Gappy Tales: Laurie Penny's T*RF Wars: Aguide to cognitive dissonance

[SunsetBeetch]

Laurie wrote a crazily long spiel on Medium recently regarding the "Terf Wars" (honestly, it's excruciating, but here's the link):

medium.com/@pennyred/terf-wars-why-transphobia-has-no-place-in-feminism-60d3156ad06e

The brilliant Gappy Tales takes it apart here:

medium.com/@GappyTales/laurie-pennys-terf-wars-a-guide-to-cognitive-dissonance-27779863dd5c

Thank you Beetch. I had actually only seen it once yonks ago.
"A woman is a person who identifies as a woman," says a GP working in the NHS.
Extraordinary.

@FloralBunting

Ok, I have a suggestion, given that this is a very clear change of tactic and yet again, it's a linguistic trick.

We do not need to press 'you can't change sex'. The immutability of sex is pretty self evident at this stage. Besides which, the cult language has done what we predicted about a year and a half ago, and shifted away from changing to confirming, so the person has always been 'female', etc.

The TRAs are doing this - 'Of course you can't change sex, but actually sex is a wide variety of possibilities that are almost too complicated to clearly define, and essentially pointless for all practical purposes'.

The best counter to this is - There are two sexes, and for some very significant things, SEX MATTERS.

Because this is, and always has been, the crux of our argument. Keep saying it. Don't let them own the narrative.

Sex is real, and sex matters.

Applause!

ThePurported

He also, if I recall correctly, accuses women of appropriating the word woman. 🤣

"A woman is a person who identifies as a woman," says a GP working in the NHS.

This does actually prove the 'sex is real' point in my view.

The only response to this is '...identifies as a what, though?'
The fact that they think there is a concept of woman, that can be 'identified as', and it needs no further definition or explanation reveals that we all KNOW what a woman is, physically.

If you were to respond, 'oh right, you mean someone who identifies as a 4-legged amphibian' you would know that was not at all something that could be inferred from their 'definition of woman'. Because we all know what a woman is.

Jane Clare Jones lacerates it.

mobile.twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1272909480888537089

Laurie Penny says:

"Since we’re obsessing about makeup and manicures, when a trans woman paints her nails neon pink, that is, in fact, a tiny action with different implications than when a cis woman does the same — because when a trans woman paints her nails she is betraying the uniform of her assigned sex and gender, and there is courage in that. These things are not frivolous. They matter. They are small, intimate acts of identity formation, which are experienced differently depending on who we are."

No.

Gwyneth Bebb showed courage when she took the law society to court, arguing that she was a “person” within the meaning of the Solicitors Act 1843.

Women show courage when they campaign to be allowed to wear flat shoes at work:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36265545

Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson showed courage when they fought for their marriage to be legally recognised in the UK.

These people were fighting for their rights, as humans.

It would take courage to fight for every human's right to wear nail varnish. Laurie Penny is just fighting for the right to trap everyone in a gender box.

Brilliant thread as ever from Jane Clare Jones, but I do wonder how she has the energy for it. Arguing with stupid people - particularly people who choose to be stupid - has few rewards, in my experience.

Talking of which, does anyone else remember the time Laurie Penny came on here to lecture us about how silly we all were?

It's like this never happened.

does anyone else remember the time Laurie Penny came on here to lecture us about how silly we all were?

Don't think i was here then! Are the threads still there?

Here you go, bishopgiggles. Somebody started a thread on her, and then she joined us on page 3. (I was using a different name back then.)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3244928-Laurie-Pennys-Mirror-World?pg=3

There's a bit on that thread where she writes:

"What I’m hearing is that women here have been utterly shat on by this government, by cuts, by rising sexism in society and the stripping of vital welfare and institutional support. And that in this context, as you see trans women as men, it seems like men are barging in and demanding access to what little there is left for women."

It's funny, because she's entirely missed the point. That's not what we were saying at all.

Laurie Penny says:

"They are committed to an essentialist understanding of womanhood, grounded in a radical reclaiming of the female body- a reading of gender and power that identifies binary reproductive difference and male violence as the root of women’s oppression."

What else is there?

I think LP's focus on identity affirmation (self actualisation - at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs) displays a complete inability to imagine what it would be like to be deprived of basic needs - food, shelter and safety because of something over which you have no control - sex.

It's not even as though men have to consciously oppress women. My ability to access education and earn money is impacted by my ability to access services like birth control that men don't need.

"They’re not sending in trans women to invade domestic violence shelters. They’re just closing the shelters and taking away legal aid protections for women fleeing abusive relationships."

Hasn't at least one refuge in Canada lost funding because of campaigning by TRAs?

because when a trans woman paints her nails she is betraying the uniform of her assigned sex and gender, and there is courage in that. These things are not frivolous. They matter. They are small, intimate acts of identity formation

See, I just read that and I'm once again struck by why the fuck I'm supposed to care about any male's made up identity that is based on their own ideas about femininity and that is not grounded in material reality. Why?

Hasn't at least one refuge in Canada lost funding because of campaigning by TRAs?

Yes, Vancouver Rape Relief. The campaign was headed by the delightful Morgane Oger.

As somebody who can't usually be bothered with things like painted nails, I think a man who wants to paint his nails everyday is expressing his identity more authentically than I would be.

I just don't understand why anybody would insist that a man can only paint his nails if he identifies as feminine.

I agree, merrymouse, we're all fine with a man painting his nails if that's what he wants. Just don't imagine it makes him a woman.

As it happens, I haven't painted my nails for at least 30 years. Don't know if I'm betraying the uniform of my sex, my gender, or both, or neither.

It's disappointing reading that thread from two years ago to see that Laurie Penny left the thread when it became clear that we were wiping the floor with her.

They are small, intimate acts of identity formation

I think that's actually the wanking with the nail varnish on, Penny.

Thanks royal, I'm only halfway through that thread but it's great. I hope this doesn't come across as negative towards the brilliant posters we still have here but the arguments in that thread have so much clarity, succinctness and cut to the heart of the whole debate, it's really refreshing and also why I find it frustrating when every other thread now seems to descend into talking about toilets or personal attacks so the clear arguments get a bit drowned out (I am of course guilty of this too).
Obviously the same arguments are being had year in, year out. I get the feeling that a handful of posts in the LP thread could serve as responses to most questions we get here!

because when a trans woman paints her nails she is betraying the uniform of her assigned sex and gender,

How can they be betraying anything, when they have always been female? From birth in fact.

Make your mind up, love. Are they are men fighting for the acceptance of nonconformity, or they are really women, because only women paint their nails?

I was upset to see Rebecca Solnit share the Laurie Penny article on Facebook today. I can't seem to go near social media any more without feeling thoroughly depressed....

'It is not transphobic to acknowledge that trans women have a different political experience of womanhood than cis women, just as white women have a different political experience of womanhood than black women, just as rich women have a different political experience of womanhood than poor women.'

What is this nonsense? Yet again trying to say that black women are a different kind of woman. I hate this racism. Women are women because of their biology, not because of their political experiences.

Fairenuff - it's that linguistic sleight of hand again. If you redefine men as women, then you can pretend they're a subset of the class women. Suppose you decided that dogs could identify as cats. You could call them "trans cats". At that point trans cats are just another type of cat, like tabby cats, Siamese cats, Persian cats, Bengal cats etc. The trick of using the word "cat" disguises the reality, which is that we're talking about dogs.

The dog/cat analogy is brilliant. Those who have made up their minds to spout the mantras will never listen to it, though. Glad to see the Penny idiocy is being taken apart by those well-qualified to do so.

One of the key repeated themes in the TWAW nonsense is that you 'have to believe people are what they say they are', isn't it? So, when accused of being a transphobe, I could say, 'No, I'm not.' And I would have to be believed.

Altenatively I could say that I do not identify as transphobic, and so to refer to me as such is 'literal violence and a hate crime'.

So good. I wish I could write like that.

I’m curious as to whether LP would concede that fetishes are a real thing and that, for some men, their fetish is ‘being’ a woman. And that being the case, would she see that as a legitimate ‘trans identity’?