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?

Ice, that's a view compatible with liberal feminism. You know that in your environment you have to rephrase the issue to get men interested. Nothing wrong with that on the face of it. But it only applies to your particular work environment.

And it means we avoid naming the issue. And the issue on a bigger scale is that childcare falls mainly to women. Because men don't see it as their problem.

By addressing it as a women's rights issue, you make women aware, you educate them as to why it shouldn't be their issue, you empower them to make changes, you make the changes in the workplace to give them that knowledge and power.

All a wee bit idealist but it works.

Ice, I think you are missing the point. If I want more women in a field, and you report back and say the main problem is women having no SAHP, and that is the same for men with no SAHP too, the bit about the men is totally irrelevant to the issue I am trying to resolve.

Not having enough women in particular fields is an issue for all women. If there were no female cancer specialists, that would be an issue for female junior doctors! female nurses and their work culture, but for all women patients too. I am looking to increase the number of women relative to men in the field so I am looking at factors that interact for many women. The fact that they might also interact for some men is not always relevant to resolving issues for women.

I think spending all my time in a male dominated environment has made me very goal focussed

If you ignore the male dominated enviroment bit, Snap !

I look at the feminist/women's issue thing this way.

Issue X is an issue, it belongs exclusively to nobody. Mainly becuase you can't force people not to hold an opinion or discuss a specific issue based on "not your ball".

Eg, your original example, miscarriage.

It's a feminist issue. And a medical practice / ethics issue. A patient care issue. And a bog standard people issue. (people being those that didn't like/wouldn't like somebody they knew being treated in a shitty way at a horrible time.)

So it's not like something being a feminist issue means it's nobody else's issue. Just that the feminist lens is one of the many lenses, from speciialist to hugely general, used to consider/analyse it.

BBC today piece by Julie Bindel about labelling.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28130472 here]]

Timely to this thread and also interesting to see a piece like this headlining on BBCwebsite.

That link doesn't work seven

Thanks Buffy

here

MyrtleDove Wed 02-Jul-14 19:51:06

trans women are women, and gender is not about biology. Some of them will be women with penises - being a woman is not about not having a penis. Also many trans women do not have penises.

Insisting that gender exists and is more important than biology is actually a very hostile attack on women and on feminism, MyrtleDove.

I've just finished page 24 of this thread and I'll go back and read it but I'll say this about the diversion into academic language.

I don't find it intimidating, it just doesn't interest me, so I skipped those posts. Threads develop and no one has the right to dictate where they should go.

But I'd respectfully say that that particular diversion is in danger of derailing a very interesting and informative thread.

The really valuable thing about this thread and the first one in Chat, was that they are an attempt to canvass the opinions of mainstream posters who don't venture into FWR for many reasons.

When I saw a poster suggest on the Site Stuff thread that the issue ought to be posted in Chat, I thought that was a good idea. And when Kim147 did that I was glad.

I had an idea what 'ordinary' posters, for want of a better word - and that's how I would describe myself - would say. I guessed that they'd say a combination of: 'live and let live/why can't we be nice to each other?/it's not hurting me.' And that's what people all said.

I am very glad that some posters said exactly what the problem was with aggressive transactivism.

But they tailed off. I'm sure some of them are still reading. I am, I just don't feel qualified to post. But I also fear some of them got turned off as the thread became wordier.

I want 'ordinary' women like me to post on these threads because I don't want people who dislike women to be able to to claim that it's just the menz haters and rad-fems*.

BTW I am very grateful to various posters for articulating what I thought and introducing a couple a concepts that hadn't occurred to me.

Hi Limited. I think people have stopped talking about the academic stuff now, so hopefully anyone who wants to will post about trans etc. Sorry for derailing.

Thanks almondcakes. I guessed as much when I decided to skip a few pages.

But I wanted to explain why the diversion - not derailment in this case - was unhelpful IMO.

Having this thread on Chat is a really good idea because a few years ago when I expressed a mildly feminist opinion on Chat - so mild that I can't remember what it was - I was angrily told to fuck off to FWR with my man-hating views by someone who had always previously been friendly to me.

She's blanked me ever since. Try as I might, I can't see that as much of a loss.

LimitedPeriod --

I posted this on the SiteStuff thread where MNHQ announced the revised Guidelines will be (if I understand correctly) pretty much as they stand with the addition of transphobia to the already established list.

"The problem is really about the narrow definition of 'men' imo (not the dictionary definition but the definition as it relates to men who are gay, men who are not white, men who want to be nurses, men who want to play with dolls, men who want to work as reception teachers, men who are pacifists, etc, etc) and the way the definition has been policed over thousands of years. It is that attempt to define 'men' and exclude and enforce the exclusion of all others that created and maintains the concept of gender."

Aggressive transactivists who are biological men yet do not feel they are men have only the genderised concept of women to fall back on. The existence of the narrow 'man or woman' choice and the fact that it was invented and then policed by men for the benefit of (straight) men makes the insistence on being treated as women yet another version of allowing men to continue to define themselves as 'not women'. This doesn't help any women, straight or gay. It doesn't help any man, straight or gay, who is not comfortable with the genderised role assigned to him. All it accomplishes is reinforce the genderised polarity.

math you are very logical

That is an excellent point math.

There has already been mention a couple of times on these threads of the Gender Recognition Act. There is another important piece of legislation which has been a bit of a game changer - the Equality Act 2010. This law extends protection to trans people who are not under medical supervision - i.e. any man who decides to live 'as a woman', or vice versa (whatever the fuck that means), is protected. There's a guidance leaflet here which contains the following guidance:

The Act provides protection for transsexual people – people who are proposing to undergo, are undergoing or have undergone the process of changing their sex. These people have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. The process of gender reassignment may involve different stages, from change of name, title and/or appearance through to surgical intervention. But the Act does not require a person to be under medical supervision to be protected, so a woman who decides to live permanently as a man but who does not undergo any medical procedures will be protected.

A wide range of people are included in the terms ‘trans’ or ‘transgender’, such as people who cross ? dress only on an occasional basis and other people who may identify as neither men nor women but somewhere in between. Only transsexual people are explicitly protected under the Act. However, if a person who cross ? dresses, for example, is discriminated against because they are wrongly thought to be transsexual, they will be protected under the Act.

What has changed?
The range of transsexual people who are protected has been extended slightly. To qualify for protection, a transsexual person will no longer have to show that they are under medical supervision. This means that a person who has changed their gender without seeing a doctor will now be protected, though under previous discrimination law they were not.

The bit I have an issue with is where it says a person is 'changing their sex'. This is clearly impossible.

Well, they could just change the first part of your quote to:

The Act provides protection for people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

Write to whoever you write to! Start a epetition? If you share it, I'll sign :)

I'm very glad you posted what you did, Limited.

While I'm (briefly, this time!) here, I want to point out that trying to 'explain' to IceBeing is a derailment. S/he has basically said, in more ways than one, that feminism can never work because it talks about women's issues. Apart from the fact that it's demonstrably codswallop, this is such a disingenuous position that it's not worth disputing.

Ice says s/he only thinks feminism will work if presented in way that includes men. Also, that being in a male environment makes her goal-oriented which clearly women can't be, with their brains full of knitting wool and whatnot and that it's women's fault they haven't got SAHPs, which are necessary in a work environment designed by and for men with their own servant SAHP.

Apart from the bit about feminism needing to include men, this has nothing to do with the topic under discussion. And I don't think Ice meant only men who are pretending to be women.

ICan, not only is it impossible, it's not defined in the legislation. Clearly it would be transphobic to question whether someone was really trans if they said they were - the EA basically makes it law that anybody who says they are a woman must be treated as one.

"the EA basically makes it law that anybody who says they are a woman must be treated as one"

The Equality Act protects people from discrimination. It doesn't say anyone who say they are a woman must be treated as a woman.

I don't understand. Isn't changing gender a legal procedure even if you don't see a doctor? It cannot be that you can just randomly claim to be any gender. How would that work with things like CRB checks?

Cote, the GRA has that covered, the two work in tandem. E.g from the same leaflet as linked above:

In general, if you are an organisation that provides separate or single?sex services for women and men, or you provide your services differently to women and men, you should treat transsexual people according to the gender role in which they present.

CRB checks (called something else now?) - you just have to give all previous names so they can trace you. There is no longer any legal procedure which needs to be gone through to claim protection as trans. I could declare myself 'Darren' tomorrow and be protected.

I do think trans people need protection from discrimination. I think this is clumsy law though which rides roughshod over women's rights.