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?

anyway I have to go to bed too but I want everyone to go back and read my thing about Big Room! and Small Room! because I am attention seeking! and because i think there is important stuff in there about being given tea

Herc Kim is being disingenuous though. These examples of negative issues usually come up in response to statements like "women are in no danger of being attacked in public toilets" or "no man would say he was trans if it wasn't true". These bald statements get made all the time in any discussion about trans issue. The responses are not designed to make people hate transwomen, despite what Kim thinks. They are to point out that rules and laws etc. are made to deal with bad behaviour, not ordinary every day people just getting on with their life. Also, the things Kim says are extremists trans positions are getting a lot of mainstream airtime. It doesn't really matter if these are not representative of all trans people, these are the viewpoints that are setting the agenda and being heard on any issue relating to gender and, to an increasing degree, any issue relating to women.

Kim has heard all this before and started this thread in Chat to see if a new audience would have a different view from the FWR regulars who apparently talk about this all too much.

I really liked big room small room.

Buffy my dear. I know this is something that you and I hold different positions over, and I don't want to hassle you over it, but I think it is worthy of exploration and clarification (on my part).

When I speak about post-modernism, I do so in the context of women's rights and feminism. I don't know a lot about how post-modernism functions, or what it brings to other issues, because they aren't my area of interest and study.

What I see is that PM (going to abbreviate it cos its so blimmin long) functions in the real world, with regards to women as a subjugated sex class, in a society founded on sexism, as an invisibleizor of women's lived experience. Because it is so academic and created far away from the brutal and ugly grass roots reality of women's lives. And what I see is that PM obfuscates things. By 'things' I mean the clear and incisive sex politics analysis done by women who are so sharp they could cut you. Feminist analysis is all about that any woman can see because she has lived it.

Post-modernism, functions in the real world, (be it intentional or not, and I think it is) to render women's class analysis of male dominance and female subjugation, relative . And therefore meaningless, fluid and subjective.

X-posts. Night Buffy.

oh right and I was also going to mention something about how many people pointed out "feminist issues / interests aren;t nec. trans issues / interests, and vice versa"

yup. Because, apart from anything else - feminist issues are about women - and not all trans people are women. we also have the FtoM lot (who presumably are just drinking pewter tankards of ale and striding about with their legs akimbo and watching the world cup and women's issues be damned)

But anyway, even within the MtoF translot, why should they care about feminist stuff? Loads of women don't identify as feminist.
and why should women care about trans stuff? because they care about justice, I suppose. but - it's a different kind of justice. It's like you cant assume someone is vegetarian because they support fair trade.

but - wimmin, innit - and then we're back in being brought tea world

anyway I have to go to bed too but I want everyone to go back and read my thing about Big Room! and Small Room! because I am attention seeking! and because i think there is important stuff in there about being given tea

I loved it. I don't have the background (educational or feminist) to be able to fully engage with feminist theroy. But rooms and tea I can do. The post hit many nails on the head for me.

Marking place ready for the morning, has taken me hours to catch up

Mab, I thought your tea & piss enhancements were great!

Here, have some Hope nobody nicks them or wees on them.

allhailqueenmab I'm still mulling over the brilliance of your Room analogy.

I'm just distracted by a development in my weekend plans that would warrant a 6600 post AIBU, at minimum :-)

for the blokes before I go :)

Thanks Mammuzza!

I think it is really interesting how much cool stuff has been thrown up on this non-niche, non-specialist thread in Chat. And how wrong footed some people feel by it.

(not my stuff obv - i mean everyone else)

i think there is a mistaken sense (not on here necessarily, not nec with respect to women either) that there is a readily accessible "down to earth"ness which is pro-status quo. I keep being happily reminded that real, down to earth, people are wise, sharp, subtle, and outspoken.

It reminds me of Farage trying to pull the wool over Croydon's eyes by holding his carnival there, and the band pulling out because they had been tricked, and demonstrators showing up, and Farage himself not being able to show up from his car round the corner because the atmosphere was so hostile.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/05/20/jon-day/ukips-croydon-carnival/

People know. People just know.

I loved the tea analogy allhail. I don't want to labour your point but I would also say that the Big Roomer who moves into the Small Room believes that taking tea to the Big Roomers is the central aspect of being a Small Room inhabitant and doesn't realise that the painting, bike riding etc. are important parts of the Small Roomers lives and identities.

Kim:

Look - here's a rare example of something someone said. So that must be what transwomen are like.

'Look - here's a rare example of something a man said: 'in cases of legitimate rape a woman's body can stop pregnancy occurring'. So that must be what all people with a body like that person think.'

'Look - here's a rare example of something a man did -- 'Young man shoots several women on an American college campus as he perceived women in general had rejected him as a suitor'. So that must be what all men who have been turned down are likely to do.'

While the speech and act referred to emanate from the same position of male entitlement and privilege and can both be discussed in terms that refer to those phenomena, do you think people who post on FWR are incapable of distinguishing between one man and all men, and can't distinguish between the actions of certain men who express hatred towards women and the actions of the vast majority of men who embrace decency?

Do we have to preface all our remarks about misogyny with the disclaimer 'Of course we acknowledge that not all men are like this?'

Do you want posters on FWR who discuss transactivism to preface their remarks with the same disclaimer?

If you think the transactivists are not representing you then let's hear you and all like minded transpeople shout them down.

Don't leave it all to the feminists and then whine about feminists focusing on transactivists when feminists end up shouting them down on your behalf.

Thanks Garlic, thanks Crotch, thanks Beyond!

(you know it was Buffy's idea first)

(see how shameless attention seeking pays off - I should have been a man! - oh no gender crisis - who am I? - call me Darren from now on - you don't want to?! I am talking to mn about guidelines for 70sphobic responses to naff names - genuine apologies if you or your child is called Darren)

errant "6"!

I agree with Beach (as I seem to do a lot!). PM is fine in the abstract and I'm sure (I think) that it serves an academic function. It means pretty much nothing to me living in my world. Sorry. I've tried. Actually, it does mean something to me. It has taken away much more that it has ever given, as far as I can see. I know that it is because of its misapplication, in your view, but in my lived experience it has only hindered. Because it has created a situation where my physical characteristics and my treatment because of them are now...what?

please do

you could write it in an epistolary style

or like the Hofstadter Dennett book, in alternate chapters

I think it is really interesting how much cool stuff has been thrown up on this non-niche, non-specialist thread in Chat. And how wrong footed some people feel by it.

The wrong footedness may to some extent be caused by propaganda having woven itself into... accepted fact.

If you can paint t'other side as "extreme fringe" (radfems, bigots etc.), then people not wanting to align themselves with "extreme fringe" might think twice about listening and absorbing from more than the "correct" perspective. And to some extent that might work for a while.

But then the problem is that it becomes almost an article of faith that certain views are both fringe and extreme. So it can be a bit of a shock when "bog standard" people also hold same/similar views.

I find the silence of transpeople who don't agree with transactivists deafening Kim.

And very troubling.

Because all of us have just 24 hours in a day, and it would be easy for all of us to just shrug and forget about standing up for what we believe and for our rights. We would all be called fewer names. We would all have fewer assumptions made about us. We would have a nice quiet life.

a situation where my physical characteristics and my treatment because of them are now...what?

One way of answering that - among an infinite number of possible answers - is "Your physical characteristics define you according to the viewer's perception: each viewer's internal narrative regarding your physique varies from the others', but it's interesting to examine commonalities and differences between them, to wonder where those narratives came from, and ask which of your physical qualities triggered which parts of each narrative. You might also consider whether altering some aspect of your physique would alter those viewers' responses, and how, and why. Then, were you to alter your physique, how would that affect your own narrative regarding yourself? And would it alter your perception of your viewers' narratives?"

See? It's what women do all the time We were even doing it on the last thread, about being blonde.

Kim is ONE person. I don't think it's fair to make her a whipping post for perceived failures of all other non activist trans. I also don't think it's helpful. To anyone.

Why isn't dworkin as famous as Derrida? Why does Derrida auto correct to Derrida when dworkin becomes dork in? Because male ideas are published by male editors, reviewed by male peers. Because male work is important. and female work is fringe.

That's one way of looking at it (and it is actually an idea taken from feminism).

Another way of looking at it (v post-modernly) is that Dworkin threatened the staus quo to its very roots and foundations and Derrida didn't.

Isn't that funny, Buffy?! I read and read and re-read your PM posts and I might as well be reading Portuguese - I see enough I recognise from Latin and Spanish to get a vague hint... Not a comment on your explanation, but on my level of ability to get it.