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.

It is though if you're a woman who not only is one biologically, but identifies as one as well and likes being feminine.

.... And yet, many women don't fit the 'feminine' profile you talk about or want to. At all? So, how is this a privilege.

Or do you mean because someone really really wants to fit this profile and can't because of what their genes have given them to work with, that they lack the privilege of anyone that can fit this reductive ideal?

Do you also believe that I lack privilege because I really want to fit the current concept of what is beautiful but frankly, I simply do not have the genes (or the money) to make this so?

I haven't drank in years but I have my emergency bottle of vodka and carton of cranberry juice sitting in the kitchen and it's calling to me. Today my feminine privilege really screwed me over. My time as a sahm means I don't qualify for job seekers so I'm not in a good mood.

But hey, they know you're a woman, so privilege

Yeah I can always sell my body or put on a nice dress and laugh at salad.

If PL and MB were female models they wouldn't be given the time of day. They're selected for jobs specifically because they're transwomen.

Yes I agree. If this is the case, it would surely constitute a type of privilege, according to Sappho and Lemon.

@Bluebooby

I haven't drank in years but I have my emergency bottle of vodka and carton of cranberry juice sitting in the kitchen and it's calling to me. Today my feminine privilege really screwed me over. My time as a sahm means I don't qualify for job seekers so I'm not in a good mood.

That's shit. Sorry.

NotBadConsidering yes. MB is fuming with JKR for using her platforms to express views about the world that she lives in that are important to her. Views that important to a lot of other people it would seem.

I think MB is particularly enraged than JKR has arguments and facts to substantiate her views which, being thought-out and coherent, she can argue rationally, whereas MB has only deletes and blocks.

Yogurt, girlfriend! Running on a beach in white shorts while menstruating!

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains

It’s also a reason this thread is getting derailed I suspect

Why is it a derail to have a differing opinion?
FFS, this is actually quite an interesting discussion, why shout derail as you're actuall hearing different opinions?
Why do you want an echo chamber?
I like hearing different voices.

It’s not a derail to offer a different opinion, it’s a derail to talk about something completely different to the OP. This thread is no longer about Munroe Bergdorf’s treatment of the OP and how Bergdorf will do anything to silence those who challenge Bergdorf. Bergdorf is slinging mud and lies about JK Rowling and I think it’s important to be reminded of the fact that is what the thread is about.

I am conscious of the fact it’s in the interests of certain people to bury the issue of Bergdorf lying about Rowling to distract from the fact Rowling is bringing sunlight.

@DuDuDuLangaLangaBingBong assume you are straight and / or don't have kids?
It's quite sweetly naive of you to assume that having kids outside of a heterosexual relationship is a piece of cake. I can assure you it is massively complicated, expensive and difficult.

Being heterosexual and not transgender are both very privileged positions when it comes to parenthood.

I am conscious of the fact it’s in the interests of certain people

Like who? You make it sound like there's an conspiracy of underground infiltration by a powerful lobby, when it's just normal people with different opinions and the fact that conversations evolve.

Well in that case, we can evolve it back to the OP.

Why do you think Munroe Bergdorf brought JK Rowling’s race into the debate and blocked the OP for asking the question, Lemonade?

Why do you think Munroe Bergdorf brought JK Rowling’s race into the debate and blocked the OP for asking the question, Lemonade?

I've already answered both parts of that.
Soz if you didn't like my answer though, or if you're doing the pretending it's not there thing that people tend to do.

It’s not a derail to offer a different opinion, it’s a derail to talk about something completely different to the OP.

Some people appear not to realise that there is a difference.

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains

Why do you think Munroe Bergdorf brought JK Rowling’s race into the debate and blocked the OP for asking the question, Lemonade?

I've already answered both parts of that.
Soz if you didn't like my answer though, or if you're doing the pretending it's not there thing that people tend to do.

My apologies, it was the question you were asked about when you thought Bergdorf’s privilege transitioned that you didn’t answer.

Any ideas?

My apologies, it was the question you were asked about when you thought Bergdorf’s privilege transitioned that you didn’t answer.

Oh yes, I've been looking forward to someone answering that since last night.

When and by what mechanism did Bergdorf cease to have male privilege?

Complicated, expensive and difficult sums up many women’s experience of motherhood.

But we have the privilege of post natal depression, incontinence, mastitis and death in child birth so high fives all round, ladies!

"Men murder men more than they murder women. Men murder women more than they murder transwomen."

So do men actually make themselves safer by becoming transwomen?

Yes they do, statistically. Contrary to popular opinion.

They’re safer as victims, statistically speaking, but remain the same level of threat as perpetrators.

Straight women definitely have privilege when it comes to babies, lesbians less so and trans women are right at the bottom of the pile.

Missed this bit off my last post, but wanted to unpick, does a straight woman really have -privilege over a lesbian when it comes to babies? And a lesbian over a transwoman?

Being straight gives easier access to sperm, I guess - straight men tend to be a bit careless with it, but sperm is easy enough to come by (compared to ovum) and if it’s just the sperm you want (and not the baggage of the man who produced it) then straight women are better off with a donor anyway, so is that really a privilege? And are straight men better co parents than lesbians? I would say not, on average, and I would imagine there is higher percentage of abusive and/or deadbeat dads than there are shit non-gestational lesbian mothers?

When it comes to infertility I realise in practise it can be more challenging to access NHS treatment for lesbians than straight women (and I support laws that prevent discrimination, but a straight couple has a maximum of one uterus and a lesbian couple potentially has two - so that’s a second opportunity at fertility (and some CCGs will fund IVF for both women in a lesbian couple, so that’s double the opportunity of a straight couple, and potentially two siblings, rather than an only child).

Transwomen aren’t the correct comparator here, transmen are, and their conception and birth challenges are going to compare to either straight women or lesbian women, single women or partnered women, rather than make a whole new category. Stopping testosterone could be seen as an additional disadvantage but both lesbian and straight women will also have to make decisions re: medicine in pregnancy, and pausing some of those medications will bring greater maternal risk factors than pausing Testosterone, so that’s not a uniquely trans experience.
And not all trans people take cross sex hormones anyway, of course. Transmen who have had hysterectomies for gender related reasons are going to have similar physical challenges to women who have had hysterectomies for say, cancer, but cancer survivors will have had less time to mentally adjust to fertility loss, less time to preserve ovum, and have all the additional physical and mental stresses of surviving cancer (and limited life expectancy brings a whole new set of family planning considerations too).

There are potentially some worries about marginalisation in maternity care for lesbian women and transmen, but that also goes for women with SEN/English as a second language/Autistic women/physically disabled women etc. And there is material evidence that black women in the U.K. (and US) are at enormous increased risk of maternal death...

...I’m not convinced that it’s actually possible to make a ‘privilege’ list re: Sexual orientation, gender reassignment, women and pregnancy/babies without considering all the other intersections too (and not forgetting class and wealth, of course!).

When and by what mechanism did Bergdorf cease to have male privilege?

Yes. I have asked this too. Because I have not seen that male socialisation and the privileges attached to that diminish at all.

I don't understand this argument of women having privilege over TW. When people discuss white/male/thin/whatever privilege it's not about "you have something I want so you are privileged". Just because you covet someone's car/uterus/ability to birth a child doesn't mean they have privilege!

It's talking about the structural issues minority groups face in their day to day life, the invisible forces and societal expectations that elevate one group systematically and hold the other back.

Male privilege stems from biology, women are structurally oppressed the world over because of their child bearing capabilities. To turn around and suggest that this then gives women privilege over some male bodied people because they wish they had it is ridiculous.
It really is incel logic.

Male privilege stems from biology, women are structurally oppressed the world over because of their child bearing capabilities. To turn around and suggest that this then gives women privilege over some male bodied people because they wish they had it is ridiculous.
It really is incel logic.

Yes.

Being heterosexual and not transgender are both very privileged positions when it comes to parenthood.

Oops. Look, you moved the goalposts!

Before we were expressly talking about conceiving and gestating babies, now you’ve moved to parenthood.

And as for sweetly naive, you are a middle class Brighton dwelling, married lesbian, right?

Do you really think that you have less parenthood privilege than say, a heterosexual single mum raising a kid with SEN on a London council estate?