Cambridge Students' Union Women's Campaign: 'How to Spot T**f Ideology'

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We strive for an inclusive campaign; all those who self-define as women and non-binary people, including (if they wish) those with gender identities which include ‘woman’, transfeminine people and those who feel that they experience structural misogyny, are members.

The CUSU Women's Campaign wants you to know how to spot a T**f (their use of a MN banned term).

twitter.com/CUSUWO/status/1111597478321811456
Some good comments here.

www.womens.cusu.cam.ac.uk/

Includes a handy reading list, not forgetting MN: (transfeminism and resisting T**F ideology)

All the texts in this list contain discussions of transmisogyny and transphobia, often in addition to colonialism, misogyny, LGBT+phobia - anything particularly graphic etc. has been separately content noted either next to the link or on the linked page.

QUICK READS
Vice - How To Be A Trans Ally broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/kzjnjm/how-to-be-trans-ally-tips
Make No Assumptions (CUSU LGBT+ 2015 trans campaign) - Transphobia & Transmisogyny www.makenoassumptions.org.uk/transphobia
CUSU LGBT+ - The ‘T’ Within LGBT+ www.lgbt.cusu.cam.ac.uk/resources/trans/the-t-within-lgbt/
Make No Assumptions (CUSU LGBT+ 2015 trans campaign) - Glossary www.makenoassumptions.org.uk/glossary
WomCam Feminist FAQ www.womens.cusu.cam.ac.uk/feminist-faq/
Debunking “Trans Women are not Women” Arguments - Julia Serano medium.com/@juliaserano/debunking-trans-women-are-not-women-arguments-85fd5ab0e19c
[CN mentions of sexual violence and abuse, t-slur] What Transmisogyny Looks Like - Tobi Hill-Meyer bilerico.lgbtqnation.com/2009/03/what_transmisogyny_looks_like.php

ARTICLES
No, Transgender Women Like Me Did Not Grow Up With Male Privilege - Allison Gallagher
www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/no-transgender-women-like-me-did-not-grow-up-with-male-privilege-20170314-guxhth.html
Transphobia is a White Supremacist Legacy of Colonialism - Michael Paramo
medium.com/@Michael_Paramo/transphobia-is-a-white-supremacist-legacy-of-colonialism-e50f57240650
The Rise Of Anti-Trans Activism Is Harming Children, Not Helping Them - Emrys Travis www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/the-rise-of-anti-trans-activism-is-harming-children-not-helping-them_uk_5c1900b5e4b02d2cae8d5ecb
Has Mumsnet Become a Hub of Online Transphobia? - Hannah Woodhead
www.huckmag.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/mumsnet-transphobia-online/
Why Sex Is Not Binary - Anne Fausto-Sterling
www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/opinion/sex-biology-binary.html
Nature and Sex Redefined: We Have Never Been Binary - Vanessa Heggie www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2015/feb/19/nature-sex-redefined-we-have-never-been-binary
[CN: t-slur] Towards an Insurrectionary Transfeminism - Anonymous theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-towards-an-insurrectionary-transfeminism.pdf
[CN: reclaimed lesbophobic, homophobic & misogynistic slurs; graphic body imagery; suicide; childbirth] My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix - Susan Stryker
read.dukeupress.edu/glq/article/1/3/237/69091/My-Words-to-Victor-Frankenstein-Above-the-Village
The Gender Ternary: Understanding Transmisogyny – Lisa Milbank
radtransfem.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/genderternary-transmisogyny/

LONG-READS
Maria Lugones - Heterosexualism and the Modern/Colonial Gender System nycstandswithstandingrock.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/lugones-2007.pdf
[CN: r*pe as a metaphor] THE "EMPIRE" STRIKES BACK: A POSTTRANSSEXUAL MANIFESTO - Sandy Stone webs.ucm.es/info/rqtr/biblioteca/Transexualidad/trans%20manifesto.pdf
B. Binaohan - decolonizing transgender 101 publishbiyuti.org/blog/2014/06/decolonizing-transgender-101/
Julia Serano, collected articles and books www.juliaserano.com/writings.html
Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg www.lesliefeinberg.net/
Trans: A Memoir - Juliet Jacquesv

I love the reply from Vulvamort:

"Or you could head over to Downing Street and visit the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience? I hear they're riddled with the horrors of acknowledging sexually dimorphic ideology. They literally teach about it. Terfs and blasphemers all, I tell ya."

(That's Downing Street in Cambridge, not the home of the PM, for anyone who's wondering).

I read this. It's awful in many ways, especially the misrepresenting the gc position when lists of 'terf' academics are being published etc.

But for me the worst thing is it states as fact:
Sex is a construct just like gender
Sex binary is a colonial project

This really nerds countering.

Have a look at the banners. Topshop Travis on both.

twitter.com/CUSUWO/status/1111597478321811456

www.womens.cusu.cam.ac.uk/

It's all you need to know really.

The Sex Binary is a Colonial Project

Absolutely. There was Kunta Kinté, skipping through the forest making daisy-chains, and the rotters went and grabbed him and wouldn't let him wear a dress ever again.

...Or, more proof it were ever needed that outside of physical sciences, Cambridge is a very average university, if that.

I feel a letter to the vice chancellor coming on. All alumnae need to engage on this nonsense.

Great idea WorkingItOut. Doubt the vice chancellor is aware.

How the actual FUCK do people with this standard of critical thinking skills make it to Cambridge? WTAF is going on here?

I've just reported it using that handy TRA guide. Choose hate speech against a protected characteristic, use "me" as target, you get a box where you can explain why it's abusive.

T*rf is a slur.

WorkingItOutAsIGo great idea - would you consider posting what you want to say on here?

I'm concerned to hear the sex binary is a colonial fiction. We have a cat who we thought was male because he had testicles. We had him neutered. Is there any chance he might now get pregnant?

Sex binary is a colonial project

It's sucha bizarre belief. Yes the sex binary is very much part of western Christianity 'male and female he made them' yada yada ya. But the texts the Bible was formed from aren't white western. Thousands and thousands of years ago non-white nomadic people had a creation myth where god created man and then later woman. The last of the plagues of Egypt targeted the first born son. I'm running out of Biblical knowledge here but I think my point is made, very ancient non-white people clearly knew that male and female people existed. To suggest this knowledge is a white colonial invention is the most bizarre act of history rewriting that I've ever seen .

Barracker - will do but it won’t by till Monday as am being a good DD/DDIL this weekend.

I think this batshit garbage is a new variation on the "Merry Africa" premise. Everything was just fine and dandy everywhere before those nasty western colonialists came and ruined it. This view was propogated by the Garveyist pan-African movement, especially by EW Blyden in the early 20th century.

Later and more reputable sources such as Walvin, Hall or Gates are having none of it.

Regards South Asia, there was and is a tradition of 'third-sex' eunuchs and dancers (sex workers) but I don't believe that was any more repressed by the British Raj than it was by the Moghuls or Modi's Hindu neofascists today.

It beggars belief. It's as if they are five-year olds who need to be told that male and female each play distinctive roles in reproduction, as designed by Mother Nature; that it's important for humans to tell one from the other, and it is actually (normally) very, very easy.
Tribes who have never seen a single white person have been able to tell male and female apart and good so because that's how the species is propagated. Haven't they ever heard that females bear young and males impregnate them, and the sexual designations are based on those two roles? That's how we make babies? That baby-making is an essential part of society? Or is baby-making also a social construct?
Why am I even writing this? It's like we are answering the questions of a five year old, where do babies come from.

My DD is doing A levels and I’m supposed to go to a Cambridge event in a few weeks... not sure I want her going there tbh

It's as if they are five-year olds who need to be told that male and female each play distinctive roles in reproduction, as designed by Mother Nature; that it's important for humans to tell one from the other, and it is actually (normally) very, very easy.

Adult who are emotionally toddlers wanting power and control over parents and reality.

My DD is doing A levels and I’m supposed to go to a Cambridge event in a few weeks... not sure I want her going there tbh

The reality for the vast majority of students is that they have no engagement with (or even knowledge of) this sort of idiocy.

Lamaha

I agree. It’s adults standing up and proudly announcing they have no idea how babies are made. It’s ridiculous.

How do they get away with this? Does the university have no control over this sort of thing?

"Don't debate SuperRadFemXX on twitter"

Because you might hear some actual, sensible, fact based opinions. Better just to stay in your nice "safe" bubble and block all the haterz.

Tribes who have never seen a single white person have been able to tell male and female apart and good so because that's how the species is propagated.

Of course this is true and it’s insulting and racist to suggest otherwise. A lot of TRA’s like to appropriate Samoan culture and present Fa a’fafine as an example, when in actual fact, that originated in homophobia and sexism. If they had a gay or feminine son, they’d rather trans them and make them a girl. They also have very traditional roles for males and females, so for families with only boys, they’d trans one of them so they could help their mother with household chores. You can read stories of older gay Samoan men who speak of the trauma about being forced to live as girls. I’m Polynesian so I can say with absolute certainty our cultures are just as homophobic and sexist as any other- women can still not speak on all Marae ( depending on iwi ). I read recently an article with Matt Toomua, a Samoan Australian rugby player, that he learnt later in life that his father had been switched with a female cousin as his fathers parents had only boys and they needed a girl to help with chores.

Because SuperRadFemXX would hand you your arse on a silver platter and leave you unable to do anything but say "TW are women!!!," block her and run away, is more to the point.

Lol, it's basically advice to only argue with people you think won't know anything about the subject (with the obligatory ageism and sexism thrown in).

I know it’s reiterating the obvious, but the most frustrating thing about this is that it’s the WOMEN’S society.

They have every right to a trans society. I think that might be a positive thing. Not a single woman would object.

But no. They have to take over anything women do and demand to be centred, and to insist that any woman who disagrees is excluded.

And imagine if women tried to set up an exclusive society so they could discuss things that affect women. It would be subjected to the full range of TRA threatening behaviour.

It’s all so fucking selfish.

Those are spectacularly bad takes. I'm surprised although I probably shouldn't be just how badly argued these points are. Not in good faith either, in my view, as anyone who has ever actually read gender critical writing would understand these claims to be completely false. And once again, too easy to refute.