Sheffield Doc Fest - Women, Gender & Activism

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m.youtube.com/watch?v=G6fMGg5fE_g

I chose to watch this because I wanted to listen to the arguments put forward by MB and to hear them articulate their viewpoints in a more in-depth format than a twitter soundbite or glossy fashion mag piece. I know that MB was a no-show at the recent ‘Women in Film Making’ Festival where they had been invited as a keynote speaker (which provoked a lot of debate) I thought I would watch this as the actual woman film maker of the programme ‘How to Make a Woman’ was also on the stage speaking. I was interested in their views on the issues raised by their programme (antidote films)

If you don’t have the time to watch the whole talk, if you watch from 21.33 onwards, the panel is responding to a clip from the HTMAW programme that obviously relates to MB dealing with ‘TERFS’. As YouTube viewers we aren’t shown the clip for copyright reasons so it’s difficult to know the precise section they’re talking about. However the gist is this. Any woman who counters the belief that trans women are women is inherently evil. There is no inbetween. You hate transgender people. End of.

The support this idea gets from the other two women on stage is disheartening to say the least. It just brings home how there is no debate. No room for frank discussion and therefore a complete impasse. It’s so fucking depressing. How can we honestly talk about this if we are labelled as fascist, evil, transhaters for just even daring to put forward our views. I know this is not exactly news to people on this board but it actually made me feel angry that suddenly the views I have on this issue were being shut out and all ears were on MB sitting demurely in her pretty white dress telling all us women about how to be good feminists.

Like I say, not exactly news on here but just especially jarring to hear it at a highly respected documentary film festival.

Has anyone here been able to have a frank discussion with other women in real-life (lesbian or otherwise) who has brought in to these ideas? Who think that a transgender woman can be a lesbian? Or that women who don’t buy into this are just hateful, phobic embarrassments to feminism? Is it possible to have a real-life chat about this or do we not ‘go there’ for fear of being labelled as the above?

And the terrible thing is, this is the sort of talk that might stop me going to my kids school to find out how they are dealing with ‘gender’ in school. Because if I come across someone who would rather learn about gender from a transgender lobby group then I am someone to be ignored and vilified and not listened to.

This is just really sad.
I don't understand how the debate is so polarized, and why you can't even talk about this stuff calmly with the other side.
It's clear that it's all about perceived respect, not necessarily facts or reasoned discussion. And it's all about the feelings of trans activists, with no consideration of female feelings in this. This is about a disagreement on basic material reality and how to negotiate this best - not about hatred.
There is a lot of misinformation coming from Bergdorf, and nobody challenges any of it, and it makes me sad that no feminist is there to be able to speak up for this opposing ideology. However, it's clear that from the gender-critical feminist perspective we need to keep trying to explain our points as clearly and calmly as we can.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3251002-Munroe-Bergdorf-What-Makes-a-Woman-Channel-4-16-5?pg=17

Bumping this again.

If you haven't time to watch it MB talks about TERFS targetting transpeople by using the media as 'many of them are journalists'. "They can't see the humanity in trans people'.
To which the woman chairing, says incredulously:
'...they consider themselves ('TERFS"), like, militant feminists! What's insidious about TERF organising is that it's found its way into spaces that should be safe'

Jaw on the floor. Safe. Spaces...really?!!

Extended interview with Munroe Bergdorf in Crack by Otamere Guobadia:
(extracts)
"She is the voice that launched a thousand thinkpieces. In a world of Trumps and Theresas and the kind of polite ineffectual centrism that lets Nazism and white supremacy thrive unchallenged, Munroe Bergdorf is gunpowder, treason, and plot. A model – part it-girl, part agitator – she found herself at the centre of a cause-celebré a year ago, when her unapologetically strident polemic about the passive complicity of all white people in white supremacy was leaked to right-wing media by someone with a personal vendetta. It was an attempt to weaponise the fury of the press and get her – L’Oreal’s first trans model – fired.

Bergdorf’s firing was part of a long media tradition of painting antiracism activists, and particularly black women, as irrational anti-white furies. But where the threat of scrutiny, anonymous threats and tirades of abuse would silence, Bergdorf got louder. Seizing control of her narrative and firmly turning the gaze back on white Britain, she called out their prejudices, their complicity and their refusal to acknowledge the elephant in the room — that racism was alive and well in today’s Britain, and they were simply not doing enough to end it. If the Daily Mail wanted her rabid destruction and silent acquiescence, Bergdorf proved that she was nothing if not on the rise." (continues)

"I don’t really care what a cis woman has to say about my trans experience because she doesn’t know. I would never tell a cis woman how to navigate childbirth or her menstruation cycle. These are things that don’t affect me but they are still important. Having anybody tell somebody that what they’re going through isn’t important, that they shouldn’t have access to places and spaces that help us — yeah, I have a big problem with that, but I don’t really care about what they have to say about me." (continues)

MB concludes, "And I really feel that young adults now are going to make that change. They are already so fluid. There’s so much more interest in so many other people’s cultures, they’re more expressive visually and sexually. Young adults are coming out as gay or queer before they even get to high school and that’s amazing.

We’re gonna look completely different in about 70 years as a global society, so I’m looking forward to us all not necessarily mixing with whiteness but dissolving those boundaries, to us all mixing as a global world community. Less discrimination. I’m looking forward to people just becoming much more fluid when it comes to gender identity, when it comes to sexuality. I’m looking forward to them all becoming a lot more blurred."

crackmagazine.net/article/long-reads/munroe-bergdorf-as-a-new-generation-we-need-to-take-the-power-into-our-own-hands/

The Independent:
OTAMERE GUOBADIA
"Otamere Guobadia is a law finalist at University College, Oxford. Activist, former editor of Oxford based queer and trans publication, No HeterOx and President of the Oxford University LGBTQ society."
www.independent.co.uk/author/otamere-guobadia

Independent Voices article:
"L’Oreal dropping black trans model Munroe Bergdorf is a lesson for those who claim white supremacy isn’t a thing
They wanted Munroe’s transness, her blackness, her womanhood and all of the glory and the capital gain of her 'diversity' with none of the corollary activism and resistance that comes with her identity"

www.independent.co.uk/voices/munroe-bergdorf-loreal-dropped-anti-white-rant-institutional-racism-trans-a7924196.html

Keep talking. Most people agree with us. Never stop.

'...they consider themselves ('TERFS"), like, militant feminists! What's insidious about TERF organising is that it's found its way into spaces that should be safe'

Er no, feminist spaces are never going to be "safe spaces" for male people. That's not what feminism is about.

Where do these silly fools get these ideas?