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?

It's funny how so many of your statements are just you telling on yourself.
Hope you have a nice day, but I'm out!

Well she certainly isn't "lovely" because she's doing performative virtue signalling on Facebook without apparently ever having stopped to think about what she is posting. It doesnt make any sense and she doesnt understand feminism at all.

Up to you whether you feel you have to post something in response and I'm sure there will have been some good suggestions already. Feminism does not prioritise the desires of men over the needs of women. But is it worth your time? Modern version of an old proverb "Never attempt to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig. "

There will never be a true Scotsman so there is no point.

This is one of the reasons GI supporters love "no debate".

It isn't just to shut sex realists up - it's because they are unable to make solid arguments and "no debate" gets them out of having to do so.

It isn't even that. Because even if you do believe that "being female ... is an identity that can be adopted" all that means is you want to change the people a word refers to. It doesn't actually remove the fact of two human sexes, nor require that the female half of the species not be named or recognised at all.

The thing that proves, unequivocally, that fir all their guff about "self determination", what sexist people like Howse and Bailey really want is not a new understanding of what a woman is at all, but appropriation and subjection of the female sex in support of men, is that even as they tell us our name properly means something else, they do not allow us to define ourselves outside that name.

For Gender Absolutists like Howie and Bailey it's not enough to change what "woman" means, we must also submit to that new meaning regardless of how we may know ourselves and have our own life experiences.

Only one side in this is saying that the reality of sex and groups based on identity and presentation can't both exist under different names for these different things.

Only one side is trying to prevent any cultural, political or social recognition that sex has consequences especially for female people.

Only one side is trying to rewrite Feminism to support the subjugation of female needs in favour of men's feelings.

She's right in the sense that defined gender roles are essential to the whole concept of trans-ness. If there are no gender roles associated with the two sexes, if either sex can be and present in any manner, then there's nothing to "trans" into. Gender roles limit the popular perception of what a man or a woman can be. A woman who fails to stay inside the gender role box prescribed for her sex is seen as transgressive, and therefore disruptive, potentially dangerous; she needs to be herded back inside the box by whatever means necessary.

The apparent transgressiveness of transgenderism thus reinforces gender norms.

Very, very few people think it should be illegal for men to re-name themselves Tiffany and go out in public dressed like women, false breasts, make-up, high heels and all. Because most people are tolerant and kind, they might even call that man "she" to his face because they want to be nice. 99.9% of gender critical people respect the existence of trans-identified individuals and have no issue living their lives in whatever way seems best to them. Nevertheless, we know that trans-identified men are not women. Their sex is still male. They are still, and will always be, men. They are men who seek to adopt the gender role commonly assigned to women.

How could these men gain fulfillment from playing the woman if there was no costume for them to put on, no gender role for them to perform?

Such posts are best ignored. the writers are beyond logic

The reality of biological sex and its consequences is not a matter of "indoctrination".

Quite. We're all waiting for the slam dunk argument that explains why 'feeling womanly' should be used instead of 'sex' for access to women's stuff.

Just reading through responses. She had posted it on a particular interest group that she admins/ runs. I did ask last night what she meant by ‘living safely and authentically’ as she was talking about the need for us all to defend trans women’s rights to do that in order to protect our own right to define ourselves. She hasn’t responded. One other person has thanked her for being an ally

Putting to one side the point that fear of violence is not the only reason for sex segregation of toilet facilities your argument appears to boil down to this.

• Women don’t commit sexual violence against other women
• Many women wear dresses
• Therefore nobody who wears a dress will commit sexual violence against a woman

I will leave it to you to point out the bus sized holes in this logic.

So on one hand you affirm the sexes share behavioural expressions but on the other any shared expressions by trans people are 'fake'/copied & purely motivated by a desire to claim they are the opposite sex rather than an organic inclination that's commonly aligned with the opposite sex? That's incoherent.

You are saying that if lipstick and heels didn’t exist, women and transwomen would “organically” invent them.

Why then are trans-identifying men only attracted to and engage with the symbols of femininity peculiar to their own societies? For that matter, if fishnets and a pearl necklace were so “organic” why do they exist as only in modern western society?

Incoherent, indeed.

Wow, you seem to have landed here with some pretty rigidly fixed ideas about what posters on this board think, feel and believe.

It feels like you’re pretty closed off to having your preconceptions challenged, ironically. It’s a pity you don’t seem willing to engage, rather than simply judging and declaiming; as if you were to engage in good faith with reasonable propositions made without aggression, you’d find people willing to engage and debate reasonably.

How could these men gain fulfillment from playing the woman if there was no costume for them to put on, no gender role for them to perform?

Precisely.

Feminism seeks an end to 'gender roles' which it believes are constructed and imposed on women by patriarchal society to oppress them.

Transactivism seeks the acknowledgement that gender roles are innate, embedded, 'natural'. That is the opposite of the goals of feminism.

The fact that transactivists believe some people get the wrong gender doesn't change those fundamentals - they believe that gender roles are a fact, rather than a social construct.

They can't have it both ways.

Your comment is straight out of Mar-a-Lago.

Just because women use feminine attire to attract men doesn't mean they don't enjoy it on other levels as an expression of their authenticity.

Do you understand how breathtakingly sexist this is?

Feminine-coded choices only exist because they affect men - male gaze, male attraction. There is not a single practical problem that high heels, lipstick, makeup and other expressions of being feminine solve in their own right. If they had no effect on men they would not persist.

If a woman enjoys these things that is her right but it’s quite wrong to say that they are authentic of anything other than a role in a game centred on men. Even if that’s not the social game she thinks she’s playing, the tools she’s playing with were sculpted because of the way men react to them.

If high heels were intrinsically feminine then women would wear them in all cultures and historical periods. They don’t and didn’t.

Don't forget Western economies would go down the pan if women didn't buy fashion, make up and jewellery!

A poster called Howse told us that last year...

What intrinsic practical problem does any fashionable item solve in its own right other than its basic function to cover body parts and regulate temperature? Why only pick female clothes and not male clothes?

I know! Honestly, I feel like I'm trying to describe the mechanics of black holes to someone who thinks the stars are painted on a dark blue bowl just outside the atmosphere.

Why only pick female clothes and not male clothes?

I'm not picking only on clothes. But, I think the answer is plain. Female clothes and symbols get less and less practical the more "female" they get. The shorter your dress the less it functions to (in your words) "cover body parts and regulate temperature". The taller your heel the less well you can run; the pointier the toe, the more they damage your feet. The heavier your jewellery the less you are able to do manual work. The longer your nails the less you're able to use your hands.

Which male clothes or symbols would you choose to pick on? Let's look at the Village People for some very sexualized male attire and symbolism: construction helmets protect the wearer's head. Native American headdresses connote seniority and leadership. Motorcycle leathers protect the wearer from skin lacerations in the event of a fall. Military and police uniforms promote unit cohesion and top-down obedience. All of these primary functions are practical, and any sexuality associated with them is associative. Other "male" symbols would be heavy musculature (practical), rougher fabrics (again, hard wearing and practical). Not a single one of them is created from the basis of their effect on women.

It makes me sick when people in favour of gender ideology tell those who disagree with them that they need to 'educate' themselves. It's like something out of 1984. And as if you're pushing facts, rather than ideals and feelings, and you're 'right'. Just one of many insults wielded by the people wedded to a cause they cannot justify in plain English.

I still don’t get the point. Women and men have different bodies and look good in different clothes. We wear different clothes to look sexy to the opposite sex isn’t strange. Animals have different markings and feathers for that reason. Of course men’s clothes are designed to attract the opposite sex (or their own if so inclined). It is just their method of attraction is different as - men and women are different biologically! That’s the point. And as it happens women look just as attractive and jeans and t-shirts as men do

how Is a women wearing short dress different to a man wearing shorts with no top on?

Accepting that people of both sexes sometimes wear clothes to be sexually attractive to men, sometimes people are just wearing clothes.