How British feminism became anti-trans - according to the New York Times

[NotTerfNorCis]

www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/terf-trans-women-britain.html

A surprisingly mainstream movement of feminists known as TERFs oppose transgender rights as a symptom of “female erasure.”

Beginning to suspect the writer has a bias...

There, the most vocal trans-exclusionary voices are, ostensibly, “feminist” ones, and anti-trans lobbying is a mainstream activity. Case in point: Ms. Parker told the podcast “Feminist Current” that she’d changed her thinking on trans women after spending time on Mumsnet, a site where parents exchange tips on toilet training and how to get their children to eat vegetables. If such a place sounds benign, consider the words of British writer Edie Miller: “Mumsnet is to British transphobia,” she wrote “what 4Chan is to American fascism.”

The term coined to identify women like Ms. Parker and Ms. Long is TERF, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In Britain, TERFs are a powerful force. If, in the United States, the mainstream media has been alarmingly ready to hear “both sides” on the question of trans people’s right to exist, in Britain, TERFs have effectively succeeded in framing the question of trans rights entirely around their own concerns: that is, how these rights for others could contribute to “female erasure.”

Hmm, what happens if I live up north and shop at Lidl? Am I allowed to point out that Sophie wouldn't have said indigenous and black if she were referring to the former British Empire because 'black' would be superfluous? I do hope so!

Are the M&S feminists the best ones?

This is not just a feminist, this is a Marks and Spencer’s feminist....

BTW - so lovely to see you, Donkeyskin.

You may have been having a break, but your brilliant words have not!

I have been sharing your post regarding those who say TWAW and the fact that none of them genuinely believe it.

I LOVE that post. So clear and takes the wind out of so many people’s sails with it’s obvious truth.

You’re fabulous.

Gosh, thanks, AnyOldPrion!

Good to know my post had an impact (was bashed out in a fit of frustration around midnight, IIRC). It is so obvious that no one on the TRA side really believes the nonsense that they spout, isn't it.

I went to cancel my subscription (didn't in the end as they practically gave me access for peanuts to keep me), but I did have a long email chat about how that was wrong.
I mean, I lost Ocado, I don't want to lose the NYT as well

But they say people can email them at [email protected] with a proposal for an Op-Ed. I did submit Jane Clare Jones' piece (with another email to @letters) but maybe she could too?

I see Owen Jones praised the Sophie Lewis article on Twitter, suggesting he really is as dim as previously suspected. Wish there was a way of forcing him to read the Jane Clare Jones piece, which doesn't so much rebut the Lewis article as fell it with a hammer blow, trample all over it and then give its twitching corpse one last mighty kick.

Religious fanatics can't be won over with logic. We could have every TRA read Jane Clare Jones and every fundamentalist Christian read Dawkins. Only a tiny number would change their minds.

It's the ones who are not committed to a belief yet who you win over. The logic then creates a powerful protective shield against the magical thinking.

Increased public visibility of the logic vs the magic is how common sense will prevail.

No, but plenty of fundamentalist Christians read Dawkins and see a man pushing his own inconsistencies and reject it because it just looks like a competing religion.

Show a fundamentalist the ways in which their own beliefs are not in competition with basic reality, and you create a common ground upon which minds can be changed about almost anything. Ask me how I know.

What makes me laugh (among other things) is the allies and flying monkeys who will swear up and down that TWAW but who sneer at flat-earthers.

Why in the world would someone think that it's ok to accept one branch of science but reject another in favour of feelings and self-identification? What if Earth self-identifies as flat?

Where is the donkeyskin post being referred to, may I ask?

How do you know? (under no obligation - just had to do it )

Show a fundamentalist the ways in which their own beliefs are not in competition with basic reality, and you create a common ground upon which minds can be changed about almost anything.

I agree completely. And you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Why in the world would someone think that it's ok to accept self-identification? What if Earth self-identifies as flat?

I know - this is what made me realise how bad things are got when DD came back from uni thinking that you can have male lesbians and all the dysfunctional thinking that arrives to that point, in spite of having done a year of biology

Lol, Melrose, it wasn't an attempted merail - the phrase is a kind of shorthand for a rueful 'This is a situation I am intimately familiar with'.

I've mentioned my own experiences of coming out of hard line fundamentalist evangelical Christianity a number of times on FWR. It wasn't achieved by me being shunned, scorned or shouted at, funnily enough. It was done, in no small part, by a realization that the people I was told opposed everything I believed in, didn't actually oppose everything I believed in, and once I discovered the common elements of agreement, I found myself in a place to be able to engage with ideas I fled from before.

Yes Floral - it is about making connections and branching out. It is not unlike what I had to do when I moved to another part of the country and had a baby and knew no one. People are quirky and interesting. It is a matter of making that easier for people and opening doors, allowing a route out of a corner.

This is going to probably seem a bit left field. But David Attenborough spoke of how he didn't want to preach, he just wants to show people how amazing the natural world is and they will want to protect and preserve it.

Likewise, demonstrating the beauty of logic, reasoning and critical thinking is equally attractive and draws people out of self-limiting beliefs without needing to preach to them that they are limited.

Women's Liberation Front respond:

The New York Times commissioned this editorial on our visit to Capitol Hill last week, and didn’t even get a full paragraph without an error of fact. Since the author never bothered to ask anyone involved, it’s not a surprise that they embarrassed themselves right out of the gate. As the paper has repeatedly ignored many past offers, by ourselves and others, to directly rebut their published misrepresentations on gender identity, we might as well post here.

...

The essay closes by noting that Posie Parker went to the Heritage Foundation on her trip, again to cast doubt on the idea that she could be any kind of women’s rights advocate, or have anything relevant to say.

The author doesn’t mention that she was there with American feminists, or that we’d all been invited by the parents of children who suddenly began claiming they were the opposite sex–and there our complete omission from this just-so story snaps into focus. The entire trip was planned with US feminists who agree with Posie Parker and Julia Long that human beings can’t change sex, some of whom have been working for years organizing women’s festivals, petitioning our state and federal agencies for redress, and filing briefs in US courts to press for the rights of women and girls. We can’t be present in this narrative though, or it might complicate the false dichotomy between the supposedly righteous, pro-trans forces of a united, US left, vs. conservatives who haven’t come on-side as allies yet.
womensliberationfront.org/the-nyt-misrepresents-british-feminists-and-ignores-their-american-counterparts/

Oof... that rebuttal from WoLF is stinging. they call the NYT article a ‘low-fact, social media-style clap back’ - which is putting it very politely.

It’s absolutely right of them to call out the mindless tribalism that poses a virtuous left wing against an amoral right wing in its narrative. this simplistic dogwhistle approach is how we got into this mess in the first place.. and we will need to get past that to get out of it.

I loved that line, Chatty

It really was more on the level of a blog post than a NYT Opinion piece. Where was the fact-checking? Where was the right of reply from Posie et al? I’m not saying either side is 100% right (don’t know much about Posie Parker or the WOLF group) but at least fact check before printing. Otherwise it is indeed just a hit piece.