India Willoughby - Full TERF!!!!

[MightyMikey]

Saw this clip of India Willoughby with another transgender woman call Talulah. They were discussing, on This Morning, the implications of the Top Shop policy on gender neutral changing rooms.
From my point I think it's a bit ridiculous that a shop that caters to, mostly, young girls and woman needs space for men identifying as woman - that day/moment.
India was giving arguments that I've heard woman use. I think she really believes she is a biological woman and that others are "pretenders" and so uses arguments that, so-called, TERFS use which I find interesting.

However, I think India has a phobia for hair on either women or men - she didn't like the idea of sharing space with a hairy transgender, she's said in the past women with hairy legs are disgusting and dirty. She does have a thing for the hair :)

Also, why didn't This Morning has a natal woman on to discuss the issue that, after all said and done, effects natal woman and girls.

Something like that, Pencils. From various things I’ve read about fetishes, I’ve got the impression that they can serve as a way of processing, partially at least, uncomfortable feelings.

I’m not seeking to make excuses for the awful TRAs, but I am generally interested in how people become what they become and tend to approach thinking about it with an open mind and a degree of compassion.

Ah, ok, so with the AGPs, they don’t have feelings of brain/body mismatch as children, though they may later claim they did?

That’s how I understand it, yes. It’s called a target location error. They claim the ‘always been this way’ narrative, to legitimise and sanitise the fetish. Hijacking the gender dysphoria aspect. Which, from what I understand, is rejection of (toxic( masculinity. An entirely separate thing to an actual fetish.

I guess it’s the same thing why some men develop a fetish for shoes, for example. Your sexual awakening coinciding with something that’s not necessarily sexual, but you associate with being sexual.

So, for example, if your sexual awakening happened to coincide with, say, being surrounded by people with long hair. Hair might become a fetish.

That was in response to your previous post, Pencils.

I remember once watching a programme about a woman who was sexually aroused by walls. It made me wonder if a lot of these sorts of things are simply the result of irregular brain connections, over which individuals have varying degrees of control.

Irregular connections could be from irregular development from conception (which may ‘correct’ in the plastic brain of a child/young person in some circumstances) or acquired as a result of life experience (possibly as a coping mechanism).

That’s interesting, Datun, but makes the fetish/non-fetish line quite blurry. A lot of our culture around sex and attraction starts to look fetish-y, in that we override a lot of our animal tendencies and replace it with other cues.

I saw India on Good Morning Britain. It was quite entertaining seeing India frothing about gender fluid arrivists harshing India’s “proper trans” mellow. Complete and utter irony fail and no help for us women, but hey ho! As someone else said, there’s something a bit perverse about having women’s concerns represented by 2 natal male commentarors.

I am much happier with people such as India in my space, than the Travis types. I know some women don't think any male should ever be in a female area, but personally I can make the exception for post-op transsexuals. I do find it quite funny to see the infighting going on though...the 'I am more trans that you' and such. I think there is a world of difference between transsexuals and 'transgender' and its 'transgender' that I am pushing back against TBH.

India expressed some pretty misogynistic views on Woman’s Hour and tried to take down Jenni Murray when she challenged India on them. I don’t consider India to be part of the sisterhood.

How do you know who has had surgery? To me, India, Tallulah and Travis all look like men. India and Tallulah look more groomed, with makeup and no body hair, but that doesn't prove that they have had surgery.

Well you don't know who has had surgery. I still would rather only transsexuals share womens spaces though. Would probably prefer no males at all though and a seperate space provided for those who class themselves as neither male nor female.

I think my views on this are slightly tainted as we have a transsexual in our family. They have had a boob job but still have a dick. Their partner won't 'let them' get full surgery as the partner says she is straight so wants a dick and if they go for full genital surgery the relationship is over. Its all a little complicated. But yeah. This person does not use female areas as they look very much like a man in a dress (which really is what they are) and they are aware that females see them as a man.

On the other hand I know post-op transsexuals who do go into female spaces and see it as their right. And I have personal experience of 'transgender' men, all of whom are 'lesbians' and all of whom have a ridiculously self centred attitude.

I am waffling slightly now tbh. You don;t know if people have had surgery of course unless they are flashing their parts at you. But before all of this rubbish from TAs, transseuxual people were in womens spaces anyway and most women did not mind. I think the problem is actually the demand for the change of law, and the violence and such thats going with it all. Not transsexual people themselves who just want to get on with their own lives.

Before making concessions and exceptions and compromises in the hope this horrible battle can be brought to some sort of truce:

1. We all have different personal boundaries. I've hitched round europe in my youth and stayed in the cheapest of cheap hostel accommodation - mixed dorms with shared bathrooms. I will cheerfully use the gents on a night out if I need to. #metoo has been a strong reminder to me that although I have had a few incidents, I've got off relatively lightly and that there are many many women and girls who need much more consideration and protection than me and who deserve a fuckton more respect than they have been getting.

There are also many many women and girls who are constrained because of culture/religion and for whom genuine female space is the key to their basic ability to participate in public life.

It would be selling all these women and girls short to say, 'I'm OK with this particular subset of males in women's space' when those women and girls may not be OK with that and may have much less of a voice than me to say so. We have fought for women's spaces because women are vulnerable to male violence. Please let's not throw the most vulnerable women under the bus.

2. How can we recognise transwomen as women in some contexts but not others? There are lots of different contexts - toilets, changing rooms, sleeping accommodation, refuges, hospital wards, prisons, support groups, personal care, medical care, political organising, festivals ... Under what circumstances is it ok for female people to have spaces that exclude male people?

Personally I can't understand the problem with permitting women and girls to have genuine female sexed spaces in whatever contexts we need or want them. We are a wealthy country. We can afford that as well as making spaces for people who have some sort of gender.

I remember once watching a programme about a woman who was sexually aroused by walls

And bridges, or to be precise the stanchions on suspension bridges.

Are you an engineer, by any chance, Lass?

Not the sort of detail I’d remember, but you may be correct!

No! I remembered it because I was so flabbergasted. If it was the same programme (and surely there can't be 2 of them) the woman I am thinking was in love with the Golden Gate Bridge.

There is an Eiffel tower lover too.

This was years ago, but I daresay it gets revisited as a topic every now and again.

I remember it because it was a really boring wall. Nothing remotely saucy (or indeed notable) about it.

PencilsInSpace

Great post, and I agree entirely. I had not really thought of it from any other angles bar my own, and yes you are definitely right. Also I have read that even post-op the crime rate does not change and its still the same as male violence, basically. Which of course it is as..they are still male, even if they have surgeries to mimic the female body.

Blanket inclusion is wrong. Blanket exclusion is wrong. Service providers need to be able to use discretion bearing in mind that nature of the service and the likely service users

How though? How is that ever possible? Being transgender is entirely subjective. There is no criteria on which to judge.

Service providers should create separate areas for those who are 'trans'. And keep male and female areas segregated by sex. This way the trans people don't feel uncomfortable, and females are still safe and keep privacy. Also males, though I don't think males are quite as bothered by all of this nonsense as females are, as females overall are not a risk to males.

It would be lovely if service providers could use discretion and judge each situation individually. That's what we used to be able to do, isn't it? We can't even say what 'post-op' means now, and if we could, we'd be accused of having an unhealthy interest in what's in people's pants.

Can someone fill me up on what AGP stands for?

AGP = autogynephilia

I don’t know how she’s got herself through the mental tangle to convince herself that she is a ‘real’ woman and should be treated as one, but anyone who hasn’t been on her ‘journey’ (ie spent a shitload on surgery and hormones) doesn’t deserve to receive the same. It’s the complete lack of awareness that actually she belongs to the group of ‘biological men who present as women’ rather than ‘women’ I find staggering!

This reminded me of this video - the excellent Magdalen Berns critiquing transactivist Theryn Meyer's horror at discovering Danielle Musato.

Theryn Meyer is not a transactivist. She is a right- wing libertarian and a men's right activist and declares herself to be anti-feminist. She is not a particularly nice person.

She is however a vociferous supporter of Professor Jordan Peterson, happy to be known as a transgender woman and has no truck with the "if you don't date trans people you are transphobic" brigade.

Meyer gave evidence to the Canadian committee considering Bill C16. Meyer, like feminist Meghan Murphy, was arguing against it and tbh presented a far better case than Murphy.

Because Theryn looks so very female, she is completely unrepresentative of most transwomen. And I believe that gives her far more of a pass. People are swayed by her looks, rather than the fact that she is a man who is anti women.