Women's rights general conversations - Thread 4

Exactly this. Correctly sexing someone (as most people have always done) is not wrong and trans activists need to understand that is what some of us prefer to continue doing.

But it's not misgendering.

If you want to collude in a friend's fantasy, that's absolutely your choice and I'm sure your friends appreciate it.

But please don't suggest that using the correct pronouns for someone's sex is rude. A man does not become 'she' if he's really really nice. My judgement of what pronouns to use is based on sex, not personality, depth of friendship or anything else.

NotDrowning - I wish there was a like button on Mumsnet but as there isn't I'll just say how much your post resonates with me. I would never, ever dream of misgendering the transwoman I know and that's partially because she doesn't give a shit about it, she just wants to live her life peacefully.

In other news, on a very personal level here, today my neighbour was at mine to meet my cats, the youngest of whom runs away from people but not from my neighbour. It was really lovely. I've not lived here long but met my neighbour on the first day and we've spoken since. I was aware/thought(?) that they were either nonbinary or lesbian, although of course, the two are not mutually exclusive (which is where the whole identity/sexuality/not sexuality can get confusing). A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with her girlfriend and she referred to my neighbour as he so I got what the pronoun was. Today I was talking and I inadvertently used she when talking about the conversation with the girlfriend and also about a niece and blah and ... Neighbour was "It really doesn't matter. It's just a thing. I get it, don't worry." I was worried that I'd upset him because whatever my views are in general when it comes to an individual who I actively like I never want to cause offence. And therein lies some of the shit that TRAs fling at anyone who isn't totally politically and culturally pure. Individuals who are living their life don't necessarily want them policing other people on their behalf. Individuals who are living their lives know that their "true enemies" aren't people who have questions/concerns/doubts about the ideology but people who have no questions and just want to plough through trans people with violence and hatred.

I don't know, maybe the fact that the two trans people that I know were born women might have more than a little to do with it.

P.s. I have such lovely neighbours (three flats in the house) and I consider myself incredibly lucky!

Yep, to the yep. She wasn't saying you can't be oppressed because no one is oppressed as the North Koreans but that you need to take a look at the way the whole thought policing of what people can and can't say is, as Gary Linekar would put it "is not dissimilar" to what goes on in North Korea whilst obviously not being as bad as nor to the extent of what goes on in North Korea. The issue being (as with current political language at times not being dissimilar to the language of early thirties Germany) that we never start out all guns blazing. Authoritarian regimes have to first appeal to the masses and then bit by bit take away rights from this one, then that one, then the other until, oh no, everyone's rights have been taken away.

Clearly, gender ideology is different to all of the above but it has moments of similarity. Cancelling, as in literally cancelling (usually) women's rights to speak at certain venues and preventing films being shown that don't adhere to the ideology, policing language which in turn polices thought and blah.

Exactly this

I agree that was an important point, my comments were prompted by the part quoted in the thread which, while not wrong, don’t get us anywhere in my view.

That's what I meant when I posted it, but you've put it better.

I think the important point of her article wasn't the relative badness of what is being done in the 2 countries, which is obviously not comparable, but that the same tools are being used - and the same attitudes leveraged - to do it.

I’m sure you’re right about some, but there’s still a lot of people who consider deliberate misgendering an attack on someone’s dignity, but who don’t consider it as bad as war, famine, pestilence and plague, or indeed rape. It’s easy to point to ridiculous, perspective-free people on both sides to mischaracterise the argument. Making remarks about people’s personal appearance isn’t as bad as those things either, but there is still a common cultural understanding that it isn’t a nice thing to do. So I think Park’s critique will play well to those who already agree with her, but may not be persuasive to those who just want to (as they see it) treat everyone with respect.

I'm pretty certain there were people whose major take from the Isla Bryson debacle was horror that he was misgendered. However, I'm going to hesitate to label them tras because it's getting so difficult to tell them from parody accounts.

I love Yeonmi Park. Her story is incredible.

And I agree with her. Getting upset about pronouns is utterly ridiculous. Comparing it to being sold into sex slavery is obviously from Yeonmi Park's context. But you could easily compare it to something from your own experience and it is equally ridiculous. Because it just is ridiculous. Pretty much everything in the world is worse than someone using the wrong pronouns.

Seeing a culture unsubjectively when one is immersed in that system is nigh on impossible, so I found it interesting to see the take from someone who came from a very different culture. The fact that she can draw clear parallels between the the culture of the US and NK should interest all of us.

I feel a bit conflicted about that article. Yes, a sense of perspective is important and the point about the identification of specific groups as an oppressor class who can be demonised and intimidated is interesting. Also the social conditioning and ostracism of those who transgress. BUT…it’s also a conservative critique. Many things are worse elsewhere for most people. Doesn’t mean that people can’t wish for something better. I hate my job, even though I know it’s not the Siberian salt mines. So for me it’s probably better to focus on whether the non-use of preferred pronouns is harmful or not, rather than if it’s as great a harm as sex trafficking in North Korea, because very few harms meet that test, and even very few people for whom pronouns are important would make that claim.

This is interesting, a North Korean defector's take on wokeness in the US: nypost.com/2023/02/11/north-korea-defector-yeonmi-park-slams-woke-us-ideology/

“They were in Manhattan, living in the freest country you can imagine, and they’re saying they’re oppressed? It doesn’t even compute,” Yeonmi Park told The Post of students at her alma mater, Columbia University. “I was sold for $200 as a sex slave in the 21st century under the same sky. And they say they’re oppressed because people can’t follow their pronouns they invent every day?”

That interview clip is so brilliant!

Brilliant Germaine Greer interview quoted on Twitter:

twitter.com/agingwhitegay/status/1634464766096965634?s=61&t=65x5z6UgOhX0PNOnBNWL7w

Ah, thanks @GhostOrchid .

Rose! Rose is a v vocal and quite aggressive TRA on Twitter. It’s obviously never mentioned on the programme itself.

Not inn mine. Aren't you the lucky one!!!!! Who have you annoyed today?

Although I’ve recorded all of Pottery Throwdown I’ve only watched the first episode so far - who’s supposed to be the TRA, Rose or Rich?

Anyone else had a suspicious link via pm?

I did not click it and the username has no post history.

Welll...as you're unwell, and the photographic evidence did show I'd eaten my own bodyweight in them, fine, You can have the three out of date ones someone sent me.

Is it me, or is Rose virtually edited out of Throwdown these days? I seem to remember when Rich was kiln monkey he would do occasional little explanations to camera but you never hear from Rose and barely see them. I wonder if being a strident TRA is causing a few issues for the production team. I can’t see Rose making the journey from kiln monkey to judge that Rich did.