Helen Joyce "we should stop saying 'trans'"

[ChopinBoard]

Helen Joyce is on absolutely top form, and seems to have zero shits left to give:

"We should stop saying 'trans', we should start saying 'male'".

I'm inclined to agree: our position is much easier to understand if we stop using language which obfuscates the problem.

Buy her book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, if you haven't already

Well that high speed deletion proved the point nicely

@patsyhensit

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

While I appreciate how appropriate that word is, it's not the terminology that I was referring to. DalarnaHorses, I have DMd you.

That was fast!

What a good job they're doing.

What's this game? Guess the Banned Word?

Is it cheese mites?

Whoops! Just spotted my typo in the post about prefixes. My apologies to black women.

Lets not waste this precious space using banned words. It does not much matter which one it is - the point is we do need to take charge of the language around this, and stop empowering certain groups by being cowered into using their language to suit their agendas which are very harmful to most of us.

I was reading some trans-Twitter threads last night. Funnily enough, they were discussing what they should call terfs when some terfs are not actually feminist and so on.

It was interesting in a slightly horrible way. I learned, for instance, that 'gender critical' feminists want all women to be pregnant, barefoot, and in the kitchen, that they support outdated sex roles, and that they want to kill all transgender and non-binary people. Also, gender critical feminists are fascists and Nazis and bigots, of course.

So who gets to name whom? And who gets to un-name whom? The language in this area is now almost impossibly fuzzy so that debating issues (if it is ever allowed) is like trying to pin the tail on the donkey.

@JellySaurus can you DM me too please?

@Swayingpalmtrees

Lets not waste this precious space using banned words. It does not much matter which one it is - the point is we do need to take charge of the language around this, and stop empowering certain groups by being cowered into using their language to suit their agendas which are very harmful to most of us.

But that is exactly what is being enforced upon us. If we want to use this platform to discuss women's rights, we are obliged to use their language to suit their agendas.

I completely agree with not using the word trans but I think it's also well past time to completely separate LGB from TQ+ whatever comes next because they are NOT the same thing.

So, personally from now on I will discuss LGB issues & TQ+ matters as the separate groups they always have been which are completely different & have nothing to do with each other.

None of the so called 'trans' issues seem at all relevant specifically to LGB people & they seem to have been dragged into it in the same way intersex people have been.

ALL the language needs to be clear, not just who is a man & who is a woman.

Thanks @Jellysaurus, seems accurate 🤷‍♀️

I would like to see LGB with it's history and campaigning protected.
Obviously groups can be sympathetic towards other groups but it's unfair on tiny minorities to force them to join a bigger group and big groups to absorb every special interest group.

the problem is if we call them male online we tend to get banned and that policing of language seeps into life, with a fear of repercussions if we state the obvious.

its that monkey brain thing again, the monkey brain doesnt understand the difference between online and off, it understands fear and will maintain that conditioning in an increasing number of places depending on exposure to the fear, its a self imposed social conditioning, subconsciously so.

I've started saying men who say they are women instead of using transwomen. Yes it is longer but I'm not on Twitter so I don't need to conserve my words?
Mr Menno inspired me by saying always put the word man at the beginning.

So who gets to name whom? And who gets to un-name whom?

Mary Daly: Women have had the power of naming stolen from us.

Grayson Perry makes my skin crawl. Absolutely repellent.

Agree, the prefix 'trans' is confusing and misleading. Despite all the recent coverage in the press, I'm sure that many people hearing someone described as a 'trans woman' think of a person who has undergone surgery/hormone treatment etc and wants nothing more than to blend in amongst women. However today's reality is in many cases a fully intact male, who may or may not wear female clothes, and may have ulterior motives in accessing women's spaces.

Maybe Tory MP Jamie Wallis 'coming out as transgender' but (for now at least) remaining he/him will open a few peoples eyes. Will be interesting to see how that evolves - is he just saying he's 'transgender' with no further detail what that's supposed to mean? Afaik he's not trying to say he's any sort of woman at thins point is he?

@ErrolTheDragon

Maybe Tory MP Jamie Wallis 'coming out as transgender' but (for now at least) remaining he/him will open a few peoples eyes. Will be interesting to see how that evolves - is he just saying he's 'transgender' with no further detail what that's supposed to mean? Afaik he's not trying to say he's any sort of woman at thins point is he?

Does anybody, ever so slightly, wonder if this might be a useful marker for him to have put down in advance of any possible legal proceedings (on whatever basis) in the future?

It's certainly a useful context for anyone in the constituency who no longer wants Wallis as an MP but is now worried about the optics of voting out Britain's first openly transgender (meaning tbd) MP.

She is right. It's much easier to make a point about single sex spaces if you don't bring 'trans' into it.

The purpose of single sex spaces is to achieve the legitimate aim of keeping females safe from males.

If any male enters a female space it is no longer single sex it is mixed sex.

Trans status is irrelevant, people are asked to respect the laws on this to meet this legitimate aim.

@irishfeminist

I refuse to use the word transwoman because it's conceding ground that should never have been conceded in the first place. Helen is right.

My position too, but I say it now because I want to be clear that I'm talking about men who think they are women- as opposed to other blokes.

The woman suffix should really be dropped, it's partly enabled this nonsense to continue. ('Trans is an adjective like short, old...')

When I've listened to actual people who have had SRS they are happy to use the word "transsexual", not "transgender".

Transsexual was very clear what it meant, transgender is deliberately ambiguous, much like the term "queer" which is now used by a lot of heterosexual people to describe themselves.

@ginghamstarfish

Agree, the prefix 'trans' is confusing and misleading. Despite all the recent coverage in the press, I'm sure that many people hearing someone described as a 'trans woman' think of a person who has undergone surgery/hormone treatment etc and wants nothing more than to blend in amongst women. However today's reality is in many cases a fully intact male, who may or may not wear female clothes, and may have ulterior motives in accessing women's spaces.

it wouldnt be if used correctly, i.e a trans male would be a transitioning male, (transwoman) a trans female would be a transman.

if we boiled it down to facts, they claim in whatever way to be transitioning and they are this sex, it would make things so much easier and be excellent simple english.

@BootsAndRoots

When I've listened to actual people who have had SRS they are happy to use the word "transsexual", not "transgender".

Transsexual was very clear what it meant, transgender is deliberately ambiguous, much like the term "queer" which is now used by a lot of heterosexual people to describe themselves.

but its disingenuous because it relates to sex and you cant change sex.