I am Janice Turner's No 1 fan - another excellent article

[Stopmakingsense]

This one picks up in particular the huge rise in women identifying as men, and the increasing inability of anyone being able to question it:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/even-asking-questions-is-now-transphobic-ztk3rlrfk?shareToken=1f64a5116171eb54a9a866590e6432ec

Social services are massively overstretched. A case where a child is well looked after, but has gender identity issues and the parents do not rush to the GIC is not a safety issue and should not be categorised as such. It only becomes a safety issue because CAHMS is massively overstretched and it is easier to put children on drugs than address the underlying psychological issues.

The custody case where this was brought up found against the mother transitioning her child. But winning that case will have cost the father tens of thousands of pounds. Not all parents have those resources. And if the law stood on the side of the mother and SS, he would not even have been able to bring it to court.

YetAnotherSpartacus ... But why

Datun - I'm not sure but I think our perspectives may potentially differ slightly on the trans issue because you have encountered it in cyberspace where I think the older AGPs are the loudest. I've encountered it in activist and 'social care provision' (for want of a better phrase) spaces where the loudest voices are activists and those who have a burning desire to groom save children. These spaces, in my view, are dominated by individuals who overtly or covertly hate women / are misogynistic. As I have said before, many don't even bother with trying to look like a woman - they just make vague statements about being 'trans' or 'queer'.

Call me an advocate of conspiracy theory, but I think 'why' is because;

• they want to control women.
• they realise that controlling women partly involves making threats against their ability to keep their children (just like MRAs)
• they want to control the children for their cult (yes I know this is hyperbole, but it gets the point across).
• they are consumed with their own power and access to power and they love the power they currently have.
• they are intent on creating ideas and ideals about what appropriate femininity / 'being a woman' is (just like the MRAs) - and not surprisingly this is almost identical to the model feminists have been challenging for decades - and it is a model that empowers men and disempowers women.

It is this mob who are also pro porn and prostitution because this is also about controlling women. They are the ones who call us whorephobic if we talk about the harms of prostitution for women.

My bet is that they have every intention of accessing women's spaces too, though, just like AGPs.

As for whether SS are overloaded or not - I think the 'suicide' rhetoric will come into play here as a device to persuade...

This is just something I'm mulling over but it seems that most of the older AGPs (those with wives, etc.) I have come across (not many) are too busy preening and primping to worry about the activist stuff beyond sexual access to women and or treatment for acceptance of them (in fact, it's mostly about them).

There's a cross-over category too, I know.

YetAnotherSpartacus

Yes, I've come across people like that too. It's quite startling.

I was talking yesterday to DH about it all. I said it's not as though there is a huge conspiracy with secret meetings and recorded minutes designed to keep women down. Because that is the way it sometimes sounds when feminists talk about it.

It's that it starts with an assumption about women. Definitely that they are 'lesser'. That they are, or should be subordinate. And that they are there for a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is practical - housework, raising children, sex. Other times their purpose is to be treated as lesser.

Misogyny has a purpose, and that purpose gives the misogynist a good feeling.

You can then, quite easily, see how it plays out.

Datun - I agree and I don't think we should underestimate their role and influence as TRAs.

Wow, I think if you take the point that the purpose of women is to be lesser, then that explains an awful lot. In all aspects of life.

SummerflowerXx

I know. I've actually depressed Myself, typing that.

I think transmasculine and transfeminine are far more accurate terms for transpeople than transwoman or transman. It's referring to gender rather than sex.

I think transmasculine and transfeminine are far more accurate terms for transpeople than transwoman or transman. It's referring to gender rather than sex.

I'd tend to agree, except that ... trans which 'masculine' or 'feminine' gender stereotype? Just suppose for a moment it was valid to assign each characteristic as m or f (which it isn't!). So the good at maths and spatial awareness trait would presumably be classified as 'masculine', having long hair and sometimes liking a pretty frock would be 'feminine', wearing trousers and sensible boots 'masculine', shouting down other people 'masculine' ....

I agree Errol, I'd prefer people weren't labelled for how they present at all but it's far less damaging than the female penis narrative.

I've always thought (and feel free to shake me out of some ingrained assumptions on this one) that masculine and feminine referred largely to natural appearance, with 'masculine-looking' women being taller than average, more straight up-and-down, more muscular or solid, stronger and maybe craggier of feature; and 'feminine-looking' men being smaller and slighter than average, with softer, rounder features and smaller hands and feet.

I don't tend to think of clothes or make-up -- though I think I'm biased against the incongruity of delicate clothing and makeup set against rougher features (male or female), whereas a porcelain-faced youngster in bovver boots and army fatigues doesn't strike me as odd in the same way.

Hmm. Will examine my prejudices a bit more, as that's somewhat incoherent.

The Blog of the Day is interesting ... LesbeMums talking about LGBT discrimination.

Lancelottie, I think I would agree with you that 'masculine' and 'feminine' can have an generalised anatomical sex basis to them - a masculine jaw, feminine hands etc. I think transfemme and transmasc, however, go beyond that and infer the aesthetics of masculinity and femininity - so stereotypical expectations of long hair and lipstick.

I don't think that transfemme and transmasc are more accurate terms for transgender as they don't encapsulate the foundational issue of there being an sense of sex vs. a sense of gender as two disparate things - "aligning the body with the mind". On the NHS, transgender people who desire genital surgery, are required to live a year in their "preferred social gender role". For the majority of transgender people who do not have this surgery, living as in the social gender role, enables them to be socially read as their desired sex, rationalising their sense of self.

Of course this is in line with stereotypical notions of their desired sex in order to reduce that disparity. Perhaps in a future where women had liberation and gender didn't exist in the way it does now, people that are transgender or have gender dysphoria, would also have a different experience with different medical facilitation for their sense of self.

All of this redefining of terms, development of adjectives into proper nouns and encroachment of women is through the "female penis" nonsense. Surely no medical body that is part of the evaluation and treatment/management/facilitation of transgender people, supports that. It is problematic however, when the NHS itself, calls it male to female/female to male transitioning.

"The Blog of the Day is interesting ... LesbeMums talking about LGBT discrimination."
I had a quick read. I usually avoid Stonewall since they went all T. Reading the blog, the focus on being 'nice' and 'education' is really one part of what is just plain wrong about the current state of the LGBTFuckKnowsWhatClusterFuck......People just are gay (get educated) doesn't really help. Because after all, we have known for even longer that some people are female (so just get used to it). But that didn't stop sexism!
If you don't understand what underpins homophobia, then you won't solve the problem. Reducing it all to , be nice, cos they (be that lesbian, gay, bi, trans whatever) are just born like that and can't help it, they're no threat to you so BE NICE.....................
Fuck being nice. Why homphobia and why transphobia, it's all part and parcel of understanding why the patriarchy.

And I don't totally agree with the 'gay people are just born this way' line either. God, gay liberation really died a death...............
"But gay liberation does not just mean reforms. It means a revolutionary change in our whole society. Is this really necessary? Isn't it hard enough for us to win reforms within the present society, and how will we engage the support of straight people if we get ourselves branded as revolutionaries?
Reforms may makes things better for a while; changes in the law can make straight people a little less hostile, a little more tolerant-but reform cannot change the deep-down attitude of straight people that homosexuality is at best inferior to their own way of life, at worst a sickening perversion. It will take more than reforms to change this attitude, because it is rooted in our society's most basic institution-the Patriarchal Family..........."
Gay Liberation Front Manifesto, 1971.

I am reading this properly now.

So transmasculine is a woman who adopts societally recognised male behaviours and dress, whilst transman is a woman who identifies and lives as a man.

So, can you be labelled as transmasculine if you are a woman who is the main breadwinner, wears jeans to do the guttering at the weekend and washes the car? Even if you are a woman? And never question being a woman? Where does this lunacy come from? That is scary bollocks. Not only labelling one cis, but transmasculine or feminine if you don't conform to constructed ideals of gender identity.

So erasing not only biology but how women (mainly) choose to express themselves as women. I am no less a woman because I support my children financially, do my own DIY and check my car tyres etc.

Where does this lunacy come from? I mean, can someone post a reference so I can see if I have understood it right.

Yes, I didn't mean interesting in a good way :). I thought it was banal really and a really interesting choice given the lack of criticality around the T especially given the events of the last couple of weeks.

So, can you be labelled as transmasculine if you are a woman who is the main breadwinner, wears jeans to do the guttering at the weekend and washes the car?

I think it's an identity label rather than a description label.

Oh no, you can be labelled as transmasc by other people, who then consider it their duty to out you for your hypocrisy and transphobia in claiming to be a woman. This happens. People will genuinely tell you you are a transman in denial and call you out. It's transphobic to not agree you are yourself trans if you do assigned transmac things like: visibly programming, making use of statistics or formal logic, having short hair, not wearing makeup, or wearing trousers from the mens department. This is all going on on tumblr. Obviously #notalltrans people think that or do that sort of insanity, but because of the particular way these things are enforced, the maddest infractions are dealt with the same as if you had raped someone.

What happens is someone collects screenshots of your crimes and puts them together in a Callout, which is then reblogged around the site. You are denounced as "harmful" and can be added to Callout Masterposts or Block Lists.This is literally just a list of names under headings like "known racists", "known transphobes", "known terfs", "garbage people" etc, but the screenshots don't get transferred. This is justified under the Missing Stair concept, though there's no distinction made between people who might be physically dangerous (these exist) to others and people who have committed a thoughtcrime. Sometimes these callouts and notices are reblogged over a hundred thousand times.

This is the toxic soup teens are swimming in. It's absolute crushing conformity, and it's amplified massively from anything older people ever experienced at school. Imagine the most humiliating ostracism you suffered or witnessed at high school. Now imagine that happened 100,000 times and was never over, recorded and replayed forever online. It's pretty amazing anyone ever defies this.

Zoll - I don't suppose you could point to an example could you? I utterly believe you but I need to see to understand.

Holy Motherfuck. I just did some Googling and whereas I did not find what I was looking for I did find this ... in a peer reviewed journal no less.

bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-0907-y

Note the use of 'chestfeeding'. It terrifies me that such terminology is actually being taken seriously.

Of a callout post? Just look on tumblr. Search on things like callout or discourse. Callouts can be for anything - liking the wrong tv character, saying the wrong thing, or sexually abusing a real person are all equivalent. Fiction and reality are equivalent. There's no distinction made between thought, speech, and action.

www.tumblr.com/search/callout
www.tumblr.com/search/discourse
www.tumblr.com/search/psa+transphobia

You can see there are specific callout blogs and so on. Tumblr is notoriously difficult to search, however, as most blogs don't show up in the search results - the posts come up on your dash - so you have to get a tumblr to really get an idea of it.

Ok thanks - I don't do social media so it's all a little foreign to me.

Can you point me to what happens when someone who is a woman is called out for really being transmasculine (i.e a transman in denial?)?

Is that what you were saying happens above or should I declare my Luddite status now.

I don't have a link to a post like that, sorry! I don't save this stuff. In fact I don't hang out on tumblr any more because it's just a relentless struggle session and who needs it. I have personally been told I am a transman in denial so I know that happens, but I have no receipts - it was a couple of years ago. (Another tag to look on is receipts.)

It kind of makes sense. Way back I read a list of lesbians celebs who were supposedly TM in denial. Top of the list was k.d. lang.

Back I can imagine that girls who are anything but hyper-feminine getting called out for being TM....

Yeah - if you search www.tumblr.com/search/%22trans+in+denial%22 you'll see various iterations of that idea.

Am I the only one who read those tumbler links and immediatly reached for the phone to book my place at Shady Pines?