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Original poster

We need to talk about America

155 replies

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 12:44

In the last few days I have posted about my experience of being kicked out of a mostly US based parenting group for not agreeing with the rest of the group's views about JK Rowling.

It was a short conversation, in which I politely attempted to explain the Scottish legislation that came into force last Monday in order to give some political context to her recent tweets. I received various responses along the lines of "the only context I need is that she is a bigot". One woman said that her sibling is trans and that she cannot engage in an intellectual discussion about trans issues when her sibling is a real person who is hurting. Another woman said that she has been raped, and she would be absolutely fine using rape crisis services in the company of trans women. I responded in a way I thought was kind and sensitive to both women, saying I was very sorry about what they/their sibling had been through, but felt that everyone's needs should be accommodated, including women who need single sex spaces, and that we need to be able to have a civilised discussion about this. I said I was muting the conversation overnight, partly due to the time difference and partly because there were 50 of them and only one of me, but that I hoped we would be able to agree to disagree and still be friends. By the morning I had been unceremoniously kicked out of the group.

All the people in the group are are women, ranging from in their late 20s to their early 40s. Most are US based, with a handful of Canadians, Kiwis and Aussies. I would describe them as "liberal feminists" purely to identify the demographic I am talking about, although I consider them to be neither liberal nor feminist.

I have come to the conclusion that, if this group is representative of American "progressives", America is lost on this issue.

I do not wish to repeat my earlier thread about this experience, but instead I would like to talk more broadly about American culture and trans issues.

Whilst I am becoming more optimistic about the UK (with many people now openly agreeing with JK Rowling, an increasing number of gender critical "wins" in the court system and the final Cass Report due out this week), I am dismayed by the position in America.

Can we - by which I mean the UK and other European countries which seem to be having similar epiphanies - change the global direction of travel on this issue without the support of the US, and to a lesser extent Canada, Australia and New Zealand?

If we cannot, can we envisage a future in which most of Europe has decided that women's rights matter and children should not be encouraged to transition, even if the rest of the developed world has taken a different approach? Or are we always going to be affected by whatever cultural norms are imposed on us by the US?

Finally, why is the UK "Terf Island"? What is it about us as a culture which has made British feminists so much more resistant to these ideas which have been so wholeheartedly embraced by American liberal feminists?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

OP posts:
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Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 15:13

1offnamechange · 08/04/2024 15:05

The "cultural imperialism" thing is very interesting. I've seen a black british friend complain about being told by someone in America that they "should" refer to their ethnicity as "african american" as this is the correct term for people with black heritage, despite the fact my friend is 3rd generation british, feels no real ties to "africa" and has no link to america other than 1 trip to Disney world!

I was also surprised to learn that most americans wouldn't consider (caucasian) spanish people to be ethnically "white" because they correlate them with Latin americans, and consider that to be a different ethnicity whereas of course we would see (white, because of course you can have spaniards of all races) spanish people to be no different to white french, italians, etc.

It was also very apparent during the whole BLM protests - our police force are far from perfect but we have a completely different history both of policing (americans don't have the concept of policing by consent which has been the basis of british policing for nearly 200 years) and of race relations and cultural/social history yet the same issues were transposed on us without any understanding of why it was a completely different situation.

Which meant instead of having intelligent conversations about how policing in britain and the specific problems we face and the interception with race it just all got amalgamated with US issues, we ended up with a few statues torn down and token politicans "taking the knee" (which is again meaningless devoid of the US content behind it as a gesture) and no real useful change.

Show quote history

Wow. Telling a black British person that they should be referring to themselves as "African American" is a whole other level of stupidity and arrogance!

I agree about seeing Spain as a "white" country. Yes, Spanish people tend to have darker skin than British people due to being Mediterranean, but I would see a Spanish person who is not of black/Asian etc origin as white, which is not how Hispanics are seen in the US.

OP posts:
Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 15:08

siameselife · 08/04/2024 15:00

As someone living in the USA I would agree it is a polarized country and right and left issues get clumped together.
However in day to day life people don't have any issues with JKR, Harry Potter stuff is everywhere.
I use a lot of it in my therapy practice with dc and no one other therapists or clients have ever said anything that wasn't positive.
They can't build more Harry Pitter stuff quickly enough at Universal Studios and the boycott of the computer game totally failed. None of very liberal sounding teens actually avoided the game.
There is a lot more froth online than there is action in real life.

Oh, it's interesting to know it's not as evident in real life as it is online. Thanks for that perspective.

OP posts:
Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 15:06

MarieDeGournay · 08/04/2024 14:53

The legal system in the UK has many faults, and many many disastrous miscarriages of justice BUT it seems to offer objective judgments on gender issues, without bowing to Political or societal pressure to 'be kind'. The judicial system in the US is more fragmented and politicised, and I don't think there's the possibility of a done-and-dusted WORIADS ruling in the US, it would be state-by-state/politicised Supreme Court etc.

Every time we 'garden' for some GC case, I think how lucky you Terf Islanders are to have at least one arm of the state that you can approach with some confidence that you'll get a fair ruling.

That's an excellent point. The independence of the judiciary is so important to the functioning of a healthy democracy, and I think we often forget about this.

OP posts:
1offnamechange · 08/04/2024 15:05

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 13:18

I definitely think there's a lot of truth in this.

I am trying to put myself in the shoes of some of these women and imagine that, if the only people I knew who were expressing concerns about single sex spaces and sports were Republican voters who were also prejudiced against gay people and wanted to ban abortion, maybe I wouldn't want to say or do anything to suggest I agreed with those people.

But their refusal to look beyond their own borders, their unwillingness to understand that the political landscape in other countries is not the same, and their insistence on applying a US context to gender critical feminists in the UK, is a form of cultural imperialism which I find very difficult to stomach.

Show quote history

The "cultural imperialism" thing is very interesting. I've seen a black british friend complain about being told by someone in America that they "should" refer to their ethnicity as "african american" as this is the correct term for people with black heritage, despite the fact my friend is 3rd generation british, feels no real ties to "africa" and has no link to america other than 1 trip to Disney world!

I was also surprised to learn that most americans wouldn't consider (caucasian) spanish people to be ethnically "white" because they correlate them with Latin americans, and consider that to be a different ethnicity whereas of course we would see (white, because of course you can have spaniards of all races) spanish people to be no different to white french, italians, etc.

It was also very apparent during the whole BLM protests - our police force are far from perfect but we have a completely different history both of policing (americans don't have the concept of policing by consent which has been the basis of british policing for nearly 200 years) and of race relations and cultural/social history yet the same issues were transposed on us without any understanding of why it was a completely different situation.

Which meant instead of having intelligent conversations about how policing in britain and the specific problems we face and the interception with race it just all got amalgamated with US issues, we ended up with a few statues torn down and token politicans "taking the knee" (which is again meaningless devoid of the US content behind it as a gesture) and no real useful change.

Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 15:04

kinkyredboots · 08/04/2024 14:22

change the global direction of travel on this issue without the support of the US, and to a lesser extent Canada, Australia and New Zealand?

yes. The US is not an advanced country - I consider it at the teenage stage of life where it thinks it knows it all but in reality knows nada. Much of the population do not have a passport, a sizeable amount still believe the planet is flat, they allow gun ownership and have extreme religions which mean women’s rights are going backwards. I would not expect support from them on this…

Pulling no punches there! But you're right, as I said in my previous post, Americans are the descendents of people who got off the boat a few hundred years ago and set up a brand new society. The power structures we have in place in the UK and other European countries, for better or worse, were already well established when the US was just being born.

It's like, I struggle with the concept of an unelected House of Lords, and particularly with hereditary peers. But I can't deny that in reality, having a bunch of old people with long years of experience debating and scrutinising legislation and almost no democratic accountability (meaning they are less susceptible to jumping on fashionable bandwagons) does appear to be a stabilising factor which has injected a dose of much needed sanity into the proceedings on multiple occasions. In the same way, although I think the political systems of most European countries are generally stuffed full of the same kind of privileged people from privileged families who have all been to the same kind of schools, which is bad for diversity, these systems have been in place for much longer than those in the US, and their checks and balances mechanisms have been honed over a longer period of time.

By contrast, the US often comes across like the student union has been put in charge of running the country.

OP posts:
siameselife · 08/04/2024 15:00

As someone living in the USA I would agree it is a polarized country and right and left issues get clumped together.
However in day to day life people don't have any issues with JKR, Harry Potter stuff is everywhere.
I use a lot of it in my therapy practice with dc and no one other therapists or clients have ever said anything that wasn't positive.
They can't build more Harry Pitter stuff quickly enough at Universal Studios and the boycott of the computer game totally failed. None of very liberal sounding teens actually avoided the game.
There is a lot more froth online than there is action in real life.

Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 14:56

LittleLittleRex · 08/04/2024 14:18

The whole culture in the US is more individualistic and libertarian. In terms of freedom, they focus almost exclusively on the freedom to do things at an individual level (have guns, have abortions, have access to women's spaces ) there is very little fight for freedoms from things at a population level (such as being shot, being ill, being flashed/assaulted).

Unfortunately the churches are the only voices restricting freedoms for people to do things and their logic is usually dodgy as well.

I think the rest of the world can proceed differently to the US. Abortion, gun control, healthcare, etc suggest so.

Interesting post. Yes, I think gender identity is at its heart a form of extreme individualism. This is how I see myself, this is what I want as a consequence. But "men" and "women" are words describing groups of people, specifically one half of the human population and the other half. Sex couldn't be less of an individualised concept if it tried. When you have an ideology which essentially promotes an individual's right to redefine half the people on the planet to fit their own perception of themselves, it's not surprising that a clash of rights then ensues.

I do agree that American culture seems very individualistic. At a historical level perhaps it stems from the fact that many white Americans (and gender identity theory seems to be more popular among white people) are of European descent, and their ancestors were people who travelled to America in search of opportunities, settling in a society without much of a legal framework. In fairly recent history, they claimed land, settled on it, having claimed it then had to defend it in order to keep it, and established their own local government and political power structures. Perhaps this explains why, even among Democrat voters, there is still a strong tendency towards small state, low taxes and self determination rather than collective responsibility. We only need to look back 70 years to the McCarthy era to see how mistrustful the American people are of anything they see as communism (which in reality is what a lot of Europeans would call socialism or even centrism). I think there are also a lot of parallels between McCarthyism and what is happening today with gender among people in "progressive" circles. To many Europeans, the idea that we should be frightened of people with opposing ideas is one that should be resisted, whereas in the US there is already a strong precedent for it.

But all the above applies as much, and arguably more, to Republican voters, who tend to resist gender identity theory. (And also resist women's right to bodily autonomy, which seems to contradict the individualism principle.) What explains the difference? Just religion, or is there more to it?

I see what you mean about other developed countries diverging from the US on issues such as gun control, abortion universal healthcare. But the difference I see here is that international human rights organisations seem to have latched on to the idea that changing one's gender is a human rights and run with it, whereas they tend not to meddle in individual countries' laws around guns, abortion or healthcare. That is going to be difficult to challenge, regardless of what the US does. I don't want the UK to withdraw from international human rights treaties over this issue.

OP posts:
MarieDeGournay · 08/04/2024 14:53

The legal system in the UK has many faults, and many many disastrous miscarriages of justice BUT it seems to offer objective judgments on gender issues, without bowing to Political or societal pressure to 'be kind'. The judicial system in the US is more fragmented and politicised, and I don't think there's the possibility of a done-and-dusted WORIADS ruling in the US, it would be state-by-state/politicised Supreme Court etc.

Every time we 'garden' for some GC case, I think how lucky you Terf Islanders are to have at least one arm of the state that you can approach with some confidence that you'll get a fair ruling.

kinkyredboots · 08/04/2024 14:22

change the global direction of travel on this issue without the support of the US, and to a lesser extent Canada, Australia and New Zealand?

yes. The US is not an advanced country - I consider it at the teenage stage of life where it thinks it knows it all but in reality knows nada. Much of the population do not have a passport, a sizeable amount still believe the planet is flat, they allow gun ownership and have extreme religions which mean women’s rights are going backwards. I would not expect support from them on this…

kinkyredboots · 08/04/2024 14:22

change the global direction of travel on this issue without the support of the US, and to a lesser extent Canada, Australia and New Zealand?

yes. The US is not an advanced country - I consider it at the teenage stage of life where it thinks it knows it all but in reality knows nada. Much of the population do not have a passport, a sizeable amount still believe the planet is flat, they allow gun ownership and have extreme religions which mean women’s rights are going backwards. I would not expect support from them on this…

kinkyredboots · 08/04/2024 14:22

change the global direction of travel on this issue without the support of the US, and to a lesser extent Canada, Australia and New Zealand?

yes. The US is not an advanced country - I consider it at the teenage stage of life where it thinks it knows it all but in reality knows nada. Much of the population do not have a passport, a sizeable amount still believe the planet is flat, they allow gun ownership and have extreme religions which mean women’s rights are going backwards. I would not expect support from them on this…

OvaHere · 08/04/2024 14:19

We had a head start with the proposed GRA reform coming at a time when online transactivism was really taking off. A small but not insignificant number of women (and a few men) could see what was coming down the line.

Being a small island that you can travel the length of in a day gave us an organisational advantage. Couple this with many of the women involved in the early days of mass organisation having a background in trade unions and other spheres of political organisation meant we could rally and be effective quite quickly with minimal financial resources.

It strikes me that in the US it's difficult to effect change on a countrywide level and if you could you would need a lot of money to do it.

LittleLittleRex · 08/04/2024 14:18

The whole culture in the US is more individualistic and libertarian. In terms of freedom, they focus almost exclusively on the freedom to do things at an individual level (have guns, have abortions, have access to women's spaces ) there is very little fight for freedoms from things at a population level (such as being shot, being ill, being flashed/assaulted).

Unfortunately the churches are the only voices restricting freedoms for people to do things and their logic is usually dodgy as well.

I think the rest of the world can proceed differently to the US. Abortion, gun control, healthcare, etc suggest so.

Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 14:18

PuttingDownRoots · 08/04/2024 14:15

The Facebook algorithm has decided I want to see various articles about how terrible JK is... mainly from America.
There are some extremely wild claims... the one this morning was saying The Running Grave was about hunting down autistic people and making lesbians sleep with men. If people are spreading shite like that, its no wonder other people think she is evil.

In my experience the only people who think she is evil are the ones who haven't actually read a word she has written since Harry Potter and are happy to outsource their opinions because actually thinking uses up too much mental energy.

OP posts:
PuttingDownRoots · 08/04/2024 14:15

The Facebook algorithm has decided I want to see various articles about how terrible JK is... mainly from America.
There are some extremely wild claims... the one this morning was saying The Running Grave was about hunting down autistic people and making lesbians sleep with men. If people are spreading shite like that, its no wonder other people think she is evil.

Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 14:10

Thank goodness for Mumsnet!

OP posts:
RethinkingLife · 08/04/2024 13:40

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 08/04/2024 12:59

Finally, why is the UK "Terf Island"? What is it about us as a culture which has made British feminists so much more resistant to these ideas which have been so wholeheartedly embraced by American liberal feminists?

In a word - Mumsnet. I firmly believe if we hadn't had MN where we were always able to discuss gender ideology issues fairly freely, with relatively little censorship, it would all have turned out differently here.

(I know there have been constraints, and some posters were banned, others left because they couldn't say in plain language what they wanted to say - but it was still a million miles better than any other form of social media for discussing this.)

Edited

Yes! Even male US commentators (Ross Douthat) attribute it to MN.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4512657-The-answer-Is-Mumsnet-I-believe

TenderChicken · 08/04/2024 13:21

I honestly believe Mumsnet had made us TERF island. I loved Mumsnet long before I had kids because never before had I seen anything like it. Almost exclusively female user base, with a tone that encouraged robust debate. It's really taught me so much about feminism and the female experience.

Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 13:20

WarriorN · 08/04/2024 12:54

Apparently the uk is one of the most secular countries.

It may also be down to our political systems and unions etc

Ironic really, given that we're one of the few Western countries with no separation of church and state.

OP posts:
Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 13:18

WarriorN · 08/04/2024 12:52

It's because the us is very polarised anyway.

If you're on the left you are firmly on the left.

I had discussions with a woman I knew who's views were essentially GC but given she was in the Deep South and surrounded by homophobic relatives she simply couldn't be nuanced in her eyes as that would lead her to be too right of centre.

It's the way their society has evolved due to layers of immigration and racism. Lack of public health care.

Their "left" is still what we'd see as centre or centre right.

I definitely think there's a lot of truth in this.

I am trying to put myself in the shoes of some of these women and imagine that, if the only people I knew who were expressing concerns about single sex spaces and sports were Republican voters who were also prejudiced against gay people and wanted to ban abortion, maybe I wouldn't want to say or do anything to suggest I agreed with those people.

But their refusal to look beyond their own borders, their unwillingness to understand that the political landscape in other countries is not the same, and their insistence on applying a US context to gender critical feminists in the UK, is a form of cultural imperialism which I find very difficult to stomach.

OP posts:
Original poster
MissScarletInTheBallroom · 08/04/2024 13:14

This reply has been deleted

Withdrawn at poster's request

That's a really interesting theory.

OP posts:
WarriorN · 08/04/2024 13:13

Definitely mumsnet too

RoyalCorgi · 08/04/2024 13:04

I think there are a few reasons - Helen Joyce lists some of them in her book. As a PP said, politics in the US are firmly polarised and come as a package. If you're a liberal who votes Democrat, then you are probably pro abortion rights, pro gay rights, pro trans rights. That's how it works.

Also agree with the PP who said Mumsnet has been a big factor in the UK in allowing like-minded women to come and debate and organise. Otherwise so many other platforms, like Twitter (until recently) simply banned people from expressing gc views altogether.

The UK is a smaller country, so it's easier to organise events like the WPUK meetings or the Let Women Speak rallies all around the country.

Feminism in the US tends to be very individualised and all about getting the best career, earning the same as men, whereas in the UK it's much more collective and focused on sex-based rights. (This is a generalisation, I realise, because there has been some collective radical feminist activity in the US.)

I think the media landscape in the UK is probably a bit more independent and inquisitive than in the US, though not without its problems.

Blackcats7 · 08/04/2024 13:00

Firstly of course you never know how truthful people are online of course. I was torn to shreds on a UK group about Strictly Come Dancing of all things for making the mildest comment about women's right to safe spaces after reading reams of worshipping stuff about Layton and his video from Munroe Bergdof. The ring leader told me she had been raped four times but would be fine with a man (in a frock) dealing with her at a rape crisis centre. I rather doubt it myself.
Then of course there is Trump so I seriously wonder what has happened to America in general.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 08/04/2024 12:59

Finally, why is the UK "Terf Island"? What is it about us as a culture which has made British feminists so much more resistant to these ideas which have been so wholeheartedly embraced by American liberal feminists?

In a word - Mumsnet. I firmly believe if we hadn't had MN where we were always able to discuss gender ideology issues fairly freely, with relatively little censorship, it would all have turned out differently here.

(I know there have been constraints, and some posters were banned, others left because they couldn't say in plain language what they wanted to say - but it was still a million miles better than any other form of social media for discussing this.)