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).

@TransParentlyAnnoyed So why didn't Khalif appeal his failed sex test to the Court of Sports Arbitration as was his right? Was it because the tests would then become public record? And you do know a French journalist leaked the tests? And why hasn't he taken a cheek swab test to continue to compete as every other female boxer has done?
Do we need to write the answer in large crayon letters for you?

Somewhere there is a woman, no doubt just as "brown" and "Muslim" as Imane Khelif, who didn't get to represent her country at boxing because a man was chosen instead.
That wasn't very "leftist". Mind you, I wouldn't exactly call it rightist either. It was just plain unfair and dishonest.

I don't believe for a second that this poster is a parent. The posting style is petulant, snippy, and smacks of sixth former self importance. It's like texting with a teenager.
More likely a TIM who is has invented a scenario to prop up and legitimise their own situation.
Grim.

but genderists don't care about sex do they? they sometimes conveniently care about chromosomes when they want to bring up intersex people as some kind of gotcha, but it's all about ~feelings~ to them. khalif is a woman cause he says is to these people, isn't he?

I didn’t see an answer to my question @TransParentlyAnnoyed about whether you support male people punching female people in the face?

Do you or don’t you?

There really isn’t anything more complicated than that. If a female person has been gaslighted and told the male person punching her in the face is ‘female’ when he is not, she has not consented to being punched in the face by a male person.

You either understand consent or you don’t .

I would like to take this opportunity to mention that i discovered just yesterday that Marguerite Stern wrote a book about how she moved from the far left (she was a Femen at one point) to the right, precisely when she stopped being blinkered by idealism and faced the facts of how things actually are.

All that said, I myself am still a leftist, though most definitely not a far-left one!

It is not leftist or feminist to call a young brown Muslim woman a man who likes punching women. I saw so many GCs quote Reduxx in defence of them doing this.

Imane Khelif has specifically spoken out to say that they are not trans and that calling them so is insulting to them. Why do you keep on doing it?

It isn't leftist to claim that trans women taking photos of themselves in short skirts is "womanface" or evidence of perversion.

The short skirts are not the problem. The penises very visibly in erection under them are.

It isn't leftist to make horrific comments about the breasts, genitalia or reproductive systems of trans men.

Why? It's the truth, and leftists should be able to face the truth as much as anyone else.

Or to invent ableist conspiracy theories about autism, mental illness and physical disability.

No need to invent anything when the facts are there, collected into statistics.

It's not leftist to mock trans people's appearance, object when they have jobs, or claim that they're fetishists.

Would you argue that even the self-proclaimed fetishists are not fetishists? Do you know them better than they know themselves?

It's not leftist to treat individuals from a minority as representative of the whole.

Good thing we don't do that, then? We have no problem saying that there are multitudes among trans people.

It's not leftist to deny minority people their individuality, full stop.

When do we supposedly do that?

Or question why they exist, or where they came from - or to hope they will one day be gone.

Again, why are you so afraid of facing the facts? And don't you wish that no more kids ever go through the heartache you child did and does? I certainly do! I hope science figures out what's up with trans, and nobody ever need to hurt their body anymore.

And above all, it's not feminist to pretend that there's a "social contract" preventing violent cis men attacking us wherever they want in public spaces.

Then why don't we see men entering women's spaces willy-nilly? Why do they restrain themselves at all?

Or to pretend that anything other than strength in numbers prevents women being assaulted in so-called 'safe spaces'.

Whar safe spaces???

Blaming trans women for cis male violence plays into the hands of the far right.

I don't care. The truth is the truth is the truth. The facts are the facts are the facts. I will NOT dismiss a fact because the right happens to agree with me on it. I will NOT lie about the truth because the right happens to be right about it. This would be madness.

Transphobia is a protection racket which forces gender conformity on cis women while doing absolutely nothing for our safety.

The only ones forcing gender conformity on anyone are the TRAs. Now people who don't look sex-typical are getting asked if they are trans, instead of being assumed to simply be part of life's variety in appearances.

We need better consent teaching. Proper rape justice. An addressing of rape culture. And we get: toilet vigilantism, with a warning not to look too male or we'll be hurt too. What a surprise

Put the blame where it belongs: on the TRAs who created the situation in the first place.

“And above all, it's not feminist to pretend that there's a "social contract" preventing violent cis men attacking us wherever they want in public spaces.”

Therefore, maybe those claiming that male people have to use female single sex provisions for their safety should stop with that claim.

“We need better consent teaching.”

Yes. Because consent also includes female athletes having their consent respected.

In fact, that includes every single female person who doesn’t consent to a male person accessing any female single sex provision.

She has written extensively on other threads about how her daughter decided she was a boy. Her own bisexuality and masculine presentation, and not wanting a girlie daughter is a very big, and illuminating, part of it all. She doesn't herself recognise her part in creating body dysmorphia in her daughter. I think she is genuine and very conflicted and troubled. She fights for her child's rights partly as a displacement activity.

attacking trans people for everything they do (appearing on TV, accessing care, wearing clothes, taking selfies) isn't leftist,

For the record, I would like to make it absolutely clear that I'm very much in favour of trans people wearing clothes. The more the better. Also of everyone having access to sound, evidence-based healthcare. I don't care who takes selfies as long as they don't infringe my privacy when doing so or bore me by expecting me to look at them.

And yet originally, they didn't have a trans child. They had trans people in their 'extended family'.

Yep. They were also originally a 'cis woman' but have become non-binary in the space of less than 6 months. They appear to be either a fantasist or a good example of contagion.

Non binary and cis woman are not in conflict.

A 'cis woman' identifies as a woman, a non-binary person doesn't. I'm intrigued to discover how you believe they are not in conflict though. Feel free to explain your thinking.

OK. I believe non binary is just the new term for bisexual, so for me they aren't in conflict. I get your point though.

Non binary describes someones "gender identity", bisexual is a sexual orientation. They are not the same thing.

Non-binary isn't now, and has never been, the new term for 'bisexual'.

It's possibly the new term for "my mum wouldn't let me get a snake".

Non binary is a totally rational reaction, indeed a genuine need, to existing in an ideology that asserts "man" and "woman" are mental rather than physical.

Since almost no one fully aligns to the social construct version of a Man or a Woman (other than trans people who believe they fully align to the one they weren't "assigned" at birth), most people who think about it and have bought into the genderist constructs will come to identify as non binary¹.

Of course this does not stop them lazily assuming everyone whose inner thoughts they are not party to is "cis" based on nothing more than their own prejudices about other people.

Very much a case of cis for thee but not for me.

¹ Hilariously, some of them, generally people who the Feminists who don't buy into Gender as a valid societal organising structure would simply call Women and Girls, are now realising there's a significant difference between the experiences and needs of male people's female and we started to see wording like "cis women, trans men and AFAB NBs" emerging 🤦‍♀️

You notice this in any book that actually tries to explain what "gender identity" is.

There's always a point where the author comes to a great big screeching halt and you can almost see the grinding thought of "that sounds quite sexist when I put it like that". Hence all books trying to explain just end up repeating the mantras rather than giving any genuine explanation.

It’s certainly rational. It just doesn’t need to be a label for humans. Any more than we need to be called “Earth-dwelling”.

Oh I know. It's like inventing steel toe shields as a rational solution to damage from shooting yourself in the foot.

A better solution is obvious to anyone not bought into the "shooting myself in the foot is a good thing" ideology.

But, once someone has have made a commitment to the shooting yourself in the foot ideology, the toe guard inevitably becomes necessary.

Nowadays, Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme would identify as a Prose Speaker and demand a flag and a day (week? month?) of celebration. And that people who write poetry should check their Poets' Privilege.

I thought a ‘cis’ woman was a normal woman. If a ‘cis’ woman is someone that ‘identifies as a woman’, what’s the terminology for a common or garden woman that doesn’t identify as anything, but just IS a woman?

I ask as the female section of my sailing club has now declared that it is the place for ‘anyone who idenditifies as a women’. I used to be a regular, but as someone who doesn’t ‘identify’ as anything, I simply am a woman, where do I fit in? I no longer belong where I once did.

I don't have a gender identity. I have been told in the past that this makes me agender and therefore trans.

I call bollocks on the whole rotten thing.

Woman = adult, human female.

I don't have a gender identity. I'm just me.