Can transsexuals truly be allies to women?

[Hamster00]

Last night in bed, between my brain deciding to torment me with "what are baby llama called?" and, "what time is your dentist appointment next week?", I ended up regurgitating "that thread" from yesterday. That thread in which I was called an ally a couple of times by other members.

As I stared at the ceiling, I started indulging in a bit of mental self-flagellation which raised more questions than I had answers for such as:

Transsexuals have no real "movement" insofar as creating our own spaces. Are we as "allies" just piggybacking the larger feminist movement to achieve our mutually but not exclusive goals? Surely that's just another way of exploiting women? Aren't we just really just joining another group to protect our own rights? Is our relationship parasitic rather than symbiotic?

MtF transsexuals are still biologically male, have male socialisation and thus the innate potential propensity towards violence. Surely we still a threat to women even after a surgical/medical outcome?

Can we truly empathise with women having never been one? We have no shared experience of women's lived experience/trauma.

Whilst we can be GC, can we truly call ourselves feminists? Can men be feminists? Is a man calling themself a feminist appropriation too?

I'm not trying to be contentious but inviting perspectives so I can try and organise some of this in my head a little bit better. I think many people know my feelings all to well in relation to self-ID, single sex spaces and TRA appropriation etc - but is that actually being an "ally" - or just someone who shares the same set of ideas....

^^This! But I can't stop think wondering about how much IS about self-interest, and at what point does mutual support become potentially one sided and ending up reverting back to male patterns of behaviour.

Hamster That you notice male patterns of behaviour and power/abuse of power speaks volumes of your integrity and understanding of feminist concerns.

Its good to see you back here!

The whole thing has become a numbers game.

Back when there were only a small number of transsexuals and no joined up movement behind them women were free to police boundaries as they saw fit.

For the most part this worked well in that women could embrace or reject based on individualistic behaviour. Accepting one particular transsexual into a women's group or friendship circle did not equal having to accept every single one going forward.

This kept the power of boundaries firmly on the side of women so we were free to build a connection with a Miranda Yardley type but not forced into engagement with a Karen White.

Whilst things were at this small number/individual level I think there was a way to negotiate, live alongside in relative peace and broadly accept most TS women as standing with all women.

Where we are now is no longer a negotiation but an out and out power grab. As soon as a significant number of males form a group it's always going to turn into egregious overreach if the target is something they want from women. The concept of Transgender allowed this to happen and altered the dynamics irreversibly.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that goodwill can only ever be given and not seized. Trans rights could have progressed in a fairer and more organic fashion had the movement centred TS rather than TG and not immediately positioned women as an enemy to conquer at all costs.

Placemarking.

(And agreeing with most posts. Once you start to see that it is really just the position of the boot on the collective neck of women, you can't unsee it).

It must create a fuckload of cognitive dissonance to be a so-called gender critical transsexual.

Yes. I don't understand how it's possible to be GC and trans.

The whole thing has become a numbers game.

I also think expectations have changed. In the past, TS would never put themselves in a position where they would be 'outed', so would probably risk the toilets in a department store, but not an open plan changing room or in a sports team.

To a certain extent, TS have benefited from the work TRA have done, and used this to expect to be in women's spaces they wouldn't have been previously.

Sheila Jeffreys identifies transgenderism as part of male sexual rights movement.
'What Is Gender?'

There were some significant threads last year which identified the impossibility of separating transsexuals from transgenderism.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007

AngryAttackKittens wrote:
"I'm going to point every "but the nice, harmless old school transsexuals whose movement has been unfairly appropriated by the nasty transgender people" person to this thread from now on.

All the same elements we're seeing now were there in that old BBC roundtable from the 70s with the 4 transwomen, the politician, and the doctor. None of this is new.

see also demonstration of issues raised by OP in thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3445694-Letter-in-the-Times-Plea-To-The-Trans-Lobby-from-group-of-transsexuals

Fundamentally, the very notion of 'trans', whether transsexual or transgender, is antithetical to feminism, and therefore harmful to women and girls

This, in part, is part of what I'm trying to work out in my own head and was just looking for opinion from those with more clarity than myself.

I think a way forward is to look at the language being used and change it to an honest vocabulary, for example:

there is no such entity as a "transsexual" there are only surgically altered people [because no human can ever change sex];

there is no such entity as a "transwoman" there are only men or males, [who cross dress or are transvestites];

men are adult human males [this is a fact];

etc

Fundamentally, the very notion of 'trans', whether transsexual or transgender, is antithetical to feminism, and therefore harmful to women and girls

This is the case and coming to that realisation as a transsexual has got to be a gigantic headfuck.

I'm not sure what you do with that realisation if you've already had genital surgery and so on.

I don’t have any clarity hamster.
Just know that I like what I read off wha5 you post

No help 🤦‍♀️

I think the fact that you realise that these are the issues GC women are worried about says a lot about you as a person Hamster

I'm not sure what you do with that realisation if you've already had genital surgery and so on.

I think there's definitely a dichotomy between needing psychiatric help/medical intervention for gender dysphoria and the bigger picture/ethics.

It then begs the question, "is seeking the only assistance available for a crippling mental illness the starting point at which it becomes anti-ethical?"

Which then leads to "is the medical profession culpable?", which in turn runs parallel with, "what help is there for the sufferer of GD when psychiatric intervention fails?"

So yeah it is a headfuck....

"Which then leads to "is the medical profession culpable?", which in turn runs parallel with, "what help is there for the sufferer of GD when psychiatric intervention fails?"

The role of the medical profession is very relevent.
Understanding the sexism, male pattern behaviours there which have shaped both interventions and the way that dysphoria is understood is relevent.

So yeah it is a headfuck....

It does seem to be a case of making your choice from a selection of bad options. I guess my take is that having "lie to yourself forever" be one of the options is a bad idea, and is never going to end well, and that seems to be supported by the clear lack of being at peace with themselves demonstrated by people who chose that option.

I feel like this would be a really interesting conversation to have but am a bit reluctant to get into it here due to the inevitability of malicious people who take joy in disrupting and upsetting others jumping in.

It's difficult because the medical profession has so many strands to it, big pharma opportunists, surgeons who find a profitable niche/enjoy boundary pushing challenges, psychiatric medicine with all it's patriarchal underpinnings. All that is before you get to the earnest do gooders and non profits with their own agendas to push.

It seems nigh on impossible for any individual with gender dysphoria to navigate a pathway through that will truly serve their best interests and no one else's.

Some men hate women.
If you don't hate women, then we're groovy! :)

Fundamentally, the very notion of 'trans', whether transsexual or transgender, is antithetical to feminism, and therefore harmful to women and girls. It must create a fuckload of cognitive dissonance to be a so-called gender critical transsexual.

Yes to this.

Kittens do you mind if I just drop you a private message to add to your last point.

I don't really want to de-rail the thread, and am mindful of your last paragraph.

James Caspian, 'Note of Caution: A Gender Therapist Asks Questions'

concludes:
"I went into therapeutic work in order to help alleviate suffering. Clinicians, psychotherapists, doctors all work to alleviate suffering. When I first became a psychotherapist, there were a tiny number of people who had suffered so much and had struggled so long with how they felt about having to live out their gender, that they really felt the need to transition, physically, to the opposite one. But that’s a very extreme solution. The psychological motivations and emotional reasons for people going to gender clinics are hugely varied and complex. For instance, research shows that there is a very high ratio of people on the autistic spectrum presenting with gender problems. Autistic people, of course, have problems with the issue of “role”.

There are those who want to prove that gender is entirely neuro-biological, that gender identity resides completely in the brain, from birth. For instance, the Gender Identity Research and Education Society in the UK seeks to prove that this is the case. Therefore, there’s nothing you can do about it: you can’t be “cured” of it, it’s part of you, a natural difference in someone’s brain. You can’t change the composition of the brain: so, in order to help a person with that kind of neuro-biological make-up, you change their body to match the brain. They are seeking to prove that gender identity is not a choice. I think that it’s possible that neuro-biology plays a part for some of the patients I was seeing. But no one has proved this definitively, and in addition, there is clearly a large social and cultural element in what constitutes gender

"These days, I have de-transitioning people contacting me on regular basis. I don’t believe that one is “transphobic” for listening to them and giving them a voice. There is nothing to fear from talking to those who regret transitioning or are critical of it. We need to know the truth, and once we hear from a spectrum of people it’s going to be a complex picture. The method I was going to use for my research is called phenomenological analysis. It means letting people speak for themselves. The researcher must stay out of the way. I simply wanted to give people a platform to be heard.

From a Jungian perspective, I think we need to understand how the collective unconscious comes into this. We need to get at the deep reasons why this political bandwagon has gathered so much momentum. We need to understand this “shadow” phenomenon where people who question are vilified and silenced, and people are afraid to say what they think. It comes up time and time again throughout human history. Why has gender now become such a political flash point? It has become impossible to have a critical discussion about it. Critical thinking is being confused with criticism, and criticism is being confused with attacking people. Maybe the “shadow” of liberalism is repression: we are not allowed to think, let alone speak, critically. Jung would say that some things come out of the collective unconscious, manifest, then subside again. In the meantime, we need to be circumspect with how we allow these manifestations to affect vulnerable individuals, and we need to allow people to talk, and to question."
humanumreview.com/articles/a-gender-therapist-asks-questions

see recent update to his appeal against research being blocked:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3500436-James-Caspian-oral-hearing-granted

I'm not discouraging you from putting it here if you want, though PMs are fine (or would be if I ever checked them). I'm just sort of having a "community disruptors are why we can't have nice things like a nuanced conversation" moment.