How far into this Refinery29 article can you get before you want to scream and start throwing things?

[AngeloMysterioso]

Whilst reading Victoria Smith’s excellent article shared in another thread I made the mistake of clicking through to a separate article written by Janet Starling for Refinery 29 last week.

And now I’m full of rage.

“Why Trans Women Belong In Women’s Spaces“

Well, the title is already threatening to push me over the edge, tbh.

Okay, I lasted til the beginning of the third para. I'm out, sorry.

Even skip reading that pile of virtue signalling cliches I couldn't stick it for more than 20 seconds.. Stifled by smug.

The start of the second paragraph
“Yet women’s spaces are currently at the centre of a frenzied moral panic targeting trans people.”

Frenzied moral panic? Frenzied? How frenzied?

Although the opening sentence should have been warning enough.
”I love women’s spaces.”

AS usual, the elephant in the room is TWAW.If that were actually true then the article makes a lot more sense. Unfortunately, since TW are not women, the article is the usual mess of total fucking bollocks masquerading as reasoned argument.

I stopped at the headline. I'm not giving them my clicks or wasting my emotional energy.

Irritating from the beginning; this is what finally got to me:

"But being victims in the past doesn’t mean we’re perpetually innocent and we all need to be mindful of the painful truth that we can be hurt in the past and go on to hurt others."

Contextually, it's saying "rape survivors, don't hurt the poor transwomen's feelings by saying you don't want them in women's spaces!" It's implying an actually sickening false moral equivalence.

It's a horrible article. She's not a nice person.

I really can't stand the faux ingenuous tone these people, pretending to care about abused women but gaslighting them, take, while sneering at their trauma.

I like to imagine the way conversations would go if a female-only group were forced to be available.

Brainwashed counselor: We have a couple of groups available. I’m legally obligated to tell you about both, but really, one is a much better option. I recommend our Tuesday night group. It’s a wonderful group, inclusive of all women, and we all work really hard to provide a supportive and non-judgmental space for women of all appearances and identities, no matter how they present. It’s such an important experience for survivors to get the opportunity to really learn and challenge themselves in this space. Shall I go ahead and sign you up for it?

Woman: Sure…I guess…um, just, what are the other groups? You said there were a couple.

BC: oh, no I HIGHLY recommend the Tuesday group. It really pushes cis women to think about their assumptions of womanhood and I think it’s so helpful for healing, don’t you agree? We don’t want our clients to get stuck in their trauma or to learn to weaponize it.

Woman: Ok, I don’t know what any of that means, but what’s the other group? Is there something wrong with it?

BC: Well, there’s this little group…first of all it’s at a very inaccessible time, it’s at 10pm on a Friday night. And we weren’t able to find a room for it, so the meeting space is quite uncomfortable. And the counsellor who volunteered to run it has some…suspect views. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Woman: why not?

BC: It’s not very kind, you know. We were ordered to provide it but we really try to steer our clients away from it. I don’t think gatekeeping womanhood is a productive part of healing, do you? The vast majority of women as studies show, fully support human rights for all women.

Woman: I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Why can’t I go to this group? What’s the problem?

BC: Well, it’s a group of exclusionary mostly white cis women who really refuse to heal from their trauma without inciting moral panics against a very vulnerable population who actually suffers more violence. The group inclusive of all women is much better. You’re not transphobic are you? We believe Trans women are women, no arguments.

Woman: so the Friday night group is women only?

BC: TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN!

Woman: I think I’d feel more comfortable in the Friday group, actually. Thank you.

BC (to self): that’s the 50th woman to sign up to the Friday group, and only 3 are in the Tuesday group. Why can’t victims educate themselves?

100% that's how it would go. Brilliant post, Misstache!

"The argument around women’s spaces goes as follows: if [the word woman is highjacked to be a set of standards, which a person may or may not live up to rather than a simple assertion of the type of biology you're working with. If men or women can decide for themselves what these standards are and decide for themselves whether they live upto these standards without anyone having any right to challenge or doubt their sincerity regardless of their previous behaviour or actions, then there are no such thing as] women’s spaces and the women within them (read: cisgender women, [transmen, afab nbs, gc women who reject such classifications and simply women unfamiliar with this ideology]) will [lose access to this valuable resource and] be vulnerable to violation by [any male bodied person who wishes to enter. Many women note that] sexual predators, [who are overwhelmingly male, have considerable form not just for ignoring women's boundaries but for genuinely enjoying the fact that they are disrespecting boundaries and making women and girls feel unsafe and uncomfortable. They also, as a group, have considerable form in taking enormous efforts to cultivate a position of power and authority which gives them the access they crave to their preferred victims and the social standing to get away with it if an assault is reported. It seems excessively naïve to imagine that if a new position is created which would allow them to bypass safeguarding policies and current laws on voyeurism sexual predators will not take advantage of it.] This claim simply doesn’t stand up, legally or logically."

/fixed that (paragraph) for you

Completely agree Ereshkigallangcleg & thank you Misstache, for finding humour where I could not. No doubt the sign telling you what room such a meeting was in would be in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in the basement of the council building behind a door marked beware of the tiger (apologies to Douglas Adams but I believe he'd understand)

No one is arguing that trans women shouldn’t get access to rape support services or counselling. All we are asking is to have a female only service (which is permissible under the equality act), because we recognise that trans women are male. There can be a female only group , a trans group, and a mixed group. Why must everything be centred around trans women at all times ? Why must we play this stupid game pretending they are exactly the same as us (and if thats the case, what makes them trans?) Women have to wake up and realise that there is no boundary they can put up that won’t be crossed. The very act of saying no is seen as transphobic.

I got a bit edgy at moral panic but lost it at black mugger.

I thought of Dave Chappelle and how he objects to black people being drawn into these arguments.

The piece makes all kinds of assertions, beginning with the one that the correct way to define 'woman' in the context of rape crisis centres is by some abstract inner fee fees, which means that anyone can enter that space as there is no way of challenging someone who states that they identify as a woman.

So biological sex as a basis for defining 'woman' is out of the door, even though almost all sexual violence is perpetrated by some minority of people of the male sex on a fairly clear majority of people of the female sex.

The second assertion is that transgender people experience a disproportionate amount of gender-based violence. This may or may not be true, or it might be true for trans men and not for trans women or vice versa.

But where we do have fairly clear statistical evidence on extreme violence perpetrated against various demographic groups (homicide), we find that in the UK and in the US, at least, transgender people are not at higher risk of being killed than other demographic groups.

Because we have been repeatedly told that they are at higher risk, I can't just accept statements about levels of gender-based violence against transgender people without some third party verification (police reports, say). This is a sad state of affairs.

Then there are those nasty references to the suit against a rape crisis centre. The author fails to mention that that centre offers several support groups, including one for LGBT+ people, and also refers to the unrelated Alison Bailey case, presumably to scold feminists who spent so much money on her defense rather than whatever problems she/he/they regard as more important.

Refinery29 had an earlier article which was even worse, on the same topic, where survivors of sexual assault were admonished for not being inclusive enough to trans women. So their stance on this matter is fairly clear.

I am so sick of being told that, just because I happen to believe in biology, I'm transphobic just because I want single sex spaces to mean exactly that.

I am not transphobic!

I am however a rape victim and I'll be fucked if I'm going to reframe my trauma or any of the other bollocks language to ensure that I don't hurt the man's feelings!

Just no. I said FUCKING NO!

I haven't even clicked on the link yet and I'm already pissed off

Paragraph 7. But my eyebrows were in my hair from paragraph 1.

Uurrggh. Domestic violence support groups … joy? Ggrrrr, fuck off.