A question worth considering.

[Creepster]

“Is excluding trans widows from feminism a price worth paying for having our opinions validated by “transexuals?”

This question has come up several times over the past few weeks.
Where do the wives go for community and support when the transitioned husbands occupy the feminist community?

But aside from that, absolutely, wtf have the media so comprehensively ignored the people like tinsel harmed by this when they're happy to give column inches to hayton (and worse, that bloke in the telegraph).

I suppose this is exacerbated by the fact that nearly all of us feel we have to stay anonymous, whereas our ex's can be out and proud, stunning and braving all over the place.

“It was so obvious to me. That’s why I said something in 1976,” Babashoff said. “At the time I felt cheated. You can see it when I’m on the podium getting my silver. I thought to myself, why is everyone turning their back on this huge thing that is happening? Then I came home from Montreal and had to live with what I had said.”

She was branded “Surly Shirley” and called a sore loser. Sports Illustrated, the same publication that had featured her on its cover, ran her photo with the word “loser” underneath it.

“She is one of the most done wrong by people in sports history,” said Dave Hollander, a sports historian and clinical assistant professor at NYU’s Tisch Institute for Sports, Management, Media and Business."

This bit is from a few years ago when another doping scandal at the Olympics was in the news. She was 19 when they did this to her.
Women are not stupid. They know what happens to those who make a corrupt organization look bad by pointing out cheating or when they fail to put on a happy face when they have been cheated.
Women also know, and no one better than trans widows, that the media will excoriate them for disloyalty and "tearing apart the family" if they "speak truth to power".

Well said, Creepster.

Creepster - brilliant post.

This is why it is so important for former sportswomen who reached the top - brave women like Martina Navratilova and Sharron Davies - to speak up for the women still competing who can't speak up.

“Is excluding trans widows from feminism a price worth paying for having our opinions validated by “transexuals?”

No.

I hadn't considered this particular issue until recently because I didn't know about it. However, the very first event I attended had a woman speaking whose partner identified as trans and followed her to all women-only spaces and activities that she had sought out to get away from him for some time alone, to take a breath and to consider her options. At the time refuges where she lived were proudly, publicly trans-inclusive and thus, therefore, these spaces excluded her by default. As as the victim of a highly manipulative, abusive man claiming womanhood none of these trans-inclusive refuges could offer her safety.

She spoke so eloquently of her pain at finding no sanctuary, no way out
that it is therefore not a large logical leap for me to understand the issue of trans widows in the same light: all women-only spaces will exclude some women by mere dint of including particular men and/or men in general. My care, my loyalty and my empathy belong to these women. I don't owe their erstwhile partners anything. Nothing at all.

And yes, it may be true that men in general will be much more inclined to take heed of the words of a fellow man, even one claiming womanhood, whom many of them will consider unmanly. But in all of my campaigning, I seek to convince few men - I seek to convince women. Women who on waking up to this issue then go to work on the men in their lives, convincing them in a way few strangers can.

Which leaves male policy makers and politicians that need to be convinced. I happen to believe that no man who identifies as trans can understand deep down what being female in a male-dominated world is like for those of us who have suffered for it.

How can they speak truth to power on my behalf if their truth is not mine? How can any man speak truth to power to his fellow men on women's behalf when he cannot speak the truth that comes from women's lived experience?

I would rather fight this fight without the men claiming womanhood if this gives trans widows a space among feminists that supports them to raise their voice.

--
Thank you from me also to TinselAngel whose threads and words have helped me to truly understand the conflict in play here.

Thank you from me too, TinselAngel. I’m learning a lot from listening to you & lurking on the transwidows threads.

Yes, Tinsel, you're a one-woman consciousness-raising machine.

I am bumping this because Tinsel is a one-woman consciousness raising powerhouse who deserves to be heard.

You're all very kind.

I think maybe I'm making progress as I've seen my argument stated by others outside MN recently. Including on twitter from @ThatDoctorEM

twitter.com/pankhurstem/status/1170636323734118402?s=21

Hi TinselAngel - another one here 'fessing up that I have used articles and videos by males to lure the interest of men. It worked but I have had a re-think since this subject came up.

A couple of things. Firstly, there are many comments about the need to support Trans Widows and several about the fact that there are very few articles in the press by Trans Widows. There are also very few sightings, so far as I am aware, of Trans Widows contributing to discussions on FWR apart from the Trans Widows threads. It would be really helpful to know if there is anything else that the rest of us could do to encourage those who want to contribute, ie. in addition to the issues already covered.

Secondly, in relation to the GC and/or Feminist options. If the only issue was to do with Trans Widows then there would be no problem including early-transitioning male "Homosexual Transsexuals" - BUT - that gets straight back to problem of "How do we know they are for sure who they say they are?"! Setting aside that on the internet we can often not know for sure who someone is on a forum - and many of us are anonymous anyway - the only way to go for GC and/or Feminists is with the Feminist approach and centre women.

(I am not sure that I have expressed that very well - I hope it makes sense! )

Yes @TinselAngel , it has been listening to you and other trans widows which really made it click into place for me. Previously, something just didn't sit right and you provided clarity. Having a lot of interaction with some prominent late transitiones and watching the way they treated me and others I thought 'I recognise this behaviour' - I recognised it from a DV setting and coercive control. I couldn't (felt to scared to) talk about it and challenge, the grip was too tight on me and others.

All the crap that I have ever received from challenging male violence to paedophilia and the worst I have had to endure is because I challenged the concept of true trans.

Thank you Tinselangel, you have done a huge amount here to raise awareness about the lives of the women many people would prefer to forget about in this issue.

It was seeing Debbie Hayton's wife in a program made about Hayton that really made it click for me. I wanted to reach through the screen and give her a cuddle, a cup of tea, and a pamphlet about escaping coercive control.

yes, I have seen Debbie speak a couple of times at WPUK events, and tried to be empathetic, tried to understand why what DH is doing to DH's wife and children and to the pupils where DH teaches is OK, but was never able to square the circle in my head

and then I saw DHs wife and realised that the square is a square, no matter what pronouns we're compelled to use to describe it

As for the specific question of what feminists should do here to help trans widows, the Make More Noise article sets that out in general, but specifically on FWR the thing people can do is not fawn over the late transitioning men who claim to partly agree with us.

If you wanted advice on domestic abuse, for example, would you go to the perpetrators for it?

In that vein I would hope that WPUK are in a place now where they feel confident enough that they can just promote women's voices. we don't need males on the podium at feminist events.

TinselAngel" "As for the specific question of what feminists should do here to help trans widows, the Make More Noise article sets that out in general, but specifically on FWR the thing people can do is not fawn over the late transitioning men who claim to partly agree with us."

Thank you Tinsel - if that is all it takes then those of us who have read this, and possibly visited the Trans Widows threads to understand why, should have no problem complying. As for others who will inevitably do the fawning bit, unaware of the damage that it does to Trans Widows, I have screenshot your reply and bookmarked it to use as "educational materials".

Also:

Trans Widows Escape Committee on Mumsnet:
www.mumsnet.com/SearchArch?mustmatch=Trans+Widows+Escape+Committee&dontmatch=&nickname=&src_displ_option=s_t_d_t&fromDate=&toDate=&topicmode=chs&chosentops=5365

Make More Noise Trans Widows article:
makemorenoisemanc.wixsite.com/mysite/post/a-plea-for-help-for-feminists-from-a-trans-widow

(There was no archived version of that page that I could find and I was unable to make an archive on either web archive or archiveDOTfo so I have archived the Google Cache of the page just in case it gets disappeared:
<a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20190915101208/webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:an1kiFkxxYIJ:makemorenoisemanc.wixsite.com/mysite/post/a-plea-for-help-for-feminists-from-a-trans-widow" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20190915101208/webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:an1kiFkxxYIJ:makemorenoisemanc.wixsite.com/mysite/post/a-plea-for-help-for-feminists-from-a-trans-widow )

I have had a faint taste of the horror for Trans Widows recently and was overcome with anger and disgust, so I wonder how on earth you women survive what you have been through. I will have to try to word this carefully - and I hope this person's ex-wife and daughters find the Trans Widows Escape Committee to get some support.

It was on a regular TV programme where people featured are encouraged to talk about their lives. It happened, by chance not planned, to include a substantial contribution from someone who I knew many years ago and is one of the most obnoxious, misogynistic people I have had the misfortune to come across. The same cold, dead eyes and shifty sideways glances were still there under the layers of eye shadow and mascara.

I am going to refer to this person as "TP" (This Person).

In the course of the TV programme, TP started by identifying as a Cross-Dresser, then a transwoman and finally as a woman. TP mentioned having "had" many women over the years but failed to mention having also raped at least one man (not reported to police).

TP seemed to disregard the fact that family members and others who had known TP in the past would notice that TP lied repeatedly about the past, including a brief spell in the public eye.

With reference to this, colleagues and their actions were misrepresented and things also seemingly "just happened". There was a lot of use of the passive tense where it would have been more honest to have said, "And then I pissed off everyone, all my friends and everyone who knew us and supported us, by being a snide, arrogant, ranting, deluded lunatic and demanding more of everyone than any reasonable person could put up with."

TP mentioned, in passing, a marriage lasting many years and children. Wife and daughters never referred to again but lots of love and validation from the adult son.

Talk and evidence of hormones and breast implants but, "No, I am not going to have the other surgery - I am still going to need this and the other is no good for sex so there is no point." (paraphrased from memory)

Spoke of spending loads of money on clothes but, "I worked out finally how to dress age-appropriately." This did my head in as much as anything else. Someone whose idea of dressing "age-appropriately" as a woman in her mid 60's is to don, as day-wear, the sort of skimpy, figure-hugging outfit that a 20 year old might wear to go clubbing. Putting this as politely as possible, a caricature of a woman in her 60's in such desperate straits that she is dressing as inappropriately for her age as possible in order to openly invite kerb-crawlers.

There were glowing tributes from the programme makers, more than for any of the other participants, some of whom had gone through very frightening and serious trauma. From strangers on Twitter, male and female, nothing but, "I love TP! So brave!", "Thank you for featuring this wonderful person! I wish more people were aware of how these people are marginalised just for wanting to be themselves!" etc. etc. etc.

All I could think was, "If you only knew the truth." and "Where were the invisible ex-wife and daughters? What the hell do they make of all the fawning over this entitled, lying, psycho? It must break their hearts!"

For those still interested in this, there's a relevant new video by Posie Parker.

Although it only works if you're not in the UK, or if you can set your VPN to somewhere abroad.

That video of Posie's has caused several women to think what the had not thought before. What about the wive and other female family members. Where do they go for community if the transgender identified person is occupying the feminist spaces.

Speaking of other female family members: childrenoftransitioners.org/

Thanks for this thread. I don’t post a lot on FWR. Mainly lurk. I had missed this the first time it had come up.

I don’t think I have ever felt wholly comfortable with SH’s presence/apparent support on FWR or Twitter. When SH has been here, SW has not always listened to what women were saying eg in relation to how SH wants to eg public toilets etc.

As I don’t post often anyway and I am not always so good at phrases things, I scurried away. There are probably a lot of (mainly) lurkers doing the same. Thinking this isn’t right but not knowing how/whether to intervene...

It’s good to stop and evaluate the impact of the lurking on eg trans widows... we/I need to be a bit braver to be able to say thanks but FWR isn’t your space.

Sorry that was meant to say isn’t transsexual’s space

What about the wive and other female family members. Where do they go for community if the transgender identified person is occupying the feminist spaces.

Yes. It's not about one particular person. It's about a group of women.

Very annoyingly this is what I get when trying to watch that video: