Supporting trans rights and feminism

[WarwickDavisAsPlates]

Are these two ideas mutually exclusive?

I've been reading a lot of trans threads on here that have really left me feeling quite confused. Most women on MN say that trans rights is erasing women's rights and they don't want unisex bathrooms etc... I always thought I supported trans rights and feminism but since reading threads on here I'm starting to feel more like its one or the other.

Is there any way to support both?

What I don't like is the feeling of a tiny minority trying to shout women down and screaming 'transphobic' at any attempts to discuss genuine issues.

I couldn't agree more. Also, that tiny minority does not represent the views of all trans people. They are just the ones who shout the loudest. Trans people are a varied group and they may have different opinions, just like anyone else.

Yes jelly I think that may be where I run into a problem, I'm not sure how you define a man or woman... to me a woman just is a woman... there's a trans woman I work with and I just accept that she's a woman, that's how she presents herself I never thought to question that.

For me she's a transwoman rather than a woman (which to me is just about biology because everything else is just presenting as the stereotype of what a woman should be) and that's great that she can present in the way she feels most comfortable.

What brought me to this point was someone asking 'What does it mean to live as a woman?' and basically it's just living up to the gender stereotype as it's certainly not about periods or menopause.

For me I'd like to see a post gender world where sex didn't matter for most things. That would mean that in the case of your colleague it wouldn't matter what you "saw" her as because when you're working with somebody their sex is totally irrelevant to you. You are not performing medicine on them, you are not having sex with them, you are just working with them. Why should it matter whether she is male or female any more than it should matter if she is blonde or brown haired, if her blood group is A or O? There are not very many jobs where a person's sex and by extension gender matters. But we are not very far forward from a time when it did, when men and women were considered so different that we did different jobs and had totally different strengths and roles.

When you strip everything else down, there are two situations where sex matters and that's biological reality: things like the shape of someone's body being different, the ability to get or make somebody pregnant - infertility issues aside - the possibility of menstruation, the ability to pee standing up. These are things which need to be accounted for; women need facilities to deal with their periods in public, private and workplaces, we need to know somebody's sex if we plan to have children with them, pregnancy is a characteristic which needs protection e.g. for health and employment purposes, we have different requirements in terms of safety equipment, medicines and the shape of form-fitting clothing.

The other situation where sex matters is in the context of sex based violence. That is, the ability to rape and the possibility of being raped. Domestic violence likelihood, effect and outcome differs by sex of perpetrator and victim. Honour crimes. Many, many different possibilities all under the heading of male violence against women. This is such a serious risk that even people who claim sexism is dead understand the need for refuges, rape crisis centres, single sex prisons and hospital wards, laws against date-rape drugs, and the age old advice for women not to do anything which puts them at risk. They might argue that these services are equally needed for both sexes (they aren't, the statistics show us this) but they will not argue that they aren't needed. We may argue against advice which puts the onus onto victims to prevent attacks, rightly IMO, but that doesn't change the fact that most people recognise there is enough of a trend for that advice to exist.

Transactivists are usually on board with the first reason, even if they prefer to use gender-neutral terms to describe these needs. The second is more problematic and usually ends up with lots of shouting about who has it worst, which doesn't answer the question of whether these facilities are needed and why if they are needed transgender people need to swap to the other facility. Any suggestion of having totally separate facilities is then met by cries of discrimination, as though a women's refuge or prison is some kind of club that you can't get access to, not a place that nobody wants to end up in in the first place.

The trans agenda is to make gender identity the only distinction that matters, so the women's showers are open to anyone who identifies as a woman. Sex divisions in sport, prisons, hospital wards, etc must be replaced by gender. On another thread we heard from a HCP who has been given guidance that transwomen are to be treated as women in psychiatric wards, and that any woman who protests is to be discharged. The guidelines pointed out that transwomen with MH problems may have given up on shaving, makeup etc so may not even present as women but because of their gender identity any bitch woman who is scared of an obvious man in her psychiatric ward, ffs, must be told to STFU.

I can't see that any of the trans activist demands are compatible with feminism. Feminism rejects gender, transgenderism glorifies it. Feminists know women are oppressed because of their sex. Trans activists deny that sex matters in any way. And their demand to access all and any women's spaces, from prisons to colleges, reduces or eradicates provisions and protections that our foremothers fought for.

Feminism is about women and girls. Transmen are included because they are girls or women (a scary number are teenagers). But trans activists are exclusively male, and mostly heterosexual - there are so many blogs and posts from lesbians sick of having their events, bars and social groups colonised by transwomen.who identify as lesbian. Because transwomen are male feminism is not about them.

Feminism says women are oppressed because of our biology. It notes that women can't identify their way out of this sex based oppression.

I've never heard a feminist argue for violence or oppression of transwomen. There's no hatred. But if you don't agree that transwomen are women, that's enough to label you a transphobic bigot. Which makes Mother Nature the biggest bigot of all.

Excellent summary prawn

BertieBotts

This is such a serious risk that even people who claim sexism is dead understand the need for refuges, rape crisis centres, single sex prisons and hospital wards, laws against date-rape drugs, and the age old advice for women not to do anything which puts them at risk.

I find the amount of blindness, or cognitive dissonance involved in people understanding about male violence at the same time as thinking we've reached equality, infuriating and shocking in equal measure.

It's almost as if, in their head, they consider male violence to be something separate outside of the question of sex/gender.

"Oh yeah, rape, yeah there's always that". Like it's just random, the same reason that people get attacked by bears.

Well of course. Because men are people and women are women, but while we are all socialised to understand this innately, we don't consciously see it.

But it stops us from seeing patterns. Like the fact that rapists are men, that terrorists are men, that mass shooters are men, that gang bosses are men, that family annihilators are men. Feminists see this but we're told that we're being discriminatory against men by pointing it out

We (people in general) tend to see "lone shooters" or terrorists etc as "people" rather than noticing their maleness. Male is the default, so it's assumed and hence not noted.

but they are not. its not even a question. they want to use bathrooms of whatever they 'identify'. i identify as a cat and i will sue my school/workplace for not providing me with a litter tray!

I have no clue what you're trying to say with this railgunner, but it's not very sensible.

You stated that disabled loos were separate, and I agreed that they are and that I would have no problem with people having separate cubicles, nor would most rational people. Quite what elicited your rant about cat litter, I have no clue.

I believe what she's referring to is that transactivists do not want neutral toilets. They want segregated toilets and then to choose which of those they enter. Railgunner also wants a separate toilet for her identification (cat) which makes just as much sense as the other thing, quite frankly.

Yes, you can come to the conclusion that trans people and other people are different but equal.

And remember that suffragettes didn't die because they wanted to use the men's loos and call themselves men. - They wanted basic human rights such as the right to vote, and to see their children after separation and to be regarded as equal to men under the law - all things which trans people can already do and be.

So tell me, what great battle are trans women fighting, and (if it isn't the right to people like me back in our gendered boxes), then tell me how I can be of grip?

Of help

So tell me, what great battle are trans women fighting, and (if it isn't the right to people like me back in our gendered boxes), then tell me how I can be of grip?

Well that is the question that never gets answered. They don't want their own rights, they want the rights of all women to be handed over.

Transgenderism in it's current form is ideologically in opposition to feminism. And on several levels.

Transgenderism is based in identity politics whereas feminism is about politics of class. Transgenderism is not only pro gender but is founded on gender whilst feminism is gender critical and radical feminism is anti genderism.

It's a bit like the impossibility of a laissez faire mega capitalist neoliberal position having much in common with a Marxist socialist workers union position.

It's difficult as well to find common ground when anything which doesn't agree exactly with transactivists ideas ends up with me being shouted down/labelled TERF/transphobic. There's no 'discussion' going on on twitter, I've now had quite a few abusive tweets just for saying I don't want to be labelled as ciswoman, or as anything except woman, or to suggest biology can't be ignored. I have at no point name-called, or been unwilling to listen to opposing views, but have been met with pure hostility and outrage. Favourite terms today - 'human milk feeding' and 'incubator'.

Part of the problem we have is that if MtT want to be seen, or even need to be seen as real actual women, rather than a facsimile of a woman, then they will obviously need to encroach on hard won women's spaces and services in order to validate their self image. It's only part of the problem, because I am referring to the MtT who have body/gender dysphorias, not the far more common AGP type who want access for completely different purposes.

Actually, quite a few people with true gender dysphoria have said on here that they don't want to be accepted unquestioningly as the opposite sex. My guess is it's the autogynophiles who are the most obsessive about 'passing' or brainwashing everyone into not identifying them as trans.

I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but does any one else here feel like some of the brocialists they know who are particularly defensive about mtf trans people are maybe looking out for their own sexual preferences rather than seeing things objectively? Just a hunch. Obviously I don't know.

I'm sorry if that question sounds witch-hunty or Homophobic or transphobic. Obviously there would be nothing wrong with such an attraction. I just started wondering whether there was a factor I might have been overlooking because, ime, it does tend to be usually white middle class men who set the tone of most of these sorts of political discussions and I get the impression anecdotally that mtf have more luck with that demographic than they do with women in general.

Sorry, just catching up with the thread. Ace post yesterday lunchtime, BertieBotts.

user I think it's far more likely that they just identify more with MtFs than they do with feminists.

Thanks prawn :)

Fair enough, I just thought maybe if some of these influential men are having trouble dealing with being attracted to men dressed as women (sorry) then forcing society to accept them as women means they don't have to deal with their own homosexuality or attraction to transport people, depending on how you look at it.

No I think brocialists side with TRAs because they are inherently sexist and don't see women as real people. They've ignored women's issues numerous times in the past so they don't have a problem with doing so over this.

Sorry, but it's more than a little homophones to suggest they can only be doing it due to being secretly gay. They are het men who enjoy all the privileges of being straight and male, which is why they put the rights of other straight males ahead of the rights of women, or gay people for that matter.

Homophobic not homophones

I'm not saying all, just maybe some. Not intended as Homophobic. Just something I'm pondering as I've heard lots of men who do sleep with trans women are quite secretive about it. I'm not straight myself.