"What makes a women" NY Times article

[iisme]

Nothing very new here but it expresses most of my feelings around the trans debates very clearly and well. I want to put it on Facebook but I know it will kick off a shit-storm and I'm not sure I have the strength ...

mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html?referrer=&_r=0

Great article, sums up my feelings well. The bit about abortion made me feel quite agitated.

Precisely, their only argument is shout TERF and go on about how hurt their feelings are.

Day to day, I don't think most people know what TERFs are.

It's a fucking effective piece of negative branding though, many people are already wary of radical feminism so conflate the two and you increase dislike of Radfems and classify anyone with any questions on trans as a radfem (even if they themselves are trans, cis male or whatever). And even if no "excluding" is actually happening.

It's similar to the reaction to the rape victim querying trans women in support groups, which again was sensitively written, trying to balance conflicting needs, and received vitriol.

I posted it a day ago but no likes or comments. I wonder what that means. I really liked it.

'TERF' is just another version of 'manhater'. Which feminists have been getting called since forever.

'TERF' is slightly more cunning though because the average right on lefty liberal is horrified at the idea that they aren't open minded and inclusive of everybody and everything. They will throw girls and women under the bus in order to fall over themselves to declare the Emperor's nakedness a marvelous set of trendy progressive post-modernist clothes.

Transactivism is very powerful and making a lot of ground because it appeals to both left-wing men and right-wing men and it is a movement by and for men.

Left-wing men get to congratulate themselves on how PC their misogyny is and right-wing men prefer gender bolstering transsexuals to gender nonconforming lesbians and gays. Neither has bothered to notice that transgenderism is a hijacking and appropriation of transsexualism.

Of course both the left wing misogynist and the right wing misogynist would think that you were insane if you suggested that they marry and have a family with a transwoman (even though both swear that transwomen are female). And transactivists are narcissistic enough to fall for all this - they mistake misogyny for true acceptance and support of their delusion.

Hi all - just wanted to dip in and say hi. I'm not normally on these pages, but I was just reading your thread out of interest (I'd heard really good things about the Mumsnet feminism pages), and I noticed that a couple of you were saying kind things about the piece I wrote for the New Statesman on rape and the definition of 'woman' as it applies to rape support groups. So I just wanted to say thank you for reading (and for defending that position on social media!). xxx

Thank you for popping in to say hi. Your piece was fantastic, I hope the trans backlash didn't affect you too much personally. Out of interest, did you expect the response that you got from transgenderists or did it come out of the blue for you? It's really brave to speak so openly in the media about being raped but even braver if you knew the reaction you were going to get.

I was expecting it: I'd seen the abuse that writers on this subject get on Twitter etc. And I'd signed the Observer letter a few weeks previously - in retort, some Oxford students got together and wrote a piece for one of the university papers calling for apologies from the 4 members of university staff who had signed. In a way, my piece was a response to that: everywhere (including in universities, which should be focused on providing genuinely safe spaces for their students) rape survivors are failed by institutions. In such a context, the question of safe spaces is a very emotive, charged one, and survivors' needs must be taken into account. BUT what I wasn't expecting was: (a) to lose personal friends over this, and (b) on a more positive note, lots of private emails of support from people who agree, but are afraid to speak out. That's important, I think. That there are dissenting voices; and very many women who feel uneasy with the direction of travel of third-wave feminism. Increasingly (and I think the NYT piece helped a lot with this), I think that people - even if they disagree with the gender-critical position - are slightly more willing to believe that we're not terrible, nasty 'TERFs', but do have a valid political point. The more people who speak up, even just on Facebook etc, the more that the poison gets sucked from the public profile of gender-critical feminism.

I think that is right, Mabel. You are very brave.

Thanks for coming on, Mabel. It's really encouraging to hear about the positive emails you got but hardly believable that you lost personal friends over it. Obviously the anti-TERF rhetoric is very loud, and I think a lot of people who have never really thought about these issues tend to jump on that bandwagon because it seems like it is progressive and accepting (though hopefully people are thinking more about whether that is true now) but it's hard to imagine a personal friend reading such a moving account and not only dismissing your point of view but thinking your viewpoint is unsayable. I'm really sorry to hear that, it must have been very tough. But, if it's any consolation, I think you are an important voice in a debate that we really need to have. And I have some optimism that we are getting nearer to actually being able to have that debate.

Great article- I've shared on Facebook.

Did you see this?

I agree with what the article says, but I know which of the two is more likely to have an impact in the fight against America's endemic sexism / objectification of women. Caitlyn Jenner's choice is a more potent weapon for the feminists than the misogynists.

Thank you Mabel. Great article.

Loved this article and thought it articulated for me a lot of what I've been feeling about the Caitlyn Jenner story but couldn't quite express.

While I'm all in favour of anyone who struggles to reconcile their biological sex with their gender identity having the freedom to live as they want, I don't understand why so many M-to-F transgender people seem to choose such a narrow vision of femininity. It would be as if F-to-M transgenders decided to sport giant moustaches while operating drill tools and riding monster trucks, as if such a caricature of maleness were the only way to live as a man.

Or is it that the media only covers that angle on M-to-F transitions? There must be plenty of M-to-F transgender women who just live as any other woman does without going in for the dresses and nails and wigs and make-up. Possibly it is because the more cliche M-to-F transgender women are more vocal about their transition? Either way the media coverage of the 'Call Me Caitlyn' story was really over the top. People were falling over themselves to gush about it. I felt it was a little ridiculous. We're talking about a washed-up reality TV star here, after all, hardly Nelson Mandela.

To quote: "But I also want her to remember: Nail polish does not a woman make."

Help out a dumb male here. Is the problem that Caitlyn Jenners does such a poor, oversimplified, job of defining herself as a woman, or is it that she feels the need to define herself so explicitly as a woman in the first place? Not sure if the point of the article is that women are being defined in the wrong way by the wrong people, or that women shouldn't actually be defined at all.

I think women's situation is already well defined internationally as being a lived experience from childhood of gender inequality by those whose biological sex is female.

All women's rights commitments are framed in that way, as far as I'm aware.

I don't see that the female or male brain/mind/essence/soul has much to do with that.

Interesting piece. I've not been on any of the 'trans' threads and haven't been aware of the issues up till now so this has been very helpful.

The only definition of a woman is an adult human female. No other "definition" is accurate, Caitlin can "define" "herself" in any way "she" chooses, but she can't become a woman. That's the problem.

TheCowThatLaughs

As a man raised in a misogynistic society by a feminist mother, I've spent a long time learning to define myself not as a adult human man, but just as an adult human. I know I'm very lucky to be able to do this, as being a man doesn't place many limitations on my life these days, but can't help but feel that the ultimate aim of feminism should be for all people to define themselves largely as adult humans and to be able to drop the gender bit.

I'm not sure what your point is?

The fact that Caitlyn Jenner could declare that being a woman is about 'mindset and lifestyle' makes it absolutely clear that she has no fucking clue what it means to be a woman.

Quest

On the whole, feminists prefer to dismantle gender ( nail polish is for girls/trucks are for boys type nonsense)

However, much fundamental sexism comes from the different biology of the sexes. Women can bear children and men might not know who fathered those children. Hence slut shaming, feelings of ownership around one's girlfriend and Madonna/whore type notions. Women can bear children so need access to safe Abortion. Women are typically physically weaker and, often because of above feelings of ownership, are more vulnerable to physical or sexual attack by a male partner.

Of course we are all people but that definition doesn't make issues of sexism, racism, ageism, ableism go up in a puff of smoke.

That's a really interesting article - is that an accurate representation of the trans movement in terms of fighting to change language around women and our bodies?? Or a more extreme end of the scale?
I find the language attacks very frightening - I found as a teen that my own body was a bit of a mystery thanks to a Catholic upbringing and it took me a lot of time plus a few library books to feel confident that I knew what my bodily labels were. In fact, I knew horrid slang before I knew true names as slang words are used so, so frequently (as insult as well as description). To have another set of words pushed onto my body has genuinely upset me.

The mainstream representation of trans women doesn't reflect any of this issue as far as I have noticed (although safe to say I could simply have just missed it) - in those, anyone who doesn't agree is coded as bigot and either has a revelation or gets their comeuppance (thinking hollyoaks recent storyline for example). How is it that respected women aren't being allowed to debate this and being pushed into the same box as racists with hate speech?