Vox article on rise of TERFS!

[thegiantgirl]

www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical

Just came across this article on Facebook, Vox page. Aside from being extremely badly written is also a terrible representation of what gender critical means comparing it to being a white supremacist! I can’t formulate a good response right now I’m too angry 😡

Stuff like this isn't pointing out that a bloke is a bloke, it's specifically comparing feminine appearances:

"I’m not especially feminine but next to KB I’d look like a proper dainty little thing..."

Would you say that about a natal woman? Is that the only argument you have with them? Of course not. It just cheapens what we are actually arguing imo.

I'm not the poster who wrote that but I'm sure she wouldn't say that about a natal woman. I don't understand the relevance. Why do we have to pretend they look like women? They don't.

Katelyn Burns' twitter timeline is full of people telling them how beautiful they are. This is what they get told constantly. Do you know any women in their 30s who put endless selfies up? Because I don't.

This is about validation.

This article is a classic

www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/23/18637047/dressbarn-closing-essay-transition

It doesn't surprise me that some high-profile GC feminists are happy to link up with religious fascists. They seem to be, if not the same people, at least following the same lines as the pro-censorship/anti-sex feminists of 20/30 years ago (who were equally happy to hang out with the appalling right-wing fish-heads). Many of them also support the Nordic Model on sex work, which has been shown over and over to put more women at more risk. And then there have been one or two coming out in opposition to abortion rights, because access to abortion allows men to have PIV sex with women and eek, yuk, waah, anything which involves PIV sex needs to be stamped out...

Reanimated

I've been invited to a talk and would be interested in reading more about the Nordic Model beforehand. Things I've found have promoted the positives of the model. Can you direct me to any of the studies that show how the model puts women at risk?

Not trying to get you to do my work for me, but all I can find written against the model are opinion pieces with no evidence of studies to back them up, and you say there's lots of evidence.

I'm gender critical but wouldn't want to accidentally ally myself to men-hating, anti-abortion fascists!

I don't think anyone should have to pretend anyone looks like anything. I just don't see why looks are getting dragged into this thread or other threads that aren't about appearances. I don't tend to read TRA's Twitter threads for that reason!

What you look like has no bearing on "how much of a woman" you are as we know.

Anyway, sorry to derail!

Can we leave off the "anti-sex" shite in opposition to the Nordic model.

Those of us who are not rah, pompoms over prostitution are not anti-sex. We are anti-coerced-sex (where we include in coercion unwanted sex forced on people in virtue of their economic circumstances).

Nordic model has not "been shown time and time again to harm women". Youre thinking of legalisation

There’s nothing actually wrong with being right wing of religious. Huge numbers of people are. It’s a totally normal part of society.

Right wing or religious, that should say.

Harms of the Nordic model here

"It's written by Katelyn Burns. 'nuff said."

Ugh.

Fragglin

Transwashing history. So mainstream within the movement that most believe it to be true.

At present vast swathes of the public have no idea what is going on but they will find out eventually and when they do there had better be a moderate body politic for them to turn to because if the far right are the only group who will protect children the far right will get the votes. People have a limit beyond which they won't be pushed.

This. This all day.

I have already had to write off voting for some UK political parties because of this. It troubles me.

TinselAngel OMG that article is indeed a classic - a classic example of autogynophilia, where being a women is all about the clothes, the makeup, the appearence, the validation, the passing. When a bank customer Burns talking to demands to speak to a man about a financial matter, Burns doesn't do what any woman would do and inform him that Burns is perfectly qualified to answer his questions. Nope, Burns doesn't feel in the least bit insulted or belittled, just elated that Burns has passed!

I haven't read enough about it but I certainly wouldn't conflate Nordic Model with right wing anti abortion man haters.

Take a look at the Nordic Model now website , you may find useful information there.

nordicmodelnow.org/

Also they are doing sterling work opposing the Law Commission's planned changes to surrogacy law. Please use their ten minute download to respond.

nordicmodelnow.org/2019/08/30/how-to-respond-to-the-uk-surrogacy-consultation-in-10-easy-minutes/

The only people who oppose the Nordic Model are those with a vested interest (ie they make money out of women's subjugation) or those who's "sex work" is hands off and therefore not dangerous because they don't come into contact with men.

ReanimatedSGB

I am pro censorship in that I think media showing actual abuse of women and children should be illegal, and that media depicting women (supposedly) pretending to be abused is highly problematic, and should be regulated, in terms of its accessibility to minors etc. Some men seem to think if they have an orgasm to some piece of media that makes said media important freezepeach. Meanwhile women are banned from the public sphere for saying “men are not women”.

I am not anti sex. I am anti men using women’s bodies sexually under duress or coercion, which in my view is rape, not sex.

Only male people benefit from a view of “sex” that includes coercive rape as a viable path for men’s sexual pleasure.

As far as I know, places which have moved towards complete decrim of sex work (meaning Johns can’t be prosecuted) have seen skyrocketing rates of actual human trafficking of women and children.

ReanimatedSGB thank you for posting the link to that paper which I have now read. It is light on evidence and heavy on rhetoric and ideology. Using data from the UK for instance as proof of the harms of the Nordic model is beyond ludicrous, it is dishonest as the UK does not follow the Nordic model. Anywhere.

A natal woman should be "allowed" to look as unfeminine as she damn well pleases so why should only certain people be required to look gender-conforming?

I agree. Women can have look however they want. Men shouldn't be surprised when we think they look manly though.

What a load of bunkum. A very vociferous minority of TW are the white supremacists and sucking a lot of people in.

People need to stop labelling everything marginally to the right of Pol Pot 'alt-right' it has become a meaningless term. If you label everything you disagree with 'extremist' then when real extremists show up no one will pay you any mind. You will become the boy who cried wolf.*

Yes, it just reinforces the idea that things which fall under certain labels are inarguable by virtue of the fact that somehow they became associated with that faction. Given that trans ideology got as far as it has because many people have made that very assumption, that it must be progressive and good because it is associated with the left, without thinking it through, we should all be suspicious of that thinking.

And really, the idea that conservatives, or the alt-right which people seem to think are the same, are all just hoping to enforce gender stereotypes and control women's bodies just for the sake of it, is so reductive. It shows the problem with this approach it prevents real engagement and understanding of why people take particular viewpoints.