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 :)

SeXX matters

Or
SeXX not stereotype

SeXX against gender-orthodoXY

I also like SexNotGender. V catchy!

SYX

Save Your seX

Datun - have sent you a pm.

Tagging on:

Horny you've apologised for the term "elderly woman." Just as well. While I've been as upset & disturbed about this male violence against women, I've also been a mite disturbed at the focus on 60 as "elderly" and the use of this to position Ms Maclachan as somehow more deserving of sympathy & more motivating of shock & outrage because she's "elderly."

I know that none of you means to offend, but really?

I'm less than 18 months off 60. I can outrun, out-dance & out-walk my 20 year old undergrad students. I may be "late middle age" but "elderly"? I'll be working till I'm almost 70. My mother's 82 - she still does an hour of Pilates every morning that even I find hard (and I'm a trained Pilates person).

I'm absolutely in accord wit most pp on this thread - but for those of you who are only in your 20s & 30s - be VERY aware of the way that sexism and ageism often march together, to the great harm of all women - young, middle-aged, and "elderly."

Er, I'm a teacher.... this isn't widespread gospel belief by any means, every teacher I've worked with is worried about gender stereotyping and about the effects of medical intervention for trans children.

However as a teacher you are so very tightly bound by government message and in trouble if you stray off the official line. One of the reasons I stopped working in schools was a deep discomfort with the compulsion to promote numerous government ordered messages I did not just have a different opinion to but thought were actually and harmfully wrong.

Honestly, the overwhelming majority of teachers give a damn about nothing but the well being and care of the children they work with.

That's good to know, MissHavershamLeftDaffodil

Re: what will things look like in ten years time:

When this truly gets to the attention of the average person in the street, in terms of real, actual impact like the incident at Speakers Corner, the overwhelming response will be 'don't be so bloody silly'. They just won't wear it.

Men will get very angry because part of a patriarchial society is that men don't like other men looking at and invading the privacy of women they feel protective of or have feelings of ownership of. Fathers won't be ok with their daughters changing around male bodied self identified girls, and will be livid when their mother is hospitalised next to a bearded woman. When men kick off, things will change.

We will be trying to help a generation of detransitioning and very distressed young adults to find a way to cope with adulthood.

I think in ten years time this will be long gone.

I hope you're right MissHavisham. In terms of the sort of mass contagion of young people it puts me in mind of the huge number of girls of my age who declared themselves bisexual at school; I don't think they themselves realised that they weren't, it was just the thing for the kids who weren't in the super popular pretty girl crowd to do.

15 or so years on and I don't think any of those who were "high school bi" are actually bi or lesbian - certainly, all who I still know of are apparently straight. There are a few people who have come out as lesbian; funnily enough none of them were in the bisexual crowd.

I really hope that in 15 years we're looking back and this current madness has calmed down. Unfortunately it's got the potential to be much more harmful long term than any declaration of sexuality

While I've been as upset & disturbed about this male violence against women, I've also been a mite disturbed at the focus on 60 as "elderly" and the use of this to position Ms Maclachan as somehow more deserving of sympathy & more motivating of shock & outrage because she's "elderly."

People do tend to sit up and take note when its an 'older' person on the receiving end of this abuse. I didn't mean to be ageist, I truly didn't..I am hardly what you would call 'young' myself. But people do tend to sit up and take note more if its someone perceived as older...I mean, do you think quite so many people would care, would there have been so much press attention if it had been a...lets say 20 year old woman attacked? Its very wrong, but its how it is.

Yes, I do think a lot of older people are much more fit and capable of defending themselves than a lot of younger people. Hell a guy who works with my father in law is 78 and I swear he is 20x fitter than most 20 year old blokes. But you cannot deny that if he was beaten by a couple of thugs, it would receive a hell of a lot more attention (and the police would take it more seriously) than if a 20 year old was

Which was why I did say elderly on my post. As it WILL make more people take note.

Really sorry but haven't rtft (migraine) but was wondering if someone could update me on any police action? The newstatesman article suggested met police claimed they had no record of being contacted and I'm not sure if met police have corrected that or done anything about this assualt or that screen shots of the planned violence at this event? Tia

@HornyTortoise yes you're absolutely right about the way that anyone over 50 doing something is more likely to get people to notice.

But that doesn't mean we need to replicate that here. And it's worth thinking about the combination of ageism & sexism more generally - why is it that an 'elderly woman' being punched seems worse than a 25 year old? It's a bit of sexist patronising, isn't it? I suspect it is ...

Oh, and BTW, I know it's hard to pick tone on a messageboard so although I'm asking a lot of questions, I don't mean them aggressively. More just thinking out loud.

Yeah I understand where you are coming from, and will try to keep that in mind in future. I didn't see how it could be insulting..but I guess thinking more deeply about it it obviously is. As in this instance, the emphasis on Maria being 60...kind of has the knock on effect of it being an 'older people are weaker and need protecting' kind of thing.

Having said that, I do think that is true in the majority of cases. Obviously as we age, most of us do lose strength and such. Like, I have always been able to handle myself. But now, if I was attacked by a, say, 18 year old, even an 18 year old the same size and such as me...I am fairly sure that the 18 year old would 'win' if I tried to defend myself. There are of course exceptions to the rule. But I see it as kind of similar to the biological aspect of all of this TA thing. Some women could take on a fully grown bloke who attacked them. Most could not, due to biology being that...males tend to be stronger in general.

Biology also makes us get naturally more...fragile as we age.

Which is why I think people are more shocked when an older person is attacked by younger people. Fairly similar to how people take more notice if a male attacks a female.

I hope I am making sense here, it all makes sense in my head. But I will certainly be more mindful of comments about older people..though I am much closer to Marias age than I am to that of the younger males who attacked her, and definitely did not mean any offense.

SexNotGender is a more inclusive sounding name for an organisation if the intention is to encourage support from men, LBG and (non-activist) T as well as women.

NoMore Last I heard they were looking into it and had ID'd one of the attackers

Thanks

I think I spotted the attacker on Twitter looking for a lawyer - maybe one of the other tweeters can confirm (I'm on a TERF block list so couldn't see them directly but somebody had done a retweet)

Pages behind, just here to mark my place for now and to say thank you to all the wise, logical and articulate posters here and on other threads

Well that would make for a very illuminating court case.

I have no doubt the case would claim provocation, 'being a terf' and 'actual violence' and argue this is justified for four people smashing a woman in the face and gripping her throat while trying to steal and in the end smashing her camera.

Since the tweets and facebook screen shots undeniably prove this was intent to be violent, and celebrating the violence afterwards, in the context of people who wear t shirts with pictures of blood stains and the words 'punch a terf' (and worse) and see no problem with this....

....a judge isn't going to have a tricky time applying British law.

NoMoreNotToday

As far as I know feminists have done a sterling job of identifying the attackers. And it is now under investigation.

I too agree to avoiding the word 'feminist' in any future attempts at educating people in general about the concerns discussed on this thread. Tis sad but true that for many people the word has such negative connotations. We need as wide an audience as possible.

I do think that 'female' is a good alternative and appropriate given the debate.