Munroe Bergdorf

[ripples101]

I am trans.

I was a follower of Munroe Bergdorf’s Instagram.

Munroe wrote a post about JK Rowling, calling her a dangerous woman to the trans community. Munroe stayed something along the lines of

“JKR is a dangerous cisgendered, white woman who is causing harm”

I replied to this post, asking why Munroe felt it necessary to mention JK Rowing’s racial identity.

I wasn’t Abusive. I just felt that it wasn’t necessary, in regards to what Munroe was being critical of, to mention JK Rowling’s ethnicity.

Within minutes my post was deleted and I was blocked.

I am trans, and Munroe has silenced me.

So it seems nothing can be questioned. Any intent to ask a question, or to strike up debate, will be met with being silenced.

This is fast turning into propaganda. This is fast turning into thought crime. This is fast turning into silencing. This is fast turning into something it should never have been.

When a trans person isn’t even able to question another trans person, what chance do “people who belong to sex that menstruate”* have?

• Christ, I don’t even feel like I can use the word women here without being controversial.

I am so sorry for people to whom I thought I identified alongside (trans people) who are doing this to you. I feel sick and ashamed of what I am, because of people who are representing me.

I feel like I literally have no space left. And I can’t help but feel that a lot of biological woman are feeling the same way. And you have so much more to lose than I ever will, so I simply can’t imagine how this is making you all feel.

Ereshkigalangcleg well for starters I don't get strange looks, stares or abuse just for leaving the house. Trans women often do.

I can use a public changing room or toilet without giving it a second thought. Trans women can't.

Someone upthread said trans women are more privileged as they don't have periods and cannot give birth. I disagree. I can't think of any bigger privilege than having the biology to grow a tiny human being and nourishing them after they are born. Women have the choice about whether to become biological mothers or not, trans women don't.

The fact we're biologically women and not trans women? I'd have thought that'd go without saying.

This the best non-answer I’ve ever seen on here and that’s saying something 😆😆

Winesalot I do think some trans women expect to retain their male privilege after transitioning. And it comes as rather a shock when they don't.

Sapphos I think that quite a few do though and this is where this discussion about privilege gets murky.

Do you think that people like D Thomas, Jane Fae, P Bunce and India Willoughby have not retained their privilege? Do you also think that there is privilege in choosing to follow your gender identity when it harms a spouse and children?

I do think that this is by no means clear cut.

What about the privilege of sports for instance?

Not all women have the choice, unless your feminism is exclusively focused on Western women of means who haven't been raped, which seems a little niche.

Any woman who falls pregnant and can't access safe timely affordable accessible abortion has no choice.

Come on, Sappho, this is feminism basics.

I can't think of any bigger privilege than having the biology to grow a tiny human being and nourishing them after they are born. Women have the choice about whether to become biological mothers or not, trans women don't.

Trans women have the choice to become fathers and many of them take advantage of it. You don't see how having a three-second orgasm then having someone else take on all the huge health risks of pregnancy and birth and all labour and pain of breastfeeding, not to mention the massive risks of economic dependency/vulnerability to exploitation, or penury that are associated with motherhood and an almost guaranteed 18-year commitment to raising your child that do not exist in reverse, might be seen as a privilege?

And of course women's "capacity to grow a tiny human being and nourish them after they are born" is precisely the reason women are exploited and abused. Many women now and throughout history do not and did not in fact have the choice about whether to become mothers or not, and whether to subject themselves to the exploitation that mothers are inevitably subjected to in a patriarchal system.

What an incredibly shallow understanding and facile framing of the realities of womens' lives you have.

Anyway others will be able to express this much more eloquently than I. But no, motherhood does NOT give women privilege over men and I can't even even imagine how someone could be a regular poster day after day on a board about women's rights and not realise that.

Try being a disabled woman, Sappho. You reckon she has the luxury of just strolling into a loo, free and easy? Reckon the woman with facial scarring from where her ex attacked her doesn't get looks?

*The fact we're biologically women and not trans women? I'd have thought that'd go without saying.
This the best non-answer I’ve ever seen on here and that’s saying something

OK, to expand further for you - basically what Sapphos said.
As a biological woman, there's privileges that trans women don't have - can use the public loos without scrutiny, don't get laughed at for your looks or stared at every time you leave the house.
Got to agree with how is giving birth and periods a disadvantage for us and trans women not doing that a privilege that they have?
Surely the fact we can give birth and have periods is the most womanly thing you can do - that's most definitely a privilege.
Even if it doesn't feel that way at the time of the month or pushing a baby out!

By "for her looks" before it gets misconstrued or misunderstood I mean as in automatically looks female.

can use the public loos without scrutiny And yet, if men broadened THEIR bandwidth this shouldn't be an issue. And would not be an issue if there were unisex provisions in addition to female toilets.

don't get laughed at for your looks or stared at every time you leave the house. I find this troubling as I think that it could easily apply to anyone, including teenaged girls who are trying to emulate the current fashion through to someone who's features do not conform to the current standard of beauty.

Women have the choice about whether to become biological mothers or not, trans women don't.

I think what you meant was:

Women have the choice about whether to become biological mothers or not, men don't.

And the only reply to that must be - Boo fucking hoo!

can use the public loos without scrutiny

if this is such a huge issue why aren't TRAs campaigning for third spaces?

The insistence that this is not an acceptable solution indicates that "validation" is more important than any genuine concerns about "scrutiny" or indeed safety.

Birds have the choice about whether to fly at any given moment or not. I don't have that choice, because I'm not a bird, not because of "bird privilege".

Bird privilege
Fkn ell

Transwomen generally retain most of their male advantage (as in, their advantages over female people) and they generally lose some of their competitive-ness with other males.

This loss of social and physical standing amongst men does not mean they become akin to women.

If they have ‘passing privilege’ (not my term) they will accrue a handful of disadvantages similar to those women experience, but they will not experience the same disadvantages, as those are uniquely related to being female, not just looking female. They obviously don’t get the good bits of female biology, but they don’t get the bad bits either.

Transwomen seem to think feminism should focus on the bits they experience similarly (eg street harassment) but that just serves to highlight how small a percentage of women’s concerns those bits are.

Women have specific rights because female people are disadvantaged by female mammalian biology (being smaller, and less strong, and having to birth out 100% of human babies, and all the inequalities, eg, being overlooked for promotion at work and being disproportionately affected by male violence*, that come with that).

*or as Jane Fae might describe it, our ‘eggshell skulls’.

We have privilege over middle aged transitioning TW? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

Women have the choice about whether to become biological mothers or not, trans women don't.

No, but Transwomen have the choice about whether to become biological fathers or not, women don’t.

There's something very disturbing about a political theory which labels any thing one person has that another covets a "privilege" in the absence of any related structural inequality in the way TRAs do with things like periods. This is not like coveting the signs of someone else's wealth or their education, things that are directly related to societal inequalities, this is pure weaponizing of sexualized envy, and being on the receiving end of that envy is most definitely not a privilege, it's frightening.

Apologies, I did read that as you including OPs message as the shit MB gets daily.

So because we are women, rather than wish to be women, we're privileged? Can you explain what you mean?

Because at some point in my life I've also had strange looks when I leave the house, I've had abuse shouted at me in the street, I've been cat called when out running. How is my experience better or privileged by comparison? And I can't decide to identify out of this when it all gets too much.

This isn't a privilege it's biology. Cannot be changed no matter how much grief you give us about it. To quote many a TRA, if this upsets a TW they need to get over it.

As for being upset as we can have babies.

don't get laughed at for your looks or stared at every time you leave the house

This absolutely happens to some women. Some their whole lives and some for a portion of it.

Same as transwomen, who spend some of their lives appearing male and (potentially) some of their lives appearing sufficiently female to blend in.

Unless you subscribe to the no-Transwomen-ever-pass train of thought?

What it seems to come down to is that if you define privilege in terms of actual material and social disadvantages imposed on a particular class of humans then women have no privileges over transwomen, at least not that anyone here has been able to name, and certainly none that a change of outfit couldn't instantly resolve.

But if you define "being a woman" as a privilege then yeah, we're super privileged.

Birds have the choice about whether to fly at any given moment or not. I don't have that choice, because I'm not a bird, not because of "bird privilege".

Indeed. As I said and Sappho ignored, I don't have a car. If you have one, you are privileged over me in that sense.

It's not, however, structural privilege. It's something you have the advantage of having, that I do not.

Ok x posted with you clarifying what you meant.

I'm with Baroness I think.

What it seems to come down to is that if you define privilege in terms of actual material and social disadvantages imposed on a particular class of humans then women have no privileges over transwomen, at least not that anyone here has been able to name, and certainly none that a change of outfit couldn't instantly resolve

Yes, exactly.

There's something very disturbing about a political theory which labels any thing one person has that another covets a "privilege" in the absence of any related structural inequality in the way TRAs do with things like periods. This is not like coveting the signs of someone else's wealth or their education, things that are directly related to societal inequalities, this is pure weaponizing of sexualized envy, and being on the receiving end of that envy is most definitely not a privilege, it's frightening.

Perfectly put.