"Survivors Must Fight For Trans Women Too" thoughts?

[Happy101]

Stumbled across this article, and was shocked to see some of the sentiments being displayed, primarily accusing domestic abuse survivors of weaponising their trauma to stop access for trans-women to their shelters. Quite a shocking read that places the protection of trans-women at the feet of already extremely vulnerable women? I've always been pro-trans, but this has just really rubbed me the wrong way for some reason and is making me question a lot of what this movement is seeking to achieve

Link: www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2020/07/9919890/transphobia-and-domestic-violence

Holy shit, this article literally says that survivors of domestic abuse are abusers themselves for having boundaries.

The article claims that 16 percent of trans women have experienced domestic abuse compared to 7.5 percent of women. But one can also see clearly from the stats that it’s women who are being overwhelmingly murdered by their partners and ex partners. I don’t believe there has been a single murder of a trans woman this year. So it seems their abuse is not resulting in death. The article gives an example of abuse suffered by a trans woman - their partner refused to recognise their gender identity and wasn’t happy at them becoming a woman. This seems to be a very different kind of abuse from the abuse that women suffer and so surely it merits its own resources?

I was so shocked when I read it, still can't believe it was published in on female orientated platform.

This isn't what I thought i was fighting for, I was fighting for trans women safety, now all of a sudden women are being accused of abuse for having experienced abuse? How does this make sense?

I’m sorry OP, it doesn’t make any sense. There are so many ways to fight for trans people’s safety without calling survivors of domestic abuse bigots for wanting to have spaces away from males. It shouldn’t be a zero sum game but it seems it is.

I’m not sure I believe that only 7.5 % of women have experienced DV either.
When I think about my immediate frame of reference, my mum, my little sister, my best friend, SIL, half a dozen female colleagues, my godmother, myself, DP’s ex wife. All have experienced DV.
And they’re just people we know about.

For Suzie, a trans woman and a survivor, her experience of domestic abuse included physical assaults and threats from her partner that she would lose her home and children if she started living in her affirmed gender*

In other words this is a fully male person who has not even begun to transition. That person deserves help and support but they do not belong in a woman's refuge.

If so many transwomen are experiencing domestic abuse, why not fundraise and set up their own shelters for the trans community? That’s what women had to do early on in the days of the feminist movement when there was little recognition of domestic violence as a serious crime and abused women had nowhere to turn. Feminists fundraised and campaigned for safe refugee for abused women and that’s why safe spaces exist now. The trans & LGBTQIA+ movement is strong and well-funded. Mermaids is the trendy charity of choice for the woke ‘right side of history’ folx so it should be a logical move to replicate radfem activist strategies of the past and set up trans shelters.

That is a frighteningly naive article. Or a BS one.

The warning on the top is that the article mentions transphobia (but not that it mentions domestic violence)

The ‘abused’ trans women seems to equate their partner not doing what they want them to do as ‘abuse’.

The points about JK Rowling have the now mandatory mention of race, trump, pandemic, vague allusions about transphobic comments etc.

Women and feminists ‘deprioritise’ the small number of trans people - Ie put the needs of the largest group of users first? Yep I’m ok with that.

Most bizarre of all is that writers that claim to work in a crisis centre but make almost no mention of children when talking about the difficulties women face when leaving abuse. How to leave with children (and care and pay for and protect them after) is one of the biggest challenges for women. Why is this missed in this article? Where exactly do these writers ‘work’?

Yes to the fundraising! Doesn’t stonewall get £8m a year?

@Butterer

I'm taking issue with 'The ‘abused’ trans women seems to equate their partner not doing what they want them to do as ‘abuse’. ' Sorry if I'm misreading your comment, but are you talking about Suzi's experience? Physical abuse is mentioned - I don't think that should be minimised.

Apologies- you are right.

I hadn’t registered that and don’t want to minimise.

Why don't trans people campaign for their own refuges and safe spaces?
Most feminists would support that, stonewall probably have the money to make that happen right now, today, tomorrow and for years to come.
Do it like women had to.
But thats not enough, this is not about rights or safe spaces its about validation and taking from women, we cant have anything that doesn't include males.

Oh the irony
So, cis women, it’s time to ask yourselves: are you really here for survivors, or are you just here for yourself?

1. The statistics about abuse for trans women and for all women seem to come from different sources, so they might not be based on the same definitions or data. I also doubt very much that there is a source which would have given separate statistics for 'cis' women. If they had done that then they would have given them also for trans women, and the separate GLBT source for the latter would not have been needed. So I think the 7.5% is for all women, though of course almost all women are what is called 'cis' by some.

1. I have read that statement before: That feminism should center trans women's issues. It does take my breath away in its audacity, given that one of the focal points of much of trans activism is to erase the concept of biological sex (and hence to erase our ability to fight sexism which is, after all, based on biological sex). So perhaps feminism should center the destruction of itself?

1. Calling us 'cis' is a form of invalidating my gender identity, at least, because mine is based on my female body and the term 'cis' rules that possibility out. The term also implies that I am 'comfortable' with the gender roles, norms and stereotypes associated with my gender. And it ignores the fact that someone like Caitlyn Jenner is an extremely privileged person overall by ignoring all the myriad ways natal women are mistreated and the fact that many other privilege rankings would rank most cis women much lower than most trans women and certainly far lower than Caitlyn Jennner, Jennifer Pfizer and so on.

1. The article uses the common trick of stating that trans women are just a sub-group of women, exactly in the same manner as Black (and White) women are or as disabled and non-disabled women are.

If gate keeping against the latter groups would be wrong (which it woud be), then what is implied is that gate keeping against the first-named group is also wrong, that it would be absolutely unacceptable to ask where fair boundaries might be drawn, that, indeed, any kind of boundary against anyone from the initial group 'men' would be wrong. Or so the story reads to me.

1. The tone of the whole piece is extremely grating (what does this remind me of?), placing all women (cis women) into the privileged-and-selfish group which is gate keeping the system against the far more vulnerable minority of men who transition to become women. Indeed, we are the truly selfish ones.

1. I don't understand the point of the quote at the end, this one:

"Abusers and survivors of abuse do not exist, and have never existed, in a dichotomy: sometimes, hurt people hurt people."

Do the authors mean that abused women who are not trans are now abusers themselves by not allowing trans women to freely enter a shelter?

And what would suffice, for the authors? Free entry with no questions asked? This is problematic because the men who abuse would also try to have entry into the same shelters and it could be difficult to guarantee that they cannot gain it?

(That statistical data still bothers me. I want to see the statistics come from the same source and be based on the same questions, the same evidence and so on.)

The solution is self contained refuges for every survivor.

I'm speaking as a survivor (or victim, as I see it) in case it's relevant. Survivors should have their own safe space without having to share facilities with anyone.
When it comes to support groups, etc, there should be empathy and understanding re trauma and fear triggers. There's a big difference between uncontrolled fear and intentional nastiness. It's like a phobia. People have phobias of all sorts of often harmless things including buttons. Even spiders are usually harmless in this country. People seem to understand a phobia isn't intentional. If someone is frightened and traumatised, it's not a personal attack on what or who triggers it. Some survivors are scared of all people, make and female. People should be understanding of this.

It would also surely make sense for specialised services aimed at different survivors. With targeted advice and support depending on different life stages or experiences. I'd have thought a trauma based support that specialises in the specific experiences trans people have dealt with would be better than a general one size fits all approach. Maybe I'm wrong but I'm coming at it from my own experience of wishing there was specialised support for older survivors. (A handful of areas offer retired age support but there's pretty much nothing for middle aged women, who are at a very different life stage with different needs to to younger survivors.). Likewise disabled support. I'd personally welcome more specialised support. Maybe trans people would too. The one size fits all approach isn't ideal.

It's obscene., just galling

When cis survivors and services dismiss, disbelieve and deprioritise trans people, they knowingly put trans people’s lives in danger
Dismissing and deprioritising Women results in them being killed, Two are killed every week. Refuges CANNOT house every woman who needs a space, as the article mentions.
WOMEN DIE AS A RESULT But dismiss that don't even mention the dead women who could not get into a refuge.. It's irrelevant.

When so many cis women have broken free of men who defined and policed our existence
TERFs and Lesbians and selfish abuse survivors are all cis?.
Yay to Freedom from being defined & policed by Men.

Nice survivors should force encourage other women who are experiencing male violence, to accept that fearing male violence is a shitty thing to do, instead spend time chastising women who are scared and lobbying parliament to get refuge spaces taken from Women because taking up spaces in refuges is selfish, it shows your not putting TW first..
How much effort do I need to put into this crusade I didnt join?

I mean did they not read it back and realise how fucking nasty it sounds!

lilmishap, I also thought the article sounded arrogant and entitled and so badly planned from a psychological angle that it would make more readers angry than more readers willing to help.

"The solution is self contained refuges for every survivor."
Women are not asking for that and we dont need it, we just want spaces to heal away from men...
What kind of men wont let us, rape and abuse survivors, have that?
Men who trample womens boundaries and think their identities trump women's lived realities and traumas are exactly the kind of men that we need to be keeping out.
We've already been raped and violated, men that ignore our 'no' are not good people.
If trans women were women they would intrinsically understand how to be our sisters.

7.5% is very similar to 7.9% (ONS) number of women reporting to police (and being taken seriously) last year.
They seem to have got a lot of facts from Stonewall though so..
www.stonewall.org.uk/system/files/stonewall_and_nfpsynergy_report.pdf

The way it lists Black, Immigrant and Disabled womens issues that leave them unable to get a refuge space and then DISMISSES them completely to focus on trans as "the least resourced to flee" because of nasty women

My god. I'm seething