Guardian "What does it mean to be a woman? it is not just about femininity.

[merrymouse]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/02/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-woman-it-is-not-just-about-femininity

Feel like banging head against brick wall.

No - it isn't at all about femininity. Everyone is welcome to femininity.

There’s been significant progress in dispelling the notion that (cis) people have to conform to a stereotypical “ideal” of femininity or masculinity

There was some progress in dispelling the notion that women don't have to conform to a stereotypical idea of femininity - until TRAs decided that all people had a gender, unless they agreed to identify as some variation of non-binary, thus endorsing the notion that most people fall into one of two binary categories. There has been very little progress in dispelling the notion that men can be anything other than masculine.

Having gendered norms forced upon you from birth can be an utterly traumatic experience, and I wouldn’t blame anyone who would want to remove themselves from that.

Yes. we call ourselves 'gender critical'.

If all we’re doing as a society by existing outside of conventional gender norms is splitting ourselves into three discrete, rigid categories – women, men, and non-binary people – then that doesn’t seem like enough.

Good point! Maybe lets just recognise that we are all human beings expressing our own identity and not categorise people unless it is absolutely necessary e.g. when recognising the physical consequences of being born with the kind of body that produces female gametes or the kind of body that produces male gametes.

I'm amazed that Suzanne Moore was allowed to write this in her latest Guardian column:

The trans wars rumble on: instead of seeing rights as competing, we are now told sex is a spectrum. Science is being ignored as a conspiracy against reality. Trans people should live as they like, but the issue here is male violence. I hope in 2019 we can ally and not split further. I was reminded myself of the importance of female biology as I reported from Uganda, where women have 10 kids by the age of 33 through a lack of contraception, and on a visit to Armenia, where it is common to abort female foetuses. There are so many ways to destroy women, yet sometimes its feels like the Gilead is just around the corner.

I noticed that para in Suzanne Moore's column too. I think she doesn't dare write a whole column on it but hoped to sneak that in without anyone deleting it.

I also noticed this interesting comment below the line on a recent George Monbiot column about how academics aid and abet advertisers:

"But, interestingly, I just read your comment while on Twitter looking at Graham Linehan's feed. Linehan (writer of Black Books and The It Crowd) has become somewhat infamous for engaging forcefully with trans activists online. Venture below some of his posts, and who do you find agreeing with him? Guardian commentators! People like Hadley Freeman and Suzanne Moore suddenly find their voices on a subject they studiously avoid writing about in these pages, despite each year turning out 10s of 1000s of words on pretty much every subject to trouble the mainstream of bourgeois thought or culture. Why the silence? Could it be because, on this particular subject, they don't actually subscribe to the seeming unanimity of voices telling us that trans women are women, that verbal disagreement is tantamount to physical violence, and that differing views should be rigorously censored? When it comes to this subject, the Guardian publishes pieces that exclusively express a single body of opinion, despite the fact that some of their most prominent female writers don't agree!

"What this says is that on an individual level writers and journalists have internalised the rules and regulations governing what they can and can't say. And, above that, you have editorial policies that actively work to present a consensus on subjects that are infact actively contested even by those on the gilded inside of the cage."

I was surprised that didn't get deleted by the mods. But I also wondered whether it was that little dig that prompted Moore to include that para in her column.

I would love to know if the Guardian has stopped journalists like Suzanne Moore from publishing more GC pieces. Or is it self censorship?

Found the comment, hackmum. Some interesting responses too. Let's see how long they stay up now...

I think Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman have received more abuse than most on this issue and wouldn't criticise them in any way for not speaking out. They don't control what gets published in the Guardian.

I don’t know about Suzanne Moore but Hadley Freeman has stuck her head over the parapet a few times, although I agree she mostly sticks to supporting and retweeting gender critical stuff at he moment.

Polly Toynbee interests me the most - as I recall, a regular Guardian Women contributor and good mate of Jill Tweedie back in the day, and yet I’ve not seen her say a word on the subject, even though she must surely be old enough and comfortable enough not to be worried about her career.

twitter.com/HadleyFreeman/status/1076876292140748801

Recent thread - Hadley replying to Sally Hines on all the old chestnuts e.g. If being female is just having babies aren't you saying that women who choose not to have babies aren't women?

I would love to know if the Guardian has stopped journalists like Suzanne Moore from publishing more GC pieces. Or is it self censorship?

Bit of both maybe, but I'm guessing it's more to do with G's policy. The lack of coverage on this issue is glaring.

(How can anyone be a professor in a university and not see the link between access to contraception and female independence??)

The lack of coverage on this issue is glaring.

I don't think it's so much the lack of coverage (there is plenty) as the lack of rigorous examination of the issues.

Just read that Twitter thread. Good grief what a fool of herself Sally Hines is busy making.

I don't think it's so much the lack of coverage (there is plenty) as the lack of rigorous examination of the issues.

you're right, of course there's plenty of coverage of trans issues in the Guardian, what is missing is the female/GC perspective. Having an editorial policy is one thing - erasing all comments that question the TWAW dogma is censorship.

Guardian just continues to muse upon the cut and colour of the trans emperor's clothes. He's fucking naked, Grauniad. God, I'm so bored of it all.

TW are not a sub-set of women; they are a sub-set of men.

True dat! Needs repeating again and again.

I agree those Guardian journalists are brave, and I don’t criticise them at all. All of them, all of us, calling this stuff out will eventually take us to a tipping point (helped of course by lots of TRA own goals).

Argh, that ridiculous assumption that TW suffer the same treatment as women. The VAST majority of them don't pass as women so if they are badly treated, it is more akin to homophobic abuse than sexism. Which isn't ever okay but just stop saying it's a female experience. I have a young male relative, a very camp gay man who goes full-on Priscilla Queen of the Desert some nights, in semi-drag at rather mainstream nightclubs. His family worry about him getting beaten up or worse but he does what he likes, without the slightest hint of self-pity or insistence on crashing the Ladies. Now he is brave and stunning.

Polly Toynbee is interested only in class issues.

Polly Toynbee has some previous for magical thinking - she miraculously not only got into Oxford but also got a scholarship on the basis of one solitary A level - I’m sure nothing to do with her illustrious family connections - so her talking to the working class about their lives - will not be disimilar to Men telling Women how to do being a Lady Proper

Who cares about being a woman. It's all about the soul.

twitter.com/helensaxby11/status/1079794157927972864?s=21

I’ve always steered clear of any man who puts femininity at the top of their list - and those women who have it at the top of their’s. That wonderful photo of trump and pregnant Melania comes to mind (Google annie leibovitz trump photo)

TW are not a sub-set of women; they are a sub-set of men

Yes and good to see many men out there moving beyond male sex stereotyping (‘masculinity’) and having much happier lives for it. Many of those men actively taking time to be fighting the good fight online and IRL against sexism and sex stereotyping (‘gender’) as they go because they appreciate what a shit show it is for everyone.

Not in any way OK, stunning or brave for transwomen to seek to appropriate or to colonise womens’ experiences, spaces, opportunities, safeguarding, dignity, service provision, etc etc. To demand that everyone else believe and say and legally enshrine that there is no difference between transwomen and women. That is an unacceptable erasure of women and girls with unacceptable practical consequences disadvantaging women and girls. Also a lie which non believers should not be forced to participate in via compelled speech.

TWATW and that is absolutely fine. TW are not W. TWAM. MAM.
WAW. Only W can be W. TM a subset of W.
It’s simple. (Except if you subscribe to a political/religious agenda which requires believers and non believers to assert that sex is not a human category descriptor that can be reasonably applied to some humans, or to assert that sex is real but that is is a human category phenomenon that can be changed by force of willpower.

Argh, that ridiculous assumption that TW suffer the same treatment as women. The VAST majority of them don't pass as women so if they are badly treated, it is more akin to homophobic abuse than sexism. Which isn't ever okay but just stop saying it's a female experience. I have a young male relative, a very camp gay man who goes full-on Priscilla Queen of the Desert some nights, in semi-drag at rather mainstream nightclubs. His family worry about him getting beaten up or worse but he does what he likes, without the slightest hint of self-pity or insistence on crashing the Ladies. Now he is brave and stunning.
Are old fashioned homosexuals allowed to be brave and stunning or is that now reserved for straight married men who bankrupt their families to indulge their fetish?
Certainly as a butch lesbian my experiences of being attacked in the street are far less brave than investment banker Pips Bunce wearing a pink frock to work.
Joking aside, good luck to your relative!