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?

Does anyone else have anything that they could add to vezzie's post about what could be don't to accommodate the needs of trans people in society in general? without

men - not transpeople, just common or garden men - (using this issue) as a way to boss women about in terms of having control over their own spaces

why do I not get a choice gin?

Transwomen are men, maybe a sub-group of men, but definitely part of men as a class, so my feminist battles are with them.

and transmen CKDexter which class are they?

I think gin means that if you declare yourself as feminist and/or recognise that including all trans women in women's spaces is problematic, certain sections of the trans community will take up battle with you

Petula And i am assuming others would have a sensible chat with me. My feminist battles are not with the transgender community. There are people everywhere agitating about what inequalities they feel are important and need to be addressed urgently. I think that I am able to decide which of these are important to me within my beliefs and act accordingly.

I think that reasonable discussion about what trans people really need is often lost in the noise from a small group of trans activists who abuse and threaten violence where anything other than complete capitulation to their demands is discussed

And of course those trans people who just want to quietly get on with their lives are going to find it hard to speak up for themselves because they naturally don't want to turn that violent attention on themselves

but we can have a sensible discussion here cant we? there was a very reasonable poster here at the beginning of the thread who was very articulate, I was enjoying reading his points.

Is this not a sensible discussion?

I'm not transgender, so I can't say what transgender people feel they need. I can say what I need, but that may be in conflict. And in saying what I need I may cause harm and be on the receiving end of abuse, whether I intend to or not

I know that on other threads (and possibly this one) there have been suggestions of more neutral, individual spaces such as loos and changing rooms - is that the sort of thing your mean?

Don't underestimate the degree of threats that feminists have received from that small group of trans activists - not just online but tracking down addresses. It makes people very cautious

Petula yes of course this is a sensible discussion- that was my point- that it would be great to be able to discuss it here without the issue either needing to be a huge battle for me - or me causing harm to or receiving abuse from others.

Re the neutral changing rooms- yes possibly. Or with the HCP thing discussed earlier that perhaps there could be a register for HCPs to opt into (or out of) that would give their sex/gender status so that those who may not want to disclose their born sex, could retain their privacy.

I was just wondering if there might be any other ideas- someone else asked up thread and I think it got a bit lost.

Btw I do agree with you that the majority of transgender people are really vulnerable and in pain and deserve compassion, which I offer in spades.

1 - Transmen are women

2 - Transwomen are part of men as a class and, therefore, my feminism, as relates to violence, rape, reproductive rights, employment rights etc, etc, includes them in the privileged oppressor class

3 - Transwomen are erasing and silencing women as a class

3 - Most of the problems transwomen encounter come from violent men

4 - Most of the problems transwomen encounter stem from the rigid enforcement of gender roles and would disappear if we abolished gender rather than worshipping it

CKD

these would be mine:

1. Transmen are transmen
2. Transwomen are transwomen and there will be questions and conversations that follow this about how women and women's spaces can be protected if they need to be.
3. Most of the problems Transwomen encounter are from violent men which as a feminist gives us issues in common and makes us allies
4. The fact that men are violent and unpleasant to transexual women makes me feel protective and allied to them in equal measure. This is because the very thing that winds men up about them is that they are feminine and identify as women and apparently this means that they should be annihilated. And as a women I don't like this much.

3) Most of the problems Transwomen encounter are from violent men which as a feminist gives us issues in common and makes us allies

My problem with this is that transwomen are no less violent that other men and also that ALL men suffer more violence at the hand of men.

So in theory all men would be our allies. Otherwise why the distinction?

The latest issue of The New Yorker. The highest paid female CEO in America 'used' to be a man (or rather, still is a man and, therefore, there is nothing unusual about the situation). You see, moaning women? This isn't a white, middle-class, heterosexual man at all, this is a woman, and if she can break through the glass ceiling and earn loads of dosh then you can too!

Edit - It's The New York Magazine, not The New Yorker.

fuckoffweasel i have been reading this thread and others and considered what posters have said and agree with the arguments about transwomen being different from women because they have been socialised as males.

I read, understood and agreed with the bar analogy above, which - along with other threads has changed my opinion on this issue.

But I would argue that if transwomen are as violent as other males then this is probably why. i.e. their socialisation as males. But the fact remains they are still targets of violence from men and this is because of their orientation towards a female presentation and this (for the reasons stated above) makes them my allies.

I would argue the same for any transwoman or group that would held up one individual's achievements in the workplace as evidence that the barriers to women progressing in their careers have been addressed. i.e. that they are a transwoman and so their socialisation has been different.

I would not just conclude that transwomen are men and transmen are women because I dont think its true or helpful really.

But the fact remains they are still targets of violence from men and this is because of their orientation towards a female presentation and this (for the reasons stated above) makes them my allies.

Well it would, except the only solution they can imagine is bullying their way into women's spaces by threats and intimidation on the laughable pretext of "feeling like a woman". Allies don't ignore the risks to women.

No one who makes threats of rape and violence against women, is any kind of ally. Even if they believe they are women themselves.

but there are extremists across the board agitating for single issue topics using strategies from direct action to intimidation to actual violence or criminal damage and I don't let the knowledge of these groups or their actions dictate how I feel about whole unseen communities.

In fact I think that it is really important not to do this.

I agree that no one who makes threats of rape and violence against women is any kind of ally. But I don't agree that the actions of individuals or groups should be extrapolated to whole communities of unseen people that they have not been elected to represent.

The irony is that I was firmly in the 'call people what they want to be called' 'they are women if they identify as such' camp BEFORE I heard from the delightful transactvists. Threats of rape, shouting people down, silencing, threats of death all felt so much like MRA shit as to be indistinguishable.

Of course there are men, like the one in the linked article about the swim team, who would use this to gain access to women and girls, to encroach, to threaten and harm. Women's rights can't always come last.

all of which are good and clear points. But the line of thought which goes transactivists are acting like men (which they well be- as we all agree that MtF transpeople have been socialised as men) and the jump to therefore they are men I would dispute.

They are transwomen- who are vulnerable and may need protection by law- which brings us back to where we started.

innit.

YY Apocalypse and hoppy.

Women have endless empathy for transwomen, because we instinctively sympathise with anyone suffering under the strictures of gender. But is that empathy and sympathy returned in kind? When the most mainstream figurehead for the trans movement campaigns on behalf of child rapist-murderers and wife killers?

gendertrender.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/laverne-cox-launches-media-campaign-in-support-of-transwoman-synthia-china-blast-convicted-for-the-rape-murder-and-abuse-of-the-corpse-of-thirteen-year-old-ebony-nicole-williams/

As the above shows, yeslove, it isn't just extremists. This lack of empathy or concern for female lives and reality is characteristic of, I have to say, almost every transwoman I have seen (with the exception of a few gender-critical ones).

It's not just death and rape threats. It is the utter lack of concern for the impact of gender-identity laws on women and girls, the insistence that we give up the language required to even talk about sex-based oppression and recast ourselves as having gender privilege, an unwillingness to entertain even minimal compromises when trans and female rights clash (such as requiring transwomen to have gone through medical transition before accessing female spaces), or to contemplate the idea that there might be aspects of the female experience that they do not share and will have to defer to natal women on. The impression I get from transwomen is that women exist to provide free labour and endless love and support and understanding to them, and it just makes sense that we would set our needs aside in favour of theirs whenever they require it. Smells suspiciously like the shit women have been required to do by males since, oh, forever.

Laverne Cox can claim to have 'always been a girl' but it is notable that Cox's sympathies in the Ebony Williams case were not with the black girl who was raped and murdered, but with the man who killed her - because that man identified as a fellow transwoman. They might identify as women, but the actions of Cox and the majority of transwomen clearly shows they do not identify with women.

And I do not see how people who care so little for the realities of women and girls that they are willing to support violent men over them can be called allies in feminism. The fact that males target gender-non-conforming males for violence does not mean that those males will have any solidarity with women and girls. The current state of trans activism demonstrates that the opposite is the case. The trans experience is often marked by marginalisation and violence, true, but it nevertheless remains a deeply male subjective experience that, as far as I can see, is untouched by any genuine understanding of, or empathy with, the female experience.

It's almost like some of the trans community are just exploring a new way of owning women's bodies - rather than trying to regulate them and own them in the sense of property, they are owning them as their own and trying to redefine what they are for their own purposes. Maybe that's something some of the more knowledgeable women on here have explored before and I'm stating the blindingly obvious, but it's really only occurred to me through reading this thread.