Evidence from film, plays, etc of the historical background of casual accepable male violence against transwomen

[seethesuninwintertime]

I am trying to engage more effectively locally and to redirect attention to the real issues transwomen were trying to overcome pre GRA in the hope of highlighting the modern attacks on actual women for what they are i.e. misogny. I'm a great believer that if you gather data and put it on a timeline then it will confess its secrets and show its patterns.

Happy to look at Gender studies literature i.e. stuff written by people I don't agree with.

My tentative hypothesis is that transexuals were a legitimate target of male mockery and male violence until very recently. What I wonder if whether there was always misogyny behind the abuse of transexuals and whether that misogyny has now changed. I wonder if the abuse that was casually directed at transexuals has now been partially redirected at gender critical women but it's the same old thing. I wonder whether all that hatred needed somewhere to go once it became less acceptable to simply mock transsexuals. I dont' know.

Off the top of my head I can think of:
"She-man" in Sopranos series 2
Crocodile Dundee scene where he grabs the transexual's genitals and everyone laughs and mocks
"Rent" (which had a bizarre line about the transsexual being a better woman than other women).
Rocky Horror Show which was how most people born in the 1970s were introduced to transvestism/transexuality.

But someone must have done a phd in this - in fact loads of phds must have been done. so I don't need to reinvent the wheel

In terms of my bona fides, I am a regular but frequently name change.

Whataday
I disagree - I think that TRA try to claim GC are using the old tropes to distract from the legitimate points being raised. I am yet to see any GC commentator who says trans people per se are predators. I'd be interested to see where you have found that. The argument is far more nuanced. Trans people are not a predatory class of people. The concern is that a predatory class of men will take advantage of the erosion of women's sex based rights to harm women. These men are not trans people (and may in fact represent a threat to trans people)and are certainly not doing the image of trans people any good by seeking to associate themselves with them.
You only have to look at the disproportionate number of sex offenders claiming to be trans when they think it will get them moved into the female prison estate. Karen White is only one example - how would you label Karen White? Trans or predatory male - my view is very much the latter.

I remember an article by Jen Izaakson? about the foundational differences between lesbophobia and homophobia, and how yet again lesbians/women are disappeared when we use the term homophobia to stand for both.. Just found it, "Lesbophobia is not Homophobia, it's misogyny". Might be worth a look for slants on the differences between transphobia and misogyny?

I agree chaz

To be honest im pretty much only on mumsnet but ive not seen posters on the feminism board say that they believe all transpeople are Predatory

In fact the only people who say that are posters who say thats what GC women are doing…to be fair they maybe on more forums than i am

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude

Whataday I disagree - I think that TRA try to claim GC are using the old tropes to distract from the legitimate points being raised. I am yet to see any GC commentator who says trans people per se are predators. I'd be interested to see where you have found that. The argument is far more nuanced. Trans people are not a predatory class of people. The concern is that a predatory class of men will take advantage of the erosion of women's sex based rights to harm women. These men are not trans people (and may in fact represent a threat to trans people)and are certainly not doing the image of trans people any good by seeking to associate themselves with them. You only have to look at the disproportionate number of sex offenders claiming to be trans when they think it will get them moved into the female prison estate. Karen White is only one example - how would you label Karen White? Trans or predatory male - my view is very much the latter.

I think GC women may think they are avoiding that trope but I think the nuance is not always easy to see - I've seen a whole thread for example on how women here would feel threatened and unhappy with any medical professional that they read as male dressing/presenting in a female manner because they have learned that man in dress = predator, or the many posts claiming that most trans identifying prisoners are sex offenders. I don't think those come across as saying "ill intentioned men may claim trans status". I think they come across as very much tying into those old toxic tropes and massively muddy all future conversations.

Trans people are not a predatory class of people. The concern is that a predatory class of men will take advantage of the erosion of women's sex based rights to harm women. These men are not trans people

But one problem is that extreme transactivits say that once someone says they are trans, they immediately, unquestionably "are what they say they are". This means that according to the extreme trans lobby, a large number of male sexual predators, like the ones self-IDing in prisons, and Wii spa person, are transwomen. That is precisely why we've ended up with predatory or flashing males in women's prisons and hospitals - because of the trans lobby teachings that these people ARE women influencing actual policy.

So when we talk about that now, it's because it is happening. Among male prisoners, the self-IDing TW are more likely than average to be predators.

There's also a lot of confusion about the whole "TW are male so they are predators" line. GC feminists are not saying that. They are saying that TW are male and as likely to be dangerous as other males, which has been shown to be true. But since predators will obviously take advantage of self-ID to enter women's spaces, a "TW" in a woman's space is likely to pose a higher than average risk. Whether you think that person is a "real" TW or not depends on whether you believe the self-ID ideology.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/07/gp-manish-shah-sexually-assaulted-24-patients-given-three-life-sentences

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-58626287

The risk that a medical professional may be predatory is not theoretical. (For balance - male doctors have also assaulted boys and other men). Women have the right to be cautious about who is treating them and it is the biological potential to do harm and not the clothes they wear that is the determining factor.

May not fit here, but there could be some autobiographical references from Jan Morris, e.g. Conundrum, 1974, that may be illuminating in relation to the 70s - www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55021555

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude

Whataday I disagree - I think that TRA try to claim GC are using the old tropes to distract from the legitimate points being raised. I am yet to see any GC commentator who says trans people per se are predators. I'd be interested to see where you have found that. The argument is far more nuanced. Trans people are not a predatory class of people. The concern is that a predatory class of men will take advantage of the erosion of women's sex based rights to harm women. These men are not trans people (and may in fact represent a threat to trans people)and are certainly not doing the image of trans people any good by seeking to associate themselves with them. You only have to look at the disproportionate number of sex offenders claiming to be trans when they think it will get them moved into the female prison estate. Karen White is only one example - how would you label Karen White? Trans or predatory male - my view is very much the latter.

Part of the problem with this is that the idea of a class of trans people is questionable.

We now consider transvestites "trans" but it's really arguable that they have anything to do with some sort of variant gender identity.

If we look at Blanchard's types, which still haven't really been challenged seriously, you have two groups with entirely different origins. In both cases there is a result of alienation from the sexed body, but even that seems to look rather different. And the causes are completely different.

But I think you can flip this around, and ask, what do we know about sexual perverts, and sexual predators? One thing is that it's not uncommon for them to lack boundaries socially as well as sexually. They often have paraphilias, often more than one. That there are disregulations with regard to social norms. That they will go pretty far to insert themselves in situations where they can be predatory.

Does that apply to trans people as a class? No. But with such a loose category as far as who counts as trans, lots of people with that kind of profile could easily fit themselves in there. As a woman, faced with some guy I don't know in an intimate space, that is the kind of profile I'll be wondering about.

This covers it. And given that the moment a woman says anything negative about a male abuser who has done this, people call her transphobic, it is reasonable for women to be cautious.

Trans activists (who seem to mostly not even be trans themselves) do not have to ally with every male abuser who infiltrates the trans community. But the more they do, the more the trans activists associate the community with abusers.

I think they should stop doing that, but they don't seem to take my PR advice.

... Chaz, if that quoted post was the deleted one, I can't see what broke guidelines at all there, unless it was referring to a well known and court convicted serious serial sex offender who is a TW as 'predatory' and 'male'.

Both of which are a matter of fact and public record. How is that against guidelines?

Ah, sorry, my mistake, that isn't the deleted post. As you were.

@BlueberryCheezecake

What's your basis for thinking trans women are no longer a target for male violence and mockery?

I thought this.

Its one of the strange things about GC women being targeted as the people who are making TW unsafe when the actual real violence comes from those men who just don't like anyone who is different from them(whether they be gay men, lesbian women, TW etc)

I don't really get the OPs theory but...

Did anyone mention Tootsie?

Also Boys Don't Cry might be an interesting counterpoint as I seem to remember it was about male violence against a trans man (ie female bodied person).

Also, my memory of the David Duchovny character in Twin Peaks was that they were respectfully treated by Agent Cooper. They were no more bizarre than any other character on the show so their existence didn't come across as a joke. I googled it and found this reflection. comicyears.com/pop-culture/twin-peaks-david-duchovny-trans-character/

As theories go it's not exactly up there with Darwin....

but still :)

OP: have you seen the documentary ‘Disclosure’? Not sure if it’s still on Netflix but it’s worth watching for some background info

I think there is defo some homophobia about, although on the other hand it’s particularly hard to poke fun at marginalised groups without it appearing bigoted, even if it’s no more deprecating than what might be aimed at a typical man or woman.

'I've seen a whole thread for example on how women here would feel threatened and unhappy with any medical professional that they read as male dressing/presenting in a female manner because they have learned that man in dress = predator, or the many posts claiming that most trans identifying prisoners are sex offenders. I don't think those come across as saying "ill intentioned men may claim trans status". I think they come across as very much tying into those old toxic tropes and massively muddy all future conversations.'

It's not about trans or not.

When it comes to cross dressing in general.

It's been well known for yonks that male sex offenders esp flashers peeping toms etc not infrequently are vv interested in cross dressing esp underwear.

This fact seems to be ignored.

It's a really common paraphilia in blokes with other paraphilias.

It's ignored because it's inconvenient. Any mention of it gets accusations of saying all trans women are sex offenders etc. Even though it's about men. Bog standard creepy pervy men.

Yet again women/ girls experiences knowledge etc are expected to be ignored.

@RufustheBadgeringReindeer

I agree chaz

To be honest im pretty much only on mumsnet but ive not seen posters on the feminism board say that they believe all transpeople are Predatory

In fact the only people who say that are posters who say thats what GC women are doing…to be fair they maybe on more forums than i am

Agreed. It's almost as if some commenters are reading in bad faith and are unwilling to accept nuance when they read it.

Like you, I can not speak for any other forum as I'm not there.

this is turning into a retirement project

(I really know how to live....)

@NiceGerbil spot on

(I agreed with your OP too.. )