Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

It's another FB 'discussion' on TRAs...

95 replies

Albadross · 19/08/2017 17:18

Help me craft a response to this that summarises the issues without causing all out war with my friend?

"Trans exclusionary radical feminists.... That is a kind of radical feminism characterized by transphobia, especially transmisogyny, and hostility to the third wave of feminism. They believe that the only real women™ are those born with a vagina and XX chromosomes. They wish to completely enforce the classic gender binary, supporting gender essentialism.... so basically... yikes, these are people harrassing trans people and try to prevent gender neutral bathrooms and that stuff.. This is really sick and I still have no idea how people can subvert the word feminism in this way but it happens. More reasons why people don't like calling themselves feminists... morons like this."

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 22/08/2017 06:14

They deleted a lot of posts from Facebook apparently. But perhaps they deleted only the ones that were nasty transphobia and not the misogyny ones, because really who cares about that?

Albadross · 18/12/2017 09:21

Just resurrecting this to say that another 'discussion' happened and I was told my posts are 'worrying' and that my views are bigoted.

The whole thing unravelled after she mentioned something bizarre that had nothing to do with the conversation, I questioned it (she'd clearly got angry and misunderstood) and she kept saying I'd been the one that said it, even when I presented a screenshot (it was IN the thread we were talking on). Ironically she kept saying I was denying it despite the evidence Confused. She then blocked me.

I sent her a message on Twitter next morning just saying I hoped we could talk and sort this out but she's decided that she's given me 'the chance to explain' and that my responses are always the same. Well, yeah - that's because they're what I think...

I find it so odd that anyone would not think to question why suddenly, despite having been a member of the LGB community, championing the rights of minorities my entire life, being a feminist, having trans friends etc, I'd just become 'a bigot'? It's totally illogical. Yet any 'chance' I'm given to explain must either involve me agreeing with her or it's not good enough.

OP posts:
Ekphrasis · 18/12/2017 09:25

I'd really complain about the moron bit. And as said, perhaps point out that she has perhaps misunderstood what 'terfs ' are saying.

GretchenFranklin · 18/12/2017 09:27

I don't understand this term 'bigot' at all.

As Lily Maynard said in a piece I saw this morning on twitter 'TERFS' are not in fact trans exclusionary because rad fems embrace transmen along with all women.

NotSupposedtobeHere · 18/12/2017 10:53

They wish to completely enforce the classic gender binary, supporting gender essentialism

That statement mixes up 'sex' (biological) and "gender" (socially constructed role). Most feminists want to get rid of gender, not enforce it. Radical feminists seek to do this by recognising that the root ('radical' from root) of women's oppression is the socially-constructed role imposed upon us by our role as a class or category
in reproduction ie as the bearers of children.

NotSupposedtobeHere · 18/12/2017 10:53

biological role in reproduction, I should have said.

Albadross · 18/12/2017 14:08

She's not responding anymore so frustratingly I may never be able to get anywhere with this. My first friend block.

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 18/12/2017 15:19

It's sad, but I don't think she was ever really your friend if she won't even listen to you in the spirit of understanding where you are coming from.

OlennasWimple · 18/12/2017 16:45

TERFS' are not in fact trans exclusionary because rad fems embrace transmen along with all women

TRAs are really complaining that feminists aren't making it all about men, but they can't actually say that (because transwomen are women!)

PleaseDontGoadTheToad · 18/12/2017 16:53

TERFS' are not in fact trans exclusionary because rad fems embrace transmen along with all women.

And IME feminists who include transwomen tend to exclude transmen yet nobody ever pulls them up on their TERF-yness.

Lancelottie · 18/12/2017 17:00

The original article itself is full of rubbish.
'We must ensure that trans women have a voice at the forefront of conversations about violence and sexual assault' -- why? Why is a male's word worth more than a female's on this subject?

Lancelottie · 18/12/2017 17:02

And this:
'A trans exclusionist (or “TERF”) excludes transgender people, particularly trans women, trans femmes, and non-binary people, from public life.'

No, dear. Just from a very few, private, female-only situations.

PleaseDontGoadTheToad · 18/12/2017 17:04

'We must ensure that trans women have a voice at the forefront of conversations about violence and sexual assault'

Why just transwomen? Why are these evil TERF's always excluding transmen? Bigots! Angry

Wink
LangCleg · 18/12/2017 17:11

We must ensure that trans women have a voice at the forefront of conversations about violence and sexual assault

The sad thing is that TIMs do face violence. But they want to talk about this as though it is the same violence that women face. But it isn't. In the minds of the bashers, TIMs get gay bashed. They get punished for being "failed" men. Nothing to do with the violence men dish out to women.

This is where ID pol always falls down. We're now classifying these types of crime as what took place from the perception of the victim. But the motive is not in the mind of the victim! The motive is in the mind of the perpetrator.

Lancelottie · 18/12/2017 17:19

By the way, what is a trans femme, as opposed to a transwoman/man?

BelligerentGardenPixies · 18/12/2017 18:57

Trans femme are men who present feminine but don’t necessarily identify as women (although sometimes they do, if they feel like it). The bloke who kicked up a fuss about the TopShop changing rooms is an example.

At least I think that’s what they are - we are however, living in a reality that is devoid of definitions so who fucking really knows.

ALittleBitOfButter · 18/12/2017 19:00

They're appropriating lesbian terminology, perhaps because it arouses them?

IcedCocoa · 18/12/2017 19:46

Why do feminists who support transwomen exclude transmen, though? That makes no sense. Does anyone have a link?

OlennasWimple · 18/12/2017 21:32

Iced - I think it's because if transwomen are women, transmen are men and therefore feminism isn't for them

IcedCocoa · 19/12/2017 06:54

Wow, that’s sad, really.
There is a massive issue with rapid onset gender dysphoria in young women - even if we don’t agree on what is behind it, surely it is a feminist issue even for liberal feminists too - because liberalism is about the whole, not just the parts.

So why are feminists supporting transwomen not asking about the reasons why there has been the emergence of rapid onset gender dysphoria in young women? Is it because they unquestioningly support individual choice, without considering the social, structural and cultural factors which might shape all the other choices, and indeed, the choice to transition.

Since when did feminism not care about the structural and social disadvantage women face? Because if young women wanting to wear binders and take hormones to avoid grown womanhood is not an indicator of the social and structural disadvantages of womanhood, I don’t know what is.

And that disadvantage is compounded by the notion that transwomen are anyway better women than born female women (which is what assigned female at birth means).

It is a feminist issue. I know you know that Oleanna, I am just trying to figure it out.

That’s a good point about gender-based violence LangCleg. If we accept it is gender-based and not sexual violence, then transwomen would be subject to the same violence as their assumed gender. The question is whether it is exacerbated by their being trans. My inclination is not, given the prevalence of violence against women, much of which goes unreported.
And of course the point remains that the perpetrators are men, not women.

And if questioning trans ideology is literal violence, then erasing the reality of female biology=woman is also a form of violence.

And binders and hormones are a form of self-harm, really. Men can self-ID with no bodily changes; women are binding their breasts to the point of breathlessness.

It is like being in some dystopian universe.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page