Men who parade how "feminist" they are but who can fuck right off...

[ArcheryAnnie]

...as they don't actually want to listen to women who disagree with them in any way.

I am not including common-or-garden arseholes here, as the list would be a billion posts long and the internet would explode. I am talking about the kind of man who writes a long, handwringing article in the Guardian about how we should all listen to feminists more, but then deletes most of the comments from actual feminists that are posted on it.

The two currently at the top of my very long List are:
Ally Fogg
Owen Jones

Nominations, please.

Glad you're sure about that Kim.

However, you are failing to recognise that feminists and lesbians (and lesbian feminists) are dismissed and mocked and accused of transphobia for describing their experience of being women and/ or lesbians.

Not for telling trans-people how to feel. For saying how they feel.

Any attempt to explain is shut down with cries of bigot and transphobe.

See for example, the latest nonsense where a rape victim wrote a blog post about how for her personally, women-only space was essential in her recovery from being raped and was accused of thinking like a rapist by a trans-ally because of her experience of needing that woman-only space.

Owen Jones presumably isn't entirely on top of understanding that that is the sort of silencing women and feminists face and as long as he feels comfortable with ignoring the women who would tell him about that, he never will be on top of understanding it.

Because that's what this thread is about remember - men who think they're feminist allies but don't feel it necessary to listen to feminists.

Of course. maybe he's totally aware of such nonsense and is comfortable with it. In which case, there's no hope for him.

But about feminists explaining how trans people should feel about trans issues.
Or white people explaning to black people how they should feel about racism.

One of these things is not like the other. Women do not have structural privilege over trans women.

I don't believe I have ever been anything other than a trans ally.

But when loon trans activists believe they get to define what "woman" is, and impose a nonsensical "cis" label on me, and attempt to shut down legitimate discussion about the experience of biological women then I will regard them as hostile, and not anyone I am allied to.

There are misogynistic anti-feminist trans women activists and there are feminist trans women activists. I support the feminist ones. Owen Jones supports the misogynistic ones. Only those who support the feminist ones get called transphobes or TERFS. Go figure.

There are misogynistic anti-feminist trans women activists and there are feminist trans women activists. I support the feminist ones. Owen Jones supports the misogynistic ones. Only those who support the feminist ones get called transphobes or TERFS. Go figure.

Exactly.

Absolutely StephanieDA

Exactly Stephanie

kim - do you think cis women are more privileged than trans women? Do you think this is analogous to black and white people?

presumably anyone who isn't trans though is liable to do that rather than feminists in particular? or is it feminists in particular?

There is no equivalence between women / transwomen and those other groups (black / white, gay / straight etc.). If trans activist goals were the recognition of trans rights as trans rights, this in all likelihood wouldn't be happening. In that case it might be more like black people "splaining" to gay people. However since trans activist goals are currently the erasure of womanhood as an axis of oppression, and the assumption of women's rights (such as they are) for trans people, feminists have every right to express themselves on these issues.

How do feminists transplain Kim? Do you mean by questioning the assertion that trans people are biologically the sex they gender-identify with, despite being male with a vagina or female with a penis?
Or the assertion that people have gendered essential brains that are as determined as their physical sex is?
Because it's not trabsplaining to question that. If I told you 'you don't feel like a woman, you just feel like an unhappy man' I might be transplaining. But to say to you 'I question your assertion that you are female in your brain because I do not accept the concept of essentialist gendered brains' that's just me expressing my perfectly valid opinion.

Ehric has it

That's the irony. Like I said - I'm sure white people do the same to black people, straight people to gay people etc etc.

And like I said - and which you conveniently ignored - these are not good examples, because women do not hold the structural privilege here, whereas whites do and straight people do.

Tell me, kim - how many men's rights boards do you derail with this stuff? They are the ones who hold structural power over us all. Or is it just feminists you want to be quiet about gender issues?

When we were talking about this on the Mary Beard thread, I was having similar thoughts to kim. This stuff is really hard to read when you've always tried to be basically nice, especially to people who are having a hard time. I understand, though, that not everyone is nice (erm, obviously) and that a lot of feminists have had really had experiences with transactivists.

Leaving aside the language of privilege, I see that transwomen have been socialised as men, albeit men who have not fitted the patriarchal gender binary, and that this socialisation gives them a certain sense of entitlement to space and voice that other women don't necessarily have. I also see that not fitting the patriarchal gender binary is an uncomfortable way to be, and not at all fun. When women talk to transwomen about privilege, I can see why those transwomen might say "what fecking privilege? I too am oppressed by the patriarchy". I can also see why the response is rather dismissive, given that transwomen were socialised as men and boys.

I am very angry that Rachel's article about recovery after rape attracted such rage from people who wanted her to recover in their way and not hers - and I do think that the women who run women's only spaces should be able to make a distinction between transwomen and other women. And I'm very angry that I'm nervous about saying that with my real identity in case I get harassed online for it.

I guess Flora could easily point out again that I am just refusing to call a spade a spade, or a man a man (and she's right) - but I am refusing in the interests of detente, compassion, a desire to accept another's lived experience. I find this whole area of argument divides me from feminism. I suppose you could say that that's what transactivists are trying to achieve, but I choose to resist them my way rather than the high way. I know feminists didn't choose this fight - transactivists did - but I won't fight it by saying kim is a man when she identifies as a woman.

Maybe I should just stop. I have no idea where to go with this.

X-posted with loads and loads of people! I type too slowly!

schoolclosed the thing is, I don't really disagree with you. I will generally call people by whatever they wish to be called, use the pronouns they prefer, and so on. It's courteous, and I have no problem with that. Where people lose their right to my courtesy, whoever they are, is when they prioritise their identity over the safety of women.

I won't say that trans women are identical to women, though - and neither will many of the trans women who are standing up for feminism, despite getting treated terribly by both the extreme trans activists and their "allies". This isn't a case of "women v trans women" this is a case (as someone said upthread) of "feminist women and trans women v extreme misogynist trans activists and their allies".

I haven't seen anyone misgender kim here, and I have no intention of doing so, either. If kim says something I agree with, then I will say so. If kim talks what I consider to be bullshit, though, then I will point that out. And if kim comes here, talks a lot of derailing bullshit, then passive-aggressively says "TBH, i don't post about trans issues on MN anymore. I get subject to abuse, belittling, dismissel of experience etc by the same people who complain when it happens to them." then I will point out what obvious nonsense that is, too.

kim I think a lot of the time we are arguing at cross purposes on this issue.

We're not saying that you do not know what you feel like. We are questioning what it actually means to 'feel like a woman'.

And what I have come away with is that most born-women can't really pinpoint what it is that all women 'feel' like, except in terms of our physical, biological attributes. Most of us say, well I feel like me, a person.

So all anyone can say is that 'I do not feel like I fit society's definition of 'man' (or 'woman').

Which as far as I can see brings us back to sex is a biological fact and gender is social construct.

The thing is, surely it's damaging to trans women to insist that trans women and biological women are the same. Trans women presumably have psychological and medical issues that need addressing?

the few trans* people i know in RL who are willing to talk about this stuff are just trying to get by and minimise how much they are disadvantaged at work and avoid abuse and violence that transphobia attracts

we all seem to understand how we have shared experiences and different experiences, shared and different needs. we all seem to accept that there are things we don't want to share with each other too. we've been able to discuss how i am of the opinion that gender is a construct by society that doesn't serve anyone well, which some trans people seem to agree with, and others don't, whilst also acknowledging that people have to live in this flawed society right now and no one wants them to experience abuse, violence, suicidal thoughts etc so we have to minimise that as much as we can

it's only ever been online that i have encountered this idea that something that can be described as for/about women should be limited to those where women's and transwomen's needs and experiences overlap, or theories that include entitlement to women's bodies, and that minimising the harm and disadvantage that trans people experience should include trampling all over women's rights. it shook me because while obviously i don't expect all trans* people to be or need or want or feel the same, it was so divergent from the conversations i have had in RL. which makes me feel that i have been making assumptions about what trans people need and want and feel, but i can't reconcile some of these "new" requirements with what i understand other women need and want and feel, and what i understand the trans people i know in RL need and want and feel, and it's all very conflicting and confusing.

I have another name to add to this List - and it's a fellow MNer. VoyageofDad, who got busy berating us on the Natalie Bennett webchat thread for being bothered about women's bodily autonomy while the environment is under threat. We should, according to him, "go pin our badges to Dave's arse". Women's freedoms will have to wait until all the world's ills have been sorted out by those magnificent Green men, presumably.

Never mind, as cottageinthecountry so brilliantly pointed out, The 'I can pay for it so I deserve it' attitude that is behind every environmental problem that exists in the world today would be challenged once and for all.

Well done, VoyageofDad! You've made the List!

Owen Jones's behaviour on twitter last night, where he continued to goad and post about his awful experiences with "transphobes" and how he listens to women who support transwomen, really underlines how shallow the support of his type of lefty man is when it comes to feminism. He obviously sees himself as, not only a good guy, but a guy who is prepared to tell other men they should be good guys too. His reactions on twitter, especially last night, demonstrate a kind of rage that he, who deigns, on behalf of women, to tell other men they should listen to women, is being challenged by women. It does seem like a kind of rage. He's had to fall back to the quite ludicrous position that he's been subject to homophobia because telling the truth would demonstrate that he is stooping down from his position of privilege and telling women what they should think and do. And he really doesn't like it when they don't do as they are told.

Yes it's interesting how much rage these lefty men have when women challenge them on their shit - it's like they take it really personally, there they are being our champions and we're not grateful, we're telling them they're doing it wrong.

I almost prefer out and out sexists.

Or nobbers like Russell Brand, who is beginning to grow up and realise what a nob he is and how if he is ever to be a decent person who can live with himself, he needs to do the reading about how not to be an average bog-standard man.