Radfem2012 banning trans people

[allthegoodnamesweretaken]

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/25/radical-feminism-trans-radfem2012?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

Has anyone seen this? I don't really understand this bigotry against trans gendered people.
If we're trying to make the world a better and equal place through feminism, surely excluding people who also want to do this because of their genitals or the gender they assign themselves is going to make this impossible and is a bit hypocritical?

I'm sorry I got so upset earlier in this thread. I don't think I was being very clear.

I want to put my case.

I think that if someone has an interior gender identity - say, if an XY person feels they are female inside -that is something I do not know. I don't understand what it means to have an interior gender identity, and I do my best to try fight against anything or anyone who says I should have one. My reasons for resisting a 'gender identity' for me are that are that it is a concept that has been co-opted (or even invented?) by the patriarchy, and potentially it can be very damaging when it is aligned with sexist.

I cannot say whether or not another person has an internal gender identity. It is outside my understanding. I don't know if this analogy is appropriate or not - but I know that in the US, some people have taken the terminology once used to oppress a sector of society and have made it into a positive sense of identity - such that being 'black' can refer to a social identity. Is this the same?

For me, I find the term 'cis' upsetting when it's applied to me. I find it upsetting when 'woman' is just a category for 'not man'. I think these are fair things to be upset about. There are good cultural and historical reasons why. Lots of those have to do with reproduction. So it is partly a biological issue.

I do not like this insistence that a person who is transsexual can understand what it is like to have always been recognized as the sex into which they cross. This minimizes the experiences that people who are recognized as that sex might have.

We are all interacting under the patriarchy. We all have different experiences, we all have different group experiences, and we all make different accommodations. Differentiating between them should not be about assigning values.

I was trying to keep my post impersonal. I can see that of course, we all feel upset by attacks that seem personal.

Is it possible that people who refer to trans peopl (MtoF I assume) are actually meaning those who have penises and are therefore still technically capable of rape, rather than anything else? If so, what else could be said?

kim - yes, male is not female. I agree. I think it is different when men's identity is at stake (what is identity? We still have not established this point and I'm sorry, it seems so important to me).

Men are historically the privileged class.
Woman are not.

There is therefore a difference, no? Without knowing what this idea of 'identity' is, I can't know enough to comment more.

kim, I was responding to your post beginning '@LRD'. I assumed you meant me, but maybe not?

I think maybe we are talking cross-purposes, in that I am still very ignorant about what 'transsexual' means, and though your posts about losing your speech impediment make clear it was a big thing for you, I still don't really know as you have insisted all my assumptions are wrong. I'm glad to find I'm wrong again about rape ... could you not perhaps explain the situation to me? Just so I am not constantly guessing?

Btw ... this is a minor point (!), but can we for goodness' sake avoid the rape myth about force being necessary? Rape is not always the result of physical force. It is disgusting and wrong to pretend it is.

Kim, I am asking you what a transsexual is. I don't understand this concept of 'gender identity' as it applies to me. It may be it is meaningful for someone else?

I don't want you to try to see what I think transsexuality is ... as I say, all I can understand is some people seem to have views I can't understand! I believe completely they may feel awful and I would like to help. But I can't do that until I know what we're talking about!

I'm a bit baffled by this tbh.

(many/most/all?) RadFems do not accept that trans people are women.
(many) RadFems have direct experience of MTF trans behaving with serious male privilege at feminist and radfem conferences by shouting out, talking over, silencing, demanding that the discussion topics are changed etc.
RadFems do not want this patten of behaviour repeated at RadFem2012
They have decided the safest way to do this is to ban all men (see point 1)

I would have thought that a reasonable person would say, "fair enough, their "ideology" is different to mine, we believe different things, this is probably not the event for me." At the most I could understand protesting outside the event. I just don't understand the desire to attend though.

Why would you want to attend a conference where people believe in something completely different to you unless you wanted to disrupt the environment?

As a side point I think the term cis is vile. I am not a ciswoman. It is a horrible othering term and women have been othered quite enough.

I have been reading this thread with interest and have to admit to feeling quite confused by the issue. I have also been reading around on line and apparently I have cis privilege. I don't feel very privileged as a woman however. I have been reading lists on line of why I am considered to be privileged and this is one:

I was trained into whatever gender was appropriate for me, and so I am prepared to live in my current gender, without having to go back and learn vital skills I was not taught when I was young.

This doesn't feel like a privilege. At the moment I am working very hard to undo the conditioning that tells me I should always be passive and polite and submissive. It was that conditioning that contributed to me getting caught up in an abusive relationship and believing that the way I was treated was ok.

I didn't feel privileged when I was raped and then experienced the terror of thinking I was pregnant from that rape.

Or when I was so unwell in pregnancy I pissed my boss off because I was struggling at work.

Or when I was off on maternity and they hired a man to come in to the department I set up without consulting me at all because I was off with a baby.

Or when I had depression after I had my first baby.

Or when I had a difficult birth which was not as bad as some but I found traumatic.

I don't understand why my conditioning is a privilege on the one hand but then I am meant to throw that conditioning off so that I am happy to share women only spaces such as rape survivor groups and changing rooms.

I am open to being wrong on this, it is new to me but the whole cis thing for now makes me uncomfortable.

Kim I'm not sure if you were directly addressing me wrt getting to know trans people but I'll answer anyway.

I don't know any trans people- probably as a result of living in quite conservative places my whole life. I haven't attended a radfem conference but I am aware, through friends, of what has happened in them when trans activists have been invited. Im aware that not all trans people demand privilege and most just wish to live their lives in peace. I wish all trans people the best for what I imagine is a difficult life with many hard choices.

(my post is more general now and not aimed at you Kim)

I fully support the right of any marginalized group (bloody bonkers to compare them old boy clubs btw) to hold a meeting where they agree on discussion topics that are pertinent to them as a whole.

I fully support women who want spaces to be for born women only OR for those who no longer have the instrument of rape on them (no this doesn't mean I think all men are rapists).

I support women who wish to meet and discuss topics that are relevant to them as a group because they were born women.

Finally, and this isn't really on topic, but I think people shouldn't be able to legally change their gender until, at least, they are on hormone drugs. I think it's a bit mad tbh to suddenly shave your legs, grow your hair, wear a frock, heals an make up and be able to call yourself, legally, female. Does no one think it's slightly insulting to women the idea that being a woman is based around actions?

Agh... Before anyone picks me up on it. I know no one suddenly decides to become a woman.

Yup, I'm another one to refuse the term 'ciswomen'.

For reasons that I imagine are obvious.

I also refuse 'cisprivilege'.

It is cognitive dissonance to simultaneously hold the contradictory thoughts that we live in a patriarchy and women can have 'cisprivilege'.

Just want to come in looking like this and apologise for my random drunken postings on Sat night. I blame the eurovision (not the mixing of wine and cider) and will not be watching it again. I also paid extraordinarily heavily yesterday [head down toilet emoticon]

So sorry about that

I don't object to the term ciswomen for people who believe they have an internal gender identity. People can call themselves what they like.

I just resent the assumption that it is a term that can be assigned to everyone who isn't transgender, when most people have never suggested they even have such a thing as an internal gender identity.

Also hate cis. I don't have an 'interval gender identity' so it can't be congruent with my sex. I'm just a human. Gender is socially constructed.

And for the rest, what beach said.

I also can't help wondering how people have the spare time to protest this small event when the heavily gender binaried international multi million audience Olympics is taking place just down the road. Presumably there'll be massive protests, and surely there must have been a huge amount of letter writing and protesting to try and stop this exhibition of 'transphobia'?

Internal not interval obvs

Hope you feel better today SQ!