Obsession with transwomen fetishises sex difference

[spannablue]

Just read on Twitter:

'The problem with patriarchy is not due to men having penises, it's due to the lie that this random feature of birth confers & signifies rank, power & domination. We must not collude in that by fetishising sex difference & aggrandizing genitals that happen to be on the outside.'

What do you think?

I think they've concocted the bullshit to suit the outcome "gender identity" needs to divert attention away from the fetish behind it.

What is interesting about spanna et al is they don't realise how they are being manipulated and they also don't realise we can see them being taken in. So the linguistic enlightenment they are attempting to bestow on us is comical in effect as a result.

As far as I understand it, kesstrel, the concept of the 'empty signifier' comes out of the political theory of Ernesto Laclau, who tried to understand the workings of populism (and before him Lacan).

I've encountered it in historical scholarship on groups that had dubious aims but found an 'empty signifier' (such as 'children's rights'), something that essentially had no content but held a discourse together, to attract support from more political parties.

And I sometimes wonder if 'trans rights' or 'gender identity' isn't something similar ... but maybe I don't understand the theory? I just can't square how anybody schooled in postmodern thought can endorse a movement that goes on and on about 'authentic selves' ... it seems so empty, so manufactured.

I'd be very surprised if spanna were completely comfortable with the narratives of femininity that are promoted by trans rights activism. But just to reiterate, I recognise that to many people on the Left, especially women, excluding someone seems mean and outright dangerous.

I need to say that the quality of discussion here on this thread and on Mumsnet generally is really without parallel anywhere on the internet. Where else would you see this kind of knowledgeable debate and discussion but with knowledge worn so lightly and expressed with so much wit?

I have a philosophy degree and I am keeping up (just). To be fair I am so old we didn't cover any of this new-fangled post modern business - just Plato and mates . But you are all operating at such a high level of discussion and sophistication whilst keeping it accessible that I find it quite remarkable.

This is not what people think they will find on MN. More fool them.

I've encountered it in historical scholarship on groups that had dubious aims but found an 'empty signifier' (such as 'children's rights'), something that essentially had no content but held a discourse together, to attract support from more political parties.

And I sometimes wonder if 'trans rights' or 'gender identity' isn't something similar ... but maybe I don't understand the theory? I just can't square how anybody schooled in postmodern thought can endorse a movement that goes on and on about 'authentic selves' ... it seems so empty, so manufactured.

That's a really acute observation, I think. The idea of the "empty signifier", understood in this way, is a very useful analytical tool. (And I think a tool which long predates post modernism. I'd suggest that Moliere's spoof in which the philosopher explains that opiates send you to sleep because they possess "dormative virtue" is in fact sending up precisely this sort of idea of giving a fancy name to a concept without any basis in reality).

Yet, as you point out, there's this central contradiction going on. "Sex" becomes an "empty signifier" (used by various power groups - the religious right, political conservatives, second wave feminists... those usual "fellow travelers" ) at exactly the same time as "gender" (a useful explanatory concept in social theory as a short hand for an ideology giving spurious justification for and holding together the set of oppressions around biological sex) is becoming "reified" - turned into a thing, albeit an incorporeal thing - some sort of inner essence of femaleness, or lady soul, or gendered mind.

Thank you, thank you, Fermats. Still feel I need to read more, but it's very nice to be able to debate these things.

The historical scholarship I was referring to, btw, was on the links between pro-pedophilia groups, 'children's rights' groups and the Green Party in Germany in the 1970s/80s. Sad story of a progressive political party (note, sometimes those on the 'right' are right) co-opted by people who perpetrated child abuse, engaged in sexualised 'play' with children at party meetings and so on. Said perpetrators were also quite adept at alienating children from their families. Not suggesting parallels but the German Green Party now recognises this was a dark chapter in its history, and has paid for historians to research it. I do wonder how we will see the current situation in which, to my mind, children are obviously put at risk by irresponsible doctors such as Helen Webberley, in 20 years.

Materialist, not sure this is constructive but when I think of Foucault I can't help but think of how he reacted when he was diagnosed with AIDS. At the time, nobody knew much about it, and Foucault argued that a deadly disease that seemed to exclusively kill gay men in an era when you had a rising religious right in the US was just too 'good' for the powers in charge to really exist. An absolutely astute observation, but unfortunately for him, it did exist, and it killed him. So the man was a genius but also curiously blind.

But you really don't need a university degree of any kind to see the problems with self-ID! Which is why, fellow posters, I value all your clear words and observations. Don't let anybody tell you that you have to read poststructuralist theory to be entitled to your opinion on trans activism. If somebody says that to you, tell them where to stick it

To many academics, deep intellectual engagement with a particular theory can be a life-changing experience, an epiphany, a precious moment when everything suddenly makes sense. It's lovely. But it seems hubristic to think that this experience gives you access to some higher truth.

spanna, maybe you can't un-read Butler but I can't un-see and un-experience certain things, either.

Eatpeanuts Thanks for the explanation re populism, and the use of empty signifiers to gain power. It sounds like one tool in the armoury of propaganda, then.

At the time, nobody knew much about it, and Foucault argued that a deadly disease that seemed to exclusively kill gay men in an era when you had a rising religious right in the US was just too 'good' for the powers in charge to really exist.

Was he actually serious? If so, that's a perfect example to me of what's wrong with philosophy absent real world knowledge! But then, I've heard that post-modernists focus heavily on power relations as the only thing worth challenging, because everyone's reality is subjective and equally valid. Is that right? If it is, then I suppose it might explain why he might believe in an explanation based on human power dynamics, over one based in objective reality.

Considering this, why are spanna & Co so dead set on constructing this category of vulnerable transpeople, instead of looking at them as individuals with very different needs, privileges, powers...?

Because this is a top down campaign which retrofits whatever stance it needs to meet its end.

We saw this a while back when there was a period of 10 or so weeks where various posters came onto the boards with ‘scientific’ arguments. It very much resembled an externally coordinated group and the arguments were trialled and changed as they were debunked. So one example went from a strong TWAW stance and when they were told humans can’t change sex the argument changed to TW have always been women.

I can’t remember the others (forgive me, baby with a cold, I had about 35 mins sleep last night and I’m feeling it) but the overall impression was of almost an external group getting together to road test opinions and arguments in here. As arguments were debunked they stopped being used as much and new ones were trialled.

Their reality and their argument is constructed to reach a top down end goal - which is very different to a grass roots campaign

Sorry can’t be arsed to read the whole thread. But what pencils said on page 1 or 2. Also, OP, although the personal may be political, it doesn’t follow that all personal experience reveals a political truth. So women have been shittier to you than men? I can well believe it. Doesn’t cancel out sexism. For example, I have a disability and the area I grew up in is diverse. So I experienced some really unpleasant abuse because I looked different from people of colour. Does that mean I believe racism against white people is a big problem? Of course not. Even people who are oppressed can be arseholes. Women are universally oppressed- because of their biology- they are physically weaker and reproduce. Observing oppression due to biology is not the same as ‘fetishising’ it.

Violent penetration can be achieved with things other than penises.

Yea but let's not beat around the bush, it's mainly men doing the raping with their penis.

God, @Materialist, that made thought-provoking but profoundly bleak reading! I sincerely hope for my dd's sake that you will be proved wrong, but I fear that you won't be.

Materialist, you are scaring me now. But your analysis seems sound.

I might add to it:

• the ways in which the public sphere has changed due to the rise of social media, which often polices the speech of women (e.g. much higher percentage of women receiving abuse on social media than men; twitter's attempts to censor speech 'reducing people to their genitals'; even MN).

• the commodification of women's reproductive function via surrogacy

What can we do about this? Reclaiming the language with which to describe ourselves seems like a good start.

I can no longer see trans women as women. I just can't. They are men, and it seems many of them are lovely human beings who have it very hard in life. I'm sorry if what I say hurts them on a personal level, and I hope I will never be in a situation in which I have to say this to someone's face. But this isn't about them. The mental gymnastics you have to perform to de-center biological women and still call yourself a feminist are too damaging to the movement for women's liberation, especially with the kind of scenario we are facing in the decades to come.

PS: kesstrel afaik the anecdote about Foucault is true

Spannablue

Just look at the GC bedfellows. David Davies! Sarah Vine! I'd be concerned.

Don’t expect great sympathy for this, but that’s the second time in this thread you’ve tried to delegitimise GC feminism because it’s supported by people who (shock! horror!) are Tories – and you’ve done so as if it were a “Gotcha!” – do you need it pointing out 14 million people voted Tory last year?

Your (bog-standard Corbynite) logic appears to run thus:

1, Tories/right-wingers are axiomatically evil. No reason why they are, they just are, they’re just defined to be so. If reason is ever needed it’s couched in ludicrous hyperbole like “They’re murdering the poor, and they delight in doing so”
2, Certain Tories have shown themselves to be GC (though seemingly not the female Prime Minister or the Minister for Women, if the GRA is anything to go by).
3, Gotcha! OMG! Surely no one “decent” (decent, again, defined to be what you say it is) would support something Evil Tories TM support? If David Davies said the sky was blue, surely all “decent” people would say it wasn’t, for fear of being tarred with the Evil Tory TM brush?

Once the foundations of this absurd demonisation are set crumbling, your whole argument goes with it. Three-year-olds do this: “All girls smell of poo!”. Replace ‘girls’ with ‘Tories’ and that’s what you think demolishes GC feminism. "Tories smell of poo so if you agree with Tories, you stink too!"

Yet later on the thread you complain about being “denied a valid voice” and how “excluding a whole category of people is discriminatory”. But that’s exactly what you plan for Davies and Vine for being Tories.

I'm a Conservative Party member and I find the diktats and intolerance emanating from the so-called progressives from the alt-Left pretty distasteful too.

Because this is a top down campaign which retrofits whatever stance it needs to meet its end.

And this is it, in a nutshell.

Materialist, stevi Jackson puts the work of french feminists in an understandable way imo and has a materialist approach

In times of scarce employment, it is always women who lose out, because vast numbers of unemployed men are dangerous to governments. The historical solution is to push women either back into the home or into brothels (or convents.)

This has been my fear all along. It's unlikely that some shadowy power behind the scenes has suddenly decided that it cares deeply about the right to self-expression via playing dress-up of a tiny minority of people, so why is this being accepted so widely and so rapidly? It benefits someone, and the someone will not be the Lily Madigans of the world, at least not other than in a temporary sense. So, who benefits in the long run and how?

The push to get women to accept the sex industry as inevitable as something we'll participate in for at least part of our lives has been happening for a while, but has amped up considerably in recent years. In that case it's fairly obvious who benefits and at whose expense.

Recently at one of our dinner partys one female friend, who is on a national dating site, but isnt the prettiest of women but is a genetic XX female
told us she was constantly being hit on by supposed straight men , looking for a pre op trans women to the point she has taken her profiles down

this peak transing the world seems to have thrown up rather strange issues , where men have become obsessed with Transwomen

my boyish G/F amd few of our butch lesbian friends being challenged in womens loo,s

I disagree that economics has much to do with this. Human psychology, male psychology in particular (and male sexuality), seems to me to be all you really need to explain both the positive sex movement and what's currently happening around trans issues.

I also disagree that women were historically pushed into convents for economic reasons. Religious belief was a huge factor dominating medieval society and affecting every aspect of it. "Giving" a son or daughter to the church was seen as a way of obtaining God's favour. Nuns usually also had to be provided with "dowries", which went to the convent, to be admitted to a convent as well. In addition, convents were actively chosen by many women as a way of escaping inevitable marriage and being tied to a man.

Re foxy's comment, there are a group of people who fetishise transwomen, and those people are all male. So it's a bit rich to accuse the women who'd just like our changing rooms back, please, of being the ones who have that fixation.

Reminds me of that thing where you turn a man down and his immediate response is a petulant "well you're fat/ugly anyway!". In both cases, it's not fooling anyone.

Because this is a top down campaign which retrofits whatever stance it needs to meet its end.

It is all mind over matter for those great recreators of reality, isn't it?
The detachment from material reality to 'create a new reality' not grounded in anything real is something to behold. I am so over it.
'Cause it is not just in this body/soul splitting trans narrative where everyone can be anything, this type of thinking and acting is pervasive now.

Just as Foucault tried to will away AIDS by redefining it as a right-wing conspiracy, Steve Jobs tried to will away cancer by meditation.

Same for the wars in the Middle East, where Karl Rove declared they were, as an empire, creating their own reality with their Iraq 'liberation', and thought making us all believe it was a smashing success would be making it a smashing success, and now in Syria they are redefining the former jihadist terrorists as brave freedom fighters, just as it fits the narrative and the objective...

Same with the economy, where neoclassicists do not explicitly model debt, cause money is debt, and in their brains, somehow, defaults never happen, that you'd need to model that. Thomas Friedman to this day does not understand why Steve Keen thinks it is imperative to model debt. The elites still rely on the flawed models and trust them more than material reality, totally blind to the inescapable reality that indefinite growth is not possible and resources are materially limited.

And the same is true with global warming. They attach costs to blunting global warming and calculate costs for doing nothing and thus going to +4°C, as if money were still a thing once human civilization or, maybe, humanity has perished (and going to +4°C avg. temp. within this century, there's a good chance we will go down as a species). Of course, the IPCC models put forth to keep us at or below +2°C rely on implementing net CO2 negative large scale carbon capture technology within the next decades, a technology which does not yet exist and, maybe, never will. I guess we will will this technology into existence, too, by somehow reframing the narrative.

And people like Elon Musk envision uploading their mind into a computer/cloud, to escape mortality - the ultimate detachment of the mind from the body - to escape such havoc. Dear Elon Musk, I am happy to inform you that if humanity goes down, nobody will be there to sustain the cloud's infrastructure, and your cloud-mind will go down, too, like the rest of us. With kind regards, humanity.
The End.

To return to the OP, there's no shortage of fetishists in the trans debate but none of them are gender critical feminists.