TikTok feminists

[TheresABootOnMyNeck]

Since the SC ruling I’ve been algorithmed into feminist tiktok, many with humongous followings, nearly all with pronouns neatly displayed.

They collectively have some very astute observations on men which, being a masculine looking and dressing lesbian working in a male environment and seeing these men “in the wild” as it were, I wholeheartedly agree with. In this way I truly appreciate their input. There are posts that make me wince due to their accuracy, and MRAs flock like flies to a cowpat to correct them and try to prove how awful women are, which is usually a sign that they’re on the right track and men wade in to defend their behaviour.

Put a man in a dress though, and he is magically a woman, is no risk to women at all, despite evidence to the contrary, all of his misogynistic ways disappear unless they make TW look bad (like Lily Tino) and then they cancel them. Those who question the ideology are literally Nazis and bigots. And views that are not TWAW are right wing and inherently violent towards women (the male kind). This is a hill they would willingly die on.

Why? How can they, in one breath see what so many men are like and speak so eloquently about it, yet at the same time are so blind to what trans stuff does to women?

Please help me to understand.

I'd personally love to know why people (which presumably includes you) think some men become magically 'non men' and thus all well established safe guarding protocols should go out the window?

Can you elaborate on this?

How would it settle without a significant shift in ideology? Clear language necessarily excludes.

But sex is a scientifically distinctive, verifiable, objective classification.

Whereas gender is a metaphysical belief that comes down purely to faith.

How can that be prioritised over sex? When you cannot compel people to believe in your faith?

If you define 'women' as people who identify with social expectations of how a woman should behave, you aren't a feminist.

'GC feminists spend more time worrying about the horrible ones.' Possibly because they are the ones we need to worry about?

'and almost no one in RL gives a toss about who uses what toilet.' Except women who have been subject to sexual assault or rape, women with strong religious beliefs, women who just actually want a space that doesn't include men when they are tending to personal hygiene which necessitates removing items of clothing. But sure, almost no one.

I think the ideology is shifting - not on the GC side which largely seems to be: we are right and everyone else is stupid (probably young and inexperienced) and think some women have penises.

But in last few years there has been a definite move away from 'being born in wrong body', change in biological sex being possible and conversely a recognition of impact on biological sex and puberty in sport and an increase in recognition of need for safe guarding whatever the circumstances.

On toilets - any new build office I've been in in last few years have fully self contained GN cubicles. Other than losing the bonding experience of women's toilet queues in nightclubs what is your objection?

I'm quite heartened that there may be a way through this in future.

I know this wasn’t aimed at me but here’s a difficulty - if you ask them they call you a far right bigot and cannot answer any questions at all.

If anyone asked me why I’m GC I’d take it in good faith and explain how I arrived at my opinion. The same doesn’t apply the other way.

and almost no one in RL gives a toss about who uses what toilet.

It's really easy to check comments like that out. Sez who, eh? When what you mean is, none of my cool friends do.

I personally think it’s complete naivety about the true nature of men.

Let’s face it, lots of sensible, well educated mumsnetters with young families are still subject to doing more than their fair share of the domestic work in their households and they don’t see it as a problem as they “love cooking”, or they want their house to “look nice and tidy”.

It’s only when you’ve got a bit wise to the selfish motivations of many men and once you’re maybe a bit older, and not bolstered by men-pleasing perkiness anymore, the scales fall from your eyes to the sheer scale of hateful every day misogyny. Trans ideology is part of that.

We are fighting misogyny on both fronts. Men don’t give a shit. And politically minded young women want to be ‘right on’ and not associated with views of an older generation. Even though it’s often borne out of wisdom and sadly, experience.

You are right it was hyperbole based on people I know. But evidence seems to be when consulted people did want single sex toilets so I assume they care:

I meant 'chuck' not check, upthread.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-lay-new-law-to-halt-the-march-of-gender-neutral-toilets-in-buildings

That's a really interesting post, because it illustrates the way in which the trans argument has shifted.

Not so long ago, there was 'born in the wrong body' - some women sadly got issued with a male body at birth, and TWAW because of that error.
This ran counter to the body positivity attitude to loving the body you are in, whatever its shape or size; and it was particularly harmful to tell children and young people that the body that they may be feeling a bit awkward about because of their age, is 'the wrong body'.

It was quietly dropped.

Then there was TWAW full stop - transwomen are women exactly the same as any other women, and to say that they were not was hate speech.

Eventually the weight of scientific evidence - not to mention, duh, obviousness! - must have made the 'exactly the same' TWAW argument untenable.

Now the line is 'not many people believe that you can actually change your biological sex', which would have been deemed transphobic hate speech just a few years ago.

So currently TWAW apparently means that some men have a different take on the unclear concept of 'gender', but they accept that changing your biological sex is impossible, so they don't stop being biological men.

However, they claim they have a 'female gender', so TWAW is not about men changing sex, but men having a different gender identity from other men.

How that is supposed to make transwomen entitled to avail of sex-segregated women's facilities is not clear.

Where do I start on toilets?!

“…and almost no one in RL gives a toss about who uses what toilet.”

Actually you’re completely wrong @ChidisGardener I went to conference of hundreds of people the other day and all the women were seething and quietly grumbling about the mixed sex toilets. My DH says that in his male dominated environment, the men hate their mixed sex toilets too. He says many of them walk further to another block just to use the single sex ones.

"But in last few years there has been a definite move away from 'being born in wrong body', change in biological sex being possible and conversely a recognition of impact on biological sex and puberty in sport and an increase in recognition of need for safe guarding whatever the circumstances."

Last few years? It took a court case two months ago to establish that the law even recognised sex.

It’s more than though though isn’t it? If you believe that oppression of women is rooted in the material reality of their sexed bodies and that ‘gender’ is a tool of that oppression (a fairly standard and until recently uncontroversial feminist stance) then it’s not simply not thinking that gender is more important than biological sex.
I think lots of older feminists find the TRA feminists superficial, as they do all liberal feminists.

My understanding of the court case wasn't about whether people could change sex - it was how is the equality category of 'gender' defined.

I'm not here to defend my views. My only aim in this was replying in good faith to 'theresaboot..' who said she wanted to understand how some feminists have different views to her.

I wanted to see how far I could get - I'm GC but I think there is some room to recognise some of trans people's concerns. I have lurked on this board for years so I did know I'd be told I was wrong. But I did wonder if there was any genuine curiosity.

It will never not be surprising to me that some people think the belief that women are defined according to gender and not sex, and that what male born people want trumps the rights of female born people, is somehow compatible with being any kind of feminist.

I was about to tag you in!

I have asked them time and time again. They refuse to answer the question.

And as for the 'no-one cares who uses which toilets', why are you focusing on toilets and not -

Single sex rape crisis services
Domestic abuse refuges
Prisons
Etc
Etc

Why is it always toilets?

And as for why the 'pick me, I'm so cool' head patters care more about men's feelings than women's safety and dignity?

Lack of self respect, I'm guessing.

Because they don't believe TW are 'proper' men. While they probably don't think they've turned into actual women, they still think there's something different about them that stops them being like other men. They also think the difference means that (like themselves) TW are seen as inferior by men and are victimised by men, so are in the same boat as women, with more in common with women than with men.

Something I found extremely telling of how I reckon quite a lot of people think was during Kathleen Stock's interview at Oxford. The chair put the presupposition to her that a trans woman (from the most marginalised community and facing massive violence ofc) would surely be less likely to commit violence against cis women? It's a hypothesis that is not borne out by evidence (eg Ministry of Justice data on offending) and can alse be debunked on priniciple, but there is some superficial logic to it.

It's the idea that men who truly feel like they are/desire to be women so badly that they would undertake 'transition' are rejecting masculinity and its toxicity and violence and somehow share in the vulnerability of women. They are rejecting maleness and badly want to be part of the female 'club' - why would they do that if they really hated women? People who call themselves feminists probably have a sense of sisterhood which might make them welcoming to people they perceive resisting the thing they rally against. I also think where we see appropriation, others see a sort of appreciation.

There is no equality category of ‘gender’.

The case decided whether a GRC changed somebody’s sex for the purposes of the EA.

It was found that it didn’t because if it did the PC of sex would be heterogenous and therefore meaningless.

The Good Law Project and others have argued that it is transphobic to recognise sex in law.

In contrast I haven’t heard of any campaigns to remove the PC of gender reassignment from the EA.