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?

Another way to look at it is that scritti politti wrote a song about Derrida and not about Dworkin.

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

I understand why they stay quiet. I am a minority within a minority in terms of one of my choices. The dog piling you can get from the noisy vocals and activists if you step out of the party line (decided by them, for you) is not much fun. And that is nothing compared to the dog piling I've seen some transpeople get for not picking "wholesale agreement" or "silent".

It's what queenmab said above People know. People just know

It might be a whole nother context, but I know that dynamic. I just know.

What pm adds to your analysis Beach is an idea of why the male dominated discourses prevail, still: power.

Post-modernism mansplains to feminists what feminists know and have written about and fought against already.

You don't have to tell a feminist what power is and how power structures work. We live it.

Quite, feminists were writing about power in a way that most of us understand before post-modernists even found the language to patronise us. (Shall I add a grin?)

I am reading "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" at the moment. It saddens me how fresh it is. And some writing my JS Mill. Fresh. Clear. Obvious. Real. And so old. If they were blog posts,the comments would be shocking. PM harms me. I don't know how I know that when I don't understand it. But I do. As you say, it may be because it's misinterpreted. I feel a hefty shrug coming on about that, just like I do when people say non-transactivists or non-misogynist men say we're not all like that. Nothing personal - I'm sure there's lots we agree on!

The dismissing of Dworkin is a recent phenomenon.

This is a bit of a derail on my part however Buffy. We should probably thrash it out on FWR one of these days. I won't post anymore about it here as it is a bit niche.

Mammuzza - yes, I can understand too, but then when we stick our necks out despite knowing the consequences for women who identify as Feminists and challenge the transactivists on FWR, or seem to focus on them and their arguments, we are accused of rejecting all trans people and the claims of all trans people.

Trans people can't have it both ways.

Either challenge the transactivists themselves, or join with feminists and challenge them, or shutup about the focus on transactivists.

It's a very important and very legitimate focus for feminists. Trans people need to acknowledge this.

I'm not so sure it's a derailment.

I wasn't aware that post-modernism had been co-opted as a justification for the de- and re- definition of "woman" but it makes sense. The meatier parts of these discussions here, though, have been extremely post-modern in their analysis and revaluing of what "woman" and "female" mean for us, individually & collectively, as well as what they could & cannot mean. I realise you, Beach and Buffy, have a far stronger grip on the academic nuances of postmodernism (I came to it through the arts) but I still feel it's quite an instinctive paradigm for women ... ... I'm about to lose myself here, so will shut up.

There is no place for logical fallacy in postmodernism, only examination of the 'logic', the 'fallacy' and the assumptions on which they were based. "Gender is a construct" would be by no means a new or surprising thought to a feminist, but it looks new and amazing to people who've implicitly accepted - or 'felt as truth' - the gender binary as a given fact. It's to be expected that those people would initially seize on this new thought as some kind of permission, or even challenge, to redefine gender in a different binary way.

If it's going to work for everyone as a fluid concept, in the end, those who are new to postmodern thinking about gender will have to add some depth to their very 'thin' understanding of the matter, and start thinking more like feminists with the rich context we are more used to applying when considering gender.

Quite, feminists were writing about power in a way that most of us understand before post-modernists even found the language to patronise us. (Shall I add a grin?)

Or what Maven said!

I've finally caught up with all three threads (and had far too many late nights!). I thought that video of the guy who called himself a 'lesbian man' interesting because he seemed to be opting to be defined as a 'woman' simply becasue he was/wanted to be quite effeminate but was also straight. I found this interesting because as a woman I have found feminism very helpful in allowing me to be relatively 'masculine' and for this to be OK because feminism has deconstructed much of the 'behaving as women should' and shown it up to be the rubbish it is. So it strikes me that what non-typically behaving men need is their own movement to challenge stereotypes.

One of the things I find quite galling with many (of course not all) of the discourses from men choosing to live their lives as women is the way they seem to sum up being a woman into stereotyped behaviour (like playing with your hair and talking about being 'one of the girls') that is so bloody constraining for women. It's this sort of crap that I have had to desocialise for my daughter (and son too for that matter), it's something that should be fought against, not embraced.

I've read all of this thread, but not the other.

I am not a FWR regular.

I am happy to refer to a transwoman as 'she/her'. But I could not agree to her stating that she is a woman because she believes she is.

I can't suddenly believe that I'm French and expect French people to go along with that.

I can't say that actually, I believe tomorrow should be called Myday and get upset when I'm ignored.

I was born biologically female. So was my daughter. I am a woman. She will be one day. Woman is what we are, not what we decide to be because maybe we don't feel stereotypical of the sex we were born into.

Hell, it's early. I'm finding it difficult to articulate.

I don't mind what other people do, dress, act like as long as it harms none. But telling me that I'm not a woman, but a cis woman and insisting that they are women, even though completely and biologically they are male, is too much.

s like dress as a woman or live as a woman I always want to ask - which one? It's so belittling.

Annoyingly I lost the beginning of this quote but it certainly speaks to me.

When a trans woman says she thinks like a woman and acts and dresses like a woman, which woman is she talking about? We are not carbon copies.

math it is me who said that some transwomen want to mutilate themselves in order to 'become' women and yes, I do think that is delusional because a man without a penis is no more a woman than a man with a penis.

I feel like we are teaching men and boys who think outside of the box that instead of positively changing their own gender stereotypes they can 'become' women and share the benefits of our freedom in that respects.

I also believe that they have no idea of the grind of being female and the lack of privilege is upsetting to many who then regret their decision or, more likely feel like they don't fit in anywhere, ironically again because so many women feel that way.

I feel like it is rare for men (or boys) to be accused of being opinionated or scary when actually they are clever and focused. I think that discrimination from society as a whole is shocking and results in further depression and ill feeling.

I think that is what creates this 'me me me' attitude that many trans women have, this insistence that we include 'oh but not so and so' whenever we discuss connected issues, whereas a woman is far more likely (by nature of her upbringing) to feel naturally apologetic for issues, it is a mans privilege that insists on defence.

I am confused. Again.

I don't see how gender is a social construct is a post modern statement. It was known that things were socially constructed and these constructs were about power before post modernism, surely? Otherwise, what is Marxism, or Anarchism? What about Noam Chomsky, who rejects post modernism? Isn't all left wing thought based on the idea that a process of mystification is used to hide power dynamics. And gender is one of the biggest processes of mystification of them all. And all that predates postmodernism, doesn't it?

Sorry, I now see other people have already said this...

I do understand that Buffy, but I think it ignores that power is ultimately about controlling other people's resources - bodies, land, energy, to make life easier. I am highly supicious of people using a word that is widely accepted to refer to the female human body to refer to something else, when the female human body is one of the most sought after and exploited resources in the whole world, and I live in one.

I actually think gender is a social construct is accepted by a lot of social scientists and by aid agencies, WHO, UN and so on. I don't think it is a fringe idea. The idea that it can be wholly abolished is a fringe idea.

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.

I agree with this. i totally get why someone might decide not to stick their neck out in public - lack of energy, lack of time, just exhausted with all the shit you already have to put up with, without wanting more shit flung at you. Nobody should be hassled into activism.

However, I don't know where that leaves us with the vocal transactivism that is setting the public and policy agendas -v- the trans people who just want to quietly live their lives. Why should I be expected to keep quiet about the policy-setting transactivists whose actions will seriously affect my life? If there aren't moderate trans voices speaking out in public, why should that mean that I can't speak out?