What do you expect transwomen to do then?

Yes - but that’s not fighting patriarchy; that’s upholding it. It’s no different to how patriarchy works by subordinating “lesser” men, but allowing them to work out their frustration at their “lesser” status by still being superior to women and other races. Only in this case there’s a desire for being subordinated - whether erotic, psychological, emotional or social. In just the sane way that some men enjoy other kinds of submission - like submitting themselves to a more dominant male master/senior officer/troop commander/gang leader/prime minister/king/inverted stereotype in BDSM and so on. It just reinforces the hierarchy, not fights against it - because the submission to the hierarchy is the point.

Only that’s getting too close to what we aren’t allowed to talk about, of course.

Noting to come back and read.

It is not in the interests of trans activists to dismantle gender expectations.

How can you claim you always knew you were a girl because you liked playing with your sister's doll when you were a child if those gender expectations do not exist?

How can you present to the world as a "woman" if all the stereotypical expectations of how women dress and groom themselves disappear? I

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?

Trans does not exist without gender expectations. Trans IS gender expectations.

But this isexactlythe type of conversation that I would like to see happening. And I would very much like to see TRAs put some effort into demanding trans women are welcome and safe at Ladies Nights up and down the UK.

No. I think this would be a stupid conversation and I have no desire to engage in it at all.

I think the overwhelming feeling on the thread is a lot more resistant to gender ideology than what you are proposing OP. And that's great. We don't need to compromise with unreasonable people.

Hands off Women's Spaces!

But this is exactly the type of conversation that I would like to see happening. And I would very much like to see TRAs put some effort into demanding trans women are welcome and safe at Ladies Nights up and down the UK

Yes most important, discussions about including men in the date rape envelope. Top work.

If that's exactly the sort of conversation that you think need to be had then I can't help you really. I'd rather no women were date raped but there we go.

@foxgoosefinch Exactly. And always defined by men and systemically oppressive for us. Where can I find a definition of this “essence” that somehow male-socialised, male-bodied people identify with that isn’t related to biology, genetics or their own socialisation? What do they think it is if not purely to be born a woman?

I expect people who have not been socialised as a female (as in, they have lived the female experience since birth) to stop insisting that they are the same and that they understand what it is to be a female.

Just as I don’t claim to understand the male experience, or the black experience, or the Jewish one, or the upper class one, or the Roma Gypsy one. Because I am none of those things and even if I merge into that lifestyle and culture in later life, I still do not and can not ever understand the true experience, because it does not belong to me.

You can’t understand what it is to be something you are not.

Just as speaking fluent French does not make you French. You are never native.

I expect trans women to understand this and respect this.

I've not read the whole thread but sounds like the OP is proffering a partial solution... TransWomen are Ladies.

That was a response to @MorkandMandy’s question - essentially gender used to mean just that, but it’s been hijacked recently to mean something else - a quasi-religious idea that sex stereotypes are actually real inner things and not projections of what men (and patriarchal society) think women are.

Well we used to just call that “gender” or “sex stereotypes”, but “gender” used to mean the social fantasies of womanhood that the patriarchy enacts and polices on women; and now gender ideologues think it means “an inner soul essence of gender that represents your true sex role” instead.

I wouldn’t mind a definition/ term for the socially fabricated idea of women and girls that’s wholly defined by the male gaze as this seems to be the essence that TW identify with but is very far from real womanhood. If we can establish that so many TW actually identify as this, we can begin to reclaim our rights.

"It's more that I think we and they are both, in different ways, trying to fight the dominant male culture to make spaces for ourselves. So I think joining our perspectives is of mutual benefit."

Except quite a lot of TRAs really don’t want to challenge the dominant culture or dismantle gender expectations at all - they want to reinforce them! What about sissy porn, forced femininity, and trans activists like Andrea Long Chu and Torrey Peters who write about how the essence of femininity is enforced penetration and submission to male violence?!

I could never work together with anyone who
writes that the “barest essentials” of “femaleness” are “an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes” (Chu); or that enjoying forced sex and being slapped across the face by a man is the purest form of female experience (Peters).

No thank you.

“Ladies nights” are a prime example of “woman” as a socially constructed gender role rather than a sex-based need, so I say let anyone who identifies with that “womanly” gender role enjoy it!

When men realise that the women they are potentially date raping are men, the drinks will stop flowing I can assure you.

Jesus. H. Christ on a fucking bike.

Also - men who identify as trans trying to fight the dominant male culture?

A great example of how they do nothing to fight the dominant male culture is how men who identify as trans and their allies behaved during the most recent Counting Dead Women on Twitter where Karen Ingala Smith tweeted the names of all the women who had been killed by men in the UK in the previous year.

Did men who identify as trans and their allies tweet to support and uplift Karen Ingala Smith's efforts to draw attention to the issue of femicide in the UK? Did they tweet to condemn male violence against women and girls? Did they tweet to tell us what they are doing to fight back against male violence? Did they tweet to thank her for her tough but necessary work?

No, they tweeted to attack her and her supporters for not including men who identify as trans in the list of women killed by men in the previous year. Of course, even if she wanted to include them, she couldn't because no man who identified as trans had been killed in the UK during that timeframe. They made it all about themselves. They threw the "TERF" slur at any women who pointed this out.

How can we join our perspectives with a group of men who cannot even allow us to talk about the number of women who are violently killed by men in the UK each year without telling us that, in fact, men who identify as women are much more vulnerable than women and girls? These men even want to appropriate the violence done to us.

You might argue that we shouldn't listen to what is said on Twitter, it's full of lunatics. So, let's end with a few words from prominent transwoman Christine Berns MBE (MBE!!!) about what they feel about women who speak up for their rights:

“In a bizarre way rapists have a better line in manners [than Feminist Leaders]. At least they treat their victims, without prejudice, as women.”

They can crack on with whatever they want frankly. Their struggles are not my struggles and I can think of at least four other axes of oppression I would put my energy into tackling before this one.

It's a poisoned well for me.

I will work with anyone to dismantle gender expectations

It's a bit tricky to suggest working with transgender people on that because you then get accused of trying to eliminate them from existence

TW may be fighting the dominant male culture, but they are part of the dominant male culture. Their fight is entirely different to ours. We have no responsibility for their issues. The fact that some males cannot get on with other males is not women's problem to solve.

OK OP - you want to reimagine society and dismantle underlying patriarchal structures so that women only spaces are not needed and the male gaze no longer exists.

AND in your new feminist Utopia there are still going to be Ladies Nights? And TW would be welcome at those?

Cool. Let me know when you're done with the gender revolution. 😁