A man called me racist because I don't want penises in women's spaces

[GCFeminist]

Discussion on a GC pal's FB page. A man told me I'm a racist misogynist because I don't want biological men in female spaces, because it's apparently no different to racial segregation.

It's rare I'm lost for words, but I am now...

Tell him to educate himself, using the word racism to describe women who defend their rights undermines the word racism.

@GCFeminist

Discussion on a GC pal's FB page. A man told me I'm a racist misogynist because I don't want biological men in female spaces, because it's apparently no different to racial segregation.

It's rare I'm lost for words, but I am now...

Jane Clare Jones has some thoughtful pieces about forced teaming and the false analogies to racism on her site.

janeclarejones.com/?s=racism

We'll look at this man changing and using words ,that don't belong to him, against you.

Ask him why it's his place to tell you how to feel about your own spaces. In fact don't bother, he is a ridiculous peacock who now believes he is a feminist for shutting a woman up.

Don't argue with stupid.

What has having women’s only spaces got to do with racism?

Does he not know that there are women of colour who also don’t want men In women’s spaces?

The TRAs use racism as a smoke screen. If you don’t go along then you’re racist, as if women of colour don’t exist.

Let me guess.. this was said by a privileged white, Western European man? If not then I eat crow.. but this is usually their mantra. You’re racist if you don’t bow down and get in line with them.

I'd have been unable to stop laughing at him.

But, yes! How the hell do you respond to something that ludicrous.

I've tried typing about 10 sentences and they all sound daft. I can't get my wtf? onto the page 🙄

Well transphobic has lost all meaning, it's that overused.

Racial segregation was used for the oppression of black people by (more powerful) white people.

Sex segregation is used for the protection of female people from (more powerful) male people.

Does he realise that in his warped analogy, he's arguing that segregated black and white spaces should be preserved, but a few select black people should be permitted into the white ones?

I normally find any confusion is helped by pretending you don’t understand and asking questions.

I don’t know if you can do that hear but I find that’s the thing that makes it click with most people, and reveals their misogyny in the others.

Thanks everyone. And @WinterTrees that was an excellent way to put it, so thank you.

My husband has used this one on me several times. It's so off the wall that there literally isn't a response.

I do think part of the way TRA's justify this 'insult' is that in order to make us accept that men are women they break the sex class of woman into different parts. So you have disabled women, black women, cis women etc. Therefore if you are excluding any of those parts your feminism is 'exclusionary' and not real feminism.

For me (and I tried explaining this to H) there is only women and men. The sex class is all I break things down into. If I were walking down the street in the dark and I heard footsteps getting closer behind me, I would turn to check if there was a man behind me, not if there were a subset of woman as those categories are meaningless to me.

It didn't have any impact, you can't argue with stupid.

Hi @BloodinGutters, that’s interesting you mention asking open questions as Helen Joyce also recommended that when she did the Mumsnet Zoom chat. I can’t get my head around how it works though - I get overwhelmed with rage! Could you give an example? Although I appreciate that might be a tall order! Thank you

Sorry you have to deal with somebody so ignorant.

@NecessaryScene

Does he realise that in his warped analogy, he's arguing that segregated black and white spaces should be preserved, but a few select black people should be permitted into the white ones?

Yes, this is the glaring hole in the 'racism' argument.

So racial segregation laws were fine and dandy, but the problem was with how they classified people as black and white?

I mean, if the parallel worked, the obvious answer would be to remove all sex segregation everywhere. Not sure that's a popular choice... probably not even for the person making the argument

Tell him to go away and look up the words he is using as he is using them incorrectly.

Well someone's racist op but it's not you.

His insinuation that sharing a space with black women is somehow no different to sharing with men /males. As if black women confused confused definition of women so much the next logical.step is to let males have it, is highly racist.

Actually given that a large number of religious women who would be unable to share a space with males would he women of colour and different religious/cultural backgrounds, it would be exclude a significant number of these women from accessing their own spaces.

The whole ideology is racist in other countries its ok to fight fir single sex spaces so girls can attend school but apparent western men are different and must pee next to little girls to prove it 🤔

Ask him what he says abkut that

He is using that word because it silences you - nothing more, nothing less.

It’s exactly the same reason people use the word ‘transphobic’. It’s a means of silencing critics, because people don’t want to be transphobic. People don’t want to be racist.

Say it, and people will shut up.

Of course, ‘transphobic’ has long since lost any meaning. Everyone is transphobic these days, so it’s losing its effectiveness as a tool to silence people.

@Aliensrus

Hi *@BloodinGutters*, that’s interesting you mention asking open questions as Helen Joyce also recommended that when she did the Mumsnet Zoom chat. I can’t get my head around how it works though - I get overwhelmed with rage! Could you give an example? Although I appreciate that might be a tall order! Thank you

With school (they were ignoring dfe pshe guidance to not teach born in wrong body mantras, not to reinforce stereotypes, use factual biological and legal terms, teach from an evidence base etc, but claiming they were following it)

I asked for their definition of gender, they said girl or boy (after some hming & hawing)
I pointed out that’s sex. So what’s gender? So I looked up several dictionary definitions and the WHO explanation, all that refer to stereotypes. So how do you teach gender without reinforcing stereotypes?

So I asked their definition of gender identity, pansexual, asexual cisgender etc (bloody primary school!!)

And kept referring back to how do you teach that but not teach kids they are born in the wrong body (or whichever point it breeches).

I’d think other posters might have a better idea how to ask that with your situation, but I’d maybe think along the lines of playing ignorant and saying oh gosh you didn’t realise, how awful of you and can he explain more so you know better in future. Was he meaning women or men are the whites in his analogy. And which group (black or white) were responsible for 98% of sexual violence. Which group had to dress away from the other for religious reasons. Which group was physically weaker. That kind of thing. If that works maybe bring it back to being fine with tw/biological men in any and all public spaces, it’s just female toilets etc spaces that’s a problem. And just so he’s clear after apartheid was ended white women were completely fine with black men in their toilets right?

*any and all other public spaces

Sorry that wasn’t so clear

“So Mr Authority on Feminism, are you intimating that black women are somehow not women? Because that’s what you are saying” —you total dickwad—

I can’t get my head around anyone actually thinking it’s ok to have a person with a penis in a woman’s space, regardless of what that person views themselves as.

Right, well. I think it's pretty obvious who all the women need to avoid by this proclamation.

Ask him why, as a male, he gets to decide which rights you are meant to have, given the fact that those rights are meant to protect you, not him, and he will most never be directly affected by their erosion.

However, he knows full fucking well why those rights and safeguards are there, which makes me think that any man spouting that bullshit and has an interest in seeing women suffer.

Just to be clear about the sort of person we're dealing with, his response to sex based violence statistics was "statistics are irrelevant; why do you hate your trans sisters?"

Why do you hate your taste sisters?

Who does he think is attacking them