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.

Another aspect of the politics of all this; that I know a lot of lesbian women in particular are concerned about, is the homophobic societal pressure on gay men and lesbian women to transition rather than come out. Many lesbian feminists have expressed concern about this and have said that they could easily have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and encouraged to transition to men when they are not men at all - they are lesbian women who refuse to perform femininity as required by strict patriarchal gender norms.

For example, Iran, a country where homosexuality is punishable by death, is one of the countries with the highest rate of sex-reassignment surgeries.

This again is something that people should be able to discuss without being called transphobic and intimidated. But it seems that is not allowed.

Sexing eggs.
I know someone who used to do this.

When people sex eggs for hatching, some eggs show up as being mixed, neither 100% male or 100% female.
So I dont see why transpeople cannot be who they feel themselves to be.

dreaming - I would accept someone who'd been born to cries of 'it's a girl!', raised as a woman, and then found they had XY chromosomes, as a woman. I don't know what others think to this. But for me, it's not that biology itself is completely defining - it's that biology is set out as the basic binary division from birth.

A person raised as female who turned out to have XY chromosomes would not be able to be pregnant or have a period, but they would have been brought up to expect that they were part of the group of people to whom those things happened.

dreamingbohemian, there is a biological difference between human females and human males is there not?

In fact the only difference between human females and males is biological, much of it reproductive.

As far as I am concerned, women are female, yes.

Although I agree with what LRD says in the unusual cases where the above happens.

I guess for me, female is biological and woman is biology + socialisation.

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)?"

Maybe not a spokesperson for feminism, but Janet Street Porter has defended Burchill's language in her SIndy column yesterday. And I can see on this and on the other thread a lot of moaning how poor Julie and other people who wrote hateful stuff have been "silenced". Because it's apparently ok to tell trans people to cut it out, but not those who want them banned.

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

That seems to be Burchill's argument, and the argument of that person in the OP link, complaining about wordpress having put a stop to the hatespeech they published.

That's interesting, beach, I was wondering if anyone would agree, or not.

I agree with your female/woman definition.

I'm speculating now, so bear with me (or skip this post). I was thinking how, in the US especially, lots of people choose to identify as 'black' because it is a cultural and political identity, not merely a matter of race. It's not because people think about race in a simplistic way.

Back in the day, extremely racist people believed that if you were part black and part white, you'd taken on the characteristics of the 'black' part of you. They thought being black determined who you were, how intelligent you were, what your sex life was like - it's a really horrible view of race. It separated 'men' (=white humans) from people who were considered less than men.

We would think it absurd and offensive if someone suggesting that identifying as 'black' meant that you accepted that horrible, binary view of race, where being born black meant your whole identity was mapped out.

But we know why people identify as black, and that identity has roots in the extreme racism I'm describing.

I think the situation with women identifying biologically as 'women' is perhaps similar?

amillionyears, I think you may be talking about intersex eggs.

A lot of intersex people feel their existence has been hijacked by transpolitics - they often say that they feel 'colonized'.

Intersex is a biological identity.

cherryblossomlife.com/2012/06/11/intersex-community-unite-with-radfems-against-the-transsexual-empire/

WW - well, thank god I've disagreed with Burchill many, many times and condemned her piece on the last thread you and I were on.

There are countless biological differences within the human race -- not all of them are meaningful, or rise to the level of impacting upon identity. Diabetics and non-diabetics are biologically different, but this has not become a major cleavage in society.

The biological differences between men and women are only significant because we attach significance to them, and have done throughout human history.

The crux of a constructivist argument would be that it is too simple to say that women are women because they are biologically born that way. Nothing about identity is innate, it all stems from the way we think about ourselves.

Obviously biology is an important element of gender identity, but I personally don't believe it's the only one, or should be used as a criteria for group inclusion. To me, the defining criteria should be whether one is oppressed by the patriarchy by virtue of one's identity, whether born or assumed.

Absolutely! That is what I have been trying to say. It's not that I think biology should be important per se - but society attached significance to it, and has done through history.

I don't know what gender identity is, outside of roles like 'femininity' and 'masculinity', though, and this is something I struggle with. Some people (trans and not) feel a strong gender identity. I don't think that I do.

Thanks for the link Beachcomber. Will have a more in depth read later.
On first glance, I am now more confused than ever re the thread.
Thanks anyway.

yes yes and more yes
i think of myself as a woman, this is part of my identity not directly because of the shape of my bits but indirectly because the shape of my bits determines how I am treated and the expectations placed on me

oh ok. people who don't, nor ever have identified as feminists said something hateful about transpeople, and that is feminism's fault, and MNers, especially those on this thread need to...apologise? disavow it, more than they already have?

i see posters wanting space to discuss ideas around gender, and how it affects them as women, but i don't see anyone shouting death to transpeople, using slurs or otherwise. MN is shit hot on deleting transphobic posts, and there haven't been any deletions on this thread yet, i don't think.

probably these posts from MNers saying terrible things about transpeople on this thread, and using hate speech are really obvious, and i'm missing them cos i'm just a thicko. can anyone direct me to them?

I have never verbally abused a transgender person because of their transgender status. I have pulled people up for being very fucking rude though.

I don't think I have, either, AF.

I think people who're transgender are (generalization) in a pretty horrible position, and often demonstrably suffering hugely. I'm aware that we could trot out examples of individuals who don't fit that profile and who might even be doing horrible things to the people around them. But I reckon by and large, most of these people will be ordinary people who're struggling. The issue is not with individuals. The issue is the way our whole society has rallied round and decided that it can find a new way to push women's issues down. Which I honestly think is what is happening.

You're welcome amillionyears, although this is a much better link if you are looking for scientific info on intersex conditions.

www.aissg.org/21_OVERVIEW.HTM

Kim, I think everyone just wants to be accepted for who they are. All politics is about real people. I don't argue that gender is socially constructed rather than innate as some abstract game. I do so because I want to be accepted as me. I don't want 'femininity' to be used by patriarchy as a way to oppress me. I don't want my son to get told because he's a boy 'masculinity' is innate and he must conform. It's all about people.

I love Kim147

I am a happily married woman btw

Kim, I wish you all the best and I hope you find the peace you are looking for.

I think maybe one of the big differences is that you want to walk down the street and be accepted as a woman. I, as a woman, want to go through life being accepted as a human.

And I agree with Alice that politics is about real people. I care about this issue because it is very real to me - not as an academic subject that it is fun to debate over.

'I just want to live and be accepted. I've said this before on plenty of these threads but I'll say it again.

Yes - there are biological differences between men and women. Personally I think it's more complex than simple XX and XY chromosomes. I know enought about genetics, gene expression, epigenetics and the fact that quite simply things go wrong to understand that each cell is complicated.

As for the brain - we're only beginning to understand how that works. The soul, what makes us us. I have no idea if there are male / female brain diffences or even if there is a part of the brain that tells us "what we are". It would be arrogant to say there is or to deny it. No one knows.

All I can say is that from the age of 12, things felt very wrong. I totally didn't fit in. Is that the pressure society places on us for gender expectations or something deeper? That's a good question. No denying society places a lot of pressure on people to conform and it is hard for males and females to defy gender expectations.

But it's deeper. I want with all my heart to walk down the street, to sit at a bar and to live'

Right up to here, kim, I was nodding along. I stop there, because I don't know what it's like to be accepted as a woman. I've always felt as if being a woman made me automatically on the outside, not accepted. It's always felt as if just by the look of my body, people feel it's ok to comment on my sex life and how my private parts look, and what I enjoy sexually. Or they look at me and assume I'm 'frigid' and an inferior version of what they are. They assume my genitals are an abbreviated version of theirs, that probably doesn't function right (because, we all know women don't always come, right? ).

I want to be able to talk without 99% of people listening judging me for not being feminine enough, or for being too 'shrill' or too 'masculine' or whatever. I would love to find that during a conversation, I'd be allowed to comment without having to interrupt or fight for it. I would love to have just one conversation with a senior academic in my field, where he doesn't stand too close and wait for me to step back. I would love to know how I'm mean to act when I don't feel as if I fit in with my gender at all. Because my gender is meant to be simpering and flirting and keeping quiet during the important talks.

I would love not to have this body with breasts and curves, that means when I walk down the street, men stare and catcall and make me feel like a freak show.

I don't know what you're going through, and I know I don't know, and I wish you luck - but so much of what you describe sounds exactly like what I'm used to already.