trans women showing solidarity with women

[speakingwoman]

Just wanted to say that my trans friend has done this over the ten years I've known her, particularly in the workplace.

Sorry I can't give all details and yes I know that for many of you the fact she is a trans women means she can't be pro women.

The odd thing is that when forced to talk about trans stuff she never claims to be a supporter of women. No one asks her. It never comes up. You'd have no idea - you'd think she was just another TRA.

Does anyone recognise this? Do we need to invite ordinary trans women to think and talk about what they can do for women?

I also have trans friends who are pro-women.

I have trans friends who think they are pro-women yet cannot in any way be gender critical because it conflicts with their sense of self and so act in a way that is damaging to women as a sex class. I have fallen out with some people over this issue and remained friends with others.

The analogy of religion is used a lot. My muslim friends never resent that I do not believe there is no true God but Allah, I do not cover my hair, nor do I fast in Ramadan. But they know I respect their rights to do all these things and I'll give them a Eid gift tomorrow.

Various lib fem and trans ally friends have fallen out with me for my gender critical views. In the main my trans friends know that we believe different things but that we can still interact as humans.

Trans people are like other people. Most are ok and some are absolute dickheads. The problem is that the dickheads claim to be helping the others and this is seductive.

Yes it does Shots, thanks :) I didn't mean it to sound like an accusation at all, just it really does bear clarifying sometimes!

Don't let the agitators take away your moral standards though, okay? Whatever power you perceive them to hold and whatever harm you think they're doing, they're not worth you reconsidering what you think is right and wrong in relation to the huge, huge majority of trans people simply living their lives and wanting what is best for their community. Principles and all that.

I think the attraction of the "existential threat" and "trans women are not women" arguments is their straightforward logic

You're absolutely right, it can be exhausting and confusing trying to walk the line of nuance when there is a simple, blanket solution presenting itself so powerfully! I think it's important not to lose sight of the nuance though; if any one of us succumbs to black and white thinking, well... history tells us that doesn't end well.

I have trans friends who think they are pro-women yet cannot in any way be gender critical because it conflicts with their sense of self and so act in a way that is damaging to women as a sex class.

Just as an aside, do you have natal female friends who act in such a way that propagates gender stereotypes? (I assume it is this propagation of stereotypes and an inference that it's "who they are" that you consider damaging - please do correct me if needs be.)

If so, do you hold your natal female friends to such high standards?

Trans people are like other people. Most are ok and some are absolute dickheads.

YY to this.

Wow OP I thought I had given you a thoughtful and considered response but okay then.

The language that would cause your friend to be shunned and ridiculed was introduced by thebewilderness - but I guess in your mind it's acceptable for posters to use this language if they're in a bad mood.

I’m not asking anyone to not contribute. I was simply making an observation that frequently people will assume things based on their ideology.

Often people have had it explained to them repeatedly what is being said and what isn’t but they persist in ‘what GC people are saying/think is’ statements when nothing of the kind has actually been said, it’s simply what they have assumed some statements mean.

Knowing what you do not know is often more important that knowing what you do.

Rat - yes. applies to both extremes of course.

Daimbar - you tend to twist what other people have said in your posts. I don't know if you realise this. I don't think it's intentional but it's like talking to a politician.

The language that would cause your friend to be shunned and ridiculed was introduced by thebewilderness

I don't have control over others words and behaviour. I think you're going to have to explain the link before I can in any way accept that my words here make other people do things to trans people.

I (we, most people on this board) advocate for people to be able to wear and behave how they like, as long as it doesn't harm others. It's what I teach my children.

Rat - yes. applies to both extremes of course.

Absolutely, in fact I think it's what pushes people to one extreme or the other! Hold the middle ground people :)

Holding the middle ground is what got women into this mess in the first place

Don't be too nice, don't be too horrid, be 'just right - like fucking Goldilocks!

Well, no! That's the problem for those activists rattling their sabres, wanting to inhabit the sex 'female'. The females who already live in that sex have stopped being 'just right' and have started shouting back!

And that includes shouting at other women who twist and mis represent what has been said on almost every tans thread ever! It's shameful!

Of course your friend can support women
But they can't be a woman. They can be a trans woman
IMO there will always be conflict until trans women accept that they are not women and that women need sex based spaces and rights

Curious I think we must be talking about different things when we talk about "holding the middle ground". I'm not sure what you're getting at about the females in the female sex having stopped being "just right" and now being... horrid? I don't know, I don't know what you're saying. Doesn't fell like we're talking about the same thing though.

Not to worry, it felt more like you just wanted to do a bit of rabble rousing; no probs.

The middle ground that I'm referring to though didn't get anyone into any mess. It's simply the reality that at this point there are two poles and neither has the monopoly on right and wrong. And that "right" and "wrong" lie somewhere in the middle ground and don't change as the wind blows. They're like flags and when you think you find them you have to weather the storm to stand by them, not be blown to one extreme or the other by the force of the gale around you.

ok I think I'm getting towards some degree of clarity here.

In the past, when I was ignorant, I think I saw her as a bit heroic for making such a dramatic change. I guess I was following the rhetoric from the bbc, twitter, etc. And that's no compliment to her really - it's sort of treating her as an idea rather than as the person in front of me IYSWIM.

Now I realise that was stupid AND it made me blind to the less public suffering of her ex-that sort of thing. I wouldn't be shutting that suffering out in relation to any other friend who left their family IYSWIM. And being trans doesn't mean you didn't hurt people or that you hurt them less (or more) than a non trans person might do.

Instead I need to value who she actually is, which includes some really important things she has quietly and consistently done with and for the women around her that I think are important. I also respect the extremely painful partial reconciliation she has achieved in terms of certain close relationships

Her social media is full of flatterers. Flattery isn't friendship. She has been known to post critiques of the flattery and the followers just don't even read them - they just put more heart symbols in! Ultimately, she is like a product for them. I don't need to be one of those fawners to be a friend.

Thanks everyone I think this is actually going to really help. cheers.

I think that's a really balanced sentiment to take away from this speaking.

Not to worry, it felt more like you just wanted to do a bit of rabble rousing; no probs. Erm, how very nice of you!

But I think I was quite clear. I was talking about that gender trap, female socialisation. Many women have chosen to step outside the usual stereotype and to shout loudly, to fight their own corner rather than always think about how it will impact on others. You can choose to read what I typed with an open mind, or not!

Rat - I think Curious means that most women failed to spot/identify/speak about the logical potential conflict of interest at an early stage leaving extreme trans rights activists to set the agenda and ending up with the ludricrous "no debate" and "terf" stuff that we have now. I do think it would have been far better if the obvious potential for conflict had been talked about from the start.

Whereas you mean what you said which is a different point.

"I think that's a really balanced sentiment to take away from this speaking."

thanks rat. I'm slightly shocked to realise I was sort of one of the fawners... fawners are not friends.....

Yes, that's the long version, speaking

I meant what I said about rabble rousing as compliment actually; I thought your post was rabble rousing, in a good way!

But this just confirms we're talking at cross purposes. I don't think the middle ground I'm talking about is the middle ground you're talking about, because I'm talking about taking a stance on an issue that is not necessarily one of the two polar extremes, and you're talking about the middle ground between nice and nasty (I think). Perfectly valid of course, just not the same thing.

Gotcha speaking; sorry Curious, I really wasn't meaning to be funny!

Bah! The dangers of the written word

I was talking about that middle ground as the 'feminine' area where women are not expected to rock any boat. To be neither naughty nor nice, but to be 'just rght' appropriate to all occasions. You know, mothering, nurturing, naice

Many men and women reading the more angry, less polite posts here, seeing women stand up and shout for their rights, decide that 'that sort of woman' is not nice, is too aggressive, is not fulfilling her social contract.

That is half of the problem, as speaking outlined. Women were late to the party (and I include myself), we didn't notice or understand the full ramifications of the GRA etc and so the groudn work had been laid, terminology changed, expectations cemented way before we started to object. So now we are objecting more loudly than we would have had to and, because of that groundwork, sound less 'nice' less feminine. Add that to the reality that most women, when shouted at, are loathe to push back, especially if the person/organisation they are pushing against says that they are hurt by that push back.

It is insidious and it really irritates me that my 'built in' pleasantness is so hard to step out of, even when I know that what I am trying to push back against needs to be stopped.

I don't even know why an open, honest discussion about the ramifications of GRA and any changes is a bad thing. I only know that those who are trying to shut it down are, so far, having it all their own way!

The middle ground that I and many women used to occupy looks a bit like; using female pronouns out of courtesy, agreeing that trans women can use women's spaces if they are polite and respectful, viewing trans women as automatically brave and heroic for living their truth and therefore deserving of care and acceptance (into women's spaces)

Whereas I and many other women have realised that the trans women we welcomed into our middle ground have acted as a (largely unwitting) Trojan horse for some vile, misogynistic, aggressive, violent activism that seeks to completely colonise women's very existence. So the middle ground suddenly becomes a battleground in a way that women didn't anticipate, nor did the trans women who have been around for years and many of whom are finding this new activism as abhorrent as we are.

The middle ground therefore becomes part of the turf we are fighting over. It's not a neutral, reasonable space - it's the space where trans women are called truscum and terfs for asserting that dysphoria is a prerequisite for being trans. Where women who call their trans women friends 'she' are perplexed to be expected to accommodate 6 foot men in dresses into changing rooms with their teenage daughters. Where women who expect trans women to have genital surgery to be considered women are called hateful bigots. Where women who question whether men in beards and suits are women are told to suck on my lady dick.

Women are leaving the middle ground in droves because we are being forced out. Some of us might like to take our trans friends with us but they are caught too, the ones who come with us to the gender critical side are ostracised from their communities and hounded out of public life. Miranda yardley has been permanently banned from twitter and today hope Lye got a 12 hour ban for saying that he, himself, was male. This is an auto ban based on reports. Activists are reporting Hope's posts where he describes himself as male in targeted harassment.

The middle ground no longer exists.

“viewing trans women as automatically brave and heroic for living their truth”
I think is where we all went wrong. The transition is not “automatically” anything.... I’m sure my friend’s ex wouldn’t use brave or heroic if asked for adjectives. :(

Standing ovation for @HarryLovesDraco

Excellently put.

Just wanted to say thanks to Rat for, as ever, such a fair minded balanced argument.