Finn Mackay in Guardian today

[FFSitsonlyMonday]

I quite liked this today. I am very poorly informed but think I will get reading.

Guardian link Finn Mackay article

I tried. Really. But all the shite about identities and portraying young people as progressive for slapping labels on themselves - nah, not for me.

Finn Mackay is not on my mental list of allies, thought I can't quite recall why.

Although ...I've just checked Finn's twitter profile and Dr Finn self describes as a queermale.

So that's probably why.

I'm not at all sure why Finn Mackay considers self to be the person to end what are described as the 'wars'. Or having much insight into radical feminism.

Why is this person constantly pontificating on this in the Guardian?

I think Dr Mackay is thoughtful, way more precise than most commentators, and actually feminist. Well worth a read and share.

@Leafstamp

Finn Mackay is not on my mental list of allies, thought I can't quite recall why.

Although ...I've just checked Finn's twitter profile and Dr Finn self describes as a queermale.

So that's probably why.

It is because she's TWAW?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Why is this person constantly pontificating on this in the Guardian?

Don't they have a soon-to-be-published book? One that will probably have Finn interviewed by Woman's Hour way ahead of Helen Joyce or Maya Forstater?

amazon.co.uk/Female-Masculinities-Gender-Wars-Politics/dp/0755606639/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

I thought McKay's article interesting but neither profound nor original. Kind of C+ article, in other words.

Dr Finn self describes as a queermale.

Finn is female.

I thought McKay's article interesting but neither profound nor original. Kind of C+ article, in other words.

Yeah, I think that's a good summary. She uses lots of words to say relatively little.

Finn Mackay is not on my mental list of allies, thought I can't quite recall why.

She's not a rabid TRA but she's certainly not on our side. Her solution to resolving the self ID controversy is basically for everyone to be kind.

According to Amazon products related to this book include The A to Z of Pasta.

I am beginning to think that the alphabet soup of gender identity has gone too far............

As someone who has been eye-rolled by younger colleagues (and worse) recently I welcome this input, even if not saying anything profound, I think it's at least part of a conversation.

@AlfonsoTheDinosaur

Dr Finn self describes as a queermale.

Finn is female.

Indeed. I think that's why I can't trust a word [pronoun] says if [pronoun] doesn't understand basic biology.

See also PP comment re Finn being TWAW.

Finn is no ally as I far as I'm concerned.

@Summerhillsquare

I think Dr Mackay is thoughtful, way more precise than most commentators, and actually feminist. Well worth a read and share.

I agree with this. I fall on the more GC side than Finn, but I also see and appreciate that she has many years of proper feminist activism and comes from a place that is informed, compassionate, questioning, and could build bridges. She's not someone I'd dismiss out of hand, even if she draws some different conclusions from mine.

I don't think this article is spectacular in that I don't think it actually advances too much of a proposition, but I do think it's a healthy and timely take on radical feminism and (coming from her) might nurture a kernel of feminism in some trans/allies who would be otherwise inclined to dismiss radical feminism as some bogus shit invented as a cover for transphobia. Which would be a very good outcome.

Pretty sure I've read her on twitter distancing herself from the title of her other recent Guardian appearance, saying she never claimed to be the peacemaker for the 'gender wars', but nonetheless I think it's a reasonable positioning, and I'm supportive of conversations in that middle space.

Julie Bindel has endorsed this article...

It's a helpful little primer on the fact that feminism actually has some helpful things to say.

Quite why the Guardian suddenly feels its readership could benefit from a very simple primer on why feminism is a good thing, I'm sure I couldn't say. Perhaps someone there has twigged that pandering to those for whom nothing will ever be enough is a hiding to nothing, so they're hoping to slowly reintroduce feminism to Owen Jones' fanclub.

Good luck with that, chums.

I think that's why I can't trust a word [pronoun] says if [pronoun] doesn't understand basic biology.

She uses she or they, so at least you don't have to do the liguistic shell game. She's a butch nonbinary queermale lesbian IIRC (apologies if I've missed any identies out).

She does understand biology- hence the willingness to refer to herself as female in relevant discussions and to accept female pronouns. Like others I think we should be tolerant of the well intentioned middle grounders even if I mentally sigh at the implied prospect of having to pretend some really stupid ideas aren't stupid.

FM tweeted an account of experience with the NHS that I would agree was poor. It reminded me that there is a lot of useful work to be done for improving the experience of LGBTQ+ patients/service users in the NHS.

twitter.com/Finn_Mackay/status/1424061707484270597

@donquixotedelamancha

I think that's why I can't trust a word [pronoun] says if [pronoun] doesn't understand basic biology.

She uses she or they, so at least you don't have to do the liguistic shell game. She's a butch nonbinary queermale lesbian IIRC (apologies if I've missed any identies out).

She does understand biology- hence the willingness to refer to herself as female in relevant discussions and to accept female pronouns. Like others I think we should be tolerant of the well intentioned middle grounders even if I mentally sigh at the implied prospect of having to pretend some really stupid ideas aren't stupid.

How can she understand biology if she is referring to herself as a queermale?!

That guardian article said nothing at all.

Finn likes herself very very much!

I felt rather ambivalent about this article. On the one hand, I appreciate the attempt to rehabilitate radical feminism for those who would otherwise instantly dismiss it - it’s true that there are strains within second wave and radical feminism that were closer to a rejection of reproductive biology - she references Firestone for example. On the other hand, I found the slide into “be kind queerness” disingenuous, and a refusal to acknowledge some of the conclusions of the radical feminism she/they wants to domesticate. For all the be-kind-ness of this stance, I can’t help feeling there tan undercurrent of self-hatred about the desire to identify as “transmasc” (a very recent term which would surely not have been around when she/they was younger), rather than lesbian. There always seems to be a special kind of embarrassment and reluctance about identifying as boring old lesbian amongst these activists, that makes me feel they aren’t very accepting of the many lesbians who don’t see themselves as “masc” at all.

It seems all about gender and nothing about sexuality. In the late twentieth century lesbian and gay people found it liberating that sexuality could finally be thought of as independent of sex or gender. Stereotypes of the effeminate man or the butch woman were finally melting away in favour of a much freer understanding of sexual orientation.

Now even LGBT activists buy wholesale into the idea that gender stereotypes are an essential part of sexuality. It makes me feel a sinking sense of going backwards in all of this - it’s regressive and stifling rather than positive and freeing.

I don't think you can set too much store by someone's twitter bio, otherwise half of us here are medieval goodwives and the other half are dinosaurs. I think "queermale" is tongue in cheek, if that needs saying.

Finn has done some enormously valuable work setting up the London Feminist Network and with Reclaim the Night, and I would hesitate to dismiss what she says out of hand. As it happens, it was Finn at LFN who persuaded me of the value of women only space many years ago (I doubt she remembers this as I'm sure she was having the same conversation over and over again at the time). If she has changed her mind I'd be interested to know why, and to have that discussion. I've never found her unwilling to listen.

I thought it very poor from the moment it aligned 2nd wave feminism with a single identity.

No thank you.

Academically weak.

@Summerhillsquare

I think Dr Mackay is thoughtful, way more precise than most commentators, and actually feminist. Well worth a read and share.

I agree. Obviously, I may not share Finn’s views, but I appreciate that she is one of the very few academics on the “opposite” side of the debate who engages in good faith, does not misrepresent or smear GC academics, and seems committed to something that all academics dealing with difficult issues should do, but often fail to, which is to model civil debate.

I like her, I think she's thoughtful. Her Twitter can be quite spicy, but that's Twitter for you. I'm interested to read the book, not least because there are so few accounts from the 'other side' that I have any patience with, and I think it's good to listen to your opponents' best arguments (and I think Finn does this in her way too).

@foxgoosefinch

I felt rather ambivalent about this article. On the one hand, I appreciate the attempt to rehabilitate radical feminism for those who would otherwise instantly dismiss it - it’s true that there are strains within second wave and radical feminism that were closer to a rejection of reproductive biology - she references Firestone for example. On the other hand, I found the slide into “be kind queerness” disingenuous, and a refusal to acknowledge some of the conclusions of the radical feminism she/they wants to domesticate. For all the be-kind-ness of this stance, I can’t help feeling there tan undercurrent of self-hatred about the desire to identify as “transmasc” (a very recent term which would surely not have been around when she/they was younger), rather than lesbian. There always seems to be a special kind of embarrassment and reluctance about identifying as boring old lesbian amongst these activists, that makes me feel they aren’t very accepting of the many lesbians who don’t see themselves as “masc” at all.

It seems all about gender and nothing about sexuality. In the late twentieth century lesbian and gay people found it liberating that sexuality could finally be thought of as independent of sex or gender. Stereotypes of the effeminate man or the butch woman were finally melting away in favour of a much freer understanding of sexual orientation.

Now even LGBT activists buy wholesale into the idea that gender stereotypes are an essential part of sexuality. It makes me feel a sinking sense of going backwards in all of this - it’s regressive and stifling rather than positive and freeing.

I think the "transmasc" identity is longer lived and more complex than you're giving it credit for. Certainly I can count in my acquaintance a number of women perceiving and presenting themselves as at a sort of permeable boundary between 'butch lesbian' and 'trans man' over the past 20 years and more (and these were not newly acquired self-perceptions back then).

I think the ways in which many lesbians throughout certainly the past 100 years of history (perhaps longer) have experimented with adopting "male" appearances or behaviours or roles or jobs or habits or sex roles are complex, varied, and culturally significant. My shorthand is to describe this as lesbian history and to feel put out when parts of it are sometimes reclaimed as trans history, but the objective truth is probably that there are overlaps (as well as tensions).

I definitely recognise the internalised lesbophobia that I imagine sometimes (currently) makes a trans type identity easier for young women especially to own, and on top of that I think identifying similarity with and embracing the "butch stereotype" lesbian is often the final bit of internalised lesbophobia to overcome, even whilst celebrating that people's vision of The Lesbian is now more diverse. I wouldn't want to speculate on Finn as an individual on this point as it feels a bit crass, but I would be very surprised if she hasn't already done all her own introspection on all this stuff and more.

This LGBT "debate" about gender is not new. It's the same debate as "are butch/femme relationships intrinsically regressive". Gender and sexual orientation are culturally entwined, even whilst for many gays and lesbians that connection isn't relevant. I don't think there's really any virtue in one side or the other, I only care when the argument concerns access to single-sex spaces.