That it's not just what you say, it's also how much you talk about it.

[NicolaHare]

Surprise, another trans thread! But the dynamics of online spaces fascinates me.

Take MWR. Some stats. Feminism Chat has been active since 2010. At this moment 364 pages of threads have been generated. 144 of those pages contain threads that were created or active since January this year. At the beginning of 2018 a significant portion of threads were trans themed and these threads tended to contain the most posts, and the board has only grown more fixated with the topic since then. You have to go quite a ways back to find a page of threads that isn’t 90-95% to do with trans people.

Nowhere else on the site is so obsessed. For example: on the LGBT themed boards you only have to go back 1 or 2 pages to find threads from 2017 and earlier. There aren’t any trans threads in the 1 and a fraction page of threads from 2018 on the politics board. There are, I think, about 2 in the half dozen pages of threads from this year in the currents affairs and news forum. And in 2018, all the education forums combined have generated about 5 trans threads.

This is weird, right? Why is a general feminism board with an overwhelmingly non trans userbase so fixated on a group of people they don't belong to and the issues surrounding them? It would be weird regardless of what anyone in any thread had to say on the subject.

Not surprising, though. Trans sceptical feminism ironically almost always ends up focusing on the transgender question to the exclusion of all other topics that its proponents believe that trans inclusive feminisms are neglecting, and so neglects them to an even greater degree. Honestly, I’m sceptical that they are being neglected at all: it seems to me that conversations about pregnancy, menstruation ect are happening in public view at far greater volume than ever before, taboos surrounding bodily functions are increasingly discarded by the discourse and pop culture, and that when we talk about erasure we’re actually quibbling about terminology, the trappings of language and not the substance of the conversation. To assign a motivation to the common theme on feminism chat of “We are being silenced elsewhere!” a significant part of it might be the catharsis of imagined persecution. “We are saying the truths THEY don’t want you to hear! We are rebels!”

(This interview with a former gender critical trans woman is worth reading. It’s American and several years old, but it describes the many of the other toxic intellectual cul-de-sacs you can observe in MWR. www.transadvocate.com/is-sadism-popular-with-terfs-a-chat-with-an-ex-gendercrit_n_18568.htm)

But to set aside the discussion of substance. Do you think that the mere volume of trans threads in feminism chat is indicative of a kind of transphobia? If it were a forum of straight people talking about nothing but same sex attracted people, even if what they had to say was positive would we not be inclined to see in it's users a troubling insecurity with regards to queerness. If it were a forum of white people talking about nothing but people of colour in the most effusive terms, would we take this at face value or would we assign sinister motives (as the resonance of Get Out suggests many would)?

You say that sex, sex is the thing, and it is immutable. And that's as maybe. But we should also grant that it is obfuscated by the artifice of gender.

Sex really, really isn't obfuscated by anything. Sex is objective. Material. Verifiable. Not possible to obfuscate or change even if we wanted to.

Social justice aikido The aggression and posturing perfectly expressed.

Don't you think that the "rigid enforcement of gender roles" has something to do with why many of these people feel they can't express themselves how they want to?

Or it's a fetish.

The extent to which a generation is obsessed with image is staggering. Its not simply about what they wear, its also about what they say and the way they say it.

There is a belief that to be intellectual you have to say things in a particular language style.

That's fashion. That's not being clever.

what is a flat earth inclusive definition of maritime law that you would accept?

Where you look down and can see the turtle?

Reconsider definitions when you get there.

Doesn’t really work for theblaw and medicine.

You can’t really believe that you are providing evidence for innate gender principles by saying lady Macbeth was played by men. It was illegal!

Although it does explain a little why the OP seems so confused.

There are properly clever, properly laugh-out-loud funny women here. No wonder the place gets up so many noses!

True intelligence is making the complex easy and appealing. It’s the sign of an intellect in crisis to take the simple and try to dress it up in fancy words and make it hard to understand.

I think in order to be really sure the turtle has to wave its foot at you.

i’m supposed to be working

yeah me too

I managed to stay away from MN during working hours for most of last week and was amazed at my productivity

It’s the sign of an intellect in crisis to take the simple and try to dress it up in fancy words and make it hard to understand.

I always kind of want to ask them if it's me they're trying to convince or themselves.

Clever people swear more.

I saw a study on it.

I managed to stay away from MN during working hours for most of last week and was amazed at my productivity

"Anyway, I have stated why I think the earth is flat. You have all responded with intractable skepticism, and also piss-taking. So I pose the question: what is a flat earth inclusive definition of maritime law that you would accept?"

Yup.

What is a trans inclusive model of womanhood that you would accept?

Tr: How can I get you you to let penis people in places it's not appropriate for them to be?

Because, tbh, I couldn't really really care less if Genderists want to push their grand religion somewhere and let it compete in the old marketplace of ideas. I'll speak out against it's errors and lies where it 'intersects' with the lives, rights, freedoms and liberation of women and kids.

I don't have to come up with a definition of woman that includes penis bearers - you want to change something, the onus is on you to explain yourself.

How can I get you you to let penis people in places it's not appropriate for them to be?

OP, is that what you're after?

Your assumption that gender nonconformity means GC people want masculine women and feminine men as an end goal is where your misunderstanding shows most clearly - I reject the arbitrary category 'masculine' and 'feminine'. I don't want you to look at a woman and think she is 'masculine' at all, because your Genderist thinking has already enforced certain arbitrary things into a binary which I reject.

This sounds like a potentially useful philosophy. I'd welcome a trans indifferent feminism along these lines into the world. I'm not sure how feminists that claims this aim and then spends all their time talking in circles about the transgender question help anyone though; except the forces of backlash that really like to appropriate the talking points of these gender critical feminists, almost certainly not with an end of gender abolition in mind.

rewire.news/article/2017/02/21/trans-lives-depend-resisting-unlikely-partnerships/

When embarrassed, change the subject! Meanwhile, the women here are on average so GNC a group that one of our non GC regulars likes to scold them about it.

I mean, if you're going to argue against radical feminism at least figure out what it is...

So set no limits. Shoot for the stars. Hit the moon.

It's not even 10am on a cold and rainy Wednesday. I've no interest in space travel. Like every woman I know I'm pretty well grounded and pragmatic. But perhaps that's the problem, an inability to subscribe to unicorn theory? I'm not much of a magical thinker.

Sorry but I can't get through Nicola's posts.
I've had 2 coffees, am wearing my glasses, I've even taken a vitamin c this morning, but every time I try to concentrate I end up doing the 'thousand yard stare' face.

that claims this aim and then spends all their time talking in circles about the transgender question

Ah the beauty of projection.
You know, repeatedly stating that you have provided, say, some definition without ever providing it while having the very undefined word as the primary topic of debate is the mother of talking in circles.

Reminder: If it ain't noncircular AND objectifyable, it ain't no definition.

^

Nope she's hanging on until the bitter end!

I've had 2 coffees, am wearing my glasses, I've even taken a vitamin c this morning, but every time I try to concentrate I end up doing the 'thousand yard stare' face.

Your subconscious knows that there's probably a Butler quote coming up soon and is trying to protect you from the inevitable migraines.

Hi NicolaHare, I'd be really interested to hear your answer to my two questions - it would be great if you could engage :

Could you give some examples of traits that will help me to identify people with a masculine or feminine gender?

you say I'd also argue that there is a political utility to gender as I define it

what is the political usefulness of gender please?

An explanation of gender as you define it would also be very helpful here

This sounds like a potentially useful philosophy. I'd welcome a trans indifferent feminism along these lines into the world. I'm not sure how feminists that claims this aim and then spends all their time talking in circles about the transgender question help anyone though

Good grief. The feminists here have been talking about the negative impact of Genderist thinking for ever. I haven't made up a new philosophy out of thin air. This is what we have all be saying, and the reason why we are resistant to the trans narrative is because it relies solely on Genderist definitions which are what oppress us.

If you have half the intellect you appear to think you have, then I recommend you actually spent some time reading the threads here instead of carping about us in AIBU, because no one here is an anti-trans feminist, and as I keep bloody saying, the only reason trans is a big topic here right now is because it is challenging the basis of women's rights and protections

I think the question isn't so much whether OPs definition of gender is useful as who it's useful to.

It's proven to be very useful indeed to individuals like the person suing 16 different women in Canada for refusing to wax their balls, and may yet prove to be so useful that the person in question's documented history of troubling behavior towards underage girls isn't taken into account at all in how those cases play out.

What is a trans inclusive model of womanhood that you would accept?
There is no ‘womanhood’, just women.

The important thing is to be included as a human. That isn’t possible if you can’t recognise that different groups of people have different needs. Again, it’s why I can’t ‘identify’ as needing a blue badge for my car.

The 144 pages of trans threads since January is verifiable too. And this board looks to be on track to generate at least 150 more by this time next year. I'll be long gone. Some of you still won't be, and you'll be telling yourselves that this really is a useful and radical feminist project. Maybe time will prove me wrong. But if it doesn't, would you reconsider, in the light of this hypothetical, my point that the volume of trans threads on this board suggests a kind of transphobia.