University 'feminist' discussion group

[FeministFatale]

I've namechanged for this because some friends know my normal username. I'm affiliated to a university and I've been invited to a feminism discussion group.
The topic of the first session? The effects of the pandemic on women, trans rights and feminism. The section on trans rights includes some 'pre-reading' with a link to one blog (by a man, obviously) about the 'transphobia' that has fuelled the UK not bringing in self-ID. Not a link to this and say, Karen Ingala-Smith or even someone like Debbie Hayton who is trans but against self-ID for an opposing view. Needless to say, it is very one sided and doesn't even mention the reasons why feminists have campaigned for single sex spaces. In fact, it frames the people arguing against self-ID as anti-feminist, with a clear implication that anyone who rejects self-ID (whether because they don't believe TWAW or simply because they think it makes it too easy for male abusers to, you know, abuse) cannot be a feminist.
Arguing for protecting the rights of vulnerable women is being couched, in a university feminist reading group, as intrinsically unfeminist.
Question is, do I complain, or do I read with caution the message included in the invitation that 'any exclusionary behaviour towards LGBTQIA+' will not be tolerated. It's pretty clear that this discussion group does not, in fact, want a discussion at all.

Any exclusionary behaviour towards LGBTQIA+' will not be tolerated , protecting the rights of vulnerable women is intrinsically unfeminist, and you need to read some mansplaining in advance.

Yes Chacha, that’s definitely going to be an open-minded meeting of well-informed academic feminists.

you say you're affiliated to this university, which suggests not deeply entrenched in it
If you are fairly confident no one in the group can harm you professionally or personally, and you have the time and emotional resilience I would say go. I truly believe that NO ONE really thinks TWAW or any of this bullshit, whatever you go and say may be the nudge they need to be honest with themselves
and maybe with each other
who knows, you may start a TERFY snowball
it could be you, OP, that starts the landslide

OP, do you know why you've been invited? It should give you a clue as to how to respond.

I've lifted this from another thread courtesy of Ereshkigalangcleg

"I am suddenly reminded of the joke about playing chess with a pigeon - Never play chess with a pigeon. It will crap all over the board then strut around with its chest puffed out thinking it's won.

I'd be inclined to seek out the feminists and women who are organising quietly behind the scenes. They'll be there - we're everywhere at the moment in an amazing resurgence of a feminist movement. You've just got to track them down.

Are you sure it’s not the Un-feminist society?

Ooh, I know.
You could ask for more clarity on what counts as exclusionary behaviour. To help them clarify you could send them a list of feminist/common sense statements and ask which ones you would be allowed to say. Get them to put a cross by the unsayable ones.

It's like in The Walking Dead. These people have been bitten already, there's nothing you can do. Save your strength for another fight.

Oh yes, what a beautiful analogy.

“then I would try to set up my own ACTUAL feminist group.“

This would be the ideal. Is your job at risk if you voice your objections to these dickpanderers?

Yeah, that's a men's group, innit? Look for the real feminists. If you go along to this misnamed group, they'll be the quiet, watchful ones. Or they might bring banners and get thrown out!

@EyeRollForever

I would go because I'm nosy and want to know what's being said. And then I would try to set up my own ACTUAL feminist group. Best of luck whatever you do!

Same here!

I have been gathering the info of local women of every political affiliation in my area with the promise that when we reached 20 members we would begin to have meetings. COVID happened and because of pragmatic fear none of us are comfortable meeting via Zoom or otherwise web-based. Thus far we are 26 members great (between my direct invites and approved invites by those I have invited) without one meeting under our petticoats. When I see my friendly crones we speak in hushed tones - at times literally cackling with excitement in the knowing that we have found the perfect women's space we have all been craving (Speak Easy with a secret room). We plan to have our first meeting 10/31 as a tribute to our societal status in full costume and proper masks, cell phones will be put in plastic/tagged and held by yours truly in a plastic cauldron. Women now of the local area (from around the world of various ages, ethnicities, and sexual orientations) will meet to determine how and where we will be heard. We are a mix of financial professionals, attorneys, doctors, city councilwomen, SAHM, SAHG, and much more but most importantly we share the only thing intrinsic to being feminists in name and/or in action - being human females. I am motivated and excited by the reaction of the women in my area - their relief at my proposition stoked the fire in my already burning belly. Be what you want to see - I may fail but at least I began the brew.

No matter what you do, all the best OP!!!

Could you just politely enquire when the rest of the reading material will be distributed; that you note there’s one from a man so you assume there’ll similarly be one from a woman, one from a gay man, one from a lesbian woman, one from a transman and one from a transwoman. Could they let you know when they’ll be coming so you’ll have plenty of time to read and digest all the different viewpoints to see where the overlaps and differences are, and that you think it’s great that they want to have an inclusive discussion that covers all the different views on how to be inclusive... and that as every educator knows, it’s the best learning opportunities come when you’re able to have a genuine discussion where you can gain understanding by comparing and contrasting different viewpoints rather than focus on one restricted idea...

Obviously you’d need to rewrite in good proper education-ese! But if you could get Debbie Hayton and that chap who was a stonewall founder that has written some great articles that basically say enough of the trans stuff, we need to be pro gay and lesbian too, you’d get some pro feminist/GC stuff in that you can say is diverse as it represents G and T viewpoints - then if they complain you could try turning it around on them for being exclusionary and who has the right to decide what a group thinks if they are members of the group or someone from the outside - so a chance to spin and derail the conversation by showing how it’s their personal opinion as others supposedly from the same group see things very differently. Might swing it into an interesting conversation that brings out the bullying dictatorial nature of TRAs that appear to be directions the group...

Also if you do discuss this with them, could you see if it works to just insist that the question in hand is dealt with first? Before the diversionary whataboutery that allows key questions to go unanswered is allowed to silence the question? Feels like a lot of these genderist concepts or claims only appear to hold up because they are forbidden to be examined.

So if you said, ‘well, there do seem to be some rights in conflict here. let’s think about safety first, what’s to stop rapists or voyeurs following women and girls into toilets under self ID?’

Then a genderist will say ‘What, Are you saying that trans people are rapists?/ what about the risk of rape to transwomen in men’s toilets?/but women already get raped in toilets/ what about this? what about that? What are you implying with this offensive question? Etc.

I’d be interested what would happen if it was possible to just insist the question in hand was answered first. Before any other questions can be raised in response to obscure the obvious (misogynistic) answer to the question.

Could you just turn up for the first half and then, when they've finished discussing the effects of the pandemic on women and are about to move on to trans rights and feminism make your excuses and leave?

I haven’t read all the comments, but I would be tempted to go and ask a few pointed questions, in an innocent way. Get people to clarify what they mean. Say you don’t understand. Even ask what they mean by exclusionary. I see universities at the heart of this - all the new grads come out and then push it at work. It needs challenging at source. I totally get how you might not have the energy for it, but I think it’s important to try and challenge in a constructive way, whenever we see anything like this.

Missing the point slightly, but what on earth does the ruling on Self ID have to do with the pandemic, other than that it happened during it? Surely the discussion should be centred, as a PP said, on the detrimental effect of an increased caring burden on women, their loss on earning power, the focus on men’s jobs over women’s...

Building on what @ChattyLion said, could you also ask them to define the different terms ‘for clarity and to make sure that we are not talking at cross purposes’ and see if they can define women because if they are saying twaw then they must know what w are to be able to say tw are a member of that class. And then you can ask them how they differentiate non-tw - for example if they wanted to draw attention of women to a poster about ovarian or cervical cancer symptoms and you know that as not all women know they have these you can’t just say ‘people with ovaries’ etc as many of the people it is targeting wont realise it applies to them so these words are having a deadly consequence on them. And point out that obviously as cis is found offensive by most women or is not known or understood by most others, that is not a solution to be used ‘in the real world’ unlike within limited communities where even îf it isn’t liked it is at least more likely to be understood.

I’m in the same position op. I’m currently studying a masters in gender studies and no matter what we are discussing, women are not centred. I’m very happy to be working remotely as I don’t think I could cope face to face without being unmasked.

You have my sympathies.

@IheartJKR totally agree

Can you outdo them? If they refer to any person as he or she, start a long conversation about how disappointed you are that they assumed a gender?
Even today I've literally seen people on social media, who are very pro-TWAW, share links about pregnancy and asked their followers to share with "all women you know". You should butt in with 'and pregnant men, of course", or the equivalent.
If they talk about 'single-sex spaces' ask them what specifically they mean by sex or biological sex.

I listened to this tonight, from 2017. It does sum up some of the issues for me.

I was in a similar group once, and the majority were getting up in arms over a clearly discriminatory issue in relation to menstruation, framing it as gender discrimination.

I pointed out to them that since males also menstruate (which some bright spark had mentioned earlier) it wasn’t gender discrimination. Luckily though, the Equality Act lists sex, not gender, as protected characteristics, so the discrimination argument was still valid.

A couple of them thanked me for reminding them about the menstruating men, so clearly hadn’t joined the dots, but you never know about the ones who remain quiet.

I despair at how polarised this topic has become. Of course, trans rights are human rights - no one in their right mind will deny it but why is it anti-feminist and transphobic to state vulnerable women and girls have rights too ??? Anyone who says - go speak to a transperson before commenting, I would ask them if they have spoken to a truly vulnerable female needing the single sex space? I would have been one but I had the money and support to quickly take myself out of the vulnerable position I had found myself in so it didn't blow up into a therapy-needing trauma for me. But I am aware I am one of the lucky ones. On the other hand, I have also seen firsthand the prejudice trans and intersex people face especially lack of work opportunities and have always been supportive of equal rights for them and I still am, but I am sorry it is not trans-exclusionary to think that rights of vulnerable female persons must be upheld too. The world is big enough to accommodate every type of safe space - single sex, trans, non-sex based, non-binary etc etc. Also shouldn't the right solution be removing the stigma around being trans and gender non-conforming? i.e. trans people can be awesome and heroes too in their own right? why is being trans lesser than being a man or woman? Surely there must be transwomen who just want to be transwomen?

Apologies, I am rambling as I would at 4:30 AM. My interest in the trans topic was initially piqued when JKR got all that flak for the menstruators tweet and the blog she wrote in which she recalled her own trauma. And then it amplified this week from a personal perspective when the whole bit about pronoun preference, particularly the usage of 'they' for non-group usage, became a bit more mainstream (BBC/NHS ) because it felt it was so discriminatory towards my amazing 6 year old neuro-atypical language-challenged autistic child who would struggle so much to understand the concept and I don't think it's a fair or inclusive ask from orgs such as Stonewall to demand total acceptance to changes such as these without exceptions. Also I think any child who is prescribed puberty blockers and is allowed start transition as child deserves better evidence-based holistic healthcare.

Sadly, I don't think this 'debate' is going to go away anywhere soon - in fact I think this is going to go the same way as scottish independence / brexit if it continues in the current vein, and might end up in a "Referendum" allowing women voters only to decide what the 'legal' definition of woman should be i.e. 1. adult human female 2. adult human female or anyone who has had a SRS to female 3. a totally new definition - I just think this is a fundamental thing for humanity that I don't think a few organisations and a few people can claim to speak for all of the women.

And @FeministFatale - my advice for you (if you are still reading that is :) ) would be to attend the meeting. No point being outside of the conversation if you want change. One question which you could ask and probably get away with safely is 'What do you think of Rainbowsymbol being used to celebrate NHS and if they would agree with this article below which is about how rainbow pride flags represent safe space and sanctuary for LGBT community and how it's important it continues to be so because if has dual purpose (celebration of NHS and LGBT) then it loses it ability to be a symbol of safety.' Because if they understand this, then shouldn't they also be able to understand why it might be incongruous to conflate gender and sex when it comes to single sex safe spaces?
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rainbow-flag-nhs-lgbtq-community-co-opting-rainbow-flag_uk_5f47a692c5b6cf66b2b40682?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHVlhzG76FywCuEu81sV3HeDyrX7AgF9SSYPG456isGK2MUZLFV7ReWk9hE6AhISX8hGYpGGaoMYWFK35ucmRai2mL797MYVSXQ7WDwpLW6Hjxom3gTB_Vb9wXTU70uA3VBC-f1sz6jORux6OVWNDAvLDhykvRDLRM1Cvcok4W_4

That young people cannot find a safe place to discuss ideas, which is what university is for.

What does "safe" mean in this context?

Physically safe would surely be as much as a given as any university lecture, seminar or meeting.

Emotionally safe? No-one can say that something upsetting won't be said in a discussion group. Although I would expect anyone being simply verbally abusive to be thrown out.

Safe from repercussions? This is probably the most sensible meaning. In a discussion group I would think that people should be free to explore all kinds of ideas in order to test them. I wouldn't expect someone to be reported to bosses or course managers for doing such a thing. Again, the exception would be if someone in the group was doing something like trying to persuade people to take terrorist action or incite violence. That doesn't seem likely in a group like this.

I am just very wary when people talk about safe spaces. It seems to be a way to shut people down from expressing ideas.

At my DS's university, many of the students are getting heartily sick of this kind of thing. These people really have shot themselves in the foot with their "no debate" nonsense

That's encouraging. Let's hope they're soon brave enough to speak out about this & start the necessary discussions.

That young people cannot find a safe place to discuss ideas, which is what university is for.

University is for challenging assumptions, being presented with difficult ideas, learning from people with different perspectives to yourself, critically assessing your and other people’s ideas and ideologies. It used to be that university professors had life tenure and this was to given them the freedom to explore unpopular ideas eg. evolution, the place of man in the universe.

Being told you mustn’t raise contrary opinions because it is exclusionary or because it might hurt someone’s feelings, refusing to listen is the antithesis of what university should be for.