Just when you thought Everyday Transactivism could no longer surprise * title edited by MNHQ*

[mirrorisnotmyfriend]

They come up with this.

First post - Why Transwomen Aren't Biologically Male.
www.facebook.com/everydayfeminism/

The comments are encouraging though, that is, the ones that haven't been deleted. Lots of people questioning and calling this out.

Jesus, that Guerilla Feminism FB page is brutal to TERFS! I'm positive I that mist of the wimen there are only one small doubt or disagreement fro being a TERF themselves. I find it hard to believe that any woman out there actually agrees with every aspect of trans thinking.

I think all I can do is wish you guys luck, as this is an area of gender politics where 'cis' men have even less traction than usual.

What a cop-out!

Men could help massively by speaking up about this and are far less likely to be targeted for abuse than women who dare to raise objections. Do you not have any women or girls in your life you care about at all?

You could write to your MP and let them know what the problems are with the proposed changes. The next reading of Miller's Bill is 24 Feb so it's a good time to raise objections.

Here's what happened during the last debate.

Here's the report which inspired the bill.

Here's a good briefing on what's wrong with it.

Just checked my Twitter feed and now totally lost it having read this: anti-female-receipts.tumblr.com/post/157229676578/fuck-you-you-terf-bitch-how-can-a-15-year-old-be

Question: Why are platforms such as tumblr not protecting young people from this type of abuse?

It must be terrible to live in a social circle where even being suspected of being a TERF will get you ostracized. It's a big deal for the young in some settings.

That's just another reason why Magdalen Bern is so amazing. The sheer courage of the lone stand which got her banned from the LGBT societies of every university in the country is breathtaking.

I've made a necessarily small donation to Magdalen's Patreon. I see her as a worthy cause. She's still at university and I can't imagine talking at feminist conferences is much of a living. Just thought I'd mention it.

I enjoy pointing out to people who wibble on about feminists being transphobic how vocal transactivists consider plenty of their own views as transphobic. You literally aren't allowed critical thinking or common sense.

Read Middle's linked article, Meph. Go on. That is pure and simple misogyny. And yes, you could do more.

Pencils, thanks for those links. I doubt I'll read all of the guff but I'll certainly take a proper look at the briefing. I've had a glance at it, and it reflects a lot of my own concerns.

venus. Are you referring to me as 'wibbling on' ?
I am a feminist. I too am horrified by the awful things that trans activists say and I know they would accuse me of being transphobic because I am a gender critical feminist.
But when middle said that perhaps we should 'stick all trans people on an island and let nature take its course ' I find that goes too far.
One thing I found most inspiring about the original 'Spartacus ' threads was the lack of hate for trans people. They aren't all women haters.

This link shows there are some gender critical trans women out there. I wish they were allowed to have their voices heard, but they are often silenced.
www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/12/gender_critical_trans_women_the_apostates_of_the_trans_rights_movement.html

No, I wasn't referring to you, seachangeshell. Obviously real transphobia does exist but I'm pretty sure what middle said was a joke. Yes, fairly black humour. We all get a bit frustrated with all this shit.

I was referring to people who say it's transphobic to name the problem of autogynephilia, for instance. And technically you could say it's a tricky one as of course NATALT. But that doesn't stop it being a real problem for women.

I remember starting to read these threads and just not appreciating the "war" going on out there against gender-critical feminists, and women as a whole. The vitriol, threats, silencing and hate that happens is truly astonishing. I thought the women on here were exaggerating or at least looking for conflict - no, they are not- WE are not. I'm now one of those fighting the fight.

Trans rights activists (and I'm talking about activists not ordinary people getting on with their lives) genuinely hate feminists who don't agree with them. They will do anything to silence us online, and in person (see: no-platforming).

Feminists have better things to do than fight the trans activist movement, but it's the most pressing issue right now. Right now sex segregation is being taken away from us. It's gone from the Girl Guides, it's gone from schools, it's going from prisons, it's going from loos, changing rooms, hospital wards. It's going from sports. And this isn't people who have done years of therapy and hormones and surgery - these are men who "feel like" women. A man could literally wake up in the morning and decide he's a woman, or indeed moments before entering the female toilets or changing room.

Think that's an exaggeration? Think again.

Nicely put, Twunk.

One of the things that really hurts in this whole debate is the terminology used, we see glamourised terms such as "top surgery" for females, lets be honest here and call it for what it is - it is a double mastectomy - why any woman would choose to have an elective double mastectomy is totally beyond my comprehension. Having been a cancer friend to 3 of my closest female friends struggling through breast cancer, witnessing their unimaginable pain and discomfort coupled with the brutality of chemo and radiotherapy, hair loss, post op complications I get really upset when people can get elective surgery yet women with life threatening cancers are unable to get life saving drugs. There is something dreadfully wrong when "feelings" override essential medical interventions. Please sign the petition and tell @NICEcomms and @_RocheUK to #KeepKadcyla available for women with secondary breast cancer bit.ly/2hJ3KaA

Me: It's easy to not be bothered by something that doesn't affect you isn't it

Meph in the next post:
I think all I can do is wish you guys luck, as this is an area of gender politics where 'cis' men have even less traction than usual

Nice positioning. Lucky that I don't think that when my mates do Moovember (or whatever it is) or any of the other things that don't affect me. Men have as much traction as they always do, and as usual, they can't be bothered unless it directly affects them.

Men have always had more traction than women and men who say otherwise are ridiculous. Even other men think that (the reasonable ones).

Middleground raises a really interesting point: women who have been through breast cancer and have had to have mastectomies, do not have a veto on transwomen discussing "top surgery" at women's events, on the grounds that it may be triggering to them. But actually, it must be really upsetting to hear men go on about their "boobs" and to hear healthy young women discussing yay their determination to have mastectomies. And yet those women are not writing whiney, entitled, self-pitying posts in the blogosphere demanding that transpeople shut up about their bodies in case it triggers women with breast cancer.

Just a thought.

The multiple gender identities really seem to discredit the whole idea of this immutable gender essence which overrides physical characteristics somehow. There is so much cognitive dissonance, it's a headache to attempt to follow the arguments, bizarre concepts and bewildering terminology. But when you get onto these ideas about people being multigender or mirror gender or whatever then it becomes an unworkable nonsense. If someone fluctuates between being a man or a woman then what does it mean to be either? How do you know which one you are? How does it manifest itself? I haven't read any definition of what gender identity actually feels like. If you are gender fluid, does this just mean you sometimes feel like wearing a dress and makeup and sometimes like wearing trousers? That's meaningless. I can understand the concept of dysphoria. I can see what Helen Highwater or Miranda Yardley say about how they feel and that makes total sense. But someone threatening to rape children with their 'girlcock' - that isn't a woman, that isn't someone I want in women's spaces, that isn't someone who I want protected by equality legislation which would give them access to girls and women - by saying something like that, that person surely exemplifies the reason why 'terfs' exist? There is such an incredibly flimsy narrative supporting the delusions of extremists like this and it's terrifying to see that men threatening rape are getting support from women who consider themselves feminists and managing to portray themselves as victims and the recipients of their violent threats as their oppressors. None of it makes any sense at all.

Nice positioning. Lucky that I don't think that when my mates do Moovember (or whatever it is) or any of the other things that don't affect me. Men have as much traction as they always do, and as usual, they can't be bothered unless it directly affects them

Yes - I did a double-take at this.

Hey women I'll come to what is tacitly your space and I'll take up your time. I'll then glibly announce that it's all about gender politics as if this were something external from me and I had no role in and then Iill bow out of what I name as your battle. Bollocks men don't have traction. In the gender hierarchy men have the power. The hierarchy benefits men and they profit from it (not all in the same way or the same degree, but they all benefit). men's voices are powerful voices. Men's voices carry. Men can be supportive of individual women or of women's causes more broadly. In the case of trans men can write to MPs, they can stand up in workplaces against gender-neutralising toilets or other spaces. Yet, the irony is that it is women who are told that they have 'cis privilege' and who in the trans debate and in other domains they are told to take a back seat while those allegedly higher up in the hierarchy of the oppressed (including some men) get their issues addressed first - and we are supposed to drop our own battles to fight those of others or we are phobic, white, middle-class etc. Maybe this should be on the 'men who come here' thread, but my view is don't come here and use us like men have always used us before going on your merry way with your power intact and our energy more depleted. Almost scared to say this, but if a white women tried that on a race board she'd be fucking trounced - yet when men do it we're supposed to just say 'oh bye then - wish us luck'.

Ouriana, this was something I tried to reconcile too, so I went to do some reading. The gist was that it wouldn't be classed as cultural appropriation because a) trans women are women already, so how can they be appropriating anything, and b) women don't have a specific, universal culture, so there is no culture to appropriate.

I'm looking right now at my bookshelf which has a lovely section on feminist writings, books I have from the modules I did on female fiction writing and female artists and thinking - well... maybe all that there just doesn't exist.

How convenient. The whole "transwomen are women" bollocks is stupid circular reasoning. Obviously anyone with common sense realises that not every time a man says he is a woman he is necessarily telling the truth or correct in that view. But common sense and reason is sorely lacking in this ideology.

women don't have a specific, universal culture, so there is no culture to appropriate

Yet again erasing all the stuff that is common to womanhood, across a vast majority of cultures, because who cares about all that domestic shit, we just get in the cupboard and wait for the man of the house to return from the hunt/work after doing all the chores and preparing a delicious dinner don't we? Kinda like a Roomba.

Ah, well, still not cultural appropriation then, because I suspect they're not so keep on appropriating those particular bits. (LOL).