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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

I was one of the transactivists on the channel 4 documentary, I regret what I did — this is why

628 replies

OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon · 25/11/2018 09:34

medium.com/@Betsulimo/i-was-one-of-the-transactivists-on-the-channel-4-documentary-i-regret-what-i-did-this-is-why-7e12350ab6d3

Someone who was filmed trying to stop the “we need to talk” session now thinks they were wrong for attempting to shut down debate and realises that they were intimidating women

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
hackmum · 26/11/2018 18:12

Wow, I've just gone back to look and there is at least one good comment:

'Indeed, it is curious that women who talk about their safety are castigated as "as bad as the Nazis". Yet women who talk about their safety have never, as far as I'm aware, physically harmed, hurt or attacked a single individual - far less committed mass murder and genocide.

'Meanwhile, the actual transphobic men (and they are all men) who DO attack and even kill transwomen get a free pass. They are not called Nazis. Only women who fear for their own safety are called Nazis.'

I wonder if that was one of us? Only a few months ago, a comment like that would not have got through.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 26/11/2018 18:26

I couldn’t be bother to wade through the usual hot treacle that is the gruniard comments.

I’m sure I did see a few little gems that had the Mumsnet tone on a few posts!

NotTerfNorCis · 26/11/2018 18:31

I've been on and debated, and it actually went quite well. Pleased to see I'm getting far more upvotes than my TRA opponent. Unfortunately it cut off at six and the other person got the last word. What I would've liked to add was:

You say feminists have no right to tell trans people how they can define themselves. But by defining themselves as women and making that definition mainstream, they have changed the definition of woman for everyone. It no longer means biology, it's an identity that transcends biology - and in that case what have they signed us up for?

OldCrone · 26/11/2018 18:45

Can people post here what the Guardian are suppressing so there's a record?

I managed to post a few comments before they closed. Three have stayed up, the rest were deleted.

This is what I said in the deleted ones (as far as I can remember).

The term cis is unnecessary, since transwomen and women are two different groups of people. The first time I posted this it got through the pre-moderation but was subsequently deleted. The second time the moderators zapped it.

Someone had been asked whether humans can change sex. Their reply was intersex blah blah intersex. I asked them whether a male (XY chromosomes, not intersex) could change sex to become female (XX chromosomes).

In response to someone who said that women objected to 'cis' because we were privileged, I asked whether they really thought that people born female were more privileged than people born male.

I can see why they censored the TWANW ones, but I don't know what was wrong with the others.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 26/11/2018 18:49

for the Guardian to pick up on this so quickly when they wouldn't touch the original incident is a tad suspicious I will grant you

This^ How often does the Guardian reprint random blogs. This isn't a grassroots apology, this is organised astroturfing.

pachyderm · 26/11/2018 18:58

Ooh my comment did get through and has loads of likes! twirls

For privacy reasons I won't repeat it here but I'm pleased.

Floisme · 26/11/2018 19:01

I'm also a bit surprised that Esther doesn't seem to be getting a hammering by TRAs on their Twitter account for their 'treachery'. Or is it happening somewhere else and I've missed it?

That said, I maintain that this is what a peace move is going to look like: churlish and awkward and with a whiff of insincerity. No-one's going to call us up and go, 'Oh my god, we were so wrong.'

And I keep coming back to the fact that both Julie Bindel and Heather Brunskell Evans, who were on the receiving end of this, appear to have responded positively, if cautiously.

FFSFFSFFS · 26/11/2018 19:04

Hmmmm - lots of comments about how brave and stunning the person who was incorrectly assigned male at birth is for the stunning insight that violently threatening women is actually not really a nice thing to do.

Someone give that person incorrectly assigned male at birth a round of applause.

Almondcandle · 26/11/2018 19:11

Flo, posters come on here all the time who used to support the TRA position and now say they were wrong.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 26/11/2018 19:11

I'm also a bit surprised that Esther doesn't seem to be getting a hammering by TRAs on their Twitter account for their 'treachery

You are assuming this isn't a planned act to improve the public profile of TRAs...

RepealTheGRA · 26/11/2018 19:16

You are assuming this isn't a planned act to improve the public profile of TRAs...

Grin
Floisme · 26/11/2018 19:17

Yes I've been on these boards for some time and I've seen the tactic before - in fact the poster who finally pushed me into picking a side used it. And I'm not assuming anything, very much the opposite - I'm weighing it all up.

R0wantrees · 26/11/2018 19:20

And I keep coming back to the fact that both Julie Bindel and Heather Brunskell Evans, who were on the receiving end of this, appear to have responded positively, if cautiously.

JB's focus is elsewhere

Julie Bindel's article in Spectator USA today
'Meghan Murphy, Twitter and the new trans misogyny
A Canadian feminist journalist is the latest casualty of the transphobia crusade'
"I woke up this morning to a private message on Twitter from a young student. She had been warned that her account would be suspended if she ‘violated the rules’ again. Her crime? Tweeting details of Sheila Jeffreys’s book, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism. Refusing to accept the mantra ‘Trans women are women’ is, in the eyes of many now, a crime, for which there must be punishment. Everyone from massive corporate social media machines to well-meaning liberals seem to be toeing the line.

But some of us resist. Meghan Murphy for example, a Vancouver-based feminist journalist, has been permanently banned from Twitter for referring to a man who identifies as a woman as a man." (continues)

concludes:
In tweeting about this case, Murphy referred to Yaniv as ‘he’. For this, she has now lost her account, and with it, the potential to promote both her paid work, and her feminist activism on Twitter.

Recently it transpired that so-called ‘deadnaming’ – referring to a previous name of a trans person – is also banned.

If deadnaming becomes officially illegal where the trans Taliban have influence – which appears to be pretty much everywhere except perhaps the Galápagos Islands – it will be perfectly legal for dangerous male sex offenders to hide their previous identity, and, in turn, apply for jobs and voluntary posts with vulnerable groups. There have been a number of cases where men who identify as women and who have committed crimes while using the threat of reporting ‘deadnamers’ to hide their past.

What has happened to Murphy will act as a deterrent to other feminists to speak out against this horror-show. The transgender extremists are the new misogynistic men’s rights movement. So-called progressive men are telling us we have to accept a dude as a woman, or we will be damned by history. I warned feminists this would happen back in 2004 when the trans Taliban first came after me after I wrote a feminist critique of trans ideology, but most were too scared or cowardly to speak out. Now is the time for us all to get brave, join forces, and shout out, ‘Enough is enough’.

spectator.us/twitter-trans-meghan-murphy/

Floisme · 26/11/2018 19:27

Julie Bindel retweeted Esther's article and I've also seen her on Esther's twitter feed - I can't find it now but the gist of it was that she (Bindel) was willing to meet up and chat. It's an acknowledgement, nothing further (no hugs!) but she did respond.

R0wantrees · 26/11/2018 19:28

It doesn't surpise me Flo

Floisme · 26/11/2018 19:33

So has there been a reaction anywhere else on Twitter that I've missed? Because if TRAs are keeping silent then I concede that's the most suspicious thing of all.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 26/11/2018 19:50

It has occurred to me that a male bodied person who states that they have been put on this earth in the ‘wrong’ body (kind of weird - are souls/essences/life forces sexed?) are cooed over and patties and stroked, ‘aren’t you brave, baby? This is the biggest tragedy in the world! Oh yes it is, isn’t it darling?’ And they appear to love it. Lap it up, more retweets and hearts.

A person who you may say really was given a rum deal - maybe were born with one eye, with muscular distrophy, or with a leg missing - any of the above treatment and you wouldn’t lap it up like a cat at the cream - but be more likely to punch them on the nose and tell them to fuck off.

Manderleyagain · 26/11/2018 19:55

I saw Esther saying she was surprised people on her 'side' were not sharing the blog, only radfems.

AspieAndProud · 26/11/2018 20:01

A person who you may say really was given a rum deal - maybe were born with one eye, with muscular distrophy, or with a leg missing - any of the above treatment and you wouldn’t lap it up like a cat at the cream - but be more likely to punch them on the nose and tell them to fuck off.

I’d agree. Anybody who patronised me in that way would get a slap. I’m not some exotic pet.

TimeLady · 26/11/2018 20:07

Has Dr Haddock castigated dear Esther? If not, why not?

AngryAttackKittens · 26/11/2018 20:07

This^ How often does the Guardian reprint random blogs. This isn't a grassroots apology, this is organised astroturfing.

Yep. Call me cynical if you like, but this is not a group of people unfamiliar with how to spin things in the media who we're talking about.

I hug lots of people. I will not be hugging any males whose hobby is or was bullying and intimidating women, especially not about 30 seconds after they've said "hmm, maybe scaring the shit out of women my mum's age is bad?" as if that was some sort of cosmic revelation. Time will tell if actual change has happened.

The Guardian's anti-debate comment policy is a bit comical at this point. So they interpret a comment saying "it's not trans people I'm worried about, it's the random blokes who'll take advantage" as an attack on trans people? Either they have itchy delete button fingers or a subtextual analysis of all the stuff going on there would reveal attitudes that aren't as pro-trans as they'd like everyone to assume.

AspieAndProud · 26/11/2018 20:17

I’m not giving The Guardian the clicks. Tempting as it is to comment they have total control over what gets allowed. I just want the paper gone.

Katvonblackdeath · 26/11/2018 21:11

T*rf blocker got amusingly paranoid for a bit there. No we didn't invent Esther, you ridiculous erm man? (Terfblocker doesn't list their sex so I'm making a wild guess at it)

I was one of the transactivists on the channel 4 documentary, I regret what I did — this is why
I was one of the transactivists on the channel 4 documentary, I regret what I did — this is why
I was one of the transactivists on the channel 4 documentary, I regret what I did — this is why
Beagadorsrock · 26/11/2018 21:11

I commented, it stayed and got 'liked'. No-one answered, but then it was really mumsnetty (or rational, in other words).

I noticed that there were only a few recurring/persistent TRAs, which makes me hopeful. They were of course recycling the old favourites, the 'feminists are just as bad on MN and Twitter' and 'they use {all sort of offensive terms I have NEVER seen on MN}'. But I also noted that there was no claim of 'literal erasure'/'denying their existence' etc, which really makes my teeth ache it's so stupid.

on the other hand, I did notice the lack of antagonism from their side, which makes me very Hmm

Beagadorsrock · 26/11/2018 21:15

Txxf blocker got amusingly paranoid for a bit there.

I wouldn't put it past them for this to be their response (disinformation) to the suspicions on here. They know we read, we know they read. It's all very cold-war.

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