Sex Matters - Hampstead Heath Ponds -

To be honest, what I thought was cognitive dissonance with these women has now morphed into 'acceptable collateral damage'. I cant believe they are unaware of the risks but because the local trans brick in their extended social circle is okay therefore a crude extrapolation can be made that incidents are just the bad apple lone wolf actors rather then men just following their normal rates of sexual offences.

My rowing club is Terf central, mostly because women members busting their collective arses training several times a week in order to compete at Henley Regatta and national events know exactly what a woman and fair competition is and do not want to compete against blokes or share the changing rooms with them.

So women making ostentatious displays of fawning over men are partly playing the part of Good Ally but also signalling 'do it to Julia'.

Women have been trained to believe that a creep alert is a bad, nasty, unkind thing to have.

I guess the creep alert still goes off, as its mostly unconscious, but women then often have to compensate and do penance by fawning.

To my mind I find it difficult to imagine a woman not being aware of creepy men breaching boundaries: having the sort of well tuned radar for male transgression that I have always imagined most women would have? Most women have been subject to male 'perving' and inappropriate behaviour, at the very least - since childhood. I certainly have.

Can some other women really not imagine how having men present in public spaces in which women are in a state of undress or pre-occupied with biological function must feel for other women, even if not for them?

Perhaps some women really are oblivious or immune to male sexual proclivities and fetisihes? Or maybe they just lack sensitivity? But i guess that yes, I suppose I can imagine a solidly middle class woman, of great personal confidence, might perhaps feels immune to the sorts of vulnerabilities other women feel?

I find it interesting to try to think why getting behind the TRA cause appeals to some women. I think if you personally as a woman have enough social and economic privilege that you don’t ever feel confined by sex stereotypes yourself in a way that limits what you want to do in your own life, then the TRA grift maybe could have a good chance of gaining purchase on your interest or your conscience?

You haven’t had to personally fight against stereotypes restricting yourself so you don’t apply any politically radical approaches or class analysis to them, or feel drawn to think outside of mainstream party political thinking because you’d then have the discomfort of remembering that loads of other women not much different from you, currently don’t have your freedoms.

More comfortable to not look into your understanding of injustice too deeply, to just enjoy and assert your own privilege, and (if you consider yourself a bit lefty and caring) to hope the women who do currently suffer limitations due to stereotypes will shut up and quit pointing out your own relative privilege…

Thus you might champion (while ‘other’ ing) the ‘poor things’ because to you they represent brightly rainbow coloured illusorily ‘progressive’ social conscience cachet that reflects well on you to presenrt on your radar. Think of the very famous men and women in the entertainment and arts worlds who talk like this for example. Your support shows you are aware of current issues, the ‘poor things’ do not challenge or appear to asssail your own privilege at all. So you’re happy to line up against the joyless TERFS complaining about men all the time. There needs to be a source of oppression in this story and you don’t perceive male oppression because you’re sheltered from that in the main ways that are important to you.

You’re maybe happy to lie and pretend for validation of the ‘poor things’ and the likes that you then get, because perhaps your sympathies may have been really engaged by the Americanised, hyperbolic talk of barriers to ‘healthcare’ and being at risk due to being excluded from ‘bathrooms’ etc. It’s a safe little ‘cause’.to support. Highly abstracted it seems from your own daily life and tfreedoms that you assume aren’t fragile because you take them for granted. You don’t have to balance it against anything else.

You'd think that most women would have a very high 'creep alert'.....it is not as if these men are in the 'gay best friend' category (with no weird sexual under-tones). They're all AGPs.

I used to see the nuns at my convent school flapping around priests. Very similar to the way I saw some women at an exercise class I attended flapping around a TIM who joined. Weirdly, he was a retired CoE clergyman and still behaved in a “priestly” fashion. Horrible leggings. I stopped going, mostly for other reasons, but it was a relief.

100%. Fawning on steroids.

Agree. I think some women who spend a lot of time, effort and money on femininity feel more comfortable with men who do the same than they do with women who don’t.

One thing this ridiculousness makes very clear is that in no way do they think they are actually women.

Women who see female value as being represented by the trappings of femininity or who buy into gender roles and play the gender game acknowledge men using those cultural signals as sharing their values.

It makes sense that gender non conforming women will be less convinced by men using the currency of femininity.

That makes sense, actually. They see a man who says he's willing to sacrifice his male privilege to gain acceptance as 'feminine'. I suppose it makes a change from men sneering at or ignoring women.

So we are back to the uneven power balance, and some women see these men as abdicating power to accept a lesser role, which makes them seem they are making a gracious sacrifice and creates a sort of moral debt ('poor things').

What it fails to acknowledge is 1. You cant identify into or out of some forms of male privilege, and 2. Some men get off on abasing themselves and sissy fantasies.

Well yes, he did always write for the Observer. But the Observer was - effectively - the Sunday Guardian until relatively recently.

I was replying to someone who said they used to read the Guardian for Nigel S. I thought he’d always written for the Observer.

I'd say, generally speaking, TWAW was 'fashionable', and becoming less so in the last year or two.

The Observer is no longer part of the Guardian, though, it was sold off.

In some of my friendship circles, there is a natural 2 way disconnect between the women who follow and are interested in fashion and beauty trends and products and those who have little interest. We tend not to chat or connect at social functions because we find each other did interesting. What keeps us together are the women who inhabit the middle space.

When it comes to the trans issue, it is definitely the case that the ‘fashion and beauty’ crowd are in the main, positive or agnostic about TWAW. Those in the middle tend to be secret TERFs, those who are disinterested tend to be TERFs.

Nigel S still writes for the Observer

More than that, I think it's a way for boring middle-aged mummies and young women conscious of and uncomfortable with their privilege to feel part of an exciting, edgy struggle.

As one of the former, I get my kicks from the 'radical' in terf 😁. They went the other way.

I genuinely believe that some of these women are flattered.

That men are interested in their nails, hair, makeup, advice about clothes, etc. They find it flattering for an actual man to be interested in what a lot of other men think are boring fripperies.

They also said that them committed them's crimes as James Bubb, but the judge said to use his drag name now. Also, them will remain where them belongs, in male prisons.

I withdrew my top level subscription and deleted the app, but it's still my goto for news.

They wrote about a Met police special constable who was jailed for 24 years for rape then decided to identify as a woman. He was correctly sexed at trial. The Guardian went to great efforts not to use any pronouns and then resorted to using "them" at one point. Which is a massive improvement for them.

Well there are women who write to and end up marrying incarcerated murderers. People are weird.

I stopped reading the Guardian because it seems to thrive on being incredibly anxiety inducing and doom laden and yet offering very few solutions and little levity or wit. I liked Suzanne Moore. Marina Hyde was funny sometimes.
The weekend section on Sat was awfully smug and self regarding though had some nice recipes.

Still like the Obs but I’m not a regular buyer now. FT including its international editions is/are good.

I used to just go back for book reviews. Go fed up of certain genres being pushed and getting gushing reviews so i finally gave up.