TWAW

[Billi77]

Thought it might be an idea to start a thread for women who support TWAW. I understand ‘Feminism chat’ should also include us and give us our own space?

Thank you FloralBunting. I really am up for listening.

Someone said my stance is unacceptable to trans people as I have concerns about safe spaces and sport - and I think they're right in extreme cases. I'm wary of expressing that view publicly (though privately my trans friends agree).

But then, my stance is also unacceptable here, as I believe TWAW.

Not sure what I'm getting at here really, just trying to find a voice or learn what needs to be done in the name of progress and safety for all.

No one has ever made you stop using the gendered language though, surely?

There are posts on here regularly by women whose workplaces are insisting on gendered language, pronouns, etc.

There are posts on here regularly by women whose workplaces are insisting on gendered language, pronouns, etc.

Some women have been bullied, disciplined and even sacked for not complying.

Nellle

Do you believe that the males who are autogynephiles and call themselves women are women? And belong in women's spaces?

Because I'm wondering if you're actually fully aware of the broad span of males who now "identify" as women?

Are you aware that some only "identify" as women some of the time? LIke Pips Bunce? Or Teddy, who was elected SNP students women's officer? Teddy has famously said that he uses the women's facilities on the days he feels like it...

@endofthelinefinally

There are posts on here regularly by women whose workplaces are insisting on gendered language, pronouns, etc.

Some women have been bullied, disciplined and even sacked for not complying.

Yep. I've had my local council equality and diversity training. I know what I am not allowed to say and what views I am not allowed to hold... also the disciplinary procedures in store for non-compliance.

Fun.

Your stance is not 'unacceptable' here, you're welcome to put your argument as you are doing, and defend it from challenges. Honestly, if you really believe it, challenges and disagreements will help you hone into something more credible. Half the problem with the nutbars on Twitter is they make their pronouncements and never listen to rebuttals so they're making weak arguments. You don't think the women here formed our viewpoints and arguments via talking only to and about things we agree on, surely? I've made a point of reading all sorts of articles, forums, talking directly to transactivists to try and get 'on the inside' on their position. Partly because I am always open to adjusting my views of given reason to, and have, and also because I don't want to waste my time arguing against a position nobody holds.

I'm intrigued that you hold a 'moderate' position that your trans friends privately agree with but you are too wary to go public with. I'd love to know what is making you wary (making no assumptions)

So youre wary despite your willingness to cede "woman" to them?

What does that tell you? You know its not enough, that it will never be enough. You know. You're just pretending that you don't.

Nelle, your view that TWAW is completely acceptable. I don't agree with you, and I reserve the right to argue that you are wrong. However, I would hate to live in a world where everyone had to share the same beliefs.

The problem is that 'TWA are not W' is now treated as blasphemy which makes it very difficult to protect sex based rights.

Words have import. They form our laws. Definitions have meaning, and this meaning translates to legal rights, protections, exclusions, etc.

If we allow anyone at all to call themselves a woman, and I want a smear test from a woman (which I do), I can't actually be sure that when I ask for one, I'll get one. There was recently a case where a woman who insisted on a female HCP for her smear was held up as an example of unacceptable transphobia. This isn't an anomaly - this is Greater Glasgow Health board, the NHS.

The result? I no longer have smears. There will be plenty more like me.

The end result, of ceding the word 'woman', is that women who are fine sharing with transwomen in changing rooms, toilets, breastfeeding groups, hospital wards, sports, etc, will be not bothered by it. Any women who don't wish to share with male bodied people will either be excluded or exclude themselves. That will include women of various faiths whose tenets preclude sharing spaces with males, it'll preclude some women who have traumatic experiences at the hands of male bodied people (at least 20% of women have experienced rape/sexual assault, last figures I checked). It'll also preclude any women who just doesn't want to be in a small space with a male who does - statistically - present a threat, even if that threat is small. I chose a female driving instructor, for example, because being in a confined space with a male stranger makes me so stressed I couldn't actually get through a lesson.

How is it that the language and the whole of society is shaped to suit this transwoman, to avoid suffering for them, while the women who are at completely equal risk of being excluded, frightened, triggered, traumatised and - remember, I'm talking statistically - attacked, don't have their suffering acknowledged?

When women have raised these issues they've been accuse of 'weaponising' their trauma. Quite the most sickening thing I've heard recently. An MP - an MP! has accused JKR of exactly this.

Why is it no TRA organisation is accused of 'weaponising' suffering when they refer to suicide ideation, and all of the things that transwomen are apparently in danger of?

Why does the suffering/desire/deeply held belief of a transwoman matter more than the suffering/desire/deeply held belief of a woman?

@FloralBunting

Your stance is not 'unacceptable' here, you're welcome to put your argument as you are doing, and defend it from challenges. Honestly, if you really believe it, challenges and disagreements will help you hone into something more credible. Half the problem with the nutbars on Twitter is they make their pronouncements and never listen to rebuttals so they're making weak arguments. You don't think the women here formed our viewpoints and arguments via talking only to and about things we agree on, surely? I've made a point of reading all sorts of articles, forums, talking directly to transactivists to try and get 'on the inside' on their position. Partly because I am always open to adjusting my views of given reason to, and have, and also because I don't want to waste my time arguing against a position nobody holds.

I'm intrigued that you hold a 'moderate' position that your trans friends privately agree with but you are too wary to go public with. I'd love to know what is making you wary (making no assumptions)

Yes. It was me who said her views were unacceptable - but only in terms of trans ideology. I think she would have a hard time with that stance in a group of TRAs.

I have also explored this issue with a lot of people from different backgrounds and I am in touch with a few trans people who sound very much like OPs friends. They are, essentially 'old school transsexuals' (albeit young ones!) and feel as much thrown under the bus by the new ideology as women do. And I think their voices need to be amplified - because no one hears them. When trans people said (patronisingly) to JKR that she should go and talk to some trans people - what they meant was 'not those trans people who you have as friends. They are the wrong sort.' And that is wrong on so many levels. The TRA message is a mess. Contradictory, circular and they chant mantras to much that they don't even know what they believe and why.

PMSL at going to the Gp to complain of a lump on my 'outer part'

'The outer part of what?' Would be the obvious reply. Your elbow?? Your left ear??

Just ridiculous and amazing that precise medical language that women need to use to describe themselves and their experiences would be replaced by stupid vague confusing euphemisms just to appease the trans rights lobby.

But can we call TWW? Fucking yes. Why the hell not? Maybe if we gave up a bit of language, we wouldn't have to give up all the rest?

Tried that. Didn't work.
TWAW is no longer satisfying the TRAs. Women are now expected to agree that transwomen are female.
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Just ridiculous and amazing that precise medical language that women need to use to describe themselves and their experiences would be replaced by stupid vague confusing euphemisms just to appease the trans rights lobby.

Agree

I have concerns about safe spaces and sport - and I think they're right in extreme cases.

I think you'll find in many cases that women here share your concerns. It's precisely the 'extreme cases' that are what we're worried about. Looking closely at it, though, the extreme cases are inextricably implicated in the 'middle ground'.

The entire premise of 'TWAW' makes any form of middle-ground argument impossible. Because if you say a transwoman is legally and officially a woman, there will be no safe spaces, no way of excluding any male, at any time, from any space. That is the point of TWAW. It collapses the difference between transwomen and women.

Effectively, it will mean all spaces are unisex and there will be no sex segregation possible. Some people are quite fine with this position. I think sex segregation is very necessary for women in certain places and situations.

I think sport and safe spaces are issues that need to be looked at separately, but as long as this is done it doesn't harm me if transwomen are legally recognised as women.

I never know what to say to people who think the harm done to women unlike them is unworthy of their consideration.

No. The answer to all the requests demands for women to move up, be kind or make space, whether linguistically or otherwise, is no.

I think sex segregation is very necessary for women in certain places and situations.

And this is what Stonewall have been campaigning against - the legislation in the EA that allows discrimination on the basis of sex in some situations.

If nobody were trying to change the law, and if it was just a case of calling Hayley from Corrie a woman, it would be 2008 and nobody would care.

Nelle I'm another one that's both happy to have a proper debate AND has also been on the receiving end of some of the tedious twisty/tangent bollocks on this board. If you're not used to it my advice is:
1 - learn which posters you don't really engage well with or seem to be goady etc, then try and recognise if you can that that is just a few people's posting style and you don't necessarily have to respond or feel they represent all posters - there are LOADS of individuals here. Conversely, finding points you do agree on can be helpful for discussion!

2 - copy & paste (quote/use bold) to reply directly to comments as it's hard otherwise to tell what's aimed at whom.

3 - keep to the topic at hand - sometimes threads devolve into one or two of the same issues or meta-issues (bunfights!)

Hope that's not patronising - it's not intended to be.

oh and 4 - be prepared to read a lot - some of the 'primary documents' so to speak are eye-opening beyond anything anyone here can say (Hansard, toolkits, policy documents, court proceedings, witness statements, etc).

@TehBewilderness

I think sport and safe spaces are issues that need to be looked at separately, but as long as this is done it doesn't harm me if transwomen are legally recognised as women.

I never know what to say to people who think the harm done to women unlike them is unworthy of their consideration.

Its a breathtakingly callous statement, isn't it? I'm alright, jack.

I think we've already shown you here that this cannot happen - and you need to stop referring to us as "cis", because it makes us a subset of our own sex.

Just to be crystal clear about this.
Female is not a subset of woman.
When you use the term 'cis' woman you are asserting that female is a subset of women instead of woman being the adult subset of female.

But then, my stance is also unacceptable here, as I believe TWAW.

Its not 'unacceptable here' - we're a place of free debate - but what you actually said was that you believed TWAW except when it comes to sports, hospitals, mental health care, changing rooms, toilets, refuges and prisons - is that right?

So when it comes to 'safe spaces' and sports, TW are what? Can you clarify?

Its odd that you think TWAW if you are caveating it with all that, no?

If nobody were trying to change the law, and if it was just a case of calling Hayley from Corrie a woman, it would be 2008 and nobody would care

Fucking nailed it.

It was generally working Ok, then the activists upped the ante. Now in the new orthodoxy, everyone suffers, women, and old Skool tranvestites, autistic kids, etc, and the wankers that started it will melt back into the crowd.

I’m really not interested in semantics over words. I want to know how it has become acceptable (nay, mandatory) to force a female rape survivor to leave a women’s refuge because she is unable to sleep in a bed next to a large male bodied person with an intact and fully functioning penis, who parades his ‘morning glory’ boner (and posts pictures of him with it from the communal bathroom on the www) in front of her and other women fleeing male violence, and for her to be dismissed as transphobic. A rape victim traumatized by male violence. Who doesn’t want to sleep two feet away from a large strange man. Bigot. And for her to be left homeless and without support because the refuge staff prioritises his rights as a transwoman over her rights to sex-segregated spaces, which she needs as a result of male violence.
And when the whole world responds to the posts of his gleeful boner, the refuge staff issue an anodyne statement about how they are working with her. Her with the boner, obviously, (the cunty one can fuck off, bigot).
Sex based rights are not yours to toss out with semantics over words.
It’s not about words.
But without words, there are NO SEX BASED RIGHTS.
How do you protect the sex based rights of a rape victim if sex has been replaced (REPLACED) by self identified gender?
How do you protect sex based rights if sex has disappeared as a legal entity?

I’m no longer prepared to concede an inch let alone the word for our sex class because it is not recognised as a concession. It is expected. Women are vilified for not immediately handing over every single thing that belongs to women while saying thank you for this opportunity and apologising for ever having them. Not doing so is treated as harmful, entitled and as a hostile act. We used to be nice, it’s hard not to be when we are socialised from birth to put others first. Who puts women first? Who even considers women? Women. That’s the end of the list. Words matter. Women are saying no.

Its not 'unacceptable here' - we're a place of free debate - but what you actually said was that you believed TWAW except when it comes to sports, hospitals, mental health care, changing rooms, toilets, refuges and prisons - is that right?

God, how funny if thats what they meant. IRONY Klaxon. I do hope we get a response.

That would be all the bits that everyone else here has a problem with and has been pointing out as problematic and we need to discuss.

Ha. How funny.

You can't have a position of 'TWAW except when they are not'

Stonewall's mantra is 'acceptance without exception'.