the biological sex categories were redefined it would not be based on gametes (which we can't easily observe) but on social and reproductive function, most obviously sperm production and pregnancy.

How can the biological sex categories be redefined if the large gamete and the small gamete persist in their existence? Surely, there would still be a body that supplies the small gamete and a body that supplies the large gamete?

Yes I agree Sakura which is why my one personal wish in this fight is that women would stop wasting their time arguing with twats on Twatter. It's like the women on the relationships board who are convinced that if they could just make their husband understand why his behaviour is hurtful he'd stop. The truth - that he already knows and simply doesn't give a shit - is often too hard a pill to swallow. Basically I think GC women need to LTB that is Twitter and focus their energy exclusively on other women. So I agree that feminist energy might need redirecting within the GC movement, but I don't agree that it needs redirecting away from it.

The idea that female oppression is class based and rooted in biology is essential to feminism, and I think the fact that a movement directly perverting those two facts has sprung up is a really strong indicator that we're on the right track. If feminism is about striking patriarchy at it's root, then transactivism is about striking feminism at it's root. The academia springing up around genderism/ transactivism is, IMO, really valuable work which will help feminists identify how men can and will use weaponize feminism against us.

I just think we have bigger problems than this. For example I don't think many women know that their husband is more likely to kill them than a random.

Without a definition that differentiates between male and female your sentence just means that people are more likely to be killed by their spouse.

Everybody, in fact, knows who is who and what is what

No, they don't, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Like the OP says, semantics actually isn't going to define women out of existence

Women will always exist. The things that can disappear are language, legislation and knowledge.

Women will always be a distinct and separate sex class. Our biological reality is what makes that so

Yes, but only individuals know that if the stats say otherwise.

Crimes are already recorded according to gender identity which skews stats on violence against women and girls and gives men the ammunition to say that women are just as violent as men.

Loads of government forms now ask for gender instead of sex and it's only a matter of time before the laws are updated to reflect common usage.

Which will mean that genderism actually sets us back years, especially on things like male violence against women.

@Maniak
Sex is based on gametes for the purpose of sexual reproduction used by many plants, animals and mammals.

The body that supplies the large gamete is labelled the female body.

The body that supplies the small gamete in labelled the male body.

This is true for all species that rely on sexual reproduction for perpetuation of their species.

Pretty fucking clever I'd say.

I'll give them that. And I hope feminists who are lobbying against trans realize that all men are in on it. Yes including their Nigels. Trans is a men's rights movement.

It might. In my field, a late transitioning trans woman has taken it upon herself to be the spokesperson for women. She does this by being very vulnerable about her feelings, complaining a lot about men, posting lots of selfies, and talking about her hair. Because that's what middle aged career women do I suppose. Soo she's a woman and we may not question it, but of course the treatment she gets is nothing like a real woman would get if they ever behaved like that. So I feel like she's colonizing all the stereotypes. If enough trans women do that, those stereotypes will stick to them and no longer be associated with actual women. So our associations to sex differences will shift. I'm not sure what effect that will have on power differences, maybe something though.

It seems you may not know much about AGP men. I recommend you read the two Trans Widows threads in Mumsnet.

Necessity would force a means for describing that category.

They won't. They'll just pretend we don't exist. See the recent Green Party motion on making misogyny a hate crime. Thanks to a TRA campaign to "not reduce women to their biology" the motion was never even discussed. No one could come up with a definition of "woman" that included TW but excluded other men and TM (because their isn't one) so the whole motion was just dropped.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3608096-Green-Party-Conference-evicts-gender-critical-woman

It's fine to talk about "pregnant people" when you're specifically writing abortion legislation, but when you need to stop referring to us as body parts and write laws that effect us as a class (and thus actually address women's oppression at a class level) you can't do it. Which is the whole fucking point, isn't it. Once feminists recognised that our oppression was based in biology and needed addressing at class level, we started making progress. Now we have a staggeringly popular belief system that in one fell swoop makes it both impossible to acknowledge female biology as relevant to the female experience and makes it impossible to legislate in our favour at a class level. Pretty fucking clever I'd say.

My belief is that behaviour that dominates and subordinates others is learned.

I think male behavior (violence, penchant for war) is partly learned, partly biological .

I think female behavior ( submissiveness) is unnatural and is the result of male violence. I think women's desire to be with their babies in the early years is natural, not social conditioning

You cannot protect the rights of people you can't define.

I just think we have bigger problems than this. For example I don't think many women know that their husband is more likely to kill them than a random. Only feminists know this.
Women and girls also don't seem to know just how many women are murdered by husbands and boyfriends, it's just not common knowledge

So we need consciousness raising so girls don't pair bond with men, that sort of thing. Or if they do, they go in with open eyes.

And this is where I think you're giving the trans lobby more power than it has. We women on here know we're women. Everybody, in fact, knows who is who and what is what. Like the OP says, semantics actually isn't going to define women out of existence

Or they could be born like that. Or it could be a mixture of both (what I think).

My belief is that behaviour that dominates and subordinates others is learned.

Specifically, only half the population could give birth still, and that half would still need fair representation in government. Necessity would force a means for describing that category. So that's why I'm not all that fussed.

Hundreds of years of history and the status quo in many countries make it clear that there is no need to recognise that women have the right to be represented in government.

You don't even need to make specific laws that deny women the chance to vote. All you need to do is take away access to birth control (perhaps by privatising health care and restricting access to medical care) and you restrict women's ability to be politically active.

You cannot protect the rights of people you can't define.

Women will always be a distinct and separate sex class. Our biological reality is what makes that so.

Transgenderist ideology wants biological sex erased from law to be replaced with the nebulous notion of gender identity. The USA Equality Act that is proposed does exactly this. The sex classes will cease to exist in law. What then?

Men, regardless of how they present themselves, assume and express dominance because that is what patriarchy teaches them."

Or they could be born like that.
Or it could be a mixture of both (what I think).

If you want to have your minds blown further, the list of female sex offenders included both men identifying as women AND women identifying as fucking men. Our category got hit twice by the stats!

Anyway, on the subject of representation, we won't get it. The ScotGov consultation on equal representation right now proposes 50% gender equality for anyone with a feminine sounding name on their gas bill - with no requirement to even produce the gas bill. The "blue collar" types might not be buying it, but the men who fill the board rooms are falling over themselves to give their very own Pippa Bunce "woman of the year" awards. Even if only a few TW make it onto each board, overall representation of women will probably end up stuck at 40:60 in favour of men. And unlike now we won't even be able to campaign to improve it as the powers that be will insist it is 50:50.

And it gets even worse when you scale up to something important like peace initiatives. I can just imagine everyone scratching their heads trying to figure out why a TW lead peace initiative produced the same results as the male lead ones. Oh well, I guess there's no benefit to putting women in these positions afer all

Yes, teaches and allows them.

I think it is more a question of teaches and demands of them, since this is the means by which patriarchy sustains itself. The power and hence privilege that patriarchy invests in men is essential to the survival of patriarchy. At every possible intersection, men are dominant and women are forced into subordination.

But still there would be the major biological difference between men and women. Specifically, only half the population could give birth still, and that half would still need fair representation in government. Necessity would force a means for describing that category. So that's why I'm not all that fussed. I like the words women and mother, but fair representation is more important, and I can use whatever word.

Changing the current labels does not affect the hierarchy of the power relationship though, does it?