Punching Terfs

[AssignedMentalAtBirth]

twitter.com/helenlewis/status/879622400631025664

Helen Lewis is getting dog's abuse, mostly from men, because she objects to someone having "I punch TERFs" on their tshirt. I like her, listen to the NS podcast and always impressed with her. I think she's brave to tweet about this but it's a bloody minefield. I really am struggling with the left wing on this issue. That and all the no platforming, compelled speech etc. I thought I was left wing but I think I am more liberal, in the classic sense. e.g. Free speech and all that, which doesn't include threats of violence if you don't agree with what someone says. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

It's more important to be seen to be on the right side of an issue without realising that one can't simultaneously be pro-woman AND pro-trans

Sadly that is largely the case now. But it didn't used to be like that. People have transitioned since the 60s and 'lived as' the opposite sex before that without any major problems until the last decade or so when the extremist TRA position emerged that TW are literally women. Of course, not all TW believe that but those who don't are bullied too.

Eventually I think the movement will eat itself because gay men will walk up to the gay eugenics aspect and the interests of autogynophiles and 'Truscum" (horrible TRA term for trans people who believe that only people with gender dysphoria are truly trans) will increasingly diverge. A few people may even be concerned about women's safety and privacy. But that won't happen until huge damage has been done to gay kids and women.

I really worry about what will happen when it truly takes hold here. Pretty much the only thing holding it back in the US is the religious right and we have no equivalent (something for which I'm thankful in all other circumstances). We are going to go the same way as Canada and have bearded rapists in our women's shelters

Shiney
We are going to go the same way as Canada and have bearded rapists in our women's shelters angry

• Yes and we will be up in court if we object or 'misgender'. Lovely

Hadley Freeman has commented on it too now.

Pretty much the only thing holding it back in the US is the religious right and we have no equivalent (something for which I'm thankful in all other circumstances).

I wonder whether the TRAs are responsible for Trump.

While I personally would have voted for Clinton despite it being very unlikely she would oppose the stripping away of women's rights via trans ideology, I wonder whether some people (women) who were undecided otherwise voted for Trump because they had first-hand experienced their daughters being forced to be naked in front of boys in changing rooms.

(Women's shelters and prisons are probably of no interest to conservative women as they live in the illusion neither they or their daughters could ever end up in one of those. But the schools, they will notice.)

Vestal

Some of the political broadcasts I have been listening to have made assertions that the Identity politics agenda and the notion that the left is eating itself with Postmodernism is in some way responsible for the popularity of Trump and other populists. I think it's a very interesting idea and have been trying to investigate. Can't say I have come to any solid conclusions yet. I became aware of the identity politics agenda vis the trans issues. It's all a bit mind boggling

An issue is the language employed around differing opinions. People argue that the distinction that certain language is the same as actual physical violence. If that is the direction of travel we're heading in acts of physical violence become a legitimate defence for opinions and words you find offensive.

Furthmore I don't like the use of the word bigotry in a modern context, it used to mean not listening (particularly to groups and people one believes inferior, and thus not worth listening to). Now it just means to disagree with someone.

I've been here awhile now, but I've seen thread after thread of analysis of the radtrans perspective and you can't be genuinely critical without engaging with the ideas. I struggle to find a terf who has actually been guilty of bigotry. In fact you have to understand the arguments to see the potential ramifications for women. In fact the trans agenda only works if you are willing to be bigoted towards women, as in a complex wholesale failure to listen and engage with anything women might have to say on the subject.

as in a complex wholesale failure to listen and engage with anything women might have to say on the subject.

I shouldn't do this to myself, because it not only boils my blood, it depresses me, but as clicked on Dervels post I had literally read this just before.

In fact the trans agenda only works if you are willing to be bigoted towards women, as in a complex wholesale failure to listen and engage with anything women might have to say on the subject.

In fact, it only works if you refuse to think.

Many genderist women I have spoken to hold the opinions that

a) being a woman has nothing to do with liking pink, dresses or high heels, or wanting to do housework or wanting to have children.

but also that

b) being a woman has nothing to do with having two X chromosomes and being born with female reproductive organs.

Which leaves them without any working definition of "woman".

I suppose the more outspokenly misogynist male trans are more consistent as in they do admit that to them, womanhood is about high heels, dresses and make up.

I can't imagine that anyone who is actively pro-Trump would have been left-inclined without postmodernism. However, as a centrist, swing voter myself I definitely find myself getting frustrated and even put off by the left's ability to focus on minor issues such as let's all use the right pronouns rather than tackling the real problems.

Not just that, but despite the left's ability to think itself really "right on" it has the distinct whiff of misogyny which, coupled with their claims to really care about everyone, comes across as pure hypocrisy.

Look at the pre-election thread that was checking which parties had women friendly policies - Green Party were appalling on with calling women non-men and pro-pimp policies, Lib Dems not only wanted to bring in decriminalisation but also to wipe convictions for kerb-crawling and pimping, WEP were the biggest load of crap with refusing to define women, even Corbyn had some questionable quotes about not wanting to criminalise people (pimps and punters) and moving towards a more civilised society.

I think if you're cynical enough then you start to think they're all as bad as each other, or thinking that whilst one party won't fix inequality, at least they're not going to bloody mindedly take away hard fought for rights in an attempt to appease yet another underdog.

I cross posted with you and illustrated your point vestal!

I saw Goody Osbourne with a TERF

It's coming across as less and less of a delusion, less even than wanting to be right-on, and more of a deliberate attack on women.

OneFlew, brilliant post. Way to articulate how I am feeling now.

Datun, that's utterly ridiculous, they even admit it? I despair.

Why take away any and all meaning from a word that has been always used for people with a certain anatomy, when you don't even have another meaning to replace the old meaning with?

You don't need a word for what your personality is. We have words for the most important personality traits, and that has worked fine for thousands of years.

and more of a deliberate attack on women

I agree. It's very worrying.

I saw Goody Osbourne with a TERF

Exactly this.

How anyone can look at that t-shirt and not just fail to see that it's a gleeful brag about a male bodied person being violent to women, but to then actually defend the person wearing it, is utterly beyond me.

What if it said "I punch uppity women"? What then? How about "I punch feminists?". Would that be OK or not? What about a woman wearing an "I punch misogynists" t-shirt - what if Julie Bindel went to a feminist event wearing that. Can you even imagine the internet meltdown?

Datun, that is nuts. It's like saying, "I identify as a lappetysquoosh," and then, when asked what a lappetysquoosh is, replying, "nothing. It doesn't mean anything."
Why the need to identify as and claim a word that has no meaning? It's dishonest because the redefining of a word so that they can apply it to themselves isn't genuine; they still want that original meaning.

Vestal and Collidascope

I agree, it's insane. This circular definition of the word woman is everywhere now. People saying for god's sake it's an established biological fact.

Even when the ridiculousness of it is pointed out - I identify as a plate, therefore I'm a plate.

I thought it was just a fringe element, but it's now become the prevalent TRA line.

And although there are trans allies who realise it's scientifically untenable, they still buy into it, as socially acceptable.

Why not? What harm does it do? Don't be so old fashioned. Why do you care?

Feminism is under threat.

Misogynistic men want to claim womanhood and ill informed people are supporting it.

...and, at the same time, women's issues are exclusionary and triggering. It's hurtful to talk about menstruation and abortion, and anyway men have those too.

I always hope that people will see this for what it is, but I also genuinely fear that they won't.

People are so emotionally invested in believing that shit, I think for most, there's no way back to sanity.

I mean, with how rabid even female trans allies get over this, they'd have to admit that they yelled at, perhaps even punched people for this ideology.

To then admit that it was wrong and they were wrong and that they insulted and were violent against perfectly innocent people ... I think there's a very big psychological barrier that prevents them from being honest to themselves.

I find it so frustrating that so many girls in my school's Feminist Society buy into all this, and are fully on board with the "if you identify as a woman you are a woman" line (as well as "checking cis privilege). I don't even try to raise objections anymore but I find it infuriating girls in younger years are being bombarded with this nonsense.

I do sometimes see this as part of a broader trend, perhaps fuelled by online interaction, that people seem less and less able to tolerate being disagreed with. Not just on this issue, but on many, and seemingly without the need for any objective validation of their viewpoint.

What I mean is that it's not enough any more that someone believes themself to be a pansexual genderqueer demiboy with a female penis that's just as much a female sex organ as a vagina is. They want everyone else to believe it too, and act accordingly. It just seems extraordinarily self defeating. As my old granny used to say "If you're waiting for everyone to agree with you, you might be there a while".

This checking your privileged thing is just illogical. And it's discriminatory by its very nature surely. I'm not sure I 'get' the feminist class analysis because I don't really get Marxist class analysis. The Identity stuff, as far as I can tell, seems to be wholly based on Marxist principles. Of course there is oppression of many different people and there needs to be strategies to counter it, but the demand that we all swallow the oppression Olympics ideology lest we are bigots is feeling very oppressive. I also don't see why women have to check their cis/white/middleclass/pick one privileged either. If women want to campaign to improve the rights of women, it doesn't mean I'm a bigot because I haven't joined Black Lives Matter

The Identity stuff, as far as I can tell, seems to be wholly based on Marxist principles.

That makes no sense, sorry.

Marxism is a theory about the oppression of the working class, and on how to work against it.

If someone says that the workers have to seize the means of production to end capitalist oppression, they don't mean that anyone who identifies as worker should seize the means of production, which would enable any capitalist to identify as worker and just keep the means of production.

Any Marxist would clearly see the idiocy of trying to empower the working classes by just deciding they can choose to identify as middle class (but will still have to work in blue collar jobs because the system of oppression is still in place)

Class analysis only works by looking at reality. It does not work if you can identify as anything you want to identify as.

Glosswitch was posting about this on Twitter and now she seems to have disappeared (or my Twitter has gone glitchy) - I hope she hasn't been banned for speaking out.