Article on 'trans moral panic' - Mumsnet gets a mention

[WeeBisom]

Link here: https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/gj/1/1/article-p78.xml

This is a very long article which, of course, adopts everything Judith Butler says wholeheartedly. It compares the current discourse around transgenderism to section 28. Astonishingly, the author appears to be a lecturer in law.

"Trans" is defined as "any person who does not conform to the sex/gender which they were assigned at birth, including non binary and genderqueer persons." A "cis" person is someone who identities to a self defined extent with the gender they are assigned at birth (so a gender non conforming lesbian, for example, can still be 'cis'). So...trans is someone who doesn't conform to the sex/gender they were 'assigned' at birth, but a gender non conforming person can still be cis. Make it make sense.

"Gender critical" people are not actually critical of gender, but want femaleness and womanhood to be biologically defined. And gender critical people are "anti trans". It turns out that anyone who is against gender self identification is 'anti trans'.

Mumsnet gets a shoutout: "another unlikely home of anti trans sentiment is the parenting site Mumsnet, where the feminist discussion board has been overwhelmed by those wishing to discuss 'gender ideology.'

The overall thesis appears to be that silly women are stooges of the patriarchy who buy into ideas like women and children are vulnerable victims who need protection from the trans/queer 'other'.

This part got an eye roll from me:
"Spaces for women are seen as sacrosanct in the absence of anyone male, or assigned male at birth. With the potential for assigned-male ‘invasion’, ‘[t]oilets, changing rooms, girls’ youth organisations, hostels, and prisons emerge as the dystopic terrain of women’s vulnerability to enduring predatory male behaviour’ (Cooper, 2019: 19). Of course, trans women are not male; they are women. But in the world of the ‘adult human female’, the potential of having to share a presumed private space with anyone in possession of, or ever having been in possession of, a penis, is unthinkable."

So trans women are not male (nor, presumably are they assigned male at birth) - they are women. But they are women with penises. Make it make sense! So the moral of the story is, women are hysterical for thinking there is any problem or danger with males being in their spaces, and should get used to the idea of sharing spaces with male people. Trans women don't pose any threat to women whatsoever.

The article ends on the hopeful note that all moral panics burn out so one day self ID law will be passed in the UK. Presumably when the silly women get over their irrational phobia of males.

If it's any comfort, Catiette, I think this writer has given the subject absolutely zero thought. This is not a piece expressing beliefs or exploring ideas. It's just regurgitating a series of meaningless catechisms.

Sprinkle it with buzzwords and use some longish terms, labour the point with a little superficial linguistic facility. That's it. That's all it is.

Hogpish.

Not only she/they, but Irish. She will have been steeped in gender identity theory throughout her higher education at 3 universities in the Irish Republic.

"Kildare woman living in England with an LL.B from Trinity College Dublin, an LL.M in International Human Rights Law from UCC, and a PhD from NUI Galway. She/they pronouns. Irredeemable feminist killjoy."

Of course, trans women are not male; they are women. But in the world of the ‘adult human female’, the potential of having to share a presumed private space with anyone in possession of, or ever having been in possession of, a penis, is unthinkable.

Oh do fuck off. Of course the author of this article is an utter moron...

Well, you see, according to post modernist feminists appealing to the danger of men casts women and children in the 'victim' role and makes it seem like men are inherently dangerous to women. This upholds patriarchal ideas about femininity, namely that women need male protection and aren't safe around penises. When we 'queer' gender segregated spaces by allowing trans people in them, this threatens the patriarchal binary that men are oppressors and women are submissive victims, and so the patriarchy has to maintain gendered spaces at all costs. Also, trans women pose no risk to women whatsoever, and there is no risk at all from opening up women's spaces to males (even though they aren't males because they say they aren't.)

Exactly. That's what I found so surprising about the article. All the usual emotive assumptions of prejudice exposing... well... prejudice! It's not what we're saying at all, on balance. It made me so demoralised to see such earnest misrepresentation in that context at first. Goodness knows why - I mean, what's new?! Anyway, felt better for posting and a relaxed evening since!

Oops! My "exactly" above was to Marie. One glass of wine down, and it doesn't take much - failed to notice Page 2!

But "exactly" to others, as well! WeeBisom, I find that side of it absolutely fascinating. I've seen that furious denial from a woman that equality is in any way lacking now a few times recently, and each time methunk(?!) the lady did protest too much - with all the patriarchal undertones of that phrase rather sadly appropriate... I do understand that, though. It's bloody hard to rationalise what we're seeing. I know I wouldn't "unsee" it even if I were able to... but I'd be seriously tempted, and regretful that it wasn't an option. But it just isn't for me! Because, as Marie and Arabella say, it's facts v. catechisms. To mine own self I'm true. 😁

Indeed it is. And those who choose to ignore facts are never good people.

And of course, the irony of that way of thinking is that, in its desperate pendumlum-swing denial of any physical difference... it denies and suppresses women's reality just as much as any Angel-in-the-House crap of yesteryear. What's the issue with different-but-equal? To fear acknowledgement of difference tbh suggests to me the exact deep-seated vulnerability and victim-mentality that they project on to us. This debate really is irony-in-action all the way down.

This article is from the first issue of a new journal, 'Gender and Justice' and they're inviting submissions for the next issue.
Tempted to write an article for them myself. Something along the lines of,
"An interrogation of the employment tribunal’s function in constituting and negotiating the gendered terrain of sex-based rights, where the juridical is implicated in the ongoing production of gendered subjects and their entitlements."
But, as I'm not Judith Butler,
'An exploration of the role of the employment tribunal in upholding the sex based rights of women'.
I wonder if they'd accept it, and if they did who would they get to peer review it?

but why, in the pomo 'feminism' are women victims designated 'submissive'? surely the fact that women and girls are actually victims of violence is enough to be worthy of consideration? 'victim' isn't a value judgement, it is just a statemet of fact

I know this sounds crazy, but has anyone ever tried a type of Socratic dialogue with these people?

to take toilets as an example
why do you think society conventionally provides sex segregated toilets?
they give an answer
and why is that?
they give another answer
and why is that?

etc etc the answer will eventually come down to - because men are more likely to be violent to women and we need to minimise the chance of this

you can repeat this with- sports, literature prizes, hospital wards...

And that's not to say I'm unsympathetic to that sense of vulnerability, obviously. The courage is actually in acknowledging it, though. It's a regrettable fact. Victim mentality is more complex, and I think one of many reasons why this subject isn't broached at schools. What's the perfect balance between acknowledging female physical vulnerability, male aggression and the need for equitable accommodations, while promoting mutual respect and understanding? It's a tough one. But denial of a very real issue isn't going to help anyone.

To believe in this bullshit you have to in your own mind be deeply convinced that no woman matters like a man does.

And everything about women is disposable and despisable if it conflicts with pandering to the man. Her faith, her disability, her consent, everything. The man's feelings are oh so crucial and hers are stupid. Nothing. Worthless.

It's religious fervous muddled up with beauty and the beast/saviour complexes from these women, and deep, deep, deep misogyny. They know exactly who women are on a sexed, binary basis; their every action shows it. To them, women are the ones who are walking resources with no right to say no.

In general, people who use mumsnet don't have the luxury of pretending they are not female.

they must find the situation in Afghanistan really confusing. How did the men oppress the women so easily?

How has the author of that article managed to get a doctorate when their writing is so utterly execrable?! I genuinely thought it must be an undergrad writing for a student publication 🤦‍♀️

Yes. The blinkered privilege behind Proximal's/Merry's quote above honestly takes my breath away. Such snide dismissal of the generations of suffering behind our hard-won single sex spaces but a century old... - and such disdain for the traumatised rape victim, the vulnerable teen, the litany of caring and medical issues that could force a woman to rush into a loo for far different, far more desperate reasons than a man / her need to prop the door open / to undress in the shared space... It's astonishing. I've seen it all before, but it's rather distressing to see the sneering sexism of that quote legitimised in an academic journal. It's like that delightful Lancet title "Bodies With Vaginas" all over again. (Which I imagine the author could only applaud, in the absence of any other word for the topic, all the while happily ignorant of the damning historical connotations, never mind the unthinkable possibility that women, too, may be capable of having equally valid preferences regarding how they're perceived and described).

So it's a 'moral panic' to say men are men now? Gotcha 🙄

Yes, I for one, do think that transgenderism represents "a radicality and fluidity that is the antithesis of the stable, bounded, cisheteronormative patriarchal family".

Or not.

I actually think that, as a movement, it represents a subversive reimposition of gendered patriarchal standards which seeks to transmogrify the emergent radical fluidity in societal conceptions of gendered roles and norms that was until recently destabilising bounded cisheteronormativity, thereby exemplifying a particularly creative approach to the repression of certain catalysts for this instability by redesignating trans-gressive gender critical feminists as not so much the pinnacle of the rejection of gendered norms of femininity as the antithesis of the supposedly self-defining trans-family.

Two can play at that game.

I think. Did I get lost towards the end?

The statement about those trans women not being male but being women (or whatever) seems the equivalent of Strangio’s ‘there are no men competing in female sports in the USA’.

If you can philosophise the language enough, you can say anything and a small group of people will applaud you intellectual position. A pity though that the majority of the world will sImply think you are trying to convince them that falsehoods are truth.

Of course, trans women are not male; they are women. But in the world of the ‘adult human female’, [there is a certain caution around, and occasional deep-seated fear of men, that is wholly deserving of my implicit ridicule].

Meanwhile, in the Guardian right now (look any time, and you'll find at least 5 - the below, I'd say, is fewer than usual)...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/apr/03/i-begged-them-my-daughter-was-dying-how-taliban-male-escort-rules-are-killing-mothers-and-babies.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/03/murders-of-two-female-students-prompt-calls-for-a-cultural-rebellion-in-italy

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/03/deaths-of-british-couple-in-france-being-treated-as-murder-suicide-reports-say

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/apr/03/heteropessimism-didnt-spring-from-nowhere

I will not stand by as children's understanding of why these women are suffering is degraded to the point that (like bloody Amnesty International, was it?) they can perceive it as a matter of self-identification (I've seen this happen, btw, in conversations with young teens about the women of Afghanistan).

Besides the utter offensiveness of redefining such women's words to welcome in their oppressor and consequently infer, intentionally or not, that they can "identify" out of their own oppression, this outright refusal to recognise women as a distinct demographic with particular needs is the thin end of such a dangerous wedge.

Denying their need for any word in favour of males' desire for a particular word is the other side of the patriarchal coin that, in the articles above, denies their realities, needs and, at the extreme end, lives.

"a radicality and fluidity that is the antithesis of the stable, bounded, cisheteronormative patriarchal family"

You can call yourself whatever you want, but to become a parent one sex has to go through pregnancy and childbirth, and the other just has to ejaculate.

I think that 'cisheteronormative' here means 'recognises that babies aren't delivered by a stork'.

@Catiette
I actually came back to this thread to post a link to the story about that poor family in Afghanistan
Have you really spoken with teens who believe women can identify out of that situation? That is quite breathtaking and suggests a really severe naivety, a disconnect from biology, white western privilege. Were you in a professional capacity? Because I don't think I could maintain professional demeanour faced with that.

It takes an impressive level of self-innoculation against your own experience, your mother's and aunts' experience, your sisters' and your girl friends' experience to be able to write this pile of [expletive deleted].

It does. And it's bloody scary.