TW are the most vulnerable? Errrrr....

[ShotsFired]

This is allegedly a video of the moments after the smaller man tried to mug the larger person of their purse/handbag. It was posted on an open/public FB group so I hope I am ok in repeating one poster's words, as they summed it up so neatly:

"One thing that's clear is that purse-carrying men are just as capable of defending themselves from fellow men as any man would be. The idea that they need to hide behind women - taking refuge in our rape crisis centers, prisons, wife battering shelters, locker rooms and restrooms so we can keep them safe from men - is ridiculous"

www.facebook.com/YoFemmy/videos/429821920775718

"Seems like the idea of 'intersectionality' has been subverted into a cynical means of disempowering those women who might conceivably have gained a modicum of influence in the wider world."

Yes.

plus of course the umbrella is very wide.

How much extra violence is a male presenting transwoman at risk of?

sarah

If you had said

White middle class transwomen and white middle class women

that would have made more sense to me

I'm not sure if there any useful statistics on transphobic violence, but most violence is neither transphobic nor misogynistic, it's male-on-male, it's not obvious that by presenting as trans that you would increase your risk of violence, if by doing so remove yourself from the default violent masculinity.

Note that transgender hate crime is the most likely of all forms of hate crime to be 'online' (i.e. internet-based), and that police hate crime statistics are based on reporting, not actual crime so are completely useless.

The CPS stats are better, and show there was a fall in transgender crime referrals from the police, from 98 to 87 in 2016-17.

This compares to 1305 LGB referrals. Thus LGB hate crimes (actual potentially prosecutable crimes) are 15x higher than T crimes.

The definition of 'transgender' is very confusing, but LGB less so - the figure is around 1.7% of the population, so this would imply a transgender population of 0.1%. The TRA charities use figures much higher than this, typically around 0.5% at a minimum, often 1% or higher.

So it seems that transphobia is much less of a risk than homophobia, however TRAs have very very very loud voices, so their propaganda get taken as fact.

So broadly speaking the ACTUAL occurrence of transphobic violent hate crime is close to zero, as overall the % of LGBT crimes (they don't split out T) that were violent is 60%, whereas for racial/religious crimes it is 88%. Fully 30% of LGBT crime was 'public order offences' (very minor in sentencing terms), whereas just 7% of racial/religious crimes were

It's worth noting that while there are just 263,000 Jews in the UK, but there are around 600 religiously aggravated prosecutions of which around half (the CPS doesn't bother to keep proper statistics distinguishing anti-semitism from Islamophobia, whereas, naturally, transphobia gets its own special category separate from LGB) are believed to be of anti-semitism.

So clearly it's far more dangerous to be Jewish than to be transgender.

The Labour party seems rather less concerned about anti-semitism than about transphobia, to put it mildly.

I hate the 'x group is the most vulnerable/oppressed group in society' thing. The oppression Olympics is a waste of everyone's time. For one thing, context is important. There are almost certainly situations where trans women are more vulnerable than AFAB (assigned female at birth) women, the opposite is also true. As has been pointed out already, both groups are at risk from male violence. So the focus should be on male violence and not on who is 'more vulnerable'.

In my experience the 'more oppressed than you' line does get thrown out to silence any debate or disputes. It is something that I have seen used more by TRAs, but that's not to say feminists don't do it. There is no award for being the most oppressed. It shouldn't be a hierarchy because that's too rigid a model to account for a nuanced human experience. When people experience different forms of oppression, one form cannot be claimed as 'worse' than another, because the context matters. It shouldn't be about trying to one up each other, it should be about acknowledging the oppression both groups face and trying to rally against it. Again, the key issue is male violence and toxic masculinity, it shouldn't be women and those identifying as women fighting against each other.

Well some good points have been made following my comment and I don't mind being surrounded by a few straw men from time to time. Perhaps I've given Crispbuttyfan a night off.

IamtheOrpheliac

Quite possibly the most sensible post I've read on here. Thanks!

@IamtheOrpheliac

(assigned female at birth) women

I'll fight against anyone who describes me as an AFAB woman. They are not on my side.

@Juells

I can't please everyone. Using the word 'woman' to refer only to AFAB women (or women born women, or XX women, or women with a uterus or adult females) when discussing trans women means there's an opening for TRAs to jump in calling transphobia and ignore every other point I've made. I would rather make minor sacrifices over language and stand a chance at having a debate. I would not refer to you personally (or in fact any other woman) as an AFAB woman outside of making the distinction from trans women.