MNHQ now email posters with how to "get around" the talk guidelines.

[GoshAnneGorilla]

There is yet another thread on FWR about trans people. Like nearly every other thread on there about trans people, it's a load of transphobia dressed up as gender analysis.

Nothing new, sadly.

What is new, is that MNHQ have now sent an email to a poster whose post was deleted, telling them how their post could be within the guidelines, even including a copy of their original post to make editing all the easier. This is because "discussion is important".

So, a few questions for MNHQ.

Are GLBT rights at all important to you?

Will you be extending this " How to bend the talk guidelines" services to racist, homophobic, or disabilist posts too, or is it only trans people who deserve to be discussed in a manner which is extremely offensive?

Incubator ?

I don't know Kim, it wasn't me who said that they couldn't. I avoid The F-Word because I don't like having to apologize for gender privilege I don't have. I don't like being gaslighted be it by liberal feminists or anyone else.

I already said on this thread that I believe some people have body dysphoria. And of course I believe that transgenderism and transsexualism exist.

When feminists argue that something is socially constructed or influenced that doesn't mean that we don't think it exists or that it isn't real. As to whether transgenderism is biological or social, I have no idea. I suspect it isn't the same for everybody and perhaps varying degrees of both. The answer to that conundrum doesn't change how I feel WRT bio women and transwomen being politically, physically and socially different however.

"Any assertion that trans women are not “real" women, or that trans men are not “real" men..."

Do you think you are female, kim?

And if not, how exactly would you say that you are a "real" woman? (Whatever the difference might be between a woman and a "real woman")

I'm genuinely curious about this. It seems clear-cut biology and dictionary definition to me, and not something that could remotely be called prejudice or *phobia.

Apologies if I'm overstepping the bounds here Kim or if I've misinterpreted what you've said.

Kim has said before that of course she doesn't know what it's like to "feel like a woman". In her case it's more about feeling wrong in her body and despising her male characteristics. So rather than "feeling like a woman" it's more about not "feeling like a man" in Kim's case.

Actually I do suspect that Kim probably has about as much in common with the transactivists as the rest of us.

there is no such thing as woman as a definable category, just man and not-man. if you are sure you are not a man, you must be a woman.

this is how it seems to work.

I asked Kim is she thinks she is female because that is surely a prerequisite to being a woman, since the word "woman" means "adult human female".

And I'm asking this question because kim said F-Word (whatever that is) considers any suggestion that transwomen are "not real women" as transphobic.

I find this puzzling.

Is it ageist now to say that a 5-year-old female is not a woman? What if that little girl feels she is a woman?

It's crazy. I certainly hope MNHQ will not make it a deletable offence to use the word "woman" according to its dictionary definition - i.e. Adult human female.

i have never felt like a woman, or a man, or something else.

i reject utterly the idea that you must have some sort of feeling in order to be a woman or man or whatever, because the implication is that if you lack this feeling you are what? genderless? ridiculous

I'm actually not that bothered about definitions in the context of this thread. What I am bothered about is that feminist discourse is being distorted and that those dipping their toes into Feminism on large and relatively mainstream sites are faced, not with feminist discussion centered around the oppression of women, but with a whole load of stuff seemingly about gender politics, without being able to discuss gender politics.

How is anything going to change, and how do we stop things slipping back, without acknowledging the oppression which is based on the reproductive ability of women born as women. Beach said it much better.

Thank you CrotchMaven. It took me an essay to say it though!

I agree with what you say above. There are several feminist sites that say that transgender issues should be central to feminism because transwomen are women. I find that concerning because it constrains women and goes counter to us rejecting gender as the mechanism by which we are awarded second class status. It also prevents us from making sexual politics our focus. It changes feminism so fundamentally that it actually isn't feminism anymore, it makes it genderism and no longer a movement about women's rights under patriarchy. Feminism is being co-opted and colonized (as are lesbianism and gay civil rights movements. Just look at what is happening to the Dyke Marches).

Kim, you keep asserting that some women post transphobic things on FWR. Can you either name names or stop doing that because at the moment it just looks like you're flinging wild assertions around without any back up at all. Your constant rhetorical questioning (as in your posts of 15:00:39 and 15:01:56) - I say rhetorical because you don't acknowledge or seem to take in any answers you're given, you just continue to ask questions in a thinly veiled accusatory manner.

I haven't seen anyone on here saying transexualism is caused by society and not the body. Perhaps I'm not reading the threads clearly enough. I think you seem to be ignoring the many posters on here who accept gender dysphoria as a condition while NOT accepting someone who has done nothing and overtly refuses to do anything to change their physical male body yet claims they're a woman and demands that women accommodate their claims. You yourself have said you don't agree with that. Conflating the two is really not helping.

Who has said transsexuality has been "made up"?

When?

Are you ever going to answer my questions, kim?

• Are you female?

• And if not, is it possible to call you a "woman"?

• And if not, is the sentence "transwomen are not 'real' women" is "transphobic"?

Again, this is about F-Word's position on transphobia which you quoted earlier:
We reject as transphobic: Any assertion that trans women are not “real" women, or that trans men are not “real" men, and any assertions that we consider, to the best of our judgement, to stem from this belief.

I hope when MNHQ make their decision, they take account of the current legal position in the UK as well as the dictionary definitions for female and male, woman and man.

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.

i read somewhere that cis was not a way to self identify any more than gentile is- non-jews don't see themselves as gentiles, they see themselves as catholics, or buddhists, or atheists or whatever.

i appreciate why, politically, trans people identify non-trans people as cis, but it is never going to be a name i call myself, any more than Not-Man is

kim - I'm not going to read 10,000+ posts on FWR because you tell me to. If you can't be bothered to talk on this subject, why are you on this thread?

You don't seem to have a problem asking us question after question