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).

Yeah I believe that's the consensus. You can Name change, but you can't stop your misogyny

Deleted as posted on wrong thread.

Those posts are easy to spot but it’s interesting to consider if these writing tics are distracting you from other posting personas that aren’t in quite the same style.

Buckle up everyone, I am going to go full throttle.

Honestly didn't expect them to come back if I am honest.

It doesn't really matter. If a poster is wrong, they continue to be wrong whether they are a name changer or someone new.

Every daft neo sexist post is a opportunity to show the nasty misogynists up for who they really are.

Just keep on turning the spotlight away from whatever they are trying to distract with and back to the undeniable fact thst female people exist, that this has consequences for us, and any movement that seeks to prevent us naming ourselves and speaking plainly and straightly about our sex cannot be morally justified even if it's managed to hoodwink some countries' legal, political and media establishment into giving it what it wants for now.

(Also, I don't think our biggest pigeon is able to control his emotions well enough to maintain separate personas over time.)

I am sorry if I was muscling in, honestly!

Is that a username? "Howse"

Haha! I'm pretty sure he doesn't know you're a bloke.

He certainly won't know that once you get the bit between your teeth, you are seismically hard to deter.

(See if you can get some mocking in - general mocking obvs, let's keep deletions to a minimum)

Howseitgoin.

Advanced search might be handy to find any old posts if you want to read them.

Remember your finger warmups, and regular screen breaks.

Greta doesn't seem the usual TRA on here "please educate me/now I'll educate you" type. Way more the "you've nothing to educate me on, but I have a ton for you".
So, this thrust that trans is a pure grassroots up movement of the powerless, GC is a pure RW supremacist down movement of the enpowered.
So, that would explain how whole strata of society one by one fell into lockstep on this, medicine, academia, the broad swathe of (non RW, presumably) media, sports, and what you might call the Great Awokening zeitgeist from 2013.
So, a group that call themselves the most disenfranchised, the most bullied, the most prone to suicide (indeed a suicide epidemic right now) was able in less than two decades to achieve changes across the West that took women, gays, the disabled literally centuries to achieve.
Yes, <that> most vulnerable of groups.
All the while, in the same time that Thatcher to Trump/Farage/Le Pen right wing govts and movements, The Sun to Musk/X media/SM right wing narrative delivery systems, we've gone to a totally transphobic West.
That had this cadre of right wing govts, media and bio essentialist bigoted women not warped society, right now the vast vast majority of women would be accepting gender self ID, medicalization of their children, all of us would be content with the tightest of restrictions on dissent, and women would be accepted as an even broader demographic group, white and black/brown, tall and short, heterosexual and lesbian...and AMAB women and AFAB women.
And in Greta's world, the AMAB women would be at the forefront of the fight against male VAWG, AMAB women would be teaching AFAB women as to the joys of a wider sisterhood, how their unique experience brings so much more of worth to the wonders of womanhood.

Just clarifying again because OP is confused in believing they are a feminist. They identify as a feminist however they are a feminist identifying transphobe. Just because you claim to be a feminist it doesn’t mean you are one. Hope this helps in correcting the language used as language matters in ensuring the public isn’t mislead.

You begin by admitting that your theory requires no evidence. That is convenient, but it also means it proves nothing. An evidence-free theory that diagnoses women with class envy, sexual hang-ups and internalised misogyny is not serious analysis. It is fan fiction about the motives of women who disagree with you.

An evidence free theory is also called - a guess.

You continue to confuse enjoying femininity with being female. Gender-critical feminism does not tell women to reject dresses or make-up, or men to reject femininity. It says those things do not determine sex. A feminine man remains a man; a masculine woman remains a woman. People should be free to express themselves without having their clothes turned into a diagnostic test for an inner sex.

Your position is the stereotypical one. If feminine presentation helps make somebody a woman, then “woman” has once again been reduced to clothes, make-up, mannerisms and preferences. That is old-fashioned sexism wearing progressive branding.

Rude remarks by particular people would be rude; they would not demonstrate that recognising sex is hatred of femininity. Nor do possible biological influences on average behaviour turn those averages into sex categories. There is enormous individual overlap. A preference for lipstick is not a reproductive class.

“Bio-realist supremacy” is another impressive-sounding phrase doing the work an argument should be doing. Recognising the female sex does not claim women are superior. It says women are equal human beings with material interests and boundaries.

Why, in your formulation, is a male person’s identity treated as authoritative while a woman’s refusal is treated as pathology? Why is his self-conception worthy of automatic respect while her privacy, dignity and “no” are negotiable?

That is the misogynistic hierarchy here. You still have not answered why a male person’s self-description should override female rights. If your theory can respond only by diagnosing and insulting the women asking, it is the theory - and you - that has failed.

Oh, so saying 'just because you claim you are a woman, it doesn’t mean you are one' is OK by you then?

Language matters after all.

...and just because a male IDs as a female, doesn't mean he is one.

<snap!>

Ideas crossing borders are not imperial conquest. If they were, every international feminist campaign, LGBT campaign and human-rights organisation would need its own colonial office. Not to mention no one would ever take inspiration or ideas from other countries, you are coming across as stiflingly surface in your understanding of words.

To establish cultural imperialism, you would need evidence of coercive power displacing a local culture. The fact that foreign newspapers report an argument you dislike does not establish that women were hypnotised by Rupert Murdoch into noticing biological sex.

Women in many countries can independently recognise the same material facts: people reproduce through two sexes, males do not become female, and female people sometimes require boundaries from males. No instructions from Britain are needed.

Your rule also appears to have remarkably selective border controls. International gender-identity terminology and policies spread through governments, NGOs, corporations and social media, yet you call that progress (and weirdly not cultural imperialism). Women sharing sex-based arguments internationally suddenly DOES become imperialism. Why is international advocacy legitimate when it advances male access to female spaces but sinister when women defend their boundaries?

The existence of trans-identifying people across different cultures does not prove that identity changes sex or creates an entitlement to opposite-sex provision. Respectful treatment and participation in public life do not require women to surrender female categories.

Nor is female-only provision inherently patriarchal. Excluding women from political power is not equivalent to women organising together, recovering from male violence or seeking privacy while undressing. Pretending these are identical because both involve boundaries erases purpose and power. It also makes you look easily confused, Patriarchy does not apply, it's just single sex groups organising something.

Once again you have produced an elaborate political origin story while avoiding the actual issue. Why should a male identity cancel a female person’s right to say no? Women are not colonial territory, and their boundaries do not require approval from either the political left or right.

😂
So you've fallen out with the OP and are dissing his criticism of women?

Good to see you finally joining in the condemnation of him - although I might use the term misogynist rather than transphobe - but you do you.

Masha thinks the OP is a transphobe?

Interesting.

Presumably Masha has inside knowledge?

Yes, I think we both saw the flaw in Mash's post.

On the one hand, identity is King, and people are who they say they are... unless Mash disagrees with them, then identity is worthless, and they aren't who they say they are. Plus, I can motte and bailey language, but you can't! Of course, Mash doesn't want to mislead the public, unless it is in a way that causes them to mistakenly go along with TWAW.

ETA - in reply to 1984.

So, men can become women by identifying as women, but men get to decide whether a woman is a feminist or not? Amazing. 😂

TBH Mash’s posts are like Chat GPT v1.0. Before they debugged it.

They are great! Keep it up, Masha! 6/10.