Being silenced/feeling voiceless

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

Can we talk about this?

There were some amazing threads on here a few years ago, about rape and about 'small' sexual assaults, and I remember so many posters saying they'd suddenly found a way to talk about something that had shaped them as people. It seemed really powerful to me. But I was wondering if we're actually going backwards in terms of feeling able to speak up.

I was in a meeting yesterday, and noticing how some women (including me) do that classic 'I don't know if I'm saying this very well' kind of minimising of their own points. I was really struck that someone said 'I need to learn the language to say this' - as if she was being inarticulate, rather than as if people weren't bothering to listen to what she was saying (which was closer to the case).

I keep on feeling this way, especially about all the debates raging around gender identity issues - I just don't have the language to say what I want to say. I can't help feeling as if all of us who disagree are just miscommunicating. Does anyone else feel that? I don't feel as if I have the language to talk about what makes me feel hurt and upset by words like 'cis' - I think it's a real feeling, and I think it is related to sexual violence, but I don't feel very able to put it into words, especially outside MN.

Does anyone else feel like this?

Thee should be these obviously

I've not gone all Shakespearean.

I know that would be so 'knight in shining armour' - what a whole can of worms that would open up!

And the problem a lot of men have with transgenderism is that it makes them feel sick - it is a homophobic terror that they might 'accidentally' fancy a bloke, worse get off with one and discover a dick ... and even worse realise that they like it

Perhaps tapping into male old-skool sexist chivalry and homophobia can be manipulated to the advantage of women for a change?

Sorry I hope its obvious I am now jesting.

rufus
I don't know how to phrase this but women complaining about trans activists can appear to be...ahhh fuckit I can't think of a word...mean, jealous, selfish, not wanting to share, TERFy....dunno

But the sad thing is that women complaining about anything will be stereotyped - seen as shrill, uppity, unfeminine, etc.. Think of Mary Beard getting narked for being described a 'whining' when she simply said she was 'gob-smacked' about the virulent misogyny about her online.

Its part of the infuriating thing about patriarchy. When men, especially white, straight, middle-classed, etc men speak - a metaphorical hush duly descends as we all bend to listen.

So I do not propose men step in to protect women from seeming 'terfy', but to provide us with the anonymity to protect us from being sued, losing our jobs, or being no-platformed for our entire lives, being harrassed, sabotaged, threatened or attacked, etc.

"Usually it would be offensive and sexist to accuse a woman of acting like, thinking like, or feeling like a woman." - Is this the part that bothered you, 0x?

no it was who said it that worried me, it looked like a website i would normally swear at and call all sorts of rude words.
So to be agreeing with him felt "dirty".

Why does it seem to matter more if a man has these problems with the extreme end of MTT? Do I have hand my feminist badge in now?

This sort of relates to the OP. Because men are more able to 'tell it like it is', like in the Blaze article, without being silenced, they don't have to shroud everything in apologies and skirt around the issues,whilst falsely believing they don't have the language to describe what they know to be true - they can call a spade a spade - because they no they can do it without comeuppance.

Imagine the shit-storm if a woman had written that very same article...

agreeing with him felt "dirty".

I can't believe I spelled know as no apologies

I'm not surprised it felt dirty agreeing with him - the guy is clearly no feminist. Here's a lovely anti abortion piece from him:

themattwalshblog.com/2013/10/29/its-time-to-end-the-stigma-of-infanticide/

Neo-liberals are only neo-liberals as long as they can hide from their own reflections. It tells you that abortion is a wonderful expression of a woman’s “right to choose.” But killing newborns? That’s totally different! Or killing a pregnant woman? That’s clearly double homicide! Let’s stop this madness. Turn the lights on. Neo-liberals, like mold, need darkness to thrive. So turn the lights on. You want legal infanticide? OK, have it your way

Anyway, I don't agree with him on this point about Jenner:

For my part, I agree that a man can never lay claim to womanhood. I also agree that there is such a thing as a female brain and a female soul — and by extension female emotions and female personalities and female characteristics — but the trouble is that female brains and souls are always contained securely in female bodies. A man will never be born with a sloth’s heart or a rhino’s liver or a birch tree’s root system, just as he will never be born with a woman’s brain

Female brains giving rise to female emotions and female personalities? Female bodies possessing female souls?

Hah, I wish I'd re-read it before posting now. I think I was just overjoyed to see someone else calling out the mass fantasy!

He's (unsurprisingly) also extremely homophobic and I suppose falls into this category

the problem a lot of men have with transgenderism is that it makes them feel sick - it is a homophobic terror

But do you think non-homphobic men whose automatic stance would be 'live and let live' would show a similar sort of variance in opinion that we see, say, here on MN, to trans theory once the details and implications are laid out? ie. some feeling very opposed to it (rather than transpeople themselves) and some thinking that was terrible transphobia?

Here's an article suggesting that gay men are expressing similar ranges in attitudes to the question of whether a gay transman is a gay man: www.huffingtonpost.com/renato-barucco/transgender-people-strangers-in-gay-land_b_5522288.html

When I switched to offline conversation, things didn't get better. I asked gay men whether they had dated or had sex with trans guys, or if they would…. otherwise brilliant men, couldn't even grasp the question

Yes, because it isn't necessarily a simple concept to grasp...

under

I agree re shitstorm

And even if there are bits of the article that weren't very good, there are still a fair few "yes" bits. So I'll keep the badge

garlick - yes, I am feeling better, thanks.

I don't agree with everyone on this thread (which I'm sure is fine), but it's really helped me clarify and think. It's a process so I'm sure I'll come back to more thinking about it, too.

laurierf
"But do you think non-homphobic men whose automatic stance would be 'live and let live' would show a similar sort of variance in opinion that we see, say, here on MN, to trans theory once the details and implications are laid out?"

I find it too hard to speculate - its a patriarchal society, all males including consciously non-homophobic ones are raised to have male entitlement and 'live and let live' can often bring a lot of unconscious anti-woman assumptions and blind-spots - ie- it often translates as 'promoting the 'divine' sex 'rights' of males to sexually access who they like, how they like and when they like, as long as access has been been rubber stamped with crude notions of consent' (also where 'lack of consent' is a matter for constant query and debate). Women more commonly focus on restricted sexual access for males in order to protect against abuse.

I doubt men would be so impassioned - because it does not affect them so much - there has been no group of 'transmen' organising an equivalent conference to 'The Cotton Ceiling'. Women and FTT, I just don't believe, would be half so pushy and threatening, they can't physically overpower males, I doubt they would dominate the male equivalent MN and have hissy fits when they are not being pandered to. And men have not been socialised pander to them the way women pander to MTT. I think whether transmen are real men, or whether straight women or gay men are transphobic for not fancying them would be non-issue to most men.

I think the passion men show is through homophobia as I suggested before and also chivalry "How dare other men think they have the right to go in the same toilets as my wife, my daughters, etc.

Also the MRA's we know actively promote hostility against radical feminists, so I think they would still be around for the 'TERF'-bashing.

So I think the range would be more about the male 'right' to get off however he likes versus - 'no that is just perverted' and less about feminism versus transgenderism, by the underpinning misogyny and Patriarchy would still be there.

Of course you do get a small minority of genuinely pro-feminist men who would be there I hope, flying the flag for women's rights, but I fear they wouldn't.

there has been no group of 'transmen' organising an equivalent conference to 'The Cotton Ceiling'

Well, yes, I suppose the guy who wrote the article about transmen's acceptance (or lack thereof) in the male gay community said:

After these conversations, I wasn't surprised to listen to transgender gay men's narratives of rejection. What amazed me was their patience and ability to rationalize frequent dismissals

"Making assumptions, they seemed very concerned with the presence, appearance and shape of genitals" - quote from Huff Post may not be word for word as I'm on phone. But when I read stuff like this I feel like I've fallen through the looking glass. I find myself wanting to scream something very rude along the lines of "but that's the fucking point of fucking you fucking idiot - it's all about your personal preference in which genitals you want to fit your genitals to!"

laurierf
yy - though I still find the thoroughness of male sexual entitlement beggars belief. I am astonished that the writer is so amazed by the female-born's patience and ability to rationalize frequent dismissals ie- lack of sexual entitlement. To me it is obvious that no-one is morally obliged to fancy me or have sex with me - why is it not obvious to the born male ffs?

LurcioAgain
it's all about your personal preference in which genitals you want to fit your genitals to
It is so weird that because some people suffer from sex dysphoria or GID, no one, according to that thinking, is allowed in all good conscience to be lesbian, gay or straight any more. It is such a retrograde step for lesbian and gay rights and women's rights.

It is good manners to hold doors open for people and not make personal remarks. Agreeing that human males are in the social, political and biological class "female" is not good manners, it is either subjugation or humouring.