TikTok feminists

I have asked them time and time again. They refuse to answer the question.

I was about to tag you in!

It will never not be surprising to me that some people think the belief that women are defined according to gender and not sex, and that what male born people want trumps the rights of female born people, is somehow compatible with being any kind of feminist.

My understanding of the court case wasn't about whether people could change sex - it was how is the equality category of 'gender' defined.

I'm not here to defend my views. My only aim in this was replying in good faith to 'theresaboot..' who said she wanted to understand how some feminists have different views to her.

I wanted to see how far I could get - I'm GC but I think there is some room to recognise some of trans people's concerns. I have lurked on this board for years so I did know I'd be told I was wrong. But I did wonder if there was any genuine curiosity.

It’s more than though though isn’t it? If you believe that oppression of women is rooted in the material reality of their sexed bodies and that ‘gender’ is a tool of that oppression (a fairly standard and until recently uncontroversial feminist stance) then it’s not simply not thinking that gender is more important than biological sex.
I think lots of older feminists find the TRA feminists superficial, as they do all liberal feminists.

"But in last few years there has been a definite move away from 'being born in wrong body', change in biological sex being possible and conversely a recognition of impact on biological sex and puberty in sport and an increase in recognition of need for safe guarding whatever the circumstances."

Last few years? It took a court case two months ago to establish that the law even recognised sex.

“…and almost no one in RL gives a toss about who uses what toilet.”

Actually you’re completely wrong @ChidisGardener I went to conference of hundreds of people the other day and all the women were seething and quietly grumbling about the mixed sex toilets. My DH says that in his male dominated environment, the men hate their mixed sex toilets too. He says many of them walk further to another block just to use the single sex ones.

Where do I start on toilets?!

That's a really interesting post, because it illustrates the way in which the trans argument has shifted.

Not so long ago, there was 'born in the wrong body' - some women sadly got issued with a male body at birth, and TWAW because of that error.
This ran counter to the body positivity attitude to loving the body you are in, whatever its shape or size; and it was particularly harmful to tell children and young people that the body that they may be feeling a bit awkward about because of their age, is 'the wrong body'.

It was quietly dropped.

Then there was TWAW full stop - transwomen are women exactly the same as any other women, and to say that they were not was hate speech.

Eventually the weight of scientific evidence - not to mention, duh, obviousness! - must have made the 'exactly the same' TWAW argument untenable.

Now the line is 'not many people believe that you can actually change your biological sex', which would have been deemed transphobic hate speech just a few years ago.

So currently TWAW apparently means that some men have a different take on the unclear concept of 'gender', but they accept that changing your biological sex is impossible, so they don't stop being biological men.

However, they claim they have a 'female gender', so TWAW is not about men changing sex, but men having a different gender identity from other men.

How that is supposed to make transwomen entitled to avail of sex-segregated women's facilities is not clear.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-lay-new-law-to-halt-the-march-of-gender-neutral-toilets-in-buildings

I meant 'chuck' not check, upthread.

You are right it was hyperbole based on people I know. But evidence seems to be when consulted people did want single sex toilets so I assume they care:

I personally think it’s complete naivety about the true nature of men.

Let’s face it, lots of sensible, well educated mumsnetters with young families are still subject to doing more than their fair share of the domestic work in their households and they don’t see it as a problem as they “love cooking”, or they want their house to “look nice and tidy”.

It’s only when you’ve got a bit wise to the selfish motivations of many men and once you’re maybe a bit older, and not bolstered by men-pleasing perkiness anymore, the scales fall from your eyes to the sheer scale of hateful every day misogyny. Trans ideology is part of that.

We are fighting misogyny on both fronts. Men don’t give a shit. And politically minded young women want to be ‘right on’ and not associated with views of an older generation. Even though it’s often borne out of wisdom and sadly, experience.

and almost no one in RL gives a toss about who uses what toilet.

It's really easy to check comments like that out. Sez who, eh? When what you mean is, none of my cool friends do.

I think the ideology is shifting - not on the GC side which largely seems to be: we are right and everyone else is stupid (probably young and inexperienced) and think some women have penises.

But in last few years there has been a definite move away from 'being born in wrong body', change in biological sex being possible and conversely a recognition of impact on biological sex and puberty in sport and an increase in recognition of need for safe guarding whatever the circumstances.

On toilets - any new build office I've been in in last few years have fully self contained GN cubicles. Other than losing the bonding experience of women's toilet queues in nightclubs what is your objection?

I'm quite heartened that there may be a way through this in future.

'GC feminists spend more time worrying about the horrible ones.' Possibly because they are the ones we need to worry about?

'and almost no one in RL gives a toss about who uses what toilet.' Except women who have been subject to sexual assault or rape, women with strong religious beliefs, women who just actually want a space that doesn't include men when they are tending to personal hygiene which necessitates removing items of clothing. But sure, almost no one.

If you define 'women' as people who identify with social expectations of how a woman should behave, you aren't a feminist.

But sex is a scientifically distinctive, verifiable, objective classification.

Whereas gender is a metaphysical belief that comes down purely to faith.

How can that be prioritised over sex? When you cannot compel people to believe in your faith?

How would it settle without a significant shift in ideology? Clear language necessarily excludes.

I'd personally love to know why people (which presumably includes you) think some men become magically 'non men' and thus all well established safe guarding protocols should go out the window?

Can you elaborate on this?

I think most of the arguments on both sides are bad faith - for instance I don't believe tiktok feminists believe TW have changed biological sex as people on this thread are saying they do - and almost no one in RL gives a toss about who uses what toilet.

this is interesting as in my experience the GC arguments tend to backed up with statistics and rational critical thinking. The only GC arguments in bad faith I’ve seen seem to be the ones where they take the piss out of TW. Also people in RL absolutely do care about who uses the women’s toilets. I know I do, but I would rarely say anything because I’m too scared of either being unkind or getting yelled at for being a bigot.

I agree with the OP that it blows my mind that otherwise seemingly intelligent people actually think ‘some’ women have penises! Whenever I’ve asked ‘how?’ I’m just told ‘it’s complicated’ or ‘I’m not here to educate you, go and find out for yourself’ which I have tried but drawn a blank so far!

And for the record, I would love to see this be the truth and am actively looking for proof as I really miss playing roller Derby but I would not dare go back as a gender critical woman.

I agree with you MerryMouse that the concept of trans is subjective - I suspect there's some way to go before it settles.

I was responding to the original question why do tiktok feminists not see trans as bad and anti feminist. I think it's because they like and want to include the TW they know in their definition of feminism.

There's a very interesting concept in anthropology called the "ontological turn" where it's argued that people in different cultural groups don't just have differing belief systems, they actually exist in different realities to each other. When entrenched in one of these realities, it is impossible for them to comprehend anything outside that reality except through the lens of that reality, which is why people get so stuck in their points of view. So these women live in the reality where TWAW and everything flows from that, they don't question that because it's reality to them. Some significant shift would have to occur in their belief system/reality for them to come out of it (we used to have a word for that to do with getting to the top of a mountain but last time I used it someone got my comment removed so I'm not going to).

I don't think it's a case of being horrible or nice.

The concept of trans is completely subjective, so you don't even have a starting point to explain who it includes.

What one person would describe as 'being non-binary' , another would describe as 'not identifying with sexist stereotypes'. The only difference might be a perception that other people do identify with these stereotypes.