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?

"Genitalia does not define your gender, neither does body hair or other secondary sex characteristics - are people saying that not having a beard is essential to being a woman? Of course it's not."

It does to anyone looking at you in most of the entire world.

If you have girls genitals when you are born then depending on where you are you might be drowned in a bucket, refused an education, have acid thrown in your face because you look at a boy, or be raped to death when you go for a wee.

It would be a fucking marvellous world if people's gender role was not determined by what genitals they have when they are born (or even before that), and that people's secondary sexual characteristics didn't single them out for certain and very different types of attention.

myrtle - have you read the earlier thread? We've had this same conversation almost word for word and it's getting a bit dull.

Beachcomber but how is TERF a slur? If you exclude trans people from your feminism, then you are being a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist? I am genuinely not understanding how it's not a slur.

Also, not all trans people use the asterisk - for those that do, trans* includes transgender, genderqueer and other gender-variant statuses but not transsexual.

^ how it is a slur, sorry

Myrtle from what I have read online I feel more that transmen are people I can relate to and understand.

And given that I have a shared experience of being born and raised a girl with them and all the socialisation and sexualisation and all the rest of the shit that involves, it's not surprising.

Where is the talk of supporting transmen in all of this? They hardly get a mention from what I can see (and it's pretty obvious why).

Odd but it doesn't take away your rights at all. I am a cis woman, I have no rights taken away from it.

And I couldn't read all the thread because the violence of the transphobia was too upsetting. But this needs to be said again - why should the conversation be taken over by transphobia?

Seven having female genitalia doesn't exclude you from being trans though - some of those instances will include trans boys.

Also - trans women (particularly trans women of colour) are at huge risk of violence. HUGE. Do you know the rate for trans women of colour being murdered in the US is? 1 in 12. That is outrageous. If you want to stand up for women, stand up for the trans women of colour being brutally murdered.

Oh, TERF is definitely a slur. It's just nasty to feminists, rather than also diminishing the holocaust and the whole rise of Nazi Germany alongside, but it is a slur.

It's a fancy acronym to make calling anyone who discusses gender (almost always a woman) a transphobic bigot sound official, rather than like the ad hominem and refusal to engage in debate that it is.

If I call someone a racist, homophobic, or misogynist bigot, it's a slur. And sometimes, that is justified. The person does not deserve rational debate, they deserve to be called out. TERF is no different, except I think the proportion of the time it's used fairly is small. Bit like "feminazi", oddly enough.

Chunderella I can see the first point. However, trans women are women and are being silenced, smeared and attacked by transphobic feminists. Not all trans women have penises.

Why the fixation on penises?? They're just bigger clitorises ffs.

Seven I'm just responding to points about trans women - however I totally support trans men. I'm not sure that I can identify with them, me being a woman and them being men.

x-post

Although the GRA says "for all purposes" that isn't actually accurate as there are a number of exceptions in the Act. I'm C&P'ing my post on the earlier thread about it:

The Gender Recognition Act unsatisfactorily uses the words "gender" and "sex" interchangably. It starts by talking about "a person of either gender" and provides that they can get a gender recognition certificate on the basis of "living in the other gender".

In order to get a certificate, a person must:

• have gender dysphoria
• have lived in the acquired gender for at least two years
• intend to live in the acquired gender until death.

“gender dysphoria” is defined as "the disorder variously referred to as gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder and transsexualism".

Although there is no requirement to have genital surgery or to take hormones, the form to be filled in by the doctors requires them to provide details of any surgery, hormones etc and Kim has told us before that it is extremely difficult to get a certificate without having had surgery.

If a certificate is issued "the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman)". However, there are some exceptions e.g. for sports, succession and for gender-specific offences. The person is not treated as the acquired gender for every purpose.

According to the F-Word, this is all transphobic because:

• it recognises that there are two sexes and that people are either male or female
• it requires a certificate to be issued before a transperson will be treated as the acquired gender
• it describes gender dysphoria as a disorder
• it does not fully treat the transperson as the acquired gender for every purpose
• it does not recognise that the person was the acquired gender from birth
• it requires surgical or hormonal intervention and a medical report to acquire a certificate

I'm not saying that the GRA is the final authority as to what is transphobia. Transactivists and gender critics alike should be entitled to discuss and lobby for change to the legislation. However policies like the F-Word make any support of the GRA as it currently stands as transphobic. I would hope that MNHQ continue their current policy of allowing these discussions and do not go down the bizarre route of saying that stating support for a piece of enacted legislation, the law of the the land, is not permitted on this site. If MNHQ plans to produce a list of words that are not allowed (I'd prefer they didn't), I would like "TERF" and "cis" added to that list. Both terms are highly offensive.

Tilly it would help if the transphobic bigots would stop being transphobic bigots. I am a woman, I am not a transphobic bigot - it's called being a decent person and is nothing to do with being a woman.

And I couldn't read all the thread because the violence of the transphobia was too upsetting.

What thread were you reading, Myrtle? It certainly doesn't sound like the discussion going on on the original thread.

'Violence of the transphobia' - are you for real?

Myrtle so here we have it.

Take the missing girls situation. Millions of female lives that have been lost due to the fact that in certain parts of the world females are deemed inferior.

At the moment, this is brought to the attention of the world via headlines like "missing girls" and so on.

As you point out, if we follow your rules, then we need to accept that some of those "missing girls" were in fact boys. Because when they grew up they might have decided that they were trans, and even though they don't get to grow up because they have been killed because of the whole female genitals thing in the first place.

So, there is no "missing girls" problem. There is a "missing babies" problem. And in one lovely move, we can forget about and ignore the fact of girls being held in such low regard in some places that they are literally murdered in droves, and focus on what, instead. Well it's just a basic issue then around abortion I guess. And either you support abortion or you don't.

So. Problem solved. No way to look at or see that there is a problem with girls being murdered as actually they weren't all girls (not that we will ever find out).

I have a problem with this.

Ditto charities for women and girls globally would have to go, especially if they worked around anything to do with the female reproductive system.

Why the fixation on penises?? They're just bigger clitorises ffs.

You can't be serious. This is very close to being the stupidest thing I have ever read.

Flora I really don't understand why 'cis' is offensive. I self-identify as cis, because I am a cis woman. Cis just means 'not trans'. It's about not othering trans people and being cissexist - cis is not the default, just different.

The Cis label and why some women find it offensive has been discussed in depth on the other thread.

If you identify as a feminist, Myrtle, why are you arguing that one woman's right to offense is lesser than anothers? Just because it's okay with you to be called cis does not mean that it's okay for everybody, nor should it be.

Seven I have been thinking about the "missing boys" thing for a few days. I didn't want to say it out loud because I think there are people out there who will actually start saying that.

But we did all this on the other thread didn't we?

So say in an area where 95% of boys are educated and 5% of girls, people who think children should be educated look at that and say, there is a problem here with girls not getting educated, why is that, what can we do.

If we can't say that they are girls on the basis that they may choose to be boys later, and ditto for the boys, all we can say is that more than 40% of the children are educated. Well that sounds not too bad, maybe we need to do something about it maybe not. If we send money to the area we will target it at all children.

That would not be done for any other type of divide. When people look at social division they look at things like black/white, rich/poor, old young. The only division which will not be allowed is male/female (based on genitals at birth) and that will be a monumental disaster for all women in the world.

Myrtle, cis doesn't just mean not trans. If you read the thread (or even just a few basic things about this subject about which you hold an opinion) you would understand what it means.

Myrtle there are no words that are defined as "not X". Words have meaning. Please define "cis" without using the word "not".

Myrtle - Please define the word 'woman'.

I'm asking, because you seem to be unaware of the dictionary definition: adult human female. Transwomen are not female therefore cannot be women. QED.

They are adult human males who feel that they are women. They are transwomen. Not women.

Gender recognition Act says transwomen are 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.

The myth of one in twelve

Murder rates among trans women and in particular, trans women of colour, are TOO HIGH. Like other non gender-conforming people, transwomen are frequent victims of male violence. But that doesn't mean you should just believe any old statistic that you think makes your political point.

I do not agree that all the women being termed TERF are transphobic bigots.

It is not radfems on the internet that make transboys or transgirls suicidal, continually deny gender identity, bully ftms for not shaving their legs, or connive to get trans* individuals fired. It is not radfems who seduce transmen for a laugh, "just to know what fucking a [transphobic word] was like".

I don't think radfems killed any of these people for being trans*.