Are you scared?

[Jeanhatchet]

I. Am. Terrified.

The pace and scale of the attack on women and specifically feminists is like nothing I have seen in my lifetime.

Women are being arrested for speaking about being female. Women are insulted with derogatory terms for using words referring to their own bodies and the functions of those bodies. Suspended from their own political parties. Hounded from their jobs. Thrown out of their online spaces and denounced as bigots. Prevented from meeting to speak together. Prevented from hiring spaces to speak to each other. Being forced to say things that aren't provably true and that they really don't believe. Called terms that make them unsure of themselves. Gaslighted into accepting those terms. Made to feel guilty for wanting space where they feel safe and that has always been theirs and protected legally. Feeling uncomfortable for wanting to assert their legal rights. Feeling uncomfortable for saying no to male bodied people. Feeling uncomfortable for being lesbian and wanting only female partners. Feeling unsure if they can speak because they are terrified of upsetting a body of people who seem to have more power in every area of their lives even though those people are a tiny tiny minority.

As I just said elsewhere.... some women can take the temperature of the social/political/cultural water and feel their feet getting hot. I hope other women can feel this happening before women as a sex class is boiled alive. It is already uncomfortably hot for women speaking out. We are risking an awful lot.

I continue speaking out. I will be speaking at events wherever I'm invited about what is happening. Am I scared? Damn right I'm scared. Speaking about my body and beliefs about that body has become a revolutionary act.

Rather than ask if I'm scared that women are under such an organised, aggressive and escalating programme of attack I ask this of women who aren't scared .....why aren't you?

I don't recall seeing trans people saying they own anything other than their own experiences.

That's crap, it really is. The TRA narrative that they are a woman because they say they are is nothing to do with "experiences" and everything to do with beliefs, feelings and emotions

Absolutely I've seen many trans women talking about it here on MN. Those trans women are vilified by TRAs for doing so. As are detransitioners and people who define themselves as transsexual.

You're saying that to have concerns about women's rights is an 'anachronistic strand of trans-exclusionary radical feminism '. Are you saying that this sympathy and compassion for women's lived experience and rights to be heard is widespread through the whole community and a full force within the trans movement?

I see that quite a lot on here, daily, telling trans people that their experiences are not authentic or valid. Not theirs even - because they are not women/ men so they cannot have any experience of being a woman/ man

You really don't. You see people saying that women and men experience the world differently. As I say, if you disagree with that, that's your prerogative. Feminists disagree, in my experience.

Feminists disagree with you I mean, in case that's not clear.

Larry scolded the women on this forum in trouble for not engaging with the idiotic "points" made by the midnight misogynist, so...hanging out on a forum full of women who you disapprove of is an odd hobby.

Bloodmagic's comments are resonating with a lot of women because we know this stuff, we just talk ourselves out of knowing it, or at least of discussing it, because of the angry dismissive responses from men.

SuperMatch's comments otoh don't seem to be resonating with anyone, and there's a reason for that too.

Larry scolds the women on this forum for thinking feminist thoughts quite regularly. The "reasonable" men's rights guy - it's quite tiresome.

I don't think anyone minds trans women owning their own experiences of gender dysphoria or transitioning - if only it were just that. But the narrative is that they are women - and we're told we're bigots, and should be raped or curb stomped because we may have the temerity to bring our experience of growing up as girls, of being socialised as girls, of having female biology, into the discussion.

Because identity develops socially we do depend on each other. Trans women's personal identity relies on it being affirmed by others. Their story relies on our acquiescence and ours, equally, on theirs. They are mutually exclusive. Identities collide. I don't think we will win either.

If trans women actually owned their experiences, ie. those of atypical men, then very few feminists would have an issue with that.

Our story will be submerged as theirs supports the patriarchy

Not that this is their intention. Their story emerged from a patriarchal culture in the first place as did ours.

That wouldn't work for them though would it AAK. It isn't their story, their worldview. We cancel each other out

They erase our identity or we erase theirs. As I've said before. The trans identity (pink brain blue brain) is in my opinion more in keeping with traditional and mainstream ways of thinking. Feminism is very young by comparison and not at all well established.

It is already disappearing. I'd better go to bed and stop sharing the misery.

They are mutually exclusive. Identities collide.

That's a very pessimistic view. There are many women who accept trans women as women and that includes trans-positive (cis) female feminists.

Their worldview is based on an illusion though, and ours is based on reality. I agree that it's an irreconcilable difference, I just don't agree that both sides have an equally valid viewpoint.

You're saying that to have concerns about women's rights is an 'anachronistic strand of trans-exclusionary radical feminism '.

No I'm saying to exclude transitioned women from female spaces and to continually shout 'you're a man', seems to be done by an 'anachronistic strand of trans-exclusionary radical feminism'. Most people don't seem to share that view. Except on here.

In tonights debate Sarah Dittum didn't appear to be doing that btw, she seemed to be saying that trans women and women need to be protected in female only spaces, from men pretending to be transgender to gain access.

We don't exclude transitioned women. They are XX and included by biology in womanhood. Transitioned men are excluded, but not by us, by biology. Feminists can't include them in womanhood. Politicians can't. Doctors can't. No one can.

and that includes trans-positive (cis) female feminists

Time for the translator:
and that includes trans-positive (swear word removed) females who think they are feminists.

The backlash comes in many forms.

Fuck off with your cis label! I won’t have a bastardised use of a scientific term used to identify women. The term is WOMEN/WOMAN. We don’t need a label so trans people can take our identity for themselves.

It's bait and switch. In order to steal 'woman' for themselves, they have to kick out the existing occupants.
So strange that the existing occupants are objecting...

I particularly liked the attempt to chasten us by pointing out that Ditum is sitting firmly on the fence (which she herself has already talked about, and noted that the fact that she gets attacked anyway is telling).

It's bait and switch. In order to steal 'woman' for themselves, they have to kick out the existing occupants.

Yes. And sadly so many females are welcoming cockoos in.

And sadly so many females are welcoming cockoos in.

If a masked man, carrying a baseball bat, saying he had broken down and could he use your phone, would you let him in?

Wait, I think I may have accidentally described the Degenderettes...?

Nah, they're so confident that they can get away with threatening women they don't bother with masks.