"the Feminist Next Door"

[TerfTalk]

The Feminist Next Door (FND) is an amazing feminist who debates often on Twitter. She's smart, funny, passionate, and really gets it...

However, she isn't gender critical. Tonight, she just said that she won't have any conversation on feminism that doesn't include trans people. This was in response to a question about trans women in shelters.

AIBU to be upset by this? She's entitled to her views, but I think she should have to defend/ debate them given her role, which she won't.

Well, let me see...if she’s not GC and doesn’t want to discuss feminism that excludes males who purport to be women it then she doesn’t “really get it” at all then does she? And it’s not really feminism if it centers men is it? And since she’s probably doesn’t live in the same neighborhood let alone next door to me or anyone I know that’s 3 strikes before we even start.

When I said “she gets it”, I meant feminist/ women’s issues generally. She is brilliant on almost every other topic.

I follow her, and I don’t want to unfollow her.

She doesn’t (from what I’ve seen) use “terf” and she rarely uses “cis”, so she is bearable to follow.

How about pointing out that all females including trans men are included in feminism

So does she believe that female people who want a female-only shelter can have one, or not?

Whilst trans and self-ID ‘c*s women’ have their own shelter, separately - so everyone’s needs are addressed.

She doesn’t (from what I’ve seen) use “terf” and she rarely uses “cis”, so she is bearable to follow

Unfortunately not. I stopped following her after nasty comments from her on 'terfs'.
She's definitely drunk the Kool Aid on this one. And it is a great shame because she does have a huge platform and, as you say, is otherwise good on other topics.

When you say she is brilliant on other issues which issues do you mean?

Is she brilliant on the issue of sexual assault when she thinks rape victims should share spaces with men?

Is she brilliant on the issue of domestic abuse when she thinks abuse victims can have no shelter their abuser can't access by saying 'I feel like a woman?

Is she brilliant on helping women succeed in the work place when she thinks men should be allowed to usurp their support systems?

Is she brilliant on helping women in prison when she thinks it's OK to lock them up with rapists?

Is she brilliant on improving the lives of learning disabled women when she's happy to see them criminalised for using correct sex pronouns?

How can she be good on any topic when she undermines them all by ignoring the elephant in the room? I don't get it.

At a guesstimate, what % of UK feminists are GC?
This is the only feminist forum I regularly read so I assumed most are GC but then my daughter went to uni(where vast numbers of young women self declare themselves feminist) and she tells the vast majority are not only non critical, but seem to have fully drunk the cool aid. Then I look at cultural society in general and I don't know how much is driven by fear of in group rejection (let's be honest say the wrong thing on the left and you're toast), but very few people will dare to be GC.
What is your guess?

Good question childrenofthestones I would say it's about 50-50

If it is 50:50 it is only because those supporting TWAW haven't actually thought about the issue and are just being kind. Once the scales have dropped from their eyes they become GC. No one goes from GC to believing trans ideology.

I don't follow her because of her non GC standpoint.

As to what proportion of feminists are GC I would say it would be quite different amongst different age groups.

At a guesstimate, what % of UK feminists are GC?

A very large proportion.

A better question might be: what proportion of self-identified 'feminists' are simply parroting liberal mainstream patriarchal ideas without any real understanding of what feminism is?

I'm not saying there's a right way and a wrong way to do it, but if it's uncritically upholding the patriarchal status quo, then it's not feminism.

Well really anyone who believes trans women are women is not a feminist. And anyone who believes self id should allow men into women's places is not a feminist. And anyone who does not know or pretend to know the difference between biology and sociology is not a feminist.

So she is not the feminist next door to me or to anyone else.

Also, in what way is she an amazing feminist? Let's say, compared to Julie Bindel or someone?

You could be describing a friend of mine – a formerly rock-solid feminist raised by a famous-in-her-time women's campaigner, an academic who is steeped in the socio-political history and theory of feminism, who's been involved in many women's causes over the years and who is in a long-term relationship with a woman – who when I try to talk about transgender issues just smiles and says: 'It's not my area of expertise and I have trans friends, so this is going to have to be your battle, Pat, if you must have a battle.'

I've known her for more than 30 years and would have said we'd be friends till one or other of us croaks. Her complacency horrifies me. It's a bit like Brexit: not sure there's a way back to how things used to be.

Just read her tweets. I don't know what you think is so amazing about her but any woman who uses the T-word to insult another woman isn't a feminist.

You need to find a new source of feminist inspiration.

I can see the train of thought, finally - must be the wine. 'I wouldn't ask any woman who said they were female to show me her vulva, so therefore I should accept everyone who says that they are a woman as a woman. Their experiences and needs then become part of the female experience.' Shame it's not true.

There is the fact of being female, and the fact of presenting as female, and they are not the same thing, and equating the two is profoundly anti-feminist, it is the antithesis of feminism. Feminism says there is something specific about the experience of being physically female that can't be evaded or thought out of existence.

She's a self-identified feminist, OP, not an actual one.

Here's a few of her tweets. I think they show that she is quite good on feminism generally.

Tbf, she rarely talks about the trans issue. I guess you could read that either way rally?

I did follow her but she does use the term "Terf" even after knowing it's regarded as a slur so I don't follow her anymore and tbh anyone who will repeat the fiction TWAW isn't a feminist in my eyes

She somewhat offensively seemed to think women who had hysterectomies dismantled the women are women by biology argument. As I go through the menopause post hysterectomy and suffer with various female biological health problems including those related to my lowered immune system I'm very much aware it's more than a uterus that makes me a biological woman so she can just fuck off with her offensive rhetoric

I wonder what she'd think about the Cotton Ceiling. Handwave it away as she does women's rights to be recognised as a sex class, I expect. She's an idiot.

Yeah that whole equating of TW with women who’ve had hysterectomies thing? Fuck that noise. Fuck your weasel words. Fuck your sophistry, your false equivalence, your intellectual dishonesty and your entire fucking gaslighting trans credo.

Feminism does not mean what this woman thinks it means? I wish I could give her that much benefit of the doubt but I think she knows full well what feminism means and chooses to hitch her wagon to the trans train for edgy woke cookie points anyway.

It’s quite simple: cutting bits off/out here and adding bits there does NOT negate/change one’s biological sex any more than amputating a limb or removing an appendix negates/changes one’s fucking humanity.

It isn't possible to be a feminist and not be gender critical.

It isn't possible to be a feminist and not be gender critical.

Unfortunately a lot of people seem to think gender critical = trans critical. Because they've swallowed that whole "man and woman are genders not sexes" line. (Whose bloody stupid idea was that one, anyway?)

When really it's more about being critical of the socially constructed shackles of our oppression. Which is sort of essential to the whole feminism thing.

I still get annoyed by the inaccuracy of the t-slur too. An understanding that the idea of an innate feminine essence designating womanhood is sexist is pretty fundamental to the whole feminism idea; it's not confined to radicals.

I can see the train of thought, finally - must be the wine. 'I wouldn't ask any woman who said they were female to show me her vulva, so therefore I should accept everyone who says that they are a woman as a woman. Their experiences and needs then become part of the female experience.' Shame it's not true.

This whole reducing of female to genitals is gaslighting. Women have a different shape, anatomy, physiology, endocrinology, SMELL. There are hundreds of things (big and small) about female humans that are different to male humans and we are the totality of that difference and as mammals we have evolved to tell the difference very, very easily from a multitude of cues. A male person with his penis cut off still looks, sounds, smells like a man - it doesn't negate all those tiny things that the genes in every cell in his body shape. It's just so weird to try and gaslight people into rejecting such a huge biological reality as sexual dimorphism. It's like trying to convince people that grass isn't green or that gravity doesn't exist.

IIRC there was a thread a while ago where men talked about whether they'd date a transwoman and many, many men mentioned that women smell different. Smell is part of attraction, we're still animals, these biological differences matter. I just don't get how otherwise intelligent people are drinking the kool aid on this.

I really hate what trans has done to feminism. It has made everything so tribal.