Hair colour apparently means you’re trans now and also TRAs are not MRAs

[ACatWhoBinds]

I’ve lurked for quite a while and seen some of you refer to feminists supporting trans people as ‘the blue hair brigade’. What’s the reason for an attack on a person’s appearance? Surely that’s the opposite of feminism? Reminds me of the whole ‘I’m not like other girls because I’m smart and I read and I don’t wear makeup’. And what does blue hair have to do with trans people?! It’s more punk than anything!
I also saw someone compare trans activists to men’s rights activists. Wtf? They’re not the same, come on you know.
It’s probably obvious we don’t share the same views but at least be civil.

"Blue hairs" generally refers to the young student population rather than TRAs specifically, since young liberal students tend to dye their hair bright colors. It's a pretty mild pejorative IMO, but it is a pejorative nevertheless.

The TRA=MRA stuff mostly comes from specific incidences of trans activists saying, basically verbatim, things that men’s rights activists / gamergaters used to say (and get yelled at for).

Some examples:

“Well women can rape too”
“Women are just as capable of abuse as men”
“Women who’ve been assaulted should get over it, you can’t hide from (male people) for the rest of your life”
“(Trans)Women’s brains are just different than men’s, it’s biology”
“Boys like Cars, girls like dolls, it’s only natural”

Then there’s the creepy sexual stuff, like “women are naturally submissive / I knew I was trans because I was submissive” etc

Plus the rape threats and so on are a shared tactic of choice.

So I dunno. I agree many trans PEOPLE are in no way men’s activists. But the TRA ideology is incredibly sexist, just like the MRA one.

I’ve lurked for quite a while and seen some of you refer to feminists supporting trans people as ‘the blue hair brigade’.
No, you haven't.

I’ve seen you on other threads ACatWhoBinds and yes I’d agree that as you ID as an enby who agrees with, and binds some days, etc, that your views might differ to a few on FWR, I’ve not seen anyone be uncivil to you.

I agree with other PPs that you seem to have taken some comments a little out of context.

It seems a little rich to start a thread to tone police the users here, and tell them to ‘be nice’ when you’ve already made up your mind that users are uncivil and trying to be cool girls

I think it's a bit like other MN phrases which are - yes, they are a bit stereotypical, but they are shorthand. Others I've seen are MN "pearl clutchers" "yummy mummies" and "blue rinse ladies."

These are all mildly pejorative terms for women.

Interesting that you don't castigate us about these ...

As for TRAs not being MRAs - cmon, gimme a break.

For example, a TRA saying that lesbians should accept "female" penises, is a twisted bit of rape culture, and very very very similar to male entitlement and masculinist ideology which believe that women should/must be sexually available to men all the time.

I thin the "female penis" thing is creepily close to MRA enjoyment of lesbian porn - porn not made for lesbians, but made for men to fantasise about women.

There are lots of other examples where transactivist ideology maps pretty closely (onto (or is identical with) Men's Rights ideologies.

And no-one here has anything against transpeople per se - it is Trans Activism which is so problematic for women - people who want to change the basic definition of "woman" to break down actual women's boundaries, rights, and safeguards.

Arf! I can’t put a fag paper between a trans rights activist calling me a T*RF for my views on sex and gender, and an MRA calling me a feminazi for them.

Trans rights activism has opened up some great new avenues for women haters to call women names and tell us to stfu, while smugly ckngratulting themselves on their super wokeness. They are snug little bedfellows because they’re both rooted in misogyny.

I do hope I’ve been polite enough, I would hate to disappoint

Ps, I have pink hair.

Blue hair brigade, to me, will always mean Mrs. Slocombe:
i.pinimg.com/originals/39/fa/be/39fabec619f393ce574f74a1da6d91d5.jpg

Plenty of trans people & plenty of men are great feminist allies. You've heard the phrase NAMALT?

If trans rights activism doesn't want to be seen as a branch of men's rights activism it needs to take an entirely different approach.

But as things currently stand, of course feminists here are going to call out the sexism that they see and experience. Just like they would in any other circumstances.

Agree about the hair colour thing perhaps. And don't find it especially accurate. Just like the US phrase "terf bangs" doesn't seem to make so much sense here.

Trans activists seek to reduce women and girls rights and protections. All single space becomes male space and no language exists to describe the sexism women and girls experience. Sexist stereotypes are revered and used to measure who is a girl and who is a boy. Women who escaped sexist stereotypes in the past are rebranded as being trans men. Men have access to spaces where women and girls undress, rape crisis centres. Males pick up awards set aside for women, they represent them as women's officer. It's a very successful men's rights movement.

MRA and TRA share the same goals, to eradicate women's safe spaces and societal rights. They both use threats of violence if women don't shut up. They are the same, however you wish to look at it.

Blue hair brigade, to me, will always mean Mrs. Slocombe:

Lol. It conjures up images of a blue rinse to me too!

I will never stop being openly critical (and sometimes very harsh) of religions and cults. Ideologies should never be free from criticism and mockery.
I might also make jokes about the behaviour and attitudes of religious people in general. It's to highlight certain absurd beliefs or practices, hypocrisy and so on.

At work and elsewhere, I come into contact with people from all sorts of religious and cultural backgrounds. I'm perfectly capable of being respectful and friendly in my interactions with Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus etc. I treat individuals with the same courtesy as I would any other human being. I don't even think about religion unless someone tries to push it into conversation. Religious people aren't a hive mind and have all sorts of viewpoints. I might disagree with their beliefs and even be completely opposed to their religious ideology (and they might feel the same about my perspective) but the vast majority of people are able to treat one another with courtesy in their interactions and even form friendships.

I realise this might seem mind boggling to some - how can people be extremely critical of ideologies but still capable of being civilised when interacting with individual members of such groups?!

Well, this is how the real world functions outside of the Social Justice Warrior bubble.

I am completely opposed to gender identity ideology and the principles underlying transgenderism. The idea that people are born with a special gender soul that cannot be observed or examined but only 'felt' is the realm of religious belief. Its believers demand we must all accept this ideology without critical thinking and show our allegiance publicly by compelling everyone to chant things like Transwomen are women. I will never accept religious belief over scientific fact and I will oppose attempts to coerce and compel people's behaviour - whether through threats or trying to shame and humiliate people into submission. I will always stand against authoritarianism and censorship.

And yes I will take the piss out of its believers. The types that view themselves as self-righteous SJWs. They think they are so progressive and exceptional because they might label themselves as non-binary or cut and dye their hair a different colour. Completely self absorbed and wrapped up in their ideology that they haven't realised men and women all over the world have been defying gendered norms for millennia.

And yet! I'm perfectly capable of being courteous and respectful to any trans or non-binary person I might meet. I treat them as I would any other human being. They are not more special or deserving of more delicate treatment than anyone else. Imagine that!

And what does blue hair have to do with trans people?

Do you really not recognise the use of irony to make a rhetorical point or are you just playing victim?

I know a few transsexuals but I also know a 'trans' person who makes no attempt to transition or present differently (she has red hair). To me she is appropriating the enormous hardship of genuine gender dysphoria.

Blue hair did used to be punk. But then, so was men wearing makeup once upon a time.

Civil? Fucking civil? Because someone has said a lot of woke people have blue hair?
I hope you're matching over to Twitter posting the same on comments telling JK to suck their lady dick? But of course you're not.

Newsflash: women don't have to be nice.

Of course trans privilege activists are MRAs. They're demanding men be allowed in to spaces where women are in a state of undress, a state of unconsciousness and for men to be allowed to intimately touch women against our consent if those men say the magic words ;'I identify as a woman'.

Actually, I take it back, MRAs aren't generally as blatantly vile and misogynistic as trans privilege activists. It is kind of insulting to MRAs to compare the two.

Is this an attempted distraction from the world cheering on JK Rowling coming out on the side of decency and reality?

FWIW, I have blue hair.

But it's one of those common things that if you want to mark yourself as 'queer', a lot of people will indeed have their hair dyed a bright colour. Same as it's a truism that a bloke coming to scold women for feministing wrong and call them names will often have a beard.

It's linguistic shorthand for a particular group - like a collective noun.

And yes, as others have explained, MRAs and TRAs display the same often unchecked hate for women, and members of both groups have threatened and committed violent acts towards women.

Thanks for giving us another opportunity to explain these things.

Transactivism by its nature is sexist, otherwise being a woman would be a matter of biology, not a way of thinking.

And you can't really escape the sexism and misogyny of the cotton ceiling, terf is a slur, etc, and the comments directed at women who disagree. The difference in comments directed at men, if any, is remarkable.

terfisaslur.com/

It's linguistic shorthand for a particular group - like a collective noun

I generally find linguistic shorthand for a particular group extremely unhelpful. It's simply using unthinking stereotypes.

Reminds me of the whole ‘I’m not like other girls because I’m smart and I read and I don’t wear makeup’

It will be denied but this comment rings so true.

Oh, and if you're still not sure of the part men's rights activism is playing, consider a mechanism, wholly approved of, which allows a self confessed and convicted violent rapist access to incarcerated women as part of his punishment.

I had blue hair in the early 90s.

According to OPs thread title, I’m a detransitioner!

Anyone else loving the irony of an enby (a philosophical position which requires the rest of us to be considered Stepford wife cardboard cut outs of sexist stereotypes as a background against which they can stand out as oh so special and different and daring) lecturing us about our supposedly thinking we're special and not like those other women?

Sorry, OP, but declaring yourself NB basically makes you the embodiment of the cool girl rant in Gone Girl, with a side order of "Do it to Julia."

I have been referred to as a pearl clutcher despite not having any pearls

The blue haired brigade does not actually need to have blue hair

And people with blue hair may not be " the blue haired brigade"

Ergo it's not an attack on anyone's personal appearance

Anyone else loving the irony of an enby (a philosophical position which requires the rest of us to be considered Stepford wife cardboard cut outs of sexist stereotypes as a background against which they can stand out as oh so special and different and daring) lecturing us about our supposedly thinking we're special and not like those other women?

Great point. Oh and I hope that you don't 'bind' OP as it is really not good for your health.