Grace Petrie on London protests

[MillyTheKid]

From the folk singer and political activist's Twitter feed:

Here’s what I want to know. I’m a butch lesbian. How come NO TRANS PEOPLE EVER have:
-tried to convince me I’m trans
-tried to stop me using “lesbian”
-interrogated me about whether I will have sex with trans women
-erased me in literally any possible way

And yet, conversely, transphobic feminists have repeatedly:
-tried to stop me using queer to describe myself
-interrogated me about who I’m willing to have sex with
-told me the answer makes me “not a lesbian”
-erased my voice repeatedly in their claim to speak for lesbians

I’m not exaggerating even a tiny bit when I say that the level of harassment I have had simply for opposing TERFs is incomparably more than all the homophobia I’ve experienced in my life. So - you’ll forgive me if I find the “defending lesbians” rhetoric a bit hard to swallow

Anyone who minimises or dismisses the pressure lesbians are subject to on this subject is a rape apologist, LGBTQIA. There's no way around it.

YY. I would have thought people claiming to be excellent feminists would understand what rape apologism means.

think that bullying women to force them to repeat lies about the true nature of the class of people that oppress them is a hell of a lot worse than "petty and spiteful", daimbars.

Agree. Preferred pronouns are nonsense. If I'm going to use them it's a courtesy. Because I normally don't want to offend people, however misguided I might find them. That would go for religious people talking about their relationship with God. I would smile politely and nod. I'm humouring them, as Munroe Bergdorf so perceptively realises. As most people do. But if I feel it's injurious to women's rights, that's where it stops.

The people who are really dangerous are the ones who pressure schools, after they have made a decision to retain single six toilets. To reverse their decision. By dog whistling to 50 other trans-activists to pile on and discredit.

That's bloody dangerous. It's awful.

They are the ones who train the police. They are in the bloody police.

The ones who advise schools, the NHS and the NSPCC to disregard safeguarding protocols.

The ones who promote the elevation of one protected characteristic over all the others.

The ones who lurk online, telling youngsters to find a new family and isolate them from their parents.

Who go onto tumblr, encouraging children to take hormones and get surgery. Year 7s looking for breast binders.

This is not isolated. This is not unusual. This is endemic.

So yes, I will call out the ideology, I will show that it is misogynistic, and homophobic and actively, openly against child safeguarding protocols.

And absolutely, that relates to the mangling of language.

And deciding the a lesbian relationship is two men having anal sex.

Ffs.

I'm friends with lots of trans people and only know one activist. And they are pretty harmless, just post ridiculous memes sometimes.

Yes but most people here have said repeatedly it's not about individual trans people. I am absolutely sure there are many very nice trans people. Doesn't mean I'm going to budge from my position of wanting to retain sex-segregated spaces.

I know 2 trans people in real life. One is absolutely lovely - I don't know them very well (she is transitioning to male) The other is female but calls herself non-binary. She is stirring up trouble left, right and centre - recently a restaurant owner called out when he saw a big burly bloke go into the ladies loo - he said something along the lines of 'that's the ladies, get out.' Turns out the person was a transwoman and my friend gladly joined a mob crowd to absolutely hound the restaurant owner. His facebook had hundreds of 1* reviews and people were urged not to go there. She is about 25 and not behaving very well to be honest.

Blimey, I've just read Glinner's twitter. Well done him.

She is stirring up trouble left, right and centre

It's frequently a power trip.

Lol you are funny Daimers 

You too Ereshers. Humour makes us human.

@GenderCritter: recently a restaurant owner called out when he saw a big burly bloke go into the ladies loo - he said something along the lines of 'that's the ladies, get out.' Turns out the person was a transwoman and my friend gladly joined a mob crowd to absolutely hound the restaurant owner.

That first cheese layer in the Swiss Cheese Model where any bystander can challenge a male-bodied person entering the female toilets? That's under threat, right there.

The word to describe this non-binary snowflake is "crybully".

Just went to look at the twitter feed and I am blocked. I have never heard of or interacted with this person. I have no idea who she is.

Daim, it's not just twitter screencaps though, is it? It's entire tumblrs and blogs devoted to telling lesbians that they aren't actually lesbians for not doing dick and fantasing and planning corrective rape, youtube videos, crybullying of shops on social media to coerce them into changing their fitting room policies, safeguarding being dismantled in Girl Guides and schools, transwomen thumping lesbians for refusing sex, and targetted harassment and bomb threats with actual bomb-making equipment against women holding lawful meetings.

This is not transphobia. This is reasoned anxiety on the basis of observable evidence from online and real-life.

@toriap2 This means that she's using a block list and you're on it.

LGBTQIA and daimbars I've seen you both talking about being minority voices on these boards. And yet I would hazard a guess that most posters and lurkers rock up to FWR feeling great sympathy for trans issues and thinking 'Where's the harm?' I know I did. I was a Guardian carrying supporter of minorities. I'd even bought an Owen Jones book. So if people like me start off on your side and yet you feel the board is against you then it sounds like you're losing support along the way.

I can't speak for anyone else but I lurked on here for a long time before I posted and in that time I changed my views. What changed them was posters like Datun meeting provocation with calm logic, and with statistics and facts that I could go away and verify. I realised that the very best any gender believing posters (not you unless you've name changed) had to offer in return were 'Be nice,' 'Transphobe' and 'I know a transwoman and she's lovely.'

You want more support on here? Go and learn some better arguments.

Floisme

Thank you for your post but I will never ever be someone who puts the needs of one marginalized group before another. I believe that any community that has faced a history of persecution and violence, and do to this day, need equal prioritisation in terms of my support and the support of others.

I support transgender rights. I support women's rights. I support trans women's rights. The three are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes they cross over, and it is the right for all three to exist, so collaberative work needs to be done in order to ensure that nobody feels stigmatized, erased or harassed.

If your answer is "go and learn some better arguments", my challenge to you and any other gender critical anti trans activist feminist on here is to go and learn some better teaching methods for what you're trying to say. Because your current methods are clearly not working on many of us.

collaborative work needs to be done
I can go with that. But first I see an elephant in the room and its name is male violence. If that didn’t exist I don’t think I would have a problem with any of this.

On the contrary LBGTQIA - our methods ARE working. More women are waking up to this every day. And it’s a one way street. People aren’t starting off GC and becoming transactivists. Once you see the misogyny you cannot under it.

Sadly though, some people just don’t want to learn.

Sometimes they cross over, and it is the right for all three to exist, so collaberative work needs to be done in order to ensure that nobody feels stigmatized, erased or harassed.

I'd really like to know what 'collaborative work' can be done to help a rape victim with cPTSD be ok with a penis being in a supposedly safe female space.

I'll ask my friend Amy, shall I? She was raped by her father on a daily basis from the age of 5. At 12 he began chaining her up in a garden shed twice a week and selling her to his friends.

Or perhaps my friend Sophie who had similar experiences and who now can't even sleep in a bedroom as it's so triggering, (at the age of 27 she sleeps in her living room) and who avoids men in all spheres of her life in order to stay safe.

Is it more important that a trans person doesn't feel stigmatized or that my friends are kept safe?

And it’s a one way street. People aren’t starting off GC and becoming transactivists.

On the contrary, I know many people who had no idea previously that this was happening, now absolutely outraged on behalf of the trans community after the Pride protest.

Actually that’s not quite correct - I would still have a big problem with women’s sport. But male violence is the dealbreaker for me. As long as it exists, I cannot see any way of persuading me that male bodied people should have access to women’s spaces. I am sorry for individual transwomen who are caught up in this but there it is.

I won’t be able to answer any replies today as I have a bastard of a day at work and then I’m watching the football. But I can read and pick up tomorrow if need be.

Is it more important that a trans person doesn't feel stigmatized or that my friends are kept safe?

I'm not sure, perhaps I'll ask my friend who was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted in a nightclub toilet because she was told she couldn't use the female cubicles?

On the contrary, I know many people who had no idea previously that this was happening, now absolutely outraged on behalf of the trans community after the Pride protest.

I don't doubt this at all. Because the marketing machine, including people like you, are framing lesbianism as anti-trans.

Believe me, the people you speak of? If they knew what you really meant, they would disagree with you.

The rights of transwomen and women conflict. They can't not conflict.

Sex segregation under certain circumstances is necessary. Because otherwise women and children are just a free for all for any predator.

You tell me how to resolve this, if you believe collaboration is the key.

Should men be allowed to compete as women, against women?
Should rapists be allowed in the female estate?
Should a woman have the right to choose a female HCP for her smear test?

In all those examples, the rights of transwomen and women are in direct conflict.

Resolve it.

I'm not sure, perhaps I'll ask my friend who was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted in a nightclub toilet because she was told she couldn't use the female cubicles?

This is an emotional appeal.

Men commit 90% of violent crime. It's a gendered crime.

You know this. You do.

Because your current methods are clearly not working on many of us.

I disagree. The huge increase in visits to this board shows that methods are working.
I'm just one of the many who lurked and then learned about what's really happening in terms of the erasure of women's rights, thanks to the evidence based arguments crafted on here.

Haven't read full thread but just wanted to say in response to Grace Petrie - I am a POC, I've never experienced rascist bullying or discrimination because of my race, I've never been badly treated by the police. Unlike Grace, I would never stand there and say that I 'don't buy it' when others have experienced these things and tell them they have nothing to complain about, no right to protest or campaign for better treatment. What an utterly ignorant person she is.

But on the topic itself, as things progress I really see the only way forward is to properly seperate sex and gender - same sex attracted and same gender attracted as two separate things, same sex services and same gender services as different again. I don't experience a gender identity or consider the socially constructed concept of gender as important but I respect that others do and have a right to their freedom to define themselves. The line is drawn when that right starts impinging on other people's freedoms and rights, and there does need to be some gate keeping.

Seperating sex and gender legally and socially is surely the only way to go.

No, LGBTQIA. Your friend was attacked because a man/some men committed a violent crime and I hope were charged and prosecuted for it.

I don't doubt this at all. Because the marketing machine, including people like you, are framing lesbianism as anti-trans.

People like me are 'marketing' it as anti trans because it is anti trans. I have seen so much spiteful misgendering on here, so many unkind comments about people's appearances, so many horror stories about a minority of sexual predators, which exist in pretty much ANY marginalised group, used to conflate with the transwomen group as a whole.

Should men be allowed to compete as women, against women?
I don't feel qualified to answer this as I do not know enough about competitive sports.

Should rapists be allowed in the female estate?
Rapists should not be allowed anywhere that they are a threat to other people.

Should a woman have the right to choose a female HCP for her smear test?
A woman should have the right to choose a trusted medical professional for her smear test.

This is an emotional appeal.

As was the post I was responding to. Women face unspeakable violence. So do the transgender community. We have to take responsibility for both.