Has the definition of phobia changed?

[ImpYCelyn]

Okay, I'm being a little sarcastic, but I cannot believe how easily people throw around the term phobia at the moment.

On FB I'm part of a cloth sanitary pad chat group (I realise how weird that sounds). Someone posted a link to 15 cartoons about periods "that only women will understand". The first comment is "this is transphobic". There is then a back and forth with one person accusing everyone else of transphobia. Someone has attempted to point out that it's not transphobic, however it could be argued that it has failed to take into account trans people, so admitting there's an issue, and has been told "you don't get to decide what's phobic, you're not part of the oppressed minority".

I'm pretty certain phobia has a specific meaning. And not including trans people isn't automatically transphobic. "15 things only straight women will understand" wouldn't be homophobic. It's just about straight women. It might display a lack of knowledge, but that's not the same as homophobia.

I have friends who won't identify as bisexual anymore (specifically, on the kink scene), because apparently the word bisexual is transphobic as it excludes trans people. Pansexual is what you have to be. Again, just because the word bisexual doesn't explicitly say "I'll sleep with trans people" that surely doesn't make it phobic? And since when is having sexual preference indicative of a phobia? Straight people are not homophobic because they don't want to have sex with people of the same sex. That's just their sexual preference.

I've put this in feminism chat because although asking about the meaning of a word isn't directly feminist, I am really annoyed that this has now reached the point where a support group for women asking all kinds of questions about periods, incontinence (often post childbirth) and advice for helping their teenage daughters, has suddenly become somewhere where you can be transphobic for saying that women have periods. although when I read the post I just laughed. Because, of course.

Thanks imp

He was unreasonably pleased that you replied...he bounced

He thought the magazine was funny "anything that will let me" was his idea of a title

I refuse to be pansexual, it makes you sound like a teenager

Or you have a kitchen utensil fetish...

at both Rufus and Wanking

And at Rufus' DS whose title shows a much better grasp of consent

Prawn versus Wanking would be no battle. She's a monkey. I'm a crustacean. Unless it's a sub aqua contest I'd be prawn toast. Yum.

Very chuffed that I might have influenced anyone. Thanks, Amalfi.

The ghastly transwoman Sophia Banks accuses heterosexuals and homosexuals (bisexuals too, I imagine) of transphobia because, according to Sophia, people should find people attractive on the basis of that person's gender identity, not their sex. Lesbians who refuse male partners are vagina fetishists.

Thanks to one of the lovely gay men on Datalounge for the line "No one is obliged to be an equal opportunity fuck."

"No one is obliged to be an equal opportunity fuck."

And isn't the clue in the term? BiSEXual. Relating to a preference of the sex of the person, not the gender?

It does seem to boil down to a confusion of the words sex and gender. If you are trans 'gender' fight the social construct by wearing and doing what you want. If you're trans 'sexual' that's a different thing entirely. When and why did this confusion set in?

From my reading, which is extensive but not exhaustive, it seems that transsexual was overtaken by transgender for two reasons. The first was that the trans lobby found it hard to counter critics who pointed out sex changes weren't possible. Calling themselves transgender blurred the issue. The second, and more important, was the massive expansion of the term.

Whereas transsexuals were people with body dysphoria and gay men, both groups who mostly want surgery, the term transgender now covers anyone who wants to claim it. Men who operate as men all week, then cross-dress on Saturdays now qualify as trans, ffs. The sympathy garnered by the first group is being exploited by the second group, which is far larger and more militant. Within the trans umbrella, the transsexuals are disliked by the transgender activists for not toeing the party line because the transsexuals don't generally support the TRAs misogyny. The TRAs call them "truscum", which is worth looking up.

It's all just so... nasty. To each other as well as everyone else. How can they call transsexuals scum and not be labelled transphobic themselves? How is that not hate speech?

I'm sure a lot of that violence they're citing (currently and certainly historically) was aimed at transsexuals, they're completely appropriating someone else's struggles. I really doubt that Danielle what's-his-face, large with beard, penis and power suit, is the target of violence beyond what anyone argumentative might get them-self into.

prawn

Do you think the public at large is going to wake up to this?

Surely the more men, trans or otherwise, who make demands, display aggression and generally look massively self interested, are going to make it swing back in women's favour.

I think so, Datun. As we've seen on MN, TRAs pop up to cry "transphobia" but when questioned go all quiet and usually disappear after one or two posts. The few that do stay fence for a while, but eventually reveal the non-sense of their claims. TRA arguments don't withstand scrutiny. That's why silencing dissenting voices is so important to them, and why women have everything to gain from speaking up whenever and wherever we can.

I've noticed that on American sites there are increasing numbers of commenters who see themselves as liberal who post that they're not happy with men in bathrooms, sports, etc. The trans lobby has made far more inroads in the USA, so people are starting to see the impact and don't like it. Up until recently "progressives' automatically sided with trans activists but now people seem to be thinking again, though the young still seem to swallow the whole agenda.

The trans lobby have, until now, been very successful at framing themselves as a sort of super gay, super oppressed. But cases like Lila Perry, the heterosexual male 17 year old who made the PR disaster of allowing a TV crew to film him with his semi erect penis bobbing around under his skirt have made a lot of parents far less accepting of trans claims. 300 girls walked out in protest over the issue, girls who knew this kid well. Parents across America were disturbed to think of their daughters being put in this position. That's one case. There have been others that cost TRAs dear. The whole bathroom bills business there has meant that predatory behaviour in women's facilities gets national coverage. Cases of transwomen perving on women and girls in department store changing rooms has made a lot of Americans less accepting of their agenda. So I hope we're seeing a tipping point gradually being reached.

I've posted before about fashions in thinking, things like satanic sexual abuse which was a red hot topic for years before quietly seeing itself out, and ECT, which was hailed as a brilliant new psychiatric treatment until it wasn't.

I'm sure transing children and young adults will be revealed for the abuse that it is (and I'm not attacking parents struggling with very troubled children, but with those who advise them.) I don't know how long it will take, but I foresee groups of young adults taking legal action against those who advised them and their parents that sterilization and mutilation were appropriate responses to what ailed them. One big win in court and the whole belief system will start to unravel. HCPs will refuse to participate out of self-protection.

Thanks prawn. Your posts are very calming.

Could you clear up one more thing? The ever increasing list of genders.

From what I can tell they are all just a mix, in one form or another, of male and female. Apart from those two components (or lack of them), what other actual gender is there?

It seems to be just a selection of different ways to express male or female (or neutral) characteristics.

Like everyone's special but some are more special than others.

Tbh, Datun, I don't understand the umpteen number of genders either. Only the very young seem to use them, though that doesn't mean they can't apply to the rest of us. Some are quite useful. Demisexual, for example, means you are only interested in sex within the context of a romantic relationship, a useful one word rejection of hook up culture. Agender, meaning genderless, covers loads of people including a lot of the women who post here. If agender doesn't work for you, then gender fluid, pangender and bigender all seem to mean the same thing. It's all a bit silly. Kids wanting to be cool and edgy says the woman who used to have green hair.

I'm glad you find my posts calming. I worry that they're too long. This one definitely is. I first got interested in the issue on hearing about the cotton ceiling in 2012 and I've definitely noticed more doubts expressed in the past 6 months. Look at the Spartacus business. A year before that thread hardly anyone would have even heard about the issues. More importantly, most people who, like me, were passionately in support of gay rights still saw transwomen as deserving uncritical support. The cotton ceiling opened my eyes, and my interest snowballed from there.

TRAs are very good at gaining allies (young libfems are alarmingly uncritical). They've been successful in gaining prominent positions in national LGBT groups. With the battle for gay marriage won there was a vacuum in terms of a new big issue, so they took up trans rights. Luckily for us, TRAs are typically narcissistic, outspoken and highly aggressive, which means they leave evidence of their antisocial tendencies all over the internet and, not infrequently, in the criminal justice system. Stefoknee Wolscht was promoted as a government advisor on trans issues. Anyone who checks little Stefoknee out is going to be extremely at what that advice might be. Allison Woolbert, another very prominent TRA, turned out to be a child rapist. Every time someone like this is unmasked more people reach peak trans. One of the reasons TRAs are so much in favour of child transition is that it props up a "born this way" narrative. The underlying sexual motivation of most transition is something they are very keen to down pedal.

I should perhaps say that I've no objection to people wearing anything they want and I think everyone should be treated fairly. It's men in women's spaces and sports I object to, and to the involvement of kids.

Thanks prawn

When I said calming, that's no mean feat on these threads, I can tell you

Demisexual might be a very useful word in terms of what it says, but it's surely not a bloody gender!

Anyway the Lees debacle has overtaken everything now, so I'm off to that thread.