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?

Gay men are sometimes targets of violence by straight men. I suspect this is a lot to do with gender identity ("real men don't fuck men" type thinking etc)

I deplore this, as I deplore violence against those who are trans.

But that doesn't, in itself, lead to gay men being feminist allies.

What I mean is you can think, like I do, that most transpeople should be free to live the lives they want and be worried about the activists at the same time, without this being an inherent contradiction.

Sounds reasonable.

but y'know- I was on that blackface thread as well (under a different name) and was beyond shocked by the attitudes on there- about race, about structural discrimination, the language used, the ignorance- all of it.

Once of the most aggressive posters was a young woman who had one of the most sexist, ageist, patriarchal attitudes I have come across for a while.

I might be missing something about the trans issue but it sucks out there. Attitudes to women and girls suck across the board. I am still struggling to see the need for this particular battle to have become so important when young women are displaying such ignorant and unpleasant behaviour towards women and girls.

I think it's because we can't ignore it. They're not going to stop with bullying lesbians, trying to force women's spaces to either admit them or close, and they aren't going to stop trying to make being a woman about feelings rather than biology. Meanwhile, women for whom biology is a massive social, political and mortal risk are losing the right to talk about it.

fair enough.

yeslove if you strip out the violent threats, and the inherent conflict of transgender with gender criticism (which i'm not sure one should, and after all there are gender critical transgender people), i think you need to think through where your boundaries lie as a woman, regardless of whether you have personal relationships with transwomen

women's dv refuges for example - should transwomen be allowed access?

what about women's prisons?

the example above of a nurse who is a transwoman performing a smear test - it may not bother you, but what if this is a problem for another woman for whatever reason?

because to bar access to many of these things will almost certainly cause transwomen pain, but does that override the needs of women born women?

petula

i think you need to think through where your boundaries lie as a woman, regardless of whether you have personal relationships with transwomen

I agree- that is why i am on this thread.

the example above of a nurse who is a transwoman performing a smear test - it may not bother you, but what if this is a problem for another woman for whatever reason?

i didn't say it didn't bother me.

I did ask if anyone had any ideas about how to solve some of these issues in a practical moving forward type way and gave an (admittedly slightly crap) example of a voluntary opt-in register, where HCPS can identify their born sex status so that patients who care can be sure and HCPS who want to protect their privacy can do so.

Re refuges, prison etc. I agree that there is a serious issue between the rights of women and transwomen who have been socialised as men to have access to these spaces.

What the answer is i don't know. I think Buffy was right when she said the the problem is located in the protection of vulnerable groups by law- when the protection of this particular group can also undermine the rights of other groups. (sorry Buffy I think that is what you said)

But I don't know how this conflict can be resolved.

sorry, my "you" there, should probably have been "one", i wasn't actually trying to pick out your own views there

OK soz.

"the problem is located in the protection of vulnerable groups by law- when the protection of this particular group can also undermine the rights of other groups"

yes i agree. i don't know the answers either.

there is a problem where someone who experiences gender dysphoria to the extent that they are mentally and physically suffering, vulnerable to self-abuse and abuse from others, deeply unhappy and in pain, then looks to an oppressed group and wants to appropriate their hard-fought-for, limited and strictly rationed protections against the oppressors. what they need are their own protections. and fundamentally of course, the overthrowing of the oppression which would liberate all

"the problem is located in the protection of vulnerable groups by law- when the protection of this particular group can also undermine the rights of other groups"

Also agree. But my understanding of the trans activists who take issue with feminists is that they do not acknowledge this.

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

I don't follow your reasoning here at all. If someone behaves like a man and is biologically a man, in what way are they not actually a man? What else is there? To me it's just like saying "Well apart from the scales, the fins, and the having to live underwater, my goldfish is actually a hawk."

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

Who's vulnerable? The people issuing rape and death threats to lesbians and feminists?

i assumed we were talking about the ones who aren't issuing death and rape threats

Then I'm even more confused than I realised. What does "transactivists acting like men" refer to?

I agree with all of that Buffy

sorry, i meant when talking about people who are vulnerable - in my above post i was talking about what transpeople who not issuing death threats need. i'm not really all that bothered about what transactivists who issue death and rape threats need

and what buffy said

I agree with you and not just cos of the tough week.

i'm not really all that bothered about what transactivists who issue death and rape threats need

Nope. I don't give a single fuck what they want or need.

yes I guess so.

Actually I used to work in a similar context to those described above (as it would be definitely be described as a safe space for vulnerable women) and there was once an incidence of where a transwoman wanted to join us. Annoyingly I cant really remember what happened (its was a while ago) but as I recall we asked the other women if they were OK with it- and they were. I don't remember it being a big thing at the time but I guess if it became a regular request we would have had to really thrash out the issues/law/policy on access.

What I can say is that any transwoman presenting to that service in that way would be listened to and accommodated somehow. She would have been given help and support adapted to her needs and taking in to account the needs of others. We had to manage peoples' needs outside of the main group all the time for many different reasons which is pretty common when dealing with people in crisis so Im not convinced that some simple practical solutions wouldn't go along way to managing the problem.

i think that this is a political battle though which has become entrenched on each side so it doesn't look like practical solutions are going to cut it.

Sorry x post with Buffy- i agree with you too!