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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
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Spaceforbiologicalfemalesonly · 07/06/2023 20:14

I’ve been quietly discussing this with members from my WI and I think it’s likely if we were to find ourselves in a situation we didn’t feel safe in that everyone would likely leave and it would fold.

with Covid and lots of issues we struggled to keep a committee even though we have a good membership. Our WI was formed before 1920. It brings together a diverse group of women born as women and supports our village and its members. It would leave a big hole in many members social lives if it folded.

Im actually concerned about how we oppose persons not born female joining in the WI when you see stuff in the press about Caroline Farrow, and I don’t feel confident to be speak publicly.

the thing that bugs me is I don’t mind what people want to be if they need to be something else to have some happiness and calm but I’d prefer they respect that I joined a women, biologically born womens, group, and they set up a group of their own.

TrainedByCats · 07/06/2023 19:49

I’m so so fed up of this, we’ll have to start again then they’ll target the new organisations. How can we talk about womens issues like breastfeeding and sexual assault when there’s males sitting there potentially getting off on the discussion

Spanielsarepainless · 07/06/2023 18:10

WittynotPretty · 05/06/2023 10:36

Please let me in! Seeking refuge with the sane and wise witchesof MB as I’ve just been burned by my local WI committee for daring to question the inclusion of male members🍆

I was forced to leave WI four years ago over this issue. I would probably rejoin if the matter was resolved so women=biological women.

Ramblingnamechanger · 07/06/2023 17:57

Well it is VERY clear that women do not want the change to the WI. There are references to a TRA who joined while making threats against women/terfs. While some are prepared to let the ones already there stay , there were many who want to expel all men. Pretty conclusive I think. When are the comittee going to see how angry women are?

PorcelinaV · 07/06/2023 17:40

DontGetEvenGetEverything · 07/06/2023 10:34

@Bosky
Resisting TERF’s and Transforming Their Organizations
https://queeratxlaura.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/resisting-terfs-and-transforming-their-organizations/

(Archived on Archive Today and web archive org if that link goes dead)

I've been feeling uncomfortable reading the Matt Walsh thread, TraumatisedGooner's suggestion that GC feminists must surely have more in common with trans rights activists than extremely conservative Catholics.
But then I thought about the women's groups and communities I was a part of 20 years ago. Sepratist organisations. Lesbian festivals with access to public funding. Support groups set up for women who have survived male violence.

Conservative Catholics left these groups alone. They may have preached against them from their own pulpits. But they didn't make repeated claims in civil courts, or take leadership roles and change an organisation's remit despite member-wide votes for women only to continue to mean female only.
I think I'm rambling a bit. But there is alot of trust lost for me with TRAs, where a perhaps precarious, mutual regard - live and let live - I feel towards social conservatives.

Well I would hope the Catholics wouldn't resort to domestic terrorism.

The far-left can be so unhinged: "Let's get people fired and use violence over dogma that makes no sense and we can't defend!"

DontGetEvenGetEverything · 07/06/2023 10:34

@Bosky
Resisting TERF’s and Transforming Their Organizations
https://queeratxlaura.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/resisting-terfs-and-transforming-their-organizations/

(Archived on Archive Today and web archive org if that link goes dead)

I've been feeling uncomfortable reading the Matt Walsh thread, TraumatisedGooner's suggestion that GC feminists must surely have more in common with trans rights activists than extremely conservative Catholics.
But then I thought about the women's groups and communities I was a part of 20 years ago. Sepratist organisations. Lesbian festivals with access to public funding. Support groups set up for women who have survived male violence.

Conservative Catholics left these groups alone. They may have preached against them from their own pulpits. But they didn't make repeated claims in civil courts, or take leadership roles and change an organisation's remit despite member-wide votes for women only to continue to mean female only.
I think I'm rambling a bit. But there is alot of trust lost for me with TRAs, where a perhaps precarious, mutual regard - live and let live - I feel towards social conservatives.

Moomoola · 07/06/2023 08:27

Signed. Thanks for this.

VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia · 05/06/2023 12:38

Viviennemary · 20/04/2023 11:24

Reading this thread it's hard to believe we have moved on from Victorian times. And I thought I was old fashioned. Maybe people who don't/can't have children don't want to discuss breast feeding. Anyway trans peple are allowed to join if they are living as women.

Don't bring child-free people into this. I am not a human shield for your misogyny.

If women want to discuss breastfeeding, I am free to leave or listen quietly. If I was a WI member and this month's meeting was about BF, I wouldn't be compelled to attend.

By your "logic", we shouldn't discuss sexual assault because some people don't want to talk about it. Of course we should, giving people who want to leave a reasonable chance to do so first.

I say "misogyny" because your post is basically telling women to pander to a particular set of male people's sense of entitlement to be included in, and at the centre of, everything.

SerafinasGoose · 05/06/2023 12:01

WittynotPretty · 05/06/2023 10:36

Please let me in! Seeking refuge with the sane and wise witchesof MB as I’ve just been burned by my local WI committee for daring to question the inclusion of male members🍆

They are a lost cause and a completely hopeless case. And this came as a surprise: I'd have thought the WI of all people were old enough and wise enough to be able to tell sex from gender.

It's unlikely that history will judge in any way kindly women's adherence to an aggressive men's rights movement. We'll look back in time and recognize this for the idiocy it is.

The tide's already turning. Imagine, a year ago in Oxford, that a bunch of students advocating freedom of debate would turn up as a counter-protest against the TRAs?

I'd stake a hefty bet that this wouldn't have happened.

SerafinasGoose · 05/06/2023 11:57

LangClegsInSpace · 22/04/2023 23:58

You're a man on a feminist forum wanging on about points you think you have scored on 'my thread'.

No, I don't think we do need that.

I never post on blokes' forums. Ever.

Should I assume men want me to make them a present of my opinions on topics which chiefly concern them? Why should that interest them? What can I possibly have to say that they care to hear?

WittynotPretty · 05/06/2023 10:36

Please let me in! Seeking refuge with the sane and wise witchesof MB as I’ve just been burned by my local WI committee for daring to question the inclusion of male members🍆

RealityFan · 24/04/2023 15:49

Activists will always activist. The bigger news here is that organisations will wilt and buckle at the merest pressure.
So, these shit stirrers actually get city officials, charities, QUANGOs etc, to pull funding from women's groups standing up for themselves, using the trigger phrase of Diversity Equity Inclusion.
And said organisations just roll over and do their bidding.
My anger is more reserved for officials taking the paths of least resistance than the anarchists who just want to destroy.

Bosky · 24/04/2023 15:22

RealityFan · 24/04/2023 09:19

They're children playing at politics.

Unfortunately, the article not only details tactics to be used but gives examples of where they have been successful.

It should be read alongside the "Denton's Playbook".

For example, does this not sound familiar?

Leadership Reform

You make a group that does everything the TERF group does, but without the unnecessary hate. Yet the TERF group finds a way to persist. Now what?

A gradual strategy that can succeed is infiltration and replacement. Entryism is a century old non-violent tactic that works in any group that uses voting to determine leadership. Gather a group of like-minded allies, join the group, and then vote one another into key positions. Attract more via outreach and over time the group will be geared toward promoting social justice and human rights. . . .

With TERF groups, many will likely try to ban trans women from membership. This can be worked around. Cis women allies can easily enter a given organization. If they work as a collective, it’s a matter of figuring out the number needed to achieve a simple majority (or whatever number is needed to overrule attempts to stop the bloc). For example, if a collective has about 25 members, then a group as small as 30 could wrest control from the bigots.

Then, when it comes time to select leaders, remove the old bigoted guard and install rational leadership. Done correctly, this is a wonderful bloodless democratic coup. It’s enabled since TERF’s are a tiny — if loud — minority of all women. Finding women willing to help replace their hate with love and inclusiveness is therefore not an impossible task.

This tactic is especially sound when trying to take over a group that has resources and performs functions that are important to the broader community, but happen to be biased against women. For example, discriminatory rape crisis centers on one hand perform an important function for the segment of women they do serve, even as they impose misogynist exclusionary definitions of who they’ll treat. Maintaining continuity for the delivery of this kind of service is important — no one wins if they’re shut down or disappear. A gradual internal take over simply allows the organization to stop being a hate group while still caring for women in need.

Purse Strings

Let’s say the group has taken steps to make entryism difficult or maybe their size makes that approach too difficult. Now external pressure becomes the main method, as this can yield positive results. The easiest target: the group’s money. Financial pressure is a proven way to cause a group to reform or shut them down so one of the before mentioned parallel groups can take their place.

There are several ways to hurt a hate group’s purse strings: political lobbying, boycotts, picketing, and lawsuits.

In Canada, the Coalition Against Trans Antagonism (CATA) has done incredible work in lobbying city and province officials to defund TERF groups. Their effort has cost bigots tens of thousands in taxpayer money. Politicians will listen to and support the position that has the most political viability. TERF’s are a small part of their voter base, while those who support inclusion will tend to be the majority — at least in the saner parts of a nation. That means the political will of a left-wing leader will be to stop giving money to a TERF group if you push them to do so."
---

The little "Counter Wokecraft" book by Charles Pincourt (pseudonym) and James Lindsay mentions gender identity ideology only once but is well worth studying because where there is gender identity ideology there is woke and vice versa:

Although it is written with University STEM Depts in mind the principles are transferable to other sectors.

"Counter Wokecraft: Why I Wrote It and Why You Should Read It"
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2021/11/26/counter-wokecraft-why-i-wrote-it-and-why-you-should-read-it/

I got the Kindle version:
https://amzn.eu/d/cHiGopY

There is more info on the New Discourses website:
https://newdiscourses.com/2021/11/counter-wokecraft-an-executive-summary/

mach2 · 24/04/2023 09:27

For example, in Vancouver, you have several great rape crisis centers, such as the WAVAW, that serve all women. That stands in contrast to centers who abuse the notion of “women only spaces” to ban women from aid. All of these centers are universally superior in safety, size, and quality to centers that are not inclusive.

If this is truly the case, why do they expend so much energy trying to destroy women-only refuges?

RealityFan · 24/04/2023 09:19

They're children playing at politics.

mach2 · 24/04/2023 07:56

From Resisting TERF’s and Transforming Their Organizations

Despite being expelled from the mainstream feminist movement in the 1970’s for their hate, TERF’s have formed numerous fringe organizations worldwide to push their misogynistic agenda.

Say what?

FrancescaContini · 24/04/2023 00:19

dropthevipers · 18/04/2023 00:03

How long do you think it will be before we can look back and say "What the fuck was all that about?".

I often wonder this too.

IcakethereforeIam · 24/04/2023 00:17

@RealityFan if I understand your earlier post correctly, many happy returns for yesterday. If I've misunderstood, the same but for whenever your birthday actually is.

@Bosky that article, grim. But Maya won! I'm still waiting for my stipend from these US evangelicals though 🙁

I wonder if there's been a sudden uptick in tw and tras joining the wi?

Bosky · 23/04/2023 20:18

borntobequiet · 20/04/2023 22:06

interestingly, it tended to be the degree educated men that were arseholes, not the ones from trades backgrounds

This has been my experience too.

Same here, speaking from years of experience meeting and spending time with a LOT of men from a wide variety of backgrounds in the trade union movement.

You can't beat a university educated, left wing, middle class, male political activist for misogyny, patronising sexism, "handsiness" and creepy rapist-vibes.

University educated, left-wing, middle class "Feminists" would make excuses for them and collude in covering up for these arseholes who were on a career-path within the TU movement or politics.

At the same time they'd gleefully pillory and "condemn" an un-PC blue-collar bloke who had not had his local dialect educated out of him and had committed the cardinal sin of dropping a "love", "duck" or "pet" into the conversation.

There is lot that is different between "the labour movement" and the WI but what is similar is a careerist elite at the top, gobbling from the money pit while progressing "political" and/or personal aims and having zero genuine interest in the concerns of ordinary members.

Several mixed-sex organisations with overwhelmingly female membership, that from their inception were led by women, have in the past few years elected or appointed men to top roles. This after actively seeking to recruit and promote men, as a passport to higher status and "credibility" though now they are (allegedly) doing it to tick the Diversity box.

We are seeing the same pattern with "women only" organisations. Did I read somewhere that there is already a WI Branch that has elected one of those "new women" (™ Ricky Gervais) as Chair? If so, I despair that those women are so naive.

Resisting TERF’s and Transforming Their Organizations
https://queeratxlaura.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/resisting-terfs-and-transforming-their-organizations/

(Archived on Archive Today and web archive org if that link goes dead)

Resisting TERF’s and Transforming Their Organizations

Tactics to Make Women Only Spaces Include All Women TERF’s — Trans Exclusionary Regressive Fascists — are tools of the far right/alt-right establishment of America and the UK. They are bigots who p…

https://queeratxlaura.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/resisting-terfs-and-transforming-their-organizations

RealityFan · 23/04/2023 11:58

Jo Bartosch gets full respect every time she writes and speaks. What a hero of the movement.

chilling19 · 23/04/2023 09:29

'Additionally, I don't need your permission or approval to be here.'

Oh, the irony.

RealityFan · 23/04/2023 00:08

I was simply pointing to the fact that an area I really didn't think was so contentious, exclusive male spaces, in fact is very contentious. That was a genuine suprise to me. The areas that I highlighted that I thought would get more discussion, well they didn't in the end.
So when exclusive male spaces again cropped up as contentious on this thread, all I did was to cross refer these negative comments.
If you're reading anything more malign, or mansplaining or negative otherwise, that's pretty much nothing to do with me.
No points scoring from me.
Additionally, I don't need your permission or approval to be here.
Hell, I don't even need to be a feminist...you wouldn't deter Posie Parker, and as you know, she doesn't consider herself a feminist.
And there are no restrictions to men participating here.

LangClegsInSpace · 22/04/2023 23:58

You're a man on a feminist forum wanging on about points you think you have scored on 'my thread'.

No, I don't think we do need that.