Interesting Guardian Article

[StrawberrySquirrelThief]

An interesting interview with Finn McKay - www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/05/finn-mackay-the-writer-hoping-to-help-end-the-gender-wars

Doesn't seem to explain what the middle ground is and his implications are that hardening of attitudes is happening when I think he forgets that more people are aware of the debate. At one time there wasn't a debate and that must have felt like a better place. Many are now under fir and are perhaps hoping for compromise. It may happen at some point but too many women have had vitriol and abuse hurled at them for their 'transphobia' when many were just in the middle

I found it a frustrating interview. The journalist didn’t ask any of the crunch questions, such as the cotton ceiling, transing of autistics and young butch lesbians, the immutability of sex in humans.
McKay seemed to think that after a certain number of years presenting as the opposite sex, one somehow magically becomes so, and should get free all areas access.
This is not “ending the gender wars”, unless you regard unconditional surrender by women as an ending.
Disappointing, but unsurprising. Women’s rights and trans demands are mutually exclusive. We either have single sex spaces and protection - or we don’t.

Finn’s middle ground only works if the vast majority of people claiming special trans status are homosexual transsexual types, who had a kind of in between role which few objected to as they were often unremarkable. That ship has sailed, I believe, and there’s no going back.

This is very well described by the Sue Donym article I also read this morning. Sue Donym touches on exactly this comfortable relationship within LGB(T) spaces, which was all swept away when the male transvestites decided that it was time to take their slice.

The argument will never again be non-polarised, because those men have swept away the comfortable world Finn liked, and Finn, rather than facing up to it, as Sue has, is still living in a dream world, where it might all suddenly be okay again, if only both sides would shut up.

Link to contrasting article here:

suedonym.substack.com/p/played-the-fool

It is an interesting article. While I don't agree with everything and have some issues with aspects of Mackay's approach, I feel like I could have a sensible and civil conversation with them without everything coming back to "bigoted! hatred!"

@anyoldprion even then the middle ground doesn't work in sport, in appropriate medical care, in crisis services (as finn seems to recognise). It feels like their argument is centred round bathrooms when the implications of trans identity on women's right to safety, dignity and fairness go much further than that.

Nice read. Thanks @AnyOldPrion
I know young women that were caught on this shit and now wear T-shirt’s calling off this male fantasy

Finn is F to M and even now does not claim to be a man and is fine about she/her pronouns. I can’t use those pronouns here in case I break MN rules so I’ll use ‘they’.

They are married with a child. They argue their position in what seems like a measured, thoughtful way and it’s clear they have a complex relationship with their body which remains unaltered by surgery and I gather they don’t use any pharma.

The sex/gender issue, from women’s POV, is not exemplified by Finn. Finn is no threat to women’s same sex spaces. Finn seems the least likely person to make threats or hurl insults at women who disagree with their position.

Finn is not the problem - or only as far as they seem to think they are somehow the same as M to F.

It still doesn’t explain why they don’t lead the life they are leading as a woman - why call themselves a man?

I have to admit that I read the Guardian interview thinking Mackay was very reasonable and understanding — unusual in anything I’d read by a transwoman before. Then I realised Mackay is a woman. Suddenly the goodwill and courtesy all made sense. Oh dear.

[quote AnyOldPrion]Link to contrasting article here:

suedonym.substack.com/p/played-the-fool[/quote]
Cor blimey, that’s a good read

There is alot I agree with in there. I didn't know they prefer being referred to as 'they'. I'd heard of finn because of reclaim the night before I knew anything about all this gender v sex stuff. Since I've been interested in this debate I've thought finn was the main one who could bridge the gap between the camps because they can talk to both sides. She speaks both languages. It's almost like their understanding/perception of sex & gender (ie what those things are and how they operate in the world) is the same as those who are now on the gc side eg julie bindel, gloss witch, Claire Heachan. The difference of opinion is on what we should do with that info, how it should pan out in practice.

It doesn't quite add up for me though. She's so clear on the genuine fear that some womem have of strange males because of male violence (sitting in the dark rather than calling an electrician) but is so half hearted on the right to have a refuge which excludes all male ppl even those who I'd as women (I wouldn't campaign to close it down). The difference with eg henchman, Smith, bindel is that the say that right needs defending positively because the need is so strong.

The bigger question, Mackay argues, is why sex has come to matter so much; why it is loaded with expectations about how people will live or behave, when in an ideal world it could be irrelevant.

Ah! This is indeed the bigger question. It doesn't get answered. And I wonder why.There is no indication that they have actually considered what sex is for, why it's not just an agglutination of sex characteristics and hormones,or why the terms "man" and "woman" are based in it. Instead of creating complex latticeworks and hierarchies of artificial "identities", you could spend your time simply expanding what it means socially to be a man or a woman so that the terms include a wider spread of tastes, priorities and interests.

Obviously it’s vital to find a middle ground.

But I found it jarring to talk about “transing” being “infantalising” when we are talking about children being set on a path at a worryingly young age (rather than the watchful waiting approach) that they are then unable to get off.

The interviewer doesn’t press on the issue of lesbian/gay losing their safe single sex/sexuality spaces (eg lesbian bars, lesbian holidays etc), their dating apps being used by opposite-bodied people or the issue of lesbian/gay women/men, and being accused of being transphobic because they don’t want to date/have sex with people of the opposite sex. This is reduced to the odd trans man continuing to turn up which doesn’t seem to be the case based on first person experiences from the LGB community.

Doesn’t press on the fact that Finn wavered around transition but opted not to, partly because of the difficult time those who did transition were having physically. The fact that they would have been exactly the kind of kid that could have ended up on puberty blockers etc if they had grown up now and hadn’t grown up when they did (1980s). So then, is it not key to allow other kids now the same chance to grow into themselves and make these very serious, life changing, and quality of life impacting decisions at a point when they are much older and completely sure. For them not to be put on a path that separates them from their peers at an early age and is hard to turn back from. That impacts on their physical and mental development. (bariweiss.substack.com/p/top-trans-doctors-blow-the-whistle) That means they are making decisions about their future that are irreversible and for those that end up detransitioning are a cause for huge, awful, horrendous regret. Not to touch on the numbers of trans people who are detransitioning at all?

Being trans and being butch lesbian is conflated and we are told that the book is “partly an attempt to let a butch community that is often talked over finally speak for itself” as though it’s GC people doing this, but no mention/discussion of TRAs/trans people encroaching on lesbian/gay rights and spaces, labelling lesbians/gays TERFs etc.

Yes, discusses toilets and refuges but nothing on female prisoners?
“‘If someone’s been living as a trans woman for 20 or 30 years, does that count? How long is enough?’ The bigger question Mackay argues is why sex has come to matter so much; why it is loaded with expectations about how people will live or behave, when in an ideal world it would be irrelevant.” Again another soft, idealised example that goes unchallenged - what about the male prisoners, guilty of violent sex crimes who suddenly decide they are women to get into a female prison where they go on to assault and harass women. In an ‘ideal world’ this wouldn’t happen. In an ideal world men wouldn’t use duping and disguise to get access to vulnerable women and children. In an ideal world men wouldn’t rape and kill us.

Is the statement ‘I’ve drunk the kool aid’ more offensive than being threatened with rape or death for being a ‘terf’? Finn talks about being offended about being labelled a rape apologist or enabling predators, but the journalist doesn’t touch on any of the cases of TW (men pretending to be TW) who rape and prey on women and children in and out of prison... Karen White, Lisa Hauxwell, Michelle Winter, Jessica Winfield, Tiffany Scott etc. Doesn’t go near how this impacts on women/girls safety in prisons, in no-longer-single-sex spaces.

Nothing on women’s sport at all!

We can only find a way forward by tackling these issues, not by some soft interview that barely tackles the key points around women and girls safety and children not getting to opportunity to develop and mature naturally and discover who they are/what they want, rather than being put on a path where they don’t reach sexual maturity, risking fertility, sexual dysfunction and having a life riven with seismic medical intervention.

Just feels like classic Guardian agenda piece, lots being glossed over, unchallenged etc, and it’s a shame because we do need to find ways forward and I would have liked to have read Finn’s opinions on these key issues (doesn’t matter if I didn’t agree with them - we need to discuss them and keep discussing them).

To find positives - I am glad Finn spoke up about refuges needing to have separate single sex and trans spaces, the need to talk about women’s bodies, of sex being real. I wonder what the response will be to the book from TRAs (another aspect not touched on in the interview).

Naive and confused.

"Mackay draws solace from being frequently read as a man in everyday life" , acknowledges that women are "taught from childhood to be hypervigilant to men and to manage male behaviour" but gets annoyed when women read him as a man in the female toilets and are hostile. Assumes it is because "they’re going to catch some queer or gay disease off me,” instead of because they might think that as a man using the female loos, he might have just deliberately urinated on the toilet seat, wiped his penis on the door handle, installed a hidden camera.....

The bigger question, Mackay argues, is why sex has come to matter so much;

It's odd to say that it's "come to" matter so much when it has always mattered a good deal. For thousands of years men have denied women basic human rights. It doesn't matter more now than it did 100 years ago - arguably it matters less.

The most interesting thing for me is how finn sees female only spaces - as a risky place not a place of refuge. I've seen them talking about that before and it's not a perspective we hear in gc circles much.

Sorry, should have said:

"think that he is a man using the female loos, and so he might have...."

Manderleyagain - Yes, that aspect adds an interesting layer to the debate. A natal woman, whom we would argue - sauce for the goose and all that - should stay out of men's loos who doesn't feel comfortable using the women's loos.

This is less about trans and more about the fact the society is not used to butch lesbians. If Stonewall had spent the last 20 years promoting lesbians and butch lesbians in particular this wouldn't be a problem for Finn now.

What’s always ignored, and has done again by FM, is that the GC position is the middle ground. The middle ground is that trans people should be treated fairly and justly like everyone else in society but in some circumstances sex matters.
That’s what the majority of people think and that’s what was in place in policy before the massive over reach by TRAs.
I’m sick of this bring framed as “a side”. It’s the fucking mainstream view.

My take is this is being marketed as middle ground but actually is just genderism without the insults (yet).

Yes, I agree Fariha

@CatsOperatingInGangs AGREE!

[quote AnyOldPrion]Link to contrasting article here:

suedonym.substack.com/p/played-the-fool[/quote]
That's a fantastic article, and unlike Finn it sounds honest.