Transinclusive feminists, please help me understand.

[thinkingaboutLangCleg]

Genuine question. I recognise that some men suffer from gender dysphoria or truly believe they were meant to be women, and some want to live out their fantasies. So I understand why they want access to women’s single-sex spaces and facilities, to validate themselves.

I understand why they want language and culture changed to include them in the category of women.

Some men will take advantage for personal gain (eg taking ‘women’s officer’ roles or sports prizes), or to harass women and girls in intimate spaces eg toilets, or to be transferred from a male to a female prison. Women and girls lose out, obviously, with no corresponding gains to compensate.

I can understand that women who aren’t feminists may not be concerned about the effects on women and girls.

But how does a feminist reconcile her feminism — centring women’s rights and needs, including the right to privacy and safety —with supporting transwomen’s actions that necessarily impinge on these?

This is a genuine question, as I wonder if I’m missing or misunderstanding something.

Anyone else seeing shades of Plato in tinof's post?

(I do believe that seven uses male bathrooms.)

Gonna leave this here bye.

plato

That's just the sort of thing that gives this board a bad name...all that high brow culture. And clearly I am part of the problem as I know the difference between Plato and pluto the dog

Yeah that's the "be kind" stuff.

"It's our role"

What women should do.

Confused...accept them as who they are or as whom they identify?

@ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings

170 posts and still not a single example of what transinclusive feminism would actually look like in practise. Can none of the people on this thread who believe in this stuff seriously find even one example, one single thing which is a women's rights issue under the theory that women are a group defined by gender identity rather than sex? Come on, even a bad example would be better than nothing at this point.

Trans inclusive feminism looks like feminism looks in almost every comparable country in the world. It looks like the struggle for reproductive rights that just happened in Ireland, the #metoo movement, the fightback against austerity and cuts to women's services and the mass street protests currently taking place in Poland. There's ample examples of what trans inclusive feminism looks lile it it doesn't look that bad. And everyone still knows what a woman is.

It's a very long time since I got to grips with plato; I remember a boyfriend quoting it at me when dumping me and I was very, yeah that's a bit shit mate and not what you think it is.

[quote Imicola]@ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings I definitely did not say their rights supersede women's rights. I just prefer that in fighting for my rights i also respect other people's rights. Do you think your rights after more important than a trans womans rights?[/quote]
Do TRA's spend much time thinking about how best to respect the rights of the dreaded c*s woman?

They do not. Not only is it 'rights for me but not for thee', TRA's do their level best to position women as a privileged oppressor whose rights are mere greed.

I came into this debate as unthinkingly kind to these males. It's their utter lack of solidarity with the class of people they claim to be part of that angered me.

Despite that, I still believe that - as the mantra goes - trans people are like all other humans, deserving of a right to housing, safety, gainful employment and healthcare. When I have had trans ppl in my life I have treated them as respectfully as I treat others.

But beyond that? Giving active solidarity to a group who plainly won't extend the same or even remain neutral on the topic of your own rights, is just collaborating in one's own abuse.

Enough with the emotional manipulation of 'dont you care about the rights of these poor males?' Maybe a bit more understanding that women as a class have a millenia long history of being besieged by men demanding their time, energy, labour and kindness, at the same time as their full humanity was denied and repressed.

Transwomen and their allies really need to stop hassling women, who have enough of our own trauma to be dealing with.

@MissMarplesGlove

As De Bouvoir said "women are made, not born" - society forces female children into becoming women and society forces them to stay women, praises them when they conform to the womanly idea of that time and culture - which is always the role that men most need women to play at the time. So when entertainment is a priority, women should be sexy and fun, when population growth is a priority, women should be nurturing and homely

But what is the criterion that "society" uses to determine which human beings should play which roles???

PS de Beauvoir didn't mean what you think she means - well, not in the original French ...

Almost universally sex, although there are some cultures where there are additional genders that are not so clear cut, they tend to be bio-sex-related. My point is that "woman" isnt something to be embraced, its a cage that female people are kept in.

"the source of self-hate and the lack of real self are rooted in our male-given identity, we must create a new sense of self. As long as we cling to the idea of "being a woman, '' we will sense some conflict with that incipient self, that sense of I, that sense of a whole person."

Sorry tinof I don't understand.

Woman just means adult human female. No more no less. It's only in the past few years that it's been decided (by who) that it means something other than that.

And thinking about it that totally rewrites a fuckton of songs written by women about being women into meaning something totally different :/ only just realised that.

Anyway.

Women and men (old meaning) have deviated from, played with, rejected sex role and the associated appearances forever. They never on the whole thought they weren't men or women. They just said, fuck what society says I should be like/look like. I'm doing my own thing.

Are we discarding all that as well?

In favour of. If you don't adhere to stereotype, due to society, then the only option is the other 'gender'. And you have to work really hard to throw off the look/ behaviours of your original gender, if you want to be accepted as the only other option available.

But however I dress and behave no one is ever going to think I'm a man because I'm 5'3, with boobs, a high pitched voice, narrow shoulders, soft features, etc etc.

What am I missing here. I don't get it.

Jj so trans inclusive feminism IS about including transmen in feminism?

Now that pap from the UN definitely isn’t feminism. Requiring women to be kind is the literal antithesis of feminism. So I’m still not further forward.

I understand the urge to refugee out of imposed gender roles, tinof- I don’t just get it, I actively endorse it, for everyone, trans or not. It’s the colonising of the opposite sex gender roles that I oppose, because that just sets them even more solidly for all of us.

OK, next we have an actual list of specifics, so that's great:

• Street harrassment
• job discrimination
• sexual violence
• General sexism

I'm haven't seen the post about managing the email inbox but I assume it fits within the catagory of "job discrimination" and "general sexism". Let's go.

So, firstly let's seperate the catagory "Transwoman" out a bit. Transwomen can broadly be said to present in 3 basic types.

1. transwomen who have made no steps whatsoever towards transition, not even clothes or pronouns. Physically indistinguishable from every single other man. These transwomen are perceived by every single person they meet as male. There is no way of identifying them either as transgender or as women. They do not experience any level of street harrassment, sexual violence, job discrimination, or general sexism, that isn't also experienced by every other man. Feminism has nothing for them.

2. transwomen who have made an attempt at transitioning but are a long way from passing. They may be wearing makeup or feminine clothes or using female pronouns. They may specifically have informed some people that they identify as a women. The average person on the street perceives them as an eccentrically dressed or overtly feminine man. The people they know pretend they are a woman to be polite. These transwomen may experience street harrasment, sexual violence, and discrimination at work but this will be on the basis of them being seen as feminine men not because they are seen as women. It's most often related to homophobia, and has very little in common with the harrasment, sexual violence, and discrimination that women face.

1. A Transwoman who is very well passing. They have identified as a woman from a young age and taken all available medical steps. Many people on their life have no idea that they are trans and the average person in the street perceives them to be a biological woman. They will experience much of the same street harrassment, sexual violence, and discrimination as women. This discrimination is sex based however. They are only experiencing it because they are mistaken for actually belonging to the female sex. The root of the discrimination is still female biology. If a "cis" man took the same steps to present as female in this way, they would experience the same issues. A trans man who had taken no steps towards transition would also experience the same issues. It has nothing to do with identity.

So, clearly the first 2 types of transwomen do not share these issues in common with women. The first actively still enjoys exactly the same male privaledge as any "cis" man. The second faces discrimination of a similar type but vastly different aitiology to women. Feminism may benefit them indirectly, but no more so than it would benefit any other feminine men.

The third Transwoman shares some of the same issues as women. She will be helped by feminism, but since the discrimination is based on false assumptions about her biological sex, feminism will only help her if it focuses it's activism on women as a sex class. Feminism is useful to her in the same way as antiracist activism is helpful to Rachel Dolziel, or Pride is helpful to straight people who are mistakenly perceived as being LGB.

OK, so, in summary, transinclusive feminism is:

• education, campaigning platforms, and the celebration of anyone who self identifies as having the gender identity "woman".
• Activism to prevent harassment, violence, discrimination, and "general sexism" towards anyone who is believed to have, or perceived social as having, female biology.

Thanks. As you can hopefully see, transinclusive feminism is hopelessly limited in both its scope and practical value, and ultimately still relies on a sex based understanding of "woman" for most of its efficacy. So on balance I don't think I'll be adopting it any time soon. But I really appreciate finally having some answers to my question.

Tin, you are defining woman as a gendered umbrella term given to us. With all the gendered baggage stuck to it.

I think most, certainly rad fems, see it as the common noun for female.

And strive to disassociate all gendered connotations.

Aaaaaand once again we have no paragraphs showing up.

Beautiful paragraphs here.

@NiceGerbil

'Determining what female is. Feminine behaviour. What a female should look like, as if femininity is a natural occurence only in one sex, what body parts one has to have to be regarded as female.'

This treatment of physical reality as the same as socially imposed gender norms is very strange.

I don't understand it at all.

Men and women can both have long hair, wear makeup, wear dresses. The fact this is considered usual for one and not the other is sex role/ previously known as gender.

Men can't have babies. Nothing to do with social role. Totally different.

I've come across this idea that GC feminists are wed to gender role. Stereotypes. Hair and dresses. Femininity.

Where the fuck anyone gets that idea is ??? as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure the criticism is that GC feminists are wed to gender roles, its that if GC feminists achieved many of their aims then they would be likely to entrench gender roles, not least because the most likely way of achieving those aims is dovetailing on the back of the conservative right, as increasing numbers of GC feminists are happy to do.

The reason Murdoch, the Mail, Trump, the Catholic Church, Evangelicism and other patriarchal institutions currently support GC feminism is because they can see exactly what trans inclusive feminists can see - that whatever the intentions, the results of policies GC feminists call for will serve to socially enforce gender conformity.

Trans inclusive feminism looks like feminism looks in almost every comparable country in the world. It looks like the struggle for reproductive rights that just happened in Ireland, the #metoo movement, the fightback against austerity and cuts to women's services and the mass street protests currently taking place in Poland. There's ample examples of what trans inclusive feminism looks lile it it doesn't look that bad. And everyone still knows what a woman is.

All of this centres females.

The issue would be if women who are seeking help in those cut services, rape crisis centre or women's aid, would be able to refuse support and treatment from a transwoman due to how traumatised they are.

Or are they still, at that point, expected to be kind to the male sex?

the results of policies GC feminists call for will serve to socially enforce gender conformity.

How? Examples?

The label Woman isn't a cage.

It's femininity that's the cage.

Femininity is forced on us. Being women is just biological fact.

Repurposing the label 'woman' to mean 'femininity-conformers' is about as anti-feminist as it gets. Given that one of the most fundamental principles is: we are still women - still female people - regardless of our personal experiences of femininity.

And the UNWomen thing is bollocks. It's the role of women (gender) to be kind and inclusive and accommodating. Feminism is something quite different.

This is the result of the push to stop feminist being a dirty word, isn't it? All decent-identified women, regardless of how handmaideny they are, are now to be called feminists. Which means the people formerly known as feminists must be given a new pejorative label.

Same old shit, just language evolving.

And Platonic ideals of womanhood are bollocks. We're not women on account of our resemblance to some mythical male-created perfect imaginary meta-woman. We're women on account of that being the word for female people in English.

Brilliant, jj has joined the thread. OK I'll add:

• reproductive rights (including poland protests)
• anti austerity
• #metoo

OK, I'll do this one quickly.

Reproductive rights, including the abortion ban in Poland, is a sex based rights issue. Its transinclusive because it includes transmen. It is only feminism under a gender critical definition which centers biological females. Under a "gender identity" theory the abortion ban is just happening to people, both men and women. We should protest it as good humanitarians, but it isn't really anything to do with feminism specifically.

• anti austerity. Both men and women will benefit from this. Feminism focuses specifically on the way that women will benefit, so can you outline why women will benefit from anti austerity activism? What disadvantages has austerity aggrevated for women? Betcha it can be boiled down to a sex based issue.

-#metoo. Please see my previous post on transwomen and sexual violence.

Nothing new to add to my list I'm afraid unless you can expand on the austerity issue in a way that is relevent to identity and not to sex.

@ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings

You seem to be categorising trans women according to how pretty they are deemed to be by abusers. That's not how sexual violence works. There are many men out there who have a very creepy interest in trans women and see them as a sexually exotic subclass and they, like most male sexual predators, look for vulnerability over perceived physical attractiveness.

If JJ's trans inclusive feminism includes Transmen, that's the same as radical feminism.

Centring those with xx gametes.

You seem to be categorising trans women according to how pretty they are deemed to be by abusers. That's not how sexual violence works. There are many men out there who have a very creepy interest in trans women and see them as a sexually exotic subclass and they, like most male sexual predators, look for vulnerability over perceived physical attractiveness.

This is highly ironic given the experiences of trans widows, especially philomena's story.