This is a fundamental clash of rights. And only by the outraged efforts of women at the grassroots and a few brave journalists and basically one MP, has this been very slowly coming into the public consciousness. Still hardly anyone outside of MN has heard about this, yet it affects all women. And people want us to shut up about that?
Why would anyone of good intention want women to shut up about issues that affect women? I mean...throughout history, when has that never not taken a dark and nasty path against women...?
It’s authoritarian and disingenuous for trans activists (who do not represent all trans people) to try to (no debate allowed) force (by threat of police involvement, sanction by dissenting individuals’ employers or by social ostracism of dissenting individuals) a group (‘women’) to mean by their collective word, something new (ie to convey only a set of gendered stereotypes- particularly when many women suffer every day from the application of these very same stereotypes to their lives).
Women self-describing as women are using a time-honoured and commonly understood, biologically objective sex-based word for themselves.
Why should we accept a change to that against our will? There is nothing wrong or transphobic with describing transwomen as transwomen, a subcategory of men. Same as transmen are rightly described as transmen, a subcategory of women. Transmen remain welcome in women’s spaces.
Forced language should be a massive red flag. As PP say it has massive practical consequences which many women would not agree with and indeed as Stork shows, which have life-restricting consequences for women affected by them.
It’s obviously not OK for transactivists to be hounding people who peacefully have a difference of opinion, as Stork illustrates.
Yet this bullying behaviour goes on and eg the major charities who promote this political dogma do not call for a free exchange of peacefully-expressed views, which is the opportunity that women have been asking for.
Instead there are false claims that ‘the right for trans people to exist’ is somehow equivalent to ‘the need to be validated by being allowed into women’s spaces and subsumed into the category of women without question’. Which are not at all the same thing and which betrays a hyper-individualistic authoritarian agenda which pretends that a clash of rights is not happening.
This denies the obvious problems for women’s freedom of speech and association, privacy and dignity in single-sex spaces, services, education, sports, awards and opportunities and public services such as prisons and domestic violence support services.
Women just want to start with an open debate: eg for example via this petition to a major UK LBGT rights campaigning charity, Stonewall:
petition launched calling on Stonewall to:
- Acknowledge that there are a range of valid viewpoints around sex, gender and transgender politics.
- Acknowledge specifically the conflict that exists between transgenderism and sex-based women’s rights.
- Commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate, rather than demonising as transphobic those who wish to discuss or dissent from Stonewall’s current policies
^Link here: www.ipetitions.com/petition/dear-stonewall-please-reconsider-your-approach^
Now look at a response from Stonewall: showing a complete brush-off of the problem and reiterating that calling for debate is in itself offensive:
www.stonewall.org.uk/stonewall-stories-category/come-out-lgbt/our-work-trans-equality-heart-our-mission-acceptance
The critique, (that this dogma is both sexist and homophobic)- is simply not responded to by those working to change public policy and the law to erase the category of biological sex, to retain the labels for biological sex with an altered meaning: in favour of categories of femininity and masculinity. Harmful concepts that get used against women (and men) all the time.
This avoidance of examination and debate is why women need to talk about this wherever they can- including on MN which lets us talk anonymously.
We’re not going to shut up when we can see sexism and homophobia being promoted in plain sight.