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."

[LyndaNotLinda]

Just to be abundantly clear, I am in no way suggesting that Danielle Muscato is a sexual predator. I do think they're a big fat misogynist though.

[MatildaOfTuscany]

Not a rape case, but the Tara Hudson case was interesting. She was sentenced for assault - so much, so widely reported on the BBC and in the Guardian, complete with pictures of her looking very feminine. What wasn't so widely reported was that this was her 8th conviction for a violent offence, the offence in question being headbutting a barman when he refused to serve her because she was drunk (leaving him needing extensive dental surgery). What was not reported at all (in fact arguably the press were being deliberately misleading and kept referring to her as "having had surgery" which as it transpired was only fake breasts) was that she still had a penis, which she used to anally penetrate men as part of her job as a prostitute (the screenshots were widely circulated on social media.

On the strength of the "frail blonde looking frightened" pictures in the press, a petition was started which successfully got her transferred to a women's prison.

On her release she gave an interview to the BBC (in which she towered over the male reporter interviewing her). Again, the spin in the interview was that her human rights had been violated by keeping her segregated from other prisoners while in prison - she wasn't being treated like other women. This is a "woman" who must be about 5'10", on her 8th conviction for violent assault, with a fully functioning penis - damn right the prison governer was right to keep her segregated. But in the brave new world the trans-activists want to launch us into, I'm not sure he'd be legally allowed to do so.

So it really isn't an obscure very unlikely hypothetical possibility - it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that "Davina" Ayrton (convicted of raping a 15 year old girl and of possessing thousands of images of the sexual abuse of children, images in the most severe category) could try to bring a case to say his human rights were being infringed by being kept in a men's prison. (It'll be a cold day in hell before I call Davina Ayrton anything other than "he")

[ArcheryAnnie]

I'm completely on board with embracing trans rights. Everyone, however they present, is entitled to rights.

What I'm not on board with is prioritising trans rights at the expense of women's rights, which is what is happening now. I'm also not on board with being forced to publicly state my agreement to things I know not to be true - that penises are female, and so on.

[ArcheryAnnie]

Have just read the rest of the thread and agree with all who are saying that - as implausible as it seems to anyone who hasn't had the unfortunate task of already learning about all this stuff - violent criminals with fully intact male bodies are already pushing for and in some case succeeding in being places in women's prisons.

I have heard a trans man - who had been to prison for a nonviolent crime when they presented as a woman - talk on a panel about the need for "third space" prisons. I thought this was really interesting, as they were less interested in validation and more interested in safety, whereas for the male-bodied trans criminals who push to be placed in women's prisons, safety 9for themselves) is obviously not an issue, but validation is.

[OlennasWimple]

Can I take the thread at a slight tangent and ask if anyone knows the origin of the term "transphobic"? Is it simply that "transist" (following from racist, ageist etc) sounds a bit weird / close to "transistor"? Or because labelling someone phobic suggests that their discomfort (whether that's at sharing a changing room with a man, or finding that the hot lesbian you were hoping to sleep with has a penis) is irrational?

[Felascloak]

I think it's building on homophobic olenna

[NotAnotherHarlot]

I think its a nice choice of word which makes people feel like they are being unreasonable and wrong for having an opinion like lesbians aren't evil because they don't want to sleep with someone with a penis.

[FloraFox]

Going back to the OP, i can't see how transgenderism is compatible with feminism at all. I don't see how, if you think women do not constitute a class of persons who are subject to oppression because they are female, there is any basis for feminism.

[Felascloak]

Well turn this on its head devil
Why would anyone want to do that though? It's easy enough to enact violence against women and girls and get away with it. Why put yourself through the trouble of acquiring a whole new gender?

If all one needs to do to aquire a new gender is to say they feel like the opposite gender (which is the proposal):
If a man was convicted, why would they not do that to avoid being housed with the most violent offenders?
If a man got a thrill out of exposing himself to unsuspecting women, why would he not do that to gain access to female changing rooms?
If a man can get a suspended sentence for sex crimes because there's no appropriate sex offender course for women, why would he not do that?
If a man wanted to record women using the toilet, why would he not do that to gain unfettered access to women's loos?

I'm unsure what you think the barrier is to a man (not a trans woman) just saying they feel like a woman to do these things? There doesn't need to be any commitment to living/acting/presenting as a female so the argument of "why would they do that?" Doesn't stand up for me.

I think that's why less is said about transwomen. It's a lot harder to see a situation where a woman would pretend to be trans to gain access to men than the other way round. So the risk of self identification for trans men is much lower and it's not as controversial.

[devilinmyshoes]

I do see those points, I'm conflicted because I don't think we have any evidence to suggest that most trans people (who in the past would go through real hardship to transition) are trying to gain access to women's spaces for those purposes. I get that it's a disturbing possibility, but it doesn't seem just to tar the whole trans movement with that brush. My feelings about that in no way detract from my awareness of the importance and value of protecting the rights of women and girls. I think we will have to find a solution that involves some kind of third space as someone suggested earlier.

[OlennasWimple]

Plus Felas, a woman saying she is a man doesn't automatically get afforded male privilege. She finds herself in the worst of all worlds. Whereas a man who says he is a woman often gets to keep his male privilege, whilst also enjoying - for example - a physical advantage over his new peers which in turn gives him power and the ability to discomfort other women. There's so much more to be gained by transitioning MTT than FTT

[ErrolTheDragon]

surely it would be a third and fourth space? one for biological males identifying as transwomen who may pose a threat to biological women. and one for transmen (biological females who may be in endangered in a biological male space, if they self-exclude from the womens space).

[OlennasWimple]

Felas and harlot - that must be right (re etymology).

So going back to the OP, if "transphobia" means "to have a well founded fear of men encroaching on female-only spaces", then I am transphobic and so must any other feminist be. If "transphobia" means something more like "has a strong aversion to transpeople or discriminates unfairly against them", well then I am not, and although some feminists might be, I'd wager the majority are not.

I won't apologise for putting the rights of women and girls at the top of my personal tree of priorities, given how far we still have to go

[Felascloak]

I'm not tarring trans people with any brush. I'm saying men will abuse laws designed to protect trans people. By which I mean men pretending to be tran's not trans women.
Part of the trans movements issue is a total unwillingness to discuss it as an issue, instead relying on "men can commit crime anyway" and "the law exists to deal with it". For me, given the derisory levels of conviction for rape and sex crimes I don't think that's enough to protect women.
So I guess in a roundabout way I'm saying that it's not possible for me to be the kind of feminist I am, and embrace trans rights as set out in Maria Millers report

[ErrolTheDragon]

definition of phobia: 'an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.'

I don't think that feminists objections to TAs impact on womens rights is in the least irrational or extreme. Women need safe spaces because of the actions of some men.

Whereas homophobia is an irrational aversion, how does anyones sexual orientation harm anyone?

[TheMostBeautifulDogInTheWorld]

This is one of the reasons why I don't think it's helpful to keep asserting things that are 'basic biological facts' and 'dictionary definitions of woman'. Because this conflict is not about facts as such, it is about politics.

Buffy, I know "let's ignore facts" isn't what you meant (!) but I can't help thinking we're in a time where fact-absent politics are causing all sorts of problems, and not just in this context ... I'm almost at the complete opposite point of view at the minute.

By which I mean: it seems to me that the only coherent way of addressing the many many problems surrounding the anti-women slant of current government thinking in relation to transactivism HAS to be, let's not lose sight of the basics (biology, and equal rights means equal not superseding) here.

If we have to fight for every single space and idea separately - loos, changing rooms, hospitals, DV refuges, rape counselling, prison services, primary schools (in my LA), sex-specific health screening, and on and on - then we are going to be fighting the same battle over and over and we will lose most or all of them. It seems to me that the whole problem is that basics and facts have got lost, and that one fight is what needs fighting.

[TheMostBeautifulDogInTheWorld]

Well the MOST basic facts are presumably not. (There no doubt is out there somewhere a theory that surgery alters your XY/XX makeup, the internet's a big place after all, but I am pretty sure that we don't have to worry about Maria Miller believing it, fingers crossed anyway). It's the NEXT "fact" that is the issue isn't it, i.e. whether XY vs XX (and yes there are occasional variants but still) is the significant thing.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this exactly, to be honest; I'm just sort of at a point where, in all the discussion of potential problem areas it sort of feels that surely it should be simpler than this.

[TheMostBeautifulDogInTheWorld]

Yes please do. (Is it crass of me to say that I have been a lurker on this bit of Mumsnet for a year or so and have a bit of an Admiration thing going on for your posts?)

NO PRESSURE THEN.

[Felascloak]

buffy cheerleading whoop whoop!

I can see what you mean about the move to gender identity being more important than biology in determining "woman".
That still leaves a group of people who have periods, get pregnant and breastfeed, menopause etc etc. Surely we will always need shorthand to refer to them? And surely trans people will always want to use that descriptor? Because that's the nature of being trans. I posted on another thread that I read something yesterday where trans people were debating whether SRS makes a previously trans woman a cis woman. So it still won't be clearcut, unless we entirelying do away with any description of biology which just doesn't seem workable from a medical and policy POV.

[Bambambini]

Just curious to thoughts on this journalistic piece regsrding the Huffpost article on Cher's rant about Terfs.

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57cee4b4e4b084e81ba348c1

[ErrolTheDragon]

Felas - maybe the only shorthand women will be left with is XX ?

[IBelieveTheEarthIsFlat]

Op
If they fully embrace women's right's and not trample on them, yes, it's very possible

[IBelieveTheEarthIsFlat]

Banbam
Huff post journos are full on liberal nightmares. I am too for many things, but not this. (well not since MN sorted me out)