Great blog about being a trans inclusive feminist

[spannablue]

Here: alicenuttallbooks.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/why-i-am-a-trans-inclusive-feminist/

Enjoy!

So engage Spannablue

Then people will be less frustrated with you

Ha! Xpost Floral

Here's an easy question for you, spanna. If sex is some sort of indefinable quantity, what are trans people transitioning from and to?

If there's no such thing as biological sex, and everyone is just what they say they are, then doesn't that mean that 'transgender' doesn't exist either? If we're all just what we say we are and biological sex doesn't matter, then what does the 'trans' bit mean?

I mean, look... if you don’t understand how scientific classification works, I’m not sure we can talk.

You do have a very odd idea of academia, Spanna if you think it involves very slowly sending poorly written blogposts between offices. If you'd said cat pictures or puppy pictures I might have believed you'd ever actually had any experience of it.

If you can't engage with the material, then it's fairly pointless you posting it, no? It really does make you look like a cool girl wannabe I'm afraid.

A lot of the discrimination faced by women (all women) is based on assumptions about our biology

Weeeeeell that is mostly true, but the problem is that the vast majority of male-bodied transwomen don't pass, instead they look like a man who hopes everyone will treat him like a 6 yo fairy princess. So no one is treating him as they would a real woman, instead they're patronizing him as if he's an insane manbaby and he doesn't understand the difference.

But secondly, he'll never worry about getting pregnant, or needing an abortion, or not getting hired because he might take maternity leave, or being raped by somebody much bigger. Nobody ever expects him to shut up and make coffee, or volunteer to bake a cake for someone's birthday, or be supportive when others are having a rough patch, or take care of elderly parents when they are sick, etc etc etc. He's exempt from all that exhausting emotional labor that is expected of every woman because nobody thinks he's a woman.

A young trans girl does not have the same experience growing up as a young cis boy, even if they’re both treated by the people around them as young boys. If you’re treated as something you’re not, you’re not going to have the same experience as people who are treated as something they are.

First he claims to pass, then he claims to not pass. Make up your mind. And you can't possibly have the same experiences as a girl when you admit that other people are NOT treating you like a girl.

Trans people and cis women have a huge amount of common ground

Considering that I object quite strenuously to your dick in my shower whereas you keep trying to intrude in rather a rapey way despite my objections, no sweetie, we only have as much in common as any rapist and victim.

Trans people and cis women have a huge amount of common ground

Nope. Can't think of anything at all. Apart from transmen, who have in common with me that they're women.

I’m a feminist, and I support trans rights and hate the constant berating of them on here.

I don’t need anyone’s permission to be a feminist, or to be told I’m not one because I don’t want to exclude trans people at every opportunity. I stopped being told what to do by bullies when I entered secondary school.

In terms of what makes a ‘women’ I think traditional feminists would have completely dismissed this question many years ago, as what a woman should traditionally be is what we’ve been fighting against for a long time.

Woman = womb haver = child bearer = breastfeeder or whatever, it’s misogony at its best.

I fight for woman’s issues, that many women actually face. Like fundraising for rape crisis centres, donating to refuges, running for breast cancer awarness, attending stand up for woman marches, white ribbon day, petitioning for making misogyny a hate crime... allot of the things that ‘feminists’ appear to have forgotten whilst fighting this overly inflated and exaggerated enemy.

If that doesn’t make me a feminist, but laughing at trans rememberance days, or berating a tv show about a battle trans people face does, then it’s certianly not me that has my head buried in the sand.

Earlywalker, how can you be a feminist if you don't know what a woman is?

I fight for woman’s issues, that many women actually face. Like fundraising for rape crisis centres, donating to refuges, running for breast cancer awarness, attending stand up for woman marches, white ribbon day, petitioning for making misogyny a hate crime... allot of the things that ‘feminists’ appear to have forgotten

How do you know? That's a massive assumption to make based on no evidence whatsoever.

fighting this overly inflated and exaggerated enemy.

The "enemy" is the obliteration of women's right to self-define and to have spaces safe from men.

or to be told I’m not one because I don’t want to exclude trans people at every opportunity

Ive said eleventy billion times on here that i dont want to exclude trans peoole at every opportunity and no one has said im not a feminist

Are you sure its this bit thats causing the problem?

Ive a memory like a sieve so i cant remember what anyone posts!

woman = womb haver

well yes

I think the point here is that if it's not biology that defines what a woman is then it's stereotypes isn't it?

Or Earlywalker, can you define what a woman is without resorting to biology or stereotypes?

If you can I would genuinely (no snideyness here) love to hear it

In terms of what makes a ‘women’ I think traditional feminists would have completely dismissed this question many years ago, as what a woman should traditionally be is what we’ve been fighting against for a long time.

Gender is tradition. Sex is fact. You are fighting for the right for men to identify as women because they they want to occupy traditionally female gender roles.

You don't need 'permission' to call yourself a feminist. It's always useful to define terms, though. For example, your quote here

woman’s issues, that many women actually face. Like fundraising for rape crisis centres, donating to refuges, running for breast cancer awarness, attending stand up for woman marches, white ribbon day, petitioning for making misogyny a hate crime... allot of the things that ‘feminists’ appear to have forgotten whilst fighting this overly inflated and exaggerated enemy.

Is an interesting one given that the issues you mention largely rest on the reality of female biology, which elsewhere in your post you dismissed as pretty irrelevant.

And, given that Jean Hatchett rides in memory of women murdered by men and raises money for a woman's charity in the process, which a large number of women here have donated to, your flimsy accusation doesn't really hold much water, does it?

Perhaps you'd like another go?

Woman = womb haver = child bearer = breastfeeder or whatever, it’s misogony at its best.

This is a misrepresentation of gender critical and radical feminism.

GC and radical feminists are not saying that the only thing a woman is is a “womb haver” or “child bearer” as if that is the only things women are good for.

GC and radical feminists are saying that the only thing that all women have in common is their reproductive class. That’s it. There’s no one way to dress or act or be that makes someone a woman, because women look and act many different ways.

GC and radical feminists know that women are human beings who happen to be born with female bodies, not collections of stereotypes that a particular society has deemed “feminine.”

Woman = womb haver = child bearer = breastfeeder or whatever, it’s misogony at its best

That isn't misogyny, it's fact, and the unavoidable consequence of that fact is that women have been prevented from participating fully in society for centuries. By recognising the impact of female biology we see what happens in societies where women don't have access to birth control, where they can be physically dominated by men. Women become the possession of men and are prevented from having access to education, economic independence and rights over their own bodies.

You cannot recognise the particular problems faced by any group if you cannot identify who they are.

How can you be a feminist if you can't define what female means?

GC and radical feminists are saying that the only thing that all women have in common is their reproductive class. That’s it. There’s no one way to dress or act or be that makes someone a woman, because women look and act many different ways.

GC and radical feminists know that women are human beings who happen to be born with female bodies, not collections of stereotypes that a particular society has deemed “feminine.”

Correct.

At a very basic level, I can't campaign to save the whale if I can't explain what a whale is or why it needs saving.

Personally as a feminist I want my biology to be respected rather than abused whilst at the same time asking that no other assumptions are made about me. So biologybis fundamental to my definition of woman.

It’s not one or the other. Gosh I am greedy

I'm really fed up with people deciding that because the only difference between men and women is biology, acknowledging that means they think women are good for nothing except producing babies.

I mean, think. How can radical feminism be misogynistic. How can understanding that secondary sex characteristics are what a woman has, means that's all they're good for?

It's lazy, dim or deliberate.

I vote Deliberate

I really thought we might have someone who'd stick around and explain it, rather than throw insults and leave

ultimately it was the inability of trans activists to engage in debate that convinced me of how utterly wrong they are

I can’t ‘save the whale without knowing what the whale is’ it does not matter to me if a man or woman is raped, what matters is that person has help and support afterwards, whether a man or woman is escaping domestic violance - I just want to know their children will have a warm bed and support them.
Yes most of the issues I try and do my part for are woman’s issues, partly because I’m a feminist, party because I’ve been there.

However this whole ‘define a woman’ thing makes no sense to me, if someone is suffering I do not care what sex they are or wish to be, I care that they are helped.

The only time I would care about biological sex is sporting and prisons (of which I would always campaign for a third space) if that was what this was about, and even toilets as well then I’d be right there with you all (as would most people) but it really is not. The majority of you just want to shut down trans people at every turn and to say you cannot be a feminist if you do not participate is beyond comprehension.

Women have VAGINAS. Oh, and CLITORISES. Clitori?
I dunno. I have no education but I do know that some lovely person posted a picture of a clitoris on here and it was amazing. Made me love it all the more.
It's fuck all to do with being fertile or having a working reproductive system.

Women have vaginas. And a rather fabulous clitorus. Men don't. It's fairly simple.

if someone is suffering I do not care what sex they are or wish to be

what about if you're campaigning for an end to their oppression?

wouldn't it be good to have a full understanding of the basis of their oppression?

Earlywalker, do you accept that women as a class are oppressed?

what do you think the basis of that oppression is?