Friends suggesting transphobia and misogyny both rooted in policing gender roles

[Pyjamatimenow]

Friend of mine has posted on her social media ( a very long detailed post) that basically trans rights are women’s rights and that what she sees as transphobia is akin to people who ‘punish’ women who don’t fit into gender stereotypes, don’t get married, don’t look ‘feminine’, don’t have children…Says she’s a feminist and defends the rights of trans women to live safely etc …whatever that means. Cis women mentioned several times. I don’t normally comment on these kinds of things on FB but struggling with this particular post! If I were to say something what would you say?

She's right. Maybe try listening instead of immediately crowdsourcing how to dismiss her.

Or if you can't bring yourself to do that, maybe at least respect she has a perfect right to hold this opinion and you're not actually required to jump in and argue every single time someone says something you disagree with.

She’s not right, it’s patent bollocks.

Stupid, ignorant virtue signalling luxury beliefs. “Trans rights” have fuck all to do with women’s rights other than to disregard them.

We all want transwomen to live safely.

Just not to co opt women's single sex spaces and identities.

I'd ignore it for now and probably let the friendship drift, as she isn't a feminist at all if she's including men in her feminism.

Why did you feel the need to “jump in”? Ask yourself that, and you may understand how the op and others feel, even though you disagree with them.

And yet, as a prior poster points out, there you are, jumping in and arguing.

Perhaps you should try listening?

you're not actually required to jump in and argue every single time someone says something you disagree with.

Irony klaxon!

Anyway OP, can you be bothered?

You lot really are committed to bullying anyone who dares express a dissenting opinion off this board, aren't you.

So no reflection on the absurdity of what you said? How astonishing.

From a feminist point of view, thats a specious argument. Oppression of women is about telling women they need to behave in a certain way because they’re women. Feminism is about treating women as people who don’t have to be defined by or fit into any stereotype, it’s simply a description for a human who has a female body. So by that definition the idea of being a woman in a man’s body makes not sense.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people (im thinking those in the American right) for whom misogyny and anti-trans rhetoric are coming from the same place - antagonism towards those who won’t fit into the boxes allocated to them. And this makes it really easy for those not paying attention to claim it’s inherently the same thing, whereas most gender-critical people in the UK take a feminist approach.

as for whether you should comment - I think it is always helpful to put a reasonable and clear respond stating your views - especially for others reading it who may not have seen it in the way you do. But there can be a high personal cost to doing this, and you need to figure out if you feel it is personally worth it.

Being a feminist means defending women’s rights. These include the important right to privacy and safety from men, in single-sex spaces.

Therefore, you can either be a feminist or you can be a supporter of men using all women’s services and spaces. You can’t be two opposite things.

Some great advice here @Pyjamatimenow

Are you a child? Disagreeing is not bullying. In this space many people will disagree with you. And that's unlikely to change.

😂

I think she's perhaps someone who is still sure that there must be some way to give transwomen what they're asking for in terms of access to single sex spaces, so logically to her the only reasons for someone not wanting that to happen must be bad. She probably does mean well, because she's sure of that first thing. Facebook is a terrible place to try to debate this though.

I would leave it, partly on the basis that if she's sensible eventually she'll move beyond this point, but if so it won't be because of a friend debating her - if anything it'll be despite that, if you do.

I'd try to leave her an out for rolling back at some point in the future, and taking up an open stance 'against' her witnessed by other people on Facebook will only make that harder and entrench her position. I'd just ignore it completely.

Notice how many likes she gets, or doesn't. I've noticed Facebook friends who post things like that get barely 10% of the likes they get for other posts, these days. I think that can send a message in itself, so I'd probably leave it at that.

Thank you all. At the very least posting here helps me sort it out a little in my mind. My job makes it very difficult to be honest about my thoughts on this topic and I’m inwardly very frustrated and somewhat disappointed with myself when I read about so many other people being brave and articulate on the topic .

I understand your frustration because when it was really bad about 7 years ago, pre Forstater, I was working in a job where I had to keep quiet and nod along, to an extent. I subverted where I could.

@sundrenchedwyvern she has posted things like this before and not got much in the way of interaction

That triangley thing. There are some good memes of it. It goes something like this:

Conservatism: change your personality to match your body.
Transgenderism: change your body to match your personality.
Feminism: both your body and your personality are just fine the way they are.

Maybe see if you can find a nice cartooney version?

I would say that gender as a construct is the foundation of gender policing and the source of misogyny. That women's rights, as far as they call for differential treatment of, or spaces and services for, women vis-a-vis men, are only really valid on the basis of sex, not gender.

PPs have pretty much covered everything I think (except ReaperGirl, who I disagree with), but I do want to say how much it annoys me to hear 'trans rights are women's rights'.

It's like if someone said 'worker's rights are animal rights' - what on earth is the connection there? Or 'men's rights are women's rights', when that's definitely not the case. It's utterly nonsensical as the two are not the same at all, and of course, as we know, actually clash and conflict with each other.

It is very annoying. I feel sometimes that it’s like listening to people insisting that the world is flat. I actually can’t believe that so many women are behind this nonsense.

Hilarious.

Gives it, but can’t bear to take it.

Best educate yourself of your ideological 'limitations' first. There are a couple of reasons why you are failing to grasp her post.

Firstly, you don't seem to understand the guiding principle of feminism which is self determination that isn't limited by reproductive biological characteristics. Principles retain their legitimacy only when they are consistently held. One simply can't demand self determination for one's self (women) & deny it to others (trans people). Reducing trans people's identity to deluded 'performers' of the opposite sex is an attack on their self determination which ironically mirrors MRA's who reduce feminism to simply 'man envy' rather than recognise their inherent psychological interchangeability with men. See the parallels between trans & women's struggles?

The second reason you are struggling to understand her post is gender critical ideology is underpinned by blank slatism. That is, they don't believe feminine & masculine expressions are organic inclinations rather imposed culturally as Germaine Greer explains below all while she is ironically 'performing' stereotypical femininity with her feminine presentation.

What gender critical's & GG seem to miss is humans don't blindly replicate one another. We don't do monkey see monkey do. There's usually what's called a 'missing link' where 'copying' is preceded by an organic inclination to a preference. Our inclinations often have deep roots in genetic & hormonal influences that form our personality traits. Again, feminism wasn't about 'copying' men because there was nothing to copy. We women already had within us the same psychological traits that legitimised equal treatment.

Another example of transphobia being rooted in misogyny is how much more trans women are demonised & dehumanised than trans men particularly as being motivated by sexual deviancy & predation.

The common refrain we hear from GC talking points is 'trans people promote stereotypes by claiming the are the opposite gender' but even if they didn't claim they were the opposite gender we all know that despite what a natal male who expresses feminine presentation calls themselves it would still be socially unacceptable but not so for a butch natal female. Clearly there's misogynist social expectations regarding gender expression that is unrelated to what trans people call themselves & yet trans people are accused of being the enablers of it.

Now some might say that trans people promote sexist stereotypes by expressing traditional /feminine behaviours but don't cis women too? Aren't they 'promoting' misogyny too? Or are they 'let off the hook' for 'not knowing any better' as hapless 'victims' lacking autonomy? Or might it be both these groups like what they like because of internal inclinations that just so happen to be aligned with social expectations but still have every right to self determination just like everyone else.

I have a fb friend posting similar. I am in a position where I absolutely cannot voice dissent so I ignore. I’ve noticed that she only gets a very low percentage of her many followers reacting to these posts.

And I had to LOL at the idea that the guiding principle of feminism is self determination. 😂Actual women know that our biological reality is what determines our experience, not ourselves. If it did we wouldn’t need feminism at all.