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...

Trans sisters.

Greasy hands sorry

My trans sisters are transmen. I dont hate them.
In fact I don't hate transwomen either its just as a feminist my energy and efforts go in to supporting and promoting females not males.

That would be my answer.

@GCFeminist

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?"

Is he straight? Ask if he’d suck a tw dick (90-95% retain their penis).

@BloodinGutters He's an extremely misogynistic gay man. (Ex) friend of a friend

[quote GCFeminist]@BloodinGutters He's an extremely misogynistic gay man. (Ex) friend of a friend[/quote]
Ok, ask if he’d go down on a transman’s vagina.

Racist 🙄
He's a fool.

I'd also be very interested to know how many transmen's male vaginas he's been intimate with.

Add to the above that LOJ mum says women with dildos is the same as doing cock (and as she’s mother of a gay son she must know) so he had better be willing to let a tm with a strap on do him or he’s transphobic.

@WinterTrees

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.

This.

We segregate by sex in certain situations for very specific reasons, and no one seemed to have a problem with it until some males decided they wanted to use spaces exclusively for females. Then suddenly, this sort of segregation is just like racial segregation?

Also, how racist do you have to be to equate black women with males, rather than equating them with, um....women.

He's confusing segregation and separatism.

Segregation is when a powerful group (i.e. white South Africans during apartheid) force the group they oppress (i.e. black South Africans) out of spaces, jobs, services etc.

Separatism is when an oppressed class groups together for support, political action, safety etc. They may choose to exclude members of the oppressor class for all or some activities.

It seems to me to be obvious that women who choose female only spaces for some purposes fall into the separatist category because they are the oppressed class compared to men.

I think TRA logic, however, is that TW are the most oppressed ever, and are not men, and so women become the powerful group who are acting like white South Africans during apartheid. Or something.

Any movement that, in order to justify itself, needs to leech off the suffering of a wholly separate group, who have lived though a wholly different set of circumstances and events, and who have suffered in wholly different ways, doesn't stand up to scrutiny and therefore has no merits. One would have thought that suffering of the so called most marginalised people in modern history would have evidence enough of its own, to stand up to all scrutiny and dissension. The fact that is doesn't tells you everything. I am the brown child of immigrants from a colonised country that went through hell, and it infuriates me that TRAs compare their so called "plight" - the "plight" of mostly white, mostly middle class, mostly male born westerners living in the 21st Century, i.e., the most privileged people in the history of human civilisation - to that of my parents and their ancestors. Tell this man, from this brown woman, to fuck right off.

Is he white? I ask because that means he’s a white man redefining racism. So white men get to experience racism by being unwanted in women’s toilets and changing rooms? That’s nice for them. Not really helping anyone actually facing racism mind.

What a creep. Acknowledge his point that the risks women face are irrelevant to HIM and point out they are still relevant to you. Tell him you understand that he hates women but he has to stay rational and he can’t substitute misogyny for arguments.

You can’t argue with stupid.
I’d block and move on.

These TRAs are the biggest racists. They're the ones who make arguments such as "Just as there are black women, there are trans women." Um, nooooooo. These are the people who think it is racist to ban Caster Semenya from racing against females just because Semenya has XY genes, internal testes, and a healthy male body. They will write Twitter posts saying that banning Semenya is discriminatory against African athletes in women's sports. They don't seem to have any conception of the idea that actual African female athletes are just as female as females of any other race and are equally as affected by having a male like Semenya running in a race.

@Heidi1982 I was just coming here to link to the Cátia Freitas thread in response to Billy Bragg on that very point.
twitter.com/Mocha_Soul/status/1458930535133327363

I’d just shut it down hard. We are far too polite about this.

I would tell him there’s only one sort of man who advocates for the removal of safeguarding for women and children. I’d insinuate he’s a nonce and his hard drive probably needs checking.

If, as we suspect, he's a white male, how exactly does he get to be the definer of terms like misogyny and racism and - heaven help us - even statistics? Is he a statistician
or even a mathematician?

@Blackopal

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.

I'm a woman of colour. He's an offensive and bullying gaslighting idiot. He, like all of these virtue spewing misogynists, will be TWAW in the streets but 100% GC in the sheets. He doesn't care about trans people, he only cares about bullying women.

@MarbleQueen

I’d just shut it down hard. We are far too polite about this.

I would tell him there’s only one sort of man who advocates for the removal of safeguarding for women and children. I’d insinuate he’s a nonce and his hard drive probably needs checking.

I second this. Any man who advocates for the breakdown of safeguarding is dodgy af.

Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. The pigeon will knock over the pieces, defecate on the board, and strut around as if it won.

He doesn't have a valid argument so he's opted for an ad hominem attack.

Acting on racist and sexist beliefs directly attacks inclusion and widening participation.

It’s massively racist and misogynistic to advocate that vulnerable or disadvantaged women (a group which may include women of colour disproportionately) should become unable to use public, private or corporate spaces, places, facilities, schools, colleges, workplaces, opportunities, different settings of all kinds outside the home. Which women all need equal access to.

Women will of course also have no choice but to use some other settings.. like hospital wards, women’s shelters and women’s prisons, despite them having been turned mixed sex in order to validate men’s feelings. Which is an action that we all know increases risk of harm to women. Which is partly why we had protected spaces for women in the first place.

Again, the burdens already placed on women of colour by society are only being exacerbated by these authoritarian, racist and sexist luxury beliefs that validating men’s self image must come at the top of every list. We’re expected to just ignore the harms that carrying these views out will directly cause to others, especially less privileged women in society.

@Heidi1982

He's confusing segregation and separatism.

Segregation is when a powerful group (i.e. white South Africans during apartheid) force the group they oppress (i.e. black South Africans) out of spaces, jobs, services etc.

Separatism is when an oppressed class groups together for support, political action, safety etc. They may choose to exclude members of the oppressor class for all or some activities.

It seems to me to be obvious that women who choose female only spaces for some purposes fall into the separatist category because they are the oppressed class compared to men.

I think TRA logic, however, is that TW are the most oppressed ever, and are not men, and so women become the powerful group who are acting like white South Africans during apartheid. Or something.

Thank-you that explanation is very helpful

@DdraigGoch

Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. The pigeon will knock over the pieces, defecate on the board, and strut around as if it won.

Loved this post. So visual. I might steal your analogy as it is perfect way to describe trying to argue against stupidity.

@TedImgoingmad

Any movement that, in order to justify itself, needs to leech off the suffering of a wholly separate group, who have lived though a wholly different set of circumstances and events, and who have suffered in wholly different ways, doesn't stand up to scrutiny and therefore has no merits. One would have thought that suffering of the so called most marginalised people in modern history would have evidence enough of its own, to stand up to all scrutiny and dissension. The fact that is doesn't tells you everything. I am the brown child of immigrants from a colonised country that went through hell, and it infuriates me that TRAs compare their so called "plight" - the "plight" of mostly white, mostly middle class, mostly male born westerners living in the 21st Century, i.e., the most privileged people in the history of human civilisation - to that of my parents and their ancestors. Tell this man, from this brown woman, to fuck right off.

This.

MLK never said during his 'I have a dream' speech: "Also you better start f**king us or we’ll never be liberated".

Or: "You’d better start saying white men can become black females, or black folk ain’t never get liberated"

The analogy itself is racist. Black folk were racially segregated because white folks of that era didn't regard Black MEN and WOMEN as human. Segregation of the sexes acknowledges us ALL as human, it basically says biological MALES (of all races) do not fulfil the necessary and essential criteria to utilise a female only space. Totally different things.