UK radical feminists; what to do?

[RealRoseCritic]

So there was a question earlier today in one of my groups about TERFs in the UK, why are they so strong there, etc. Let me elaborate on something.

There is something special in mainstream British feminism that is quite different from European feminism(s), but since the English speaking internet concerns mostly the Anglosphere and not Europe, due to us having separate, isolated debates in each country/language, you won't likely ever hear how the UK is substantially different.
It is important to understand the logic of British feminism. Unlike European feminism, which is mostly inclusive and focused on stuff like equal pay, care, safe design of public space and general equity, in the UK it was always about "separate but equal".

British centres of power were always men-only, and many British feminists didn't react the way European women did (aka pushed their way into male spaces, so that these became co-ed spaces), but created their own, separate spaces, which they then aggressively policed the same way British men did with theirs. Add some Victorian prudishness and bioessentialism, that was abandoned in Europe after WWII for obvious reasons, but not in the UK, and voilà, here come British second-wave radfems and the TERFs.

I am from the Czech Republic where I currently live; I lived in Norway, Poland and the Netherlands, I speak fluently multiple European languages and understand few others; I don't say that to brag, but to show my ability to do the comparative analysis, since I study the topic closely.

Out of EU member states, only in Bulgaria and Hungary are trans rights worse than in the UK at the moment, with Hungary being expected to get substantially better soon, and in neither of those two countries are trans people, and especially trans women, as demonised as in the UK.

In all EU member states transphobia comes exclusively from far right places; it is unheard of that liberals or anyone non-far right would say what is absolutely the mainstream in the UK, including Hungary and Bulgaria.
If you are saying the stuff JKR is saying, you are 100 % aligned with far right politics.

We had an attempt by a group of our far right senators to enact a bill proposal similar to what is in the UK, but the proposal was killed within a week before it could have been even voted upon in the Chamber of Deputies. Just for instance.
Scandinavian feminism is focused mostly on fair share of care and chores, German feminism focuses mostly on equal pay, Kita for everyone and the like, Polish feminism is mostly about access to abortion, Czech feminism is mostly about equal pay and safety from domestic violence - I could go on, but all in all, men are welcome to participate and the goal is to create equity for everyone, regardless of their gender. Together.
We don't get British obsession with separate spaces for women, women here are absolutely fine with the way things are, mostly because cultures in the Continent are far less prudish and overall we treat men and women as one people rather than different species.

Moreover, because of civil law rather than common law, we have different approach to legal texts and their interpretations; this makes it different too.
Not just regarding trans rights, but also regarding women's rights, I am often amazed by how much backward the UK is in so many ways compared to the EU (again, including places like Hungary, this needs to be stressed). I often see women in English-speaking debates saying things like "ugh, men" on things that actually concern problems that are specifically British and that stem mostly from both societies' tendency to separate already boys from girls, treating them differently and sexualising women in contexts we don't really see as sexual at all.

We can't really get this across the Channel, because we just don't have the power to do so. For instance Czech debate on feminism is quite isolated; it's interesting, but no more than 15 million people would ever be able to participate in it (CZ/SK) due to the language barrier, the same goes for Scandinavia (17 million), Benelux (28 million), Poland (38 million), or even DACH (95 million). It is nothing compared to half a billion people of the US, UK, CA, AU, NZ and IE that are giving tone to the worldwide debate in English.

So, if you are a British trans woman, you would do yourself a great favour if you moved to mainland Europe. You will be welcomed and cherished (for the most part).

I think also Gretel has missed the definition of phobia.

Phobia is an irrational, illogical fear.

The vast majority of violent and sexual offences are committed by people with a penis (with a striking proportion of very late onset male to female in that group).

There is nothing irrational or illogical about women being afraid of people with a penis.

Gretel are you aware that in the UK there is a case of a woman on a hospital ward being raped by a trans person and being lied to for a whole year by the hospital that there were no men on the ward?

And now you are aware of that, if you weren't before, can you understand why every woman in a vulnerable state in hospital, or who might ever be that woman, might now be very much against a mixed sex ward?

And why you cannot "balance the harm" to one male bodied person of being placed on a male ward against the fear of a huge proportion of all the women in the country who may at some point be admitted to hospital if we can't be assured of female only spaces.

I think also Gretel has missed the definition of phobia.

I think "Gretel" has missed the point of much stuff.

No point arguing with them. Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

... and I say that in all seriousness because @SingleSexSpacesInSchools has made several excellent arguments and rebuttals, all of which are being ignored and/or ridiculed.

So ridicule it is ...

Oh I don't know, I quite enjoy a bit of pig wrestling, it exercises the leetle grey cells. 🤣

I reckon I would win at pig wrestling.

I suppose strength in numbers?

Pigs are actually lovely, you just don't want to fall over in the pen.

Very clean animals, too, contrary to common perceptions.

And intelligent!

I also noticed that our male poster from Aus reacted the most to posts from another male, weird that. 🤔

Yeah, I'm sure that wasn't lost on most people.

It's quite eye-opening watching a man who thoroughly dislikes women but still wants to access their spaces, try and justify it.

The misogyny drips off the page, the self justification hits the stratosphere, and, certainly to me, the absolute rage that women might mock, is fairly scary.

I know the saying is that men are afraid women will laugh at them, while women are afraid men will kill them. But time after time, it's proven true.

edited to add I wonder if men mocking men feels worse to those men than women doing it. Somehow I don't think it does.

Is Gretel a bloke?

I had assumed Gretel was a bloke because of the repeated posts about penis phobia.

I could be wrong.

Well, obviously no-one can tell who anyone is on the Internet, but I'd bet my mortgage he's absolutely a bloke.

I'm more than happy to mock him. Seeing as he clearly won't debate and discuss or stop actually insulting posters here.

A bit like the Count Binface strategy.

It’s the female name and numbers combo in the username that usually gives it away for me.

It's every single word they write and everything they say that does it for me.

'where women glow and men plunder'

Course he is. It's Howse.

There's a couple of very distinctive phrases he uses that always give him away.

😂

I noticed some linguistic features but didn't mention them because they're useful to spot if a poster posts under another name. Unless all Aussies write like that!

It was MN that taught me that the lead singer is actually from Scotland.

'I moved to a land down under'. 😂

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