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

well said!

To my shame I do still check out The Guardian's food writing..

@terryleather

To be frank, Felicity Cloake is the only Guardian columnist that I still read. Her "How to cook the perfect ..." column does have some really good recipes.

@AbsintheFriends

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??

That's it in a nutshell though isn't it. There can't be compromise. It is impossible. One of my friends (a male) told me last week that if a transwoman has fully transitioned and had their penis etc removed, then he (yes, he) had no problem with said transwoman using the female toilets. I told him that my right to single sex spaces was not his to give away and to get to fuck. When the right to use female toilets or other spaces such as changing rooms, rape crisis centres etc is about validation, there can be no compromise.

@Tavannach

The Guardian slways runs articles from opposing points of view on any subject, not necessarily on the same day.

Do they? I'm waiting to see the one it runs on protecting women's rights...

This is their last grasp of the lifejacket before the whole ship sinks.

We're way too far out now to fall for their poor me BS. They aren't waving, they're drowning.

I was particularly confused by this

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.

So, is writer saying then that the only real thing that connects me to all the other women in the world is my genitals and the oppression they bring? I thought being focused on genitals was transphobic? If it is just my sex then surely that confirms that trans women, are not, and never can be women?

Or are they saying everyone experiences that everyone experiences wo/manhood differently, in which case is it not actually any sort of 'hood' and in fact just life. We all experience life differently.

Either way I'm not swayed by anything written in this article!

Didn't read it but I imagine something like "shut up women and help fight my, I mean our, battles".

This is the most revealing line, Blue

"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."

But yes, you're basically spot on.