We need to talk about what transgender means

[smemorata]

Now that Stonewall has put just about everyone who ever even thought about wearing a dress under the transgender "umbrella", they have more or less forced women to push back at everyone. I find this really ridiculous and also counterproductive. Women (and men surely?) know that we are talking about different things. For example -

1. an "AMAB" who feels acute gender dysphoria and goes through a lengthy process (both legally and medically) to gain a feeling of acceptance is not the same as -
2. an "AMAB" who occasionally wears women's clothing but also enjoys male privilege in most situations
3. an "AMAB" who always wears very OTT sexualised "feminine" clothing as part of a fetish which women are expected to collaborate in.
4. a woke "AMAB" who dresses as a man, has a beard but claims to know what feeling like a woman is. Has no intention of giving up male genitalia but expects women to recognise it as female.

I have met some lovely people who are in category 1 and would actually have no problem in treating them as women in most (though not all) circumstances. But what do they have in common with the others? Are we expected to forget that festishes exist? I really resent the way that the MRAs and TRAs are asking us to treat such very different people in exactly the same way - and that's before taking into account the ROGD people and trans men. I don't see how the debate can move on until these differences are recognised.

Re single sex spaces. Safety is a massive issue and it is undeniable that the safety of women and girls will be sacrificed with the dismantling of single sex spaces.

Privacy and dignity is also highly important. Even if you don’t fear you safety is compromised.

• I don’t want my daughters seeing men unzipping their trousers as they enter an enclosed toilet booth even if they can’t see the penis. That’s what now happens.

• I don’t want piss all over the seat.

Where is privacy and dignity for women and girls in such circumstances?

Equally most men - don’t want to see women washing hands with menstrual blood on.

Entering women’s only spaces to ‘validate’ self identity is another way of using female bodies for their own purposes. It’s gross.

www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/strictly-orthodox-women-to-mobilise-against-opening-hampstead-heath-ladies-pond-to-trans-swimmers-1.484633

The safety of women is paramount - whatever points are raised to try and be inclusive to trans people.

As one of the "type 1s" the OP categorises, despite the fact I've gone through the entire medical process, keep myself to myself and live a happily boring mundane life I still recognise that I am biologically still male.

The trans movement, as it is now, IS a men's right movement based on appropriation of female identities/bodies and some kind of twisted identity validation.

And as much as I find the idea of having to share 3rd spaces with hairy a*sed AGPs in bad wigs and fishnets distasteful, MEN should not be using women's sex segretated spaces AT ALL. No matter how many "magical gender feelz" are hurt in the process, it's miniscule in comparison to the women who are being sexually assaulted, subjected to violence or are in genuine fear of their lives DAILY because of this nonsense.

Yes, transsexuals ARE going to get thrown under the bus as this carries on, but it should be us that's fighting ALONGSIDE you and speaking up to sort out this sad state of affairs. You, as women, shouldn't have to do it for us. It's not your job and not your fight.

Over the last few months, the TRAs are definitely rattled after being dragged into the daylight and exposed for what they are. Hopefully this year will be the year the tide actually turns.

No, we don't need to talk about what transgender means on a women's rights forum, any more than we need to talk about what Catholicism means on an abortion rights forum.

A set of people exist. Their beliefs are at odds with our rights. That's all we need to know about them.

no one will have worked harder for acceptance or rights than she will have just to be legally accepted as female

I'm old enough to remember marital rape being legal. My mum helped build (literally, she helped refurbish the building) a women's DV shelter. I have fought tooth and nail to be taken seriously in my particular male-dominated field. I have been sexually assaulted. I have spent my whole life fighting for fair treatment, acceptance, and the upholding of the rights I have on paper but not in practice.

No transwoman has worked as hard as OFAB women do to maintain their rights and dignity in the face of a world run by males for male convenience.

Anybody still labouring under the impression that the aims and objectives of this movement have changed in any way over recent years, should read this Twitter thread by Dr Em (awesome research). Complaints about the cotton ceiling in 1978, conflation with intersex in 1971, claiming rights to women's shelters in 1969, "I'm ma'am" assaults in 1980, a letter to the Guardian about editorial policy silencing women's rights in favour of "trans" in 1983.

twitter.com/PankhurstEM/status/1212398421849624577

It's all there.

The male entitlement hasn't changed. The political aim to abolish sex hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is that pomo-queer theory has dominated the liberal academy and its graduates have gone on to fill institutional and third sector jobs allowing for regulatory capture.

We don't need to talk about what transgender means.

We need to talk about women's rights and child protection.

We don't need to talk about what transgender means.

I disagree. We need to shout louder that it means men colonising womanhood. It means children being drugged because they are gender non-conforming. It means the relentless reinforcement of sex role stereotypes. It means men feeling entitled to invade women only spaces. It means women and children losing their rights and their safety due to the action of entitled males.

There are vulnerable people involved, but these are the children and women who are endangered by this juggernaut of a men's rights movement.

I disagree. We need to shout louder that it means men colonising womanhood.

I meant, obviously, in terms of the OP, which is trying to persuade us to make a distinction between transgender and transsexual, and dysphoric and non-dysphoric. There's no distinction in terms of women's rights and child protection and never has been. A movement for transsexuals has not been recently hijacked by "evil fetishists". The movement is exactly the same now as it was when it began. As Dr Em's thread illustrates.

Bloody hell, Lang! Em has turned up some fascinating stuff there!

Wow LangCleg, thanks for that link.

It's rather disquieting to see quite how far back this goes. All the exact same arguments, but, it would appear, with more open acknowledgement that this is largely a fetish, for many men - the mags, etc.

And, overriding everything, the total expectation that women are there to be used to support it all.

The, still quite shocking, realisation that women are not seen as anything other than a service.

Here’s the thread reader link for Em’s archive posts, easier to follow for non twitter people. Probably deserves it’s own M/N thread:

threader.app/thread/1211654889228640257

Looking at Dr Pankhurst's thread reminded me of the importance of archives. Last year, it seemed as if one of the odder impacts of Brexist would be that the British Library would no longer have the right to hold the Spare Rib electronic archive.

Spare Rib, the trailblazing women’s magazine that defined generations of feminism, faces the axe from the British Library’s digital archive if there is no Brexit deal, it has emerged.

The magazine ran from 1972 to 1993, and all 11,000 articles, cartoons and photographs were made digitally available in 2015 as part of the joint efforts of the British Library (BL) and the Spare Rib Collective.

But BL has now written to researchers to tell them that if there is no agreement on exiting from the EU, they will have no choice but to suspend access to their digital archives for copyright reasons, although they will still be able to access the archive in person.

www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/25/spare-rib-digital-archive-no-deal-brexit-british-library

Does anyone know if there's an update on this?

I meant, obviously, in terms of the OP, which is trying to persuade us to make a distinction between transgender and transsexual, and dysphoric and non-dysphoric. There's no distinction in terms of women's rights and child protection and never has been.

What I was trying to say was that we need to talk about what it means, but not in the way the OP intended. Someone earlier in the thread seemed to be saying that we shouldn't be talking about what it means full stop, which I understood to mean that they thought it was nothing to do with us. That's what I disagree with.

I agree that there is no real distinction or definite dividing line between the different varieties of trans.

What I was trying to say was that we need to talk about what it means, but not in the way the OP intended.

Same destination!