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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Jenni Murray Woman's hour today (trans)

401 replies

Notwhatiexpected · 02/12/2016 11:12

Hey,
Did anyone hear Jenni Murray on woman's hour today, her guest was India Willoughby. India is trans and was advocating that it was correct for the Dorchester to dictate that their female staff shave their legs.

India was very spiked in her conversation and implied Jenni was transphobic because the panalists didn't agree.

Again, a woman being called transphobic because they didn't agree with a transwoman's opinion.

Thank you Jenni for standing up for women!

OP posts:
almondpudding · 04/12/2016 23:11

I never claimed to know what being anyone else feels like, or what it feels like to experience something I haven't had.

I said it was logical to recognise that other people had experiences that I did not have and to talk about their experiences.

You were the person who brought what something feels like. I did not mention it.

almondpudding · 04/12/2016 23:11

Sorry, that was to Cote.

almondpudding · 04/12/2016 23:19

To get back to my original example, I have experienced a miscarriage, and other women have had miscarriages. It is an experience common to many women.

Men cannot experience a miscarriage, but they can listen to what women have said about it, talk about women's experiences, support women through them, and support campaigns for better miscarriage care.

DeviTheGaelet · 05/12/2016 07:06

that because of your sexuality you are automatically part of a community. You aren't, you're gay that's it. You may wish to socialise mainly with other gay people, and if you choose to call that a community then fair enough, but there is no "gay community" it's just media speak

By community I mean the group of people who are discriminated against for being gay. People who are gay are automatically part of that group. Maybe community was the wrong word to use.
I think the groups share a characteristic that can be used to describe them and that descriptor is the cause of their discrimination. E.g females, gay people, BAME people, disabled people, working class people etc etc
The people don't need to recognise a shared experience or feel a community to be part of that group. They are still discriminated against for being part of the group, they can't identify out of that.
If you don't agree with that, I assume you can't believe in structural inequality?

EnormousTiger · 05/12/2016 12:26

Not all within all groups are discriminated against though. If you are undisclosed gay no one is going to discriminate against you grounds of being gay. If you wear your wife's dresses when she's out and no one knows no one is going to discriminate against you. If you've one black grandparent but look white again you won't suffer discrimination.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 05/12/2016 13:02

Oh the Independent article is wonderful! Thanks for posting!

Twogoats · 05/12/2016 13:04

Yay! We're going mainstream! Let's get that article viral!

MeMyself1 · 05/12/2016 13:16

Yes, it's good to see an article that actually focuses on THE ISSUE! All Jenni said was that India may not be 'up to speed' with the double standard regarding body hair and shaving/epilation ... give that 'she's spent 45 of her 51 years living as a man! For that she's accused of transphobia! Good article - share widely!

MeMyself1 · 05/12/2016 13:21

And, I've seen it said on MSM that The Dorchester could be sued for it's discriminatory directive.
So if anyone's still in any doubt about the legal protection for females that the trans agenda (or should that be 'agender' Wink) threatens, please wake up and realise that most, fetishistic, MtT are perfectly happy to throw women under the bus!

SomeDyke · 05/12/2016 13:23

" If you are undisclosed gay no one is going to discriminate against you grounds of being gay."
If only that were true!
Before 2000, you could still be dishonourably discharged from the armed forces for being gay. So even if you were gay and stayed in the closet, you were still being discriminated against, because, for example, you were not free to talk about what you had been doing, or who you had been seeing. Plus, if you didn't have a suitably sexed significant other, suspicions might be raised.

If you are a closeted gay muslim, for example, I should imagine that that is a pretty horrendous situation.

Actually, the validity of this sort of opinion was tested as regards telling gay people seeking asylum on the grounds that they would be persecuted for being gay at home, that they should just be 'discrete':

www.refworld.org/docid/4c3456752.html

Not having a 'free-choice' as to whether you will be out or not, is still discrimination.

I'm also quite shocked that someone should be so taxed at the idea of a gay community. For most of the lesbian and gay people I know, going from not knowing anyone else who felt this way, or felt different, to discovering you weren't the only one (and real people in the real world, not just characters in books or films!) was a very significant event, and this it's not just me there are others (in what you might as well call the gay community) is a significant and important event, not just some empty media speak. I suggest some reading of lesbian and gay history might be of some use here......................

OlennasWimple · 05/12/2016 13:43

Just read the Independent article, and it's so refreshing to see someone "get it"! (But Paris Lees as a feminist commentator? Really??)

As an aside, I hadn't realised that the Dorchester list prohibited female facial hair. Ialmost wish Danielle Moscato worked there, to see what would happen...

MeMyself1 · 05/12/2016 13:57

Even The Guardian is commenting on the controversy (in it's own intersectional way!)
www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/02/dorchester-hotel-could-be-sued-over-grooming-rules-for-female-staff

girlwiththeflaxenhair · 05/12/2016 14:20

Devi

The whole idea of privilege theory sits uneasy with me. It seems that you can list all the groups that an individual might qualify for membership of, then give them some sort of plus or minus score, (+10 for having rich parents, -7 for being bisexual) at the end if you tote up the score and you are above the average - can you wail "but - i am a member of an oppressed group !" ? What good does that do ?

To me this logic is partly why trans people are able to shout so loudly about how terrible they have it, they think the negative score for being in their community is so high that it trumps all other oppressed groups, to mis gender them (as they would see it) is the clearly a case of discimination.

I hope that makes sense. Still thinking about it all.

SomeDyke

I am not gay, so you may ignore my opinion....but I know plenty of "non scene" gay people who hate the whole idea of some kind of gay community existing that they are automatically a part of. Maybe finding like minded people was more important when more people were in the closet, maybe things are changing I don't really know.

IndominusRex · 05/12/2016 14:37

Yay for Samantha Rea in the Indy.

PeteSwotatoes · 05/12/2016 14:55

The Indy article was cleverly written. By quoting Paris Lees, they can't really be accused of transphobia.

PoldarksBreeches · 05/12/2016 15:22

Samantha rea is brilliant

MissMargie · 05/12/2016 15:27

I was wondering why I get annoyed when people like India are interviewed.

I have no problem that people who are born into the wrong body will want/ need to change. It must cause pretty extreme stress and anxiety always not being who you are. Funny it often continues for decades until later in life they just reach a cliff edge and are forced for their own sanity, if that isn't putting it too strongly, to change.
I don't think it is just gender that is an issue like that, I think many people reach a sort of crisis and have to make changes to sort their mental health and get onto an even keel.

But what annoyed me is that she knew she was a woman, she is now a woman - not possible you cannot know you are a woman, or what it feels like to be a woman if you've never been one. If I had a disabled person in a wheelchair beside me and I said to them I KNOW what it's like to always use a wheelchair to get around, I would be told where to go. I can't know, India can't know. She can think she knows and can empathise with women's issues. But she cant KNOW any more than I could.
She can become a woman as she understands it to be. I can empathise with the wheelchair user as I understand that to be, but I can't know.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 05/12/2016 15:33

Girlwith gay people, as a group, still suffer discrimination. When people use the phrase "community" it's not usually in the sense of a social group, though I can understand that it might sound like that, but in terms of a class of people. African Americans don't all hang out together, be a totally enormous party if they did, but people refer to them as a community because they comprise a class which experiences quantifiable measures of disadvantage compared to the white population. And individual members of these communities may not be affected compared to the group as a whole. Barack Obama is President, but that doesn't mean that African Americans are no longer subject to racism.

Women, as a group, suffer various disadvantages that can be demonstrated. The fact that an individual woman is a high earner doesn't disprove the pay gap.

Women form a class because of our biology, and the social structures that stem from that biology, gender specifically. We may have nothing else in common, but in this sense we are a coherent group. It's easy to see why, because across the world and throughout history, women have been disadvantaged precisely because of our sexed bodies. Forced pregnancy, FGM, feticide, honour killings. There are so many crimes and oppressions. Just writing the list is depressing.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 05/12/2016 15:43

MissMargie, I found the most objectionable thing about India Willoughby was that IW displayed no empathy at all towards women. Had we not been told IW was trans, listening to IW I would have assumed I was listening to an unreconstructed sexist middle aged man.

From what we know about late transitioning males, many find shaving their legs and other "feminine" grooming rituals arousing because it is a girly thing that girls do. It may be that IW thinks women are privileged to be able to perform femininity, even if it is enforced by their employer.

ageingrunner · 05/12/2016 15:56

India doesn't want women to stop shaving their legs and generally performing femininity cos if we didn't there'd be no props for tw to use

EnormousTiger · 05/12/2016 16:01

If they could find a trans woman wanting to dress in trousers and not shave etc that would be a nice change. They will be out there. I don't see why we have to foist outselves into a particular gender anyway.

Dorchester could let women wear trousers if it doesn't like to see hair on legs as men do and it could have an identical rule on facial hair for men and women - eg if men have to shave then women should.

Twogoats · 05/12/2016 16:02

India sounded like a man, sorry if that's transphobic, but she does.

Out of interest, how do transgenders get their male/female pronunciation? Do they train for it? Genuine question! Confused

SomeDyke · 05/12/2016 16:27

".........but I know plenty of "non scene" gay people who hate the whole idea of some kind of gay community existing that they are automatically a part of."
Well, they don't have to talk to the rest of us if they don't want to! Smile

Like it or not, we (almost) all share the experience of growing up not heterosexual in a culture that still expects you to be heterosexual (on statistical grounds if nothing else).

shinynewusername · 05/12/2016 16:39

Had we not been told IW was trans, listening to IW I would have assumed I was listening to an unreconstructed sexist middle aged man.

Funny, that.

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