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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Excellent Article on Guardian and Pink News coverage of trans prisoners

36 replies

Justabunchofcunts · 29/01/2018 19:52

www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2018/01/marie-dean-story-shows-there-s-no-simple-answer-how-we-treat-transgender?amp&__twitter_impression=true

OP posts:
mummybear701 · 29/01/2018 23:14

Coverage of these issues is always skewed to the papers' own agenda. Doesn't take a halfwit to see through unbalanced coverage. This doesn't mean things are perfect for dealing with trans prisoners, mainly as its new to so many in the system.

Theowlinthepussyhat · 30/01/2018 00:04

Fantastic article, thank you for posting the link to it.

DonkeySkin · 30/01/2018 00:05

I am disturbed that Ditum refers to this dangerous male sex offender as 'she' and 'her'. A women didn't committee these crimes, and it is extremely cruel to women and girls for the New Statesman to gaslight us by pretending that this is a female sex offender. Women can be sex offenders, of course, but they never commit these types of crimes, which are specifically male on female, and indicative of the level of horrifying, dangerous misogyny that we have to live with in the world. (Another indicator of horrifying misogyny in the world is that when men commit sadosexual crimes against us they can also have them attributed to women on their say so).

Calling him a 'voyeur' also downplays the severity of his crimes, which were escalating over time and likely would have progressed to rape and murder, as they did with an offender in Canada who had a very similar MO.

www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/true-crime-scene/canadian-air-colonel-russell-williams-nabbed-by-numerous-clues-to-his-sick-rapes-and-murders/news-story/c0374311e0d91f443177b8783c0bab73

OneFlewOverTheDodosNest · 30/01/2018 09:22

Their hands are tied if the offender has a GRC but I don't believe it applies in this case which is frustrating, but I presume this was an editor's choice rather than SD's writing.

hipsterfun · 30/01/2018 09:57

I’d imagine she/her, in this context, might serve to underscore the absurdity of it all for the average New Statesman reader.

DonkeySkin · 30/01/2018 10:17

I realise the New Statesman, like most publications, probably mandates that men who 'identify' as women be referred to with female pronouns; however, you can get around this by avoiding pronouns altogether. I've seen other feminists do this when writing for mainstream news orgs and if they are crafty it can actually be done almost seamlessly (Meghan Murphy is a master at it).

Further, I've seen publications allow sex-based pronouns to refer to trans people pre-transition - Janice Turner did this in the Times for her article on female transitioners, I assume after some negotiation with the editors. My point is that Ditum could have found a way around this (either through careful sentence structure or negotiating with editors) so that she didn't insult Dean's victims (and indeed all women), by calling him 'she' and 'her' while describing his sex crimes. I actually felt sick reading that article, with lines like:

Dean broke into homes, dressed in teenage girls’ underwear, and filmed herself in their bedrooms engaging in what the court reporting coyly called “sex acts”.

It shows how total male control of reality is, when men can do this to women and girls and then have their crimes attributed to women on their say so. And the logical conclusion of this patriarchal reversal is: well, if this is a female sex crime, carried out by a woman who filmed herself engaging in sex acts in teenage girls' bedrooms, then 'she' should be housed in the women's estate. Which is exactly what TRAs and their allies are claiming about Dean.

I realise that some people will think I'm nitpicking, that pronouns are a side issue. They couldn't be more wrong. Pronouns are the whole ball game - that's why TRAs focus on them so fiercely. Language shapes cognition, and the TRA takeover of language, such that women are no longer able to describe reality, is a huge part of the reason they are winning.

SchrodingersFrilledLizard · 30/01/2018 10:53

Excellent article. Thanks for sharing the link, op.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 30/01/2018 11:26

An excellent article. I agree with the 'she' and 'her' but suspect there are broader policies at play. Plus, using male pronouns would have made it look 'more biased' in some ways ...

Ereshkigal · 30/01/2018 11:38

I realise that some people will think I'm nitpicking, that pronouns are a side issue.

I don't. You're quite right.

Popchyk · 30/01/2018 11:47

Yeah, I'm a bit worried about how easily the trans allies will switch all of this around.

"These crimes are unspeakable. And committed by a woman. Women are just as evil as men and this proves it. "

And then it isn't far to:

"Many men commit sex offences precisely because they are actually women. If they had been allowed to live their authentic true lives then they wouldn't have committed these offences in the first place. Male sex offenders are actually a subset of the class "woman".

Thehairthebod · 30/01/2018 11:48

Yes, I don't like the 'she committed these crimes' either.

A woman DID NOT commit these crimes. It was a man. A bloke. A dude. A fella. He. Him. His.

But yes. I guess using the 'wrong' pronouns would indicate another 'agenda' in an article that is trying to be as objective as possible.

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