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?

What does "transactivists acting like men" refer to?

Using violence and threats to intimidate women, trying to prevent women from having private spaces, assuming that women have a ln obligation to care about their concerns and support them, regardless of the consequences for women. Basically having the expectations of women that all men are trained to have, and enforce if it's not happening.

Buffy

after the practical measures then the more political issues can get played out in the law courts?

so maybe as a feminist that feels there is a real problem here but wants to focus on solutions could agitate for practical solutions in women-only safe spaces?

Feel like I might be getting somewhere with finding a position for myself on this.

i'm conflicted though, because these sorts of solutions feel movement away from how things should be - where people don't feel out of place because they don't conform to artificial gender roles and experience gender dysphoria to the extent that they want to live and be responded to as a member of the opposite sex. it feels like collusion with this fucked-up gender stuff

but then of course, we do live with this fucked-up gender stuff, and real people are living real lives within it and feeling shit about it and are in danger, and they need support through that. in the same way that we shouldn't need women's refuges but we really, really do

Petula yes I agree.

Makes sense Buffy

BuffyBotRebooted your post of Tue 09-Sep-14 18:54:29 makes excellent sense.

What a complex and horrific issue.

It also feels unbelievably appalling that so many girls and women suffer so much globally and time and energy is given to the 'cases' and 'causes' of a minority of men whose gender issues are deemed newsworthy! I know - chosen subject the bleeding obvious, I guess this thread is just bringing it all home to me. I think I need to get more aware and radical!

Thank you.

Saw an article about letting trans women in to Women's universities in America. It's very important for them to experience places just for women apparently as it's such a special atmosphere . And obviously it's transphobic if they discriminate against trans people who still have their penises and are still technically legally men. [double hmm]

I don't believe this is about trans safety anymore and everything about getting validation that they are women.

We have a huge problem with sexual assault and the handling of it on American campuses. Why take away a safe place for women? Will they warn the women who may have chosen a women's college for trigger/safety/religious reasons that their room mate still has a penis and likes women?

roygbiv.jezebel.com/trans-women-offer-womens-colleges-a-new-way-to-support-1629386197

One of the comments by the author (a trans woman) about why trans men as well as transwoman should still be allowed to attend women's colleges. SO women who have transitioned in to men. And men who haven't transitioned in to women should all have access to women space. Because men might be violent to them. Let's not spend any time arguing about men who are violent let's just take some safe space form women. They don't need it.

You'd need to address that to a trans man, but given the rates of marginalisation and violence towards all trans people (and that includes trans men), women's spaces are often safer and more understanding of gender diversity than co-educational spaces, let alone men's spaces. Men's spaces can actually be extremely dangerous for trans men if they are outed. Why? Because too often trans men are seen as women (they're not!) and treated as such if their histories are revealed/known. I addressed this similarity of experience between trans men, trans women, and cis women in a piece I did on bathroom usage.

women's spaces are often safer

Yes, they are safer because they have no men in them. When you add men to them, they stop being women's spaces and, er, they stop being safe.

Why is this a difficult thing to understand?

It's very important for them to experience places just for women apparently as it's such a special atmosphere

Yes but if a space HAS MEN IN IT then it is NOT A SPACE JUST FOR WOMEN. So there will be no special lady-earth-mother-sacred-bond atmosphere.

Who doesn't get this? Do they think we're characters in a fucking play or something? Automatons programmed with lady speech? Why do they believe we are oblivious to what's going on around us?

"It's very important for them to experience places just for women apparently as it's such a special atmosphere"

You know, I've heard privileged 18 year olds talking about Africa like that.

Gender tourism is a "thing". Who knew?

"It's very important for them to experience places just for women apparently as it's such a special atmosphere"

This reminds me of Common People by

"But still you'll never get it right
'cos when you're laid in bed at night watching roaches climb the wall
If you call your Dad he could stop it all.
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do what common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view"

MoreCrack yes!! I was thinking that the other day at work!

Hakluyt I've heard kids saying that too and it really pissed me off but I didn't make the connection until you pointed it out. It's very very similar thinking. Tourism is exactly the right word, to my mind.

I'd take it a step further and say that it is gender colonization.

What if we all accept that a woman is really whoever identifies as a woman. Would it still be transphobic to suggest the "people born with vaginas" should be a separate class with different problems and different needs?

Can we just not get a latin word for "owner of a vag" and use that instead of "woman"?

And that some "owners of a vag" are only attracted to other "owners of a vag" and that others are only attracted to "owners of a penis"?

Some "owners of a vag" need private space away from people who were born with or currently have penises. Would that finally make it OK?

Would that finally make it OK?

Probably not. "Vagina" would just be appropriated and redefined to include penis. Some men who identify as women but don't have a problem with their male genitalia and don't plan to have GRS already refer to their penises as a "click" (clit+dick) so I don't think we're far away from "vagina" just not having any meaning any more.

I also predict that people with XY chromosomes are going to start arguing that they actually have XX chromosomes but just with a bit missing. There was a comment by a detransitioned transwoman on a thread somewhere about how he told a fellow transwoman that GRS would not make him biologically female because he would still always have XY chromosomes, and the transwoman was all and said they'd have to go and research it.

Urgh.

But what happens to the women and girls who are only permitted (by families or culture) to attend higher education if it is women only? Is it just a great big "not my problem" from the trans community?

I think a lot of transwomen would understand and respect that, but there are certainly some who would say "We are women so it's not a problem." If the people seeking the women-only space then said "Sorry, we meant women born women" there would be transwomen (and allies) who would say "We are women born women."

"If the people seeking the women-only space then said "Sorry, we meant women born women" there would be transwomen (and allies) who would say "We are women born women."

Which is why imho we need to stick to using the word "women" when referring to XX-chromosomed adult human females and not use transactivists' terminology of "born women", "cis women" etc.

The one think I am sure of in this whole debate is that I am not giving up the word "woman" to describe myself.

Trans women would probably say they are women. And liberal feminist would probably tell the women to stop being so transphobic with their religion It will just mean some real women don't get to go to university. All so transwomen who can go any regular university can share in the sleepovers and teaparties and pillow fights they women are having without them

Cote - Do you know what sex chromosomes you have, really know? Because the vast majority of the population don't know and guess what they are based on their legal classification and genitals. Chromosomes are not the basis of legal or social classification. We don't even base them on gonads, it's based on how a medical practitioner views a set a gentials at birth in almost all cases.

Would a woman with XXX not be considered an human female? Would a person with XY chromosomes with androgen insensitivity (so having a vagina from the womb) not be considered a woman? Would someone who is intersex but classified but legally classified and raised female be able to consider it? And no, these aren't rare things to handwave away, being intersex is as rare as having red hair and if we're going on chromosomes it would likely be found in a lot more people. And then there is the previously held debate in other threads which defined women is defined by periods and pregnancy which denies it everyone over a certain age and to those legally classified as women who may never get periods or become fertile because of premature ovarian failure or a long list of other reasons (and I always found it creepy to define a gender by their fertility).

As I've said in previous threads on this topic, I disagree with the main thought here that all girls/women or men/boys are socialized the same. It's very tiring how often feminist books and activists like to act as if the White, able bodied and mind, straight person assigned female at birth represents every woman's socialization when it has been shown time and again it is not true (and the same goes for those assigned as male). My socialization did not include the push to be a mother or bride - pretty much everyone down to my parents said that would be an awful idea or foolish dream and no media around me supported motherhood or good relationships as pretty much all of it ends in tragedy. It did not include the virgin/whore issue as a woman because society especially media says that my disability turns me unsexual or a charity case that certainly couldn't care for a child and my ethnicity means I'm sexually fast which has resulted in multiple court cases where children like me are told we weren't raped because we "develop quickly" and only have kids for money rather than really loving them. And that's before we get to how different cultures socialize children differently (and how different cultures have different genders, though the policy of patriarchal Christian Western colonization led to mass murders and persecution of those outside of the assigned Western gender binary which those socieities are still working to heal from).

Its been shown time and again that a Black or Asian or any other ethnic minority raised as White in a White household in a society built on White privilege will not gain said White privilege and even when the parents and community try to raise them as White (which was previously and in some places still very common) wider society does not socialize them that way. A lesbian raised in a straight household in a heteronormative society does not gain straight privilege. A person assigned one gender at birth and raised as that one in a cisnormative society where all representation says that people who identify outside their assigned gender will end in tragedy even when they don't know the statistics that trans people's average lifespan is less than half that of the rest of the population (trans women even more likely to face an early, violent end than trans men or nonbinary people) will trans people to have a different socialization than a cis person of the same assigned gender at birth.

I find it interesting how much mainstream feminist thinking on the role of genitals, personality, and identity seems to line up so much with heteronormative patriarchal ideology.