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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

NY Times: ‘Transphobia Is Everywhere in Britain’

71 replies

GCGayDad · 09/03/2020 20:11

Yet another ridiculously narcissistic and paranoid article by a TRA attempting to smear feminists and shut down debate. On the positive side, I guess it indicates that gender-critical people are actually having more success here in getting their voices heard here in Britain than across the Pond.

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/opinion/britain-transphobia-labour-party.html

“Transphobia Is Everywhere in Britain
It’s a respectable bigotry, on the left as well as the right.”

OP posts:
aliasundercover · 09/03/2020 21:20

FloralBunting

I had that "but that means you think transwomen are men!" argument a few days ago (on a cycling website of all places).
The man I was arguing with tried calling me a terf, told me I shouldn't say certain things even if they were true in case it hurt the feelings of somebody reading, and told that I was saying all transwomen were abusers.
It's so predictable - he didn't answer a single point I made, just flailed about with insults and accusations. These people are absolutely shocked when somebody speaks truth to them.

DuLANGDuLANGDuLANG · 09/03/2020 21:22

Channeling Rab C/Onslow is pretty bold.

janeskettle · 09/03/2020 21:28

Alternative title:

Those Shocking Brits Let Women Speak!! Muzzle the Witches!!

boatyardblues · 09/03/2020 21:30

There’s something about Brits’ pragmatic, common sense approach. In one of his books, Bill Bryson described a queue in a British bank where everyone got in a single line & the next in turn went to the next available cashier. He said in the US, there would have been 4 lines, one for each cashier. We still have social inequalities, but there is a lingering attitude of fair play: when people understand the realities (eg 80%+ TW still with male anatomy, TW in sport), they can immediately see the issues and the inherent unfairness of the situation and it doesn’t sit right with them. Add to that a general lack of deference to authority and intrinsic questioning of new ideas, especially by the monstrous regiments of terven middle aged women across our green & pleasant land, and you have the perfect conditions for challenge. The case for equal gay rights worked because, once the discussion was had, the inherent unfairness was recognised and that needed to be addressed. Subjugating women’s rights and science in service of an ideology that destroys shared language and meaning in the process is not the same thing at all.

Rocketmam · 09/03/2020 21:37

Which transphobia do they mean?

The transphobia where trans people are regularly beaten and murdered? Think that's South America isn't it?

Or the transphobia where you don't believe a man is a woman, a penis is female or the sky is green with purple stripes? And more so, you will not be forced to say it is true?

R0wantrees · 09/03/2020 21:43

Juliet Jacques interviewed by a young woman 2017
includes promotion of Mermaids which Jacques says is, "a great charity"

RuffleCrow · 09/03/2020 21:44

An strangely, so is rationality. Grin

MingeofDeath · 09/03/2020 22:09

@ Rowantrees

That interviewer had to have blue hair didn't she? Wink

Ereshkigalangcleg · 09/03/2020 22:10

I am very proud to be British at this point. We can still think, have critical faculties and can see through bullshit ideologies.

Absolutely Wine

Datun · 09/03/2020 22:20

includes promotion of Mermaids which Jacques says is, "a great charity

Oh dear. That won't age well.

andyoldlabour · 09/03/2020 22:36

So called transphobia has had its day, it has been called out for what it is - a "wolf whistle", a nothing, a meaningless cry from a narssististic minority hoping to gain superiority over 51% of the people on this planet.

R0wantrees · 09/03/2020 22:54

a meaningless cry from a narssististic minority hoping to gain superiority over 51% of the people on this planet.

Tonight at the Labour Women's Pledge meeting Selina Todd said,

"We are the movement and we are going forward with or without you"

twitter.com/hollysmithhere/status/1237114334108700672

"I've been told that senior Labour figures want to support me but are scared. It isn't brave for Labour leadership to support women - it's part of the job description"

Julie Bindel, 'We get death threats because we say we want to keep women's sex based rights.'

twitter.com/HaringeyReSist/status/1237110951192772608

Lucy Masood (former London firefighter),

"Defend me or expel me - but you will not silence me. "
twitter.com/Womans_Place_UK/status/1237116249727000580

Viv Pointon tweet, "We are 200 yards from Grenfell Tower and the protesters outside have let off smoke bombs. Well done, TRAs. Stunning narcissism."
twitter.com/VPointon/status/1237123712501121033

#expelme

NotAtMyAge · 09/03/2020 22:56

Interesting that they didn't open comments on it as they have on previous similar articles. I found it rather encouraging to be honest, as it shows how far we've come from the days when the Guardian was chronicling the author's transition. It reads to me like a bit of a tantrum that the nasty British media aren't just rolling over and giving in to all their demands and that the political parties seem to be backpedalling.

R0wantrees · 09/03/2020 23:11

Maybe Jacques didn't want the article to be fact-checked?

DuLANGDuLANGDuLANG · 09/03/2020 23:22

Having reread it, this is a fantastic article for proving that women’s rights regarding single sex spaces, services, sports and representation is a debate taking place within the British left.

Very useful for our American and Canadian sisters when refuting the ‘conservative talking point’ bollocks.

GCGayDad · 09/03/2020 23:26

It’s not just defiant women in Britain - there are quite a few men, gay and straight - who are against all this TRA silencing and lies and intolerance.

Ironically, though, the only other gay man in my immediate circle of friends who has clicked on to how f**ked up it all the transgender stuff is is an American - who supports Trump and Brexit Shock.

But at least I am of the age group not to have to mix with all the ultra-woke “queer” youngsters (male or female). The more I’ve found out about this over the last few months, the more I steer very clear of that crowd.

OP posts:
Thinkingabout1t · 09/03/2020 23:28

Thanks, OP. Just when I felt like giving up over the Labour Party’s efforts to alienate every sane voter, this story has lifted my spirits. Despite the fuckwits who rule us, I felt a little tremor of pride in Britain.

Lots of inaccuracies, as I’d expect. *Imported from American feminist circles during the 1970s, the [GC] argument is largely disowned in the United States. But it remains stubbornly persistent in Britain.”

Lots of exciting and uplifting ideas went back and forth duringthe 70s. But even I couldn’t claim that we 70s feminists discovered that mammals came in two sexes, and don’t get to choose which they are.

According to Jacques, the opposition to self-ID relies “on the conceit that trans and nonbinary people should not determine their own gender identities”.

‘Conceit’ is a handy little word there, intended to trivialise the GC case — incorrectly used of course, as it means an elaborate or fanciful metaphor.
No, we’re not playing the ‘gender identity’ game. We’re simply saying that you can call yourself what you like, but if you were born male you remain in the male SEX and you have no right to enter women's single-SEX spaces.

What surprised me is that Jacques calls the Guardian “transphobic”. WTF? Shows how far outside reality Jacques has strayed. I actually felt sorry for the Guardian, damned by one rare Opinion piece that tried to be a bit even-handed.

And yes, British and proudly sane, like most of the rest of us. And, I suspect, like most ordinary Americans and Canadians if they dared speak up.

Thinkingabout1t · 09/03/2020 23:37

Viv Pointon tweet, "We are 200 yards from Grenfell Tower and the protesters outside have let off smoke bombs. Well done, TRAs. Stunning narcissism." twitter.com/VPointon/status/1237123712501121033

Smoke bombs near Grenfell Tower. How witty! I’m sure everyone living around there saw the joke. If it upset them or gave them flashbacks, they’re bigots, obviously.

GCGayDad · 09/03/2020 23:39

Although they didn’t open comments, there is an invite to comment via the letters page. See the bottom of the article.

“The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles.....”

You might also want to reply to the NY times tweet of the piece: twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1236881930437693442?s=21

OP posts:
R0wantrees · 09/03/2020 23:55

Smoke bombs near Grenfell Tower. How witty! I’m sure everyone living around there saw the joke. If it upset them or gave them flashbacks, they’re bigots, obviously.

Lucy Masoud
"Trans activist have just let off smoke bombs outside Grenfell Tower

Utterly disgraceful

When confronted by a local residence about how disrespectful they were being to the community, an activist shouted “we don’t give a f**k”

Yet the UKLabour
says we are the hateful ones"

twitter.com/luluchops1/status/1237143797944987651

Guardian 2017:
"MPs should be “dragged” from parliament to see Grenfell Tower’s shell as a reminder of how their decisions caused the disaster, a firefighter has said.

Lucy Masoud, who worked on the recovery operation after the fire that killed around 80 people, blamed the tragedy on government austerity measures and a contempt for social housing tenants.

Speaking at the Stand Up To Racism national conference, the Chelsea-based firefighter said her colleagues would never get over their experiences on the night of 14 June."

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/21/grenfell-firefighter-austerity-mps-should-be-dragged-to-look-at-towers-shell

InionEile · 10/03/2020 03:29

Funny how quickly this person got their response published in The NY Times - almost instantaneous! And yet, transwomen are so oppressed, the most oppressed people on the planet, so I hear...

For such an oppressed group they do a great job at getting their voices out there. Same old message too, always identical, never deviates. PeoPle ArE DyiNg, wHy can’T yOu bE nIcE?!? Etc etc.

OneEndedStick · 10/03/2020 07:16

"Transphobia is everywhere in Britain" ? Yes, I'm sure. We have dictionaries and medical textbooks here in Australia as well.

OverMy · 10/03/2020 09:34

I think they confused transphobia with misogyny.Grin
Maybe we should all just tut and change the subject and filibuster on misogyny.

Mockerswithnoknockers · 10/03/2020 10:55

There are two main types of British transphobia. One, employed most frequently but not exclusively by right-wing men, rejects outright the idea that gender might not be determined only by biological traits identifiable at birth. This viewpoint can often be found in publications aligned with the Conservative Party, such as The Spectator, The Times and The Telegraph, all of which are looking for a new “culture war” to pursue now that the long, exhausting battle over Brexit has finally been resolved in favor of Leavers.

The other type, from a so-called radical feminist tradition, argues that trans women’s requests for gender recognition are incompatible with cis women’s rights to single-sex spaces.

Oh, where to begin?

I used to trust the NYT. They told me Trump couldn't possibly win in 2016. I believed them. More fool me.

DuLANGDuLANGDuLANG · 10/03/2020 11:02

I used to trust the NYT. They told me Trump couldn't possibly win in 2016. I believed them. More fool me.

The last 4 years have been a wild ride, haven’t they?