Women are being censored because they wish to discuss the politics of gender. I say NO. Who wants to join me?

[Beachcomber]

Ok, I'm guessing that many here have heard about Julie Burchill's explosive article defending her friend Suzanne Moore against trans activists.

I'm also guessing that there are a lot of women who don't know that trans activists have been becoming increasingly influential in many areas that affect Women's Rights since the 1980s and 90s. These areas include feminist websites and blogs (such as the F word), feminist meetings and conferences, women's music festivals, in feminist literature and in academia teaching gender studies (a subject that used to be taught as women's studies) and in post-modernist and queer theory circles.

Transactivists call any resistance to their increasing influence and presence in these areas of female interest "transphobic". Discussion of gender identity as an oppressive social construct and as a threat to feminism and women's rights is also considered transphobic. Consequently, discussion of women as being a political class of people oppressed due to our sex and our reproductive capacity is becoming harder and harder for feminists to have without being accused of transphobia and bigotry. This is very very concerning.

Numerous women have been threatened or silenced by these people (for example they have been no platformed and/or picketed at feminist events or attacked and threatened after writing articles or essays discussing gender identity).

Let me be very clear that this discussion is about transactivists and people who threaten others into silence. It is not about transpeople in general (some of whom have stated that they are afraid to get involved in the controversy).

In my opinion, no matter which side of the gender identity debate one stands on, surely we can all agree that debate should be allowed to take place. One side cannot be allowed to shout down, threaten and silence the other.

The recent events are not just about differing opinions on gender identity though (or I wouldn't be bothering to post this), they are about women's right to talk about and identify sex based oppression and male supremacy, and therefore to fight against sex based oppression and male supremacy. And that is why this is an important if not vital issue for women's rights.

I think women's rights politics are reaching a pivotal moment - a moment in which we must stand up for our right to discuss our status as second class citizens as a result of the biological fact that we are female. If we can't discuss it, we don't have much hope of fighting it.

bugbrennan.com/2013/01/19/for-every-one-of-us-you-silence-100-more-will-rise-to-take-her-place/

To summarise the link - a well known and influential feminist blogger has been censored for discussing the issues outlined above. She is not the first woman to be silenced by these people. I think it is about time we stood up to them.

Thanks for reading.

It isn't biological essentialism to say that female bodies exist. Biological essentialism is when people say that because the female body exists society always have to develop social constructions around it in the same way. Clearly societies don't.

What feminists are arguing is that for ethical reasons some social responses to the body are more appropriate than others - those that respond to the female body in ways that avoid pain, suffering, impairment and death where possible. To make those responses we have to acknowledge that people with female bodies exist as a group. That does not require everyone to acknowledge their individual bodies as part of the way they self-identify.

Okay I officially have a chest infection (booo) so not sure how much longer I can keep my head in this debate

But just wanted to say I agree with marfisa and Kritiq (and thanks for articulating things more clearly!). I particularly agree with marfisa saying:

To me, if you see gender identity as a construct something fluid, that varies from woman to woman, and depends upon one's particular experiences and one's particular culture then you are not going to get hung up on vaginas or the lack of them. That's precisely what patriarchy gets hung up on, saying that women's biology dictates who they are and how they behave (or should behave).

I do appreciate Beach and everyone else explaining their position in more detail, I think I see where you are coming from better, though I haven't quite been converted It seems to me the contradiction lies in diagnosis vs response -- your diagnosis of the problem of male oppression depends heavily on constructivist thinking, but your suggested response to it (a female identity based in biology) is basically anti-constructivist. So from the POV of theory construction, I find this problematic.

I also disagree very strongly that female identity is determined only by the patriarchy -- and this is probably the root of my overall disagreement. If you agree that identity can be constructed, then that means it is influenced by all forces in society, not just the most powerful. And isn't this historically obvious? If this weren't the case, we would never have had all these important advances in women's rights.

Structures of power mean that the patriachy's influence on the construct is dominant. But why buy into that by insisting on a female identity rooted in biology? That just strengthens their construct! Of course you can't ignore biology, but you can change the significance attached to it. It doesn't make sense to me to on the one hand insist that having a vagina is the determining criteria of being a woman, and then turn around to men and insist on not being defined by having a vagina!

Presumably we agree that being defined by our biology is a bad thing. So why insist on self-defining by biology? It isn't just the patriarchy that gets to define things. I think believing they are the sole determinants of our identity is a huge mistake.

But thanks again to everyone and if I disappear it's the meds, sorry

I think it would be odd if it wasn't the case that society acknowledges this, it's biological, its natural. I don't think society places us in these categories so much as acknowledges its exsistence and then builds a narrative to explain sex based oppression as being a result of what is a given and non-negotiable fact.

Just noticed freya has said much the same thing. X posted

DB, arguing that a particular social construction is wrong isn't making an argument against social constructions in general. It isn't anti-constructivist. It is just against a particular kind of social construction. If we get rid of all social constructions there would be no society and humans literally can't survive without them.

Sorry to hear you're not well, dreaming.

I think I'm probably being over-simple, but I have ishooos (if I can put it like that ) with being told we're all subscribing to a theory you've brought up, and doing it wrong.

I am aware theories are useful ways to explain how people think. I know it's quite possible to have your though process informed by a theory, without having actually got go grips with that theory, because it's become part of the conceptual frameworks people use.

But despite that, I'm not really convinced this theory is as relevant as you think it is. I'm certainly not using it in any deliberate sense. Maybe if you think we're misusing it, it'd just be easier to drop it, and instead just look at what we're saying instead of trying to bend it into a theoretical framework that doesn't fit? It's just, it feels as if that's what you're doing.

(I should say I am rubbish at 'theory' and I know it's a limitation, so this could well be my issue.)

I think it would be helpful not to look at theory and just look at what people want. Some people want to self identify by biology (and do other things like create activism to help people in that group, research that group, provide aid for that group etc). Some people want to self identify on internal identity (and do other things to help people in their group) and some people want the same based on gender roles.

So why can't we just accept that people want different things and let them have them? If somebody wants to be part of a group based on category A, let them do that with those who want the same. The same for people in C, D, E, F.

You can only choose your own identity. You can't insist other people share your identity and belong to exactly the same group as you if they don't think they are.

I agree.

And what gets my goat about all this 'everything is a social construction' double think is that if you take it to its 'logical' conclusion you end up defending the indefensible because otherwise your whole theory falls apart and your belief system is shown to be flawed.

Earlier on this thread, quite a few people said that they could see why female victims of sexual violence would not always want to be around male bodied persons. We used the example of a safe space to talk about rape but I think the argument is equally valid in quite a few different situations such as lesbian sexual intimacy.

So where do you draw the line? How can a transwoman be sometimes a woman but sometimes not? How do you square that circle? If she isn't a woman when FAABs are discussing their experiences of male violence how can she be a woman the rest of the time? It doesn't make sense. It is cognitive dissonance. It is smoke and mirrors with no real substance.

And this is how we end up in situations like so much of the transgender community and their liberal counterparts defending the actions of someone like Colleen Francis. Because if they stick to the 'gender identity = sex' theory, they have to defend Francis. And they have to call anyone who doesn't defend Francis, a transphobe and a bigot.

And that is what is so fucked up about this whole thing.

Francis does not represent transgender people. I am not arguing that he is representative or that any generalisations should be made about transgender people on the basis of his actions. What I do want to say however, is lots of people who argue that gender identity = sex, defended Francis. They also accused people who did not defend Francis as being transphobes and bigots. And the law was on their side.

Reassuringly, there are lots of transgender people who see this for what it is and who talk common sense and see that Francis and his defenders have done a huge disservice to trans people who are realistic about the concrete limitations of transgender theory and about the implications of socialization, biological fact and male privilege.

This blog, written by a transwoman says some stuff that people who defend the 'gender identity = sex' theory might want to consider.

ben-girl-notesfromthetside.blogspot.fr/2012/11/demeaning-women-transgender-style.html

ben-girl-notesfromthetside.blogspot.fr/2012/11/colleen-francis-and-tg-big-guns-support.html

ben-girl-notesfromthetside.blogspot.fr/2012/11/update-on-colleen-francis.html

ben-girl-notesfromthetside.blogspot.fr/2012/11/another-colleen-francis-update.html

PG, yes. Anybody can self identify as either trans or cis, and there are lots of different categories of trans people.

Identifying as a person and not a man or woman is one kind of trans identity. It's up to you whether or not you want to tell people you identify that way, much as people who desire only those of the same sex don't have to self identify as gay.

But it isn't necessary to fit into a binary if you don't want to and have the strength not to. If people want to use words like ze and hir, or heme or anything else rather than she and her, I am happy to make the attempt to use those words when talking about them. I thought Australia was introducing a third gender on passports, so things can move in that direction if we want them to.

I agree kim, it does and in a political sense when not all people are equal it seems more important than perhaps it should be.

I dislike having to prefix women with cis or indeed Trans. Which is why I asked if trans women like having to prefix their gender with "trans"

I even dislike class labels such as miss, mrs, dr, and letters after names. I would like to see an end to that too. Maybe then we could start to use something in place of him/her as well, I like comrade

It seems obvious to me we can all be women, we all suffer oppression as women. But......sex is different. No amount of mental gymnastics gets over the fact that Females are born female. I think we need to look at where there is commonality in the oppression we face, whilst still respecting the differences (based on biological determinism).

The commonality is where you make progress - getting men to dust the house and women to fight on the front line and getting men the right to stay home with babies and their wives work if a man wants that and vice versa in a gender neutral way.

It is not the reality for most parents' lives that they have time to talk about political or feminist details. The reality is that someone needs to put on the washer and earn money. Very few people are transgender either so that is not a big issue although very important to those people.

Who can be in my gang is an issue just about every group of school boys and girls has always had and adults have it too.

Most parents I know do talk about their political views, as well as talking about all manner of other non-work related things like what they've been watching on TV. Just because very few people of my generation identify as trans, that doesn't mean it is the same for younger people or where we are heading with generations to come.

I can't see why we would need to take account people's brain sex unless there was some obvious benefit to it. If certain people 'women' had a part of their brain that showed they were more vulnerable to a particular illness and that couldn't be seen by other body parts, then I could see why we need to know brain sex. But if brain sex just controls feelings and emotions, can't people just tell us their feelings and emotions and identify their own gender without biological evidence?

I think it might still exist Kim. If there were no gender differences, some people could still really feel they would be happier if they had a different kind of body. That happens with a variety of bodily experiences. Some people feel at odds with their body if they're pregnant as if doesn't feel 'natural' for them and that doesn't have to be to do with gender roles, so wanting to have or not have a penis, breasts, certain hip shape etc could be the same.