Cambridge Union debate - This House Believes modern LGBTQ+ activism fails its community

@EmilyinEverton I don’t fancy women. I also don’t fancy men who present as women.

one of those groups calls me phobic, and says I need to widen my perspective and reframe my trauma.

Do I, indeed, need to do that, if so why? And if not, why not?

You realise the overwhelming majority of domestic violence is by one's intimate partner & sexual violence mostly occurs in the victims or perps home & as such is known to the victim? Exactly how will women's private spaces preventing trans women entering fix that?

See where Gender Critical ideology is going? Nowhere that's helping women's safety in a meaningful way. In actual fact it prevents it by dominating the media & political space effectively silencing the lion's share of where violence emanates from.

The Patriarchy couldn't have wished for more useful idiots.

You realise the overwhelming majority of domestic violence is by one's intimate partner & sexual violence mostly occurs in the victims or perps home & as such is known to the victim? Exactly how will women's private spaces preventing trans women entering fix that?

See where Gender Critical ideology is going? Nowhere that's helping women's safety in a meaningful way. In actual fact it prevents it by dominating the media & political space effectively silencing the lion's share of where violence emanates from.

The Patriarchy couldn't have wished for more useful idiots.

Much as I love your thoughtful and insightful posts BL, I reckon everyone should back off lesbians.
Young lesbians have been under siege for nearly a decade now, being bullied and coerced into accepting men as sexual partners. It's that corrective rape fantasy that some men indulge in. Older lesbians weep as we see what's happened to young women and how they've become a seedy man's rape fantasy.
That's where the return to Victorian times is located - in the transactivist's Victorian male reductive view of women. As objects to be owned, to be dominated, conquered and violated.

You realise the overwhelming majority of domestic violence is by one's intimate partner & sexual violence mostly occurs in the victims or perps home & as such is known to the victim? Exactly how will women's private spaces preventing trans women entering fix that?

See where Gender Critical ideology is going? Nowhere that's helping women's safety in a meaningful way. In actual fact it prevents it by dominating the media & political space effectively silencing the lion's share of where violence emanates from.

The Patriarchy couldn't have wished for more useful idiots.

You misunderstand my post entirely.

I'm talking about the necessity of single sex spaces, women-only prizes and opportunities, and clear sex based language for changing the culture.

The value of single sex spaces is not just the men they exclude in the moment, - my God what a male-centric view to take! - but the support, understanding and political energy that comes from the conversations that women can have without men within them, and the opportunities that give women the confidence and resources that they can get away.

That is what changes the culture. That is what leads to the creation of single sex refuges so women is crisis can have places to go, and to protests, research and poltical movements that actually can have a difference to what happens to women in their home and to how seriously police take the issue.

The marital bed is not a single sex space, but the womens movement was still able to get martial rape criminalised evebtually. That happened because enough women talked to each other to get the confidence to stand together and say "This is happening to many many women and it is wrong" .

Please, try to be less superficial. Stop skimming posts looking for a gotcha and put some thinking efiort in to understanding them.

(Also, what is with TRAs and "See where this is going?" You've all started doing it recently and TBH it does create the impression you are all the same person with different names. I'll do you the courtsey of believing you are not just a previous poster with a retread, but FYI it does suggest you are all relying on the same very limited set of resourses for your thinking.)

You realise the overwhelming majority of domestic violence is by one's intimate partner & sexual violence mostly occurs in the victims or perps home & as such is known to the victim? Exactly how will women's private spaces preventing trans women entering fix that?

See where Gender Critical ideology is going? Nowhere that's helping women's safety in a meaningful way. In actual fact it prevents it by dominating the media & political space effectively silencing the lion's share of where violence emanates from.

The Patriarchy couldn't have wished for more useful idiots.

You realise the overwhelming majority of domestic violence is by one's intimate partner & sexual violence mostly occurs in the victims or perps home & as such is known to the victim? Exactly how will women's private spaces preventing trans women entering fix that?

See where Gender Critical ideology is going? Nowhere that's helping women's safety in a meaningful way. In actual fact it prevents it by dominating the media & political space effectively silencing the lion's share of where violence emanates from.

The Patriarchy couldn't have wished for more useful idiots.

Much as I love your thoughtful and insightful posts BL, I reckon everyone should back off lesbians.
Young lesbians have been under siege for nearly a decade now, being bullied and coerced into accepting men as sexual partners. It's that corrective rape fantasy that some men indulge in. Older lesbians weep as we see what's happened to young women and how they've become a seedy man's rape fantasy.
That's where the return to Victorian times is located - in the transactivist's Victorian male reductive view of women. As objects to be owned, to be dominated, conquered and violated.

Hahahhahahhahaha hahhahahhaha haha ahhh - breathe - ahahahahahahahaha

No.

This is not about "inherent weakness". I would love to be in a world where we could just kick down the barriers with gay abandon.

But you know what?

We tried that. And it didn't work.

Not because there's any inherent baked in reason why it shouldn't but because we were unrealistic about the men and about how socially ingrained sexism is in both sexes.

So right now, women (in the non-debased, pre-genderist sense of people with female bodies) are still being sexually and domestically abused and doemstically exploited, and are still given less default credibility and therefore harder career paths resulting in fewer women in the highest levels of senior leadership, and our bodies are still being brutalised and abused for entertainment.

Do you really think that still happens because some pesky women seem to think we need separate lavatories, and if we just let TW use the loos like they ask it would all go away? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

We got the freedom to do more but we didn't change the way too many men treat us and we didn't change enough of the cuture for enough other men to challenge them, so we just gave them new ways and sometimes even easier ways to exploit us.

We wanted fairness and opportunity.

We got cocklodgers and CSA-dodgers because we were conned into thinking women having the ability to earn their own money meant it's not feminist to hold men accountable for their families.

We got pornhub, only fans and mega-brothels because we were conned into thinking that women not being shamed for haing sex meant men would respect women sexually.

And we got trans women in our sports, prisons, officerships and prizes because we were conned into thinking that saying women should not be limited by their sex meant women can never say that our sex matters.

Bringing about that barrier-free world we both want to see is not a simple matter of refusing to see things that we do not want to believe and thinking that means they will go away.

It is about accepting the hard truth that right now, women (in the non-debased, pre-genderist sense of people with female bodies) do get a shitty end of the stick for reaons that are sometimes baked in our bodies (we will always be the ones who carry children, most of us are physically weaker than most of the men we encounter and none of us are stronger than every man in the world) but mostly baked into our structures and our culture and how people with our bodies are supported or not.

And for that reason, even as we still strive for a world where men do treat us with respect, and don't abuse and sexualise us, and don't take up the air and the space and push us to the margins, we also need places, for now, where the men are not.

Physical spaces of course, but also cultural and linguistic spaces where we can come together as women without men inserting themselves in our conversation and reframing our expereinces to suit themselves, where we can form our own understanding of our lives, our challenges and our needs and to back each other up to fight for true equality.

That is true Feminist insight. To be brave enough to realise women will not be freed with a few slogans, a few mixed sex changing rooms and some You Go Girl corporate events, by pasting on a smile and petending that if we don't ackowledge the sexism we still face it will go away, but with hard work, with being clear eyed about the hidden inequities we face and being brave about talking about these and having the language we need to do so.

Beccause we tried "kicking" down the barriers and it turned out that we only we kicked down the barriers that protected us, because they were only ever very flimsy in the first place. We didn't make a dint in the reasons we needed protection in the first place.

We didn't change the invisible ones stop us having the same opportunities in and power over our lives as men. Those barriers are harder. And they won't come down with kicking, but with patient hard work to demolish them brick by brick.

Now, I'm still an optimist. I do still believe those barriers can come down. But as long as they exist not just because, as you believe is the only reason and I accept is partly the reason, women wrongly see ourselves as needing them, but also as an entirely rational response to the current behaviour of men, we can't just kick them down by ourselves. We need to bring men on the journey with us, or at least enough of them that social pressure between men keeps the rest in check.

Before the barriers come down we need to get to a place were the barriers don't make any sense. And we are sadly no where near that place today.

That's where the return to Victorian times is located - in the transactivist's Victorian male reductive view of women. As objects to be owned, to be dominated, conquered and violated.

So true. Just as the Victorian explorer and ethnographer felt entirely able to observe, categorise and define the cultures he encountered with far more authority about their lived experiece than he could conceive of them having themselves, so male transactivists take the same colonising approach to women.

And just as some colonised individuals consciously or subconsciously came to take the coloniser's view of their culture over their own, so female transactivists accept this male narrative for themselves because they consciously or subconsciously feel safer with that group than against it.

Much as I love your thoughtful and insightful posts BL, I reckon everyone should back off lesbians.
Young lesbians have been under siege for nearly a decade now, being bullied and coerced into accepting men as sexual partners. It's that corrective rape fantasy that some men indulge in. Older lesbians weep as we see what's happened to young women and how they've become a seedy man's rape fantasy.
That's where the return to Victorian times is located - in the transactivist's Victorian male reductive view of women. As objects to be owned, to be dominated, conquered and violated.

Hahahhahahhahaha hahhahahhaha haha ahhh - breathe - ahahahahahahahaha

No.

This is not about "inherent weakness". I would love to be in a world where we could just kick down the barriers with gay abandon.

But you know what?

We tried that. And it didn't work.

Not because there's any inherent baked in reason why it shouldn't but because we were unrealistic about the men and about how socially ingrained sexism is in both sexes.

So right now, women (in the non-debased, pre-genderist sense of people with female bodies) are still being sexually and domestically abused and doemstically exploited, and are still given less default credibility and therefore harder career paths resulting in fewer women in the highest levels of senior leadership, and our bodies are still being brutalised and abused for entertainment.

Do you really think that still happens because some pesky women seem to think we need separate lavatories, and if we just let TW use the loos like they ask it would all go away? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

We got the freedom to do more but we didn't change the way too many men treat us and we didn't change enough of the cuture for enough other men to challenge them, so we just gave them new ways and sometimes even easier ways to exploit us.

We wanted fairness and opportunity.

We got cocklodgers and CSA-dodgers because we were conned into thinking women having the ability to earn their own money meant it's not feminist to hold men accountable for their families.

We got pornhub, only fans and mega-brothels because we were conned into thinking that women not being shamed for haing sex meant men would respect women sexually.

And we got trans women in our sports, prisons, officerships and prizes because we were conned into thinking that saying women should not be limited by their sex meant women can never say that our sex matters.

Bringing about that barrier-free world we both want to see is not a simple matter of refusing to see things that we do not want to believe and thinking that means they will go away.

It is about accepting the hard truth that right now, women (in the non-debased, pre-genderist sense of people with female bodies) do get a shitty end of the stick for reaons that are sometimes baked in our bodies (we will always be the ones who carry children, most of us are physically weaker than most of the men we encounter and none of us are stronger than every man in the world) but mostly baked into our structures and our culture and how people with our bodies are supported or not.

And for that reason, even as we still strive for a world where men do treat us with respect, and don't abuse and sexualise us, and don't take up the air and the space and push us to the margins, we also need places, for now, where the men are not.

Physical spaces of course, but also cultural and linguistic spaces where we can come together as women without men inserting themselves in our conversation and reframing our expereinces to suit themselves, where we can form our own understanding of our lives, our challenges and our needs and to back each other up to fight for true equality.

That is true Feminist insight. To be brave enough to realise women will not be freed with a few slogans, a few mixed sex changing rooms and some You Go Girl corporate events, by pasting on a smile and petending that if we don't ackowledge the sexism we still face it will go away, but with hard work, with being clear eyed about the hidden inequities we face and being brave about talking about these and having the language we need to do so.

Beccause we tried "kicking" down the barriers and it turned out that we only we kicked down the barriers that protected us, because they were only ever very flimsy in the first place. We didn't make a dint in the reasons we needed protection in the first place.

We didn't change the invisible ones stop us having the same opportunities in and power over our lives as men. Those barriers are harder. And they won't come down with kicking, but with patient hard work to demolish them brick by brick.

Now, I'm still an optimist. I do still believe those barriers can come down. But as long as they exist not just because, as you believe is the only reason and I accept is partly the reason, women wrongly see ourselves as needing them, but also as an entirely rational response to the current behaviour of men, we can't just kick them down by ourselves. We need to bring men on the journey with us, or at least enough of them that social pressure between men keeps the rest in check.

Before the barriers come down we need to get to a place were the barriers don't make any sense. And we are sadly no where near that place today.

TBF, it would be equally interesting to hear the reasoning of a lesbian woman and straight man who answered yes to question 1.

To me, it would be like a vegetarian including their favourite (meat) sausages in their diet and still calling themselves vegetarian.... and quite possibly shouting at me that I don't get to decide what their vegetarian identity looks like etc etc.

But I'm open-minded that I might have prejudged the answer. That's why debate is important, to challenge prejudice.

I guess it's the mental barriers you have to put in your mind to deny your own experiences and disassociate yourself from knowing the ways your biological sex shapes your life

On the contrary, being an old school feminist means kicking down patriarchal imposed barriers of separate spheres: the idea that, in order to protect the virtue of women & their 'inherent weakness', they needed to be separated from men.
That you wish to return to Victorian times & live in fear that feminism fought against is exactly why gender critical ideology has a limited reach.

I guess it's the mental barriers you have to put in your mind to deny your own experiences and disassociate yourself from knowing the ways your biological sex shapes your life

On the contrary, being an old school feminist means kicking down patriarchal imposed barriers of separate spheres: the idea that, in order to protect the virtue of women & their 'inherent weakness', they needed to be separated from men.
That you wish to return to Victorian times & live in fear that feminism fought against is exactly why gender critical ideology has a limited reach.

The irony is breathtaking given I'm a CIS woman.

Picking up on the "ideal partner" narrative, I think that opens up the door to some good discussion.

For example, it would be interesting to ask "LGB+" (anyone that includes the letters beyond the B) community members and allies the following three questions:

1. Irrespective of your current relationship status and your sexual orientation, if you were single, would your ideal partner have a penis?
2. If you are solely attracted to either males or females and your answer is no, why is it no?
3. If your answer is no, do you think that LGBTQ+ activism fails its community? What is your reasoning?

As a couple of examples, I would expect a lesbian woman (i.e. a female who is solely same-sex attracted) to answer as follows:

1. No
2. Because I'm a lesbian and that means attraction to women. Women don't have penises
3. Yes. The LGBTQ+ community says I'm transphobic if I don't include sex and gender (identity) in my definition of lesbian. Meaning it expects me not to exclude biological males in my dating pool.

And for a heterosexual man:

1. No
2. Because I'm straight and that means attraction to women. Women don't have penises
3. If I'm expected to be attracted to chicks with dicks, then yes. Because I'm not a GAMP.

And so on...

Edited for typo

“Forgive me if I am out of touch as I don’t have kids and well into my sixties, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if debating could be something that is mandatory to be offered in all schools from secondary age, clearly the ability to debate something is a skill that can lead to power, influencing change, and it is a shame that this seems just another privilege that can be bought by the few. Plus I know it’s pie in the sky when education is struggling for the most basic of resources. Anyway I found it fascinating all round”

I remember at my all girls school debating “ Better to be dead than wed” but that was 50 odd years ago. Stood me in good stead!

I thought it was a purely hypothetical question based on your ideal sexual partner (wrt the aspect of physical appearance) and how would you react if their primary sexual organ was switched. (I thought the question was also assuming that Hulk got an actual vagina and Megan got an actual phallus, not the simulacrum they would get with surgery and hormones. But that was unclear.) But I'm not sure because, although EmilyinEverton replied to me, she didn't answer my questions so I still don't understand the purpose of her comments about Megan and Hulk. My guess is that it's a derail.

A few people prefer men with a neovagina to women. Some may prefer women with a phalloplasty to men. I'm not sure how that relates to whether modern LGBTQ+ activism fails its community

What I find fasinating about the Megan Fox with a dick or Hulk Hogan with a fanny is that it is based on the mis information that trans women look like megan fox.

Very few trans women go the extremes that looking like megan fox would require.
And it has become the norm in the trans world to not pass but to look trans.