Advice please: Dreading TRA friend's visit

😂😂

The whole 'reporting back' element with the OP and involved participants is so puerile. Somebody has a different opinion to you. Big deal.

Of course not. Millions of us manage to go about our day to day lives with different opinions and views every single day without incident.

this is a mountain out of a molehill event with someone who is apparently so sure of their views they need to ask the internet how to respond to a potential theoretical situation about said views.

So, did anything happen?

"Could you not call people TERFs please. It's a misogynistic slur."

JK Rowling uses it often and even has advertised mugs that have "TERF" on them.

well, @Christinapple in case you hadn't noticed there is a wide range of views, and nobody voted JKR as our queen - we are not a monolith. I agree that "TERF" is often used as a slur. and i don't accept slurs in my direction so i will call it out every time.

It's probably the second one.

People refer to it and talk about it because the people that said 'Mumsnet is next' were doing all they could to get it shut down.

Some people love it, some hate it. Just because some people who know about it and who read it also post here just means...and you may have to take a seat for this...that some people read a range of things some of which you approve of and some you don't.

Luckily you are not the arbiter of all the things that people who post on FWR are allowed to read and comment on.

Posts like this just make me go and check up on the Farms and see what Jersh is up to. Otherwise I'd rarely read it.

TBF we have had threads supporting KF's right to exist because of what the attempts to close it down say about the suppression of free speech, and discussed why certain parties are so desperate to get rid of the receipts that KF does undoubtedly hold which those parties would much rather disappeared (along with jokes about its owner's scrappy nature in being determined to keep KF functional). It does require the ability to see nuance though, to understand that you can be relieved somewhere like KF exists while also finding the edgelord language used there unpleasant or distasteful and choosing not to post there oneself, and we know nuance can sometimes be in short supply.

Are people just that unused to seeing different views to their own now or something

Er, is this a trick question?! As it's clearly just a different opinion to your own. 🙄

I've literally never seen anyone on here refer to it favourably.

But if you have even the vaguest idea about what feminism is, you know full well it has nothing to do with feminism.

Do you understand what feminism is?

Well exactly. It’s inadequate men bullying women. That’s why we need women’s rights in the first place, and why so central to women’s rights, is the right to exclude males.

OK, first of all, what the hell has kiwifarms got to do with the people you are calling "TERFs"?

You know that's not a feminist forum, right?

Why do people on here refer to it lots then, talk favourably about it and how it holds people to account etc and have many long running threads about it?
If it's nothing to do with feminism

Men who knowingly transgress women's boundaries are doing it for kicks.

I do think a lot of men get a primal desire to start ‘herding’ women into their personal harem, when they see a group of females with no male overlord. Like a stag spotting a group of unguarded does, or a polygynist or a pimp with many prostitutes under his control. And it needn’t be a sexual thing. It can be all about status- demonstrating his power and control over women in order to get respect from other men.

It is sickening how women can feel so insecure without a male overlord that they’ll feel that a man is the ‘best candidate’ for a women-only service provided for women who suffered male violence. None of it is rational. It’s primal.

Trans people I'm sure have no interest in "invading" dating apps

You are so wrong but you know that.

Trans people I'm sure have no interest in "invading" dating apps or bars that specifically exclude trans people because there isn't any need to- the ones that welcome trans people are more popular and more fun

Fucksake, what rock have you been living under that you're completely oblivious to the dating apps, bars, Facebook groups, women's health forums, breastfeeding support groups, women's book clubs etc etc etc that men calling themselves women make a point of colonising?

Essentially if something is badged as "for women" then some man in a dress will make a point of inserting himself into it.

These men don't give a fuck about women's rights, needs or wishes, they just want to stick two fingers up at us. Such womanly, many sisterhood.

Trans people I'm sure have no interest in "invading" dating apps or bars that specifically exclude trans people because there isn't any need to- the ones that welcome trans people are more popular and more fun :)

There’s a court case ongoing in Australia because a TW refused to take no for an answer when trying to join an app that was meant only for women. So the TW took them to court. There is a women’s shelter in Canada which lost its state funding because it wanted only to be for women and some TWs were unhappy about it. You may even have heard of the case last week in Edinburgh where a shelter run by a TW who lied about their sex when applying for the role got absolutely hammered in court for discriminating against a staff member for asking sensible questions relating to the rights of women to be counselled only by women.

I could go on but in short, you are “sure” about something that you are completely wrong about. Women’s spaces are under constant threat. And when women meet to talk about their rights at Let Women Speak events, TRAs turn up to disrupt them and try to drown them out.

Wow.

OK, first of all, what the hell has kiwifarms got to do with the people you are calling "TERFs"?

You know that's not a feminist forum, right?

Wait, silly me, of course you know it's not a feminist forum.

The fact that [nasty group of transphobic, homophobic, racist shit bags] post hateful material about trans/gay/black people on kiwifarms is in no way a good excuse for trans activists posting hateful material about and making overt threats to a completely different group of people.

The people you so nastily refer to as "TERFs" are simply women who believe they have the right to a word for themselves, to have their own single sex spaces and sports, and to say "no" to men.

If you have any evidence of any actual feminists making threats towards or posting hateful material about trans people, please do share it with the class.

Otherwise, I suggest you stop using the word "TERF" as a slur. The fact that some women have attempted to reclaim it doesn't make it OK for you to use it as a slur, just like the fact that some black people have attempted to reclaim the "N" word doesn't make it OK for you to call them that.

As for objecting to the LGBT+ acronym, many people (including many LGB people) have a problem with it.

Lesbian = female person who is exclusively sexually attracted to other female people
Gay man = male person who is exclusively sexually attracted to other male people
Bisexual = person who is sexually attracted to people of both sexes
Trans = believes they have a gender identity which conflicts with their biological sex

One of these things is not like the other three. And thanks to the one that is not like the other three, the L has been redefined to include male people and the G has been redefined to include female people, which many people are not OK with.

As for the +, there are some serious concerns about what the hell the + stands for and whether LGB people want to be associated with it.

Unfortunately the LGBT+ acronym now represents a kind of force teaming, with many people, particularly from the T+ part of it, openly saying that the LGB shouldn't be allowed to leave and organise themselves separately. That sounds like an abusive marriage to me.

Ever heard of a racist hate forum called "kiwifarms? It's basically this (the image you posted) but with trans people and black people as targets.

"Could you not call people TERFs please. It's a misogynistic slur."

JK Rowling uses it often and even has advertised mugs that have "TERF" on them.

"That stupid acronym again [LGBT]. If TRAs were happy for lesbians to do their own thing, they wouldn’t have shut Jenny Watson’s lesbian speed dating event, they wouldn’t be all over lesbian dating apps and lesbian groups wouldn’t have to stay underground in order to avoid TRAs complaining to their venues when they’re not allowed to join in."

Well it's certainly just your opinion if "LGBT" is a "stupid acronym", plenty will disagree there.

There are plenty of very popular and successful gay bars and dating apps inclusive of trans people who have no intention of changing and will ban any transphobic trolls who sign up to hate and cause trouble, this includes Grindr and Her. Trans people I'm sure have no interest in "invading" dating apps or bars that specifically exclude trans people because there isn't any need to- the ones that welcome trans people are more popular and more fun :)

@GoodAfternoonGoodEveningAndGoodnight

"Feminism is a political practice of fighting male supremacy in behalf of women as a class, including all the women you don't like, including all the women you don't want to be around, including all the women who used to be your best friends whom you don't want anything to do with anymore. It doesn't matter who the individual women are. " - Andrea Dworkin