Violence Against Women

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

Just been reading this blog post which talks about women who Transition as violence against women. I agree with her.

[Warning from MNHQ - this contains graphic images]

dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/transition-violence-against-women.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheDirtFromDirt+(The+dirt+from+Dirt)

Sorry this article

"we can't demand equality for ourselves and to be treated with respect when we dismiss the feelings and needs of a group even further in a minority and also victims of oppression"

Women are the oppressed majority not minority and I think women have every right to put ourselves and our own rights first for a change (especially as part of our oppressive conditioning is to believe we do not deserve to put ourselves first). This does not mean marginalising women who experience other intersecting oppressions though.

Its not logical to assert that women have to concede that men can equally call themselves women in order to demand equality with men.

But its ok for US to oppress transgender people who don't fit in with either sex?

You're going to have to help me out, because I'm really struggling to see how this can be justified.

Like I said, I understand the need to keep rape cris women only centres and womens aid for women born only. I don't like it, but I do (although it does raise concerns for the victims of abuse and assault within the trans community) but what else is an issue? Changing rooms? Why? Considering most have cubicles (which, I have always used due to my own issues) toilets? I've shared loos with men with penises my whole life, it doesn't affect your vulnerability. You lock the door.

I don't get it, and its clear, to me at least, that this is down to the prejudices of individuals, and a "why should we care about you as WELL?" Attitude.

blame & Eleanor

Whether either of you are happy sharing loos with men/ or males-to-transwomen, your personal reasons for being cool with it don't mean that all women have to be cool with it.

There are a significant number of male sex-pests, harassers and pervs out there in the world who scare and hurt women (and since many women feel vulnerable in public toilets, bumping into such men there would be more frightening than in the street). I doubt that the prevalence of this kind of threatening sexual deviance is lower in the born males who transition to transwomen, or indeed 'identify' as women than the rest of the male population.

I think it is fair to fight for unisex loos for transpeople and people who don't care either way, but I don't think it is fair to say that women cannot have their own loos.

doubt that the prevalence of this kind of threatening sexual deviance is lower in the born males who transition to transwomen, or indeed 'identify' as women than the rest of the male population.

How offensive! Do you have stats to back this up? How many convicted sex offenders are trans? And, I hate to play the homophobia card, do you feel "safer" knowing that lesbians can use these areas too? You are no safer in a public loo than anywhere else. Don't we preach that the onus is on the attacker to not attack? Utterly ridiculous. And its not a case of "being cool" as a survivor of abuse and rape, I know full well that its not a ladies sign that will stop a rapist.

And I've ranted and done a postvomit, which is why I tried to leave the thread.

I'm really going now

I doubt that the prevalence of this kind of threatening sexual deviance is lower in the born males who transition to transwomen, or indeed 'identify' as women than the rest of the male population

That is by far one of the most offensive things i have ever read on MN.

Do you have evidence to back up this unsubstantiated claim or is this JUST an opinion. If it's opinion....it has no place in public.

Kim, I just wanted to say, this most make terribly hurtful reading, you show real stoicism and strength of character. I wish you all the very best with the op and the job hunting, for what it is worth I think many of us in FWR DO accept you.

"How offensive! Do you have stats to back this up? How many convicted sex offenders are trans? And, I hate to play the homophobia card, do you feel "safer" knowing that lesbians can use these areas too?"

Being a lesbian doesn't make a woman more likely to be a sex offender. I think something like 98% of sex offenders are men.

You are no safer in a public loo than anywhere else.

I said some women feel more vulnerable, not more safe.

Don't we preach that the onus is on the attacker to not attack?

Don't know how this fits.

Sorry about your experience of male sexual violence

That is by far one of the most offensive things i have ever read on MN.

I don't know why it is offensive to doubt that transwomen have patterns of sex offending that are closer to women than men.

And kim thanks for your post. But I don't believe all MTFs take testosterone blockers- isn't it the case that you can be trans without any hormones whatsoever?

Also, to say that male sex-offending is entirely down to hormones and nothing to do with male-entitlement, means that 'men can't help it' because 'their hormones made them do it'. Which is pretty contentious.

Sorry Kim cross posted and I can't return to the thread have stuff to do....

Food unit, you have implied that MtF trans are just as likely to be sex offenders as men. Go back and read your statement. Don't try to twist it.

FoodUnit - do you not accept that testosterone and other hormones play an enormous part in typical male/female behaviour? I understand the radfem view is that gender is a societal construct. But you can't deny that men and women are different, and not just because 'they are' - science has discovered all sorts of things going on inside our brains and bodies which cause different behaviours. It's not stereotyping to say that testosterone causes aggression, to pick the most obvious and relevant example.

All this means that actually, as with all sorts of other things, we can 'play God' to quite a serious extent with our bodies, should we choose to. If you disagree on a moral basis that a man should not be able to alter his sex then that's different to stating that it is categorically impossible.

Food Unit, in your post (Wed 03-Oct-12 17:20:00) you suggested that people of colour are people, so there was never a need to re-define the term "person" or "human," to include them.

That's not actually true. The US Constitution, which was written in 1787, refers to "people" and "person" many times throughout the text. However, it had to be subsequently amended to include all African Americans in that definition. Other federal and state legislation also had to be passed to remove other legal "artifacts" that excluded people of colour from the legal definition of person.

You may say to me that of course a person of colour IS a person and I'd agree with you. My Late Aunt Rose and others who subscribe to white supremacist ideals quite probably wouldn't. Aunt Rose believed "negroes" were something of a "sub species," the "Children of Ham" from the Old Testament, but not "people" in the way she regarded white people as "people."

She disagreed with intermarriage because that "weakened the race," and I specifically remember her saying, "because you wouldn't breed a horse to a cow." (I was one helluva nosy kid and overheard lots of these conversations with my mum!) :) She mourned the end of segregation because she believed the races shouldn't share neighbourhoods, schools, lunch counters, or public toilets.

She'd have told you she didn't have anything against Black folks, they were just different and things should be "separate but equal." But, if someone challenged her, or if she'd recently heard a story about say a white person being assaulted by a Black person, or a civil rights march was on TV, a more unsavoury attitude would start to come through.

Aunt Rose would have started telling "stories" - elderly white people being poisoned by their Black staff, white girls being raped by Black men, loose Black women coming onto white men or trying to feel up white girls in the toilets. She'd point to the cities where Black people had "ruined" once prosperous white areas. She believed Black people were naturally violent, sexually predatory and likely to take their grief out on white people, so she felt justified in not wanting them in "white only spaces."

Sorry, but I am still reminded of the parallels here - the "I don't hate trans people but I can't accept that they are like me and I don't want them in spaces that are for people like me," eventually morphing into, "I feel threatened by trans people so I want them well away from any place where I think they could harm me, I don't care what they want."

And, Aunt Rose would list off the same handful of incidents where white people came to harm at the hands of Black people. On the interwebs, I hear "trans exclusive" feminists list off the same handful of similar incidents involving trans women - the ruckus when trans women were barred from the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in 1991, Kimberley Nixon's suit against the Canadian rape support charity that refused to take her on as a counsellor after completing their training because she was trans, or even the "glitterbombing" of Germaine Greer by "trans activists."

I wouldn't be surprised that an African American woman say 40 years ago would have felt patronised and offended by Aunt Rose's views and reliance on ill-informed stereotypes and anecdotes to form judgements about women of colour. One could also understand her anger at the thought of being regarded as "not really a woman/person" and being excluded from some places by virtue of not being considered "really a woman/person."

Is it really that surprising that trans women feel something similar when confronted with something similar?

Just reading back, bear with me

HoopDePoop "All this means that actually, as with all sorts of other things, we can 'play God' to quite a serious extent with our bodies, should we choose to. If you disagree on a moral basis that a man should not be able to alter his sex then that's different to stating that it is categorically impossible."

I think it is categorically impossible to change sex, though it is possible to control hormones in such a way that they mimic the levels common to the opposite sex. However this may occur naturally where a man has lots of oestrogen or a woman lots of testosterone and doesn't mean that person has actually changed sex.

This isn't a moral argument.

kim and mini I want to answer both of you at the same time.

What I mean is that 98% of sex offenders are male and 2% are female. I wonder at what point you'd postulate transpeople go from being part of the 98% to the 2% or vice versa (considering that MTFs tend to transition late in their 40s 50s & 60s).

Also, it is not just sex offenders as extreme as rapists that would make me feel uncomfortable in a women's loo. It is also bumping into your common-or-garden creepy men and street sexual harassers.

And I am not heavily invested in loos as I am consciousness-raising, support groups and feminist organising spaces being women-only.

KRITIQ Aunt Rose believed "negroes" were something of a "sub species,"

Well yes, sub-human is consistent with non-human. But 'non-woman' (male) is not consistent with 'sub-woman' (lesser female). I don't believe transwomen are 'sub-women' - although lots of others seem to suggest this is the case. Transwomen are males who feel strongly that they are women and may take hormones or have surgery to make this realistic. But this doesn't make them actual 'women', unless you accept that self-definition is all it is that makes a woman a woman.