Artistic Director of Queer Up North speaks out on trans activism, Stonewall and women's rights

[SanctimoniousMorph]

medium.com/@JonnnyBest/the-story-of-my-first-brush-with-trans-activism-and-what-i-learned-3ef13e31fd37

Jonny

I am so struck by what you say about the lack of criticism/abuse you've had on Twitter, compared to what women are experiencing. I am a late-comer to radical feminism but this debate has opened my eyes to the sad fact of how women's voices are silenced, and how scared men want to make us.

JonnyBest
I think you've actually done the right thing. On this board I believe the convention is usually to bold the names rather than @ ing people, in order to reduce email notifications.

Thank you for taking the time to read our thoughts and respond to them. I greatly appreciate it. Personally, I am very very happy you haven't gotten too much of a backlash, and I will keep my fingers crossed for this trend continuing. Hopefully your actions will encourage more people to speak their minds on this topic.

Yes. I get a bit cross if people @ me

@ is best reserved for cases where there's an expert on the topic who someone wants to alert to a thread they're not participating in.

There is no 'edit post' - if you do something like accidentally posting identifying information about yourself or someone else you can report your post and ask it to be withdrawn.

Just want to add my thanks Jonny for writing this very fine article.

I find it both shocking but entirely predictable that you have received so little abuse, and so much attention for your writing on this issue. I am grateful and yet a little resentful that your article has received such feedback, when many women have been writing on this issue for years, where the responses have been of vitriol, abuse, or simply treated with distain or irrelevance.

I am grateful to you for taking the time to write about this Jonny and also want to thank you for highlighting the abuse that women receive for simply daring to discuss it.

Much [beer] for you, fine man that you are

-----P.S. @MNHQ - what happened to the actual beer icon?

Actually no datun I wasn't talking about two different things. I was talking very specifically about the issue of transwomen in women's spaces.

saul. I'm not exactly sure what your stance is. So forgive me if I get the wrong end of the stick.

Are you saying that androphilic transwomen are less of a threat, because they're not attracted to women?

Because there is no evidence to suggest that. In fact, the only study of its kind explicitly used men who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which indicates a 'genuine transsexual', rather than your AGP individual, and found they exhibited male pattern criminality, the same as regular men.

Many, if not most, of the most vocal transactivists are also attracted to men, not women.

To me, there seems to be several strands of possibilities to subject women to abuse. And the common denominator appears, again to me, to be misogyny, not sexual orientation.

I was saying it is useful to differentiate between all sorts of different types of trans women, as I have outlined in previous posts. You are welcome of course to disagree.

Just dropping in to hand out and to everyone.

This is a GREAT THREAD.

Really in depth, nuanced, respectful discussion.

Just to add datum from my point of view I have no problem with transwomen who have lived as women for many years and have had (or waiting for) surgery and hormone treatment sharing female spaces. I recognise not everyone feels the same and that is part of the problem. I do feel uncomfortable with the idea of vulnerable women having to share spaces with male bodied transwomen. But that is a distinction right there. And these distinctions are the reason so many are concerned about self ID, no? Sorry if that seems like I am conflating matters. Also peak pants articulated some late transitioning men (who used to be called cross dressers etc) are now a v vocal part of the movement and can be (not all) v misogynist. Another distinction and especially important when it comes to male socialisation and privilege. But agree misogyny is the common denominator for risk largely.

SaulGoodwoman

I'm not really disagreeing with you. My stance has probably hardened somewhat. Partly because I see gender dysphoria itself as having a basis in sexism, however subconscious.

The reason why I might agree, in theory, to longstanding transwomen being granted access is more to do with the fact that there are so few, rather than an acceptance that a medical condition should be treated thus.

My sympathy for the sufferer is genuine and therefore the low number makes compromise possible.

But again, it's only in theory because none of it can be verified.

Knicknack I know Sarahar is a regular on here but I had never seen her make that particular point before - i.e. implying that she considered self ID to be radical and that there might be better solutions. Of course it could just be me not always reading their posts properly. I picked up on it as I would have thought that, if you were going to make a claim like that, you would stick around to discuss it, especially when you had just called for a respectful and honest debate.

(On a bit of a break at the moment but just wanted to say what a great and productive thread this is.)

My stance has probably hardened somewhat

It is so, so hard to engage with this debate and not have it harden, isn't it?

Nice one Jonny.

Thank you Jonny - brilliant work.

Excellent thread, mumsnet feminists (as always).

Every debate at the moment seems more polarised than ever:

Remain vs Leave, Corbyn vs Anti-Corbyn, Rad Fems vs TRA - god Twitter feels like I am eating my own sick over and over really there.

Not a dig at anyone here - and agree this thread is excellent and all points v salient!

Sorry if someone has linked to it before, but have just managed to start reading Dr Jane Clare Jone's piece of post structural feminism and a material analysis of patriarchy, and it is bloody brilliant. janeclarejones.com/2018/07/18/post-structuralism-butler-and-bodies/

I agree Saul. And I was perhaps a bit harsh upthread with my comments. It's just becoming so hard to remain welcoming and inclusive in the face of such bullying.
We are not helped by our politicians of all sides either being too scared to comment while others just parrot the 'transparty' line without acknowledging any legitimacy of women's concerns.
I don't know how to resolve this - acquiescing is unacceptable and in the absence of any attempts to talk, discuss and listen, (#nodebate and all that) it feels that becoming militant is the only option that women have.

Really good article! I hope it gets a wide audience

It's pretty fucking obvious that I am a woman and as a result, I get paid less, less adequate medical care, sexual abuse, misogyny etc.

Yup.

And you know - I"m one of those weirdo women on MN who have failed in the life purpose of women to get married and have children. But I am still socialised as female/feminine, paid less, subject to the threat of sexual assault, treated as lesser in every way.

It is so, so hard to engage with this debate and not have it harden, isn't it?

For one simple reason. Trans activists have made clear that there is no limit to how far they'll push their demands. If you read stuff coming out of Action for Trans Health, for example fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-organisation-demands/, or to see how easily the more extreme trans activists will threaten extreme violence, rape, or murder, and then see how those who might respond robustly to this turn a blind eye, then it's clear that being indulgent is going to end badly for women.

There are so many Trojan Horses about and so many human shields, that allowing in one particular vulnerable group of trans people carries a high risk of allowing women's spaces to be colonised by some very bad people.

It's tough. It means transsexuals will lose out. But the rules of the game have changed completely and women need to put themselves and their own safety first for once.

Totally agree that the TRAs push and push because the boundaries transgression is their thing. Doesn’t actually seem to matter what the ground gained is really. Take the boundaries of acceptable language. It used to be

Barbara, who is a transwoman
Then
Barbara, who is a trans woman
Now it’s
Barbara, a woman (somewhere later in the text).. ‘who has a trans history’.

(Ie Completely denying any trans aspect of the present..)

The endless push to encroach as an end in itself is reminiscent of narcissistic behaviour that I recognise and it scares the crap out of me.

Totally agree that the TRAs push and push because the boundaries transgression is their thing.

I would so like to comment on this but I've had two of my posts deleted in the past month, one possibly deserved, one not, and if I were to make a perfectly fair fact-based comment I could see myself being banned and my mumsnet account going "poof"*.

• For the avoidance of doubt "poof" means "disappear in a puff of smoke". It is not a homophobic or transphobic comment.

Gah.. sorry Nauticant

No worries at all ChattyLion. In my day job I've done a week of biting my tongue in the face of heavily spun "evidence" so complying with arbitrary rules is just helping me to up my game.