Courting the far right is wrong....

[OneTimeThing]

...if you follow that with a ‘but’ to justify Posie Parker’s courting of the far right, then you are a fascist.

I said I would only post one thing on this board. I kept that promise.

But this is the pits right here. Posie Parker is seeking funding and making deals with white supremacist, crypto fascists, misogynists, homophobes and racists. How does this not show you what your movement is and has always been?

You need to look at yourselves. If your response is anything other than total rejection of posie Parker and all the groups she is involving herself with, then you are just as bad. If you think that trans people/‘trans activists’ are worse than Tommy Robinson, ultra trump supporters and others who spew far right views then you are a racist, sexist, homophobic nightmare. Those labels equally describe what a person is as well as what a person does.

“But what about TRA’s?” Some of you will want to scream at me.

You don’t see Paris Lees going off to get funding from literal fascists. Hell, Caitlin Jenner votes for trump and the global trans community has never and will never forgive her. And either way, none of what “they” do will magically make it okay to go suck up to people that think gay people should be sterilised or that Muslim’s are evil.

Transphobia is revolting. It’s wrong, and it comes as no surprise to hear that transphobia (which most of you peddle right here) will eventually push people towards other kinds of hate.

Take a long hard look at yourselves. I’m a transgender woman, a mum, and I hope at least some of you are seriously thinking about what kind of person you want to be.

Hugh Hefner was one of the bestest feminists that ever was, since he was supportive of abortion sex without consequence for men.

If your penis smells that bad you really should see a doctor.

Is a handbook coming out with some of this, it seems like it would be handy...

I agree.

Just jumping in to state, in case anyone doesn't know, that Hillary Clinton's VP running mate in 2016, Tim Kaine, was pro-life.

I presume therefore that under the standards we're all to adhere to, Hillary Clinton cannot speak regarding feminism?

I wouldn't agree with them, but I can easily see how someone could be opposed to abortion (especially considering how broad a range of views that opposition could take) and still consider themselves a feminist.

I find it amusing that you are saying wonen on this thread are not feminists because they don't seek to silence other women.

Baffling

I think the major error is your presumption that we can work only with feminists against self-ID. Feminists alone simply don't make up the numbers to defeat self-ID. In order for us to succeed, we must absolutely be willing to work, on this narrow issue, with women (and men) who do not identify as feminists.

[sprays Zoflora on keyboard]

What's quite clear to me is that Posie Parker is very effective. Otherwise she wouldn't trigger this DefCon 1 level of attack -- she is after all only that most scorned of creatures, a middle-class housewife, yes?

sprays Zoflora on keyboard

Yep, that's done the trick.
Thanks hipster

I’m curious about someone who states they care so deeply about woman, they wouldn’t want to risk the small chance of an abusive transwoman in their toilet, but not enough about them to protect the 1 in 3 woman who do have abortions, right to do so.

You seem to have a very simplistic view of the world, Earlywalker. Where has anyone said this? (Apart from you saying it, of course)

The world is complex. The chances of anyone finding another person who agrees with them on every single issue is small. I don't know about you, but every time I vote, I look at what each party/candidate represents, and choose the one which most closely aligns with my views on what I consider the most important issues at the time. It's always a compromise.

For me, at the moment, gender identity ideology is the most important issue to fight. I happen to be on the same side as some conservatives for this battle. That doesn't mean I agree with them on anything else.

FlyingOink
Maybe a more balanced view (completely missing point of thread but the pedant in me can’t help it)
news.stanford.edu/2015/09/09/sanskrit-mughal-empire-090915/

I used to enjoy the debate on mumsnet, different views all being shared in a respectful way. Now it’s so strange, like youre so paranoid it’s an attack on your rights or a TRA infiltration you won’t discuss anything.

Gather round, children just now entering GC World, this is your teacher Mr Tumnus speaking. This, kids, is what we call "projection". I know it's very funny, but here's why it can be a problem...

Women are women, and men are men..
I'd suggest people don't go telling women what to think and do because it may reflect badly on them! Who the hell are you to tell a woman how to think???!!!

I used to enjoy the debate on mumsnet, different views all being shared in a respectful way. Now it’s so strange, like youre so paranoid it’s an attack on your rights or a TRA infiltration you won’t discuss anything.

Indeed, feminists are famous for their #nodebate. On any given day on here you'll find everyone blindly agreeing with the latest edict from Chairwoman Parker and absolutely no criticism or discussion of any kind.

I stand by my comment that there is no place in feminism for people who think they get to decide what a woman does with her body. It directly goes against what feminism stands for. There’s churches and mosques and cults for that kind of stuff, it has no place within woman’s rights movements.

I don't think Posie is spearheading a campaign for women's rights generally tho. She's not on some mission to talk about feminism. She's all about free speech and not banning women from twitter and Facebook.

That's why she's protesting outside their offices.

She's vehemently opposed to a biological truth being made taboo.

Support for that will include people who aren't remotely feminist.

Ok, this thread is moving so fast that my reference is a few pages back now, but I promised to transcribe part of Kaeley Triller Haver's talk last year from the Hands Across the Aisle panel, so here it is (in the cause of 'why on earth would you listen to a conservative Christian woman? she must be speaking out of sheer bigotry! there are no possible overlapping points of concern! bad feminist for listening!):

I’m just going to start right in the heart of the matter for me: as a little girl something that I was told quite often through tears was that if I did not compromise my personal space and my boundaries I was somehow being unloving , and that if I did not allow my abuser to do whatever he wanted, ah, he might not be ok.

That is something that way too many little girls across the entire country have to deal with. That is something that takes years and years of your life to overcome. And I remember, um. becoming very very particular about who got to see me in my private spaces; as a college athlete I still showered in my underwear. That’s what that does to girls.

And it’s something that I made tremendous headway on. Until I found myself, um, working for the YMCA of [redacted] counties as a communications director. This was way before anybody was talking about bathrooms or locker rooms in the, in the country. They decided to impose a new policy and they wanted me to draft the talking points for it. And when they told me that they were going to open up their locker rooms on the basis of gender identity, I found myself forced into a battle I had no idea even existed.

And when I went to my boss and explained why I thought this was a bad idea, because as somebody who had worked for the Y for seventeen years, um, I was hyper vigilant about our locker rooms. I would regularly conduct sex offender screenings to make sure that nobody was accessing our members, and every single time that I would run one of these screenings I would find somebody who had infiltrated the systems, because that’s what predators do; they prey and they seek opportunity.

And I recognized that this new policy that they were asking us to embrace and adopt was basically the equivalent of rolling out a welcome mat for any man who decided that he wanted to come in and access our spaces. I have sat and reviewed hours of video surveillance footage after it’s been too late already. I KNOW what happens in those locker rooms. Seventeen years of that, um...

But when I told my boss all these concerns once again I was met with that same tired narrative: You know, Kaeley, any time I find myself feeling the way you’re feeling right now I convince myself I’m being closed-minded, um, and you know this is the loving thing to do.

How did I know you would be someone with male biology? Sorry but this isn't going to help your case. GC women are concerned about womens rights and we won't be backing down until this is addressed.

I’m curious - Do you think Christians and feminists may have different reasons for the exclusion of trans people?

Earlywalker, Christian women are women.

Another quote from Kaeley Triller Haver, GrinitchSpinach

expressed my experience as a survivor of sexual trauma. My abuser liked to watch me in the shower and laugh, and so I was keenly aware of what happens in our locker rooms,

I'd say most of us US feminists know exactly what the Heritage Foundation is so those posting about it aren't telling us anything we don't already know. I don't know what this women's other views are but I absolutely stand with her on this. How could any reasonable person with a tiny bit of empathy not see where she's coming from?

That's what confuses and apparently angers TRAs, that they can see a conservative Christian straight woman like Triller Haver sharing a painful experience and a much more liberal Jewish lesbian like Ben Shalom responding with empathy and offering comfort. It's a shared experience between women that men stand outside and can never share, and attempting to force themselves into that dynamic just makes the fact that they're not a natural part of that circle of understanding between women at all more obvious. Hand Across The Aisle must be stopped because it demonstrates the fact that women really are an actual demographic that share things with each other and can potentially act in solidarity with each other.

If the TRAs has started campaigning for anti-abortions, or aligned themselves with religious organisations.. you’d be discussing it

Being anti-abortion or religious is not beyond the pale for me.

However I think it’s possible to make a comparison with anti-semitism in the Labour Party. Many members and MPs disagree with the way this has been handled and have been vocal in their disapproval. On the other hand it doesn’t therefore follow that they will or should join the Conservatives.

I agree that in the current tribal political system an argument is often made that people should swap teams because so and so has said or done something awful.

However, that argument only makes sense if you don’t think an opinion is sincerely held.

Perhaps that is sometimes true, but what makes you think that people who are GC don’t truly believe what they say they believe?

but not enough about them to protect the 1 in 3 woman who do have abortions, right to do so.

When/if the uk starts to talk about making abortion legal, or about restricting access to it, I’ll be right there giving my opinion and fighting for access to be preserved and abortion fully legalised.

However the issue that’s on the table NOW, and the attack on women’s rights NOW is self ID, the change of language use to deny women being able to define themselves and the issues that stem from that.

So that’s what I’m fighting. And as that affects all women, I won’t be surprised if women who have many different views on abortion, religion etc are fighting too. Because we are all women. The idea that Christian women or women of any other religion have no say in feminism is plain wrong.

And I think it suits certain factions to push that idea, because my goodness if all the women in the world stood together, just imagine what kind of things we could achieve. Divide, and conquer

I love this thread, it's so insightful and brilliant.
"This person has a different opinion to you"
"So"
"They need to be shunned and cast out as leader"
"Huh, leader? Shunned why"
"They have a different opinion to you, now fight amongst yourselves"
"so?"
"Internet people will never like you because of it, you will never be popular girls, look at what your leader has done"

And repeat.

I stand by my comment that there is no place in feminism for people who think they get to decide what a woman does with her body. It directly goes against what feminism stands for. There’s churches and mosques and cults for that kind of stuff, it has no place within woman’s rights movements.

That view is very useful for anyone who wants to persuade the many religious women in the world that standing up for your rights means aligning with baby killers.