TERF

[ReallyFuckingFedUp]

So I have seen this expression a lot lately... and TERF gets thown out a lot when feminists are discussing things that are only capable of affecting biologically female women.

And I just can't get my head around it tbh. I don't think feminism should exclude people I think it helps everyone. I get really upset when white feminists forget about WOC or Lesbians, or other minority groups because the point of feminism is to make women's lives better. SO if there an issue that is unique to black women (for example) it is still all of our issue and should be dealt with by all feminist.

So if trans women want in on feminism why do they think can exclude the majority of women by saying we can't discuss our issues? And if trans people want to be accepted and have their rights championed by feminism is that fair since the majority of feminists aren't also suffering those same problems? Is it not a huge double standard?

Abortion rights and prenatal care and contraceptive health, vaginal rape. Are these things off the table now for feminism?

Am I getting it wrong, missing something? It feels to me like male privilege, telling women what they can and can't talk about..and doing so in a way where they actually feel guilty as though they have done something wrong.

God this is so hard, this discussion.

I don't want to share my naked spaces with people with penises. Am I like, terrified of penises? I'm pretty certain Germaine Greer writes scathingly on this. But I'm also sure she's not saying, get into my sauna with me, pantrans women.

At the same time, I'm fairly certain that if I were a transwoman I'd be pretty terrified of hetrosexual males, who are horribly violent towards people who in some perceived way undermine masculinity. I would not want to be a transwoman in a male changing room.

That is true of a gay man in a man's changing room.

He too is not safe from male violence.

Should we provide gay men with a refuge from men by inviting them into our naked spaces as well?

It makes at least as much sense, possibly more. A gay man is not interested in women sexually. A transwoman with a penis who claims she is a lesbian and has been socialised to think sex is her right, may be. The gay man might be preferable in terms of feeling safe.

However, I don't really see why women's safety should be compromised for the sake of men or those who say they are women but grimly hang on to their penises.

It makes at least as much sense, possibly more. A gay man is not interested in women sexually. A transwoman with a penis who claims she is a lesbian and has been socialised to think sex is her right, may be. The gay man might be preferable in terms of feeling safe.

That's a good point.

And interestingly women don't avoid changing rooms because an actual lesbian might be in there do they? No, because women aren't programmed to take sex when they want it. I have no fear of lesbians, and while I know in theory that women can be abused by women it has never happened to me and or anyone I know. Where as I know so many women who have been abused by people with penises.

No, I don't think we should be providing these various groups access to women only space.

Not sure I like the idea that gay men are somehow less threatening just because it implies that sexual violence and intimidation is about desire and not control. I've met a horribly, entitled-to-female-body gay guy, he was like a prototype Trinny and Susannah, all grabbing boobs and commenting on clothes.

I think oogling etc is about power and entitlement and not about actual desire

OMG he wasn't Gok Wan was he?

Yes you're quite right.

I guess I'm thinking in terms of coercive sexual situations which starts off with chatting up, intruding on personal space etc. But that may be totally invalid and you're right, I have met gay men who are all over women treating them in a way they wouldn't tolerate from a straight man and using that thing of being gay, as a carte blanche to overstep boundaries.

Gok Wan had nothing on this guy, he was horrible. Such a massive twat.

Is it male gaze that we are talking about here? I'm not saying that as in men-looking-at-women per se but in the politics of who looks at whom and in what context? That's certainly at play when I'm thinking about why I don't want gay men or straight men in my changing room, not because of sex and desire so much as the politics of looking, the problem of subject/ object relationships and the way that is gendered. Not sure where that leaves transwomen?

Buffy, you might find what Sheila Jeffreys and Julie Bindel have to say, on trans politics, interesting. Good luck with your diagnosis.

[[https://senate.aph.gov.au/submissions/comittees/viewdocument.aspx?id=571cefa9-9b5d-4727-8df0-c6bfdfa9add7 Submission to the public consultation on the Human
Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill]]

Transgender Activism: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective

www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/2298/full

Comment on harmful practices: the transgendering of children as a harmful emerging practice in Australia

Allowing Alex's sex change shows up a gender-biased Family Court

I think it's partly the male gaze, that sense of intrusion by a stranger who has been socialised to appraise and rate me in terms of my sexual acceptability. I resent it in mixed changing areas (same way I resent men flicking their eyes up and down my body when they talk to me), but as all of us do, I adapt to it and find ways to avoid the intrusion and accept that it's part of being in a mixed changing area. You wouldn't be in the same mind frame if you thought you were in a same sex area, so the need to suddenly start adapting the way you do in the company of men, would be a huge intrusion.

Women's space is different from mixed - ie male - space.

Men are trained to take up space, to own space. If we look at how they sit, stand, walk, where they feel dominant they take up more space and where they do not feel dominant (like being with senior men, older men, richer men etc.) they take up less space. This is probably also true of women. When we are in spaces with each other, we are more comfortable in those spaces as we feel we have an equal right to occupy them. We move differently in them.

When we're with men, we shrink ourselves, we keep out of their way, we defer to them and they don't even notice we're doing it (and actually most of the time we don't either, it's so internalised that it's automatic). When men aren't around, we relax in the space.

Knowing there may be someone around who calls himself a woman but has a penis and has been socialised to appraise me, would mean that there is one less space in the world where I'm allowed to feel safe, comfortable and to own the space on an equal basis with the other users of the space.

I've only become aware of it in the last few years as my consciousness has been raised about it tbh.

I sometimes catch myself using really deferential body-language around men, which I don't use around women. And they don't even notice I'm doing it, they take it as their right. (And neither do I till I catch myself.) What I find fascinating about this is how gendered basic things like movement are - things you would think are innate, because they're so normal, but no, we learn how to sit, stand, walk. I remember round about the age of 11 ish the policing of my body language started - don't sit like that, don't walk like that etc. Boy's body language doesn't get policed like that. Women's body movements start being restricted when we reach puberty and by the time we're adults, we've internalised the restrictions and they come naturally to us and we don't notice them. Women who don't use feminised body language stand out and are noticeable. And disapproved of by men.

I think this is very interesting and important to talk about.
So feminine body language is actually restricted body language.
Is there anything typically feminine that involves taking up a lot of space with your body/voice?

Briar - I can only think of a performance context, like dance.

Which often, involves dance designed to attract the Male Gaze

Yes that was all I could think of too. Dancing and singing beautifully. No rocknroll!

you're welcome buffy. it is all stuff i have in favourites so no bother to link to.

thread about space sounds like a great idea.

I have been reading this with interest and, as it's not something I know very much about, have been looking at the links and googling as I go. Have I got this right?

1. Some people feel they are not the same gender as their physical body would suggest so they can take steps to make them a different gender.
2. Some of those people do not wish to change their bodies physically but would like to call themselves/consider themselves by their chosen gender anyway.
3. Those people have the legal right, in some places, and there is a growing body of thought in other places that supports this, to do just that.
4. Once people have chosen their new gender, they can then tell people of that gender what they can campaign for and what they ought to think about certain issues to do with their gender.

I get point 1. I am sympathetic to point 2 (as in the idea of physical surgery must be daunting) but, surely, if you can't physically change your gender then noone else can really recognise that change in you. I think point 3 is a nonsense - I can't just decide I'm a man and expect to start using male toilets/locker rooms - other men would be very uncomfortable with that, surely? At the very least, it would be rude and insensitive on my part. As for point 4 - it's a nonsene point again because those people who have not lived as a gender all their lives will not have the same experiences so how can they possibly tell what those who have had that gender all their lives are thinking? It would be like me telling someone who has had gender issues what to think about them - how would I possibly know??

The points I still don't get are: how do men who have not changed their physical gender (but say they are women) think that lesbians will be interested in them? Surely a lesbian is someone who most certainly is not attracted to someone who is physically male - if they were attracted to them, then they wouldn't be a lesbian anymore, would they??

As for sharing locker rooms with people who are not physically male, you are either sharing with a) a man who is trying to trck their way into a female locker room or b) a person who thinks they are a woman but can't do anything about it physically - which is unfortunate, but very confusing for the average woman/young female child in the locker room. Obviously a) is unacceptable and b) is sad but impractical really - and a bit dangerous because how would you tell the differenece between them?

Yes rosabud, you have got it right.

And what you describe is the reasonable side of transgender politics.

There is a more extreme side which insists that penises can be female, that transwomen have the right to cervical cancer screening, that men can give birth, that saying women menstruate and breastfeed is transphobic and that women only safe spaces such as rape crisis centres, prisons, refuges, etc must allow entry of male bodied persons who claim they are women.

And the scary thing is that the law is on the side of these extremists.

Imagine a situation where a rape victim must be medically examined and that rape victim, quite understandably requests that the examination be done by a woman. If that rape victim refuses to be examined by a male bodied nurse who has a penis and takes no hormones but claims that they are a woman and wears lipstick and tights, the rape victim is being transphobic and breaking the law.

That is the actual legislative reality since the Gender Recognition Act. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Recognition_Act_2004

I think that's awful - and I think it's really scary that I didn't know about this before. What do they mean by they have to have transitioned for 2 years? Does that mean, completely living as a woman - but how could that be proved unless they physically changed their bodies? And how can you be screend for cervical cancer if you haven't got a cervix? Are there women who think they are men asking to be screened for prostate cancer even if they haven't got a prostate? And what about the poor lesbians who might go on a date with one of these women and then be in for a bit of a shock? If I went on a date with a woman who thought she was a man but turned out not to actually be physically male then I'd feel really cross! And a bit creeped out, to be honest.

That is quite scary, Beach.

Can you imagine anyone really asking for that? It's really hard to imagine someone transgendered would demand to work as a nurse in a rape crisis centre? You would think that any sort of transgendered person would have at the centre of their experience the violences of gender? Holy fuck. I would think there should be some sort of rape crisis get-out clause to be really specific about who examines you (no brunettes! no one with a geordie accent! even sort of stuff) because of the fact the individual is in crisis and could be triggered. Everyone would surely be able to recognise that supporting the requests of an individual in that sort of crisis is not analogous with supporting the suggestion that everyone with said geordie accent or whatever 'is' a rapist, or saying anything about any given group that the person in crisis is resisting. It would be like saying, this person can't think clearly and this isn't the time to 'educate' her about possibly prejudicial attitudes arising from her experience. Or am I suggesting a backdoor to state sanctioned racism, etc.?

"Can you imagine anyone really asking for that? It's really hard to imagine someone transgendered would demand to work as a nurse in a rape crisis centre? "

Yes I can. A predatory male who wants access to women and gets a power kick out of forcing them to accept him in their spaces where they feel unsafe with him there.

This was posted on my FB yesterday and I'm not entirely sure if this guy is taking the piss or if he's serious, does anyone know? The worst thing is that it's impossible to tell if something that initially looks so mad that it surely must be a joke, is in fact deadly straight-pan serious:

Outs there was a case in Canada a while ago where a transwoman wanted to volunteer as a peer counsellor in a rape crisis centre. She was not allowed to volunteer and sued the centre under human rights legislation. She initially won and got damages from the centre but the decision was overturned on appeal. I've seen transactivists attacking that centre on twitter very recently and talking about organising to have it closed down if they won't accept transwomen.

There was this case this year, also in Canada where a man raped women in a homeless shelter where he claimed to be a woman:

www.torontosun.com/2014/02/26/predator-who-claimed-to-be-transgender-declared-dangerous-offender

It's interesting that he is described as a man who "falsely" claimed to be transgender. I haven't seen any report where he admits that he was falsely claiming to be transgender therefore it seems contradictory that transactivists say on the one hand that we must accept a person's stated gender identity but when this happens they are able to say he was falsely claiming to be transgender.

The dangers to vulnerable women, particularly women in shelters and in prison, are so clear and obvious but transactivists say these women are bigoted if they are not comfortable with male bodied persons in their spaces.

On the point about lesbians, I have seen lesbians called "vagina fetishists", "bigots" and other names because they don't want to have sex with transwomen with a penis.

AskBasil, that man is either taking the mickey, which is just insensitive and horrible of him, or, if he is serious, he is quite disturbed/dangerous and the last place he should be is a female locker room (or rape crisis centre). His whole tone when talking about lesbians and how enraged he can make them (with what looks to me like a smirk on his face) makes me feel sick. I am really shocked by this. And the vey belittling phrase, "I want time with the girls" - how dare he??

I've seen that man Jasper Gregory around gender-critical sites on the internet and as far as I can tell he is 100 per cent serious about his claim to be a transwoman and a lesbian.

He's also only taking trans politics and the ideology of 'gender identity' to their logical conclusion. The central tenet of trans (and now liberal feminist) thought is that 'woman' is a metaphysical identity that anyone can choose to adopt, so who are we to say Jaspar Gregory - or, for that matter serial rapist Christopher 'Jessica' Hambrook, who attacked the women in the Toronto women's shelter - is not actually a woman? That would be extremely bigoted of us privileged cis females.

But he specifically says he's not trans.

I am frankly bewildered.

I really thought there was a possibility that he's just taking the piss - in fact I was a bit about him, thinking maybe he's a bit of a transphobe tbh.

Do all those liberal feminists accept that this man is a woman just because he says he is? How can they? What mental contortions must they have gone through to have abandoned all common sense and integrity?

What do they say about these rapists who claim to be women? Are they really prepared to throw real women under the bus for rapists? Is this what third wave feminism is?