When/How did the transgender debate start?

[FunderAnna]

Can people tell me the date/s when plans to change the Gender Recognition Act and go for self ID started being discussed? When did moving to self ID become the declared policy of parties in the UK?

[Wanderabout]

Incels often play out violent fantasies online. People who report on the community, like @DavidFutrelle, have been trying to warn us that more incels will turn those fantasies into reality. Even now they're talking about acid attacks & mass rapes.

How is this type of discussion not hate speech? Why are police forces not tracking these people down and questioning them?

[Wanderabout]

@arshymann tweet quote in bold

[Wanderabout]

Wrong thread for last two posts sorry

[FunderAnna]

This is all good stuff. One further question.

Can anybody recommend a 'non-activist' book/lecture/article/whatever that looks at both sides of the debate - i.e. looks at the merits of arguments in favour of self-identification/identifying as non-binary/the idea that lots of people might really be born in the wrong body etc?

[Bowlofbabelfish]

How is this type of discussion not hate speech? Why are police forces not tracking these people down and questioning them?

Because it’s targeted at women. And we are bottom of the pile.

The headline from the recent Toronto van attack in the DM yesterday was along the lines of ‘killer does awful thing in rampage sparked by woman who rejected him.

Women as ever, are to blame for male violence

[Ereshkigal]

When Elliott Rodger murdered people the Mail tracked down a woman he'd mentioned in his manifesto who had been about 15 at the time and who had made fun of him and shamed her for it publicly.

[Ereshkigal]

I see a lot of younger male TRAs on social media in the US who are very much like incels. I've spoken to some of them and they've told me they were MRAs before they "realised they were women". I also think a lot of these young men aren't "out" to friends and family, it's more of an online fantasy thing.

[xxmarksthespot]

RosenbergW, Not to have a go at Helen Lewis but after years of being called a TERF herself for expressing a very mildly gender critical libfem view, you'd have hoped by now she would've stopped trashing radical feminists :/

Yes, any slight criticism will get her called a TERF but she seems very invested in fence-sitting for the sake of it rather than really thinking about what is going on.

[OldCrone]

Just to try to answer the OPs original question, it seems likely that the move towards self-ID entered mainstream politics with the Yogyakarta Principles, in 2006.
yogyakartaprinciples.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/principles_en.pdf

Parts of Resolution 2048 of the Council of Europe are based on the Yogyakarta Principles, and recommend that states:
develop quick, transparent and accessible procedures, based on self-determination, for changing the name and registered sex of transgender people
assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-EN.asp?fileid=21736

The Scottish GRA consultation document referred to both Yogyakarta and Resolution 2048:
The view of the Scottish Government is that the 2004 Act requirements are unnecessarily intrusive and do not reflect the best practice now embodied in the Yogyakarta Principles and Resolution 2048.

Maria Miller also mentioned the Yogyakarta Principles in support of her reform of the GRA (2016)
we believe that our proposed change would be in line with the Yogyakarta principles and with resolution 2048 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2016-12-01c.1692.2

Thread on Yogyakarta Principles:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3228002-Yogyakarta-principles

[ReanimatedSGB]

Hmm. There has always been disagreement among feminists, including quite bitter battles about whether or not you could still call yourself a feminist if you had sexual relationships with men: there were some radical feminists who genuinely believed that it was OK to reject their own (small) sons or leave them with their fathers and move into a women's commune. Yes, that last was rare but it did happen.
There were rows about religion (could you be a Christian feminist, did you have to be a goddess-worshipper) and there still are. There were rows about music, art, clothing, who you could associate with, along with rows about which causes should take priority (eg equal pay, reproductive rights or domestic violence), and whether it was OK or 'selling out' to stand for election at local council level on a feminist ticket.

Basically, the same type and frequency of fighting as you get in any activist group, though any kind of dispute among feminism has always been jumped all over as a justification for insisting that feminism is wrong, is broken, is 'over', is unnecessary. Yet feminism, in its various forms, endures.

(And I remember Feminists Against Censorship very well. We're still around, technically. Still supporting women's bodily autonomy and choice, and the idea that we need open and safe communication about sex rather than prescriptive laws...)

[RosenbergW]

A big difference between feminist infighting and the feminist/trans activist battle is that feminists don't tend to threaten anyone with rape, beating, murder, etc.

Which is a pretty big difference.

As far as feminists against censorship goes - taking for example Roz Kaveney or Jane Fae, these are males who identify as women who argue that extreme porn shouldn't be censored or made inaccessible, but at the same time argue that women should be censored and no platformed for talking about trans ideology in a way.

It's standard "one rule for the boys and another for the girls" hypocrisy and in both the cases of porn and gender it is women and girls who are the primary targets for subordination and human rights abuses, and women who these activists are trying to stop from talking about it.

[ReanimatedSGB]

The majority of FAC members were/are women; natal women. And we did not engage in violent tactics, or threaten people (didn't stop some of the pro-censorship side wailing and crying that they wouldn't appear on discussion panels if any of us were invited to speak as well - this is why I was initially more amused than anything else at the likes of Julie Bindel getting no-platformed.) I agree that it's vanishingly rare for feminist groups to behave the way a lot of trans activists and their supporters do these days. As a long term anti-censorship feminist, I am 100% behind the right of gender-critical/radical feminists to hold meetings and speak, whether or not I agree with everything they say.

(I also supported the BBC's decision to put that slimy shitbag Griffin on Question Time - it was the right move, because prior to that appearance there had been a lot of guff about how 'dangerous' he was because he was supposedly so charming, articulate and appealing. They put him on the telly, he made a humungous knob of himself and it put the BNP firmly in their place for a good few years.)

[YetAnotherSpartacus]

Yes. It was different in the 80s. I never really took sides (Atwood's Handmaid's Tale was about what might happen if the pro-censorship side won, btw) ... but I often wonder how the 'anti' side feel now that internet porn is doing women so much harm.

[ReanimatedSGB]

Internet porn isn't 'doing women so much harm'. The reason that myth is still being dragged out is the same reason that pro-censorship alliances always cropped up between rightwing religious woman-haters and authoritarian feminists - porn is the excuse/justification/Aunt Sally of puritans and authoritarians to police other people's private lives and increase state surveillance - look at the absolute clusterfuck of age verification; look at all the attempts to censor horrible nasty porn on line and how they have all instantly had an immediate, negative impact on sexual health discussions, lesbian and gay discussions, etc. Misogyny doesn't start with porn and never did. The 'war on women' that is getting progressively worse has its roots in religion, not sexuality.

[stokeytiger]

RosenbergW thanks for posting the 'Jean O'Leary in 1973' video. Amazing.

[RosenbergW]

Internet porn isn't 'doing women so much harm'.

It's hard to take you seriously when you announce this which is easily proven wrong with a simple google - and the claim that it is a myth spouted by "authoritarian feminists". Here are just a couple of reasons why the original statement by YetAnotherSpartacus is true:

1. it's having a huge impact on teenagers. Random article among many:
   www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/education-36527681
   
2. porn actors themselves report than Internet porn is making it hard to make a living:
   //www.vox.com/platform/amp/conversations/2017/10/6/16435742/jon-ronson-butterfly-effect-internet-free-porn
   
3. and so on. I could give personal stories of how it has negatively affected my own life but I suspect it would be a waste of time.
   
   The majority of FAC members were/are women; natal women.
   
   I suppose we should take your word for that? And even if it were true - so what? Some women don't care about the impact of their choices on other women, sadly. That they call their choice to do so 'feminist' does not make it so.
   
   And we did not engage in violent tactics,
   
   Noone said you did. I said trans activists did and it was a big thing that set them apart from feminists.
   
   I don't think you are arguing in good faith.

[thebewilderness]

Internet porn isn't 'doing women so much harm'.

Presenting the rape torture and abuse of women as wank fodder and entertainment for men is not harmful to women?
You haven't been paying attention.
There are women being choked by men because he thinks that makes sex better for the horrified women.
There are treatment centers specializing in pornsick weasels suffering addiction because it is destroying their family.

[Bowlofbabelfish]

I have to disagree about Internet porn doing no harm.

Friends with children slightly older than mine are dealing with their daughters saying that boys want to do ‘porn stuff’ - so anal, choking etc as first sexual experiences. These are things that should be done only in consenting circumstances, not as coerced first experiences in young teens. They express the idea that sex is something ‘done to’ women not as a consenting positive mutual experience.

I’m also seeing women my age who have divorced getting back into dating and reporting the same thing - most men ‘requiring’ total depilation and acts that are quite extreme early on in relationships.

I’ve no issue with any of this being done in consenting settings between adults who understand what’s involved but I think it’s very worrying that young adults are being sold this view of sex as performance/endurance rather than as something mutually pleasurable.

I personally think early access to extreme porn is damaging for both young male and female adults. It gives them a skewed idea of sex and reinforces all the stereotypes of women as possessions/things to be used.

[PencilsInSpace]

Internet porn is extremely harmful to women and girls. Boys too.

The fact that it's is nigh on impossible to control or filter without also filtering out a load of useful, necessary stuff doesn't change this.

[OrchidInTheSun]

This is India's most popular porn site. Tell me internet porn does no harm.

[Ereshkigal]

That's horrifying.

[ReanimatedSGB]

What is doing a lot of harm to young people's sexuality is inadequate SRE education in schools, along with the ancient but persistent myths about sexuality - that 'real' relationships are monogamous and heterosexual; that women don't like sex but ration it out to men in order to 'keep' a man, that there is such a thing as having 'too many' sexual partners; that it's a woman's own fault if a man attacks her...

Articles screaming about the fact that 'children are seeing loads of porn online' are about as valid as those screaming that 'eleven year old girls are being given contraceptive implants BECAUSE INTERNET PORN AND NO RESPECT FOR PARENTS. This crap is about as ethically/factually valid as the sort of shit that forced birthers come out with about how allowing abortion on request will lead to millions of women having terminations at 30 weeks because women just can't be trusted.

If young people are 'getting their sex education from porn' then the problem is that no one is providing them with any other form of sex education. Because there are still too many groups insisting that sex is disgusting and children should not be told anything about it, or that sex education should consist solely of lectures about pregnancy and disease.
Have a look at the reactions to this

[ReanimatedSGB]

That screengrab upthread about 'the victim's name' - are you sure that isn't either a common name, or a name shared with a popular adult performer?

[thebewilderness]

ReanimatedSGB

Google "counting dead women" and then eff right off.

[RosenbergW]

ReanimateSGB

Your arguments are like a relic from the 80s! Have you been asleep for forty years? Sex ed is compulsory in schools. There are a million friendly but frank books aimed at young people explaining sex and relationships and about male and female bodies (transphobes!). The problem isn't that kids don't have access to info about sex, it's that they are exposed to pornography via the internet which goes too far too soon and very often does not depict safe or consensual sex.

ancient but persistent myths about sexuality - that 'real' relationships are monogamous and heterosexual; that women don't like sex but ration it out to men in order to 'keep' a man, that there is such a thing as having 'too many' sexual partners; that it's a woman's own fault if a man attacks her...

These aren't feminist arguments so I don't know what the relevance of them is? I'm a radical feminist and I believe none of the above. I do believe however that 'feminists against censorship' were a crock of shite, and the couple of women I have known who claimed to be supporters of FAC were some of the most naive, sheltered, hilariously straight and privileged people I have ever come across, and had less knowledge between them about feminism or sex in the 21st century than a monkey does about Shakespeare.

I see why you chose the name 'reanimated' now. I'm really done with these zombie arguments so excuse me if I bow out of discussing this further with you.