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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Transexual women face erasure - interesting thread

127 replies

pombear · 23/08/2019 00:27

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3667526-Transsexual-women-face-erasure

Given that so many posters said what an interesting and enlightening thread this ended up turning into, with some really key issues discussed and some strong points made by lots of posters (I particularly welcomed Barracker's refresh regarding the importance of language), it seems a shame if it drops down the list due to being full and people miss out on reading it (what with it being summer holidays and all).

OP posts:
Goosefoot · 23/08/2019 13:27

I think fetishes can have sort of a random quality sometimes - just something odd that was arousing to a particular kid at a particular time.

But I have wondered if this particular one might be related to exhibitionism, which seems to be about imagining yourself from the perspective of other people, so you yourself are in a way the sexual object. It's a fairly common fetish too and one that doesn't seem to be as exclusive to men as many are, in it's more mundane form.

Hamster00 · 23/08/2019 13:30

And I'm not just talking about the women and girls who find themselves intimidated in toilets or left without refuges. I'm talking about the girl who works in Primark, faced with a grown man purchasing lacy knickers and casually dropping in a reference to the fact they're for him; the girl who has to smile politely and deny all her instincts screaming at her, who has to watch his smirking face as he revels in the sexual thrill he gets from her discomfort; the girl who cannot name him as a predator (perhaps not even in her own mind) for fear of the consequences.

Trytotoxicity has made a really important point here. There seems to be a "rite of passage" among certain groups that follows a certain pattern as the fetish gains traction to involve other people.

  1. Going out and buying female clothes "for my girlfriend"

Then when a little braver

  1. Going out and buying female clothes and admitting they are for themselves

Then

  1. Going out in partially male/female mixed attire (or wearing a little makeup to see if anyone notices)

Then

  1. Going out "dressed".

Each step is involving more and more people, and becoming more and more exhibitionist in nature. Unfortunately at each stage women are having to become the unwilling participants in the fetish at all stages.

On many of the TV-type forums, it's a kind of "bravado" where not only "newbies" are being egged on to climb up the ladder to going out fully dressed, but at the end goal a rapturous applause for being "so brave". It's vile. There is definitely a pack mentality there.

Also, when these types DO go out dressed, it's in the most ridiculous attire that's so out of place that people just can't help but stare. I mean a 6ft bloke, caked in the wrong colour foundation with shoulders like a rugby prop in some flimsy top, miniskirt and ridiculous heels IS going to get looked at.

They then TRY and convince themselves that they can "pass" as a woman, which is ridiculous because women can ALWAYS tell, no matter how good you think you look/pass.

It's the thrill, the exhibitionism of it all - it's a (sexual) fetish plain and simple, and women are the victims of it - as usual

sackrifice · 23/08/2019 13:40

I don't often go clothes shopping, last time i went into a clothes shop there was a bloke in the 'women's' section, blocking the aisle with his hand holding a plethora of dresses he had chosen, slinging each hanger along the rail as he furiously one by one looked at every single dress on the rail, rail by rail, not allowing any woman to actually pass. It was quite an interesting sight.

not one woman went into the 'women's area', they all walked off and started looking in the 'men's area; waiting for him to finish. And he didn't he just went on and on and the women all slunk out one by one.

I wasn't even there for me, I was there whilst my OH was looking for something. I was stood by the door watching. He is a faffer so i was there ages.

TalkingintheDark · 23/08/2019 13:43

All involve using women. Just to varied degrees. Its the nudge nudge nudge of the line of acceptability to use women . All of this makes women nothing more than passive recipients of whatever men decide they should be used for.

Every single word of this.

This is what I can’t get my head around.

ALL of transgenderism (or whatever you want to call it) is based on this. Male people using female people. Members of the oppressor class using members of the class their class has traditionally oppressed.

Appropriation of us and our spaces. Colonisation. Straight up oppression of female human beings by male human beings. The centring of the male humans’ needs/wishes/feelings at the expense of the female humans’.

Our humanity is being denied. We are, yet again, merely adjuncts to the lives of the “real” humans, the male ones.

I can’t get my head around why this isn’t blindingly obvious to more people. Why @MNHQ talk about how they will ”stand in solidarity with vulnerable or oppressed minorities” and just don’t get that it’s the majority who’s actually vulnerable and oppressed here, the 51%.

We must all know that being more numerous does not always equate to being more powerful; surely people haven’t forgotten the reality of life for Black people under apartheid in SA already?

We must all know that the power that women as a class wield in society still falls very, very far short of that wielded by men as a class. In ALL societies, worldwide. This should not be something that needs to be proved over and over again, to be backed up by endless studies and statistics (although the studies and statistics exist and do, obviously, prove it).

I wish MNHQ would stand in solidarity with vulnerable and oppressed WOMEN, many of whom turn to MN as a source of much-needed support.

I wish @JustineMN realised that although perhaps her life has been easier than that of some male individuals with gender dysphoria, the same is not true of many, many of us on here whose lives have been disproportionately full of pain and struggle, who have survived (sometimes barely) abuses of all kinds, who have battled and continue to battle umpteen issues of all kinds, many of which proceed directly from the fact of having been born female; all of which are compounded and further impacted by the fact of our having been born female.

WE are the ones being fucked over here. We are the ones most affected by all this, we are the ones who most struggle to make our voices heard, the ones least likely to be able to speak for ourselves, the ones who are being and will be hurt by this phenomenon of transgenderism, this new form of male oppression. This new and oh so modern variation of men using women as extensions of their own lives, refusing to see and treat us as human beings in our own right.

This is misogyny, this blind, unconscious acceptance that men are more human than women, that they matter more, that what affects them should be taken more seriously than what affects women. I’ve grown up with it, lived with it all my life; no longer on a day to day, personal level thankfully, but it’s still part of the world I live in, the air I breathe, that we all breathe.

I struggle to post on here. I would love to be a more regular part of the conversation, but it takes too much out of me to post. I still don’t have the voice I would love to have. Other women don’t have any voice at all. We are silenced on Twitter, on FB, on here if we don’t watch ourselves very, very carefully. Many of us have not grown up being told we are allowed to speak, entitled to be heard; women as a class are still fighting for the right to be heard.

Whereas TRAs have any number of platforms and organisations advocating for them, funding them, fighting for their right to oppress women every bit as much as they want. They have the advantage and privilege of male entitlement, the belief they have the right to their voice, and doesn’t it just show.

It’s upside down and batshit to present women as privileged relative to a subset of the male sex class that is actually the more privileged of the two sexes and always has been. Just because there are way more women than males who want to be seen as women doesn’t mean we are more powerful; I think the events of the last couple of decades and especially the last few years have proved that. We are the objects being used by the subjects; they are the ones oppressing us, we are the ones who are vulnerable.

And now they get to demonise us for not wanting to be mere accessories in their lives.

‘Twas ever thus.

Sorry. Bit of a lengthy tangent. I found your words very inspiring, Michelleoftheresistance Grin

TurboTeddy · 23/08/2019 13:43

OhHimAgain your post at 07.35, spot on. Community disrupter coming across GaF.

Has anyone had contact with Detroit? Is she OK, or as OK as she can be under such difficult circumstances.

Detroit if you're reading Flowers, I hadn't posted support before but I read your posts and you've been on my mind. I do hope your situation improves soon. I don't know if you sorted a secure email but here's a link which explains protonmail if that's any use.

thebestvpn.com/anonymous-email/

ErrolTheDragon · 23/08/2019 13:44

I'm reminded of Izzard's account of his first time out 'dressed', in which he - apparently without any qualms - uses a ladies loo and then depicts himself as the victim of 'bullying' because some teenage girls have the temerity to question him.

mobile.twitter.com/sarahstuartxx/status/980213536839389185

ErrolTheDragon · 23/08/2019 13:45

Has anyone had contact with Detroit?

Yup, I think Lang has.

Tyrotoxicity · 23/08/2019 13:47

Fortunately my AGP ex hasn't made the leap from step 2 to step yet.

I am ashamed to say I unwittingly encouraged him to indulge in step 2. I was attempting to be a good little sex-positive libfem at the time. And I grew up in fandom, where our motto was "your kink is not my kink and that's okay!" so I was very open and accepting about his AGP, on the grounds that what people do privately in their own bedrooms or brains is no one else's business.

Then I fell through the radicalisation portal (you lot are awesome btw). I became less and less accepting, and vocalised all the worrisome little aspects of this fetish. He knows damned well he'll face major resistance if he goes for step 3. So he hasn't.

Two morals of this story is: being accepting of fetishes encourages them; and the concept of 'sex-positivity' is damaging for women (and always will be no matter how it's reworked, because we'll always be trying to implement it in a world with male-socialised people in).

littlbrowndog · 23/08/2019 13:49

Talkinginthedark great post
Hamster great post

2BthatUnnoticed · 23/08/2019 14:00

Talking FlowersCake

EmpressLesbianInChair · 23/08/2019 14:11

Talking Wine

LangCleg · 23/08/2019 14:14

Well said, Trytotoxicity and Hamster.

2BthatUnnoticed · 23/08/2019 14:18

Oh my word, Izzard is a completely misogynist. The sense of entitlement, a man sauntering into the women’s toilets and being mortally offended that 13 yo girls didn’t smilingly accept him as a woman!?

Transexual women face erasure - interesting thread
Transexual women face erasure - interesting thread
LangCleg · 23/08/2019 14:20

Oh, Talking. Flowers

LangCleg · 23/08/2019 14:20

Yup, I think Lang has.

Only brief to say thank you to every woman here for the support. But yes. I will update if and when.

SheWhoMustBeSilent · 23/08/2019 14:34

My policy now is to directly challenge any man who expects to impose his autogynephilia on me and to laugh out loud at their ridiculous appearance.

I am not going to be forced into acquiescence via fear any longer.

BuzzShitbagBobbly · 23/08/2019 14:43

These are misnomers we use, we who know noone changes from male to female, man to woman. We're using these words, although we know they're not right. But they're validation, a promise of pretence, that create a pull, a promised destination, where people will agree you've arrived.

100%. I saw this recently (pic) too.

Transexual women face erasure - interesting thread
Datun · 23/08/2019 15:18

I do think highly gendered backgrounds would fit my experience. But I'm not sure it fits with me that it came from my father.

Of the transwomen I've spoken to in real life, it's been the father. But, of course, we have Jazz Jennings and Jackie Green, too. Both of whom had a mother who is a fully paid up member of the 'innate gender stereotype'.

talking Flowers

Hamster00 · 23/08/2019 15:24

My policy now is to directly challenge any man who expects to impose his autogynephilia on me and to laugh out loud at their ridiculous appearance. I am not going to be forced into acquiescence via fear any longer.

I think that's a good policy to have tbh, but YET AGAIN it's being left to women to call out what they see, when frankly this is a MALE problem that's affecting women.

It's men that need to speak up about this too tbh - not just your Mirandas or Fionnes but your "average bloke in the street". By keeping quiet they're complicitly enabling it.

I'll be the first to admit that even the most women-supporting "genuine" (I still hate that word) transsexuals have been complicit at one time or another of infringement/colonisation/misogyny so we're just as much the problem. I guess some of us are trying to be better at least and not be part of the problem.

I hate the "umbrella of trans". It's muddied the waters so much. It's legitimised fetish as a form of gender expression (I hate that term too). I just don't know HOW this can all be rolled out and fixed - but I think speaking up and speaking out without fear is certainly the first step.

Deliriumoftheendless · 23/08/2019 15:32

It's men that need to speak up about this too tbh - not just your Mirandas or Fionnes but your "average bloke in the street". By keeping quiet they're complicitly enabling it.

Agreed, where is the “acceptance without exception” from men? The ones who attack women rather than welcoming transwomen into their changing rooms, sports teams etc?

Wouldn’t it be better all round if men became more accepting?

louiseaaa · 23/08/2019 16:45

Well

I have just lost three hours catching up from page 21 where I got to and the present

to all you FWR posters who have expanded my thoughts on this and given me the words to solidify the gut feeling about the wrongness of the issue. I have two good friends who's children are currently transitioning. Good friends, who I respect and it's heartbreaking to see them contort themselves and the cognitive dissonance is strong.

Two things, I reached peak rage at about p35/6/7/8 - and the final post, what a fucking magnificent full stop.

I will now go back to lurking, however your brilliant musings will be wending their way into real life conversations very soon, thank you all again.

ScrimshawTheSecond · 23/08/2019 16:46

I've had a bit of a horrible flashback of encountering someone in a toilet in central Glasgow when I was a teenager. Who was making very odd noises while playing with what was very obviously a bad wig.

I have always thought it was weird moaning noises because of anxiety. It has just hit me that it may have been excitement, and that perhaps I was not incidental to that but a trigger for it. A middle aged person in a toilet, waiting at the mirror, fiddling with hair, starting to moan and keen when a teenage girl comes in.

Oh, dear me. Feeling slightly sick. And a smidge naive. Sad

DetroitOtherday · 23/08/2019 17:40

Hello, sisters.. it's Detroit.

I'm very nervous of men and their handmaidens, so a little skittish.

I'm ok. It's a big tourist area, so I struggled to find a camping spot for the weekend. Plus they wanted credit to reserve, so I had to find an impossible non reserved space . I've ended up with no shower, but flush bathrooms.

I spoke to another shelter yesterday. They said if they didn't accept trans people of the penises variety they would lose funding, and suggested the Christian thing to do would be for me to accept twaw, and the feminizing of men would produce a more gentle society.

Ill carry on on this thread or make another if people are interested.

I've greatly appreciated the support here. It made me feel less alone. Apart from being deleted.

These men deleted me from shelters too. My house. Money. Medical insurance

Deleted from life if I hadn't left too

It's almost funny. Except it isn't.

Michelleoftheresistance · 23/08/2019 17:51

Detroit Flowers Post away, please do.

ErrolTheDragon · 23/08/2019 17:51

Welcome back, Detroit. Sorry you're having to deal with so much shit.

' the Christian thing to do would be for me to accept twaw' - well, yeah, centering males fits well with most religions. Hmm

'the feminizing of men would produce a more gentle society' - maybe if boys were socialised more like girls that might be true. Trouble is, too many TW are nothing of the sort. External 'femininity' quite evidently makes no difference to their behaviour. The honourable exceptions - people like hamster on this thread or eg Fionne Olander are, I'd guess, by nature 'gentle men'. And it's notable these are the TW** who don't claim to be women and colonise women's spaces.

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