Midwife and trans issues

[MarkWithaC]

Zoe Williams piece in Thursday’s Guardian. Seems to me like a fairly tenuous link being made between ‘anti-trans’ groups and anti-abortion groups. Also, can anyone understand what the stuff about trans men coming for abortions means/what point is being made, because I’m struggling.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/14/juno-carey-midwife-abortions-terminations-rape-survivors-sex-workers

It's bollocks. Does that help

The Transmen going for an abortion is easy to explain, they have a woman's body, capable of carry a baby to term, so had intercause with a male body...
A Rose by any other name ..... falls to mind.

Calling the Keira Bell v The Tavistock case 'anti trans' confirms everything we already knew about the Guardian.

That, and shoehorning in a nonsensical link between right wing anti-abortionists and 'anti trans' activists shows their true colours.

Does the midwife who wonders why she doesn't see loads of transmen asking for abortions also wonder why she doesn't see loads of lesbians.

Link seems to be the same lawyer has been involved in the Kiera Bell case and a supposed anti-abortion case. Trying to bring the purity spiral into legal chambers, good luck with that. By my reading, the 3 trans men she has seen all presented as women because they did not feel they could be their authentic selves when accessing her services ... given all the wording has been changed to address just this situation, it doesn't appear to be working, yet happily they knew how to get the service they needed for their female bodies.

Yep.

Pandering after US $$$$ and not giving a shit about journalism.

I agree the link is totally tenuous, but there are a number of disparate groups that share a criticism of gender ideology. Fundamentalist Christians in the US are "anti-trans" because it undermines their preference for fixed gender roles.

This isn't the reason that gender critical people dislike gender, because they instead want to remove as much of the arbitrary societal baggage that follows from being a woman or a man.

For the Christian fundamentalists it's not just a religious motivation. Other religions prefer transition as a homophobic solution to same-sex relationships.

Zoe Williams would do better to understand the arguments being made, rather than parroting nonsense.

Ingenieur · Today 10:04

Zoe Williams would do better to understand the arguments being made, rather than parroting nonsense.

I think the Heat Death of the Universe will predate that.

That's actually such a cruel thing to say. Keira Bell was trans identified and the case was fighting for recognition of the harms done to her as a child and arguing for this group to receive appropriate care. Williams is basically saying Keira Bell was anti herself. Cold.

Some of this article is interesting - the sex trafficking paragraph, for example.

However...
"While the issues are different, there is a massive – and new – crossover between anti-abortion and anti-trans activism, a lot of it funded by the same rightwing cadres. This is particularly pronounced in the US, but you can see the same issues being linked in the UK, with the lawyer Paul Conrathe bringing an anti-trans test case one year (Keira Bell v the Tavistock) and an anti-abortion test case the next."

Zoe is reeeeally reaching to evidence this "massive and new crossover" in the UK.
Reference to one lawyer who worked on the two cited cases, the first of which was NOT anti-trans and the other NOT anti-abortion per se (far more complex).
The same old right-wing association.
The inability to realise that the UK is not the US.

You're not wrong

The trans bit didn't need to be in that article.

Also, If transmen are identifying as women when they go for an abortion I would wager that's because they accept the fact they are a woman, given that they are pregnant, and that trying to pretend you are a man whilst accessing abortion advice would be bloody stupid.

@MarkWithaC Also, can anyone understand what the stuff about trans men coming for abortions means/what point is being made, because I’m struggling.

I suspect this is a conflation of a number of things.

As a nurse the author is seeing very few transmen coming for an abortion she is making an assumption that transmen are choosing to present as women if they need an abortion. Implying transmen do not believe they will get treated equally to women if they want an abortion.

I suspect the reality is the actually small number (1% or less) of trans men and non-binary females in the population. Combined with the potentially high % of this group who are same sex attracted and so don’t become accidentally pregnant in the same % as heterosexual women.

i read that in (prof) Brian Cox's voice (in my head). 😀

The Problem with loads of disparate groups being "anti trans"* is that people often jump to the conclusion that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" so get a bit of a shock when they either find out that a group they have stood alongside on one issue, are their absolute arch-enemy on another. Or the people supporting the issue that you and your non-friends-but-common-"enemy" see you all as one indistinguishable lump rather than what you are, a load of disparate groups with one common cause. They don't see complicated intersecting venn diagrams, they just see "wah! they're obvs all nazis"

I am not anti-trans. I am pro-woman. I don't pay much mind to trans issues outside of where they affect me and women adversely. I am anti people discriminating against trans people just because of that one feature of their lives (so not getting jobs etc) if all other things are equal.

It is all too nuanced and complicated for the hard-of-thinking like Zoe Williams.

I really do think the author and Zoe Williams are conflating the US culture with UK.

The vast majority of GC women in the UK are not Christian fundamentalists. They support a woman’s right to choose, day to day they are happy for transpeople to live their lives but want transwomen (men) to keep out of single sex female spaces.

Sorry OP but you just need to assume anything Zoe Williams writes will be rubbish, she's very hard of thinking. I never read her articles any more.

I'm assuming she has family connections that keep her in that job as it sure isn't talent, ability to construct an argument or present any credible evidence for what she's saying.

When you think the Guardian once had Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman writing for them....

Zoe Williams has chosen trans as her hill to die on. She will shoe horn it into as many articles as she can. There is literally no bad faith position she won’t take on GC feminism. Her immense privilege and barnstorming lack of self awareness are breathtaking. She is the very definition of a patriarchy quisling

Yes, it's funny, you'd think as someone with a scientific grounding she'd have more of a grasp of statistics. She says it 'seems statistically unlikely' that she's seen 'maybe three trans people over thousands of women', but that doesn't sound too wrong to me.

Thanks, everyone. As ever on these threads, you've all helped focus and clarify my thinking.
I do know I shouldn't read Zoe W, but (naively, I now see) I didn't really think I'd find badly understood/researched rubbish about trans issues in this article!

i would also expect to see fewer trans men for lots of reasons. I think quite a few are into women so less chance of pregnancy. Some, of course, have had radical surgery and can't get pegnant. Some are very very careful with contraception because they don't want to have to face the consequences of being a pregnant man (dysphoria - of course they want to avoid just about the most female thing you can do) etc etc.

I don't really understand why the immediate thought there is that they must be presenting as women for an abortion. it makes no sense, although of course it may also be possible in some/many cases.

I've not read the article, I want to preserve the few wrinkles my brain has left, and ianal but in the extract copied upthread i think it's arguable that the Guardian libelled Paul Conrathe.

It's a polarisation strategy. They will label GC people as right wing and by association anti-abortion. Obviously (at least imho), neither should be politicised

Brefugee · Today 10:38

The Problem with loads of disparate groups being "anti trans"* is that people often jump to the conclusion that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" so get a bit of a shock when they either find out that a group they have stood alongside on one issue, are their absolute arch-enemy on another.

Yes, an extreme example would be Obama's Government arming the group which became ISIS.

It's the new #nodebate - they lost that one, so now they're trying to paint all GC as far right 🙄

Yes, come on, let's hie us all down to Westboro Baptist Church! It's where we all belong!

Yes, this ad hominem attack is just the latest in a long line of logical fallacies relied upon by the TRAs