Feminism/ trans debate for beginners

[Merchfach]

Last night I was out with some lesbian friends who asked me to go to a Pride event. I said I wasn't sure I could because of the trans situation: while I was fully in support of the LGB element, I had my doubts about the T.

This sparked an open debate. It turns out that my lesbian friends, who both work for a right-on organisation where the majority of staff are women and they have unisex loos (though female staff continue to use one set of loos and the male staff the others, interestingly) have absolutely no idea of the self ID issue or, wait for it — the basic tenets of feminism. I used the phrase 'male privilege' and they looked blank and asked me why I thought men were privileged. When I pointed out to them that men control the world — business, politics, power, religion, the structures that we all live and work under — they said 'But our prime minister is a woman and in our organisation women earn the same as men doing the same job!' When I mentioned the difference between sex and gender they were confused. They think the two words mean the same.

Where would you start? What would you send them?

Something on the cotton ceiling maybe?

It would be hard to press the issue possibly as there aren't any lesbian support groups anymore like lesbian line and a lot of lesbians will have experienced support from LGBT organisations.

With regard to feminism more generally Kat banyard' s equality illusion is a good jumping off point.

Although I love Audre Lorde personally

The Female Eunuch? It's a compulsive read, but it has a visceral impact.

I don't know what it's like to experience a gender identity nor to define myself as a lesbian based on that identity and those of others.
It's such an ideological chasm it's quite hard to suggest how to bridge it when the way that someone experiences lesbian identity will be quite a loaded subject.

Maybe talking about your own experience might help.
For eg if you are heterosexual 'I am attracted to someone male partly because of their sex. I believe that is a physical aspect of a person.
I would not be attracted to a masculine woman or someone female who identified as Trans because I wish to have sexual relationships with men.'
Or similar?

X posts - female eunuch was my first feminist read! Borrowed it from my mum.

You could send them to fair play for women, or perhaps as more of a shock tactic, send them links explaining how disgustingly transphobic they are for not wanting lady penis etc.

I second the PP book choices.

For accessible online stuff, they could start with this site, which has a number of blogs etc.

www.feministcurrent.com/2018/04/27/trans-identified-male-tara-wolf-charged-assault-hyde-park-attack/

Highly recommend this too, which explains all the legal and social ramifications well

fairplayforwomen.com/

send them links explaining how disgustingly transphobic they are for not wanting lady penis etc.

This hardly a mainstream view adopted by say Stonewall or GIRES. It is a view of very small number of individuals who claim to be trans and whose "activism" consists of tweeting.

www.feministcurrent.com/2018/04/27/trans-identified-male-tara-wolf-charged-assault-hyde-park-attack/

Here we have one individual who claims to identify as a women, who was involved in a minor scuffle, convicted of assault at magistrates court and fined. Due to the transphobic press it generated a huge amount of publicity.

Tara Wolf does not represent trans people or trans allies.

Janice Turner articles - either the 'how do you have a debate when everything is hate speech' one or the Maria Miller interview.

The thread on here on the impact on lesbian culture and holding a safe space for girls was good

The fair play for women report on misogyny and silencing is long but good and explains the context

Examples of what is happening in sports and prisons in stories can be a good concrete example.

Policies which make no sense around safeguarding but you can't question - e.g. Girl guides

This hardly a mainstream view adopted by say Stonewall or GIRES. It is a view of very small number of individuals who claim to be trans and whose "activism" consists of tweeting.

Stonewall or other orgs are doing nothing to tackle views like this or condemn the hideous lesbophobia displayed by many who are under the trans umbrella.

They are complicit in their silence.

Not to mention they pushed the concept of the umbrella in the first place throwing transsexual people under the bus in the process.

The FairPlay for women most recent report explains the legal changes that will impact those who are same sex attracted and how this would make this concept essentially legally meaningless in a biological sense.

@SarahAr

www.feministcurrent.com/2018/04/27/trans-identified-male-tara-wolf-charged-assault-hyde-park-attack/

Here we have one individual who claims to identify as a women, who was involved in a minor scuffle, convicted of assault at magistrates court and fined. Due to the transphobic press it generated a huge amount of publicity. Tara Wolf does not represent trans people or trans allies

I didn't say Wolf did - I pointed it out as a good, informative SITE.

What suggestions do you have? - the OP wants to educate her friends, who don't understand the difference between sex and gender.

"Very small number"

how could you possibly know that? All evidence points to the mainstream view of all those organisations being that
a. The overwhelming majority of transwomen keep their penis
b. A large proportion of transwomen are sexually attracted to women.
c. Disputing the 'lesbian' sexuality of a person with a penis is transphobic.
d. Prioritising or recognising sex over gender is transphobic
e. Excluding a group of people from ANYTHING (including your sexual dating pool) on account of their sex is transphobic

If I'm wrong, show me where the groups you cite uphold SEX as the basis for sexuality and demonstrate their support for same SEX attraction to the exclusion of those who ate the opposite sex (but believe themselves to be the same 'gender')

I see a lot of minimising arguments here "it's only a tiny number of extremists" "most organisations are more moderate"

In actual fact the core organisations all believe gender supercedes sex, if sex exists at all. That is their raison d'etre.
Supporting same sex attraction is entirely incompatible with their belief that gender trumps sex.
That they have a modicum of understanding that this stance is horrifically homophobic is possibly what tempers their choice of vocabulary when discussing this. But the line between their position and the ladydick nutters is wafer thin.

SarahAr the cotton ceiling was discussed as part of a workshop with planned parenthood. That is not a fringe organisation.

Magdalen Berns videos
www.youtube.com/channel/UCvTTakI97sQ4SkMnsH8r0qQ

Peachy Yoghurt
www.youtube.com/user/Perzikyoghurt

Erudite, funny, intelligent women.

I plucked up courage and got talking to our local council candidate about this this afternoon and he was both interested and concerned.

So I've sent him these four links, which I think explain what's going on without being too hysterical or tinfoil-hatty.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/children-sacrificed-to-appease-trans-lobby-bq0m2mm95?shareToken=0088750bacc945254f34f1bb0e5065ef

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3162788-Whats-it-like-being-gender-critical-in-your-workplace

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/02/can-we-have-an-honest-debate-about-gender/

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/02/the-violent-misogyny-of-the-gender-debate/

This is very very, very good on the pressure on young lesbians to transition - another Janice Turner piece:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/meet-alex-bertie-the-transgender-poster-boy-z88hgh8b8?shareToken=087bc921fc5ae297c5a934f48919fa2d

“No one uses the word ‘lesbian’ any more,” she says. “It’s so uncool. It has really negative connotations.” Rather, these short-haired androgynous girls, many of whom had previously self-harmed, started to identify as boys. Some went by male names only online, others just among close friends. A few were “socially transitioned”: out as male to family and school. “It’s weird,” says Jessie. “It’s as if a switch is flicked and suddenly you feel different. I felt I will no longer be that weird girl who dresses like a boy. I will be a boy.”

Heres some actual facts rather than opinion pieces in right-wing outlets or some novel written decades ago...

thinkprogress.org/transgender-children-desistance-a5caf61fc5c6/

pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2016/02/24/peds.2015-3223?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=TrendMD&utm_campaign=Pediatrics_TrendMD_0

www.endocrine.org/advocacy/priorities-and-positions/transgender-health

transadvocate.com/fact-check-study-shows-transition-makes-trans-people-suicidal_n_15483.htm

www.stonewall.org.uk/lgbt-britain-trans-report

www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/resources/single-sex-service-trans-guidance.pdf

aebrain.blogspot.co.uk/p/transsexual-and-intersex-gender-identity.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/myths-about-transition-regrets_b_6160626.html

aebrain.blogspot.co.uk/p/sexual-differentiation-of-human-brain.html

Those links aren't about and don't address the impact on women of proposed changes or the wider ethical debate about medical intervention.

Janice Turner is a Labour member and James Kirkup is pretty liberal/centrist so hardly right wing.

The trans writers suggested in a PP do address the impact of self-Id on women and its importance. FairPlay is a good factual site on the impact of proposed changes on women in general, women prisoners, guide policies, etc

But good to read all sources to get a good picture overall.

I used Janice and James' articles as examples for a newbie because they were easy to read articles by respected, middle of the road journalists.

Tbh, I was going to include the Fairplayforwomen website, but I felt it's content was quite confusing for a beginner.

I wrote a comment on a public facebook page once and it got hundreds of responses and a long discussion on the immutability of sex and the lie that is gender.

I then received a private message from a lovely young man who told me he was, the next day, having surgery to try to reverse the effects of his transition.
He said words to the effect of he wished he had known that he was perfect as he was, body and mind. That he was never mismatched because there isn't supposed to be a matching mind to go with his body, or vice versa.

It is heartbreaking to think that 'affirmation only' is damaging his generation, and that desistance is hidden and denied.

It is very much real.

There is no way to be male or female in mind. You can believe this, but it isn't true.

If there was a female mind then those with female bodies would all have it, and we would be able to describe it and demonstrate it's existence. We wouldnt be able to change it with culture or time or experience.
But there is no female mind, no black mind, no Chinese mind, no Jewish mind, no Russian mind, no Tory mind or Labour mind. All there is, are individual minds and a myriad of traits that vary in glorious idiosyncratic ways across billions of people.
Some people are demonstrably similar, and we can describe how. And some are demonstrably different.
But what we cannot do, and must not do, is to take a group of people who share a physical characteristic - like reproductive organs or skin colour - and declare against all evidence that they share a similar type of innate personality or possess similar innate cognitive abilities which are fundamentally different from other group.

There is no female mind.
Not in male bodies and not in female ones.

Tagging on to say thanks for your suggestions. I think things like The Female Eunuch are asking way too much of people who say things like 'But what if you're born into the wrong body, you'd want to transition!' They are in their late 30s, early 40s: feminism (and possibly the capacity for critical thought) seems to have passed them by.

The newspaper articles are probably the best place to start: they seem current and because they're in the Times they will seem important, I suspect. Will refer them to some of the websites mentioned to check the background to the articles if they don't trust what they're reading. Thanks.

Useful link here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2995738-Gender-ID-bill-Gender-Critical-To-Do-List

Sadly, the most effective introduction to the issue is pregnancy and birth, and with that the lived, embodied experience of how close life is to death at that time.

The media debate is fronted led by young men and women who read more fantasy fiction than feminist theory. I love a bit of fantasy and am no stranger to escapism, but if it is allowed to set the agenda for female bodies at risk - and we are, even in quite normal processes like the one mentioned above - it will end in tears.

We have a PR problem. Transitioning and belief-based reality transformation is fun, and, with the addition of sex and gender in the mix, quite exciting. The concerns of traditional feminism - suffrage, equal opportunities, reproductive rights - are not sparkly. They have their roots in messy bodily fluids and hard-won, gritty perseverance. The backstage reality of womanhood, which existing laws seek to protect and safeguard, is not glamorous. It is currently pitched against the claims for easier legal access and equation of the performance of femininity, often quite traditionally presented with aspirations to precisely glamour and fun, with the backstage reality.

I'm genuinely concerned that there will be no turn in the debate until women start suffering real consequences, and I mean the grittiest kind. And even then, getting public recognition will be a battle; one we've fought before and will likely have to fight again.

Our real needs aren't glam or fun, ladies, and I say this with utmost sadness. We are up against youth, frivolity, fantasy and fancy - which also conveniently passes as woke.