Labour have committed to single sex spaces

[flumpetto]

Excluding trans

This is a step in the right direction at long last....

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-trans-women-labour-b1924832.html

@Whatiswrongwithmyknee Strident is undisputedly pejorative. If you've been using the wrong word, I think many of us would accept an apology for your inadvertent insulting of us.
@Wrongsideofhistorymyarse 'Strident' is a pejorative that is very often used to describe women with opinions, Butterfly. It's a surprise that you weren't aware of the gendered aspect of the insult.
@RedDogsBeg *Since MNHQ have deleted the post where we were doubly insulted by being referred to as strident and transphobes in the same sentence it appears they agree with our take Wrongside.
@Helleofabore And yet many, many females easily recognise the pejorative that is the word 'strident' when they see it. Particularly when it is used against them. Along with the other terms you have directly or indirectly used as a generalisation against posters who disagree with you, such as 'transphobes'.

Argh, this is all quite different to my own experiences of the contemporary usage of this term within my friendship and activism circles!

I've only ever encountered it used to affectionately describe a robust, energetic and heartfelt debating style framed in a neutral or positive light by people expressing their admiration at my ability to be animated by a topic.

In which case, my sincere apologies; I think I've accidentally stumbled into a definitional minefield here and ended up pouring accelerant on a discussion that @Helen8220 managed to rescue with some outstanding allyship.

I'm really really sorry for causing offence; absolutely not the intention. I understand and acknowledge why that post was deleted; I'm sad as it contained some pretty earnest meditations on experienced oppressions and privileges, but there we go.

@Sophoclesthefox I’m going to try that next time I want to compliment someone on here for a post.

“Oh wow, what a great post, you’re so strident!”

This is pretty much how I've encountered it in a modern context within the last couple of years; I'm fairly certain it wasn't intended as a stealth insult either, but intent isn't magic and harm is determined by outcomes.

Sorry all. Won't use it again.

@Floisme

Given the shitshow this weekend, there's a part of me wishes I could get the post I made on Wednesday ('very welcome indeed') taken down. But I think it's better left up there to remind me - and maybe others too - not to be so gullible next time.

That post served a very good purpose, though. This thread and people's early responses certainly piqued my interest in what he would be saying in the pre-conference interviews and I'm sure I'm not alone. It's done me a favour because I've paid more attention than I might have and I'm now in no doubt at all where he stands.

I see David Lammy now thinks we are " dinosaurs hoarding rights" As a man he has a bloody cheek telling women what we should with " our rights" Which ones should we give up,I wonder.; the right not to be put in danger by allowing people of the male sex into our prison cells, perhaps.

Mine too! I'm a bisexual woman who was assigned a male gender role at birth by society,

There is no such thing as assigned a male gender role at birth. You were noted to be male because of the presence of your external genitalia. Society is made up of individuals who relate more or less strongly to various gender stereotypes, so some would expect particular actions or personality characteristics from you because of your genitalia. Others would expect different actions/ personality characteristics. Also largely due to the work of feminists, a large number of people recognise that your personality is not determined by your maleness. Any gender sterotypical expectations sit alongside rather than a core aspect of 'maleness'. This extrication of stereotype from biology is also largely attributable to feminism.

Now you are back on the thread, can you answer the questions from last night which you said you'd get round to when you were back?

I understand and acknowledge why that post was deleted; I'm sad as it contained some pretty earnest meditations on experienced oppressions and privileges, but there we go.

Along with the implication that we are 'transphobes' .....

Male is a sex.

Masculine is a gender.

Utter tripe. But then mangling the language is so much the in thing these days.

Synonyms for strident include scronking, screeching, loud, caterwauling, earsplitting, obstreperous.

Modern context my arse! You made a mistake. Women apologise for those, even when the error is not theirs, such is the power of the patriarchy!

@334bu

I see David Lammy now thinks we are " dinosaurs hoarding rights" As a man he has a bloody cheek telling women what we should with " our rights" Which ones should we give up,I wonder.; the right not to be put in danger by allowing people of the male sex into our prison cells, perhaps.

The lengths men will go to in order to shame women out of their inconvenient boundaries.

Nice girls say yes. Nice girls put others before themselves. Nice girls don't say things like 'what about me - and her - and why do you insist there's no such thing as sex but we're still always of the sex that loses in this - and loses, and loses and all to benefit the OTHER sex.'

It's like being stuck in a never ending performance of the Importance of Being Earnest, a whole lot of sincere, straightfaced nonsense and verbiage.

I accept your apology Butterfly and thank you for recognising the damage you did by using that term.

Is an apology for calling us transphobes also warranted? No-one on here wants your life to be any more difficult than in needs to be and people recognise the pain which you must have been feeling in order to get desperate enough to change your body in such dramatic ways. No-one wants trans people to be unsafe or to feel judged for breaking away from stereotypes. No-one is apologising for abhorrent violence and discrimination which trans people face and indeed no-one is saying those things don't happen. We are simply asking for a solution which works as best as it can for all rather than privileging one group's rights over another. Women's issues are also important as women - both at home and globally - are a hugely vulnerable and discriminated against group. We actually do, in many ways, feel your pain as we have been sexually harrassed (97% of us according to studies) raped, groped, paid less whilst expected to work more, belitted, mansplained, honour killed, beaten by intimate partners, financially abused, excluded from positions of power etc. at a rate far, far, far higher than men. Our desire to find a way forward which protects all is not trans phobic any more than the trans lobby are femphobic.

And yes: absolutely the right person to decide what rights women should surrender nicely for men's benefits is a man with no skin in the game.

It's like the BBC where we see whole panels of men debating together what rights they might let us keep and whether or not we have souls.

I'm hitting the point of one resounding Foxtrot Oscar. It's baffling men speak like this to women and seriously expect women to put in the time to listen to them. Whats the quote? God, grant me the confidence of a mediocre man.

What rights is David Lammy handing over btw?

@NiceGerbil

'I'm talking about people experiencing oppression due to the patriarchical enforcement of gender roles, so...absolutely, yes.'

You are implying that women girls who have always noticed and hated and defied and fought our gendered roles and position in society.

Fucked up?

Because a common response was to be a feminist and possibly one of the really unpopular sort.

That was silly and all those women and girls should have just transitioned?

And they didn't so now should take their feminist views about gender and hierarchy and the position of women and girls all over the world. Realise they were very silly and made a big mistake. And slink off back to the kitchen?

That's really not my intention at all!

Gendered oppression is awful and the rise of movements striving against it is one of the great defining movements of the 20th and 21st centuries.

I've spoken before about intersectionality and the struggles to understand people's diverse experiences before. I don't believe that being trans and experiencing the prejudices related to being trans is mutually exclusive with suffering under gendered modes of oppression that don't directly relate to being trans.

I really don't get this oppositional thinking; the idea that everything is some kind of zero-sum game.

I see David Lammy now thinks we are " dinosaurs hoarding rights"

Rights which we have had for only two or three generations, but which men have held for millenia in fact. And while it may have started long after the dinosaurs became extinct, it's still a damn sight longer than women.

And that's only relevant (largely) to westernised societies. There are still many places on the planet where women have no, or few, rights but must always be subservient to the men.

I know who's the dinosaur here, and it isn't me.

God, grant me the confidence of a mediocre man.

🤣🤣🤣

I really don't get this oppositional thinking; the idea that everything is some kind of zero-sum game.

because for women this largely is?

The right of male people to enter the preferred sex space of their choice cannot co exist with the right of female people to have a female only space.

Which is why we have women staying out of refuges and unable to use toilets/women only swim sessions created for vulnerable women where the women have all left, and secret lesbian societies operating underground like it's the French Resistance.

Oh for the luxury of it NOT being a zero bloody sum game.

I see David Lammy now thinks we are " dinosaurs hoarding rights"

WHAT?
OK I'm fucking cross now. So I just looked it up and found it reported at Labour List

"Anti-trans members are “dinosaurs” who want to “hoard rights”, says Lammy*

NOT only did Lammy make that fucking shocking statement about women who want to keep the rights they have rightly won, but women who want their rights are yet again reported as "anti-trans".

It is nothing to do with being "anti-trans". I don't give a flying arse if people want to be trans, I would never persecute them for it and I believe they should have human rights like everyone else and protection from discrimination and persecution. Just like religious people, I don't agree with them but I don't have to, I still defend their human rights.

I am not anti-trans, I am anti- having my rights being taken away and being told to believe nonsense and schools encouraging kids into transitioning and all the other shit that has hit the fan in the last few years. That is not the same thing.

I wonder was Lammy involved in setting the policy that allowed 'gender' balanced boards and committees. Like one of the boards that is now 75% male when it was supposed to be 50 | 50?

Yet talks about 'positive' discrimination needed for black males?

I really don't get this oppositional thinking; the idea that everything is some kind of zero-sum game.

I do. The zero-sum game was put on the table by trans lobbyists who care only about trans rights and not about women's rights. This became oppositional when the gendered oppression you rightly recognise was used as a tool to oppress women raising concerns about the impact of the particular route being decided for trans rights. The tools of this particular aspect of oppression include outright aggression, political silencing and passive aggression in the form of insulting and inflammatory language (such as transphobe). The gendered oppression which is the very thing which women are worried about was used as a tool to silence and further the oppression. You personally entrench the oppression when you insult us.

The right of male people to enter the preferred sex space of their choice cannot co exist with the right of female people to have a female only space.

It bears repeating. Constantly. The logic simply doesn't work.

@Wrongsideofhistorymyarse

I'm a bisexual woman who was assigned a male gender role at birth by society

Respectfully, you were not assigned a male gender role at birth. Your sex was observed and noted.

Your respectful tone is appreciated!

I'm curious. Do you believe women are assigned a set of stereotyped behavioural expectations -a female gender role- at birth by the patriarchy which they are then expected to observe throughout their lives on pain of abuse and often death, and which inform the experiences and opportunities they are allowed to partake in?

What artichoke said. The moment a male born person enters a single sex space for women it ceases by definition to be single sex space

It isn’t possible to compromise on this. It’s like when one half of a couple wants children and the other doesn’t. It’s not possible to be a bit pregnant, it’s either all or nothing.

Women have the right to single sex spaces

How would he like it if the hard-won rights of black people not to be discriminated against, or the hate crime legislation regarding racism (which woman as a class don't even have) were taken away on the basis of an ideology that made no sense and couldn't be backed up by evidence?

You'd have something to say about that right David Lammy? Would that make you a dinosaur then?

One more time...

That's really not my intention at all! We aren't reading your intentions. We are reading your words. Try to understand that what you see as reasonable is NOT seen through the same lens by women, especially women here.

Gendered oppression is awful and the rise of movements striving against it is one of the great defining movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. Well, I'm pretty sure the aforementioning rise of Fascism was pretty bad....

I've spoken before about intersectionality and the struggles to understand people's diverse experiences before. I don't believe that being trans and experiencing the prejudices related to being trans is mutually exclusive with suffering under gendered modes of oppression that don't directly relate to being trans.

What does that actually mean? Given most of us actively refute gender why tell us about it. To me what you just said was that the trans experience is any different to any experience of living inside the socal construct of gender. Well of course! Trans life is the epitome of gendered living!

And gendered living and trans expereinces are not the same as the lives of women!

If you meant that you see the oppression of trans people as having a lot in common with the sex based oppression of women under a heavily self protective patriarchal system, then just bloody says so. We could agree on that!

I really don't get this oppositional thinking; the idea that everything is some kind of zero-sum game. Possibly because you use a different lexicon.

It is nothing to do with being "anti-trans".

This too bears repeating. And often.

And if the upholding of the rights for women and girls, needed by them for the millennia of discrimination they have suffered because of their bodies are female, is anti-trans. Then trans rights should be noted as being 'anti-women and girl'.

If the conflicts cannot even be acknowledged, there will be no hope in ever reaching a point of agreement. But of course, those who have been lobbying for the rights that were meant to progress females to now apply to males are very aware of this.

I'm curious. No, that's me!