Questions from a liberal feminist to the rad fems

[daimbars]

Questions from a liberal feminist to radical feminists.

Inspired by this thread:
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3244342-Has-anyone-else-just-discovered-that-they-are-a-RadFem

I have a few questions for the rad fems. I do get the concerns with self ID and the discussions around that.

The questions I have are for those who have posted comments such as:

You can’t argue with biological fact / trans women are men / being trans is a mental illness

My questions are:

Are you saying the current Gender Recognition Act should be repealed?

If so, are you suggesting withdrawing hormones from those who have already transitioned?

Do you think a fully transitioned trans woman with a GRC to ‘prove’ she is a woman (eg Nadia from Big Brother) should use the men’s loos and be in a male prison / care home / hostel?

Do you think TRAs who say things on Twitter like ‘suck my ladydick’ and 'enjoy your erasure' are representative of transgender people as a whole?

Do you feel transgender people threaten your safety and well-being as a woman? If so what personal experiences (not what you have read on Mumsnet / Twitter / Reddit) have made you reach this conclusion?

Do you think current exceptions in the Equality Act (eg it is legal to exclude trans women from competitive spots and certain job roles such as rape crisis counselling) are sufficient to protect women? https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-discrimination

If your male child repeatedly told you they were female from the age of three, wore dresses, played with girls etc and were very distressed at the thought of male puberty, how would you help them?

My answers are no, no, no, no, no, yes. The last question I would struggle with the most but I would try to support my child to live the life they need to live as best I could. I guess this makes me a lib fem.

Daimbars is a either man or a blue haired privileged snowflake

Is it female socialisation that makes you care for women and girls? Fucking hell, what a crass thing to say.

@juells I appreciate I'm privileged, I do just genuinely want women to feel as strong and powerful as I believe they should. My feminism, I know it's slanted, but I assure you it comes from a good place.

Bit off topic but the only people who have ever accuse me of being a man is men. It is usually in the context of not being manly enough.

Internalized misogyny can create a male world view in women, but for the most part it does not give them a male voice. I don't think.
I am not very good at discerning the male or female style of writing.
I try to focus on what is being said and how it is being said.

iamawoman you got 1 out of 4

I didn't submit to any female socialisation

The point about female socialisation is that you can't escape it. It's inflicted on you by the whole society. It's not necessarily the things you are consciously told - like your dad telling you 'you're as good as any boy.' It's the fact that mothers take longer to respond to a baby girl. It's being treated slightly differenty by your teachers. I bet your father didn't treat you like a boy when you met your first boyfriend - I bet he was very protective of you. You can't escape socialisation. Unless you like in a hole, raised by robots you're going to meet people with views about men and women which they impress onto you on a subconscious way.

I was a tomboy with short hair and boys clothes for most of my childhood. Did I have male socialisation? In part I think I did but as people know your true sex they treat you differently.

@RatRolyPoly

I appreciate I'm privileged, I do just genuinely want women to feel as strong and powerful as I believe they should. My feminism, I know it's slanted, but I assure you it comes from a good place.

But it's like Julia H-B, whom I admire in some ways, but it grated when women were finally talking about being assaulted, and she was so dismissive because it would never happen to her. Not all women are as self-confident and assertive and financially secure as she is, that doesn't mean they can be looked down on for being more vulnerable.

I bet your father didn't treat you like a boy when you met your first boyfriend - I bet he was very protective of you.

Nope, gave me condoms and told me to have fun.

And I assure you, I have been made a victim of since. But I've had too much wine to get into that. Just please be assured I see the strength in women; I see so much strength in all of us. I struggle to see our frailties, and I know I need to believe we are frailer than I think we are, for the good of our sex.

"I didn't submit to any female socialisation" bloody hell. Do you think that women who have been subjected to typical female socialisation gave in and allowed themselves to be subject to it? That they could have somehow refused to allow it?

In any case it sounds like you parents didn't actually try to inflict typical female socialisation onto you anyway, so I'm not sure how you chose not to submit to something that wasn't being forced on you.

Erishkigal transgender people are legally able to amend their birth certificate to a different sex. A trans friend of mine has theirs amended recently - issued with a brand new one with the opposite sex. Not sure how much more proof you need that trans women are legally recognised as woman? (bar the exemptions I noted in my OP.)

www.gov.uk/correct-birth-registration

Do you think that women who have been subjected to typical female socialisation gave in and allowed themselves to be subject to it?

No, not at all, I know I'm lucky.

Not sure how much more proof you need that trans women are legally recognised as woman? (bar the exemptions I noted in my OP.)

It doesn't prove that they are. Or there wouldn't be exemptions. At all. Why exactly do they have exemptions do you think?

It's a legal fiction. The exemptions prove that it is a fudge.

I know what you can do under the GRA thanks.

Erishkigal transgender people are legally able to amend their birth certificate to a different sex. A trans friend of mine has theirs amended recently - issued with a brand new one with the opposite sex. Not sure how much more proof you need that trans women are legally recognised as woman? (bar the exemptions I noted in my OP.)

LEGALLY RECOGNISED. BAR THE EXEMPTIONS.

You're very invested in this.

Trans allies and transactivists don't really seem to grasp this point. I don't care what this bullshit legislation says anyway. They're male. They haven't changed sex in anything but name.

I don't think the GRA should be repealed purely because it would leave people who currently hold a GRC with questionable status.

I believe the GRA is now obsolete though. We have equal marriage and pension age will be equal in a matter of months.

Rat - you have said that it would be awful for employees to have to show a birth certificate that disclosed their birth sex for employment purposes. I can't remember the last time I had to provide a birth certificate when applying for a job. Employers want photo ID, proof of address, NI no. and bank details. They are also now required to check you have a right to live and work in the UK. Passports and drivers licences have replaced birth certificates as useful documentation, both of which you can get changed without a GRC.

Employers hold all sorts of sensitive info on you anyway. Medical questionnaires are normal for example, and if you have a lot of time off sick it's not unusual for employers to request access to your medical records.

Sometimes birth sex matters (genuine occupational requirement, e.g. personal care) and in those situations it should be acceptable to ask for a birth certificate. Even then, if a trans person has a birth certificate obtained via a GRC they currently have no legal obligation to inform prospective employers that they are trans and this is a loophole that needs to close. It should be a criminal offence to not disclose one's birth sex when applying for a job that legitimately uses a single sex exception.

Less secrecy all round would be good. There's a thin line between secrecy and privacy and I believe the GRA is the wrong side of that line now.

Juells a lot of people are invested in this issue. We all want a world that is safe and tolerant for our kids to grow up in.

That's a lovely message but what about the safety of women in
-Domestic violence shelters
-Prisons

• Rape crisis centers

These services must be sex segregated because the women do not feel safe around males. It doesn't matter if it's the nicest transwoman in the world, if their presence was making the people feel uncomfortable why wouldn't you respect that? TRA are continuously told that this distresses their residents. Why don't they listen? They could spend some of the vast resources they've spent breaking into those spaces in creating their own spaces.

What about Muslims (4.4 Million in U.K.) and other conservative religious people who MUST have sex segregation for certain activities like these
-Current school policies regarding transgender students violates Muslim students religious code.
-Specialist sex segregated services (such as women only swim sessions)
-Public facilities that separate via gender and not sex (i.e. toilets, changing room)
-Inability to access healthcare from biological females.

What do you think the effects of this has on these women? DO you think that they will be forced OUT of public spaces. Don't you think that Muslim women from very traditional backgrounds already face more barriers than you or I? Do you think it likely that daughters could be removed and places in Muslim schools? What will this do for social cohesion?

Isn't it about time that TRA came up with solutions which respected these boundaries? They are NON NEGOTIABLE. Do you have any suggestions?

I don't think Rat's inability to empathize is about not being female, it just seems to be a deeply unfortunate personality trait that some people have.

(My DH manages to empathize with women just fine in spite of having a penis.)

I don't think Rat's inability to empathize is about not being female, it just seems to be a deeply unfortunate personality trait that some people have

But Rat seems well able to empathise with those men who are the most oppressed people ever. Weird that.

That wasn't intended as a NotMyNigel, btw. I think most people have some level of empathy, it's those who don't who're unusual.

We all want a world that is safe and tolerant for our kids to grow up in.

Yes - i want them to grow up, not to be pre-pubescent and sterile. That is the point.

I don't think Rat's inability to empathize is about not being female, it just seems to be a deeply unfortunate personality trait that some people have.

My empathy works just fine, thanks. But when it comes to Feminism it has to compete with my ingrained desire to argue with anyone who tells me women are weak, that women are a "special case", that we need super special lady things because we can't possibly just have what the boys have, that the world is for men and that we can't have it - that we need to have our own special area of it all carved out to protect us from the reality of the word we live in. But I want the world we live in; be it violent, abusive and flawed, and I want to be a part of making it better, because it's mine as much as any man's!

And the world is flawed, it is violent - it is these things for women and men. This isn't WATM, this is accepting that to me, the result of feminism can only be that bad things become simply equally as likely to happen to women as to men, not that they won't happen at all. And that they don't happen because we're women, or in a way that can only happen to a woman. Feminism isn't going to fix the human race. To try and wrap women up in cotton wool way beyond achieving that parity is going too far in infantilising us. It does more harm than good.

And actually this is the feminist attitude that is most suited to my life and the lives of the women I encounter - but we, of course, are not all women; we're a corner of womanhood in a privileged western country. What furthers us in the world won't help women elsewhere.

The truth is, where I think I perhaps go too far in not seeing female frailty, I think many here go too far the other way. We don't need single sex corridors that the toilets lead off, we don't need to know someone's born sex all the time so we can fear them - it's too far. It does women no good to suggest that that is what we need in Britain today.

That's not what people are telling you, though. Many have tried to explain in many different ways but you just keep twisting everything to fit your perspective. Which honestly is more Ayn Rand than it is feminist.