Article with sums up where we are now

The infantilisation (or self-infantilisation) is one aspect of some trans activists that I am constantly surprised by. It feeds into the ‘most vulnerable’ aspect. And this constant need that ‘safety’ includes only reading or viewing affirming content.

Young people with specific vulnerabilities are drawn into communities (online and academic) and exposed to respected 'elders' who teach that dissenting voices seek to "exterminate" those who identify as 'trans'. Black and white thinking is encouraged in those already that way inclined for a range of reasons (including age).
The false attributation of malign motive to women informed by and informing Radical Feminist analysis is striking.

'How Did TERFs Become So Powerful In Britain?'
Rebecca Jane Morgan
Jan 15
(extract)
"If there is such a thing as a definitive expression of ‘TERF’ ideology, American feminist Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (1979) is a strong contender. Trans writers Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle argue that it ‘did more to justify and perpetuate [anti-trans prejudice] than perhaps any other book ever written.’ In its sheer ability to do harm, they go so far as to compare it to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic hoax that did much to fuel the Nazi conspiracy machine.⁵

Raymond’s language is deliberately incendiary. She accuses trans women of being ‘yet another face of patriarchy’ and sees them as part of a conspiracy to infiltrate and obliterate cis women’s spaces. In this sense, Raymond contends, ‘he [sic] performs total rape,’⁶ and the only correct response was ‘morally mandating it out of existence’.⁷ Like most exclusionary feminists, Raymond had little to say about trans men, who are typically regarded by such authors as ‘poor oppressed women’⁸ suffering from ‘false consciousness,’⁹ or as seeking an easy way out of oppression by ‘joining the caste of men.’¹⁰ Since they are not seen to ‘invade’ women’s spaces, they are usually spared the attribution of malevolence reserved for trans women.
Raymond’s influence in Britain is contested. On the one hand, feminist journalist Jane Fae writes that Transsexual Empire ‘attracted little attention in the UK’ and was ‘little more than a footnote’.¹¹ On the other hand, Stephen Whittle, a founding member of the British trans activist movement, recalls a sharp change in feminist attitudes in 1979. From being ‘listened to’ prior to the publication of Raymond’s book, he felt a sudden shift towards feminists seeing trans people as ‘co-conspirators in an attempt by men to possess [women] and to remake them in a mould that suits them.’¹² British sociologist Carol Riddell, meanwhile, felt that Transsexual Empire was a ‘dangerous book’ that made it ‘more problematic’ for trans women to be visible in the women’s movement.¹³" (continues)
aninjusticemag.com/how-did-trans-exclusionary-feminism-become-so-powerful-in-britain-77275d77c632

Feminist Current
OCTOBER 16, 2020
PODCAST: The Transsexual Empire revisited — Janice Raymond on transgenderism, yesterday and today
by MEGHAN MURPHY
(extract)
"In 1979, Janice Raymond published The Transsexual Empire, the first and probably most well-known book articulating a radical feminist analysis of transgenderism. Little did we know, 40 years later, trans activism would become the biggest threat to feminism in decades. She warned us all, early on, and now we are living it: watching women’s sex based right be eroded in order to accommodate gender identity legislation. So much of Raymond’s analysis could have been written today. But it wasn’t

I spoke with Janice recently about the book, how it was received then vs how it is discussed today, the backlash, what we are up against now, and how we can fight back."

www.feministcurrent.com/2020/10/16/podcast-the-transsexual-empire-revisited-janice-raymond-on-transgenderism-yesterday-and-today/

Open access copy of Raymond's book, 'The Transsexual Empire' is available on her website: janiceraymond.com/

I find this really a little - isn't it kind of naval gazing for what is supposed to be academic work?

I thought the same. These people really need to get a grip, and examine their own cognitive biases. I've read disgusting stuff about women in MRA etc forums, Reddit. Some men hate women. Not everyone believes TWAW. News at 11.

This was a wonderful talk. Hannah is incredibly brave

It was a great meeting, I was there. Catia Freitas' speech was also very moving.

And badly researched, too. The main problem lies in the author's inability to understand the site. Particularly in that FWR is one of many messageboards and one that also existed in those supposedly golden days of lovely affirming Mumsnet.

These people don't care about accuracy, and nor do their readers. They just want more propaganda to shore up their position.

Well that's off to a good start. I mean FFS not even bothering to check where in London and what kind of thing is pretty pathetic.

And that it was an outdoor swimming pool which would be a tad chilly in March, though I'm sure there are die hards.

Apologies for typo, should read,
be treated as a male for all purposes to training

Have you considered properly engaging with why that changed? And no, blaming Louis Theroux doesn't pass muster, any more than blaming shadowy far right Americans

One of the more interesting things about the thread R0 dug up is that I recognise many usernames, who have since developed quite a different point of view. In this case, I use the word "developed" very deliberately, because their posts today on the subject are far more sophisticated than their posts of yore. In short, the women of mumsnet seem to have gone away and educated themselves.

I noticed the same. Many women on the 2012 thread attributed their belief that a female FE student had a legal right to use the college's male toilets and be treated as a male or all purposes to training they had received and/or their understanding of the law. We are now better aware how misrepresentations of the law shaped policies and training as well as the implications for children and women.

Women (and some men) have not only educated themelves, they have reflected, examined and tested the basis of their beliefs, having open-mindedness and humility to realise the mistakes.

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. Anon

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. Bertrand Russell

I had a quick skim of an AS of FWR between 2010 and 2012

Exactly. It is such a surprise to see that so many of the same issues are current. E.g., the moderation, people complaining that the feminism wasn't 'lite' enough and they were excluded.

As several PPs observe, a number of posters have changed their minds:
– on exposure to what was predicted;
– because reading and discussion with reflection has changed minds.

Ideologies with such far-reaching effects must be coherent enough to stand scrutiny. I still find it hard to accept that this particular one has created this degree of chaos after so much was correctly anticipated at the time GRA 2004 was discussed in the House of Lords.

And there were people at the time of the McPherson Report who astutely predicted what would happen if perception were accepted as the criterion for hate crimes/incidents. (NB: I'm not sure that McPherson had anything else available as a strategy, given the circumstances prevailing at the time, police culture, and the context of the Stephen Lawrence injustice. I would like to know if the creation of 'hate crimes' has helped the people it was intended to protect by changing the police response and level of service.)

Hi OP! I've read the article. I can't see any argument as to what trans positive as a viewpoint actually entails and how it manifests. Would you be able to elaborate please? My expectation is that it is indistinguishable from what the vast majority of feminists on mumsnet want regarding the well being of people who are trans.

I'm very excited about this OP. I think that there's a real chance to acknowledge the common ground that we both hold. So how about you let us know what you actually want and we'll take it from there? Oh and you don't need to refer to what you think about our position is as that's clear enough and has been stated very many times over very many years.

Are you willing or able to do this op?

smokedduck

The infantilisation (or self-infantilisation) is one aspect of some trans activists that I am constantly surprised by. It feeds into the ‘most vulnerable’ aspect. And this constant need that ‘safety’ includes only reading or viewing affirming content.

"As a non-binary trans woman, I wondered at first if it would be possible to write this story without prolonged reference to anti-trans ideologies. However, I realised that, given the deep discursive entanglements between trans-positive and anti-trans belief systems, such a history would be conspicuously incomplete. Thesis and antithesis are too tightly bound.

I find this really a little - isn't it kind of naval gazing for what is supposed to be academic work?

I can think of all kinds of people who put things that are in some way dear to them to the test. Douglas Murray made a point in his book of treating gay rights to the same sort of inspection as other identity politics movements. People like John McWhorter or Coleman Hughes who is just a young man delve into race theory and orthodoxies of anti-racism movements with a critical eye. I have a female relative who is (I'm told) a very good therapist who works in maximum security prisons with male sexual offenders. I know nurses who treat people who are completely awful and offensive to them with real care and dignity.

Somehow I never get the sense from any of these people that having to do this is some kind of imposition on, or exersize in denial of, their identity.

That's identical to what I've seen in real life. Lots of women, and men for that matter, who initially were sympathetic, often under the assumption that there was some clear medical explanation and indications, even if they weren't entirely understood. Often the sense was that it was something like an intersex condition. There was no real question of changes in language.

Now many of the same people see it quite differently.

In short, the women of mumsnet seem to have gone away and educated themselves.

And in the process passed that education on. And so the cycle continues.

Naughty women. Talking about things that shouldn’t be discussed. Saying the quiet bits out loud.

I guess after 1000s of pages of discussion, of links to evidence, of studies, maybe the writer felt ‘unsafe’ in finally understanding that males cannot change sex and to continue to use single sexist spaces as a male is in fact denying female’s needs. …. Yes, that must be very painful indeed.

To realise you were wrong and so, so entitled.

To answer this question, it is first necessary to explain that Mumsnet was not always like that. In 2008–2013, the majority of messages in threads containing the words ‘transsexual,’ ‘transgender,’ or ‘trans’ were actually positive. Parents reassured each other that gender experimentation in children was ‘normal.’⁵ A thread from October 2012 asking which bathroom a trans child should use was met with multiple expressions of disbelief that the question even had to be asked: obviously, users concluded, the child should use the bathroom that aligns with their self-expressed identity.⁶ Moreover, those who spouted transphobic beliefs were usually accused of ‘prejudice’⁷ or given a derogatory label like ‘fuckwit.’⁸

This is the most accurate part of the article. Have you considered properly engaging with why that changed? And no, blaming Louis Theroux doesn't pass muster, any more than blaming shadowy far right Americans

One of the more interesting things about the thread R0 dug up is that I recognise many usernames, who have since developed quite a different point of view. In this case, I use the word "developed" very deliberately, because their posts today on the subject are far more sophisticated than their posts of yore. In short, the women of mumsnet seem to have gone away and educated themselves.

I had a quick skim of an AS of FWR between 2010 and 2012 - some really interesting threads, although many people have pulled all their posts, so it feels like reading fragments of a ancient text.

Some posters on FWR hit a lot of familiar notes - What's the TRA definition of women? Women are adult human females. References to the interaction between the GRA and Equality Act. There's even a thread from when the Tavistock started trialling GnRH agonists.

Shows that the article in the OP is really poorly researched.

I haven't read Sarah Pedersen's book - I wonder if that covers this.

It's not lost on me that the only mention I've seen of trans people on the active threads today have been this thread claiming mumsnet is a hotbed of transphobia 😂

Gawd really?

That sounds bizarre

They thought she was a troll? What on earth

Dittany wasn’t banned. She was bullied off by a Facebook trollhunting group who patrolled the bereavement section by looking up children’s death certificates in Somerset house.

I dunno. Ten years ago.

I do know that she had long time been s headache for MNHQ.

I'm trying to remember what she said.

Anyway. My point was that those who have apparently had a rethink about her more recently. She had a lot of very very strong views! I don't think that anyone posting now would have been yeah all this other stuff that most people would say was really extreme. Agree. Would have gone off her on this topic alone. I mean esp if they agreed with her other views. Because they all came from the same standpoint. Iyswim.

It’s very tedious, OP. And sort of scolding. Not at all engaging.

Lionel Shriver’s recent article is much better - wry humour works better than name calling. To be fair though, Lionel is actually a writer.

I'm sure she was banned

She said that when I met her. It was all years ago though.

God that's a trip down memory lane! 10 years ago.

I see Larry had his hand in it somehow. Not surprised.

And what does that mean?

If by some miracle it was accepted that some circs mean single sex things are important. How does that stop anyone existing?

Is that phrase where the idea comes from that loads of women want transpeople murdered or executed?

What is the word for horrible/ violent men who actually hate men who are different in any way. And who verbal abuse/ kick in transpeople (and disabled men, gay men and lesbians etc etc).

I've never seen them flagged as denying a right to exist. And I don't think they have a special name AFAIK. Unless they're also a certain type of radical feminist. That feels unlikely though.

I can't understand how women saying sex is really important for very major reasons. A list as long as your arm.

Takes reading 1000s of pages to understand.

Or eg.

Lots of women are concerned about the consequences for us of replacing sex with gender, gender being invisible, sometimes fluid, and proceeding on unquestioning faith in a declaration.

Even if that declaration is different on different days.

And allows male sex offenders into women's prisons and males into communal changing where you get naked and the ages are 4-60.

It does not take 1000 pages to understand why a woman (or man) would think that.

If a person has a different opinion. Then discussion is good but the views are so unrecognisable that agree to disagree is the likely end point.

Concern about the examples I gave in no way questions anyone's right to exist.

'
There were other factors involved, but I'm sure there was a thread a few years ago in which some posters acknowledged that they'd reacted badly to posters around that time (and even earlier) for their warnings of what was to come. A number of those posters left (Dittany?) but have been retrospectively vindicated for their keen anticipation of what came to pass.'

I was there and I don't think it was to do with that. I feel like she was gone before this conversation really got going.

I mean it's a long time ago.

The posters back then were great. There were a couple of meet ups for Feminist conferences. Trying to remember names. Sskura obv. SAF I think. Um. Lenin was lovely.

This was before the more intellectual years which for me were a bit hard going. There've been meet ups of a load of them too.

I think iirc dittany had a pretty confrontational style. It was all so important to her and she was so knowledgeable and passionate.

She was and I'm sure is a woman who was what a lot of women would see as extreme I think. And not inclined to back down or agree to disagree. Over the years she had a wide reputation as being a pita essentially.

I thought she was brilliant and clear eyed. She gave a name to all the things I'd felt and thought for years. And a history context and reasons for things that at first were a bit wooah!

I don't remember it being about this in particular but more something that had been on the cards for a while.

I dunno if she still posts I think I'd recognise her style! I'd love to see her again though.