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?

floral

(Twilight zone music)

I have just had the exact same thought...

Ohello Pombear was quoting further from the original series of tweets, not voicing her own opinions.

I think we all need to be a bit more careful about assuming the worse about posters here, especially regular posters.

Is it just me that sees the acronym AFAB and thinks of Joanna Lumley

No.

Are you sure there were scientists there? ;)

I very much doubt that, too. Material reality is transphobic, after all.

GoddessFrigg

I've been on the fwr for years now, but one of the things that dissuaded me from joining in was discussions using words like heteronormativity, nuclear family structure, hegemony, capitalism, capitalist unit, and yes, even patriarchy

You missed out epistemology. It was a big thing on here a while back. There has been a noticeable diminution of the "look at me, I'm so clever language" ; although not in the actual cleverness. Your bear analogy captured the nonsense of the statement well.

Are you sure there were scientists there?

Exactly what I was thinking!

Perhaps social scientists of some ilk? Rather than biologists...

spannablue

I am aware that some of the words I used might be a bit niche, but decided to assume ability to read + access to dictionary.com or similar.

Assuming that readers are willing to consult a dictionary, in order to understand what you're saying, means you don't know much about communicating. 😂

I agree that pregnancy is a sex based risk specific to AFAB women. I support women's reproductive rights.

Supporting trans rights, in my mind, doesn't mean not supporting AFAB women's rights.

I use terms like AFAB just to be clear in these discussions.

We just disagree about whether supporting or opposing trans rights is a feminist strategy or not.

I'm not going to say more on the GRA consultation strategy meeting except that you're right, I should have veen consistent and called transwomen AMAB.

I am a postmodern/poststructoral feminist, yes. But like most of us postmodern feminists I'm concerned that we must acknowledge bodily experience as part of that. This isn't easy but Sara Ahmed and Lisa Blackman are making inroads.

I suspect that the refusal to discuss real world biological consequences such as impregnation, pregnancy and childbirth indicate spanna is only interested in very abstract linguistic and conceptual theory, not in material reality.

But like most of us postmodern feminists I'm concerned that we must acknowledge bodily experience as part of that. This isn't easy

...so so difficult.

Is it just me that sees the acronym AFAB and thinks of Joanna Lumley?
Personally I think of Thunderbirds.

Sorry spanna - cross post!

Using the overly simplistic phrases "supporting trans rights" or "opposing trans rights" is an attempt to frame the argument in a fundamentally dishonest way, in my opinion. Trans people have the same rights as everyone else, plus additional protection under the Equalities Act. By using these phrases you are falling into the trap of framing things as a simplistic binary in precisely the way that postmodernists supposedly are supposed to be trying to avoid. I'm afraid I see this as opportunistic and hypocritical.

So, about those specific points raised in answer to your first few posts, spannablue? Is your proposal to ignore the physical realities that mean men systemically oppress women because acknowledging those realities is what gives them power?

Or perhaps just a natural consequence of severe cognitive dissonance, to be more charitable.

"AFAB" is not a clarifying term. It's exactly the opposite of that. It obfuscates material reality, which is that we all have a sex, and when we emerge in to the world, or often before, everyone who is interested easily knows what sex we are (except a tiny, tiny percentage of people with disorders of sexual development).

Getting a bit annoyed with the "but women rape too" stuff.

For a bunch of people obsessed with excusing an gendered behaviour ideology based upon misleading and incorrect stats on suicide rates, there is a lot of ignoring going on when it comes to the stats regarding WHO is committing the vast, vast majority of violent sexual crimes.

I am a postmodern/poststructoral feminist, yes. But like most of us postmodern feminists I'm concerned that we must acknowledge bodily experience as part of that. This isn't easy but Sara Ahmed and Lisa Blackman are making inroads

I'm just a provincial solicitor but hasn't feminism being acknowledging the bodily experience of being a woman since about forever?

TheGoddessFrigg

3 straight AFAB women
3 AFAB lesbians
2 nonbinary AFAB people

This version of Ten Green Bottles is shite...... wink

🤣

And increasingly getting annoyed at the bizarre idea that there isn't anyone out there who has a sexual fetish for gender role play and a sexual motivation for wearing women's clothes.

Cross dressing is one of the most boringly British sexual fetishes.

Seriously, idiots maintaining their belief system, arguing that folk like Grayson Perry don't understand their own sexuality.

Our grannies are laughing at our kids for their puritanical understanding of sexuality, and their insistence that they are "woke".

hasn't feminism being acknowledging the bodily experience of being a woman since about forever?

But not in an interesting way 😜

There has been a noticeable diminution of the "look at me, I'm so clever language" ;

Bugger. There was me thinking I'd just gotten really clever enough to understand it.