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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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

430 replies

BertrandRussell · 02/09/2016 10:14

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."

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ErrolTheDragon · 08/09/2016 10:07

Someone who self-describes as 'cisgender' probably disagrees (or just doesn't get) quite a lot of what's on the thread.

HemlockIsSpartacus · 08/09/2016 10:16

The vast majority of people aren't saying "all trans people are horrible", what they are saying is that we do not want to see laws and attitudes put into place that trample over women's rights. The reason a certain type of trans activist gets mentioned so much is because they are the most vocal and also the ones behind the changes (proposed or already in place). Would love to just ignore them as just fringe elements with no power, but when they are being listened to by people with power then we can't just ignore them.

You come onto this thread where most people are being reasonable and saying "some of you are just mean" are doing exactly what you are accusing us of. Focusing on a few things that you dislike and then using them to erase all of the valid points on the thread.

venusinscorpio · 08/09/2016 10:16

How on earth does it equate to Animal Farm, pimmsy? Who wants to be more equal? Except perhaps the vocal transactivists who want to erode women's rights? What a silly post.

BertrandRussell · 08/09/2016 10:23

I'm trying to make a point of questioning the "you're all vile" posts. Because my immediate instinct is to think "oh, shit- what have I said to provoke that response- I must rethink" when actually I'm coming to the conclusion that they are often either silencing or an attempt by the poster concerned to look super right on. I recognize this from my youth- when young feminists (myself included) got very over excited about lesbian and gay rights.........

I am obviously not denying that there are plenty of people in the world who are vile, and are poisonous about transgender people. I just do 't think I'm one of them!

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HairyLittlePoet · 08/09/2016 10:34

I don't care if 99% of M2T are lovely, quiet, mind-my-own-business people who are nothing like the nasty activists. If they are such lovely people and they identify so strongly with women and they are the vast majority why are they not making their voices heard above the nasty 1%? Why are they quietly allowing the 1% to represent them, to abolish the rights of the female sex? Why don't we hear the 99% shouting to Maria Miller that they don't want to be in spaces for biological women, that they want to preserve protections based on sex, and not replace sex with gender identity?

How nice for them to be able to mind their own business and turn a blind eye to what is happening to women in their name.

There is Miranda, and there are a few others speaking out. They are a tiny minority, not a vast majority.

The 99% are tacitly complicit if they claim to be against the demolition of women's rights and quietly say nothing whilst those rights are destroyed in their name.

WinchesterWoman · 08/09/2016 10:36

Hi , no not transphobic, what a shame it came across that way. The reason for my comment wasn't 'because they're trans'. It's because they're not women. I really, really don't want men in women's bathrooms but I wouldn't challenge one directly for the reasons outlined by prawn. Good to you for being ok with men in the loos, that's fine, we are all different, but I'm just not and I think a lot of people would be similar. Part of it is wariness but a big part would be not wanting to embarrass them and show them up. Well look where being nice has got us Sad

venusinscorpio · 08/09/2016 10:39

YY Hairylittlepoet. I was just about to post something similar but you've put it so much better.

If it's their problem too, perhaps they'd better do something about it. And people like Vashta. I hope she's going around telling these transactivists exactly how mean and prejudiced she thinks they are and writing letters to the government telling them that they shouldn't erase women's rights and status as a protected group.

venusinscorpio · 08/09/2016 10:41

Or, as I suspect, would you just rather we shut the fuck up and let them get on with it?

WinchesterWoman · 08/09/2016 10:42

Also I've been reading debates here for a while and I don't like to see the sympathetic and serious nature of discussion dismissed so scornfully. The women here have nailed it without being abusive at all. When I look at the trans stuff online it's really incomparable with the level of debate here.

venusinscorpio · 08/09/2016 10:42

That was to Vashta.

HemlockIsSpartacus · 08/09/2016 10:42

"How nice for them to be able to mind their own business and turn a blind eye to what is happening to women in their name."

Yup, this exactly.

WinchesterWoman · 08/09/2016 10:43

Yes hairy that's so true, well put

ArcheryAnnie · 08/09/2016 10:57

There have always been gender nonconforming males, some of whom live and present as women. In the past, both the language was different and the identity politics were different - I cannot recall any of the people I knew who had male bodies but used female pronouns, etc, who would have dreamed of insisting that they were identical to biological women, or that should have priority access to women's space, or lesbian bodies. If this was still the story, and the whole story, there would be no issue. If all trans women respected both their own identities and women's identities in the way a very small number of trans women now publicly do, at great risk to themselves (hi, Miranda, hi, Helen, and thank you both!) there would be no issue at all.

The issue has changed in recent years, and now is anyone with a male body can steal women's space, women's privacy, women's safety, women's energy and women's resources, just by claiming they are women, and not just women, and identical to biological women, but better than women, and more oppressed than women (I don't know how that works, but apparently it does), despite having male bodies, male socialisation, and every scrap of male privilege they have ever acquired. Some of these people are setting the laws so that women are prevented from doing anything about this, and thus decades of women's liberation work is set back.

This is why in the last decade I have changed my mind on trans issues, and while I do consider some trans women my political comrades and siblings (hi, Miranda, hi, Helen!) because they seek rights and safety for all gender nonconforming people without treading women into the ground, I now cannot consider the mainstream trans movement as anything other than a sexist and homophobic threat to a lot of the successes and hard-won freedoms I hold dear.

BertrandRussell · 08/09/2016 11:04

There have always been gender non conforming women too.........

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ArcheryAnnie · 08/09/2016 11:16

Very true, Bertrand, but while I am pretty anguished about girls and young women who damage their own bodies and quite often shit on women, especially gender nonconforming women and lesbians, on their journey out of femaleness, I don't see them as a threat in quite the same way. The threats to women's spaces, safety, resources, etc are led by men.

BertrandRussell · 08/09/2016 11:25

Yes, of course, Annie, I'm sorry. I was just going off on a separate train of thought about how there are lots of real life stories throughout history of women who have successfully lived as men. Not really relevant, sorry.

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VestalVirgin · 08/09/2016 11:28

How nice for them to be able to mind their own business and turn a blind eye to what is happening to women in their name.

Well, that's what males always do, isn't it? There never were more than a handful of males who campaigned for women's rights. So, big surprise. Shows that even the claims by trans to not have had male socialisation are a lot of bullshit, they behave exactly as one would expect from males.

Blistory · 08/09/2016 11:58

I think part of what we're seeing in these debates is a bit of a disconnect with what's actually being asked. If trans rights are about the right to live free from violence, entitled to work, live and participate in society then it's compatible with feminism. I don't think feminists need to actively campaign for those rights but can be fully supportive.

What some posters are doing is conflating transactivist demands with transrights and people are answering a very different question from the one asked.

I know transactivists are making a noise online, so are a lot of feminists. It's not new, just more accessible given how social media is nowadays. Some of the most vicious, woman hating rhetoric I have ever heard has been from certain sectors of the gay community. They had to learn to moderate their voices and demands in order to make progress. So will the transactivists.

There's also a horrible tendency in some of these debates to attack other women and feminists for their positions and that is hugely damaging to anything credible that's being said. If I, as a feminist, am rearing back and feeling attacked, patronised and am stepping back from engaging, I can sympathise with how others are perceiving it. Posters aren't talking to transactivists on here, they are talking to other MN posters and being dismissive of the rights of others to hold differing views that are just as feminist, just as gender critical and just as valid.

And frankly the accusations that these threads always come back to the same points that focus on vilifying two or three particular transwomen, the bathroom threat, the superiority of being a real woman ( which is rammed home unnecessarily), the animosity towards 'funfems' aren't entirely inaccurate. There is no real discussion about how to move forward. On here we can debate all day long about theoretical rights and wrongs but in the real world we need to find a way to co-exist with individuals who are transgender and even those transactivists.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 08/09/2016 12:08

Hairy is spot on. If all mtts wanted to do was live a quiet life without infringing on anyone else's rights we either wouldn't be having this conversation or with a very different emphasis.

However this isn't what's happening. Because trans activism directly damages women's interests, women are impelled to confront and combat the agenda, regardless of the fact that many women know and are friends with trans people in real life.

The deeply troubling issue of transing children is, of course, always going to receive a lot of attention on MN, where so many of us are parents.

I think a lot of the uncritical acceptance of all things trans is common among the young, who see it as cool. They're easily bamboozled by waffle about innate gender identity and brain sex. However posters here, where nearly everyone is adult and most are parents, or would like to be, can't fail to notice how dishonest the claims of trans activists are.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 08/09/2016 13:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

venusinscorpio · 08/09/2016 13:49

There isn't a solution. People are always going to disagree with others about what the focus should be and where lines should be drawn. Even when they agree on other things.

venusinscorpio · 08/09/2016 13:51

And I'm sorry, but I don't think it's only transactivists that are the problem.

ArcheryAnnie · 08/09/2016 13:59

venusinscorpio so who else is the problem? How else should a discriminated-against group (women) act when all the gains they have fought so hard for over the years are being taken away?

venusinscorpio · 08/09/2016 14:07

I think you misunderstand me, Annie. I'm talking about people, both male or female, who don't really care about that and just want to shut the discussion down. Either because they haven't really thought about and don't want to, or they have an agenda, for whatever reason.

Felascloak · 08/09/2016 14:13

blistory I agree. However I do think should Maria Millers recommendations be implemented we will see a closer alignment between trans activists demands and trans rights, because essentially womanhood = a feeling will be enshrined in law.

I also think there is no discussion about how to move forward because we are being "done to". The IOC, Maria Miller and others are all consulting trans people without also consulting womens groups and so we are getting a recommendations just focussed on one side of the debate and a siege mentality.
Add on top all the policing that goes on when attempts are made to discuss this online or in the media (like the #ifmenhadperiods craziness) and it's not surprising people get very emotionally engaged when they put their points across.

I actually think some open recognition of concerns by those in power would go a long way. What we can do to enable that, o don't know.

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