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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

And so it begins: Transwoman is running for women's officer of NUS

999 replies

PosieReturningParker · 19/02/2016 15:52

Some of her aims:

Gender neutral sex ed
Women in leadership making room for transwomen (because you know how many women are in leadership roles)
BUS accepting transwomen to compete as women in sports

OP posts:
Thread gallery
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dorade · 23/02/2016 20:19

"We aren't small in numbers, we just aren't organised!"

Exactly, Vincent.

When I talk to people about this, when I explain the real-life impacts, the fact that most men don't have surgery, the fact that their behaviour skews the female crime figures, the fact that your daughter may have to share a changing room with an adolescent male just because he says he feels female, people are horrified. But they are also scared to speak out for fear of being labelled a transphobe or bigot.

We need a letter signed by hundreds, thousands of us to each MP. The Government will soon be responding to Maria Miller's Trans Inquiry.

dorade · 23/02/2016 20:23

There was a report the other day about a male showing his parts to girls in a toilet and the concern was whether he had first identified as female, because presumably if he had, then everything would have been ok.

What kind of special madness has descended that this is now our thought processes work?

SuburbanRhonda · 23/02/2016 20:24

I'm really struggling with this because I am completely in line with the views expressed on this thread, but my DD, who does have trans friends (I don't), calls me a terf because I can't accept that people like Anna Lee are women just like me.

I've been a feminist all my adult life and now I feel the fight is starting all over again.

NameAgeLocation · 23/02/2016 20:32

Anna Lee isn't a woman just like me!
Why is it that she cam supposedly speak for and represent me, yet if I dare to suggest that our experiences are different I'M the one in the wrong?
I wouldn't pretend to know what life is like for a transwoman, but presumably my own experience is so simple and ordinary that any old person can sample it just by slipping on a frock!

(Just saw that the Amsterdam Historical Museum now has only gender-neutral loos. I guess I'm a bigot for not wanting to catch a glimpse of a strange man's cock. Yet women have been asked to leave another
Dutch museum for breastfeeding there (it's not a protected activity here).

HermioneWeasley · 23/02/2016 20:33

rhonda do you think your DD really believes that Anna (why do I always want to call her Dave?) is a woman? In the exactly the same way that you and she are women? I can't wrap my head around that - can she explain why she thinks that?

AllTheToastIsGone · 23/02/2016 20:33

I think radical feminists should call themselves something different. It makes them sound like their ideas are extreme when actually they are just commonsense.

The main idea of radical feminism is that gender is just a social construct right? Or is there something else I have missed?

NameAgeLocation · 23/02/2016 20:34

Pressed post too soon, wanted to add:

I'm bewildered. Breastfeeding in public is disgusting but being expected to walk past a line of pissing men is reasonable behaviour?

VincentVanLowe · 23/02/2016 20:34

TERF is only a few years old, before that there was 'radscum', and before that 'feminazi'.. All the way back to 'witch'. Trans activists claim that it was invented by radical feminists but it was actually coined by 2 bloggers called Lauredhel and Tigtog who, to my knowledge and I read their blog for years, never identified as radical feminists at all. They coined it in a comment thread at their blog. They had been part of a large loose blogring of feminists for ages which included radical and liberal feminists, but on the bigger libfem blogs like Feministe, Feministing, Shakesville, in the UK The F-Word, and even I Blame The Patriarchy which leaned more radical, trans activist entryists had been successfully isolating, harassing and censoring and banning the radicals. A lot of feminist bloggers were caught in a bind, they basically had to distance themselves from radicals in order to maintain credibility (for the career feminists) or to stay out of the firing line, but at that stage there were still a lot of relationships and connections between these women. So tigtog and lauredhel decided that there should be a way to separate the 'good' radical feminists from the 'bad', and TERF was born. The specific discussion this came about on was one where they just could not argue with points made largely by a radical feminist blogger called Ms Andrea. She was very smart and very very good at arguing, much of what we discuss now about trans was being covered very well by her then, and I have no idea if she still writes anywhere, but she is the TERF the term was invented to refute, in lieu of actual arguments. I never really see this history talked about but there was a whole generation of fantastic radical feminist bloggers all but wiped out by trans activists (and sex industry) harassment.
So much great analysis and real sisterhood building gone.

NameAgeLocation · 23/02/2016 20:37

I used to be on the Ms magazine boards back when they still existed and there was trans vs WBW (woman born woman) antagonism even then. I supported the transwomen, I couldn't see what the problem was. Now I feel like a complete fool.

OhShutUpThomas · 23/02/2016 20:42

I wouldn't pretend to know what life is like for a transwoman, but presumably my own experience is so simple and ordinary that any old person can sample it just by slipping on a frock!

Spot on.

dorade · 23/02/2016 20:42

I think many women instinctively and unquestioningly support TW because we are conditioned to care - we think how hard must it be to be trapped in the wrong body to the extent that you would mutilate that body to try and find relief. Because that is the line that is spun and for a vanishingly small percentage of TW there may be truth in it. But most are autogynephilic entitled men who get off on dressing and (supposedly) passing as a woman and never intend to have their cock cut off.

VincentVanLowe · 23/02/2016 20:48

Radical demons

NameAgeLocation · 23/02/2016 20:48

Very good point dorade and I have certainly explained sex change operations to a sceptical friend in that way - imagine being trapped in the wrong body - many
(20?) years ago.

But something else is going on here.

iwuddarryl · 23/02/2016 21:01

Sorry and all that but that's just a bloke in a really bad wig and a frock. (Ducks).

Don't they realize how ridiculous most of them look? And why is it mainly really tall, blokey men that feel the need to be women? You never see the little fellas (who at least look a bit feminiine to start with) wanting to wear women's clothes.

A bad wig and a frock doth not a woman make.

(ducks behind you)

LyndaNotLinda · 23/02/2016 21:02

I have trans friends. I like them very much. Do I think of them in the same way I do my female friends? No. As far as I can see, we're viewing femininity from opposing ends of the telescope. Trans women want to be women desperately and want to be treated as a woman. Feminists (and many women who wouldn't call themselves feminist) don't want that. They want to be accepted as equal but different. TW aren't different so they're trying to force a difference by emphasising their femininity and trying to take away our equality. After all, everything that makes women different from men is stuff that TW don't have.

VincentVanLowe · 23/02/2016 21:07

Autocorrect and my baby conspiring there, hilariously. Radical demons indeed. Was going to say, radical feminism isn't about being extreme, it's a woman centred approach which considers women's oppression to be the root of all oppressive systems, meaning, the first, the model for the others, not 'the most important'. It's not oppression Olympics, it's a place to begin an analysis from.

NameAgeLocation - I wasn't on the Ms boards but I did have run ins with 'Lynne/Renee' who was a very loud and predatory male who haunted those boards and I know caused a lot of conflict. He was dodgy as.

These men have been stirring up conflict among women for a very long time, way beyond the Internet, and they are close to achieving their goals. If we can't even collect statistics and research on women's position because women are no longer materially identifiable - we have no place to begin anything from. We have to stop this now.

StitchesInTime · 23/02/2016 21:13

I don't understand how people can think that a transwoman is a woman in the same way that biological women are.

Even if we ignore the physical differences - uteruses, breasts, genitals hormones, less muscular strength etc - there's the differences in experience growing up.

The constant drip drip drip of messages telling girls that they're not as important as boys, that girls are supposed to be good, look pretty, be nurturing, put others needs before their own. Messages telling girls that subjects like maths and science (which tend to lead to higher paying careers than humanities subjects) are for boys. The growing knowledge that their bodies are sexually objectified by men, and very often, experience of physical or verbal sexual harassment or assault. Being told that they need to moderate their own behaviour or dress to protect themselves from sexual assault, because there's plenty of people ready to go victim blaming if you don't and the worst happens. The put downs and patronising women get from men. The expectations that they're automatically going to be the ones to care for children or elderly parents. I'm sure there's plenty of other examples of how girls and women's experiences differ from that of boys and men.

I just don't see how someone who has spent all but the last couple of years of their life living as a boy, then a man, can really have a proper understanding of what it's like to be a woman.
Any more than I, as a woman, have a proper understanding of what it's like to live as a man, or a transwoman.

The whole thing just smacks of male privilege and men insisting that they should get what they want, regardless of how it impacts women.

iwuddarryl · 23/02/2016 21:22

We all talk about how wrong it all is.
There are loads of threads, with posts running into the hundreds, all commenting on how worried women are at this insidious erosion of everything we've worked for.
What will life be like for our daughters?

But,
Is anybody actually DOING anything about it? Hmm
What's being done?

We can't stand by and allow this to happen, surely?

VincentVanLowe · 23/02/2016 21:24

"The whole thing just smacks of male privilege and men insisting that they should get what they want, regardless of how it impacts women."

Yep.

"I just don't see how someone who has spent all but the last couple of years of their life living as a boy, then a man, can really have a proper understanding of what it's like to be a woman"

A common 'gotcha' I see to your argument (which was well put) is - "but what about trans girls, they've been socialised as girls from an early age, so blah blah all your arguments against later transitioners are invalid".

Except for the publicity and pandering over "trans girls" demonstrates that they are not treated like girls at all! Girls dont have parents and schools and law makers jumping through hoops to validate them.

And even if we accepted 'early transitioners' like Jazz etc to be girls, it doesn't follow that we should accept 'late transitioners' like Anna to be women.

iwuddarryl · 23/02/2016 21:27

We need a couple of brave souls to speak out.
And you would have to be very brave to run the gauntlet of being accused of being 'prejudiced', just because you dare to question what's happening.

At the moment they have the upper hand, because they know that accusing a person of being prejudiced is a very effective way of closing down discussion. Hmm

iwuddarryl · 23/02/2016 21:30

the publicity and pandering over "trans girls" demonstrates that they are not treated like girls at all! Girls dont have parents and schools and law makers jumping through hoops to validate them.

Good point.

PenguinVox · 23/02/2016 21:32

Yeah Vincent it's not even the same for early transitioners because as well as their "special status" they are also going through "girlhood" with a choice. If they decide they don't like being a girl they can opt out.

SuburbanRhonda · 23/02/2016 21:32

rhonda do you think your DD really believes that Anna (why do I always want to call her Dave?) is a woman? In the exactly the same way that you and she are women? I can't wrap my head around that - can she explain why she thinks that?

To be fair to DD, she is aware that I don't have a penis whereas Anna does Smile. But she is more in the camp of believing that people like Anna are women born in the wrong body and I'm just lucky I have the body that matches the fact that I'm a woman. She is a young student and is still formulating her ideas but it does make me laugh that I brought her up to be a feminist and now I'm the terf!

But I have told her if she calls me cis I'll stop paying her rent Grin

iwuddarryl · 23/02/2016 21:40

Also, a lot of DD's are growing up watching programes drivel such as Keeping up with the Kardashians and I am Kate or Cate or whatever

What is in fact a sorry circus, is becoming the norm to them.

It's worrying. The media is playing a big part.

NameAgeLocation · 23/02/2016 21:41

You're not serious? I am Cait is a programme?? Shock Wow.