Any appetite for further discussion on 'trans-feminism'?

[CrewElla]

I made the mistake this morning of reading the comments on an article on the Guardian website re Kellie Maloney being 'outed' in the tabloids which led to me googling trans-feminism and coming across this article from the New Yorker: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2

I haven't considered myself radical in the past and, at times, even (naively) said I had no need of feminism. Reading the New Yorker article I felt they so missed the point and tried to marginalise a view (woman have a need for spaces free from penises, whether the penis belongs to a man or a transwoman) that I don't think is that radical.

Am I being naive? Does anyone have the time/interest to read the article and share their views on it?

YY vezzie. So well put. The patriarchy have always insisted that women are 'for' something whether it is in terms of objectification, domesticity or having babies.

I can't see that AIBU thread? (maybe that is a good thing!)

On humans (controversially, including women) not being for anything -this is relevant to the trans debate because

• people who identify as whatever form of gender queer, and manifest this in their outward physical, sartorial and social personas, are absolutely as worthy of respect and dignity as anyone else

• However, my job as a woman is not to make someone else feel better about their place in society; groups of women, or the class "women", similarly, are just doing their thing, not existing in order to provide context for the assertion of a particular gender identity

• transwomen are also just being, just being themselves, just doing their thing. what they are NOT to be used for (as nobody is to be used for anything) is as a suitably recognised unprivileged trojan horse for men to attack and dilute various forms of feminist separatism, in recognition that their own privilege excludes them, but being unable to bear the existence of feminist self determination

• this is what they are being used for. This is an insult of, and violation of, them as much as me

Just reading through, wanted to say to gin that your post of 21.39 on Thu was great.

Right, read it all now!

Andie, there aren't many men on MN; even fewer who are regulars on FWR; fewer still who I've seen post on trans issues. There's no exclusion, I expect it's just through choice or interest or knowledge area.

Thank you ABland! It's been a really good thread so far, some great posts.

Or it's just too intimidating if you don't agree with the FWR policy on things.

"Or it's just too intimidating if you don't agree with the FWR policy on things."

What policy's that, Tiggy?

No policies, Tiggy. Often a high degree of consensus, but no policies.

Or it's just too intimidating if you don't agree with the FWR policy on things.

I think it's more that most people in general aren't actually that clued up on it but if you happen to be clued up on it (like most of FWR) and not exploding with male privilege it just kind of makes sense tiggy.

Men are on Mumsnet tonight

*AIBU to become a web cam girl to pay my mortgage off

Me and my partner of 10 years have recently split. He was always the bread winner. He paid for everything, nice house, designer clothes, cosmetic surgery, etc. Since he has left, things have been hard. Last week, I had to shop in primark for gods sake! It was unreal. Darren has still been helping out paying the bills, buying the kids things etc. But life just hasn't been what i'm used to.

I have never worked a day in my life so I decided to look for work that would be suited to someone of my ability and as I was researching I found out about web-cams. I could join up to a website and go on these web cams to men and they pay to watch me do sexual things and I get to dress up sexy underwear and then I get to take it all off. The pay is amazing and I know I have the body that any guy would pay to see but I just would never want my kids to find out. It is something I would never want them to know about, not ever. I really want to do it. Shall I just be selfish for once and take this opportunity? Or would this make me a awful person?

Help please!!!!*

Never worked a day, 'ability' involves being able to undress oneself, gets to dress up, I have a nice body. Sexist twat bingo.

It's funny how they just cannot invent stories that sound like things women say.

I think it shows Gins point wonderfully, they have no idea how we talk. Strangely, they chose to do this crap on a forum full of examples of how women talk and engage on a huge range of topics.

still, Darren sounds a catch. Still helps out with presumably his own kids, too soft for his own good. awww.

WWIT: "I think it's more that most people in general aren't actually that clued up on it but if you happen to be clued up on it (like most of FWR) and not exploding with male privilege it just kind of makes sense tiggy."

Just to head off on a bit of tangent with this - but the priv thing is such a hurdle. I've genuinely tried really hard to explain things to other dudes in non-confrontational constructive ways, but even as a dude myself (and therefore not as easily dismissed as a mere woman) I find it's nigh-on impossible. You're essentially trying to overcome not just a lifetime's worth of accumulated privilege, but also their identity as men.

I dunno, I've always kind of assumed that it's important to try and explain things to men; they're the ones with the power and and the only way to get them to reliquish it is through education. But now I'm wondering whether that's really the case, maybe it's just up to women to do this shit their own selves and fuck the men, (even the ones who'd like to be able to help). Maybe the best thing men can do is back the fuck up, stop assuming that they have any role to play in feminism as a movement and let it be a women's movement.

Interesting though Andie, my husband to me is the perfect feminist - he shuts the fuck up and listens.

I think men can challenge societal misogyny and their own misogyny without taking over feminist discussions/groups etc.
It can't just be a case of men letting themselves off the hook and letting women get on with it.
But I don't think men have anything to offer feminism - it has to be about women doing things for ourselves and having space to think away from male influences or there's no point.
There's several million men all over fb right now sniggering about photos stolen from women and shared online, for example. Are other men pointing out this is abuse?

Just wanted to say I have read this thread and found it really interesting and enlightening. Thank you all.

I've been following this thread from the start and it's crystallised a lot of what my discomfort is with the dominant narratives surrounding trans women. I've been enraged this morning by the comments on a huff post article where trans people have sent in selfies. Particularly the first comment that says 'they are better at being women than I am' followed by the emoticons for nail varnish, lipstick and a heart. Aargh!
This is what I find so retrogressive and undermining to feminism about a lot of the popular 'thinking' around trans - being a woman is not defined by appearance!!! What are trans feminists doing to challenge these ideas? How can they be feminists or even feminist allies if the popular perception of trans is propping up a patriarchal culture that defines womanliness by how well you perform a really conventional, limiting version of femininity?
Anyway I just wanted a rant, I won't rant there because I don't think it's safe to rant on Facebook... I've lived this thread, it's been hugely enlightening.

This is interesting - a point of view on how transgender experience can be so very valuable to feminists

www.newrepublic.com/article/119239/transgender-people-can-explain-why-women-dont-advance-work

However this is disheartening

"And the group of trans people who are vocal on the subject is already fairly small; many seem to feel they have much larger issues facing them. When asked how people react when she describes the different treatment she receives as a woman, Roughgarden responds simply, “I don't bring it up.” Ultimately, Schilt says, it’s not trans people’s responsibility fix gender bias. Roughgarden agrees. “We're trying make a life,” she says. “We have to live in our actual roles, we can't sit in a coffeehouse and complain about how this is the world. This is the world and we have to live in it. We have to navigate it.” "

This states with absolute clarity (admittedly only from one individual) "we are not interested in furthering feminist interests, we are interested in furthering individual trans interests"

Fair enough.

but why demand a privileged place at the feminist table then? If it's not a conversation you are interested in taking part in? (maybe this particular person, to be fair, never did make that demand)

More thoughts on the useful / problematic notion of "privilege" and its role to play in various forms of discourse

I like its snappiness and its accessibility. Tho "check your privilege" has problems, it is very often used so someone under some form of oppression to someone else who is being a certain sort of dick. we need a language to identify that sort of dickishness.

However I think we have to be careful to avoid slipping into a conflation of most oppressed = most likely to be right.

1 - because oppressed people can be wrong (like anyone else)
2 - because identifying that someone is the most oppressed person on your impossible scale of oppressedness, doesn't lead you directly to whose job it is to make that good, or how they are going to do it.

eg

Say I am in a bar. Someone I don't know well, maybe even don't really like, comes in, white as a sheet, visibly rattled, exhausted. We have no other friends in the bar. This person comes up, takes the stool next to me and says "you've got to buy me a drink. I have had a shit day and I have no money."

I am ok with that. I will buy that person a drink. Even if that's my last money and now I can't have one more drink. That's ok. It's not the politest way of asking, but who cares. This person is clearly far from at their best. I'll buy them a drink and they can tell me about it (if they want. Maybe they just want to sit down and have a drink and draw breath)

HOWEVER

Suppose I am in a bar. I haven't had a drink yet. I have money enough for one drink and am about to buy it for myself - FINALLY! it is my first drink in literally YEARS! - and I am surrounded by drunk people who have been eating and drinking in this bar LITERALLY FOR YEARS, and they all have expense accounts and tons of money.
Then, this shaken, drawn, exhausted person comes up to me and says "I have had a SHIT day and you OWE me a drink." Erm, really? I don't owe you one, I would consider sharing my limited resources with you but actually, as you are friends with all these people here, maybe someone else can help you?

Then, the drunk well fed people who have been there for years start shouting at me, "it's not your drink! It's their drink! They have had a shitter day than you! How can you drink your drink when this person has no drink!"

Who do you think all these drunk well fed people are?
Why aren't they putting their hands in their pockets?

It's because they never wanted me to have a drink at all ever in the first place. They actively want to make sure that people like me do not have a drink. Ever. or as very little as possible.

This is why I have only just got here, after years. This is why I only have enough money for one drink. as far as they are concerned, now they are running out of excuses to keep me from the bar, it is a brilliant coincidence that suddenly someone appears who can be used as an excuse as to why, even now, I cannot have that sodding drink.

So. I have nothing against this new person, who has truly had a really shit day. But the rest of them can fuck right off.

I love your latest post vezzie!

This may be totally random but when reading about people who felt they had missed out on a 'girlhood' of playing at tea parties with dolls etc I thought about my own childhood. I can remember playing witches and gypsies (having read that book, The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden) and playing house in den's in the garden - but no real memories of tea parties with dolls!

I wonder if this tea party is something created in the minds of people who want to show an imaginary scene and ironically has been used in media to present a kind of 'man out of natural environment scene'! In 'Friends' Ross is pictured as a child dressed in a dress and hat at a tea party and in Toy Story Buzz Lightyear is dressed in an apron and hat at a dolls' tea party. Both are shown in a negative light.

Sorry if this is a random tangent, it just struck me! Something of a phantom image - that media is so good at planting!

Great point, Italian!

that is a good point. i can remember playing a version of "tea parties" with my brothers, with (our) dolls and cuddly toys. iirc we mushed up crisps with water to make pretend vomit because they'd all been poisoned by the tea