In support of Amy Dyess

[AllNaturalWoman]

Title says it all really. Amy has publicly disagreed with the detransitioners representing lesbians at Manchester pride and has been called out for being 'unsupportive' rather than a recognition she has a right to hold the views she does twitter.com/amydyess/status/1166114175367532545?s=21

Whilst I've been glad to see a public retraction from the 2 desisters and I am sure doing that Pride being booed this time will not have been easy I see Amy's point that if they are bi they don't speak for lesbians and in particular they shouldn't go from speaking for the trans movement to speaking for lesbians. I'm bi, my life experience is very different and considerably easier than being lesbian. As a bi woman I don't have the right to speak for lesbians and just as most of us here don't feel LibDems women can give away our rights and identity as women to transwomen neither bi nor lesbian women have the right to give away rights and identify as lesbian to anyone who is not.

Amy is principled and consistent so I do tend to stop and take notice when she's calling behaviours out.

There should be room for Amy's principled stance at the same time as feeling Charlie desisting publicly is encouraging. Why the need to convince Amy she's wrong?

You seem very invested: to the extent you join MN to "not just bandy about insults". Is there some personal connection we're missing?

I've been on mumsnet over a decade, since it was all green fields and Cod was here. I am a regular on FWR (spend far too much time here!)

Yes, I know Amy personally. I've changed my name as I don't want to deal with any more of her bullshit. There's lots of personal stuff I could share here, but I won't. I'm going to stick to the public stuff.

what we probably need to do is examine our own -often overly hostile - responses to women's anger.

Do you really mean this? You think "fuck off imposter" is a reasonable way for anyone to speak to someone they've just criticised online, when the person they just criticised tries to engage with them respectfully?

Saying that calling out Amy on this is to do with a hostile response to women's anger is a bit bloody rich! Amy was plainly being a dick. Her sex is absolutely irrelevant here.

I don't know Amy very well, to be clear. But well enough to have got the measure of her.

Just had a look at her twitter feed she seems like she has really thought this through and doesn’t deserve to be attacked.

Yes, I know Amy personally.

Right. Thanks for confirming.

Not interested in personal feuding: only the underlying macro level issues.

I can’t see her swearing anywhere maybe I missed that bit

Good analogy about this using the Prodigal Son parable by Dyketagnan on Spinster:

spinster.xyz/@Dyketagnan/posts/102693772151609117

she seems like she has really thought this through and doesn’t deserve to be attacked

Who do you think was attacking her, on twitter, exactly?

She attacked a bunch of women and didn't much like it when people pointed out that them politely defending themselves wasn't an attack on her.

Get the L Out have always said their protest was lesbians and allies. Charlie was the victim of the ideology Get The L Out are protesting. She didn't speak for lesbians, she held a banner in support of.

And, again, Amy's in the US. What has a protest by a small group of women in the UK got to do with her, exactly?

And I'll say again: if you're blinded to the underlying issues because it's too shocking for you that a woman had the effrontery to lose her temper - you should probably unpack that, before attempting to unpack either Amy or Charlie, who both belong to groups that are in need of support from women.

Not interested in personal feuding: only the underlying macro level issues.

Yes, which is why I've stuck to the public domain.
Do you disagree with any of the actual points I've made?

PSA as “razor sharp” MN-ers, we should be wary of brand new posters who seem keen to fan the 🔥

I’ve been told to “fuck off” in various contexts - who gives a fuck? Charlie is 28, Amy is 35. They are grown ups and don’t need a proxy war fought in their behalf.

Someone in Canada spray painted “Kill T**Fs” on a rape shelter yesterday. I’m a bit if people think a Twitter fallout is more concerning.

Lumene it was here:

Do you disagree with any of the actual points I've made?

Yes. As I've said repeatedly, I think there is plenty to be angry about and making a song and dance about a woman - who has a strong point about butch lesbians - losing her temper on Twitter is more indicative of how we feel about women openly expressing anger than it is about either group at play here, who both need our support.

I do not appreciate personal beefs being leveraged when the underlying issues are important.

OK, let's talk about the underlying issues.

Should allies how have been harmed by gender ideology be protesting side by side with lesbians, when invited to do so by those lesbians? I believe, yes, they should.

Amy's focus is on lesbians, not on fighting gender ideology so she's seeing it through that lens. But this was a GC protest. The women protesting were from Get the L Out and other GC groups eg Object! - but I think only Get the L Out was specifically lesbian group, rather than a GC group is that right?

This was a GC protest in support of lesbians and against gender ideology.

Should only lesbian groups be able to protest in support of lesbians and against gender ideology? If a lesbian group organises a protest and invites allies, and that protest ends up being almost totally lesbians, but includes a very small number of allies, is that wrong?

Should a bisexual women not be allowed to hold up a banner in support of lesbians, alongside a lesbian? As far as I know, she wasn't taking the place of a lesbian, she was joining in addition, in support of.

Are we serious about fighting gender ideology or not? We need all hands on deck in my opinion.

Surely by that token Lang, other's right to criticise Amy's response is just as valid as Amy's right to criticise whoever she wants. I can't really see a meaningful point there at all.

Having read Amy's twitter - she's pissed off with a detransitioner getting praise and she was also extremely rude to Bindel.

I have found women support angry women when they feel the anger is directed in a useful way (e.g. Posie Parker's rant about pronouns from about a year ago), but aren't interested in people who are just angry at people without making actual points.

I think the TRA anger always shows them in a bad light and definitely isn't something to aspire to.

Really not Amy, confused by the suggestion - I've been around here a while but obviously NC.

My point is really around wanting us to disagree respectfully and not treat someone disagreeing as needing to be brought into line. And the point by a pp as needing to not recoil form someones anger really resonated.

I'm not a lesbian, as bi with a male partner I've not experienced any prejudice or discrimination, I can't and should not speak on behalf of lesbians but I can speak out in support. Honestly I don't really understand the butch/femme lesbianism, but I do see that butch lesbians are at the sharp end of activism and prejudice.

I don't know Charlie's history so I don't know whether urging caution is justified. I went from being a trans ally to being deeply concerned about the impact on women to here on FWR but I never vilified women who I disagreed with when I was a libfem. I know we love a convert but caution may not be a bad strategy.

I'm surprised by the suggestion Amy is a narcissist (although this is MN and that's a popular accusation), she is American and they haven't been socialised in the self deprecation we have. Seriously these are significant cultural differences.

And seriously as a pp commented we need to learn to handle other activist anger better, we are too horrified when women are angry about something they care deeply about

Are we serious about fighting gender ideology or not?

Yes.

Should a bisexual women not be allowed to hold up a banner in support of lesbians, alongside a lesbian?

Not my decision.

I'm a heterosexual woman. I have no intention of attempting to adjudicate lesbian and/or bi politics and disputes. That would be as obnoxious as male allies attempting to adjudicate feminist politics and disputes.

In my view:

Amy has done nothing wrong. Losing one's temper and being rude is not a cardinal sin. Representing butch lesbians to the death is a virtue.

Charlie has done nothing wrong. Going on the protest and holding up that banner was incredibly courageous.

Get the L Out has done nothing wrong. Brilliant, brave campaigning women who should run their protest as they see fit.

I shall observe what everyone involved has to say, refrain from tone policing any of them or bringing personal animosities to bear, and hopefully emerge with a better understanding of how I can support ALL.

wokeanarchists.wordpress.com/2018/11/25/against-anarcho-liberalism-and-the-curse-of-identity-politics/

Well that was an interesting article and is relevant to this present brouhaha

I thought Amy's argument revolved around the detransitioners marching with "Get the L out" at Pride.

Yes, this.

The problem here is that Amy is overstepping.

The protest on Saturday was a gender critical protest in support of lesbians, NOT a lesbian-only protest.

Amy's focus is lesbians, not gender critical feminism (only women she deems to be proper lesbians, to be clear, not "political" or "choice" lesbians".)

Amy is criticising the protest for including detransitioners, whom she thinks lesbians should be suspicious of.

But she misses the point entirely. This was a GC protest. The voices of young detransitioners who were caught up in the cult, are very important indeed in regards to criticising gender ideology. Young lesbians and other GNC kids are being caught up in this and are exactly the young people we are trying to protect from this cult.

If a group of UK lesbian GC campaigners invite allies to join their GC protest then that's their look out. What on earth has it got to do with Amy who's not even in the UK and is not a GC campaigner? (She's said she's distancing herself from the movement).

It's comparing apples and pears. Amy is acting as if a bisexual woman has been given a lesbian platform. But that's misunderstanding the point of the protest. It wasn't a lesbian platform, it was a GC protest.

Amy has done nothing wrong. Losing one's temper and being rude is not a cardinal sin. Representing butch lesbians to the death is a virtue.

Amy is losing her temper about something that has nothing to do with her. This was a UK-based GC protest. Amy is in the US and has declared she's not part of the GC movement. So why is she commenting on our protests? She's pissed off because it doesn't suit HER agenda, but it never claimed to.

I think the problem lies in the nature of individuals prepared to speak out; confident, opinionated women who act on their beliefs. We need these women, we need their abrasive qualities, we need women who go against the trend, do unpopular things, who are not afraid to disagree and say so. These are the women who lead the charge. But it should not come as a surprise that these personalities will rub others on the ‘same side’ up the wrong way too.

Should a bisexual women not be allowed to hold up a banner in support of lesbians, alongside a lesbian?

Not my decision.

Right? It’s not. No, and it’s not the decision of someone from a distance who wasn’t involved in the planning of this particular protest at this particular time. It was the decision of the lesbians in that particular group at that particular time to protest with other gc allies including detransitioners. So there’s that.

If AD chooses not to march with or accept the support of any but other gold star lesbians, that is, of course her prerogative, but, I tend to agree with rollonautumndays that this does smack of making this ALL about AD when it actually isn’t.

And, of course, women should be allowed to get angry and voice their anger but women should also be able to point out when other women’s anger is misplaced, disproportionate or unjustified, not just have to suck it up - we do enough of that for men.

(on their behalf... typo)

I dunno roll, Amy and Charlie (who held her own) have moved on already. You seem keen to stir up angst against Amy - why?

It is ok for women to disagree and even (omg!) use intemperate language. No one threatened violence, tried to get anyone sacked or nailed dead rats to doors.

Not that this is the bar for acceptable conduct, mind you! But some of the reaction here to what actually happened seems disproportionate.

And what if those women are bullies and/or narcs?

Not talking about Amy specifically now, I mean more generally.

Narcissists are often charismatic people who love a public platform and to be adored by many. Activism offers such people an easy route to a public platform. This is a problem in politics and activism in general, not just in feminism (although I think we have a fair few! Including some whose work I respect).

If we give those with a bit of a platform carte blanche to be arseholes to others within our own movement because we label them "righteously angry" then surely we're signalling to other bullies/narcs that this is a place they'll be welcome to throw their weight around, while being patted on the back for it?