Is it actually possible to be a feminist and completely embrace trans rights?

[BertrandRussell]

Because I am beginning to think that i will never be able to say anything about trans issues without being accused of being transphobic.

It seems to me that in some cases trans rights are just incompatible with women's rights. Obviously then, someone has to step aside- and if I want the ones stepping aside to be transwomen then I am being, I suppose, transphobic.

So has the time come for feminists to say to trans women "I support you to live the life you want to. I will stand up to and with you against people who abuse you and are violent to you. I will call you what you want to be called. I will defend your employment rights, your right to housing and any other "social" service. I will defend your right to appropriate medical treatment. In fact, I will defend you and support you in anything up to the point where your rights conflict with and take precedence over the rights of women. From that point, my allegiance is with women.

If this causes you to call me transphobic so be it. I will continue to support you up to that point regardless."

I think one huge issue is that the lawmakers and politicians don't see it as a problem to impinge on women's rights because they don't think such things are really important. It's an easy win for them - they look understanding, modern, liberal and progressive and they lose nothing while doing so.

To use my example - what transactivists are trying to create is a culture where an elderly woman in the situation I describe would be written off as a bigot on a par with "nutty old racist Aunt Gladys who doesn't like the black care workers", rather than as a woman legitimately concerned with her own right to bodily autonomy and dignity. And my fear is that the transactivists, by creating that culture, will create one where the law agrees with them, and the elderly woman no longer has a right to bodily autonomy and dignity.

I completely agree. And no, I don't think this is a position compatible with feminism.

YY Flugel.

I don't think you can be a feminist and also believe that gender is an innate and tangible quality, or that female and male brains differ and can be planted in the body of the opposite sex. Those ideas are just antithetical to feminism.

No, I don't think it is, Bertrand, and I agree with what you say in your OP.

This month's Elle magazine has an interview with a model, Hari Nef, who is a trans woman. Interesting pics, article, she has an interesting look, but in the interview she says (not quoting directly) "Bob the linebacker should be able to say 'I'm a woman' and that should be okay", and the author of the article just writes "we're not there yet".

I find it very difficult. In fact it really upsets me. I feel saying things like that is incredibly arrogant and actually quite aggressive. Yet it is accepted unquestioningly in the article. How is it that people are unable or unwilling to take the next mental step and think hang on, that choice isn't just about Bob, it's about all women, it affects us all? And that's where I suppose accusations of 'transphobia' come in.

on a personal level I have no problem with trans people but when I look at the bigger picture, yes, I do have problems and I suppose that possibly makes me 'transphobic'.

I put this on another thread
womenanalysingpolicyonwomen.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/women-only-spaces-and-proposed-changes-to-the-equality-act-and-gender-recognition-act/

This is the governments response to the enquiry
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/535764/Government_Response_to_the_Women_and_Equalities_Committee_Report_on_Transgender_Equality.pdf

Worth reading - everything we are discussing is in there. I'm not seeing anything in the Government's response to the transgender enquiry that supports women's existing rights to female only spaces, female medical professionals and female healthcare assistants/carers for personal care.

thanks harlot, two very important links, and the first one just goes to show that protections for trans people are already adequate under the existing Equality Act! Mind if I post these on the mnhq response to spartacus thread?

Post away. Government response is a very factual summary of the issues that women are rightfully concerned about. With zero mention of how women are affected by the changes apart from suck it up.

I think you are mixing up rights and entitlements.

Trans people should have the same rights as everyone else.

They do not however have an entitlement to define women according to their own imaginary benchmarks.

Feminism is incompatible with being defined by men's benchmarks, standards and assumptions, so it is incompatible with many TRA demands, which are infact demands for entitlements not rights.

Everyone is "transphobic" - or will be at some point.

TBH, I think women have lost this one, the horse has bolted. Only thing to stop it is if young folk/ kids - keep going down the gender non conforming route so that the typical stereotypes just disappear and they all just morph into a non masculine/ non feminine mass.

This is a subject that mn has made me think a lot more about than I had before (this is a good thing). My feelings are this, if you are a man and feel it would make you happy to chop of your penis and wear a dress then by all means go for it. I fully support anyone's right to bodily autonomy and to wear whatever they like. However, my being a woman is a biological fact. I have certain genetic characteristics that make me female. This is not determined by what I wear or how I look and I do not support someone's right to tell me that it is.

Oh dear, Cher has discovered Terfs and is In full outrage mode on Twitter. Terfs (aka - anyone who says anything that might annoy a trans person) are getting roasted tonight. No wonder people are very wary about saying anything trans negative in real life.

Should transsexuals have the same employment, health and human rights as everyone else? Of course! To suggest otherwise is awful.

Should transsexuals be able to live lives free from violence and fear? Again, a no brainer, of course they should.

Should transsexuals be able to redefine womanhood, force themselves on women's spaces, use their voice to curtail services for women or women's rights? No.

There is as a pp suggested a difference between rights and a need for validation

I just find the continued emphasis (on MN) on the extreme and unpalatable voices of transactivism really uncomfortable and unhelpful even though I have sympathy for most of the views radfems express. It's not really reflective of the average real life trans person and it gives little to no airtime to the voice of trans men, female to male that is, which seems far more interesting (to me). At the same time I'm not sure it is appropriate for transwomen to pick up the mantel of championing women's rights, the battles are very different. We've endured different hardships.

Oh dear

I had a look at the cher tweet

Which made me have a nose at the transactivist page

And after i had read for a few minutes i came across a comment regarding a woman who had done something the transactivist believed was wrong

Part of the comment said something along the lines of

"Strange that 'clare' holds these views as (he) she has PCOS and is therefore transgender herself"

Misquoted...but only cos i cant be bothered to go back in

Happy to c&p if anyone wants me to

Oh, please do cut and paste! (I have PCOS, well had before menopause - I get very angry on a very personal level about this sort of crap).

devil - the reason the emphasis is there (and I agree, they are not representative of the trans people I know in real life) is that it is the extremist who are driving proposed changes to legislation, not the reasonable members of the trans community. And politicians like Maria Miller seem to swallow the extremist line hook, line and sinker. I don't want to end up in a situation where any man (any, not necessarily trans) can walk into a communal female changing room at a swimming pool, and say "I'm trans", take his clothes off to reveal his penis and there's nothing any of the women in there can do because the law, drafted with the views of the extreme end of the trans movement in mind, has said that so long as he doesn't actually commit an assault his presence is fine so long as he's uttered the magic words "I identify as female". That, I hope we can all agree, would be an insane piece of law-making - yet it's where we're headed if transactivists get their way. And it won't help any of the rest of us, including the vast majority of very nice trans people who just want to get on with life in the knowledge that they have legal protections against genuine discrimination (workplace, housing, healthcare) and against being on the receiving end of harrassment.

devilinmyshoes - this is not extreme transactivism, it's mainstream. These are some of the recommendations in the transgender equality report:

Within the current Parliament, the Government must bring forward proposals to update the Gender Recognition Act, in line with the principles of gender self-declaration that have been developed in other jurisdictions. In place of the present medicalised, quasi-judicial application process, an administrative process must be developed, centred on the wishes of the individual applicant, rather than on intensive analysis by doctors and lawyers.

No gender reassignment is required, self-declaration is the only necessary barrier to becoming any gender an individual 'feels' they are.

We recommend that the Equality Act be amended so that the occupational requirements provision and / or the single-sex / separate services provision shall not apply in relation to discrimination against a person whose acquired gender has been recognised under the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

Women (and men) are no longer entitled to request an HCP of the same biological gender to carry out an intimate exam, to be using communal changing rooms, hospital ward or any other facility that is currently single sex.

We recommend that the Government work with Sport England to produce guidance which help sporting groups realise that there are likely to be few occasions where exclusions are justified to ensure fair competition or the safety of competitors.

If men say they are women, they can compete against (and beat) women as 'equal' competitors.

This isn't some batshit extreme thinking - this is about to become national policy. FFS wake up and smell the coffeee

matilda

” Well, the Indigo girls got the message loud and clear, and announced last year that they will no longer play the festival. Now, with acts dropping out, Mitchfest organizers are scrambling to defend their transphobic policies. Guess what, Mitchfest’s primary organizer Lisa Vogel is transgender, (her?) himself, a PCOS (polycyclic ovarian syndrome) patient. This could be one big reason Vogel so transphobic. Self-hatred is common"

Devil - i think that's the older trans folk where a small amount came out silently probably years ago and just wanted to disappear into the crowd and not be noticed.

What about the school kids, so many all getting caught up in this - not true trans kids. Just kids getting caught up in a group, rebelling against the expected stereotypes and those that are genuinely confused and in the past would have just been fine and probably been gay or lesbian. They eat up Twitter and these more extreme aggressive transactivists like Zinna Jones, Parker Malloy, Julia Serano etc. It's so easy to surround themselves in trans friends (real life or online) and they are reading and being fed this stuff all the time.

I have a friend whose older teenager is a perfect example of being caught up by peer pressure and who has now changed their name and is talking about hormones and surgery. My friend said their child showed absolutely no sign of gender confusion growing up but hung with a crowd from school.

What's the rationale for PCOS meaning a woman is trans? Seems bonkers. There will be no cis women left in between PCOS and gender queer.

By 'extreme' I was thinking of cuntscum, cotton ceiling and so on. Little snippets of madness requoted endlessly to support an antitrans agenda, like MRAs do to feminists.

I have concerns with some of the mainstream activism of course I do, particularly with regards to women's sport where we are only just beginning and are still so far from anything like equality. It's just an innate sense of justice that insists we can resolve these issues without denying trans people the right to exist and identify as they please.

And I still want to hear more from trans men, I know they are outnumbered by trans women but why do their views never seem to feature in any of these threads?

"And I still want to hear more from trans men, I know they are outnumbered by trans women but why do their views never seem to feature in any of these threads?"

I do too. But why would transmen post on a website mostly populated by women?

Presumably because our (yes, i have/had PCOS too) sex hormones may be a bit out of whack? Mine was mild - only diagnosed when ttc. Still 100% a woman, thanks, slightly malfunctioning ovaries and all.

Do some of these people for whom how they feel about their 'gender' is so important not have the slightest consideration for the feelings of women? Telling a woman who may be unhappy about hirsutism, acne and infertility that shes 'transgender' isnt exactly helpful, is it?

"It's just an innate sense of justice that insists we can resolve these issues without denying trans people the right to exist and identify as they please."

And without denying women their rights.

I agree. Any ideas how we do it?