MNHQ transphobia guidelines part 2

[QueenStromba]

First thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2120841-MNHQ-are-going-to-decide-what-constitutes-transphobia-on-MN-What-advice-guidelines-would-you-give-them?

Sitestuff thread that was about is here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/2117350-MNHQ-now-email-posters-with-how-to-get-around-the-talk-guidelines?

The thread that was about is here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2107862-Following-on-from-the-TERF-thread?

Hehehehehehe

Poor MNHQ. What a hard way to learn about the sharp edges of feminism. Not exactly "Stop being arseholes during PMQT", is it? (Abhorrent though that behaviour is and not downplaying any importance of telling them to pack it it in.) There must be much weeping in corners going on as we speak.

The Gender Recognition Act does not remove natural law. It can't.

I'm not straight and I find "queer" offensive. I don't think slurs can be reclaimed.
Don't you think you're contributing to bisexual erasure by choosing to not call yourself that?

"Transwomen are not women, by definition (your own and others') and by biology. -Math- They are by the definition of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. "

No.

Gender Recognition Act says transwomen are to be legally recognised as woman (re state benefits, pension schemes, marriage to a man as "wife", "Miss" or "Mrs" on official documents etc), not that they are women.

Ah and see, it doesn't even try to. Excellent Cote

Exactly which bit of the 2004 Gender Recognition Act are you worried Mumsnet might be in danger of breaking, Tiggy?
I had a skim through and it is not legislation intended to restrict conversation in the manner of, I don't know, the 1534 Treasons Act or something.

'I am coming to the conclusion that the problem is a serious misunderstanding and misappropriation of postmodernist epistemology and language's relationship to power. I think some people are getting a whiff of power in these new constructed categories and now they want to reel back the post from their modernism and solidify the constructions into objective reality. '

Can someone please translate Buffy into less advanced language for us less intellectual?

Gender Recognition Act says transwomen are to be legally recognised as woman (re state benefits, pension schemes, marriage to a man as "wife", "Miss" or "Mrs" on official documents etc),

Protection from discrimination is a legal thing.

Okay. I have skimmed the thread and what I have to say is this.

MrytleDove, I'm mainly addressing this to you and part of me almost wants to put it in capitals. Or bold.

In fact I will put my main point in bold.

Queer theory is controversial. It is a theory. It doesn't speak to or for everyone. Many people reject it. It is political.

I shall stop shouting now. Queer theory is a cousin of post-modernism (sorry Buffy!) and if you want to understand and put post-modernism and queer theory (as post-modernism's logical real life conclusion in sexual politics) into their context you need to know what that context is. If you want to know what queer theory and post-modernism mean in the historical, global context of gender and sexual politics, and therefore transgenderism and feminism, you need not only to know what queer theory is, but what it is a response to.

So far, so clear as mud. In brief you might want to read the works of second wave radical feminist thinkers such as MacKinnon, Daly, Dworkin, Morgan, Raymond, Rich and Jeffreys (amongst others). You don't, obviously, have to read what these brilliant and incisive women have written about how male supremacy functions in order to be a feminist, or have an opinion on current third/fourth wave feminism but it definitely helps if you have (and I don't mean being au fait with quotes taken out of context).

In brief, what these women not only say but completely demonstrate is that which biological and sexual category you fall into, as a human, as a socialized mammal, matters. Really matters.

In brief, sex should not be destiny but, in patriarchy, it is.

And we can 'queer' that and 'self-identity' politic it all we want, but we are not actually bucking patriarchy. We aren't even subverting it. Transgression of sex and gender is currently a pipe dream. A pipe dream that gives a better illusion of reality for a western white privileged young population, which has benefited from the struggles fought by second wave feminists and the women of their generation, (and those who continue the fight) than it has for less privileged women. But it is a pipe dream all the same.

(I hope this makes sense, I feel like I'm being a bit obscure but it is difficult to encompass huge tracts of text and so much hard, really hard thinking by women, into a throwaway post on the internet.)

Really, Hakluyt said it much more concisely upthread.

stating that a woman is a biological female and that trans women are not and never will be biological females is not discrimination Tiggy it is simply biology.

Tiggy

They are by the definition of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I hope Mumsnet obeys the law.

No they are not. They are treated as the "acquired gender" with some exceptions (e.g. sport, gender-specific criminal offences, succession etc) after the issuance of a GRC.

You are wrong in your understanding of the impact of the GRA and MN's responsibility to "obey" it.

You have previously said transwomen are women from birth and regardless of surgery, hormones etc. Therefore you are also wrong to say that transwomen (using your definition) are women by the definition of the GRA.

Tunip and Buffy, if we work from an existentialist perspective, as Beauvoir did, then socialisation is far from the whole story. Experience, interaction, choice, engagement and dialogue - that's how subjectivity develops in the existentialist tradition, completely rejecting essentialism.

Beauvoir didn't write about transwomen. Who knows what her perspective would have been? I'm not saying she'd agree with my interpretation, but we don't know either way.

www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights/types-of-discrimination

"It is against the law to discriminate against anyone because of:

age
<strong>being or becoming a transsexual person</strong>
being married or in a civil partnership
being pregnant or having a child
disability
race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin
religion, belief or lack of religion/belief
sex
sexual orientation

These are called ‘protected characteristics’.

You’re protected from discrimination in these situations:

at work
in education
as a consumer
when using public services
when buying or renting property
<strong>as a member or guest of a private club or association</strong> "

Back to what Beachcomber was posting about earlier; the case from which the GRA came is interesting to read

Hope this link works

If it doesn't, google CASE OF CHRISTINE GOODWIN v. THE UNITED KINGDOM

I always wonder what the result at the ECHR would have been had same sex marriage been allowed in the UK at the time. I also often wonder where we all were when this was going on. I know where I was - still with a belief in a kind of riotgrrl feminism yet ironically in the thick of a nightmare of a relationship from which I couldn't extracate myself because of my deep socialisation of the role of a woman in a relationship.

We all know what discrimination means Tiggy

Would you like me to copy and paste my response to you again? Or do you think you can manage to scroll up and read it?

Buffy, you are the only person who has attempted to explain anything about postmodernism in a way I could understand. And I have tried. I read books and stuff. It is really a public service you are providing.

"2. How you can be discriminated against

Discrimination can come in one of the following forms:

direct discrimination - treating someone with a protected characteristic less favourably than others
indirect discrimination - putting rules or arrangements in place that apply to everyone, but that put someone with a protected characteristic at an unfair disadvantage
<strong>harassment - unwanted behaviour linked to a protected characteristic that violates someone’s dignity or creates an offensive environment for them</strong> "

OMG! Have been out all day and have barely managed to catch up with this brilliant thread (I mean of course including the other one)

Just a few quick notes from me

• I LOVE ALL YOU WOMEN. You women are EXACTLY what I mean when I say I can't be arsed with people-socialised-as-male in my private life. Incisive, inventive, witty, non-aggressive, creative, precise, courageous stuff.. I WANT TO BE ALL YOUR BEST FRIENDS xxxx

• Herc, big high 5 from a fellow ginger [complicated ginger handshake]

• Buffy, two things for you

1

"You've got an interesting mix of 'these words mean whatever we want them to mean' and 'these words have particular significance and if you misuse them you are transgressing and oppressive'."

this is a great point on the having cake and eatingness of the whole sitch and puts a finger on something very important about the double think we have to put up with here. I think this is key in more ways than just expressed in this example

2

Ok about the two rooms analogy. I liked it but I want to enhance it. (I will paraphrase your words as I can't be arsed to go back and copy and paste, I hope I don't substantively fuck with your meaning)

a

"one of the rooms is smaller, not quite has nice, although it has recently improved and is not too bad..." right. BUT what has "recently improved" this room is that certain inhabitants of it fought tirelessly to get some window space, inch by inch, and some actually gave their lives doing so. the people in the other room opposed this in every way they could. A hundred years ago all of the people in the big room would have considered this room uninhabitable. but some of the people in the smaller room have worked hard, yes, even to the point of death, to make it ok, and retain that ok-ness, against the aggression of the people in the big room. the people in the big room also have to manage the constant aggression and pissing-in-random-corners that Big Roomers are prone to, so, suddenly, the hitherto unsupportable smallness of the small room (and hard won habitability) looks quite attractive to some.

b

One of the advantages of the Big Room is that people in the Smaller Room have to keep bringing you cups of tea, or the Big Roomers will come and piss all over you and your stuff (they might do this anyway, to be fair). If you have lived in the Big Room all your life, you think of Small Roomers primarily as people who bring tea. you can't help noticing that some of the Big Roomers get more access to Small Roomers and their lovely cups of tea than others. You are a bit pissed off about how relatively little tea you get compared to the bigger and more aggressive pissers.
One day you get the brilliant brainwave that if you moved straight into the small room, you would have direct access to the lovely cups of tea without having to compete with the other Big Roomers. You do this, and are horrified to find that no one is bringing you tea, or no more than the Small Roomers are always bringing each other on a completely reciprocal basis, and as you never make anyone any tea you aren't getting any either.
You do not understand that you cannot retain Big Room privilege in this respect when you move into the Small Room;
You did not understand before you moved into the Small Room that its main function is a living space for the existing Small Roomers (who are painting pictures, raising children, riding bicycles etc or whatever takes their fancy) and NOT a holding space for functionaries who exist to bring people like you tea;
You cannot understand why the Small Roomers expect you to make your own goddamned tea, like they do;
by going on and on about the tea, which you think is the mark of being held close and belonging in the Small Room, which you imagined as a cosy haven of being brought tea - ironically, by going on about being expected to be brought tea here, you are highlighting that you were never brought up in the Small Room and don't understand how it works;
You are still expecting to be exempt from paying tribute to the Big Roomers and are upset when they come and piss all over you and your stuff because you don't bring them tea;
and you blame the Small Roomers for this. As they are now closer to where you have left your stuff, you have irrationally decided that they are the people who piss all over things, although in fact, historically. they hardly ever piss all over anything.

Have I laboured that rather?

Tangent: could beachcomber and buffy pop up a little reading list for those of us who would like to explore some of these concepts more?

Tiggy:
^For those who don't like the word 'cis': It's only ever relevant when taking about trans and cis people. If you never used either prefix it would make talking about the issue really bloody hard. "Cis" is just the opposite of "trans". We use both of neither. To say there are women and trans women is rather 'othering'. A bit like how the Daily Mail like to say "Gay politician", but never "Straight politician".

Tiggy
that's what Mumsnet have to decide for this site. Whether you can say "transwomen are not women" as opposed to "I believe transwomen are not women".

How about Mumsnet being asked to decide whether it is womanphobic to insist on using the term 'ciswoman' for someone who self identifies as a woman.
How does your interest in calling me a ciswoman for the purposes of your self identification as a transwoman trump my interest in being called a woman for the purposes of my own self identity as distinct from a man or a girl?

And more to the point, how about Mumsnet being asked to decide whether women here should have to say 'I believe I am a woman'? The question you are asking MN to decide upon is whether it is now acceptable for women to call themselves women.

Because if transwomen are women and the people formerly known as 'women' are now 'ciswomen' then we cannot call ourselves women without being transphobic.

That is the logical conclusion of the utter bullshit we as women are being asked to swallow whole.

Is it now discrimination to tell XY men with functional penises that they are not women?

What fresh hell is this?

ha ha Buffy I think we x-posted on my point 1 about the double think, thanks for unpacking that so beautifully