"Trans Voices" for Repeal the 8th - something smells funny here

[HoldMeCloserTonyDanza]

MNers, I stumbled across this Twitter account a few weeks ago and I am suspicious as fuck about it, and I thought you lot (knowing a lot more about trans Twitter than I do) might be able to help me figure out wtf is going on with it.

twitter.com/transforrepeal

This is supposedly an account run by multiple trans people, advocating for a combination of trans inclusivity and Repealing the 8th Amendment. I say "supposedly" because it has never once boosted any Repeal the 8th events or news stories - it is solely concerned with denigrating the Together For Yes campaign by endlessly moaning that they use the words "women" and "girls" in their campaign material.

The account was created last month, has very few Tweets and followers, and there's no real names behind it at all - it's all anonymous. Here are some of the fucking ludicrous things tweeted so far:
"Middle Ireland stands with free, safe and legal maternity care/abortion for all its children, not just its daughters. Don’t throw your trans siblings into the ditch now for some safe “soft no’s”
"do right by the non-women and non-girls who cross that sea at the same rate as the others" (Who could possibly believe that trans men have the same unwanted pregnancy rate as women?)
"Did “pregnant people” just do really poorly in the focus groups? It’s so easy to be inclusive, this is bizarre from the normally fantastic trans-inclusive feminist community we have in Ireland"

I suppose my question is - is this a real pressure group? Are trans people really so myopic that they would see the failure of Repeal the 8th - and the lives that will cost - as a worthwhile sacrifice?

I suspect the answer here is going to be "yes, they are". BUT. Bear with me a minute here. I think this might not be a real account.

I know this sounds tinfoil-hat-y, but Aggregate IQ (the offshoot of Cambridge Analytica that was denounced in Parliament last week) is working for Save the 8th right now, and this fake-social-media culture-war bullshit is exactly their remit.

My evidence:

1. John McGuirk, head of Save the 8th and all round misogynist fuckhead, has boosted the account twice, including when it was just 2 days and 4 tweets old. ("Boosted" as in drawn attention to it, 'look at the loony lefties infighting' sort of thing.)

2. Several turns of phrase seem very suspicious, in the same way you often get trolls pretending to be feminists trying to use the language but not actually understanding what it means. Stuff like "why are we playing tone police and respectable politics?" - that just doesn't make any fucking sense in context.

3. Likewise "we demand better treatment than we and our bisexual comrades did three years ago in #MarRef, we demand that ‘the good guys’ don’t throw trans people under the bus for the sake of focus group-tested marketing slogans" - the undercurrent here of focus groups, money, and media manipulation - this is a really common trope among Irish anti-repealers, they think George Soros has given every Repealer a million euro.

4. The account can't make up its ind whether it's one person or several (but they are all totally anonymous either way).

5. I think the account has three aims - either undecided voters see it and think "Jaysis, the Repeal side is full of these nutters, I'm put off", OR it is supposed to provoke infighting and arguments among the pro-Repeal side, OR the pro-Repeal side actually listens to it and dilutes its emotive and powerful "women and girls" message to a less effective one about "pregnant people".

And Save the 8th benefit either way.

Anyway - MN trans Twitter experts, which is it? If the account ever boosted pro-Repeal events, or pro-Repeal news stories, or had any kind of real-life pro-Repeal presence, I would be inclined to say "this are real trans people who are just very stupid and selfish".

But given that they exist solely to criticise and attack Together for Yes, I'm inclined to think that they are a trollish front.

It certainly does look suspicious and divisive especially this tweet:

twitter.com/transforrepeal/status/980797446182920192

I'm always suspicious when a tweet starts with 'Fun fact'. Sorry but it's certainly not 'fun' to have to travel to get an abortion.

Thanks for raising this. This is the website for the together for yes campaign. And their twitter account as well.

twitter.com/together4yes?lang=en

www.abortionrightscampaign.ie/tag/together-for-yes/

It sounds a bit like it, doesn’t it? I was under the impression that Ireland still separated services and facilities by sex (not gender) even though they allow people to self-ID, which sort of makes it a moot point surely?

I’m all for any voices who want to join in and help to repeal the 8th.

No one should have to make that journey no matter how they identify.

I have got very little truck with TRAs but I can’t get too worked up about this.

But this account doesn't want to join in or help repeal the 8th.

They want to criticise Together For Yes for not explicitly mentioning the fact trans men can get pregnant, in every tweet and advertisement.

Yes, the fact that despite saying they're against it, all they're doing is trying to police language (and then that really weird tweet about tone policing that makes no sense.. at all.. ) and have a go at people who really are campaigning for not doing it right (in their opinion)

It does feel rather manipulative.

It may be worth looking solely at the 'likes' from this account. Many concern removing the use of the word 'woman'.... I'm not making any assumptions but am conscious of the recent legislation in Scotland that modified the definition of woman/female....
[https://fairplayforwomen.com/scottish_stole_woman/]

Its important to be aware of how this may have happened and alert to possible comparable situations and implications.

fairplayforwomen.com/scottish_stole_woman/

Yes it seems this twitter account only really exists to slag off Together for Yes for using the word 'woman' in relation to abortion.

Batshit.

I'm suspicious of any radical group of any type that is trying to jump on the bandwagon of the 8th.

This is going to be a nasty, divisive campaign. If it passes it'll be by a hair's breadth. Any group that smears any part of the yes campaign, or any group who by being overly aggressive or overly in-your-face enough to put off the undecided middle-grounders could, literally, cause it to fail.

The anti-abortion lot know that and I wouldn't put it past some of them to attack the centre from both sides; thus I'm suspicious of anything like this

What a weird account. I'm told there is quite a small population of trans people in Ireland. The UKs is apparently much bigger. Yet someone said on another thread that "they know one of the two trans men who have given birth in the U.K.". So are pregnant trans identified females who need an abortion such a huge problem in a much smaller country? One tweet says "fun fact, 50% of the people I know who've had to travel for abortion weren't women". So that could be just one person? And if so why does that person's experience of their friend/acquaintance/family member prove anything about the scale of the problem?

I agree Maryz. I helped out in the 1983 referendum and this was before the internet and social media and we had to be VERY cautious in meeting and leafleting. This was in Galway city.

Obviously decades later and social attitudes have changed somewhat, but it still is an issue that divides many.

The thing with the 50% fact is that that person is only talking about people they know. If that person is a young person who is trans and mainly knows other trans people and only knows 2 people who have had abortions then that 50% is utterly meaningless.
It’s like a young catholic person saying that no one they know has ever had an abortion. It’s a self selecting group.

John McGuirk, head of Save the 8th and all round misogynist fuckhead, has boosted the account twice

They make a point in one tweet of being "followed by fuckhead McGuirk"

The thing with the 50% fact is that that person is only talking about people they know. If that person is a young person who is trans and mainly knows other trans people and only knows 2 people who have had abortions then that 50% is utterly meaningless

Yes I thought exactly the same.

So 50% of fuck all

There's a lot that smells funny.

This is a thought provoking article

transanityca.wordpress.com/2017/08/13/synanon-the-brainwashing-game-and-modern-transgender-activism-the-orwellian-implications-of-transgender-politics-by-jenn-smith/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Do they really think 'non-women and non-girls' cross the sea at the same rate as 'the others' ? That's stretching it a bit, esp. if it's based on one person's experience.

I agree, it seems they are there for pushing the trans-agenda of controlling women's language, and the terms with which we describe our biological reality. I'm a bit sick of the 'men get pregnant too' rhetoric. If you're pregnant, it's because you have a female reproductive system.

I agree OP, it sounds very Cambridge Analytica to me. Not like a grass-roots trans group. The language sounds really false and kind of weirdly professional. I think you're onto something here.

I really fucking hate the phrase 'do better'. It's used by TRAs all the time, and it's so condescending.

Your quotes make me think it's a bot, actually.

I'd be deeply suspicious of that account. At worst, it's a sock account designed to derail the discussion and make Together for Yes sound ridiculous. At best, it's a misguided attempt to be trans inclusive and again, the tweets serve only to make the campaign sound ridiculous.

okMaybeIAmATERF I don't think it's a bot, because think bots are a very long way off from being that good at natural language.

I've seen a different pro-Repeal campaign organisation refer to 'pregnant people'. It actually gave me the rage at the time so I won't name them. So transforrepeal's whining is for naught.

That said if John McGuirk is following he'll be on the look out for reasons to be a 'a bit shook', he's got a big following and the pro-Repeal side will start to look mental.

All of the Repeal the 8th campaigns say pregnant people and a few very vocal TRAs have centred themselves in the movement. I wouldn't be surprised if it's genuine given some of the batshit stuff they come out with but I have an open mind for all the reasons above.

Just bumping this as it's getting attention on twitter, for an article on medium.
medium.com/@transvoicesforrepeal/trans-voices-for-repeal-call-on-the-together-for-yes-campaign-to-formally-apologise-to-trans-people-84931f0fa85d

This group is @transforrepeal on twitter.

There's also a different (?) group with twitter account @trans4repeal.