Feeling really conflicted

Hi OP, I'm in a very similar situation to you. Been lurking for a long time, reading, researching and forming opinions. I'll be forever grateful to the wise women on these boards for their insights and reasoned debates.

I don't spend too much time worrying about where I read certain things, it's just a case of critically engaging with whatever you read. I've spent my life on the left and fighting injustice, but when the party you spent your adult life voting for cannot define a woman, you have to wonder if they are able to protect, or are even interested in, women's rights. To hear Labour MP Alex Sobel give a curt 'no' when asked if women have a right to single sex places such as rape crisis centres and prisons, well again you have to ask yourself which side of that debate do you feel most comfortable with.

Funnily enough, this week has been a really significant one for me and I no longer consider myself conflicted. What did it for me was following the 50:50 parliament thread. Honestly, it was like everything became clear and the power imbalance shone out as vividly as the contempt a certain poster had for anyone who didn't agree with them. Just be aware if you read it that there are hundreds of deleted posts. This again shows the power in play - the vast majority of posts did not break rules (I alone had 2 removed but no strikes) it's just clear that someone does not want them to be read by others. Once you realise it's all about power, everything falls into place.

To be fair, Zoe Williams has always been quite self-righteous. I don't see her as having an inquiring mind. Janice Turner has a more thoughtful nuanced approach.

I think the problem is that for a lot of young people, this is idealistic youth vs bigoted old people. I suspect I would have been one of them, 25 years ago.

I still have no issue with people who think they're in the wrong body and who feel the need to change. Fine.

I struggle a bit with the idea that dressing in the traditional outfit of the opposite sex makes you actually that sex, but again, if that's what makes you happy, fine.

I object to being told that tw ARE women or that tw ARE men. Happy for a third space.

I object to the idea that non binary actually means buying into gender stereotypes.

I object to the fact there can't be a debate on any of it, because any questioning gets shouted down as transphobia, which in the past, used to mean hatred. This shuts down debate because most of us will consider ourselves liberal etcand will have spent many years despairing of homophobes etc.

This is the Hitler was a vegetarian argument. I’m also a vegetarian. I’m not concerned that living meat free is a gateway to Nazism.

AnyOld great post

On the same side as the far right? Bollocks and you know it.

trans who burnt a book on twitter for the lulz.

//////

Er, except they don't do it for the "lulz" they do it as a call to arms to others to openly threat people mostly women with threats of losing jobs, rape and violence.

All the while accusing those women of "literal violence" for daring to state a biological fact.

I’ve found the podcast “gender: a wider lens” with Stella O’Malley and Sasha Ayad massively helpful in understanding what good support for trans people might actually look like. They are both therapists who work with trans identified people, particularly young people and their compassionate, integrative approach seems to me like it would be actually constructive. Highly recommend a listen.

For me that exchange between Zoe Williams and Janice Turner summed up everything that's wrong with 'I read / write for the Guardian so I must be in the right' thinking.
From what I could see, Williams initiated the discussion in the first place, and when she couldn't defend her points she resorted to being rude to Janice and claiming she was tired.
Pitiful.

One of the reasons I conclude this isn’t just that I think my take on it is right, it’s also that the position advanced by transactivism isn’t actually helpful to trans people. Telling them everyone hates them, suicide is a reasonable response to their difficulties, that everyone who doesn’t agree with them is hateful, that other people’s feelings about them should dictate their self worth, that their physical bodies are wrong, that they are engaged in an existential battle every day- none of this is helpful or kind in the way it’s purported to be.

This is what I don’t understand. Wouldn’t the best situation be for trans people to be totally accepted AS trans people with an understanding of the challenges and different needs that entails?

I didn't equate gender critical activists with the far right, I just pointed out they are on the same side when it comes to trans people, that's why far right figures and conspiracy theorists have worked alongside GC activists like Transgender Trend, Posie etc.

That's because some things are incontrovertible truths. Like the sky is blue and males are males. You can't dispute the obvious just for the sake of performative opposition.

Kimberly Wilson (who works with Tavistock) framed this really well in her BBC podcast with Xander Van Tulleken.

I don't have the precise quote, but she pointed out that we need to see ourselves as good people. If people who we see as 'bad' hold the same views as us on some topics, it messes with our sense of self. It's very deep-seated, but really made clear how unwise it is to completely identify with a cause to the point where you lose your sense of self within it.

It's worth listening to, as she put it much more clearly than I can.

I'm completely GC, but I work very hard to remember that there are humans with feelings on both sides of the argument.

(And I also shudder when I think about agreeing with fucking Piers Moron).

It's always tricky having to learn that you aren't always going to agree with people you like (or disagree with people you don't like). I don't understand people who seem so intent on making sure everyone in their "in group" totally agree on everything, it's not sustainable and doesn't lead to any advancement in thinking.

It's one of the reasons I enjoy MN, you can vigorously disagree with a poster on one thread, then be in total agreement on another. And neither invalidates the other.

Some really good arguments and points. Expect jj back sometime soon. They will ignore everything that's been posted and make another case equivalence allegation and fuck off again without engaging with any points anyone has made or so massively misinterpreting the points you wonder if English is a language they understands Just pointing this out for any newbies.
No one is remotely fooled but you nicely make the point that one side only ever engages in bad faith arguments if they engage at all.

Yes i find it very difficult - particularly the dailymail. It does make me stop and really think about things. But i keep coming back to safeguarding and not feminism and safeguarding is for trans as much as anyone else.

I flip flop on ZW and often enjoy her stuff but was surprised at how staggeringly (wilfully?) blind she's being over this.

I occasionally pass for middle class on here (I refuse to know my place in life and keep reading books and using the polysyllabic words I learn in them) but in RL I'm sure I don't. See if she keeps insisting it's just about googling when I tell her about my real-life experiences of taking GCSEs with a girl who kept missing classes because she had to stay home to look after her husband when he was ill.

You’ve got an illustration of it right here on this thread -someone completely unable to make the mental leap that not all right wing people are bad, and agreeing with an opinion that a right wing person holds doesn’t immediately make that person right wing too.

I’ve done soul searching on so many of my beliefs as a result of this topic, and I haven’t always enjoyed what I’ve found. I’ve also outsourced my thinking on occasion, and lazily stereotyped.

But I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong on this. One of the reasons I conclude this isn’t just that I think my take on it is right, it’s also that the position advanced by transactivism isn’t actually helpful to trans people. Telling them everyone hates them, suicide is a reasonable response to their difficulties, that everyone who doesn’t agree with them is hateful, that other people’s feelings about them should dictate their self worth, that their physical bodies are wrong, that they are engaged in an existential battle every day- none of this is helpful or kind in the way it’s purported to be.

Maybe you’re like I am and are struggling with feeling like you’re not being kind and supportive- but I bet you are. To gender non conforming young children in resisting the urge to tell them their bodies are wrong and should be medicalised, to teenage girls distressed in a sexist world they don’t understand who try to flee it by opting out of womanhood, to the trans widows and families devastated in the wake of a late transition whose stories get buried, to women and girls who need single sex spaces in sports, prisons and refuges...you’re being kind to them.

OP, give yourself some space to get your head around this as your views are still relatively newly formed. Don't let other women's firm fully formed views put you off. It's a journey and it does take time.

Interesting question, OP.

No, I don't feel conflicted: I consider the issue, not who agrees or disagrees with me.

I’m more concerned about why outlets like the bbc, independent and the guardian aren’t covering it in an unbiased manner. Doesn’t that worry you?

This is the worry - I am very clear in my position and am constantly researching and listening to as wide a number of voices as possible but the more I find out, the clearer I am about the damage being done to women's rights and the safety of children.

I am so disappointed in the BBC - they are actively promoting a false version of the law to the detriment of women's legal rights. They constantly claim in their articles that the single sex exceptions in the EA 2010 don't apply to a certain group of people - they are lying to us. They are also promoting things to children that breach not only the government guidelines but their own guidelines.

The bit that did it for me with the BBC is when on Woman's Hour Jane Garvey was forced to point out 'for balance' that Fair Play For Women and other women's groups (us) are 'hate groups'.

That is beyond the pale for me, and like the 5050 Parliament organisation using two transwomen on a panel of four (it was originally three) to represent women's voices when talking about encouraging women into politics - they've crossed the line.

We have seen the amount of abuse that every person who speaks out about this receives so I applaud any publication/outlet that puts doing the right thing above what is easy.

Definitely the same, OP. Left-wing floating voter, Guardian reader all my life. I despise writers like Sarah Vine and Julia Hartley Brewer but have learned to appreciate their clarity on this issue - if nothing else, they have a gravity and understanding of the media and the world that just makes the other side (Pink News, Buzzfeed or whatever) seem foolish and immature. Personally, I had distanced myself from a friend who went to one of right-leaning major outlets to further her career and see now I was being a bit Rik from the Young Ones.

I will never vote Tory - can never forgive Brexit among other reasons- and am surprised to find myself politically homeless at this point. Every time a politician struggles or comes out with nonsense when asked what a woman is, my resolve hardens a bit more.

One thing that does make me wobble from time to time is this endless accusation of the GC viewpoint being 'hatred' - what appears to me to be a matter of fact and absolute common sense now being considered hateful. Am I really hateful, or is it another word that has been twisted out of recognition these days?

(Also, using phrases like 'these days' a lot so am clearly settling into middle age and struggling to understand the yoof - which is also part of the problem I suppose)

I saw that potholes a genuine case of “Alexa show me tone deaf middle class privilege” and yet Zoe thinks she’s on the right side

This ought to be an issue that transcends party politics. It annoys me that some parties have turned it into a matter of policy not conscience. The Telegraph has been running a series from a trans woman documenting her transition whilst also posting GC articles from other writers. This good journalism from my perspective people should be presented with both voices.

It was the Telegraph that broke the MP expenses scandal - most people agree that was a good thing. The Daily Mail campaigned hard on the Stephen Lawrence case - I agreed with that.

Some things are not about left or right and I question the motives of those activists who are so determined to link it to party politics.

What puzzles me is why other people don't worry about what they're agreeing with.

Zoe Williams, Guardian journalist, is currently having a row with Janice Turner on twitter. In the course of arguing for removing the word woman from health literature promoting cervical screening, she has said that any woman who speaks English as an additional language and who doesn't know the word cervix, and sees it on health literature, should just google it.

That is an incredibly right-wing, pull-themselves-up-by-their-bootstraps, learn-the-language attitude to take to immigration!