Quick! At a panel discussion re: media and trans and need intelligent questions

[FreckledLeopard]

So, I'm at a screening of 'A Fantastic Woman' (Oscar nominated film about grief and a MTF trans woman) at the Watershed in Bristol. After the film is a panel discussion with various high profile individuals, including Shon Faye who, from a wick google, appears to be a typical TRA, slinging insults at TERFS and CIS women.

I'm appalled at the notion of self ID and the encroachment by TRAs into women's spaces. However, I appear to be surrounded by trendy, naive students who are keen to show how right on they are by saying how great TRAs are.

Can I please have some excellent and pointed questions to put to the panel after the film ends please? I'm incoherent with rage about women being thrown under the bus but need to be calm and intelligent.

Please give me some great questions!

Thank you!

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will come along, but how about:

Please define 'woman' in a way that:
a) doesn't include the word woman
b) doesn't rely on gender stereotypes

And
Please describe how it feels to be a woman, again without resorting to gender stereotypes

Ask then if people who have been abused by men should be subjected to treatment and shared quarters with males in women’s refuges.
You could even read out the letter I wrote to Women’s Aid - I am a 35 year old woman who was, for a time in a refuge as a child.

If I wear a “men’s jumper” does that make me a man or the jumper a “woman’s jumper”?

Ask how you can advise your lesbian friend who is receiving abuse as she doesn't include transwoman in her dating pool and whether they also believe not wanting to date women with penises is transphobic.

Thanks - keep them coming. I'm not holding my breath that I'll get very far (assuming they take questions from the audience) but here's hoping!

I'd ask how you can visually identify an opportunistic predator attempting to access women only spaces, from a genuine transgender person. Add what can be done to protect women from opportunistic predators.

I'm not sure if a media event is a good place to raise concerns and questions about self-Id etc tbh. I think it will make you look like the bad guy.

If they say 'TERF' you could challenge that and say you know this has been used by some to suggest violence against women who disagree with others point of view, and ask they not use it.

You could ask if the panel believe that people born with female reproductive systems face any particular forms of oppression, marginalisation, or violence based upon their biology, and if so, should that group be free to name their biology as the axis of their oppression, and to centre it in their own liberation movement?

CorbynTrouserPress has a good question if they are actually asking for questions - this would be the best line to take I think.

Also really like CoCoCoconut suggestion.

Ask about women's sport and how this can be protected. For example if there ended up being just one TIM in every Olympic category then women's sport would pretty much be over for those born female.

There is evidence that this is starting to happen in all sports.

Ask if they would be willing to be exposed to by a man with convictions for sexual violence in a female changing room.

I would like to know why the media always make out women are the problem, instead of the TRA's.
And why the terms for women are: hysterical, bigots, TERF's i.e. insults, instead of just saying gender critical

Shon Faye who, from a quick google, appears to be a typical TRA, slinging insults at TERFS and CIS women.

Could you mention to Shon: if Shon expects people to respect Shon's wishes to be called a woman then will Shon repay the favour by not referring to biological women as CISwomen because they don't like it.

Ask

“Do you support the incitement to physical violence associated with the term TERF?
This has been called for both on social media and mainstream media. Do you believe any group should be calling for physical violence against another and if so why?”

I would find his difficult because you will be immediately shut down and the discussion sidetracked if you go in with 'TIM' instead of 'transwomen' or 'biological women' instead of 'cis'. I think to get the point across and not be dismissed as a bigot, you may need to frame your point in a way that the right-on crowd will be willing to consider. So, with the disclaimer that I utterly reject the idea that TIM are any kind of woman...

You could also ask whether their understanding of intersectionality includes an understanding that so-called 'cis' women experience oppression in some ways which they share with transwoman - i.e. being fetishised in media, street harassment, male violence, etc., - and also experience oppression which transwomen do not - i.e. having to fight for reproductive rights, being objectified and trivialised from girlhood, being made to feel ashamed of natural biological functions like menstruation, being discriminated against in the workplace for perceived childbearing potential, etc...

Why is this experience of womanhood so often framed in discourse as 'cis privilege' rather than intersectional oppression?

Can you ask Shon why he’s blocked me on Twitter when we’ve never interacted?

I second the question as to how we keep predators out of women’s spaces if self ID is allowed. You could frame it as keeping women and TIMs safe (though you’ll probably have to phrase it as all women). If we can’t recognise a difference between opportunists and “genuine” transpeople then how do we all stay safe?

This is a panel discussing a film - it’s not an event about the rights and wrongs of self-identification, is it? Just because transgender people are there doesn’t mean it’s an appropriate time to start questioning their views on the GRA. And I say this as a Terfy McTerf (according to some!), but time and place.

By all means politely express gender critical views in private conversation with any woke students you’re chatting to tho :-)

Could you mention to Shon: if Shon expects people to respect Shon's wishes to be called a woman then will Shon repay the favour by not referring to biological women as CISwomen because they don't like it.

Absolutely. Don't misgender me and I won't migender you.

Deal?

Also, I'd want to know if male violence is the biggest concern (eg it's why TIM must be allowed to access women's safe spaces) a) what is being done to address male violence towards women and TW (if we accept, for the sake of argument, that TWaW) and b) why are all the accusations of 'literal violence' directed at women? Who is holding violent and aggresive men to account?

I don't think this is the right time to bring up concerns.

Cococonuts questions are fantastic but possibly could be said in slightly less intellectual way? Intersectional theory is tricky to understand.

Bear in mind that you may only manage to get the question out. The audience will dismiss your question if you sound terfy.

It needs to be something which prompts a little twinge of cognitive dissonance.

I think I’d say I had a question in 2 parts: why do transwomen find discussion about women’s rights in relation to reproduction and sexual health to be oppressive? Can they understand that many women find this to be the central source of the discrimination we encounter in the real world?

Circle has violence been called for in mainstream media as well as social media? I know the term TERF has been used in the mainstream media, and that it is associated with violence - which is all kinds of wrong. But I don't think actual violence has been suggested outside of social media has it?

I suspect you’ll get so much abuse for raising the issues that it isn’t worth it

But if you want one that’s really hard to argue with, was the woman who requested a female nurse for a smear test and got an obviously born Male transwoman, a bigot? (He argued with her when she refuses him BTW) If a TW isn’t a woman for the purposes for a smear test, what other situations might she not be exactly the same as a woman?

I agree it should be relevant to the film as well. Are there themes in the film that would lend themselves to a pointed question?

Does it pass the Bechdel Test for example?

There’s sure to be some patriarchal norms to sink your teeth into

Ask them to confirm that homosexuality means same-sex attraction.

Gets to the nub of the entire thing.

And is a corker of a question, because it will mean throwing the entire LGBT community under the bus.