Atlantic has an article about "anti-trans feminism" and of course Mumsnet is mentioned

[WeeBisom]

Link here:www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/12/reddit-ovarit-the-donald/617320/

The journalist compares feminist spaces like Lipstick Alley, Ovarit, and Mumsnet to right wing communities like incels and the Donald. The article is disappointing because they get so many basic things wrong. In the very first paragraph they equate 'radical' feminism with extremism, and talk about a woman becoming 'further radicalised'. They say that gender critical feminists believe 'gender is fixed' when that's not what gender critical feminists believe at all. And the article tells the lie that radical feminists dox, harass and bully trans women when we do nothing of the sort. It's just frustrating to have so many lies and misconceptions spread about online feminist communities.

MK Fain in the email exchange:

"My specific opposition to the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" is that it's simply inaccurate. Radical feminism is for females, no matter their identity. This means that our work advocates for the interests of all women and girls, including those who identify as trans. We exclude males, again, regardless of their identity. It has nothing to do with their "gender identity" and everything to do with their sex. Additionally, I have seen how the term "TERF" is often accompanied by violent threats, material consequences for women, homophobia (usually against lesbians), and misogyny."

It's difficult to understand how this is an extreme statement.

On the other hand I don't understand the logic of Kaitlyn Tiffany claiming that "all feminism is critical of gender" and also that feminists should categorise people according to gender.

@TartrazineCustard

Someone on Lipstick Alley has shared a link to the email exchanges and interviews with the GC women mentioned on that article. Unsurprisingly, the journalist ignored what they actually said and wrote her own version to support the story she wanted to write:

4w.pub/my-whole-conversation-with-kaitlyn-tiffany-for-the-atlantic/

Wow MK is amazing! Her responses are so eloquent.

They say that gender critical feminists believe 'gender is fixed'

They've taken that bit out now. Here's the first paragraph before they edited it.

The article doesn't mention trans men at all.

There are two places I will not go with these TRAs and that’s back and forth. They can argue with themselves.

I loved that comment too, Plantmum.

Quote from the article: Many of these stories are told “with a sense of excitement, guilt, fear … it’s disturbing but thrilling,” Lavery, the UC Berkeley professor, told me. “All the usual stuff that people who get involved in extremist groups find.”

It's hilariously absurd. I wonder if the writer would classify the High Court as 'extremist' too.

Let's hope readers of the article might check out some of these places and draw their own conclusions.

O M G the response on LSA is absolutely brilliant. Crying with laughter at some of the comments.

https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/lsa-gets-a-shout-from-the-atlantic-for-being-a-terf-hideaway-prepare-for-an-onslaught-of-others.4176928/

Since when did anyone on reddit's gendercritical ever use the term "wombyn"? Maybe it's different over on Ovarit, but I doubt it.

I've never seen it either. It vaguely reminds me of JKR's tweet highlighting how wokespeak reduces women to bodily functions:

'People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?

So she may have misunderstood JKR and misspelled. But who knows? It's another aspect of the article that makes me think it's a spoof and if it isn't John Cleese has missed a trick.

@HecatesCatsInXmasHats

I've never seen it either. It vaguely reminds me of JKR's tweet highlighting how wokespeak reduces women to bodily functions:

'People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?

So she may have misunderstood JKR and misspelled. But who knows? It's another aspect of the article that makes me think it's a spoof and if it isn't John Cleese has missed a trick.

It truly does read like satire, doesn't it! The whole article feels very sloppily researched (I'll admit, I didn't have the interest to read the whole thing). I realized I was in for a wild ride when the article started off by stating that "terfs" (why is an Atlantic article even using that term?) believe gender is fixed lol

Is it not just satire with signposting? Certainly makes a good job of the signposting.

I can’t get my head round how you can take all the detailed info that MK sent via email and make such a terrible article out of it?

It's obvious from MK Fain's response that Kaitlyn Tiffany went in with a fixed idea on what article she wanted to write - T**Fs aRe sOooOoo mEaN! - and manipulated the information she was given to confirm her biases. Terrible journalism and far below The Atlantic's usual quality. I've had a subscription for years because they usually pride themselves on holding to a middle ground in an American media landscape that is otherwise a cesspit of partisan bias. I'll still keep my subscription because I believe in free speech and hearing all views but honestly it's disappointing.

Upside: I have discovered the clear thinking sanity of MK Fain.

I love this statement in her response:

‘The reality is that gender critical women, as a whole, are not hateful. Women as a class pose no genuine risk to men as a class; and women do not replicate patterns of male violence either on or offline at any meaningful scale.’

YES. All this stuff about 'T**Fs' committing 'literal violence' against TWs is BS. The men who murder and abuse transwomen do so based on patriarchal values rooted in misogyny and homophobia and you can bet none of them have read a single feminist idea in their lives, gender critical or otherwise.

Funny who they've gateposted at, hmm?

As was discussed a few weeks ago, there is a pastoral acreage located in the antipodes, with a mixed male and female membership. Probably more male than female.

Kaitlyn didn't mention that forum, did she? She went after the mothers (politics and philosophy? On a parenting forum? The horrors) and the black women. They don't have a handy label like we do as a parenting forum, so she tried to cut them down to size as a 'beauty' forum. Again, the implication is that existing members of MN or LSA are being manipulated (our silly little heads were only there for the nappies/make-up tips!) by infiltrators from reddit.

Women, mums even, transgressing and not fulfilling their duty to be kind. So unnatural, so wicked.

There is a bloke doing a lot of “TERFs are scum”, type trolling on the Atlantic FB page. Out of interest I had a look at his page.

Because nothing says social justice warrior like misogyny.

Oh but also stupid and easy to manipulate, forgot that bit. Just awful really.

@theuglyswan

Since when did anyone on reddit's gendercritical ever use the term "wombyn"? Maybe it's different over on Ovarit, but I doubt it.

I think Ben Elton used it once in a satirical poem.

''Look I'm v aware of the phenomenon of people in small, mutually reinforcing groups radicalising each other - but if your idea of a dangerously extreme belief is "humans have a sex and can't change it", you might be the out-of-touch one''

twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1336364058694578183

I just can’t see how it’s anything more than medicalising people who don’t fit gender stereotypes. It’s a society problem that the person experiences as the (absolutely real!) pain of not ‘fitting’.

For some people it’s about physical sex. They are dysphoric about their physical sex characteristics. They may not care much about clothes or ‘things’ but they want to be seen as the sex they feel they are.

Having said that, adults who feel they need to medically transition because they can’t change society and after getting psychological help feel it is the best chance of their happiness, I 100% support

No. That’s wrong. They are gender non conforming people and that isn’t a good enough reason to undergo medical transition. Wanting to ‘dress like a man’ or wear ‘skirts and lipstick’ are not good reasons to medically transition. Psychiatrists try and screen those people out. At least they used to.

Actually, I think our gal Kaitlyn has screwed up here. There are some gender warriors who are going to be raging at her for going off-message.

It absolutely sucks for LSA to get singled out like this because they're going to get flooded with trolls (hope they're polishing the banhammer) but the gender warriors are normally very keen to paint concerned women as predominately white, middle-class, middle-aged/out-of-touch conservative British women. We're allegedly funded by the far-right and allegedly all are anti-gay rights. Britain is T**F Island, and the worst place in the world for anyone trans to live. (The UK- where gender reassignment has been a legally protected characteristic since 2010 and not a single trans person was murdered last year.) Wherever possible, gender-critical feminism is being painted as a peculiarly British prejudice.

At the same time as doing this, gender warriors have been doing what I would call co-opting BLM. The focus in the popular consciousness is "black lives matter" which, men being the default human, is interpreted as black men's lives matter, with a second strand, black trans lives matter. Breonna Taylor and other women are getting forgotten though. They're women, right?

I think that every murdered black transwoman matters. Any rate of murder above zero is too many. But more black women will have been murdered in America this year than transwomen, and no-one calls that an 'epidemic'. It's like that every year, just like women are murdered here; only this year, it will have been worse, because lockdown has locked women of every race in with abusers.

But anyway. Thanks to Kaitlyn, some people are going to discover that the African American community is not a monolith and that, in fact, some black women are feminists/womanists. If awareness of that spreads, it's going to be inconvenient.

You can only hope it will send curious readers googling the "radical" feminist forums to see how scary we are(n't). That's how I got here in the first place.

Oh it will. It is inevitable that people will look, and nose at the drama. Just like we go and read twitter when someone mentions a dust-up!

That's why normally they don't mention LSA, they don't mention the fruit orchards, and they don't mention datalounge. They namedrop the forum that can be most easily demonised as privileged transphobes. That's us- mostly white (because UK is mostly white) mothers. Or as they say now 'Karens'.

It's a parenting forum, so we are assumed to be all heterosexual, therefore outside the LGBT community and therefore transphobic. Everyone 'knows' from their own years parents just don't get it so we can be written off.

The women on LSA rock! They are preparing for a TRA attack and reminding everyone they won't put up with any bs

"They will make a little noise here and there ..but they will bite off more than they can chew trying that here ..trust.."

Unless I'm looking at the wrong boards (link below). A disappointing lack of discussion about Keira Bell on that LSA site. One or two brave UK souls seem to have tried to raise it in a couple of topics, with some great comments by them, but not much engagement from the sisters across the pond on such a momentous court judgement.

But many Americans probably think all English women look, act and talk like Emma Thompson or Kate Winslet anyway and so we've all Karen-ed our way back to our country cottages to put our feet up, so...dunno

www.lipstickalley.com/forums/the-lsa-womanist-feminist-forum.446/