Are feminists getting played?

Self ID is not law yet, but its already had a negative effect on other women - not you obviously, but more vulnerable women in places you don't have to think about such as psychiatric units, prisons, and DV shelters.
I can't imagine telling women on a feminist forum to shut up talking about harm that is being done to women.

You are so right OP. Yes I agree that “step outside and I’ll show you sir” shouldn’t be in our spaces but there are so many other issues affecting women daily and more structurally engrained in society than this.

Why? The thread is here!

I'm talking about what I want to talk about. Here. The subject raised in the OP.

I don't think that it is the biggest threat- the biggest threats are the persistent public perceptions that women are primarily sex objects or mothers- everything else is secondary.

That perception is still there and underlies so much more than a willy in the next cubicle.

the biggest threat gets the most threads because the threat is constantly changing. there are new examples of how it is being used almost every day.
There are threads on other subjects such as BDSM violence going mainstream, safeguarding being abolished within the NSPCC, maternal healthcare, they run to multiple pages. Just use the Advanced Search feature to look.

But if you don't get that erasing the word 'woman' erases all of our sex based rights on one fell swoop, you haven't been paying attention.

Nobody is telling you what to talk about.
Really? OK.
Why not start a thread about the things you care about?

Nobody is telling you what to talk about. However all the feminist energy in this country is currently directed at one thing. Just one.

It's like Brexit - everyone is obsessed with that so austerity is ignored.

Everyone is obsessed with trans so shite healthcare, still being judged on our looks, threats to abortive and contraceptive access and God knows what else is ignored.

This is one of the few spaces where women feel we can talk about this issue. Forgive me but I am wondering why so many people are dropping in all of a sudden to tell us we shouldn't.

I am not very knowledgeable at all about this, but I thought that the fact that there were no public toilets at all for women 100 or so years ago meant that women were severely restricted socially. Unable to leave the home unless visiting another home, unable to stay out longer than their bladder would allow. (For me that would be a couple of hours).
When you think about that for a few minutes it is obvious how big an effect that simple lack of women only provision would have had. We cannot and should not go back to that.
So toilets are very important. Fundamentally important.
I have posted before about my family member building segregated toilet and washing facilities in refugee camps. This is the one thing women ask for, above food and clothes. Because of the level of rape and assault.

Don't get me wrong, I hate all that language, but it is just words.

It is not just words. Women’s ability to name themselves as women and to define their existence is crucial to our liberation.

If women becomes a category which includes men, then there is no way of understanding the basis of human female oppression.

Words like “womb-bearers” subsume human females into the general category of mammals, again, ignoring our human female biology.

And beyond the importance of defining ourselves is the act of mastery which is allowing a small group of men to redefine women.

In the New Testament it is the naming of things which gives Adam dominion over the earth. It is no accident that colonisers remame the landscape in their own image.

There are many important battles women have to fight, but it’s hard to fight them when we can’t talk about who we are or describe our biology.

Gender neutral toilets are a nonsense- think we can all agree on that.

Let me illustrate my point- maternity care is shit. Particularly post-natally.

That's an undeniably feminist issue. How many threads are there about it on the feminism board?

Genderism sort of covers the 'how' of the oppression rather than just the fact of it. Which, for me, cuts out a stage of conversation,

Very insightful. And, may I say, wonderfully expedient.

Women are just so efficient.

Oh, and I'm probably using Genderism the way feminists have often used Patriarchy, except that Genderism sort of covers the 'how' of the oppression rather than just the fact of it. Which, for me, cuts out a stage of conversation, because I usually have to explain the word patriarchy because of all the misconceptions and work round to how gender is a tool of the patriarchy.

I'm far too lazy and bloody minded to keep explaining the patriarchy, so short cuts work for me.

Good time to bring out my favourite 'Spritual warfare' icon...

Yes, toilets are important. There was that recent report about how many girls had experienced period shaming in school and how many had stayed off school because of it. If anyone thinks unisex toilets (or allowing boys who feel like girls in with the girls) will help that situation they're idiots - and this is in the UK.

Interesting thoughts about Genderism Floral

I am of course now, whenever I'm thinking about rights of women and girls, thinking about fighting a dragon. :)

I think some people might read me using 'Genderism' and think I'm just referring to the trans issue. Actually I contend that surrogacy, and the use of fertile women as a cattle class for breeding is part and parcel of 'Genderism', because it both exploits women's natural biology and manipulates ideas about what a woman is so that this exploitation can happen.

Seconded.

Well, if it makes anyone feel better, I rarely comment on toilet threads, though I did enjoy a link from the last one I read that talked about how important single sex public toilet provision has been to female liberation.

It's emblematic that the AWAs desperately want to get in to female toilets, and yet manage to both dismiss the significance of that for us, and dismiss how important public toilet access has been to women over the last century and continues to be in the developing world.

I don't think it's an especially central issue - but it does serve to illustrate the way Anti women activists belittle the things which have meant women can approach a level playing field in most cultures.

As an aside, I think some people might read me using 'Genderism' and think I'm just referring to the trans issue. Actually I contend that surrogacy, and the use of fertile women as a cattle class for breeding is part and parcel of 'Genderism', because it both exploits women's natural biology and manipulates ideas about what a woman is so that this exploitation can happen.

Meanwhile, the continued misery of millions of women is ignored in favour of a pseudo-academic fight about toilets.

First of all, nobody is ignoring other issues affecting women. That’s simply not true & is just hyperbole.
Secondly, this is about more than toilets, although you’re clearly not very informed about issues affecting women and girls globally if you don’t understand the importance of safe toilets. If you aren’t aware of the numbers of assaults in mixed sex toilets, that is your ignorance. Beyond toilets and changing rooms, this affects our political roles and positions, which should be important to you. It affects data collection which affects crime stats and health provision. It affects women receiving interval examinations who prefer females. It affects us in hospitals, remember Karen White’s autistic victim in a mental health ward, and in prisons- or do you not care about female prisoners? Many of which are abused women.

To reduce this to toilets, and dismiss the importance of those even, is to be ignorant of feminist issues and women’s rights to a pretty extreme degree.

So I'm imagining the teenage girls I meet who tell me they are boys and all the adults seem to take this seriously and call them he?

I am not prepared to go along with this as they may well end up on completely unnecessary damaging lifelong medication. All because adults wanted an easy life and didn't help them learn to live in the body they have.

That's pretty damn important in my opinion and it's happening in schools all over the country.

I agree OP.

There's a lot of 'echo-chambering' going on here. It's all on Twitter and MN.

A bubble.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world continues to use normal words like man and woman. I had a baby not too long ago and did not come across 'womb-bearer' or 'cervix-haver' or 'chest-feeding' once.

It's all so ludicrous that it just won't take.

Meanwhile, the continued misery of millions of women is ignored in favour of a pseudo-academic fight about toilets.

Well, one way would just be to roll over on the semantic stuff, and just be womb-bearers or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I hate all that language, but it is just words.

Doesn't work because it obscures the issue - if we are womb-bearers in one circumstance, menstruators in another, mothers in another, be-breasted in another, sit-down wee-ers in another, eostrogen dominant in another then it hides the fact that all of these things are things that women are.

That there aren't 10 groups of people with 10 different needs being subjected to discrimination for 10 different reasons, but one group of people being subjected to discrimination for 10 different reasons with one root cause.

I think you need to work on your writing, sakura184. Please don't sneer at women.

But you cannot insist that all women must campaign for what you believe - because we're not all puppets to be controlled by you.

I'm really not saying that at all. If that's what you read then clearly I need to work on my writing skills, or you need to work on comprehension skills, I'm not sure which it is.

I'm questioning why women aren't organically taking on other issues and I've also thrown up a few reasons and suggestions why.

How you read from that that I think people need to be puppets controlled by me is really beyond me: this is a discussion about why trans predominates in feminism at large . That is the topic under scrutiny. I'm just responding to the OP

Any woman who supports those born with a penis in their quest to be allowed to

compete in women's sports;
to be named business woman or any woman of the year;
to serve time in women's prisons;
to use women's public changing or lavatory arrangements
to be called by female pronouns
to be called a woman in any context

is a dangerous, sleep walking fool. Sex is not fluid-what nonsense!

I do think there are bigger issues, globally, than genderism but in terms of issues that I think - with all the other demands on me - I can realistically do something about, then genderism is up there. Also surrogacy, not least because there is a consultation. The consultation around the GRA is also partly why I educated myself as it was an opportunity to actually influence - if they read my response of course...

sakura184: women seem to be picking our own battles, according to our own individual thoughts and circumstances. And that is our right.

The battles that you mention are all, certainly, valid. But you cannot insist that all women must campaign for what you believe - because we're not all puppets to be controlled by you.