Very mvoing tweet about how women have been colonised by men

[PoetryEmotion]

I came across this tweet by Diana Alastair today, and thought it was worth posting. It's absolutely heartbreaking, and anger-making:

OK, trans community – it’s truth time. One of the biggest differences between the way women are treated and the way that y’all are treated is that y’all are allowed to have safe spaces. You’re allowed to have subreddits that are trans-only, places and events that are just for you. We’re not.

When I tried to start a subreddit for female humans, for example (including the ones who identify as men) so that we had a place to talk about female things, it lasted less than a week, and the admins performed a delicate little dance before banning us for “hate.” They temp-banned me and all my mods, then banned the whole community because we weren’t able to take down the anti-trans posts that were clearly against our rules - and that didn’t appear until after we were tempbanned. Hmm.

Women get nothing: not subreddits, not dating apps, not even an app for women in general. No bathrooms, no changing rooms, no sports of our own; hell, we can’t even get away from y’all in prison! Any female-only event y’all get to hearing about is targeted by protesters, often violent ones, invariably carrying signs threatening harm or encouraging suicide — lovely behavior from people who constantly quote trans suicide statistics as if it’s the biggest crisis on the planet, btw.

Any women’s shelter or rape crisis center that is female-only is also targeted: the sole remaining women’s rape crisis center in all of Canada has been repeatedly vandalized with threatening graffiti, and even had a dead rat nailed to its door. This, in a city with 6 other rape counseling centers available, all of them trans-friendly. It’s not about being denied access to services — it’s sick, twisted, furious hatred at even the idea of women having anything of our own.

You have taken it all: our spaces, our sports, and our safety. You’ve taken our privacy, our dignity, our right to single-sex incarceration, and our right to single-sex intimate care. You’ve taken our identities, and the words we use to name ourselves.

You want us to agree that being female means nothing, is nothing, deserves nothing - no recognition, no separate existence — not even a name. We are “uterus-havers,” “menstruators,” “bleeders,” and “people with cervixes.” “Women” belongs to you now, and you’re even coming for “female.”

You’re taking everything we are, piece by piece — and what do we get in return, for the theft of the names you took from us? “Cis” — a prefix that sidelines us in our own demographic, and which privately, the trans community uses as a slur. What good little colonizers you’ve turned out to be.

https://x.com/sappholives83/status/1983648197403721787

It’s a brilliant tweet.

But when I’m in charge of the world the use of “y’all” will be criminalised.

Would you meet a friend and colleague on your day off unless a close friend ?

Perhaps go back and read properly. They weren't friends and he didn't tell her it was his day off.

It wasn't my day off, I was at work, had arranged a work meeting on a normal working day [it was a Friday as I recall] on work premises in work hours.

I asked my running group chat if anyone could recommend a women’s race because I could find very few. One suggestion from a man was Dublin 10k, with the comment "you do get a cohort of men in drag, posing as women [winking smiley face emoji.]" Other man concurred it was a fantastic event.

I wanted to reply, so that's not a women’s event then, is it?

It looks like an event that sells out, there's one a year and we can't even have that because men think it's a laugh to take the few places there are and oh what a jolly jape it is pretending to be a silly woman.

If it came up now I would say something but at the time I was very new to the group and I'm really aware no one ever seems to bring politics into anything, beyond slagging the council for all the potholes. This is one of the ways things slide into being seen as ok, because people like me didn't want to be seen as the fun sponge or worse and risk losing out on valued links and opportunities. These days I try to be braver and chanel that "the Emperor has no clothes on" lad. But it's tiring.

one of my male colleagues, in his 50s at the time, turned up at work to meet with me, on his day off.

he came in for a meeting on his day off? well at least a committed employee 😆
what did he usually wear to work?

Isn't it odd how a woman isn't allowed to express her opinion that a man turning up in his fetish gear to meet her at her workplace took away her dignity? Instead her opinions have been relentlessly challenged, ridiculed and policed over a number of posts.

Wonder why that might be?

Going by his colleague's surprise and distaste, I think we can make an educated guess of 'not gross fetish gear'.

It's not appropriate or excusable to inflict on your colleagues the costume you wear to achieve sexual gratification. Especially when the gratification is at least partially based on having non-consenting people witness you wearing it.

You can try to paint it otherwise, of course. But it's not.

So what you're saying is, anyone who's trans can be expected to turn up "dressed as little bo peep, with his hair in ribbons, white ankle socks on and frilly knickers that were more than visible under his pink checked frilly skirt".

In which case we should avoid all trans people as they're nutjobs, is that what you're saying?

He lived down the road and yes I'd rather him have said 'I'm on leave that day'.

Normal clothes were jeans and tshirt with organisation fleece as the work we did was garden based.

Well I do think trans people are pretty nutty actually

Dysmorphia is a mental condition, isn't it?

Good grief

I said MY dignity wouldn’t be taken away.

MY dignity.

At least allow me the freedom to express an opinion about MY dignity

No one has a problem with your dignity. Or who you want to take your clothes off with and whether or not you feel dehumanised by it. Your body your choice.

The issue happens when it's implied that this is the better or only way for women to feel, and that other women should not be allowed to feel humiliated or dehumanised by being forced to undress to meet whatever needs a man claims he has. It aids men who insist that those feelings in women are irrational and should be something they strive to get over, which aids subordinating those women who can, and excluding those women who can't.

Mixed sex spaces will be there for women who don't mind. A belief in inclusion and equality should involve protecting single sex spaces for women who do, and whose access relies on them, without painting those women as merely irrational or lesser in some way.

Other women can feel how they want

This tweeter was saying that it takes away our dignity

I am a woman and this? This does NOT take away MY dignity.

I would look at this man and think… what a thoughtless farcical twat… dressing up so ridiculously

Yes @Giggorata , as in it could and has been considered a mental health condition and has a diagnostic framework. People with other illnesses such as eating disorders may also suffer dysmophia.

However many TRAs say it isn't symptomatic of mental illness and is instead a lifestyle choice / expression of who they are and argue it's oppressive to say it is a mental illnesses. This is one area where they find a (false) comparison with being gay handy - people used to say it was an illness and seek to cure, but we have become more enlightened and no longer do. They would say being trans is akin to being gay, acceptance is progress and if you push back it makes you as bad as those who wanted section 28 in schools...

While at the same time warning that if their true self isn't affirmed there is a risk they will take their own life. "Better a living daughter than dead son." Many parents have said fear of this has lead them to go along with transition journeys they weren't truly convinced of. As has been pointed out many times in this debate, it would not be kind or right to affirm someone who has anorexia and believes they need a gastric band by giving them the surgery. And yet it is supposedly proper to perform double masectomies on healthy breasts without question because a woman says she is a man.

There are of course other factors influencing other trans people that are not connected to unhappiness with body image, such those with sexual motivations. There is a doctor who speaks about male patients he worked with having their penises removed and then, once they no longer have sexual function, regretting it. Not just because they can't enjoy sexual pleasure, but because once that sexual drive has gone so has the belief they would be better off "female." I can't remember his name but he's been very vocal and on lots of podcasts and videos.

As an aside, I did listen to a discussion about the DSM diagnostic manual and its growth, and the point was made that in American healthcare insurance companies need a diagnosis before they will pay out and so perhaps some symptoms are being grouped and labelled as mental health conditions which shouldn't be. I imagine it's difficult to know with body modifications how emotionally robust and logically thinking those making the changes to themselves are. When does it tip from their body their choice, they are harming no one, if it makes them feel better about themself and more confident then why object? To actually they are not very well and should be refused surgery and offered therapy. And we know detransitioners have learnt a script off the Internet forums to parrot to medical professionals in order to get the desired treatment, which must make diagnosis even trickier.

Sorry, bit rambling.

I am very pleased for you about YOUR dignity.

All good then!

@Scout2016 You're thinking of Dr Az Hakeem, he's a psychiatrist who worked with adults at the Tavistock & Portman. One of the most useful things he did was running group therapy for mixed groups of patients who'd been through/ were going through/ were considering medical transition. The realities of medicalisation are not the days of wine & roses you'll find on trans Reddit subs.
His book, Detrans, is an easy read & has a deal of useful info.

How dignified would you feel when you were trying to change in a space with a man? And he was waiting for you to change, and asked you when you were going to change? And your employer's policy was that he had a right to be there, whether you liked it or not? So he's hanging around, in his boxers, waiting for you to change?

I would feel pissed off
angry
frustrated
and grossed out

I would look at him, a pathetic man fannying around with knickers and probably stifle a giggle

I would never feel My dignity was compromised because of him

Do you consider yourself to be a woman?

Huh

yes
I gave birth to two children
how bizarre

I think trans men are farcical comedic figures that should be laughed at

they don’t make me lose my dignity 🤷‍♀️

This is quite shocking

All I said was that MY dignity was not taken away because I consider trans men a terrible joke that has got very out of hand because certain politicians have run with it and now we are in a mess.

I throw my hands up and freely admit that I’m transphobic 🤷‍♀️

and no fucking way is MY dignity finished because of a trans man

and it’s gone down like a ack of shit on this thread