General Trans thread part 2

[ChiefClerkDrumknott]

Following on from this one General Trans thread
Because I'm not Elsa and can't let it go

Even a quick read of this thread suggest there is a lot of anger. ..
Some examples...

You don't need examples. I told you that we are angry

This "debate" between radical feminism and the trans community is being seen by mainstream as a particularly nasty fight with some issues, risks and fears (on both sides) being deliberately exaggerated.

And who do you think started the fight? I think you'll find some rad fem fears stem from being threatened with death and rape when they bring up objections to some of these 'issues' you glibly dismiss. Do you not think that's an understandable reaction? By the way, have you popped over to Twitter or Tumblr yet to plead with 'TERF' killers to be less aggressive?

As mentioned earlier, I may be completely wrong. Perhaps the best solution is to get even angrier, even more offensive and aggressive...

You know what, as I said we are angry and we are 'aggressive', if you term defending women's rights vocally and loudly and consistently aggressive

but it opens up other doors in it's place

Until it starts opening doors for women, instead of slamming them ever louder in our faces, then I'm going to be deeply sceptical of it all.

Imo though, the trans issue doesnt take away sex roles, it just reinforces them even more strictly. Its why 'the right' are so happy to agree with it. How many of the little boys who like to play with dolls were going to grow up to be sahds?

Absolutely BBA

Hello I've lurked and posted on a few trans threads but not in Feminism topic before.

I joined the FB group about women in sports and thought about contacting a local women's group asking if they are going to debate the issue. Found this as their top post at the moment:

I might go. I feel uneasy though because I worry it will descend into a simple argument a about transwomen in women's prisons.

Oh shit my pics on there.

Report it, see if hq can crop it?

Yes, or copy and paste text into new post and then ask HQ to delete the post with the pic?

There we go!

I object to being referred to as a cis woman, I'm just a woman I don't need a qualifier.

How is ignoring the fact that women have different bodies to men opening up the doors for people who are different?

It is slamming them shut.

We can only be offered opportunities in society if we pretend we're not different.

I was having a think about why the cis issue annoys me so much. The argument is it 'simply means not trans' which on the face of it is hard to argue against (hard to argue in a few words without going into rejection of the oppressive structure of gender and lady brain etc)
I don't have a problem being a woman. I know I am one, it's my reality, and apart from the usual issues growing up female I am quite accepting of my female body parts.
'True' trans people have sex dysphoria. Which is a mental health condition. Why do we need a word to describe people who don't have a specific mental health condition? We don't apply that logic to depression, or bipolar disorder, which are far more common than sex dysphoria.
Creating a word that means 'person who doesn't have a specific mental disorder' is entirely illogical.

"it may damage traditional activities, such as Olympic sport but it opens up other doors in it's place."

Which doors are they? Voting, equal pay, outlawing of rape in marriage etc all predate the current transactivist movement...

That's exactly what I think about it, but rarely say it for fear of being accused of transphobia. I don't call myself "non schizophrenic" or non anything else for that matter. A lot of people think you shouldn't even be allowed to imply that trans people are suffering a mental health condition because it will offend them, so society has to pretend they aren't and tiptoe around their feelings.

And the only reason many people want to use "cis" is so they can talk about "cis privilege" or "cis-sexism" like it's a thing we should all be aware of and walk on eggshells around and bend over backwards to avoid. Rather than just simply how the vast vast majority of people live their day to day lives.

My last post was to Obsidian.

Yes. Th fact that sex dysphoria is a mental health condition is the huge elephant in the room that nobody is allowed to point at. Instead we have to pretend that sex dysphoria indicates that a person is opposite sex inside to their outsides.
Sex dysphoria and transgenderism are highly comorbid with other mental health conditions including depression and personality disorder. Yet the trans is real because suicide argument is never examined beyond 'transitioning fixes suicide' rather than considering that the suicidal ideation may be linked to other existing mental health conditions.

Not to mention that the suicide rate is the same after surgery as before.

Yep. And sex dysphoria is absolutely nothing like body dysphoria, at all!! Totally different.

I got moaned at yesterday because "evil terfs say trans are mentally ill". I suggested he checked the dsm and then get back to me

As someone who suffers from mental illness I'm highly insulted by how aggrieved trans people are when it's suggested that gender dysphoria is a mental illness.

As i cis-spained yesterday...
I have asd. It doesnt feel like a mh issue to me, though 'side effects' like depression certainly do. But it is in the dsm, officially it is an illness. It requires diagnosis, not self identification.

Stating that doesnt make someone neurodivergophobic

Even if it isn't a mental health condition, there are still huge numbers of life experiences that don't require a special word for people who haven't had that experience.

I can't seem to access the fb group; is there a reason why? I just get the pink message saying " The page you requested cannot be displayed at the moment. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may be broken or expired

m.facebook.com/groups/1556214311365717

Its been changed to secret, if you pm fide1ine, she can add you (i have no idea how to, or i'd say pm me )

I don't know if anyone has seen this article yet...

www.independent.co.uk/voices/when-it-comes-to-transgender-rights-there-s-nothing-feminist-about-being-a-bigot-a6843811.html

I was especially irritated by this bit: "I’ve also heard that trans women are not real women because they’ve had different childhoods from “us”."

Unless I'm much mistaken, this is a reference to the furore around the #sharedgirlhood thing on Twitter a couple of years back. In which transactivists leapt upon a discussion intended to enable women and girls of all backgrounds to share the misogyny they had experienced due to growing up in a female body. Apparently it was exclusionary and transphobic to talk about shared girlhood because transwomen didn't have a girlhood?

So, what the author is alluding to is a case in which, yes, women were shut down by transactivists. Not the other way around.

What annoys me so much about this whole "evil feminists" debate is that it's presented in such a polarising, overly simplistic way. The above writer acts as if feminists are having knee-jerk, bigoted reactions to issues that don't matter. What we're all trying to say, screaming at the top of our lungs, is that these are massively complicated, subtle issues and that maybe we should have the chance to discuss them to ensure that trans rights are not gained at the cost of women's rights. But because we're having to shout at the top of our lungs and are getting more exasperated at not being listened to, it becomes easier and easier to code us as transphobic extremists.

What also saddens me deeply is that over the past few years issues of 'gender' have become much more mainstream due to the publicity over trans issues. Except, that the definition people are being fed is one of gender being a choice, rather than a socially defined construct. 1-0 against feminism and any attempts at deconstructing the deeply problematic constructs of gender and the patriarchy. And the fact that even saying that would make me, in the eyes of transactivists and their followers, a horrible transphobe.

It plays right into MREs hands.

Birds of a feather?