Hi, I'm Liz the Glitch! Ask me anything.

[glitchliz]

The thread I wrote about attending Posie Parker's panel on gender identity and social media has attracted a lot of attention, and I thought it might be good to establish more of a dialogue. Ask me anything!

Also, to get this one out of the way: my babysitting rates are £15/hr, plus flights, and I'll provide a clean CRB check 😂

Has it ever crossed your mind that tacit acceptance from women (eg olitely treating you “as a woman”) is actually not because they truly think that you are but rather is a result of female socialisation and self preservation to put male feelings first, to be kind, to de-escalate emotionally charged situations, and most of all not to challenge male bodied people?

Entirely possible. No way for me to know for sure, because I'm not telepathic, all I can go off of is their body language, their behavior, and what they tell me. In any case, that has never been the sense I've gotten, especially in my close female relationships.

We have had a number of transwomen here over the years insisting that their perception of what women think of them is more valid than what actual women here are saying. I wondered if you though the same.*

It's not connected to me being trans, unless you're suggesting that being around trans people is scary or confusing.

I would think that it's not being trans, but being male that might cause the fear/confusion.

Exactly, anne.

The “scared and confused” part is, for example, when I’m in a women’s changing room and I glance up and see a male body in there.

Bet your arse I’m scared and confused.

Also, back to this again

You say a woman is someone who identifies as a woman

Well say I'm an alien and I'm new to language,

What is a glub?

I look it up in the dictionary

'A glub is someone who identifies as a glub'

Any clearer? Of course not. What is a glub

Hi liz, thank you for this thread
It's been interesting reading your answers , but there is one question up thread that you haven't got round to answering. Basically what are your thoughts on men who are using the trans ideal to gain access to women's prisons and refuges? Men abusing the trans position and putting genuine trans women at risk. Men like Karen white who abused the trans policies put in place to gain entrance into a women prison where he went on to sexual attack other female prisoners, while on remand for rape.

Well, women with uteruses and trans men/non-binary people who have them, or had them, can absolutely band together to argue for better protections around reproductive rights, period poverty, etc. I'm not going to name that group because I'm not in it. 'Woman' isn't an accurate descriptor for that, though, and you'd also find a lot of people who never had uteruses who'd join in that fight, too

So you’d be happy if we came up with a new name and had a movement just for us and meetings that centred us and didn’t include you?

Hi -

Upthread you mentioned self ID not facilitating male violence towards women (correct me if I have misread).

But it DOES facilitate male violence towards women. Self ID will give men more access to women, easier access to women when they are most vulnerable.

I whole heartedly believe people should be able to identity and live as they like, but I do not want male bodied people in female spaces, I do not want self ID, for the simple fact that men WILL take advantage of this and use it as a way of being violent to women.

Can you understand this fear?

If you feel like you are a woman then go ahead and live your life as a woman, you have that right. But please understand the fear associated with self ID, do not fight to get into women's spaces, fight to have a third space by all means.. I wouldn't try to push you into male spaces, as I suspect you rightly might not feel safe there. Just as women do not feel safe with male bodied people in their spaces.

So classy to be harvesting the screenshots to whip up more misogynistic abuse.

This is is violent misogyny and coercive control. Stop erasing women. Stop putting women in danger. Stop hating and threatening women. That would be a start.

The only reason anyone here might hate trans people is that lots of them keep threatening to burn us, kill us, stab us, erase us. We are threatened with rape and murder. But somehow you don’t see that or excuse it and value it less than misgendering.

Do you care if women are raped in prison because they are locked up with a male rapists? Do you care if women die because they are frightened to get smears or don’t recognise that they need one because the word woman has been erased from the literature? Lots of women don’t know they have a cervix or what it is. Cervix haver is meaningless to them.

Do you care if vulnerable women are harassed and sexuaallly assaulted in hospital wards? Have you even thought about the ramifications of what you are asking in the lives of women all over the world. Especially those already living lives more oppressed than you could ever imagine.

How would you tell girls having their breasts ironed that it is a ‘cis privileged’ to be subjected to it? Would you tell a woman in life long pain, with incurable incontince because if FGM that she should be centring trans women in her fight?

Have you thought about anything beyond your own bubble?

That sounds horrible, why would they be scared or confused?

A woman or girl might be scared or confused to find someone with a penis in their female-only changing room, toilet block or women's refuge for example. Given the prevalence of sex crimes by men against women, are you genuinely saying that you don't understand or recognise this as a legitimate fear?

Also interesting that you think the 'issue' of it not being socially acceptable for women to be loud or aggressive needs to be addressed

Very interesting

Very male

The person in GameStop would have been scary to a child.
A small girl seeing a man in the ladies showers would experience confusion and fear.
A small girl seeing someone pose in their pants with a weapon could certainly be scared and confused

A reasonable person would not think that you needed to read minds to judge those situations.

And I'm sorry to be less than friendly, I really am, but if you don't understand that very basic fact of life for women then you cannot possibly claim to understand what it is to be a woman.

So you’d be happy if we came up with a new name and had a movement just for us and meetings that centred us and didn’t include you?

Of course! That's the same reason why I don't go to e.g. meetings for trans women of colour, or gay men, or any other group that isn't for me. I have no interest in taking up space in those discussions.

I'm a zipzorp because I say I am!

Also, how do you feel about other oppressed groups being appropriated?

Maybe we can identify as (like others mentioned) black or disabled, and strip away their protections and language and experiences too

If someone really thinks they were mis-assigned sex at birth, I would imagine they would hate their biological sexual organs - the penis, breasts etc- as this would be a glaring reminder, daily, of that error.

I would therefore imagine they would then want those offending reminders lopped off pronto, to be more congruent with the correct sex. Why does this not seem to happen so much for men do you think?

Well, women with uteruses and trans men/non-binary people who have them, or had them, can absolutely band together to argue for better protections around reproductive rights, period poverty, etc. I'm not going to name that group because I'm not in it. 'Woman' isn't an accurate descriptor for that, though, and you'd also find a lot of people who never had uteruses who'd join in that fight, too

Ok, so if women gave the word 'woman' to men who identify as women and instead gave ourselves another name, let's say the previously mentioned zipzorps and we campaigned for zipzorp based rights such as:
zipzorp only prisons
zipzorp only sports
zipzorp only refuges

that would be OK?

But we don't need a new name.

We are women.

We were from the minute the egg met the sperm and were conceived.

Only women can have Turners syndrome. Because it's a condition that occurs at conception due to the chromosomes of that zygote.

^
Of course! That's the same reason why I don't go to e.g. meetings for trans women of colour, or gay men, or any other group that isn't for me. I have no interest in taking up space in those discussions.^

What if we said those meetings were ‘female only’

Do you not consider it the height of arrogance to tell biological women they need a different name to describe the reality of their biology?

A woman or girl might be scared or confused to find someone with a penis in their female-only changing room, toilet block or women's refuge for example. Given the prevalence of sex crimes by men against women, are you genuinely saying that you don't understand or recognise this as a legitimate fear?

Many men /Males (regardless of their gender identity) do not understand and then resist accepting the impact of male harrasment, abuse etc that girls and women experience.

For any adult male to assert their perceived 'rights' to identity validation over the safety, dignity and privacy of girls and women speaks volumes. Not least they do not understand and/ or respect child protection and Safeguarding vulnerable adults frameworks.

Also for the record, I think a lot of women would be scared and confused if they were on a hospital ward feeling particularly vulnerable, and a fully intact man was in the bed next to them

Like as has already happened with the 'visibly aroused' trans woman on a hospital ward

But it DOES facilitate male violence towards women. Self ID will give men more access to women, easier access to women when they are most vulnerable.

Sorry, but this is a sticking point. Self ID is an admininistrative change to allow people to update their birth certificate more easily; access to segregated spaces on the basis of gender identity is already protected by, I believe, the Equality Act, which this doesn't affect.

*I whole heartedly believe people should be able to identity and live as they like, but I do not want male bodied people in female spaces, I do not want self ID, for the simple fact that men WILL take advantage of this and use it as a way of being violent to women.

Can you understand this fear?*

I do, in that I understand being afraid of male violence - that is a very real thing I too experience daily. I don't believe that self-ID will facilitate violence against women.

Liz I have a question, which I’ll get to so bare with me.

I am a lesbian, a homosexual female. This wasn’t always apparent to me, in fact it took me to the age of 29 to properly understand and accept myself. When I was young my family were very homophobic. Even the suggestion of someone being gay would’ve resulted in horrendous bullying at my school. I saw it happen to other kids. Because of section 28 homosexuality was never discussed outside of my homophobic home Or peer group, and homophobic bullying was never punished at school, so as I’m sure you can appreciate, it was a difficult thing to recognise in myself. I thought there was something wrong with me, because I was never interested in boys the way my other female friends were. I tried to fake it in order to fit in. I thought if I tried hard enough to be attracted to the opposite sex then something might suddenly click and I’d get it. I even got married to a man, which didn’t go well I’m afraid.

So, I’m trying to understand your experience of knowing you were a girl despite having the body of a boy. I’m also all too familiar with how discomfort with coming to terms with one’s self can manifest its self in all sorts of other, incorrect and destructive ideas.

Now for me the realisation and understanding of my lesbianism is quite easy to unpick now I’ve accepted myself and let go of all the internalised homophobia, I can look back on the not being interested in boys and the intense crushes on women and other girls and say, yeah, those were the signs. So my question is, now you’ve come to terms with the fact that you’re transgender, or whatever term you prefer, what do you look back on when you were a child and think, yeah, that explains my discomfort, my sense of not belonging or feeling out of place?

Sorry for the crap writing. Rushing because I need to cook tea. My question comes from a genuine place though so I’d be interested to hear about your experience.

Is Karen White a violent woman or a violent man posing as trans?