What constitutes modern day feminism

[katienlisa552]

What does it mean to be a feminist in the 21st century? When I and indeed the members of my family who I would consider to be feminist were growing up it was about fighting for equal rights for women such as equal pay and better representation of women in high powered jobs and given that the Labour Party has yet again elected a male leader says to me that there is still along way to go. However I and my family members find ourselves becoming more and more uncomfortable with what some might call the more extreme side of feminism.

I fear that certain views of feminism are allowing a rather unhealthy and quite hateful form especially in relation to trans rights. As a member of the lgbt community and although I’m not trans myself I do have friends who are and I also volunteer for a local charity who support and offer counselling to trans teenagers. I see first hand the damage done by the attitudes promoted and supported by some sections of the feminist community dressed up under the guise of ‘free speech’. The trans right issue is a complex one. I don’t think children should be allowed to transition or be given hormone blockers to prevent puberty because I’m not convinced a child has the maturity to make those kind of life changing decisions although that doesn’t mean I don’t believe that children can’t be trans because I see it everyday through my work with the charity and it’s a fact of great shame that at least 70% of young trans have self harmed or tried to commit suicide because of the prejudice they face.

The biggest contentious issue appears to be that of self indentification. I fail to see how it erodes my rights as a women if a trans person chooses to self identify and personally I find the notion that people chose to self identify because they want to harm others somewhat far fetched. Yes I accept that there are some sick indivuals that do this but the fact is the majority of sex offenders offend as men not men who are self identifying as female or the other wan around. I remember mixed sex changing rooms when I was growing up and I don’t remember a vast increase in sexual assay because of it.

Now despite being accused of it on here several times by people who hide behind the guise of feminism to attack anyone who dares to defend trans rights as someone who condones sexual assault I do not in fact as a surviour of sexual assault I find that extremely offensive. Anyone trans or otherwise who commits any kind of sexual assault deserves to be castrated and strung up. Maybe one way around the shared changing room or toilet issue would be to have single cubicles or toilets as we do at our charity so it doesn’t matter who uses them because there’s only u on there. As a parent and someone who works with children who have been absued I can totally understand the argument for parents wanting to know who the child is sharing a changing room with. Personally I wouldn’t allow my son or my nieces who I regularly look after our without a grown up until they were of teenager age and then allow in groups of friends.

I’ve no doubt that this post will either be ignored or removed as mums net seems to remove anything that resembles some who supports the rights of trans people but just as the people who use feminism to try and erode or stand Agasint trans rights I to have the right to express my opinion.

The debate of feminism and trans issues needs to be less toxic and more about open discussion and tolerance of others opinions will allowing healthy debate because trans people are people and have the same right to be heard and to be given the same freedoms as any other member of society. Do I think that all feminists are transphobic absolutely not and neither do I believe that all of the trans community min are good people. There’s good and bad in everyone and every group of society but since when is that a justification for the discrimination of a whole part of society

[RedDogsBeg]

Brilliant speech by Cllr Sarah Fields, thanks for posting R0wantrees.

On the subject of Yorkshire puddings, no-one could ever come close to my Gran for sheer perfection, hers were phenomenal.

Thinking about her and the other women who have shaped my life is one of the things that makes me so damn cross about this TRA bullshit and the desperate cheerleaders of it. These women's lives were not based on a feeling in their head, no man could ever or would ever be able to nor want to live their lives nor achieve what they did whilst facing the oppression brought about by the sex they were born. It's fucking insulting to reduce their womanhood to some vague feelings, lipstick, dresses, long swishy hair and painted nails and that is why I will never accept that a man can become a woman either just by saying so or even after surgery and hormones.

[terfmcgee]

Self-ID laws would allow for actual men with no interest in being transgender to say they are women and gain access to women's spaces. It is incredibly naive to assume in a world filled with terrible violent misogyny that women need no common sense safe spaces from men. I think that trans people actually need safe spaces from these people as well, but these are two conflicting sets of rights. Google Karen White. I'm new and American by the way, have always considered myself liberal, and I'm of the opposite opinion of the person above. I am starting to become very uncomfortable with "liberal" ideology's blind indifference to women being harassed for expressing viewpoints that make certain people feel uncomfortable. Well, quite frankly, their viewpoints are making me feel very minimized. I think we can both be heard though. I am choosing ultimately to stop trying to make everyone else feel super comfortable while I feel completely uncomfortable and walked all over though. Biological women do deserve to be a protected class. All over the world, we are trampled upon, and more and more progressive thinkers seem kind of fine telling us to be quiet when it suits their needs. (I am absolutely not conservative either btw, I just now fully identify as feminist first and foremost.)

[R0wantrees]

terfmcgee
Many people new to these discussions have found this thread useful:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

[terfmcgee]

I also think it's okay for me to say, quite frankly, that for me feminism is about protecting the rights of people who are born female. That does not mean that I do not think people born male who reject the gender roles thrust upon them and want to express themselves in certain ways deserve violence or discrimination. I do not. I just simply do not think it makes them female, and I think the core idea that you can feel like a woman is kind of insulting to the core of feminism, when feminism is about fighting for people who are discriminated against because they are seen as women by a misogynistic and dismissive world, it's not about people seen as men by the world who want to be seen as women. I think there is so much wrong about this, I honestly see it as another example of catering to male comfort above all else. I mean, you never see people talking about trans males and their rights, and I truly believe that is because they are born female. Nobody is out there talking about how these people absolutely deserve to be in male prisons with a bunch of psychopaths who will quite frankly rape them the second they find out they have a vagina. I know that sounds graphic, but it's just frankly true.

[R0wantrees]

I mean, you never see people talking about trans males and their rights, and I truly believe that is because they are born female.

We have had examples of females who identify as trans asserting/taking about rights. Often in context of demanding the removal of references to woman/mother/female from women's health provision especially pregnancy, menstruation & gyny cancer.

Recently in UK a mother who identifies as trans man has been fighting in the courts not to be recorded as such & to effect significant change to birth certificates.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3839264-Freddy-McConnell-appeal-today-Transman-who-wants-to-be-registered-as-their-childs-father-Title-edited-by-MNHQ

There are also prominant transactivists who are female eg Stephen Whittle, James Morton, Jake Graf in UK

In US, Chase Straglio (lawyer ACLU):

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3862171-Dont-treat-trans-athletes-as-girls

[RedDogsBeg]

This from Cllr Sarah Fields speech:

About three years ago, not long after I was first elected, I was contacted by a woman in Leeds, for advice. Her six year old daughter had been verbally attacked and then subjected to a violent outburst by a 17 year old male who had been allowed to join a local girls group as a helper. This was because he said he identified as a female. What had this child done? She had asked him if he was a boy. And then this six year old girl had been made to stand alone in front of the entire group and apologise to him.

is so chilling and sinister, it is straight out of the totalitarian dictatorship playbook and yet we are continuously told this is such a benign ideology, stuff like this is a one-off extreme example, don't tar or dismiss trans and the ideology that underpins it by these exceptional examples. They are NOT extreme one offs, if they were all collated into one list it would make War & Peace look like a short story.

[terfmcgee]

@midgebabe I really like how you phrased this, and I think it's very civil. From what I've seen on the internet, with a statement as uncontroversial as even this, you would still be called a terf and harassed for something that is so reasonable and polite. I feel like we are edging into some weird 1984 territory with this shit. How could a person saying sex and gender are different literally be hate speech?

[Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons]

If your feminism prioritises the internal identifications of men over the material conditions of women then you are not a feminist
Damn right. Thank you Sarah Fields (& R0!)

[Thinkingabout1t]

the core idea that you can feel like a woman is kind of insulting to the core of feminism, when feminism is about fighting for people who are discriminated against because they are seen as women by a misogynistic and dismissive world

TerfMcGee, you're so right. It's obvious but constantly overlooked.

I can understand why TRAs endlessly peddle the myth about their exceptional vulnerability to violence and suicide, even though it has been disproved by the statistics. I just don't understand why other people (pretend to) believe it.

[BatShite]

You’re not asking ‘what constitutes feminism?’, you’re telling gender critical feminists that they’re doing feminism wrong because they don’t believe that TWAW.

Yup.

The part where you accuse MN mods of removing anything 'pro trans' is just bizarre and untrue too.

I seriously hate 'anti-self id' morphing into 'anti-trans' as they are NOT the same thing. Hell, my cousin is transsexual and is anti self ID, as would most rational people be. Its massively open to abuse, no matter how many people claim they cannot see how it can possibly be abused, its blatantly obvious to most, and has happened, multiple times.

[BatShite]

Ahaha only got through first page so far, but

So trans women aren’t women thus proving my point that certain people use feminism as a guise for transphobia

Transwomen not being women (if they were women, why the trans part hmm..) is proof that people use feminism as a guise for transphobia. The posts after the OP can be read many many ways. But my take is that, if you believe biological sex is real (and that it matters..which surely is a core part of femnism to start with?!) then you are a massive horrible bigot responsible for suicidal trans youth? Or something?

What bollocks.

And trying to make out the thread is about feminism, when its simply another badly disguised barely readable rant at actual feminists for..gasp..caring about women instead of prioritising the feelings of the male sex. Horrible people :( You should all be massively ashamed of your bigoted selves and go write 100 lines 'thou shalt not believe in biology' maybe, or 'thou shalt not say no to male people if the no upsets them' maybe, would that do OP?

[BatShite]

OK finished now, that took a while.

Bespin has been banned? I quite liked them..at times. This poster seemed much less coherent than how I remember bespin..unless it got worse, been away a few months.

Another samey thread really. Cannot quite work out how the OP was readable and the replies..not though. Maybe TRAs are pooling the 'work' now, putting together unbeatable OPs or something Ending it in a fuck you I won type flounce was an odd decision though, given how things actually went.

It's like someone shitting on their own bed and laughing at me because the toilet is still clean.

Quite. Nothing more needed.

It's like someone shitting on their own bed and laughing at me because the toilet is still clean.

[DickKerrLadies]

The posts after the OP can be read many many ways. But my take is that, if you believe biological sex is real (and that it matters..which surely is a core part of femnism to start with?!) then you are a massive horrible bigot responsible for suicidal trans youth? Or something?

The thing is, I could almost respect someone's opinion if it was that... but OP doesn't even really understand it. When asked about what makes a transwomen a woman the answer was essentially "something something born in the wrong body maybe".

Oh, and of course telling us that all the transwomen she knows have chopped their penises off. We'll skip over the fact that it's apparently transphobic to think that some transwomen are 'more' like women than others because they have genital surgery.

I'm still laughing that OP directed us to Stonewall to find accurate stats on transpeople - most of us here are trans according to the information given out by, er, Stonewall!

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

Bespin has been banned?

About a year ago or more.

[RufustheLanglovingreindeer]

Bespin has been banned?

Yes for crimes against the english language

(I’m keeping my head Down in case I’m next)

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

Rufus

[DickKerrLadies]

Bespin wasn't the worst, to be fair. Bespin took everything too personally, despite actually agreeing with us on a lot of issues. I think that when discussions really affect us emotionally that it's hard to remain rational.

[FloralBunting]

I think Bespin was a manipulative weasel myself, who initially tried to occupy the 'reasonable' ground, but eventually began to repeatedly lose their shit when encountered a firm, uncaveated no from most of the women here.
That was revealing enough when it was about using female toilets, but when we really began to get into the nitty gritty of safeguarding practice around vulnerable children and adults, the red flags were jawdropping.

Mostly they just liked to poke us because they wanted head pats from Joss Prior, which they hardly ever got, which I confess to finding rather funny.

[Prawnofthepatriarchy]

I have recently developed an addiction to watching talent competitions on YouTube. I kept reading katienlisa552 as Abbie n Lisa from BGT, which added further amusement to the thread.

[DickKerrLadies]

Mostly they just liked to poke us because they wanted head pats from Joss Prior, which they hardly ever got, which I confess to finding rather funny.

Me too.

[BatShite]

Ah, I wasn't around for the safeguarding stuff, last I knew of bespin, they were still trying the 'other people might be bad, but do not say no to me!' stuff, mixed in with a bit emotional blackmail every now and again. If its been a year, I have been away longer than I thought!

Not sure if I prefer the out and out TRA nonsense like this, or the pretending to actually care/understand while trying to chip away defences. Bespin started well..but..they always do. No by 'they' I do not mean transpeople, I mean the specific MRA type that this section attracts.

[R0wantrees]

Ah, I wasn't around for the safeguarding stuff, last I knew of bespin, they were still trying the 'other people might be bad, but do not say no to me!' stuff, mixed in with a bit emotional blackmail every now and again.

Boundary violation, control & emotional abuse pattern behaviours are a Safeguarding concern.

Maya Angelou, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

21/6/2018
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3284251-Lisa-Muggeridge-Suspended-by-Twitter-and-Quoting-her-breaches-MN-Guidelines?pg=6

[BatShite]

Ah thanks rowan. I had already read that thread as it jumped to the end, so not sure why I didn't know bespin was banned, or had got..worse. Unless for some weird reason, I just ignored it all.

[R0wantrees]

I think I first 'met' Bespin on that 'Quoting Lisa Muggeridge breaches MN Guidelines thread'
They was posting for a good year & more after that.
I was surprised by a number of things but not ever by that poster.

[BatShite]

Ahh right, assumed that was where it all went down and didn't check as apparently had already read it and it was mainly full of pictures and that from a glance :)