Diva magazine exclusively for TRAs now

[SapphosRock]

I’m pretty hacked off about it truth be told, especially since I’ve supported Diva and bought pretty much every issue since I came out as a lesbian in the late 90s.

I’m a member of Diva’s online community and someone recently posted about Nicola Adams (Olympic world champion boxer, used to identify as bisexual, recently came out as a lesbian).

Nicola has made the suggestion of having a separate category in boxing for trans women to compete with one another as she doesn’t believe it is fair for them to compete in the female category. Thread on it here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3834912-Olympic-Boxing-champ-Nicola-Adams-calls-for-transgender-athlete-categories-for-fairness#94290477

This seems completely fair enough, and there is an exception in the Equality Act for exactly this reason, to make women’s sport fair.

As Diva is (was?) mainly a place for lesbian women, quite a few in the online community spoke up in support of Nicola Adams.

A trans woman who is a prominent poster in the group wrote a long and detailed post to ‘educate’ everybody why it is completely fair for trans women to compete in female sport. Point 5 of her post states biological sex isn’t binary. Anyone who didn’t agree is a transphobe.

This was backed up by Linda Riley (Diva publisher) who compared debating the right of trans women to compete in female sport to debating ‘all lives matter’, not so subtly suggesting that questioning the fairness of trans women in sport is as bad as racism.

DIVA MAGAZINE IS OPENLY CLAIMING WOMEN ARE BIGOTED FOR QUESTIONING THE FAIRNESS OF A MALE BODIED PERSON HITTING AND PUNCHING A FEMALE BODIED PERSON IN SPORT.

I have absolutely no problem with Diva welcoming trans women into the community but centering trans activism like this is madness. I know I’ve posted here in defense of Diva before when other lesbians expressed concerns about the TRA / MRA ethos. Apologies I didn’t listen and feel free to tell me ‘I told you so’.

As a side note, the prominent TRA in Diva’s online community made Diva’s Pride Power list. Olympic world champion lesbian role model Nicola Adams did not.

www.pridepowerlist.com/the-list-2020.html

Ooh cake sounds good. Thanks

I hope it's gluten free and vegan?

(not a stereotypical lesbian at all)

Is there any data on this magazine's circulation figures?

I'd be interested if anyone could help.

JaneAustenWouldHateThis I've just checked the abc website for circulation stats and oddly Diva doesn't seem to be on there.

I'm also uncomfortable about taking sides as I was always hopeful there was a fair and reasonable way forward. For me this was acknowledging and accepting TW as women as per the GRA yet upholding the exceptions in the Equality Act which protect women when it comes to female refuges and women's sport.

I've just checked in the Diva Facebook group as I'm sure I'd seen the trans woman TRA previously agreeing with someone on these points (she had).

That's why I'm so upset with Diva's position to suddenly enforce a hardcore TRA position to all its members. Although perhaps Stonewall's 'acceptance without exception' mantra should have given it away

Someone in the group compared segregating trans women in sport to segregating lesbians in women's sport which is a ridiculous example.

A better analogy would be to compare a trans woman boxer insisting she fight with a female boxer to a lesbian insisting she should come onto a straight woman.

It wouldn't be homophobic for the straight woman to say no or to say it made her feel uncomfortable. It wouldn't make the lesbian any less of a lesbian.

I've just checked the abc website for circulation stats and oddly Diva doesn't seem to be on there.

Does that mean that, like Penis News, Diva is not a "real" magazine?

I think the majority are with you Sapphos, the exceptions are fair and reasonable. Being compelled to take a side against them in order to read Diva is not reasonable.

I'm also uncomfortable about taking sides as I was always hopeful there was a fair and reasonable way forward.

To me, this seems a very sensible and sane approach. I really am not comfortable with the idea of 'sides', either. And I really do hope that there is a fair and reasonable way forward.

I wanted to say, that the thing about 'what changed your mind' that someone asked earlier - it's not usually what gc women say, is it? It's what TRAs say that leads people to doubt, shock, confusion and realisation.

Which is why I am always happy to amplify the voices of TRAs.

As this thread is primarily about sport can I point everyone to this website. It's US based but they are tracking sports world wide. They're currently running a series of webinars around the issues.

The first one took place yesterday about World Rugby, Dr Emma Hilton was one of the speakers. I imagine it will go on the site and Youtube at some point.

savewomenssports.com/webinars

@littlbrowndog

Go strum your guitar in the void !!

That is my new favourite all-purpose insult

Fair play to you Sapphos, you annoyed the bejaysus out of me sometimes with your intransigence, and I confess to sometimes wondering if you were a TW yourself - so apologies for that - but it takes guts to admit publicly that you were wrong to assume benign intent from this ideology. I hope you can find a way to square what you now see with your relationship; that must be hard, I don’t envy you being in that position and I sincerely wish you well.

I can’t even remember anymore what sent me up to the highest promontory, but I know it was reading about it on here in the first instance, and then “educating myself” as we’re so often instructed to do. Might have been a combo of Lily Madigan plus GG being deplatformed, I think it was around then. And sometimes it’s been a lonely old road IRL since, surrounding by TWAW “be kind”ers. Thank goodness for the nest of vipers.

The nest of vipers actually being quite kind people - certainly with a belief in kindness as a value impartially to all instead of something non reciprocal and involving a rather worrying situation of some people mattering and other people don't.

I haven't taken a 'side', it isn't about sides, I get very concerned by the TRA political lobby tending to frame this as two teams in which one must lose - equality, inclusion, intersectionality and diversity is about addition, a range of provision, about understanding the complexity of and meeting all needs. Not celebrating the stomping of one set of needs to elevate another, or trying to pretend that some people's needs just don't exist: that's what I have the whole problem with.

I would love to be wrong about the damage to female people that this ideology is doing, I really would. It would be so nice to discover that female homosexuals and females needing single sex spaces because of their own diversity, and the rights of females of all ages to privacy, dignity and understanding of issues specific to being born female, and the right of females to choose their own language and name for their identity and sense of self could be respect and exist freely alongside everyone else's.

And you have to ask: what morals and values is someone working from, when they believe that female people should not have the above, and are terrible people for even implying they might want it?

I haven't taken a 'side', it isn't about sides, I get very concerned by the TRA political lobby tending to frame this as two teams in which one must lose - equality, inclusion, intersectionality and diversity is about addition, a range of provision, about understanding the complexity of and meeting all needs

Completely agree which is why I would never challenge the GRA itself, just ensure that all parties affected have their needs met.

This is a nice thread and sappho I take my hat off to you. We crossed swords (I've name changed since) on previous threads but I knew you were posting in good faith.

I like your point about sides but I'm afraid I have taken a side. The side I must pick is not women actually. Or oppressed people. But truth. That ultimately is where it does come down to picking a side. I can only really speak the truth and it's not truthful to speak about men becoming women, men being lesbians, sex being a spectrum...

It's not picking the side of truth that leads us to Marie Stopes talking about men and their abortions. Sorry but no. Never, In the history of the world. Ever.

I'm sorry some young women feel such disconnect to womanhood that they want to call themselves men. They are free to do what they want. But they can't force me to believe in something that's not true. I'll be compassionate. But I won't accept being forced to lie.

That's my side.

What michelle and arabella just said

@SapphosRock

I haven't taken a 'side', it isn't about sides, I get very concerned by the TRA political lobby tending to frame this as two teams in which one must lose - equality, inclusion, intersectionality and diversity is about addition, a range of provision, about understanding the complexity of and meeting all needs

Completely agree which is why I would never challenge the GRA itself, just ensure that all parties affected have their needs met.

Give it a few years, you'll get there too.

@SapphosRock

Ooh cake sounds good. Thanks

I hope it's gluten free and vegan?

(not a stereotypical lesbian at all)

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Completely agree which is why I would never challenge the GRA itself, just ensure that all parties affected have their needs met.

The GRA was brought in as a legal fiction for a limited number of people, to avoid the introduction of same-sex marriage. And now we have same-sex marriage and the number of people has become limitless, so....

If you think that Stonewall haven’t put their considerable clout into safe third spaces for transwomen, but have worked on forcing us to share our spaces with them, it’s a very similar attitude to Linda Riley & friends.

who compared debating the right of trans women to compete in female sport to debating ‘all lives matter'

It's almost the exact opposite of that. Riley is a mistress of the DARVO reversal. Women not being able to have a category based on our different physicality and needs means that female sport has been taken over to benefit males, at the expense of women and girls. Males have the right to compete against other males. They're not being deprived of anything. Women can't. The sex category in sport, more than other things, is about biology, not identity.

I have been on MN since 2008/2009, and under various names I have clocked up more posts than I want to think about, in which I earnestly told people to be kind and that women encompassed ciswomen and transwomen and all manner of nonsense.

I knew there were some extremists out there, but I thought they were outliers who would never get anywhere with their outright misogyny. I mean, you get screenshots of anything on tumblr and twitter.

Then, I realised that not everyone was just rolling their eyes at the outlying extremists. It has been really hard to realise that people on mumsnet weren't just being reactionary over nothing.

@PotholeParadise

I have been on MN since 2008/2009, and under various names I have clocked up more posts than I want to think about, in which I earnestly told people to be kind and that women encompassed ciswomen and transwomen and all manner of nonsense.

I knew there were some extremists out there, but I thought they were outliers who would never get anywhere with their outright misogyny. I mean, you get screenshots of anything on tumblr and twitter.

Then, I realised that not everyone was just rolling their eyes at the outlying extremists. It has been really hard to realise that people on mumsnet weren't just being reactionary over nothing.

Yes pothole I’d only they were outliers but.....

it sounds so insane when you tell ppl that they often don’t believe you

“Don’t be daft kit, no one is expecting women to think TW are ‘literal women’ and get treated like they actually are you’re exaggerating....“

Yeah, there’s probably a few of us who owe Dittany an apology. She was the canary in the mine that’s for sure.

I wish I’d been around for Dittany. I think I arrived a bit too late.

Being handed your arse on a plate by Dittany was something of a feminist right of passage!

It has been really hard to realise that people on mumsnet weren't just being reactionary over nothing.

This is really interesting Pothole. What was it that made you change your mind?

I thought that for ages too, but had some really good discussions on here which made me understand the concerns more (many with posters on this thread and also one called PencilsinSpace who I haven't seen around in a while).

I know everyone's different but the things that I did not find helpful were:

• being called a handmaiden
• any threads challenging the notion of being transgender
• All the Spartacus stuff
• anything featuring Posie Parker
• slagging off the Pride rainbow
• TRA screen shots / videos
• Calls to repeal the GRA
• work from Transgender Trend (ie dismissing young people being trans as a trend)

Things that I did find helpful were:

• discussions around rape crisis centres being female only
• women's sport
• seeing females in healthcare for smear tests
• Prisons and Girl Guides
• Anything from Julie Bindel or Kathleen Stock
• videos from WPUK

“If you think trans women have an advantage then work harder and better and train more so you are absolutely the best.”

That was a quote from one of the commenters on the DIVA page.

Right, so does that mean men and women should ALL compete against each other then?

Williams vs Djokovic sounds like an exciting match I guess. Then you realise the trickle down effect would mean that hundreds (thousands) of young girls and women would never get the chance to reach a national let alone international platform because they don’t have the benefit of male puberty.

And if the argument the such militant TRAs put forward (just work harder, women) is sound then why not apply it to men and boys too? Under 18s teams playing against each other rather than adults to level the playing field? Pah, don’t be so stupid. Except... wait... that wouldn’t work because... logic, biology and a genuine care about fairness and supporting progress.

Progress shouldn’t mean women are put back in their box. Progress shouldn’t mean natal women don’t have the right to object to being called ‘cis’ women. Progress doesn’t mean verbal abuse is activism from one ‘side’ but hate from the other.

Why do some TRAs constantly say ‘trans women are women’ when they clearly hate women? Why do you want to be something you hate?

DIVA magazine - your audience exists because women who are bi and lesbian supported your publication. Now you tell us we are not welcome. I love my trans friends. I love them. My real life, real people, not propped up and used by TRAs as dolls, trans friends.

I would imagine that the majority trans people are perfectly reasonable. Every trans person I KNOW personally is awesome. They understand that a level playing field takes into account biology, fairness and puberty advantage / disadvantage because they aren’t utterly self serving narcissists.

They’re decent, kind people who hate the fact TRAs make life even harder for them by spouting such utter, women hating, thinly veiled misogynist bullshit. Just as every sexist man adds to the ‘men are bastards’ trope, so too does the TRA propaganda damage real, lovely, kind, decent, regular trans people.

DIVA - you were for us. You stood for us. Bi and gay woman. Politically homeless women. Disempowered women who wanted to feel empowered and emboldened. What do you stand for now? The new version of politically correct. That’s all. You stand for nothing now.

That's interesting, Sapphos. Most of your "unhelpful" list I can see why they might raise hackles (I don't necessarily agree, but I can see why they'd rub people up the wrong way), but I'm slightly surprised by Transgender Trend.

Is it the way they tackle the issue, or the issue itself (where by "issue" I mean the several thousand percent increase in young and mid teenage girls presenting as trans - often several in one class at a school at the same time - and schools and youth workers being encouraged that the only appropriate response is "affirmation only")?

eGnuinely interested, as for me this is one of the big issues I do worry about. There will be young people in this group who probably will continue to identify into adulthood. But I think there are also girls among this cohort who are simply confused about being butch lesbians in a deeply homophobic environment, or who are terrified of male sexual violence and porn culture and trying to opt out of womanhood for their own safety. And the problem with affirmation only approaches is they make no attempt to distinguish between these different groups.

This is really interesting Pothole. What was it that made you change your mind?

Hmm, I'll come back later with the details of pushed me over the edge, but mostly it's been a gradual process. I kept nearly making the breakthrough and then just leaping away, and telling myself, 'okay they have a point about this but extrapolating from that is transphobic.'