Is the TRA agenda necessarily oppressive and authoritarian and intimidatory to women?

[Victoriapestis01]

I was a little bit sick in my pink handbag after reading the Scottish Minister’s blog referred to on another thread. I think her remarks could perhaps be summarised as ‘Don’t worry! Once you’ve freed yourselves from your silly fears, you foolish bio women, we can all get along, and I’m here to help you girlies see how!’. (This may be far too generous an interpretation.)

So I’ve been thinking, is it in fact the case that the TRA agenda, even if accepted in full, will necessarily lead to the suppression of free speech and the control and suppression of women? Is it compatible, perhaps, with free expression and freedom for women?

I don’t think it is. The central argument- that men can change sex- is one which has virtually no sign up outside the wilder shores of twitter brainlessness, and innocent children. So to maintain a policy based on that idea will inevitably involve suppression of free speech (and of biological research). Otherwise the idea will be under constant threat.

Plus, there will always be women who object to men in women’s spaces. More and more of them, probably, as more and more men appear in those spaces. How to deal with those women, except by intimidation? First social, then legal?

So I’ve concluded that the TWAW agenda - because of the sheer implausibility and unpopularity of its central claim- is one that is necessarily oppressive and authoritarian, and requires dismantling of basic democratic rights, and intimidation of women.

Are there any other ideological systems like that in the modern world- which by their nature are such that they have to be maintained by force? (I’m not counting systems which aren’t based on ideology, such as Putin’s Russia, which looks more mercenary than ideological to me.) Or is TWAW unique?

extreme religions otherwise not .

The continued demonisation of poorer white lower class people in the UK for objecting to the quintupling of net immigration involving the importation of huge numbers of low skilled workers from abroad (whose dreams of a better life are more important than theirs) which keeps their wages depressed despite rocketing prices, and changes the cultural face of many of their communities at an unsettlingly rapid pace. But they're just racists, the lot of them, who are too thick to know this is good for them.

Nigel Farage isn't poor or lower class.

Ignoring the brexit attempted derail, that dog-whistle.

Yes, OP. In my experience, the TRA agenda IS necessarily oppressive and authoritarian and intimidatory to women.

It is forcing the orthodoxy that men who say they are women - are women. And ignoring, totally, what actual women have to say. It's all about men's rights, again.

And that women (cunty type) must not debate this or detract from this. Despite us being able to spot a man at 50 paces, despite any pink, glitter and high heels or any of the other stereotyped "feminine" accoutrements.

Countries that rule via Shari'a law interpreted as a license to oppress and abuse girls/women/LGB.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, et al.

I don't speak Pashto, Urdu, or Arabic et al. I do know people from the aforementioned and have been a guest in their homes I work with the husbands). Based on my conversations with the aforementioned people, I gained some insight into their cultures. By the way, all conversations are had with the husbands as the wives do not speak English. And while the husbands translate neither the wives nor I know what the husbands are saying on our behalfs.

At a dinner at one of their homes the wife spent all day preparing a beautiful and delicious feast for us and she was ushered to the bedroom sequestered with her 5 small children for two hours while we ate. She was summoned to clean up - I was not permitted to assist. We hung out as we were very excited to be welcomed into their home but we are Americans and struggled with feeling like we were taking advantage of the wife's efforts. It was a pleasant and informative visit yet confusing - fascinating in-depth cultural comparisons and history of their homeland. We were expected to stay for most of the rest of the evening but left after a total of four hours - feeling guilty for leaving before we were expected to and because the husband is so kind to us and speaks so highly of his wife but what we experienced was witness to in-your-face cultural oppression.

I get cultural differences and theirs meant that because DH was with me she could not join us for dinner and was not permitted to receive our thanks for the meal and hospitality. It felt wrong and sad.

Yes, gender ideology is by definition oppressive to women. We seek to free ourselves from the straitjacket society tries to restrain us in, gender ideology not only puts it back on, with a tight doubleknot binding our arms, it also keeps telling us that we must like wearing it because it's an integral part of our being. And any protest sees us dragged deeper into Bedlam.

And yes, if you look at the totalitarian regimes before the fall of the Berlin wall, those were regimes based on ideologies that could not tolerate dissent. The gaslighting, the outright lies and falsehoods, the knowledge that they know that you know it's all lies and that they are watching you, your colleagues, your neighbours, your enemies and friends, strangers and family to see if you will let that knowledge that this is wrong shine through. Purges lured those out of hiding with the honest conviction that we must speak the truth because the lies were hurting us all. With obvious consequences.

We had, believe it or not, licences for artists and actors and writers and musicians to pursue their creative endeavours. And no one who came under the least suspicion of wrongthink could ever dream of securing one or keeping it.

I honestly feel as if I am trapped in a cruel nightmare that has brought back the constraints, the walls of my childhood and in a way that is far more pernicious than I could have ever imagined.

Why are people waving racist shrouds?

Doesn't matter what bloody colour we are, or where we were born - if we are born female, then we are women.

And men are not women. Because loads of evidence.

Rather than it be tras or mras, it should rather be kwr (killing women's rights).

That much is obvious.

Doesn't matter what bloody colour we are, or where we were born - if we are born female, then we are women.

This. Plus;

And men are not women. Because loads of evidence. biology.

Did I miss something? Who is waving racist shrouds?

Male people have been violently forcing women in to submission for millenia. Why stop now?

The absurdtity of this whole situation struck me earlier when I read an account by a transwoman who knew she was a woman because she 'felt like one'. Well fancy that! I've been a woman for 40 years and I have no idea what it feels like to be one. Neither does any woman of my acquaintance. We just feel like people.

It's the height of progressiveness to believe with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind that male born people know exactly what it means to 'feel like a woman' even if not a single female born person does. It's not even necesssary for female born people to agree. If a woman and a transwoman disagree on what it means to be a woman, the woman is wrong - all the time without a doubt. The woman must submit to being told she is wrong about her view of womanhood and she has no right to question this male born person who claims to have womanly thoughts and womanly feelings. His belief about what it means to be a woman carries more weight than her actual lived experience of womanhood. This is what passes for progressive thinking these days.

We are even told it is anti-feminist to question the legitimacy of an understanding of womanhood which originates almost entirely from male born people.

When we were on the cusp of breaking free from the dictatorship of patriarchy. When we were asserting our identities not as the lesser opposite versions of men but as complex individuals in our own right, this new men's rights movement has come along and once more asserted the right of male people to determine the nature and being of woman.

What trans shows is how oppressed women really are, even in the West. Men decide what we are and what happens to us, not us. Having spaces free of men, even in the most extreme circumstances e.g. women's refuges - is not allowed.

And yes, I agree that trans is the backlash to women's rights, women's freedom and women naming the problem - male violence against us. Men simply can't allow it and the timing is no coincidence.

I don't call it the TRA Agenda.

I call it the Government's Agenda.

It's Parliament that make laws and Ministers who interpret them and spear-head the policies and guidelines. TRAs have been invited to the table by Ministers and Parliamentary Enquiries. No-one would give them the time of day if they weren't backed by Ministers.

They have been handed, on a plate, the ability to influence policing, school policies, judges, charities, public services and businesses.

Beyond a few nasty encounters with TRAs in real life and social media (water off a duck's back!) I do not feel oppressed by TRAs. What oppresses me are things like

• risking being arrested and losing my job for expressing dissent
• unable to use a council-run leisure centre because of mixed sex changing facilities

and so on.

theotherpamayres
I think you have made an important point. Maybe we should lump all the TRAS and MRAs together as WRKs. Women's rights killers so we don't miss any of the misogynistic nobs out.

TRAs are the ones calling the police, threatening women with violence and punching them in the face. Transwomen are in refuges and women's spaces committing sexual assault. The call for self ID came from trans activists, not the government, the government simply signed up to it. It was former's idea.

I think the Government has been surprised women are so against changing our current law and have put on hold the proposed legal change . That is good news if true. the current law is sensible and measured - those born in the wrong body can get their surgery, take their time - 2 years and change gender. It's a reasonable compromise.

OP asked a question and barely anyone is engaging the point of the OP's post.

Are there any other ideological systems like that in the modern world- which by their nature are such that they have to be maintained by force?

It's a very good question, a question if pontificated on could bring some interesting perspectives and theories to light.

Talking about women's oppression in other cultures (or countries) or within other ideological constructs is not race bait or waiving racist shrouds - especially when several cultures noted embrace transgenderism while rejecting LGB.

Can we not consider women's existence in these ideological systems - must we forget them turning a blind eye to their marginalization? The color of your skin does not inherently provide or add value or devalue - perceived value based on skin color is a diabolical and repugnant construct. This does not mean that we need to ignore women that experience life differently from those in the west (or from the west) for fear of being called racist by discussing their struggles/challenges. Their treatment has nothing to do with their skin color under these oppressive systems it has everything to do with their biological reality. Women from the west that accept certain ideologies are also oppressed under these systems - regardless of skin color. Is it so wrong to consider how (born-into or converts) they have been indoctrinated through ideological systems to accept oppression as a fact of life?

We could just as easily discuss the widely known abuse of nuns in Catholicism - regardless of skin color, economic background, or educational achievement. Many are forced and/or coerced into indentured servitude by way of certain interpretations of Catholic doctrine. I was a witness to this as a child - I did everything I could to get out of Catholic School because of the way the nuns were treated not to mention other terrible things I was witness to. And to be perfectly honest the ideas we were taught in catechism classes were completely illogical and didn't jive with my little math and science brain. Because I had the benefit of an independent mother who relies heavily on logic I was able to escape indoctrination myself. Many girls aren't so lucky.

*Note: Most ideological systems exist in relation to religion - and every system has an extremist sect.

I disagree with you @Eryth

TRAs are the ones calling the police
Parliament made the laws on hate crime.
The Home Office (Police) and Justice Ministry (CPS, Judiciary and Prisons) invited pro-trans groups to write their policy guidelines and train staff.
The police were told to respond to the hate crimes and "crack down on transphobia."

Transwomen are in refuges and women's spaces committing sexual assault

They are in refuges because government, local councils, charities etc won't fund or make grants to services that don't include trans.
They are in prisons because the Justice Minister outsourced prison policy to Gendered Intelligence and gave them a seat on the review panel. GI have no expertise in offender management and that's why Karen White happened.

The call for self ID came from trans activists, not the government
the government simply signed up to it. It was former's idea.

No way.

In 2010, civil servants presented the new Lib Dem Minister Lynn Featherstone with a file that had been gathering dust. It was an Action Plan for Transgender Equality. It was something that she hadn't thought of before. It was in no party's manifesto. She decided to explore it.

The number of lobbyists grew in response to the Minister's interest. There was the prospect of funding for training and resources. Stonewall reinvented itself.

Doors opened for trans "stakeholders".

Civil servants, ministers and politicians have done more damage to the legal status and service provision for women than any TRA. They have emboldened TRAs with their unwavering support for TWAW.

All this 'democratic' process without any reference to any women! At all! Not the women in refuge scared of men, or the DC too scared to speak.

They, in their superiority of 'knowing best' went ahead with all this in full arrogance and ignorance, and illegally against the EA!

Then there's the way that in 67 same sex relations were 'allowed', and yet another 30 years before it became illegal to rape your wife.

The other Pam Ayres
You're blaming the Government for this shit show, do you not realise how lobby groups work? Are you so entrenched in your mindset that anyone who is a Tory is evil and you can't see the wood for the trees?
Labour appointed a Woman's Officer, one Lily Madigan. Look at the shit show that is the Lib Dem party. Look at the Green Party with their women are non men. Educate yourself ffs

TheOtherPam ...You're blaming the Government for this shit show, do you not realise how lobby groups work? Are you so entrenched in your mindset that anyone who is a Tory is evil and you can't see the wood for the trees? Educate yourself ffs

Is that you, Penny Mordaunt? Glad you could make it. There are a shed load of questions waiting for your answers in another forum.

It was a labour government that created the GRA and the Equality Act, with all of the catastrophic ramifications of recognising male people as female. And the Conservatives who pressed for it to be made a bigger lie via self ID.
It's fair to say I despise both culprits, and for that matter all the other parties who have failed women.

I'm horrified by how such devastating incompetence and arrogance brought these laws into existence. I believe that people were too lazy, too arrogant and too stupid to properly think it through. They redefined an entire sex class and thought they could keep a lid on the lie, control the numbers. Fools. Where incompetence sets disaster in motion, opportunism will ensure it can't be stopped.

I feel as if we've entered an era where ethics and reason have died in all our institutions of power, and all that remains is which policy will get the most likes, and who can make money from any resultant misery.

Tran ideology is such a huge and audacious lie that people have to be intimidated and threatened to perpetuate it. It would, and will, collapse as soon as a critical mass of people reject it publicly. There is a holding game happening right now, an effort to publicly intimate the few in order to send the message to the many.
People are in a genuine state of fear.

I am offended that you would credit the shit show that was the mordaunt, with that. otherpamayres