Guardian back into the fray

[Kit19]

With a sorrowful piece from a TW about how what’s going on the media doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground & TW & feminists are really allies fighting the same battles

It

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/07/trans-rights-have-been-pitted-against-feminism-but-were-not-enemies

Last December I attended an event at the University of Edinburgh about Trans and the Law. This was exactly the strategy they outlined. They thought it very important that they get feminists to accept that they are fighting the same battle and therefore should be natural allies. It was an utterly enlightening event.

rogdmum in what way was it enlightening?

I'm not keen on the "allies" concept in general but if we're going to go down that route I think I'm going to have to insist that it come with considerably less chance of death threats.

In what way do they suggest we're fighting the same battles?

My feminism, such as it is, has largely been around women's reproductive health, decrim of abortion, maternity leave, breastfeeding support and mother friendly lactation rooms in the workplace.

There were zero TW working alongside. Unsurprisingly, as they don't have female reproductive systems, don't get pregnant, don't need abortions or pregnancy/birth care, don't require maternity leave and definitely should not be in a mother friendly lactation room!

The Guardian is just playing a cruel game. At a time when women's employment (where I am at least) has suffered disproportionately compared to male employment due to coronavirus, they should be doing better 'gender' journalism.

This guff is cheap, that's all.

God, I'm not going to give the big G the click. Fuck 'em.

The piece does not actually counter any points made by gender critical feminists, it is just another claim for the moral high ground.

The piece does not actually counter any points made by gender critical feminists, it is just another claim for the moral high ground.

YY.

I can't think of a single thing that TRAs are fighting for that I'm fighting for too that isn't just about us both being left wing. Like, get out the vote against Trump? Sure, I'm with you there. Single sex spaces to become mixed sex spaces in reality, distortion of the language women need to talk about our bodies and lives, children put on a path to sterilization? No thank you!

It trashes the idea of sex based rights but then blames all arguments on those who support that concept, but dressed up in why can't we all be friends language.if

Yes, fewer death threats would be a good start to any allliance.

Who pitted trans rights against women's rights? Let me cast my mind back to the individuals who were consulted around GRA reform, and the MPs who disregarded all valid concerns that these would, em, cause a conflict between rights of different groups.

Women have, out of necessity, started from a position of defending the hard-won rights that we have. We didn't ask to be 'pitted against' anyone.

Always did think Kumbaya was a shitty song even as a child...

If the guardian is serious about finding a way forward , it needs to sponsor actual debates, let the arguments be hammered out, it is a tried and trusted method. There is no point in tutting and sweeping things under the carpet.

I am not sure I see it as the same battles. In what way?
women have battles to fight due to their biology - as the sex class that reproduces. That is why they are at a disadvantage in society and throughout the world.
Trans women have battles too - but not the same ones.
I think this is why trans people try and minimise biology so much in their arguments - as it is unarguable once out in the open, no one sensible could disagree.
It is also why they use the "Cis priviledge" argument as it accepts biology is a thing (they have given up that fight) but argues women's biology is an advantage to them rather than a disadvantage.
This argument is infuriating to women for a million reasons which I am sure we all know and it puts off many women from otherwise being "allies" so it does backfire imo.
Even my 16 year old daughter hates that particular argument so it will never win her over. Although I have seen older teens' / young 20 year olds women say it but I can only imagine they have straightforward periods that have never got in the way of them living their lives. They'll also change their tune the minute they start trying to get pregnant / get pregnant in 5 - 10 years time.

I'm even less keen when it morphs into "kumbaya or else".

And, like post-lockdown carbon emissions, antagonism has now sadly rebounded – this time, via the tweets and blogs of JK Rowling and the ripples of commentary that have followed.

So sick of the gaslighting. There is absolutely zero acknowledgment from people like this author of the aggressive, violent side of the trans rights movement. The persistence in the “quiet trans people just trying to live their lives” trope is deliberate in its failure to acknowledge the people who tell Rowling to suck girl dick, get raped, die. It fails to acknowledge there are people who take photos of themselves in female spaces with erections, swords, baseball bats. None of these Guardian writers ever acknowledge the threats of violence, the “punch trfs” memes, the spamming of porn on threads about children’s literature. There is zero acknowledgement of the fact that women have been assaulted. These* are the people who want to share spaces with women, who want women to bend to their will. They are not trying to negotiate peacefully and work together. At all. In any way shape or form.

If these people aren’t representative of what trans activists and people like this author are trying to achieve them come out and condemn them, but don’t dare lay the blame of antagonism on people like Rowling, who speaks nothing but truth, because that is gaslighting bullshit.

As both feminist and transfeminist writers have long pointed out, we are not immutably tethered to an innate experience of womanhood or manhood simply by being designated an F or an M at birth.

This is the kind of thing you say if you have never had cause to ask yourself what your life would be like without access to birth control, or wondered what you would do if you couldn’t vote because of your sex.

My experience of life is immutably tethered to the availability of rights and services that I need because my sex is female.

What do people like that even think an innate experience of womanhood or manhood is? Because what they seem to mean is some sort of exaggerated Kabuki style performance of gender, and that's not innate womanhood or manhood at all.

Anyone can say, we could all move forward if everyone just agreed with me.

It is patronising and pointless.

I glazed over about a third of the way through that word salad but woke up again at this bit. 'a trans and feminist dialogue can only work through respectful alliance, not divisiveness. It can only be effective through abandoning the dead-end of territory-claiming wars over biology and rights.'

So - we just need to give up our rights to single sex spaces and language to define ourselves, our bodies and experiences and we can all get along fine??

Anyone can say, we could all move forward if everyone just agreed with me.

Yes, I do find it astonishing, even now, that people use that as a serious argument. Er, you haven't given me any reason to change my view, so no.

I can guess how it goes. I'm not giving them the click, either.

We can talk once you agree that females have the right to single sex spaces, as enshrined in the Equality Act and common sense.

It can only be effective through abandoning the dead-end of territory-claiming wars over biology and rights.

It's not a territory war, its just a simple explanation of why women need sex based rights.

I might as well say that blue badge holders should "abandon the dead-end territory-claiming war of explaining why they need specific parking places". Children should end the "dead end territory-claiming war of explaining why they just can't earn their own livings".

It’s sanctimonious bollocks as always

Doesn’t address a single concern or call out the extremist die in a grease fire brigade

A change from the Usual finger wagging lecture but meh!

I can't even be bothered to read it. Feminism centres women and they have no skin in the game.