some parallels

[Manfreglory]

I've been teasing out this idea, that transphobia and xenophobia have much in common.

• both rest on 'you're not from here; your culture is different; you can't know what it is to have grown up 'over here'/had period pains/gone through labour.

• both reject difference or change in favour of sameness or stasis. 'You look and talk and think differently/you underwent a journey to get here/I can't fully relate to you'.

• both rest not just on culture but on biology: 'Your genes are different than mine/your genotype for phenotype A, B or C aren't identical to mine'.

• both are territorial: 'i sweated blood as a member of this sex/to make it in this society - who are you to come here and demand a seat at the table'?

• both are suspicious of the reasons for transformation. 'You just want the perks of being female; you just want to look up our skirts in the toilet; you just migrated here from Guatemala for financial stability.'

• both demonize, aggressively overstating the chance that the person has or will commit a crime. (Migrants: no need to give examples, just read the news. Trans people: 'you just want access to 'our spaces'' (i.e. the spaces where women/cis women enjoy their privacy from all men, cis or trans) so you can assault us'.

• both minimize or even deny, the need for the transition: 'No child is born trans/those parents were homophobic as the kid was just gay/trans women are men with their dicks lopped off/people should stay in their home country and migration is too dangerous'.

• both hysterically fear that the trans person/migrant will corrupt innocents: 'they will indoctrinate children in school/they will spread religious fundamentalism'.

Gender critical women: ask yourself if you've been radicalized into the new right.

Gender critical women: ask yourself if you've been radicalized into the new right.

I support and would vote for a political party that would offer:
Universal healthcare
Universal education or technical training up to the age of 21.
a cradle to grave welfare state
state ownership of key infrastructure and industries
Progressive social policies to address inequalities and prejudice to ensure every person is treated with respect and dignity.

I think that ticks most of the boxes for being on “The Left”, but unfortunately for me, Atlee is no longer the leader of the Labour party.

Oh, and @Manfreglory in your analogy you mix up racism and concern about immigration with xenophobia. Unfortunately, racism and xenophobia can be found in people who occupy all points of the political spectrum, it’s not a left-right thing. And historically, immigration was generally opposed by working class Labour voters and supported by conservative bosses and business owners, because a constant supply of cheap labour depressed wages.

I wasn't being that rigorously literal with my analogy. You can tear apart any analogy you want if you don't agree with its point.

Just in case you don't know, in every country other than this one, equating sex with gender and insulting trans women by trying to keep them out of female space (ie. treating them like men) is 100% the purview of the Right. Often, Christian fundamentalists who also hate abortion, gay marriage and yes, migrants. You can tell a lot about people by the company you keep. Well done Mumsnet!

happy to oblige. you all clearly take this kind of thing very seriously.

sad to see a more powerful group (women) lording it over a less powerful one (trans women). you're not making a good case here.

But you’re the one conflating sex and gender. Males with a trans identity are welcome to all the gender stereotypes they want, they just need to use spaces designated for their sex. See. Sex and gender not conflated. Enjoy.

Wow. "Every", "100%", "hate"... You'll forgive us for thinking you have a tendency to be "rigorously literal", Manfreglory. I wish I had your sweepingly exhaustive knowledge of global gender politics.

So by your reckoning, as you are here keeping company with us, as you think we must be all those things then you are also a right wing Christian fundamentalist who hates abortion gay marriage and migrants?

Ta-ra then, we don't want to keep you hanging round here if you think so badly of us.

"You all take this kind of thing very seriously" is a little surprising from the person who wrote the decidedly earnest opening post warning against radicalisation, whose subsequent posts may have let slip a certain deep-seated frustration - and who may not have noticed the balletic interlude, newly created haulage company and sheer wit of the last 9 pages.

Hmm. If you want to go with You can tell a lot about people by the company you keep and say "you're adjacent to the right", you really need to hear some home truths about people on the left. Trust me, I could talk about that subject all night.

In re the other stuff, the thing is Maurice - may I call you Maurice? - you can identify as the Space Cowboy or even the Gangster of Love, and nobody here will care. As far as we're concerned here, the only criterion for being female is being born in a female body. All the other stuff is what we might call "personality" or sometimes "stereotypes".

And there are times in public life when the realities of the female body matter to people with female bodies. Those are just material matters and people's philosophical beliefs about themselves don't come into it.

What I find a little disappointing is that you're relying on a philosophical argument but you're not putting forward that philosophical argument. You're just assuming its correctness and explaining to us that we're all ignorant for not agreeing with the argument that you're not actually putting forward.

Be better!

And on to the next, all too recognisable stage in the usual, infuriatingly inevitable retreat in the face of mature engagement and thoughtful argument: emotive language ("lording") and reductive generalisation of a complex issue ("more powerful... less powerful").

@Manfreglory insulting trans women by trying to keep them out of female space (ie. treating them like men)

Transwomen are men you muppet. 'Man' is not an insulting word for a male human, any more than 'woman' is an insulting word for a female human. Sex is real, mammals cannot change sex.

Not Maurice!

Maurice was the poor mussel who died in a posters Belfast sink overflow.

It was a sad time, the name brings back painful memories.

How about Martin?

And we're there - the usual pathway has been followed to a tee: the insults and the groundwork for a flounce.

I honestly didn't think from the quality of the opening post that it would end this way. You initially seemed to be up for an actual discussion - but recent responses suggest you're running scared from the thoughtful responses you received.

We, too, wonder why you posted here.

We aren't every other country.

We are the UK.

We have a very strong LEFT WING gender critical movement.

What is happening in other countries is irrelevant to how politics is developing here. Our politics can develop in a uniquely different and atypical way.

Cos we are not another country.

I'm sorry you struggle to cope with the concept that this country isn't another country. The UK does not identify as the USA, Canada or any other nation contrary to dumb opinions.

Fab. What an insightful two line rebuttal.

We've learnt so much from it. We bow to your superior intellect and debating skills.

Behold! We are all now infinitely wiser thanks to you.

We should bow in reverence oh masterous one.

This response makes me think of the story of the Reception child who chastised the next oldest class's teacher for not using capital letters on her board, assuming that because she was reduced to explaining the painful basics to her class in necessarily clumsy (and literal) words of one syllable (AKA, above, the basic premise of feminism, put as baldly as possible), she couldn't actually write properly herself. The child looked a little silly.

(Full disclosure - that child was me 😂).

I think poorly read is supposed to mean that we haven't read Judith Butler.

They never consider the possibility that we might have actually read Judith Butler and consider Butler's work to be obscurantist flapdoodle.

We aren't every other country.
We are the UK.

T-shirt, please😍

I have never read Judith Butler and have no plans to ever do this to myself but I can figure out what a woman is just fine.

I see the implicit acknowledgement in your wording that women and "trans women" are two separate groups. Despite your arguments, even you are well aware that the latter aren't women.

Poor chap.

You’re on another planet mate.

Transwomen are men. Transwomen are not oppressed they are oppressive.

Political affiliation is irrelevant to knowing which sex gets pregnant and which walks away with a spring in their step.

Honestly you can appropriate all you like, but it’s superficial and dishonest.

And everyone can tell.

“This so blatantly wrong as to make me wonder why I even post here. What a bunch of bigots, and poorly read to boot.”

And yet, there are no other types of female people. Only those who have a female body.

You can declare it as wrong as you want, it doesn't make your denial accurate or factually correct. Your denial of it changes nothing about feminists working to lift female people out of oppression from the patriarchy. Oppression of the female sex class collectively based on our group being female, based on our bodies and regardless of our abilities and knowledge.

Remarkable really. To see the axis of oppression of female people being denied. And yet we are called bigots.

I do wonder if this OP is about to make further false accusations about biological essentialism or something similar because they leapt to a false conclusion all of their own making. If there another straw man argument incoming?