"People Who Oppose Trans Rights Have No Place In Labour," Says The First LGBT Mayoral Adviser

[RadicalFern]

Andy Burnham, Mayr of Greater Manchester, has hired an advisor, Carl Austin-Behan, to help him think of what to do about "the row" over All-Women shortlists. Austin-Behan's solution? Party members who campaign against trans women being fully accepted as women should no longer be allowed in the party.

Austin-Behan described opposition as "Utter rubbish; if people are trans women, then they are women.”

www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/people-who-oppose-trans-rights-have-no-place-in-labour-says?utm_term=.mdWBWxEelr&bftwuk#.mkdLwq18nP

.…when trans people are elevated to visibility, not everyone’s reaction is to be kind.

Depends, doesn't it? That person who blogged a load of wanking photos and their ladypenis out at work doesn't inspire me to feel particularly "kind". That person with the offensive tattoo and the baseball bat doesn't inspire me to feel particularly "kind". That person who came on here and revelled in telling women to 'enjoy your erasure' doesn't inspire me to feel particularly "kind".

I have a range of other such examples I could offer.

Sometimes I wonder if the fury TRAs display towards women who deny that TWAW is partly because they expect us to react in certain feminine ways and to kindly endorse them.

Definitely there is an entitlement to service and deference from women. There have been articles about where men who have suffered as 'low status' and without power as a male in the male society pecking order see their status as alpha over women in their transition and gain the power and status there that they felt they lacked. Also worth considering how acceptable it is for women to openly reject unwanted males in their space, compared to how acceptable it is for women speaking to and rejecting unwanted males in their space once trans status comes into play.

Some of the TWAW fury on being told no though boils straight down to 'a woman has no right to say no'. Its seen as women having something they refuse to give, somewhere that person can't go, a boundary that can't be broken, and that causes the incandescence. Lundy Bancroft's 'why does he do that' profiles of male abusers mentions a lot about this kind of sense of entitlement and inability to deal with women's boundaries without hitting rage.

A whole lot of this is about fury at encountering boundaries. It's emotionally... well. Rattles and prams stuff comes to mind.