The latest fallouts in GC world

[Pluvia]

My terfing energy has been focussed elsewhere in recent months and I haven't been here or on TwiX or social media much. Now I've taken responsibility for tweeting/ comms on behalf of a small but potentially significant LGB group and I discover that there seems to be something going on — another schism — in GC world. Jane Clare Jones's name seems to be coming up a lot. Something seems to have gone on but I can't work out what.

If it was my own account I'd just ignore, but the followers of this account are bringing it up and seem to expect an opinion to be expressed or a side to be taken. Also I'm seeing a lot about 'ultras' and 'lites', which is new to me. Can anyone enlighten me? I need to tread carefully.

I think it is a lost art eyeball.

From memory, the JCJ tweet quoted up thread made a distinction between “original GCs” and “GC ultras”.

JCJ deployed “ultras” to ensure that her in-group followers know that she’s having a not-so-veiled swipe at KJK. Possibly in the hope / expectation of prompting a pile-on whilst maintaining plausible deniability.

Such use of “ultras” would seem to fit the definition of “dog whistle”. Ironic really, given how keen the groups she seems to approve of are to “call out” dog whistles.

Yes. I always revisit these sorts of statements whenever she or others make them. I always thought it was a healthy thing.

And she is by nature a disruptor.

Hence probably why many agree with some things and not other things she says. But there are some who wish to over amplify that partial agreement to present it as tribal and make ridiculous comments about ‘worship’ etc.

Would Pedersen describe it as a subaltern counter-public?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4478528-theyve-got-an-absolute-army-behind-them-womens-cooperative-constellation-in-Scotland

Strewth.

I've just been thinking about this.

And I was wondering, hypothetically, if there was a make up department staffed entirely or mostly by women, and another one by men, which one would I choose?

My reaction was
Head: no, of course men should be allowed to staff make-up counters.
Heart: I woud prefer a woman

Heart and head still discussing this several hours after reading the post!

But isn't the point about the man's presentation?

I don't particularly have an issue with a man selling make up in the same way I don't have an issue with a man being a hairdresser.

If it is a Malaga man then I'm not sure I want to be part of the fetish.

What I'm not keen on is the implication that JCJ thinks that women are wrong to feel this way. I disagree. It is the behaviour of men that is causing this. This places too much blame on women.

Wouldn’t that work for any service?

I was having much the same mental tussle about male vs female obs and gynae doctors the other day, ellen

https://www.thecut.com/2014/09/10-men-explain-why-they-became-gynecologists.html

Some of those men sound reasonable. And one or two sound like creeps.

I think the make-up counter thing is silly. Some of the greatest make-up artists, and hairdressers, have been men.

I am sure there have always been some women who deliberately go to women for these kinds of things, which is fine. KJK can take that approach and IMO she's wasting her energy being bothered about it.

That being said, to me the underlying issue is around the fact the fellow she encountered seemed to be a cross dresser. My hairdresser, who also does make e up (and would die if he saw I'd called him a "hairdresser I realize as I write,) is a very obviously gay man. On the other hand there is a trans woman who works at a make-up counter in the mall nearby, and I'd be less inclined to go to him - because I don't know if he's a gay man, or getting his rocks off by cross dressing.

In truth, men don't do themselves up as women in a commitment to gender neutrality. Apart from transvestites and gay men with self-acceptance issues, there are some men who will push boundaries and fashion to be edgy but they typically look like men wearing unconventional clothes, or men wearing masculine makeup, they don't look like they are trying to look like women. (I don't count kilts, sarongs and the like, they have always been men's clothing.Nor do I count actors, comics, or Halloween. )

In my experience it is not at all hard to tell the difference between a man wearing make up, or a man wearing an unusual item of clothing, and a man dressed as a woman. But I agree with KJK in so far as I don't really want my make-up done by a cross-dresser.

Yes. I don’t think this can be dismissed as easily as some people want it to be. Because of the fetish side of it.

If it was just a male person with an interest in make up? Selling, and only touching faces if women know this is a male person and agree.

If this is part of a fetish? That is a no from me.

I have no issue with a male selling me makeup in the same way I would have no issue with a woman doing a typically male job like plumbing… I would much prefer a woman to come in and fix my tap whilst I was home alone than a man. This is because my natural instinct in most situations whilst I am alone with an unknown male is caution. It is discriminatory to say men should not sell typically female things to me, should a male shop worker not be able to sell me tampons? Having said all that a male that uses female accoutrements to present as a woman and gain sexual pleasure/arousal from it? No. I do not want to be an unconsenting prop in someone’s fantasy. Back to how can we tell? This movement has really messed things up hasn’t it? Back to pink for girls blue for boys. Make up for girls and hammers for boys.

Yes, this didn't bother me at all when I gave birth but now my head and heart tussle over any intimate exam by a male. I think the last 10 years have made me wonder if a lot of men really do hate women; and that is now altering how I view them in lots of settings.

Often when KJK says something that sounds preposterous I'll find that, if I dig around long enough, I'll find a nugget of something thoughtful. But that's if I go to the trouble of digging, and a lot of the time I can no more be bothered than I can be arsed to read one of JCJ's tweets.

However nothing KJK has said has ever diminished my regard for Let Women Speak, although if she comes for my (male) hairdresser, then all bets are off.

There was a late teen-early 20s gay lad, very effeminate, about 6'4" and always dressed in tight black leggings with a very obvious bulge who worked for a make-up brand in a local department store. He was always made up perfectly. I was a teen in the 70s, no issue at all with men in foundation and eyeliner and I have had some very good times in the company of female-positive camp gay men. One was a TV make-up artist.

He seemed to have loads of older women happy to sit there with his genitalia in their faces while he made them up and when I was invited to a big family wedding I thought I'd go and consult him — until someone told me he was on the drag scene. I swerved him and found an older woman to advise me. Men who do drag don't respect women. They might think they do, but they don't.

I had a male junior midwife assisting at my first birth, it was his first birth too. He was lovely and he cried when my son was born. I wasn't the slightest bit concerned about him assisting the female midwife.

Sadly these past 10 years have changed my views on this and I would now be uncomfortable. I'm not sure if the numbers of predatory men have increased or if they're just bolder. Maybe they were always thus and I was blissfully unaware.

Yes, I think this is the problem. It's men's behaviour that skewers things a lot of the time.

One is never really coming at it from a level playing field, however much, hypothetically, one likes to think it.

Yes, it would. And, equally, I think if I was going to a garage to get my car fixed and there was all female one, I might choose that.

Everything else being equal.

“Having said all that a male that uses female accoutrements to present as a woman and gain sexual pleasure/arousal from it? No. I do not want to be an unconsenting prop in someone’s fantasy.”

We all have boundaries and it is useful to understand where some people’s boundaries are and to understand where your own are and why.

I think it is wrong to vilify someone with high boundaries around this issue just because the vilifier cannot understand the higher boundary of another. I think so many people would also be uncomfortable with the same aspect. It really is disingenuous for someone to dimiss the fetish aspect.

It might be just my suspicion, but whenever a socfem complains about ultras I assume they mean KJK, or something that leads back to her. They don't reference her by name because don't want to be accused of being bullies.

Their on-the-record statements about her, including the free issue of the Radical Notion (prepared to forgo income in order to malign her as far and wide as possible), and the statement on the WPUK website have all been used by others to attack KJK. Including in the court case in Australia.

The outcome of the Deeming case and its destruction of the Nazi narrative they have fuelled must be boiling their piss. Hence the recent veiled and not so veiled attacks.

This. I've been having work done in my home. I used to be able to ignore the misogynistic remarks and the macho shite from tradesmen over the years, but now I know how many men are addicted to porn, and how many have enjoyed seeing women under attack from transactivists, and seeing what I see on social media, that's changed. Fortunately one of the first people I called in, a plumber, is GC ('You've got a lot of terfy stuff on your shelves. My wife would love to meet you') and has guided me in the direction of other tradesmen he trusts. 'Let's be honest, Pluvia, there are a lot of arseholes I don't want to work with and you don't want in your home.'

It's been a very uncomfortable realisation that these days I regard myself as lucky when a situation involving unknown men — plumbers, doctors, taxi drivers — goes positively. It shouldn't be like this.

Who was going in to find out what that was all about? Are you out yet? Do you need a rope chucking down?

Well I am now reading the Radical Notion special edition in between cleaning my walking boots and mending the hole in a cushion, so if you can send down refreshments I'd be grateful.