Woman attacked by transactivists at speakers corner - part deux

[BeyondNoone]

Here's the link to thread one
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3033126-London-meeting-to-discuss-Gender-Identity-attacked-by-transactivists

I'm just going to sleep, if someone else can add the news links for me please? Thanks :)

Oh she's not a lesbian anymore.

She had a long term relationship with one woman from when I was about 3-13 and has been married to two men since then.

She says she was a 'political lesbian' whatever that means and is definitely straight now (her words).

My formative years were spent in the LGB community but it's difficult to explain that to someone as my mother is as straight as they come now.

maxthemartian

Bruce Jenner addressed a room of people, with a funny story about how he was nearly caught trying on his under age daughter's clothes.

It was an amusing anecdote that everyone laughed at.

None of them had the slightest notion of autogynephilia.

I would bet everything I own that he didn't just try them on, but masturbated into them before everyone came home. And they would not have been shorts and T-shirts.

Had those people actually seen what he did, I doubt they would be laughing. Using your daughter's clothes to facilitate your sexual fetish is a huge boundary violation. He went on to call his daughters burdens, I believe? And I think there is now a rift.

He ticks every single box for AGP.

He also dominates and controls the narrative around him, both online and in person. Something that women everywhere do, right?

He is in a very strange position. The most famous transwomen on the planet. If he came out and echoed what transactivists say, he would be publicly vilified. So he is unable to openly toe the party line.

Transactivists hate him. Both for not supporting what they say, and because, despite that, he comes across sometimes as something of a laughing stock.

Being Glamour magazine's woman of the year was a huge mistake, in my opinion. Compounded by him saying the hardest part of being a woman is deciding what dress to wear.

SentimentalLentil

That sounds like one hell of an upbringing. And I'm bloody impressed with your clarity of thought.

Ach she's hard work but I love her.
I think like a lot of handmaidens it all just comes from a place of being desperate to belong and be accepted.

Also she has no boundaries which meant I read lots of feminist literature very early on in life. We read 'the woman on the edge of time' together as a bedtime story when I was about 11.

Off topic but I've been seeing the term SWERF bandied about which I believe is Sex Worker Exclusive Feminist.

How do you join that club? Is it thinking sex workers aren't women or that they can't be feminists or that you don't think it should be legal????

X

Sorry for the x force of habit

Sentimental
Simplified version is that Lib fems believe that women have the right to choose prostitution, and that it is work the same as any other, bodily autonomy and all that. Rad fems believe that it is exploitation and generally support the Nordic Model, which prosecutes the pimp and the johns, but not the women.

I think it's believing it shouldn't be legal. For some reason it seems to go hand in hand with being a terf in the mind of many tra.

Oooh I'm a swerf and terf.

Sounds like a mop.

Makes me think of steak...

SWERF is another misleading term.

Feminists, whether radical or not do not exclude sex workers from their narrative.

It's one of those issues that always centres around choice. Should a woman have the autonomy to be able to sell her own body?

But, like a lot of this, it's not that simple. It is usually not a choice made from a position of neutrality.

Men want to rent women's bodies, and our system allows them to exploit women and do just that. It's objectification at its zenith. Women are no more than a holes for sale.

Personally I'd like to see prostitution disappear, women are not commodities. And should not be in a position where they have so little money, they have to sell themselves.

But in the absence of that, the Nordic model is favoured. You make the punters the criminals, but you don't prosecute the prostitutes.

So which ever way you look at it swerf is wrong. It's focusing on the people who exploit the women, not the women themselves, who are usually victims.

I can't imagine why an ideology that is run by misogynistic men wants to vilify feminists for objecting to the commodification, exploitation and objectification of women, which only benefits men...

SWERF is pretty horrible. It implies that women who support prostitutes, who think that prostitutes are exploited and want to protect them, are actually anti-prostitute. The term "whorephobic" is also used, believe it or not.

Julie Bindel gets referred to as "Swerf" (as well as "Terf") a lot. And she has worked tirelessly for the rights of women who have been coerced into prostitution.

The whole thing is a mad, topsy-turvy view of the world. As with the extreme end of transactivism, I feel the agenda is being driven by men's rights activists - misogynists who want to protect their right to pay vulnerable women for sex. They seem somehow to have fooled a swathe of the "left" into supporting them.

I've just asked my mother who runs a trans women's group hmm whether non trans women are allowed in (except her of course, queen handmaiden) and she said 'no of course not they have different experiences' and I said 'so they are different' and she said 'oh sentimental I wish you'd drop it you're really getting on my nerves'

I know I shouldn't, but this just made me laugh out loud at the sheer brass neck of TW needing a closed group to discuss their different experiences and yet denying women the very same support. I really should be at the point now where this shit doesn't surprise me any more, but it does. There needs to be an equivalent for cheeky fucking neighbour (CFN) in this context. I am so over my peak, I'm a dot on the horizon, and yet...

Love this comment from a gay man, so well put:

[[marcos July 12, 2017 at 4:10 pm

Second wave feminist theory is a rock that has helped me as a gay man to describe my experience and offer up guidance in a patriarchal and hetero-dominant world.

Gender theory on the other hand, is not ready for prime time. Feminist and queer theories do not seek to redefine men and hets in terms that accommodate women and queers. Yet gender theory seeks to redefine women and queers in terms of gender rather than sex in order to center around trans and accommodate them.

Theory does not work that way., When you are small minority, LGB 10% on a good day, trans .5%, then it is okay to be a theoretical or statistical outlier. Only the insecure of these small groups would require the larger population reconceptualize itself in terms favorable to the minority order to feel safe.

As a gay man, I am not normative relative to the general population because our numbers are small. Homosexuality is normal because it falls within the distribution regularly. The need to reinterpret normal as normative is a fool’s errand.

As a feminist, I know that there are women who have been traumatized by men and seek the original safe space, penis-less. This offends the trans women. But in the US where nudity and sex are comingled, fewer clothes equates to greater intimacy. As intimacy increases, then the power to deny consent likewise rises. At a certain point, with sex and nudity closely bound, demanding that women associate in clothing-free spaces with penised people borders up on nonconsensual intimacy.

Ditto for this notion that we are obligated to have sex with trans people who are gendered the same as our sexual orientation/preference. Every individual has the autonomy to determine their boundaries in the regard to sex and intimacy. Suggesting that anyone is owed sex is offensive to the basic principles of feminism.]]

ooops meant to bold that, it's not a link.

busyboysmum

What was he getting out when he says that sex and nudity are more closely bound in the US? Is this part of the locker room issue?

I think he's comparing to many countries in Europe where women may sunbathe topless, there are mixed public saunas, and just generally more public environments where unclothed bodies are experienced. In the US, to a greater degree even than the UK, unclothed bodies are either sex-segregated or sex ualised. There aren't really any public spaces where the naked body is seen. Nudity on US television is almost always in the context of a sex scene and is considerably more regulated than violence. Many US men only see naked women in porn before they have sex (there's a lot of interesting studies on this), so it's very closely linked, culturally.

badbadhusky that same brass neck is in evidence in the government's Transgender Equality Report, where trans groups said quite openly that they need trans specific groups to address their distinct concerns and experiences, while at the same time arguing against the right of women to have access to women only groups/services to address our distinct concerns and experiences.

I'm just relieved to see that there's so much more exposure of the issue now and that so many more women are waking up to what's going on. So far the TRAs have used threats and intimidation to try and silence the relatively few women who were aware of what was going on but if the numbers reach a certain point then that just won't work any more.

I would like to share my "peak trans" moment, if that's all right. I've been a radical feminist (in the sense that the root, the material basis for women's oppression lies in their reproductive capacities and determines their position in the economic, social and political matrix we call the patriarchy) since forever really and I'd always assumed that the trans/cis dichotomy was more of a secondary contradiction that would automatically resolve itself as soon as we overcome patriarchal oppression. I wished trans people well in their struggle and even welcomed it as a sign that they were attempting to dismantle gender roles and render them obsolete. I honestly don't know why I thought that was their intention. And so I thought the gender-critical movement were just a load of meanies refusing to extend their solidarity and protection to people who were basically on the same side.

But then (and this was at an embarassingly late juncture) I realised that transactivism was not attempting to tear down the walls of gender, but rather to shore them up, reify them, and ultimately to enshrine them in legislation - legislation on a feeling, a private language! A ridiculous, nonsensical concept backed by nothing but transparently made up arguments about the female brain (there is no such thing).

So I'd like to apologise to everyone who argued with me on the FWR threads - you were right and I was wrong. So very, embarassingly wrong .

uglyswan

Due to not being sterilised when i was younger i then developed an irrational fear of becoming pregnant. I just do not want children and know i would never cope with motherhood Its just not for me. I dont want to derail so wont bang on but women do absolutely need safe spaces where they can discuss things like this and other subjects

Helena I just wanted to take you up on this because I think it is as equally important as motherhood. I think that any woman of reproductive age is reminded of the materiality of the body whether or not they become mothers. For some, it is avoiding pregnancy (in the context of a misogynistic medical system that mostly refuses to sterilise women even if they plead) that is the issue. I know someone who suffered terribly with menstruation. She begged and begged for a hysterectomy and was adamant that she did not want children, but they only offered her the pill (even though she had risk factors). Eventually she was given a hyster, and about three months later ended up having most of her liver removed because of growths from a cancer that was likely exacerbated by the pill (sorry if I have not got the medical details 100% in this). She could not opt out of any of that by declaring herself 'male', although likely she'd have got the hyster earlier than she did...

I struggle to pick a single peaktrans moment for me; I think it was more of a gradual realisation that I was teaching my DC one thing (that they could do whatever they want, to ignore the silly people who said x was a girls/boys toy, that there were no jobs which were for men or women only) and yet the trans agenda was merrily claiming that children who didn't conform...were trans. It was like hang on, no this is bollocks. I don't want my kid hearing that a girl who like cars is actually a boy, wtf!

I think the transing of children was definitely what made me sit up and pay attention, which is why I think it's such a big issue.

Actually the other one was someone posting stats on the number of trans people who are autistic (or vice versa) and when I thought about how that could be the case and what would drive that correlation it made me even more aware of how stereotype and rule driven it was.

I actually found myself discussing today, after DS and two friends were assaulted by a drunk man (DS not badly, 1 boy seriously) the notion that men ought to pay more taxes. It was a violent MAN who attacked them. He cost the NHS. 4 police to subdue him, take statements. Court time. 2 nights in cells.

I've said this quite frequently - on message boards and IRL. The outrage it attracts - from people (men and women) that the "good" men would be unfairly penalised. Oh the poor menz.

My theory is that if all men had to pay 1 or 2% more in income tax, the pressure from the men who are not violent, would start to change models of masculinity so that it would no longer be unmasculine to be non-violent.

Our problem is the limited range of models of masculinity, and the emphasis on competition, violence, being higher status, beating all other men. And of course, the central definition of a proper man:

That in no way whatsoever is he anything even reminiscent of, whispering of, a woman.

Returning to the issue of children transitioning. My professional background is in child protection/family court system. Working as both a children's Social Worker and a Children's Guardian one of my duties under The Children Act 1989 was to establish "the ascertainable wishes of the child concerned (considered in light of it's age and understanding) - Children Act 1989 1.15.

What this means in practice is that whilst the court has to seriously consider the child's wishes and feelings when deciding what action is to be taken, these wishes and feelings need to be understood in the light of it's AGE AND UNDERSTANDING. So for example a child wants to return to it's violent abusive parent but the court knows that despite this being what the child wants this action would not be in the child's best welfare interests.

It's similar to using the Gillick competence test to establish whether or not a child is of the maturity and understanding to make significant decisions about it's life regardless of their chronological age.

As such it has astounded me that society, in general, seems to think that allowing such drastic medical intervention and treatment (surgery/powerful drugs) that transitioning requires, should be respected and supported because "it's what the child wants". It totally ignores the general view that children are legally minors and that until they have reached the chronological age of majority adults, and sometimes the state, have to intervene.

I am completely sympathetic to genuine gender dysmorphic people, also those who wish to live their lives by whatever gender. However the longer term impact on children and young people being allowed to transition very early on is not going to end well IMHO.

Just to be clear I am not in favour of gender identity being simply a matter of emotional or intellectual choice and agree with the majority of you who are highlighting your concerns about the GRA. But the issue of children transitioning is an absolute time bomb.

Does anyone know their figures for children transitioning?