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.”

sophie a. lewis
‏*@reproutopia*
More sophie a. lewis Retweeted Roz Kaveney
Just rediscovered this spot-on thread by Roz Kaveney on the TERF phenomenon, which I should really have just handed over to the NYT when they got in touch to commission me for the piece.

How dare these uppity women discuss politics. Get back in the kitchen.

witness the billboard Ms. Parker paid to have put up last fall dryly defining a woman as an “adult human female.” Such a posture positions queer theory and activism as individualistic, narcissistic and thus somehow fundamentally un-British.

You what Sophie? How about you check your dictionary definition of woman then instead of producing this twaddle.

Oh it's another entirely unoriginal article about how awful and bigoted British feminists/MN are! With lashings of misogyny and/or ageism! Excellent scoop, Sophie!

Such a posture positions queer theory and activism as individualistic, narcissistic

Say it ain't so, Sophie! Who could possibly think such a thing?

Yes, she has the answer written in front of her and doesn't see it LOL.

Dictionary definition = no substance to the house of cards.

“this ideology” — by which she presumably meant simply being trans

Sorry, but how thick can you get?

'This religion' does not mean simply being a Christian.
There is a difference between beliefs and the people believing them.

Is there anyone stupid enough to not get narked by the conflation?

Belief. Believer. Two different things.

I couldn't read further.

Its an Opinion piece, its the view of Sophie Lewis
(feminist theorist and geographer) not the NYT.

I wonder if Sophie is the kind of 'woman' who has male genitalia. Pushing for surrogacy on top of everthing else seems like the mission of a full time penis-entitlement activist.

My dc are 10 and 14 and the toilet training is pretty much sorted
One is a vegetarian so that’s eating veg covered
Had I better delete my account then?

From the article,
"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.”

(Miller's article is not a good source)
theoutline.com/post/6536/british-feminists-media-transphobic?zd=1&zi=g2xr4nzy

see thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3415244-hilarious-article

The Spectator published article in reponse to the allegations by Edie Miller in Outline. :

(extract)
Is the British media transphobic? Yes, according to a writer in the Outline, a US publication, who accuses the Times and the Guardian of rampant bigotry in the row about gender. Several prominent British feminists are also singled out for alleged ‘hate-peddling’. The logic here is muddled but is worth unpicking. The author appears to claim that the views of British feminists like Helen Lewis (who has urged caution over the Government’s proposal to reform the Gender Recognition Act) are somehow comparable to the Trump administration, which is – according to the New York Times – seeking to remove legal protections for transgender individuals. This is a complete misunderstanding of both debates. (continues)

Oddly, the Outline lays the blame for this supposed media bigotry at an unlikely door: Mumsnet. The article claims that some of Mumsnet’s 14 million users have developed an “obsession” with transgender issues. It’s true that transgender issues are frequently discussed on Mumsnet – but why assume this is down to bigotry, rather than the fact that many of these concerns (the housing of male sex offenders in women’s prisons, for example) resonate deeply with the women of Middle England?

The writer isn’t wrong that Mumsnet holds deep influence – just not necessarily with the media. When I spoke to someone who knows the consultation well, they mentioned the “Mumsnet effect” – the fact that the Government had received cautious responses from women all over the UK, representing all ages and backgrounds. The responses calling for the more ideological system, however, tended to be concentrated in smaller clusters, usually from London and university cities – places which typically vote Labour.

Ultimately it will be this kind of political pragmatism which will probably persuade ministers against uprooting the GRA system. "

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/11/mumsnet-and-the-british-media-arent-transphobic/

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3416273-The-Spectator-Mumsnet-and-the-British-media-aren-t-transphobic

Isn't this a repeat of an old blog post?

No, I think it's just that there are lots of versions of what is basically exactly the same article. Lazy.

Many prominent figures in British journalism and politics have been TERFs

If only she could have provided a list of 'terf' politicians. I'd love to know who they are.

The entire article seems to be about Posie Parker, which is flattering to PP, but doesn't show much evidence of research.

"It’s also worth noting that the obsession with supposed “biological realities” of people like Ms. Parker are part of a long tradition of British feminism interacting with colonialism and empire. Imperial Britain imposed policies to enforce heterosexuality and the gender binary, while simultaneously constructing the racial “other” as not only fundamentally different, but freighted with sexual menace"

This sentence is Trumpian in it's incoherent magnificence. Is she saying that British feminists enforced the gender binary and thats why British feminists are gender critical?

I’d love to read a single quote from any feminist who says trans people shouldn’t exist.

Most feminists ARE trans under the Stonewall umbrella anyway. I certainly am - short hair, don’t shave legs, have a typically “male” job role, etc.

Oh it's another entirely unoriginal article about how awful and bigoted British feminists/MN are! With lashings of misogyny and/or ageism! Excellent scoop, Sophie!'

See also:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3444548-Vice-how-an-online-forum-for-moms-became-a-toxic-hotbed-of-transphobia

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3416738-This-has-made-me-start-Wednesday-off-in-a-real-grump-The-Pool-article

there was another one which came out at a similar time but the thread discussing it was de-railed and then deleted

No, I think it's just that there are lots of versions of what is basically exactly the same article. Lazy.

Its very lazy writing and in need of robust editing.

trans-women-exclusionary

That needs better punctuation. For as the Bard said, ‘sigh no more ladies.’

Is she saying that British feminists enforced the gender binary and thats why British feminists are gender critical?

Is there any evidence that Sophie understands the difference between sex and gender? She certainly hasn't understood what the GRA is about.

The Guardian published an editorial on potential changes to a law called the Gender Recognition Act, which would allow people in Britain to self-define their gender.

No Sophie, it's not about self-defining gender, it's about choosing your legal sex. Do you understand what that means?

Do you understand what that means?

No, they don't and neither, it seems do a lot of American based bloggers.

You'll notice now we are a 'mainstream' 'movement', rather than a hundred radicals....

Or 80% of the population....

It's the radicalization portal paradox again. We're simultaneously irrelevant harpies/stupid mummies and we're an incredibly powerful nefarious network hypnotizing the ENTIRE KNOWN UNIVERSE.

Oliver Burkeman
‏*@oliverburkeman*
Replying to @jessesingal
My favourite thing about that piece is that the sentence beginning "many prominent figures", where the author attempts to provide backup for her (false) claim that bigotry is rampant, hinges on two links, which are to the same Economist piece, by a trans writer.

I love Oliver’s column in the Graun. Some of them stayed with me and changed the way I do things now.

The 'spot on' thread about 'TERFS' by Roz Kaveney linked by pp:

"We need to consider the extent to which a lot of the current wave of transphobic discourse is only in part about trans people at all.

A lot of it comes from people who normally wouldn't care about us much one way or the other, but for various reasons see us as a symptom.

When the Pope goes on about 'gender theory'...when Lobsterman goes on about 'cultural marxism'...when Spiked or the NS or Sceptics or Tankiez go on about 'post-modernism' ... it's all the same thing.

Ways of looking at the world which admit nuance and complexity.

Ways of talking about the world which subvert authoritative simple discourses.

A few years ago, when Peter Wilby was NS editor, I was given a book about feral children to review. A book which looked at how across time close observation of them has been radically affected by whatever set of ideas were fashionable at the time.

Note, it wasn't arguing simplistically that science is socially constructed. It was arguing that science is not done in a vacuum, that scientists end up being nudged by ideology and we need to understand that.

I was asked by the then literary editor to rework the piece to be less positive because, apparently, the NS 'didn't do po-mo'.

I refused, and threatened to go public if they didn't publish my piece as written.

I ceased, in general, to work further for one of my main markets.

I don't rule out the possibility that the on-line stroppiness of some young trans people may have offended NS staff members.

Primarily though trans people are being regularly denounced by NS writers as a surrogate for intellectual trends.

This is why, in the name of science but neglecting the sheer complexity of what actual science says about us, we get yelled at by so-called sceptics.

It's also why a particular kind of 'Marxist' who wants crude workerism and a simplistic biologism back has decided we are part of globalism and neo-liberalism and need to be put a stop to.

These groups are not going to convert to political lesbianism. They just find 40 years of anti-trans rhetoric a convenient weapon just as they do the Hyacinth Bucket mean populism of Mumsnet.

We're a small talented minority. Some people really do hate us but more see us as an area in which the clock can be turned back.

That's one of the reasons why they claim trans people were hardly heard of before 2003 or so.

There are other factors involved and a lot of them are generational and to do with old elites that feel threatened by blue-haired millennials and post-millennials who aren't prepared to put up with their shit.

For example, if you've spent your career as part of a Left chumocracy who run things by moving the chairs around and turning a blind eye to a toxic blend of sexual abuse and nepotism, you might see the young as asking too many questions.

Saying 'oh but trans' is a good way of diverting attention just as it was in 1971 when Robin Morgan needed the cultural kudos of lesbian identifiation while still married.

And decided to destroy Beth Elliott on a whim."
twitter.com/reproutopia/status/1093198695225585664

see: revolution.berkeley.edu/robin-morgan-slanders-beth-elliot/