Feeling sad & weary that feminists & trans women are constantly pitted against one another?

[SmiledWithTheRisingSun]

That's it really.

Instinctively I feel very protective of feminism and all that those incredibly brave women before us achieved. Thanks Nanna 💛

I totally support the idea of protecting women only spaces and don't obviously want a bunch of women-hating rapists in female prisons etc

BUT... surely there's a happy medium to be found ladies?!

Surely there must be reasonable people in the trans community who understand the need to protect all that feminism has achieved?

The same way that I'm a white middle aged woman who doesn't feel the need to demand entrance to a black feminist group. I can support their right to exist without being undermined by it.

What to we call these feminist / trans sympathisers? Please enlighten me wise MNERS.

Love from,
A middle aged feminist who wishes you all peace and love X

Keep sticking your fingers in your ears and saying 'lah lah lah', trans allies. This never happens...apparently:

www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/7kbdos/tldr_someone_tried_to_humiliate_me_at_a_work/

WTAF, Miranda Yardley is a well-regarded music journalist (as well as writer on trans issues); Jan Morris wrote probably about half of her very extensive collection of books after transitioning. There are probably a lot of transwomen out there just quietly getting on with their lives, some achieving things of note, some muddling along not making any great waves, just like the rest of the human race. It's just that the transwomen who get all the media attention and are feted by the Owen Jones' of this world are the noisy, in-your-face people who are famous simply for being famous. The kind of self-regarding Islington/Brighton/ university campus luvvies circuit who write about each other's lives for a living.

Oh my god prickly that article, what the deep fried fuck?

It's written as only a bloke could write. A man telling women how he feels about catcalling - come on ladies, it makes us feel sexy right? Right?!

Thanks prickly I know about Miranda Yardley from on here, she seems nice and normal which I gather bizarrely makes her a hate figure in the trans community

So basically my assessment of SF and PL is spot on! Just wanted to check I wasn't missing anything.

PricklyBall. That Lees article has rendered me almost speechless. It's entitled. Minimising. Disgraceful. Just appalling. Appalling.

From the article:

This is kind of my problem with the debate around street attention. It’s part of a culture that infantilises women and teaches them to be constantly afraid. I wasn’t brought up that way and I don’t feel frightened when some spunky dude comes and talks to me. I hate this idea that all men are rapists-in-waiting and that all women are victims-in-waiting. It’s patronising and doesn’t help anyone. Many women are sexual and like to look and feel and be seen as sexual. I’m one of those women.

I. Just. Can't. Even.

The only thing I can think of is that this was written back in 2014. I wonder if Lees would write that utter horseshit now?

And this is some Owen Fucking Jones is lauding as 'a brilliant trans voice'.

Wow, sorry, I was aware of Paris Lees and who she was but I am seriously reeling from that article!

Well its pretty hard to come out of lurking as a trans inclusive feminist around here.
That happens a lot on Feminist blogs. People who identify as feminists and express opposition to women's rights lack the necessary verisimilitude.

People who identify as feminists and express opposition to women's rights lack the necessary verisimilitude.

Every days a school day on here! I had to use google to find out that was funny!

Me too wtaf then I really appreciated the joke! Love the word too. Might try to sneak it in every day life somewhere.

Actually, thinking about Jan Morris has prompted me to dip into her book Conundrum about transitioning (she started her transition in the 1960s, had surgery in the early 70s I think), and it's very interesting. (NB most of her writing was about travel.) Quite early on, she is careful to make a three-way distinction between transexualism, transvetistism and homosexuality (the last of these may not make much sense nowadays, but back then homosexuality would have been linked in a lot of the general public's minds with "effeminacy", hence Morris has to explain the difference.) She has the following very interesting sentence: "The transvestite gains his gratification specifically from wearing the clothes of the opposite sex, and would sacrifice his pleasure by joining that sex..." (italics Morris' own). I wonder what her take on discussions of autogynophilia would be.

She also has a very interesting passage about what was it that made her feel as a child that she was a girl trapped in a boy's body (not meant literally, I think) and weighs up (I paraphrase) "is it wanting to behave like a girl?", "is it wanting to be treated as a girl?", "is it not wanting the worst bits of masculinity?" (she cites the specific role the death of her father in WW1 may have played in driving her to want to reject a male tendency towards violence). I think in the end she can't put her finger on exactly what it is about, and sees it very much more as what she describes as a spiritual quest, rather than something that can be straightforwardly reduced to brain chemistry or hormones or social influences in isolation (she's open to all these possible explanations, but the book is about her own interior world, not external explanations).

All in all, one paragraph of her writing is worth a hundred Paris Lees' articles.

It's amazing Paris Lees has the chutzpah to write "I wasn’t brought up that way" about being frightened of street harrassment. Of course Paris Lees wasn't brought up to be frightened - Paris Lees was brought up to be of the class that commits street harrassment.

the reason I wanted to be a boy is because of the influences around me, films like Stand By Me, The Goonies, E.T and numerous other films where boys seemed to have so much adventure, comic books where nearly all characters were male.

I'm re-reading some classic Science Fiction I'd never got round to. Started with Asimov's Foundation.

I just finished the first book. All the protagonists are male, there are two women mentioned in the entire book - a wife and a servant, plus 'housewives' (who would rebel when their ovens stopped working apparently). Every other character, every educated person, every oratory speech is by and about men. no wonder girls want to be boys, it's so insidious.

A minor issue that I find very sad about this whole thing is the retrospective transitioning of historical and literary figures. The women who dressed as men in order to do things women weren't allowed to do, the butch lesbians who also wore men's clothes are now transmen rather than brave stereotype smashing women.......

Also, Paris is built like a brick shithouse not exactly frail so not as easily intimidated as most women.

Well trans now encompasses non binary gender which would mean that I am trans. I really don't conform to gender stereotypes, though most TIMs seem to. However, I'm still a bigot and a transphobe. It's just a confusing mess now.

I think Paris sounds a lot like my grindr-loving gay male friends. The kind of precarious, over-familiar misogynist blokiness talking about the menopause (drying up) and reproduction in that article reminds me of some uncomfortable joking I feel I have to gently set friends straight on. Males getting turned on about how easy it is to pick up and bed each-other is nothing to do with the propagation of the species.
The species isn't just propagated by flirting and sex, (although it might seem like that for males) the most important component of the survival of the species is the mother's ongoing choice and commitment to making sure her vulnerable and utterly dependant babies don't die.
The stakes for us are different and we know it in our bones in a way males never will.

WTAF "Who ARE Shon Faye and Paris Lees and why on Earth are they given so much attention by the media?"

"From my limited knowledge they both just come across as extremely unpleasant individuals."

PL was also a panellist at the last MN blogfest. That went down well here.

Blogfest 2016, that is. I have just learnt that they didn't hold a 2017 event.

In order to be taken seriously by MPs, my suggestions would be:

1.	Every woman has the right to have a note on her medical records to say she does not wish to be seen by a male practitioner and / or a transgender practitioner at any stage in their transition. Similarly transgender individuals are allowed to express their preference for a transgender practitioner. This would simultaneously protect the rights of women from triggering situations and the transgender person’s right to practice. It would also represent the majority of women who it doesn’t bother.

2.	The current legislation and rigorous process for accessing hormone blockers should remain to protect vulnerable individuals accessing them unnecessarily.  Extra safeguards should be put in place for transgender children.

3.	Any transgender individual wishing to compete in competitive sport must abide by the same rules as the olympics committee. 

4.	Self identifying ‘women’ and transgender individuals are allowed to access female facilities by default. This represents the majority of the population that doesn’t mind sharing spaces. Any venue or event (including individual scout groups) can apply for a licence to ban transgender individuals from entering female facilities. Similarly there will be a licence available to ban gender conforming individuals from entering transgender spaces. This one seems very sad and divisive but necessary to ride out this particular storm. It gives women the freedom to choose venues with the licence. It also gives women like me the freedom to avoid them.

5.	Healthcare professionals will refer to women as women, transgender women as women (if that is what they want) birthing individuals as ‘he, she, they, Mx or whatever pronoun they choose. The word ‘cisgender’ will be banned. 

6.	All women’s prisons should be single cell (I think most are anyway). Any transgender woman must be allocated a single cell. Any transgender woman that had committed a sex offence would be separated from other women at all times.

Well there are male prisoners, sex offenders mostly, who insist once they declare themselves trans, that they have the person who most fits with their gender identity to strip search them.

How about

1. If a woman requests a female practitioner, this will automatically exclude anyone born male, including those who are transsexuals identifying.

Guardian I guess that would make sense for most women who requested it.

problem with the sport one, is that the IOC have agreed/discussed (?) that gender feelz count more than bio sex, so individual sports federations seem to have been following that already. From memory, they could choose to disregard the IOC, but in the current climate, I can see why many are not.

Someone with a better memory than me will remember the discussions there were here at the last Olympics.

14 pages and your proposed bathroom default still puts women and girls at risk.