Excellent article on the problem of transphobia

[crispbuttyfan]

www.huckmagazine.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/mumsnet-transphobia-online/

"Regardless of intention, it seems to me that Mumsnet has allowed transphobia to become associated with their brand through their inaction. These boards have now become nothing short of echo chambers, spaces in which anti-trans rhetoric is continually employed with little objection."

The evidence is apparent throughout the feminism board.
Where lies are spread with abandon and the truth is slandered as 'gaslighting'.

The problem started when feminist groups accepted inter sectional feminism which allowed the trans women to interact with feminist groups where their issues coincided. However, this ment the trans women would then bully the feminist groups into only discussing inter sectional issues. Having a trans woman in the group and then discussing babies, periods etc was exclusionary and transphobic.
Women soon became very tired of having to redefine woman in order to suit the cuckoo in the nest and decided to set up women only groups. These Trans avoidance feminists were then threatened, punched and abused by the trans women.

If your feminism includes trans women it's not feminism as your feminism can't even define what a woman is.

Not how I would have said it FloraFox but yes this person is notorious for harassing women specifically lesbians online then justifying it because they're trans they also egonaniacally claimed to have come up with the phrase word salad. Reminds me of my grandparent who claimed to have invented French toast. I didn't assume word salad was a common phrase as personally I feel it doesn't make sense the whole point of a salad is to put a jumble of complimentary veg or fruit together so attributing it to words that supposedly don't go together seems dumb. But perhaps it's an older phrase that's gone out of usage none of the people my age use it. In any case you'd know them by their need to be right all the time they've never apologized for their actions or admitted they were wrong. So like I said I may have been wrong about babel

If your feminism includes trans women it's not feminism
Was this honestly just said? Even if first and foremost we were to focus on the rights of natal women you can't just abandon other women like that and say their safety isn't a feminist issue that goes against the entire last 100 years of intersectional theory.

@Mumtobe25 just don't engage if you have suspicions about a poster. All this mysterious suggestion about who you think is posting is childish.

"other women"... hmm. This is rather the point of all this debate, and I'm amazed you're surprised by this.

According to the OED, word salad from 1895, and from either the french (salade de mots) or the german (Wortsalat). Which frankly makes me think of coleslaw, and lots of cabbage.............

Word salad pretty common in these parts, with or without mayonnaise (or cabbage)................

As regards biology and all that, it is relatively simple to go all sci-fi and think of alternatives to our binary sex system -- Mary Gentle, 'Golden Witchbreed', where individuals are not born either male or female, it is not predetermined, but they become either male or female at 'puberty'. Those that don't and remain neuter are a bit special and die early as I recall. Then we have Ursula LeGuin (Left Hand of Darkness), where individuals only become sexed (and may be either) during special times. In both cases, you could imagine a process whereby individuals could alter or transform their sex, in effect, because in these cases it is obvious that each individual contains the genetic information for both sexes. Although in the Witchbreed case, you would have the same issue as with our species, that you cannot totally undo development as one sex. So, once an organ has developed into a penis, for example, hard to see how biology could undo that, and shrink it into a clitoris. Just because development could be branched, doesn't mean that you could go backwards and take the other one instead! The other leg of the trousers of sex cannot be reached.................

The only situation I can see where it might work from a sci-fi point of view is where you had a species that (like some fish), individuals can change sex as they get larger. So, you could imagine small fish being male and staying male, or others being rushed through the male stages and ending up female. But again, difficult to see how a big female fish-person could go backwards and become and stay a male fish-person, at best they'd be an unusually large male fish-person, with possibly ambiguous genitalia/gonads depending on how exactly the biology of the sequential sex worked.............

The only one where it would work is Ursulas, but then you'd still have people being just people most of the time (the point of the whole concept), and then only being male or only female when in heat (I think she discussed this -- and our protagonist, being from earth, was seen as a 'pervert' not because he was just and only ever male, but because he was always sexed!).

And none of these fit with actual human biology and our binary sex -- which is kind of the whole point of creating these sci-fi scenarios. Of course, also probably not a coincidence that these scenarios were created by women writers! (or maybe I just tend to read the ones written by women?).

Whatever nonsense the TRAs are coming out with, it ain't even interesting sci-fi....................

That’s some pretty spectacular jumping to conclusions there @Mumtobe25

Trans identified males are not “other women” but please do point to the feminist writing of the 1910s or 1920s that discuss the role of feminism for the rights of trans identified males.

AssassinatedBeauty you're right perhaps I am being a bit silly. Idk my mother always said I inherited her intuition and it was just this feeling I had a sort of dejavu. As for my thoughts on feminism as a feminist of course I feel helping the less able and trans community is part of it. I'm shocked as others in this thread have said trans people should have rights and protections and would absolutely fight for them only to have someone out right dismiss we should have anything to do with them and if we do we're not feminist? This is where my disbelief stems.

Intersectionality is quite a recent concept in feminism.

trans people should have rights and protections and would absolutely fight for them only to have someone out right dismiss we should have anything to do with them and if we do we're not feminist?

That's not what's being said, that last bit. Absolutely trans people need rights - but trans women's rights are not the same thing as women's rights. Where two sets of rights collide, feminism must prioritise females - nobody else will.

But perhaps it's an older phrase that's gone out of usage none of the people my age use it.

Actually I most hear it from millennials on Twitter and Facebook. Quite a lot.

You can fight for and advocate for rights for different groups without labelling it all as feminism.

And intersectionality was not intended to include males.

SomeDyke it's not entirely sci fi anymore cellular reprogramming is on the horizon this involves reverting cells to a stem cell stage usually so they can be differentiated into any cell tissue organ we wish . With that and the possibility of freezing umbilical cord stem cells at birth, theoretically, this has wide reaching implications; infertile gay and lesbian couples could have genetic children. Paralyzed people can be given the use of their limbs back and organs can be grown using biogel and scaffolds. I guess a question I'd have is if this becomes reality and phenotypically trans people are completely transitioned even
with functional reproductive systems would you recognize them as who they truley are I. E their transitioned to sex, then? Genuinely curious.

There are some rights where feminism and trans should align well and we should be allies - for instance, no discrimination arising from gender stereotypes. To take a trivial example, if office dress code allows for trousers and for skirts, flat shoes or heels, then either sex should be free to choose any style. Pip Bunce should be allowed to chop and change style and it should be unremarkable.

Ereshkigal if that's the case you'll have to explain to me how developing through class feminism, white feminism, able bodied people vs the disabled, the lavander menace period and trans exclusionist feminism haven't been stepping stones to addressing all women and intersectional power balances between women my understanding is intersectional feminism isn't recent it's been long in the making.

Most of those things are about women. Spot the difference.

ErrolTheDragon agreed if a natal or trans woman wants to dress in a trad masculine way or a natal and trans man want to dress in a feminine way they should feel free to sex or transitioned to sex has nothing to do with stereotypes

Ereshkigal our difference of opinion aside I was replying to your statement intersectionality is recent the history of feminism leads me to believe that isn't true.

I couldn't care less what they do if they stay out of women's spaces and stop claiming to be actual women. I have no problem with their self expression or them swinging their arms. I only say "hold on a minute" when my nose is in the way.

Oh! And how is anyone supposed to answer that when you slide and trans exclusionist feminism when no poster here is trans exclusionary!

TRA exclusionary - quite possibly, but, as most posters have said, many times, recently in direct reply to you - on this very thread - we ALL support trans people, many of us know trans people, some of us ARE trans people. We are NOT trans exclusionary - that's on of the bloody labels we are objecting to! Stop trying to sneak it past us... it won't work!

Interesting concepts. Someone grown up a man is genetically altered so their body mutates to become female. then I assume it would make all changes..e.g. Shrink their arms, reduce their overall body weight and size.
Working with the definition of woman as born and socialised female, then they still would not instantly be woman, because they had been socialised as male. In terms of sexual respect, then they would be female..so female changing rooms would be appropriate, but their opinions on gender stereotyping I would consider to be a trans perspective, and in terms of identifying discrimination e.g. Measuring rates of violence or suicide I would again treat women and trans as different categories

Sex has nothing to do with stereotypes ? I think there must be some words or punctuation missing there.

sex is a marker on which people hang their sterotype assumptions.

I couldn't care less what they do if they stay out of women's spaces and stop claiming to be actual women. I have no problem with their self expression or them swinging their arms. I only say "hold on a minute" when my nose is in the way.

now hang on I can get behind making sure cis men don't have access to women spaces many transwomen would to but you're reducing some of my best friends to violent stereotypes here that's uncalled for and definitely transphobic.

Though I thank you for your blunt honesty It's disheartening to hear the goal posts are just moved further for my friends regardless of medical progress.