'Dismantling cisgender privilege'

[SistemaAddict]

I've just been on the Black Lives Matter website to find out more about the movement and found this:

"We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.
We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered."

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

"Cisgender privilege" and ooh look we are centring the men whilst stating we aren't

I'd be interested to see statistics on black transwomen in relation to the above claims and compare them with various other statistics.

I'm too tired to get all my thoughts out but that privilege comment has really got to me.

Obviously these women have excellent privilege. Including the disabled ones.

iwda.org.au/what-is-it-like-to-have-your-period-in-a-developing-country/

Another excellent point Michelle

In the state capitol in California, there are toilets for men and mixed toilets.
The boys need their privacy.
Women and girls not do much.

This is why as a black women I cannot support the BLM organisation. It's not for me.

Basically, all this c* privilege is spouted forth from people, including women, who have so much fucking general privilege in their day to day lives, they can argue the toss about words without having to go into the sea to clean themselves during their periods.

From the article:

Women, particularly those in informal work, also find disposal and personal hygiene and issue in the workplace. In Solomon Islands, one woman reported going to the sea to wash herself, which can be a safety risk. Going out alone to a remote area can expose women to physical, sexual or emotional violence, especially they only feel comfortable to do so after dark because of the stigma.

MENSTRUATION IS RARELY TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS – AND GIRLS WITH DISABILITIES OFTEN MISS OUT ENTIRELY

And ffs, we do actually have "period poverty" issues in the U.K. too.

Fucks me right off.

Girls in U.K. schools are having to cross their legs and walk full lengths of schools in order to access a toilet they feel safe in, after the gender woo brigade reorganised toilets to be "inclusive" to "males who feel feminine."

There is no such thing as c* privilege.

Oh! I just looked up cis-privilege. I can't fecking believe it.

There is no such thing as c* privilege.

Not for women, for sure - I suppose there may be for men but quelle surprise, that's not what was being complained about.

Yes I was just thinking about that for men, as certainly the homophobia / misogyny comes pouring out at the slightest opportunity. Eg men panicking about young sons wearing dresses, having a doll, liking pink.

Not for women.

It's rarely ascribed to men though, is it!

The only privilege I can think of around this debate, for being an adult human female, is that I am highly unlikely to be killed by another adult human female. If this is a privilege then the world is mad.

Having lost a job due to being a parent, raised a child alone with no financial assistance as govt policy appeared not to prioritise chasing child maintenance and seen my domestic abuser escape a prison sentence despite battering and strangling me because he had " problems" that he received immediate counselling for whereas my ptsd due to his abuse did not warrant me immediate NHS counselling I suggest cisgender privelige is bullshit. Oh and I've been raped too. And sexually harassed at work. Anyone using this phrase near me will get a loud fuck off.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who read it and went wtf.

Are there other BLM websites with slightly different domain names? Whether you think this group hijacked the name or not becomes irrelevant if this group is taken to represent the cause, they then become the cause.

This is why as a black woman I cannot support the BLM organisation. It's not for me.

Nor can this black woman. That organisation does not in any way represent my views or the views of any black person I know personally. They are a "queer" organisation masquerading as a black one. I despise the underhandedness of the name.

@idontsmokeivape

This is why as a black woman I cannot support the BLM organisation. It's not for me.

Nor can this black woman. That organisation does not in any way represent my views or the views of any black person I know personally. They are a "queer" organisation masquerading as a black one. I despise the underhandedness of the name.

to both of you. Solidarity.

Here's what my "cis privilege" amounted to growing up (I'm 62):

• I'm a coal miner's daughter and had two brothers. I didn't live in a house with a bathroom (we simply had an outside toilet across the yard which had no washbasin) until I was 16 and shared a bedroom with one brother, then the other, as we had only 2 bedrooms in the house. Only women can draw from that situation the correct inferences about what that was like for a teenage girl.

*My mother was hospitalised with severe, suicidal depression in the March of my O level year and remained so until the October. I was then in sole charge of running the house, cooking, cleaning, etc (my older brother was by now down the pit alongside my Dad and they worked different shifts) and caring for my 7-year-old brother. This whilst trying to study for my O levels.

I could go on. "Cis fucking privilege"? Girls and women, especially working-class girls and women, continue to be seriously disadvantaged compared to men. There is NO advantage or "privilege" to being born female in any part of the world.

Women - share your "cis privilege" stories.

@PeaceCheese

I think we as women who were born female definitely have privilege over trans females.

I have a delightful trans female relative who often has to use the disabled toilet because she gets challenged if she tries to use the women's, and challenged if she tries to use the men. If there isn't a disabled toilet, then she just has to hold it and hope that she doesn't wet herself.

Being a trans person who is imperfect at passing puts you below biological women. Trans people have a harder time finding employment and housing, and so are more likely to end up homeless or involved in sex work. They are more likely to get substandard healthcare because the trans body works differently to a biologically male or female body (assuming that they're on hormones). Unsurprisingly, all of this leads to a higher suicide rate for trans people.

I don't envy their lives at all. It's a hard life to lead, but they can't help that their brains don't match the body that they were born into.

Luckily, in the UK everywhere there is a public toilet, there must be a disabled access toilet. That's the law. Why do trans people have a harder time finding employment and housing? What is the data you are basing this assertion on? Why would a trans person get substandard health care? A transwoman body works just the same as a mans body. If they choose to take sex hormones, they will be carefully monitored by their gp, unless they choose to buy them online. The higher suicide rate that you assert is not true. Many reports are made to this claim, but are never backed up by evidence. It's a fallacy. In actual fact, there is some evidence that a high number of trans people have continued to show similar mental health issues post transition. In other words, the act of transitioning did not make them any happier. Accepting trans women are men and trans men are women might lead to them being more accepting of themselves instead of being led to believe they can change biological sex. It's also a complete myth that a trans person's brain doesn't match the it body, along wi being 'born into the wrong body'.

Far too many people are made to feel like they can't challenge these myths because of the threats of suicide rates.

Yes and the stats on murders and ‘dead by X age’ are also entirely untrue and/or misappropriated.

What this is really about is anger and resentment from those born male that biological females do not have to do anything to be perceived as and have bodies that work as female. Biological males on the other hand have to do a great deal to get others to perceive them as female and do not have the biology they feel they should have, and this is seen as a disadvantaged womanhood to those who believe that TWAW.

The anger from biological females is that this has absolutely no awareness or comprehension of the fundamental disadvantage of being female, and the inequality of being female, all of which are based solely on being born with female biology. They cannot be identified out of, in the way that the language, concepts and resources of womanhood can now be identified into by those without that fundamental biological disadvantage. To female people it can feel rather like being a wheelchair user facing someone furiously distressed, angry and blaming that they don't have a wheelchair too and would really like to have one and not be able to walk. The language to talk to each other, to share the experience of being female, to seek support or resources to address the specific disadvantages of female biology are now suddenly supposed to be seen on their part as acts of aggression, because they fail to centre the feelings and needs of biological males.

Those born male can have no concept of what these disadvantages and oppressions of having female biology really are, and this is helped along because a) they have the male biological and trans experience, not the female one, and b) because it isn't relevant, and male socialisation and an unequal society makes it automatic for males not to need to be aware of or care about issues that don't affect them.

As a result, it can come across as fundamental and unreasonable male anger with females just for being female, as this constantly reminds that there is a meaningful difference in being born female and born male and that this is a reality no matter how distressing it is to face or how much people are encouraged to change language and spaces to conceal it. And often this appears to wish some sort of ill fate or sacrifice or visible loss on the part of female people in the form of payment for their natural and so unfair good fortune.

To female people, this can seem just more of the same entitled, oppressive, dominating and tone deaf behaviour from males they are so very used to, earned solely by the bad luck of having been conceived a biological female.

Its not a win-win bit of language.

The only reason why transgender people might be given less than ideal healthcare is because of wider implications of idiotic trans speak like ‘people who menstruate’ or ‘cervix-havers’.

The only reason why transgender people might be given less than ideal healthcare is because of wider implications of idiotic trans speak like ‘people who menstruate’ or ‘cervix-havers’.

Yes.

Although those most likely to suffer are female people who don't speak English as a first language, who struggle with reading, or who have disabilities around language processing. Particularly since this is jargon very specific to the trans culture. Most people in the street are still walking around going 'what's the c** word they keep saying on the radio?'

The Deptford Women's Project were pointing out about two years ago now the issues with meeting front line needs with the least privileged groups in society when highly educated, affluent, middle class white students kept arriving to tell their service users about the language they needed to use, and that they the students were far more oppressed and underprivileged than those in the room - who were homeless, struggling with additions, escaping violence and so on. The letter the project workers wrote is very well worth a read when looking at confused views of what is and is not privilege.

@idontsmokeivape

This is why as a black woman I cannot support the BLM organisation. It's not for me.

Nor can this black woman. That organisation does not in any way represent my views or the views of any black person I know personally. They are a "queer" organisation masquerading as a black one. I despise the underhandedness of the name.

I genuinely had no idea and I'm saddened that black women are bein thrown under the bus - again.

I'm not shocked though, it's always the same. 'Come the revolution, sister, we'll sort your problems out. Until then perhaps you could give out some leafets...'

They are more likely to get substandard healthcare because the trans body works differently to a biologically male or female body (assuming that they're on hormones).

Trans bodies work in the exact same way as any other body. Cross-sex hormones are not good for any human, leading to a number of issues for women and men.

So for example (and off the top of my head), transwomen on hormones may have heart problems, and transmen may suffer from vaginal atrophy.

@PeaceCheese

I think we as women who were born female definitely have privilege over trans females.

I have a delightful trans female relative who often has to use the disabled toilet because she gets challenged if she tries to use the women's, and challenged if she tries to use the men. If there isn't a disabled toilet, then she just has to hold it and hope that she doesn't wet herself.

Being a trans person who is imperfect at passing puts you below biological women. Trans people have a harder time finding employment and housing, and so are more likely to end up homeless or involved in sex work. They are more likely to get substandard healthcare because the trans body works differently to a biologically male or female body (assuming that they're on hormones). Unsurprisingly, all of this leads to a higher suicide rate for trans people.

I don't envy their lives at all. It's a hard life to lead, but they can't help that their brains don't match the body that they were born into.

Fgm, female infanticide and girls forced into marriage to much older men just show how fucked up this whole thing is.

mobile.twitter.com/WomenReadWomen/status/1270163621872451584