Women's rights general conversations - Thread 5

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 4.

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

No, it was someone that I would have expected better from.

My expectations of head wear are low enough that I wouldn't find lies surprising.

But isn't there some muddying of the waters here? I've said before (and been criticised for it) that formerly, gender was sometimes used as a synonym for sex (as in "what gender are you, male or female?"), on official forms, for example.

BUT... as soon as you start taking abut "the modern meaning of gender", well, that's a different thing altogether.

@DeanVolecapeAKAelderberry - did you correct them or did you conclude that they wouldn't believe you anyway?

That is very recent - deriving from Judith Butler and that creepy NZ bloke's work, so mid 1970s at the earliest and always linked to the recent political usage.

@Britinme, I haven't posted there since the episode when the weirdo from that site came here and screen-shotted one of my posts from here back to there.

It's so deranged that it's hard to believe anyone would do such a thing, but they did - and it made me feel that no-one on the site could be trusted to behave with common decency - none of them apologised. I shouldn't be surprised by the lies.

If I'd never heard Tracy Chapman's version I'd think Luke's was good.

Then it definitely wasn't the one I heard the other day. That was some sort of vaguely ravey hideousness.

the version i listened to sounded like him doing the karaoke version of Tracys

Rather gloriously, back in the old place, I got told to fuck off, accused of narcissim, told that I was being precious and demanding a special kind of silence so that my views would be heard, and various other things, all in the space of about 40 posts.

My crime was suggesting (yes, quite swearily) that the dick-swinging on the thread was getting out of proportion. This was my favourite bit:

"If only it was somehow possible for what few gender critical women that remain to post on this thread …

We did the 24 hours of male silence thing awhile back, to no avail - I think you may have to accept that discussions just happen and “be the change you wish to see in the thread”, yourself."

Pointing out that I am one of those GC women and had just been told to fuck off - not the point, somehow, apparently.

I found out yesterday that Mae Martin has had "top surgery" or what should be called a full mastectomy because my god I hate the terms "top surgery" and "bottom surgery" as though they aren't life-altering, painful, non-medically necessary and all the "bottom surgeries" can cause a long life of medication and more surgical procedures. Anyway! She seems happy about it and fair play and all that but seeing a topless photo of her made me really sad. I hate what our society has become.

It's awful. What are the chances of those people proudly showing their scars, being absolutely horrified and desolate about it in ten, twenty years time?

Hah, being at a loose end a few days ago, I popped back to have a brief read at the old place. I got a general flavour of mendacity and bullying, but, you know, Pious mendacity and Righteous bullying of Unbelievers. Which of course makes it not just acceptable but necessary and praiseworthy. It was sort of horrifically fascinating, like a Choral Gish Gallop

(For those who don't know what I mean about the old place, imagine some of our favourite TRAs who pop up on FWR and constantly lie, twist, obfuscate, DARVO. Then imagine lots of them, against only a minority of non-gender-religionists.)

I'm currently engaged in a discussion on another forum with one of those, a man who really doesn't see why women should be concerned and that a GRC makes everything OK because anybody who invades female spaces without one can of course be reported to the police who will immediately investigate...

You make us sound like loons for ever having been there, Kuc! There were plenty of good bits, and plenty (still) of good people. But personally, I don't feel like posting there now, although I look in occasionally.

I agree, there are excellent people that I miss hugely.

But I started to feel more and more uncomfortable about posting there, knowing that (a) I was apparently causing appalling distress to the Righteous by not fully adhering to the Good Beliefs Bundle, (b) I could damn well see the mendacity, obfuscation and twisting that some of the Righteous were doing and they damn well knew they were doing it, and (c) yet elsewhere on the board everybody was all hypocritically pretending we were all happy-clappy together and the Righteous didn't think I was a Nazi-adjacent baby-killer and I didn't think they were Pious Frauds 🤷🏻‍♀️

Really, it should have been obvious to all of us that we were in a metastable situation!

The timing of the Great Threatening of Closure was amazingly coincidental, as I'd been thinking I would quietly and gradually leave there anyway.

Can't say she looked especially happy in the picture I saw. Best I could say is that at least she didn't look unwell like Elliott Page does in most pictures.

I went on to read an interview where she seemed okay about it. Not fizzing with "it's the best thing I've ever done!" but happy enough with her life. Maybe because she's opted for non binary (a total bollocks of an identity because if, as we're told so often, sex isn't binary then we must all be non binary, but anyway!) and isn't trying to be something - a man - that she can never be. I was aware that she was probably identifying as non binary from her appearance on Taskmaster where she was referred to as "they" which I chose to be all "la la la, I'm not listening" about because I love her and wanted to pretend she wasn't an eejit, but there's no escaping the full extent of it now.

Why do non binary women remove their breasts? Actually, no. Maybe I understand that a bit because sometimes I've imagined what it would be like to be unincombured by mine because they annoy me. So, from a totally binary terf way, maybe I almost get it. I'm sure if I told a radical TRA that they'd hold out their arms to accept me as "One of us, one of us." Nope! No thank you freakish cult member!

I've always been rather fond of mine.

Hah, being at a loose end a few days ago, I popped back to have a brief read at the old place.

I rejoined recently to contact some people I was missing, I did briefly venture to the women's thread, it's now just men rambling on and on and on talking absolute nonsense. The parent who transed his son definitely falls into the description by Helen Joyce of someone who must insist they did the right thing no matter what, because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.

I was always shocked at the fawning he got on there.

Kucinghitam · Yesterday 23:01

I agree, there are excellent people that I miss hugely.

Likewise and I miss some of the humorous and news ones. But I haven't been tempted back so far...

@MouseMinge Why do non binary women remove their breasts?

I wonder if (as always!) it's all about the male gaze and men's perceptions of female sexual attractiveness. Women trying to identify out of being men's sexual objects punish their own bodies by cutting off the things that attract the male gaze. Men indulging their personal fantasies of being womanly sexual objects reward themselves with the things that attract themselves i.e. BOOBS.

Haven't been back to the old place since we got kicked out, not even to look. All that is said sounds drearily familiar and I'm glad I'm not there anymore.

Yesterday I went on my first actual women's meet-up and it was brilliant. It was with the Women's Rights Network and we met in a cafe which was closed to the general public. I'd been expecting there to be only four of us, but 12 showed up, plus four dogs. There was cake and prosecco and everyone seemed to talking at the same time, so very intense and LOUD. Every now and then I'd glance up and see a woman smiling at me with a genuine, warm smile. It was lovely and extremely cheerful. We all said of it, 'Finally I now know a few women locally who think the same as me and it feels so good'.

Oh that sounds fun, Tric! With added dogs!

It was fun and the dogs were an unexpected bonus!

Fabulous, @Tricyrtis2022 !