What do you expect transwomen to do then?

I understand the way trans identities are being constructed right now is rooted in patriarchy, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Trans identities, being at heart a rejection of the dominant gender/sex constructions, have the potential to destabilise it and if you read past the angry males on twitter to the confused ones, that’s what they are really crying out for.

I can see what you’re getting at Blibby, and I think that’s what the trans lobby want us to think, that it’s all about destabilising gender roles and expanding identity possibilities and so on.

The problem is, in practice I don’t think it is. That’s the kind of thing young “queer” people (who largely aren’t trans but bi or gay or just lefty) like to think they are doing. I don’t doubt a few trans people think like this too - often people who sit on the borderlines in terms of sexual roles as well as sexuality.

In practice at its root though, there are two very malign cores at the heart of gender ideology. One is the effect of porn and patriarchy on distressed young women, often young gay women, who are encouraged to internalise their distress as gender divergence. (And if gender ideology is so freeing, why are they experiencing so much “dysphoria”?)

The other is the deep sexual and eroticised core of a lot of the other part of trans identity. And this often makes use of the narrative of poor kids trapped in their sex as a kind of sleight of hand to distract from this other aspect. And we are not meant to acknowledge the erotic bit or reference it, because then we can’t pretend any more that it’s all about pushing at gender expectations for ideologically progressive reasons. And that’s why I don’t think that the majority of this is positive or progressive.

Twenty years ago psychologists used to make a clear distinction between “transsexuals” (a relatively small group); and “transvestism” as an erotic fetish. Women used to be reassured in advice columns in women’s magazines that their husband didn’t want to become a woman; he just got a sexual thrill from wearing women’s knickers. In my twenties I used to live opposite a single middle aged doctor who could be seen in stockings in his window every night after he got home.

Where have all the transvestites gone…? (Sung to the tune of “Where have all the cowboys gone…”)

That might be a starting point for our answer as to whether gender ideology is genuinely attempting to carve out new progressive spaces under patriarchy … or not.

Which must mean that women who are unladylike are not women....?

Logic (and humour) fail...
Women are women, and we can do womanning any damn way we want.
Transwomen aren't women so have to adopt some sort of 'ladylike' persona.

If there are any social activities where being 'ladylike' is the requirement ... that probably doesn't need to be single sex. Fill your high-heeled boots (and count me out).

But things where the necessary criterion is sex (sport, changing rooms and the 'Ladies room') ... being ladylike is immaterial.

You misunderstand. Of course it doesn’t signal that, because we don’t have that concept at all right now. What I was saying is (with the obvious exceptions of ladies toilets and changing rooms, although both less common uses than they were), “ladies” is often attached to gender/social stuff rather than laws and rights. Which isn’t surprising since it’s quite an old fashioned term now.

A Ladies' Night is still an opportunity to enjoy the company of other women without having overbearing men dictating the course of the conversation or of the evening. Women are allowed to convene in groups without men interfering. There is absolutely no reason to give this up. If males with lady-feelz are allowed in, that changes the dynamic and excludes some women. If males with lady-feelz are allowed in to any women's/ladies'/girls' sex-segregated activity how can you justify other males being excluded from it?

It has been a major mistake to try teaming a mixed sex group under the word 'woman'. It's allowed the concept of sex and gender to get totally fogged and has been actively used by male people for the benefit of male people to attempt to deny female rape victims the right to help or a female doctor. No.

As has been shown; good will in this situation does not work. The GRA was an attempt at this kind of compromise. What we've seen demonstrated over and over again is that if females provide a chink, the door will be forced to its widest extent, and it's taken less than 1% of the male population to cause this havoc for all females through utter disregard for them. No more confusion.

Trans identities, being at heart a rejection of the dominant gender/sex constructions

Trans identities exist because they completely obey the gender/sex constructions. So if you like girlie things that lots of members of the female sex like, it must mean you are really a girl.

Ladies nights exist because men want cheap sex with drunk women. Not because they are super generous towards people in skirts.

What a load of baloney.

"Ladies" is a commonly-used synonym for "Women" and its use on a toilet or changing room door has nothing to do with gender/social constructs around womanhood. It does not signal "If you identify as a woman, you should use these facilities, if you simply identify as a biological female, please use the toilets marked "Women"".

But genuinely, things labelled “Ladies” as opposed to “Women’s” do tend to be gender/social constructs around womanhood and as such, I’d say fair game for anyone who feels thegender identityof woman

Like, erm...the Ladies?

I do love the thought that the drinks prices for the blokes are going up again, not due to inflation, but the vast amount of ale it's gonna take to get trans women as drunk as you know, an actual woman.

What a ride.

so if people want to inhabit those cultural spaces and we disconnect them from sex altogether, why not?

If we're going to get all theoretical about inhabiting cultural spaces... the reason why not is because some people - mainly males - can disconnect their gender from their sex when it suits them and then re-connect again when it suits them. And because when they do get to inhabit a female cultural space, males seem to feel (and are granted) a lot more cultural freedom to dominate that space than females feel and are given to dominate a male cultural space. Female people get far fewer opportunities to move between female and male cultural spaces, much less to dominate male ones.

By all means feel free to correct that problem and let us know when you've fixed it, and then we can talk about de-segregating women-only spaces. But until you've done that you can't use transwomen to de-segregate women-only spaces.

Giving some people - men - more freedom to disconnect from their sex when it suits them doesn't automatically give other people - women - the opportunity to do the same.

(Why am I having to explain this? Didn't we do this to death back in the 1970s when feminists argued that women-only spaces were a good idea and that even nice well-meaning hippy-ish blokes weren't welcome? Am I in a time warp?)

[quote Blibbyblobby]@justaftb

Imagine a world in which we all just wear the same bodysuits a la Star Trek and shave our heads, no make up. What would being trans be based on then?

Why the same bodysuits?

I imagine a world where sparkles and lumberjack shirts and jobs and yes, maybe even Ladies Night drinks are no longer associated with a specific sex. I don’t know if being trans would exist in that world. I suspect not, or maybe as a last resort treatment for severe, likely trauma induced dysphoria. But I think many people who would be trans in our world would find their place without transitioning.[/quote]
The current insistence by men who identify as trans that they be validated as women makes me suspect that they would be very disappointed in a world where they were seen as just another man in a dress rather than being seen as female.

And if you want a world where 'sparkles' meet 'lumberjack shirts' you can just come look at my DD.

Those aren't the issue. It's the raping and the porn and the domestic violence and the having to be fucking kind to everyone all of the fucking time and constantly being asked, 'what can we give up?' 'What shall we offer to the oppressors to appease them?'

And this thread is PART OF THAT.

OP

Men and boys can wear sparkles and it doesn't make them women or girls.

Women and girls can wear lumberjack shirts and it doesn't make them men or boys.

I have no idea why you think it does. Changing clothes doesn't do anything, that's why the previous poster mentioned 'same bodysuits'.

Did you miss the word “safe”, or just ignore it?

I don’t want anyone date raped, as if that had to be said

I get that it's just a silly example and now you're being held to it but that is because it actually betrays the paucity of this argument.

You're saying you want to cede some stuff to TW but just stuff around gendered expectations. But you're also saying you want to do away with gendered expectations. As do all radfems.

So no, there isn't a load of stuff that feminists can accommodate TW into and say 'you are welcome to this part of the feamle experience' because all that stuff is the stuff we reject as being part of the female experience.

It’s a way of inserting yourself into the hierarchy as dominated, but also doing some dominating at the same time - the equivalent of the poor working class man going home and beating his wife to feel in charge.

And we can all see that TRA treatment of women is very much “we are women, but better and more important women than you women, who now must defer to our superior (“more vulnerable”) status and be given whatever we want”.

Did you miss the word “safe”, or just ignore it?

You said you want trans women to be safe.

You didn't mention women.

You are a deluded fool if you think men want to date rape other men and pay more for their drinks in order to do so.

They won't do that.

I genuinely have no idea what you are arguing for. It's like those that start arguments to include men in beauty contests. Knock yourselves out. Do not give a shit.

If that's your comprehension level or pivotal point of your arguments then you don't even understand the problem.

*same