Group wants to ban feminist books from a women's library - WTF?

[Bambambini]

Who on earth would want to ban feminist books from a Women's Library? Hope that the Vancouver Women's Library stands firm and doesn't bow to this women hating group. Hope the library get's lots if support - this attempt to bully and censor seems to be becoming much more common, unfortunately.

m.facebook.com/notes/gag-gays-against-gentrification/response-to-vancouver-womens-library/379623995740078

So I'm a beneficiary of whiter supremacy just because I was born a white woman? Wtaf?

Well, yeah.

Men are all beneficiaries of the patriarchy.

White people all benefit from historical racism.

Does this surprise you? That people in the past did bad things to ensure that "people like them" did better than "people not like them". You happen to be born as "a person like them", so you accidentally, though no action of your own, are benefiting from what they did.

That doesn't mean you approve of it or like it, but you do benefit from it.

Pilly

You're a young woman, a writer and broadcaster. You have something to say. You should be listened to and you should also listen.

It's quite true that sexism ramps up as you go through life being a woman. The biology that determines female hood seems to hit certain hurdles that you simply can't predict before they happen.

I'm sure you know some perfectly lovely transwomen. There are some who post on here who are amazing.

But it's not about the niceness or otherwise of individual people. It's about what a group of transactivists are pushing for. The library for instance. If those people are Women they would be on the side of women. They would understand what happens to women. They would be guzzling every feminist book ever written.

They would have the same goals. And when women campaign or talk about what affects them, like menstruation, miscarriage, abortion, maternity rights, FGM, etc, they wouldn't say that those issues are exclusionary because it doesn't include them as they don't have the biology. They wouldn't insist that you take the word female out of FGM.

Normal people take issue with this and think it's ridiculous. However these activists are changing laws internationally.

No one wants transwomen to suffer any more than anyone else. But you cannot define the word 'woman' so that the definition excludes what happens to women because of their biology.

Ask your transwomen friends what it is about them that makes them the same as you.

I guarantee, there will be nothing In their answer that makes them the same other than the very stereotypes that modern women are trying to dismantle (hair, make up etc). It will just be 'a feeling'. Ok. But that is not what makes a women.

The transman who was raped in the back of the taxi sobbingly told the police 'But I kept telling him I was a man'.

You can't identify out of your biology.

And lastly, 75% of transwomen retain their male genitalia and are attracted to women. As such, they consider themselves lesbians. There may be some lesbians who are cool with a penis, but again I think that is redefining the word lesbian. (You might also google 'cotton ceiling').

There is no one actively pushing to redefine the word homosexual. Or the word man.

So who is doing this? Not women. Who is this damaging? Not men.

Banning something shows a fear of it a refusal to engage, debate and move forward. There's a misogynistic and very violent streak running with the trans community, they need to look around at their numbers and figure that out.

venus

They have no sense of what will be viewed as batshit by the wider world and they tend to hang out in echo chambers.

Hence replacing breast feeding with chest feeding. Another redefinition of a word. Any transman who is feeding an infant is using breasts. 'Chest' is a separate word.

Likewise pregnant 'people'.

Likewise 'we invite all non-males' (you mean women - the sex that dare not speak its name).

Yes, batshit. How dare they.

Being a woman born with womanly bits is rapidly approaching being the bottom rung of the ladder. Transwomen are going to be seen as 'better' than cis women. In sports, faster, stronger. In public life, more sympathetic.

Born with a vagina? You're going to be attacked from all sides. Men attack from there. Transwomen attacking from there. "Gays against Gentrification"? More men, I see.

I agree with the other women here that age has taught me a lot. In my case I've realised how much men hate women. I include transactivists in men.

I reject cis, as I see it as yet another way born men put born women in their place.

I ❤ MrsTP (although technically that should be LadyP since Sir Terry got his K...)

A woman's library? I've never heard of that.

Pilly

If you do come back I would really recommend watching this video which was posted on another thread last week (sorry I can't remember who posted it but thanks )

It explains the differences between the liberal and radical approaches quite well and will at least help you to understand the position people are arguing from on this thread even if you still disagree.

go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Ot8cBm0YmXo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen>

But trills that article implies only 'biologically born' white women are beneficiaries of white supremacy and that white transwomen are not. Surely that statement about benefitting would apply equally to all white people regardless of how they "identify" ?

According to this group though trans people are excluded from this massive generalisation. So they're a woman when it suits them, but otherwise they're a minority?

How does that work? I wish that I could pick and change my identity to suit circumstances (!) but I was born a biological woman and I will die as one; although I've always fancied being a golden eagle (not sure my belief in that identity would enable me to fly though!)

Yes I second the video Tartle has linked, it is very good.

And fuck "cis*. No feminist is ever cis.

Thank you for posting that video Tartle - I've saved it as I'm sure it will come in handy! So glad to see a young feminist who has come around from liberal feminism.

I wasn't talking about an article, I was just responding to the question in the thread. I agree that benefiting from being white applies to all white people.

The account of the TRAs attacking the library is appalling. It must've been really scary. They were ripping down posters, damaging books, and then the women in the library were shamed for calling the police, ffs. Damn right they should've called the police.

But, looking at the bright side, these nutters show themselves up as narcissistic arseholes every time they open their mouths. If they were women in any sense they would empathize with women's interests and issues, they would have proudly worn pussy hats on the Women's March - lots of other men did - and they would be raising money for feminist causes. Like this tiny library, which has clearly been a labour of love.

Their hatred tells us everything we need to know.

Being a woman born with womanly bits is rapidly approaching being the bottom rung of the ladder. Transwomen are going to be seen as 'better' than cis women. In sports, faster, stronger. In public life, more sympathetic.

And much more employable too. No taking a year out to have a baby.

Yes, it's so depressing.

But who organised this - was it men, Transactivists, SJWs?

Judging by the discussion on FB it was SJW of both sexes and TRAs. I don't think a lot of MRAs are interested in libraries whereas students are.

This GAG group. Stands for gays against gentrification? Is it a real thing?

A quick 'link-journey' provided me with the information that gay men are pissed off when they move into an unfashionable neighbourhood, spend time doing it up and making it safe, and attracting other gays, only to find a surge of straight people consequently moving in and ruining the vibe.

But I'm not clear if it's a genuine movement against straight people or just a parody on a known thing that happens?

Given that the complaint to the library was that some of the feminist books might be trans critical what is the gays interest in this?

I don't get it.

I've done a bit of digging on FB (and signed the Change.org petition) and it sounds as though it was indeed a group of transactivists. They want the removal of a specific list of books. The Dark Ages.

I've tried to find GaG on FB, but the page is inaccessible. No other internet presence I could find (but I should be doing something else so haven't looked very far ...)

As an old 70s feminist, I find the whole thing deeply deeply depressing. I feel like putting copies of Our Bodies Ourselves (finding that book when I was 18 was a revolutionary moment for me) all over the place.

What's really interesting about all the FB posts is the way they are naming GAG as an anti-feminist group. No trying to placate or be "nice" to a group whom we have in the past worked with as allies (altho' IME gay men have an ambivalent attitude at best to feminists). Women are naming this group & the protest for what it is: anti-feminist.

In my book, if something is anti-feminist, it's anti-women.

By group whom we have in the past worked with as allies, I don't mean GAG - I mean, feminists working in alliance & solidarity with transwomen.

Damede gave us the Purple Sage link. From that page I jumped to the Guerrilla Feminist Collective's FB page. The posts there from people who were present about what happened seem to suggest it was TRAs plus allies, though I get the impression posters aren't keen to accuse anyone in particular. But it seems that, when accused of being intimidating, the intruders were more interested in whether the women had misgendered the men people who were intimidating them. Sounds about right. Was tickled by one poster who described it as tYranny.

feminists working in alliance & solidarity with transwomen.

I've never done that. But I was quite late to the party.

For me, it didn't even start as a trans debate. I was just alerted to the fact that there was a movement going on where toilets were going to become unisex in a big free-for-all.

I live with three men...