Julie Bindel on twitter

Oh a mtf?

nauticant

They removed the photo on the article.It wasn't a woman who said that.Does anyone have the original archived?

Oh dear, that student ambassador doesn’t sound very, er, bright.

If it's a reference to this:

thetab.com/uk/sheffield/2020/04/26/nice-pair-of-milkers-uni-of-sheffield-student-ambassador-slammed-over-disgusting-comment-43606

then any suggestion that this came from a gender critical person is way off mark. It probably didn't come from a woman.

GC feminists are doing what now?

Just to return to the original brouhaha - Anyone know where these twitter threads out of gc feminists calling Dr JT an elitist and commenting on her boobs? I can’t find any anywhere...

I was just watching Julie Bindel talk about Andrea Dworkin.

Rachel Moran is the author of 'Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution' and a campaigner with SPACE ('Survivors of Prostitution Abuse Calling for Enlightenment') International.

'Not the Fun Kind: Revisiting the Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin', conference held at Anglia Ruskin University,
Thursday 9 July 2015.

Thanks for that clip, @R0wantrees - Prof. Jeffreys is terrific!

... it is useful to tussle out where the intellectual side of the conflict lies.

It is useful & important.
There needs to be clarity of position, thought & expression.

UncommonGround Media
by Dr Em

'Sexist History at the Heart of the ‘Science’ on Transsexualism, Part II: Robert Stoller, True Trans'
May 3, 2020
(extract)
"Many transsexuals go to great lengths to fit themselves to the prescribed body measurements and gestalt of a man-made woman’. In the same year the award winning psychologist and psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz, delineated the objectification of women when he asked
‘why should anyone (especially feminist women) object to men wanting to become women? Isn’t imitation the highest form of flattery? Precisely herein lies the “liberal” sexologists’ betrayal of human dignity and integrity: They support the (male) transsexual’s claim that he wants to be a woman — when, in fact, what he wants is to be a caricature of the male definition of “femininity.”

As this sexual paraphilia doesn’t remain in private but is being indulged in public aren’t all autogynephilic males when getting others to refer to them as women or participating in women’s events dressed as women, making people participate in their sexual fetish? What other male sexual turn on is demanded to be indulged by everyone? All of the time. When children are coerced to use preferred pronouns – pretend that a man is a woman – is this not coercing children to participate in a male’s sexual fetish? Would we ask children to paddle a submissive, because of his feelings? (continues)

Maybe there will be a switch to try and argue that the true trans are those who have undergone surgery, well women are not dickless men and it is misogynistic to define us as such. The notion that plastic surgery and or removal of a penis could make a woman was strongly criticised as it emerged as a field. In 1974 the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Lawrence Kubie claimed that ‘what is miscalled “transsexualism” has led to the most tragic betrayal of human expectation in which medicine and modern endocrinology and surgery have ever engaged. In the name of gender transmutation they have led people to believe that alchemy was possible...." (continues)

concludes:
"I don’t believe that humans can change sex, or that children are born wrong, or that there are male and female brains, or that sex-role stereotypes are natural and innate, or that clothes are magical, or that males can be lesbians. I cannot pretend that sometimes I don’t believe these things. My beliefs and adherence to science and evidence do not alter at a whim, or whether I like a person. I treat all people the same when it comes to reality, law and philosophy built on that foundation. I don’t believe that women or women’s rights are a mental health retreat for unhappy men. I don’t believe that women and girls are fetish objects who exist to please men and that we should restructure our very definition of ourselves to satisfy a man’s sexual fantasy – autogynephilia. I think it is entitled sexism for a man to claim he ‘feels like a woman’ or ‘lives like a woman’ or ‘has sex like a woman’. Women live a variety of lives, have a variety of thoughts and emotions, a variety of hopes and dreams – the only thing that links us is our biology and the oppression we face based on our sex. I know women are fully human and deserve their human rights being upheld. I know women are discriminated against based on their sex and thus we need sex-based protections. Simply put, I am a feminist.

International law recognises that gender stereotypes are a form discrimination against women, thus the notion that gender stereotypes are natural and innate as purported by transsexualism/transgenderism clearly conflicts with the rights and interests of women. The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was written in 1979 and Article 5 declares that all States should take
‘appropriate measures [to]modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudice and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women’ (continues)

The notion that those women who don’t believe, or will not pretend to believe to pacify men, in true trans are bigoted or mean or nasty is a repeat of the arguments that those women who don’t believe in transgenderism/transsexualism are bigoted and mean. We have all experienced the accusation of transphobe and the social exclusion when we stated our belief in biology, this is the same. It is undoubtedly appealing to refute the allegation of transphobia by saying ‘I have trans friends’ or ‘look, a trans person agrees with me’ but this both excludes women who need us (transwidows, daughters of trans identified fathers), muddies the waters and uses other people, those claiming to be trans, for one’s own ends. No person should be used as a means to an end. The belief that women have full humanity does not have to be defended by any kind of shallow show, our ideas and evidence stand on their own. With no reasonable scientific basis transsexualism/transgenderism remains at the status of an ideology, and an ideology which is antithetical to feminism."

uncommongroundmedia.com/robert-stoller-true-trans/

see also Part 1:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3896788-Important-series-of-articles-by-Dr-Em-Sexist-History-at-the-Heart-of-the-Science-on-Transsexualism-Part-I-Benjamin-Ihlenfeld-Money-Ehrhardt

I just don't think that expecting to only have GC feminists who have exactly the same views is realistic

I agree, but it is useful to tussle out where the intellectual side of the conflict lies.

Ralph Lucas (Conservative member of House of Lords) twitter thread following his question/s to government seeking clarification on DoH statement about possible increased corona virus risk to 'some genders' :

"Definitions. The government has helpfully pointed out the definitions that they use

"Man": from the Equality Act 2010: 'A male of any age'

"Woman": from the Equality Act 2010: 'A female of any age'

and from the Gender Recognition Act consultation at assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721725/GRA-Consultation-document.pdf

"Sex": 'Assigned by medical practitioners at birth based on physical characteristics. Sex can be either male or female.'

"Gender": 'Often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender refers to socially constructed characteristics, and is often assumed from the sex people are registered as at birth.'

"Gender identity": 'A person’s internal sense of their own gender. This does not have to be man or woman. It could be, for example, non-binary. '

"Transgender / Trans": 'Umbrella terms used to describe individuals who have a gender identity that is different to the sex recorded at birth. Non-binary people may or may not consider themselves to be trans.'

twitter.com/LordLucasCD/status/1257642474794881024

It starts well.

Sheila Jeffreys - has written & spoken about this matter again for over a decade.

Shelia Jeffreys 'What Is Gender?' event in Mayfair on Wednesday 13 September 2017
(this meeting came after Maria Maclachlan was assaulted by T Wolf & other male TRAs at Speakers' Corner)

Somewhat ironically, I agree that I will not call a man a woman. I just don't think that expecting to only have GC feminists who have exactly the same views is realistic.

But broadly we all agree that it's not possible to change sex and that women's spaces should be protected.

I support any woman who is willing to push back against transgender ideology.

I don't think TWATW holds as a sustainable position. It's a social niceity. We've spent two years and more painfully learning how to spell out that there are two sexes and you can't change from one to the other.

Mechanisms for avoiding cognitive dissonance are how a meme (in the Dawkins sense) protects itself inside your head against your own intellectual probing. TWATW/it's more complex than W=AHF/Not my Nigel etc... are a different meme than TWAW but they still kick up the dust clouds of cognitive dissonance avoidance.

For me I think it is most helpful to come at this from the angle of consent: Is there anything a man can feel, say, wear, do to his body, do by legal or administrative process that should allow him access to womens bodies against their consent?

No... Good ok then we need words and laws and rules and expectations for that.

This ^^
Consent, which is at the basis of all Safeguarding frameworks, is key.

Consent also has to be able to be given by the individual, be informed & given free from coersion or obligation.

Maya Forstater:
'Single sex spaces are a question of consent'
(extract)
"It’s a question of consent
In the UK the Equality Act 2010 sets out many everyday situations where it is lawful to provide single sex services. This includes:

Circumstances where a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex
Equality Act 2010 – Schedule 3, Paragraph 27 (6)

People using a single sex service have not consented to sharing with members of the opposite sex.

Single sex spaces should be simple
The law does not require that any particular type of service is always provided on a single sex basis.
Mixed sex facilities can be fine too.

You shouldn’t need a law degree, or a PhD in gender studies to work out who can use which facilities. Nor should you have to guess.

To protect everybody’s privacy and dignity there needs to be clarity." (continues)

a-question-of-consent.net/

This is perfect For me I think it is most helpful to come at this from the angle of consent: Is there anything a man can feel, say, wear, do to his body, do by legal or administrative process that should allow him access to womens bodies against their consent?

And also why I simply can not understand why anyone who values women could ever think/say TWAW

There is no grey.

pity not pit (darn iPad autocorrect)

have watched in quiet despair as Women's Studies morphed into Gender and Sexuality Studies and the like

Indeed. I set up & taught in a Women's Studies postgrad degree in the 1990s. At the time, we actually wanted to call it Gender Studies - not for po-mo reasons, but because actually, we believed/argued that women aren't the problem.

The problem is maleness, masculinity, and patriarchy.

But that's a very different interpretation of "Gender Studies" the current one ...

And apols for missing your reference to Prof. Greer. She is both magnificent & sometimes infuriating. But every time I hear her, I"m aware of how much she's thought and deeply - about the issues she comments on. Her views on rape, for example, are far more complex and sound than the bite-size possibilities of headlines & short TV interviews can reveal.

And therein lies part of the problem - the difficulty of expressing complex & multi-layered ideas in simple headlines. And it's a pit, because I think that many women do like to think deeply about our condition.

Why are some people so keen to force people into being on someone's 'side'? Surely I can just not give a fuck at all and go 'meh' to the whole thing.

Of course. No one here is telling you you have to pick a side.

I was making an observation that it is possible to class the key figures as having two very distinct modes of action and approach.

Julie Bindel and Julia Long were pushing back against gender ideology for YEARS before 'GC feminism' was even coined as a phrase

Yes but now they have different approaches to this; what may seem only very small differences, but they provoke very different responses from the public, the media and the law.

I also internally cry/laugh when i remember in the '90s at my leftist university that it felt that it had more or less been decided that po-mo could be no meaningful basis for political action and thought that argument was all sewn up!

Oh, the naivety of youth.

*YogaFaker8 thanks, I did mention Germaine Greer but Sheila Jeffreys had slipped my mind.

We owe her a lot.

And I do agree with you about the importance of academic feminism for the reasons that you give. I was at university when po-mo came into the scene and I have been very grateful numerous times over the past few years that even as an undergraduate I had all that time to read, look around me and at the women in my family history, and really think about my criticisms of it.

I'm not an academic, but I have some contact with HE via my work and have watched in quiet despair as Women's Studies morphed into Gender and Sexuality Studies and the like.

Amalfimamma I agree wholeheartedly

The choice people make to use she pronouns in certain friendship and or professional settings is simply that, a choice. It absolutely is not a determination that the friend or colleague is a woman.

And you absolutely have no need whatsoever to keep misrepresenting this here. No despair necessary, you are free to leave people alone at anytime.

But I would say that Julie Bindel and Julia Long were pushing back against gender ideology for YEARS before 'GC feminism' was even coined as a phrase and before it was discussed on MN

And don't forget:

Germaine Greer (she made her position clear re the admittance of a relatively late-transitioning MtF TW to an all-female college over a decade ago)
Sheila Jeffreys - has written & spoken about this matter again for over a decade.

I am not wanting to set up a hierarchy of who's most valued to speak etc etc - but I think part of the problem is that many younger women have little idea of feminisms' histories & heritages.

As a feminist academic, (but not a famous one, just doxxed & disciplined re this debate almost 3 years ago) I wanted aso to say something about what academics do, and the way we think, which might be different from others - anonymous women on MN doing grass roots activism, visible activists IRL and on Twitter & other SM -

our jobs are centred around careful and nuanced research and discussion and debate of the evidence. So yes, this may seem arcane or exclusionary, but I think it's important as a space for thinking things through with more time and evidence than is possible in a 240 character Tweet. Indeed, I wrote a whole book over a decade ago about how so-called "invisible" women did their feminism (or not-feminism) in the 19th century in the particular tiny field I research, and how 21st C feminists might understand their work in this field.

I can speak about this research in simple headlines, and enjoy doing so, with my students & anyone else who's interested. But my real joy is doing the careful nuanced research & writing.

But all the time I work in my bit of the field of women's history, I am aware of the way that feminism - unlike ANY other political/ideological revolutionary movement - is grounded in everyday life, our bodies, and our everyday real-world activism. That feminisms (of all ideological persuasions) are lived politics.

So I think that's what for me takes feminism away from being just an ideological battle led by the Left.

That's what I really enjoy about doing women's history, actually - it means something now as well as giving us a revolutionary understanding of the past.

Cuntysnark

Sorry if I was irritable but my comment stands in general.

I am talking to a dear academic friend of mine who is much loved in gc circles. She's said this

It's like black lives matter having a white cop at the meetings, directing the argument.... because this one says what I want to hear.
Would they invite domestic abusers to come educate women on domestic abuse?
Pimps to teach us about the pimp perspective of the sex trade?