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.

[GothAnneGeddes]

Turnip - I honestly wish I was.

Just look on sites like "Twanzphobic since forever" and other sites of that ilk and tell me that they don't view trans women as subhuman (and worse).

That's what I find so sinister about this thread. It's an attempt to put a logically face on what is naked, ugly hatred.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

dreaming - does anyone want it?

I don't know that I do. In an ideal world my biology wouldn't be at issue. But we are oppressed by it and ignoring it makes it harder to counteract that.

goth - but isn't it equally 'naked, ugly hatred' on both sides? No-one seriously thinks death threats, or sites set up to attack someone's appearance without their knowledge, are in any way acceptable. There are some nasty, twisted people who call themselves rad fems or transactivists, who do these things - but can't we just look at them as the lunatic fridge and disengage?

[TunipTheVegedude]

Those sites are very angry but I have never seen them calling for transgender people to die - perhaps you have. And meanwhile the 'die Cis scum' meme continues.

[TunipTheVegedude]

(btw, it's Tunip not Turnip. Thanks.)

[Beachcomber]

I'm not too sure how helpful it is to get into 'he said/she said' type accusations.

I think there has been unpleasantness on both sides - feelings run high on this issue, but that is no excuse for nasty language, mocking or intimidation. From anybody.

I do think people have the right to express themselves on a political matter in direct and factual language however, say in the manner of Sheila Jeffreys, without being shouted down, no platformed and intimidated.

Let us be free to debate transgenderism without being accused of 'hate speech'. Researchers and theorists who question the practice of transgenderism are subjected to campaigns of intimidation

[EldritchCleavage]

Goth, I was absolutely horrified to read the quotations you posted earlier. I suspect a lot of other posters on here simply don't know the depths of hatred to which some people have gone. But surely we need to see and treat it as unrepresentative and bizarre extremism(on both sides). I can't feel any loyalty to people who express those kinds of views, even if in other contexts we have the same views.

[TunipTheVegedude]

The 'ugly naked hatred' against women who talk about this stuff is breathtaking. You saw the tweets against Suzanne Moore, I'm sure. But by naming that for what it is we are 'stirring ourselves up into a festering hatred'.

[GothAnneGeddes]

LRD - but Cathy Brennan - who wants SRS outlawed is the vanguard of this movement and the blogs all link to each other.

Tunip - what exactly is saying that trans people shouldn't exist? Tell me how you'd feel about a site that said that gay people shouldn't exist?

You will find few within wider feminism defending "die cis scum", although USians do have a Free Speech is Sacroscant fetish.

Moreover, you'll find very few claiming that "die cis scum" is essential for the future of feminism.

"Die cis scum" is extremist said by very few, "Trans people are mutilated males who shouldn't be accepted by society" is normal discourse in Gender Trender circles.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

So, it's ok to display 'ugly, naked hatred' towards someone, so long as you disagree with them?

[dreamingbohemian]

LRD I'm not saying ignore biology, but it seems to me there is a lot of insistence here on biology as what defines a woman. That it's important to maintain a female identity that is rooted in biology. I just don't quite get this, because surely if biology is the root of oppression, it makes sense to diminish its centrality and meaningfulness. We might be limited in our capacity to do this, but that doesn't mean there's nothing we can do constructs are not solely defined by the oppressor.

[GothAnneGeddes]

Tunip - I saw what was posted on Storify, SM did not cover herself in glory their either.

Anyway, if someone discussed race and got hatemail from some black people, would it be ok to be racist?

Or is it just when trans people are involved that it's ok to hate them all and claim they have too many rights as a result?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

dreaming - ah, ok. Well, but, in order to identify a root of oppression, don't we have to name it, and analyze it, and establish which groups of people are affected by it?

I like the idea constructs are not solely defined by the oppressor. I hope that maybe what people are doing with terminology helps here - like using 'she or he' not just he, that sort of thing. I will have to think more about how that could be made to work with biology too.

This may be a daft point, but I was thinking about it yesterday - isn't it odd that the biology we're used to being told about is binary (male vs female), but actually there's not a binary opposition early on, it's more unbalanced than that. There's XX and XY, not XX and YY. I think to understand how to re-defined constructs in a non-oppressive way I'd have to think a lot about how biology as a discipline gets taught and thought about.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

goth - but if you can see why it's not ok to be racist in response to someone sending hate mail, why are you justifying misogyny as a response to attacks on transpeople? Surely none of it makes any sense?

[AliceWChild]

DB - thanks. It's about power innit. You see I think it is people with power that define social constructs. I think ultimately attempts to redefine them by those without power will be subsumed and redefined by those with power so they can continue to perpetuate their power. I'm thinking out loud a bit, but we've gone from feminists identifying gender as socially constructed therefore not actually existing, to queer theory playing about with gender and subverting it, to an alignment with trans arguments which take gender back to something that actually exists in people's brains. It starts to seem like patriarchy started to notice that people spotting gender was socially constructed, and therefore optional, needed reframing as something necessary that meant patriarchy could prop it right back up again. Does that make any sense? It's a bit fresh out of my head.

[GothAnneGeddes]

LRD - read my post again. The term I used was hatemail - something that is clearly not justified.

If in my example someone discussed race and received hatemail - the hate mail is clearly wrong, regardless of the sender.

But, the recipient would NOT then be justified to say "Look at those black people sending me hatemail, well they are "racist remark" " and then have one of your friends do a massive piece in a Sunday paper using hateful speech against black people, telling them they'd better watch out as the white people are getting angry.

[dreamingbohemian]

I do think you can see this whole debate as a struggle amongst women to self-define the construct.

All in-groups have processes to determine who is or is not a member of that group, and often those criteria are subject to fierce debate and subject to change. It is not just a vertical interaction between oppressor and oppressed, there are horizontal processes within the oppressed group as well.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I've read it again - I'm sorry, I don't follow what you're getting at?

You're assuming that transpeople are in the position of black people, and anyone who objects to them is a bigot, like a racist.

That is in itself, surely, just as offensive? Why is it ok to characterise one kind of hateful attitude as bad, but not bad enough to justify any response, whereas the other kind you equate with racism and condemn as bigotry?

I don't think racism is a good parallel, because misogyny and transphobia aren't neat opposites.

[dreamingbohemian]

Alice I do see and I think those are great points it is all about power. I kind of think though that the response of those in power might not be as subtle as you're saying -- they are too reactionary for that. They will be more obvious. They won't be promoting the arguments of trans inclusion, they will be clinging to old-school sexism, so we get sexy teenage pop stars and trendy labiaplasty, etc.

I think you are so right though, it's not like the oppressor sits back and lets the oppressed redefine the construct without any fight-back.

[chibi]

who has defended burchill's . language? which spokesperson for feminism has said yes, actually, it is great to call transpeople hateful names (apart from random bloggers)?

why should i have to exculpate myself for the statements of others?

and yet, that's how a number of posts here read - feminists think transpeople have too many rights, feminists think transpeople are subhuman.

ok. i promise i will never ever again make julie burchill write hateful articles about transpeople again, and i promise to have her shot from a cannon into space if she does. sorry i made her do it, it was all my fault.

[drwitch]

some really interesting and thoughtprovoking stuff here can i summarise my thoughts
Q1 are there some people who hate transexuals and think that surgery should be outlawed? - yes clearly
Q2 are these people representative of any group of feminsts-no
Q3 have there been some very nasty attacks on women writing about transgender issues from a less than sympathetic point of view- yes clearly
Q4 are these representative of transpeople - no
Q5 do many feminists question the possibility that people can truly be women but born as men or vice versa? yes as many believe gender to be a social not a biological construct
Q6 are some of us uncomfortable with the idea of surgery? yes because it can appear that people are mutilating themselves in order to get acceptance to be the sort of people they want to be.

[Beachcomber]

But if we're being oppressed on the basis of our biology, why would you want that biology to be the defining characteristic of our identity?

DreamingBohemian I don't think it is about arguing for biology being the defining characteristic of our entire identity.

It is about us being allowed to have a biological identity (that of human females) which is recognised for the specific requirements that identity presents (that of pregnancy, birth, menstruation, health aspects of the female reproductive system, etc) but without it being used as a pretext for oppressing us.

Equality in other words.

Males are not the default human in biology, although they are in society.

[Greythorne]

chibi Mon 21-Jan-13 14:00:48
who has defended burchill's . language?

The only person I see applauding Burchill is Rod Liddle!

[dreamingbohemian]

But as far as I can tell, you are arguing that women can be considered women (in the identity sense) only if they are biologically born as such. If they are not biologically a woman, then they cannot be considered a woman. So how is biology not the defining characteristic and criteria of being a woman?

Are there any other groups who self-identify as women whose membership you would reject? It doesn't sound like it. Is the basis for rejecting trans people the fact that they are not biologically born women? It sounds like it. So it seems to me that biology is the first and foremost marker of differentiation, in your view.

[chibi]

that noted leader of the feminist movement in the uk

between me putting her up to it, and old . liddle cheering her on, feminism is doooooooooooomed

if anyone needs me i'll be in to corner being a beautiful genderfree unoppressible unicorn

[Greythorne]

Genuine question: please can someone give concrete examples of 'cis privilege'?

I see people above arguing that whet is widely put forward as 'cis privilege' is actually 'male privilege'.

Any concrete example which refute this?