I’ve skipped a lot of this but can I say C?

I’ve skipped a lot of this but can I say C?

Never say never…

‘You can’t transition from a male to a female. That’s biology.’

Miranda Yardley – a transwoman – was permanently banned from Twitter for saying just that

http://mirandayardley.com/en/i-permanently-banned-twitter-make-worry/

its fighting a battle that is largely won in my organisation

To you maybe, but does everyone else agree.  I would say the same about my organisation but there must be thousands of people who don’t get it, won’t accept it etc,. just the same as the millions of people in this country.

…and there are thousands of people who are just not interested. I am completely libertarian about what people do in private but I think there are more pressing issues like poverty and inequality that can be forced off the agenda by gender and identity politics and calling people out etc etc. When May and Markle can describe themselves as feminists you know how a lot of this stuff has become vacuous and unthreatening.

So, what do you mean?

I mean female women are being disadvantaged. You know that big group of people who on one hand as modern men we argue that they are not being treated equal, yet on the other hand as modern men we decide its ok to let femine males gatecrash and claim their places and space as their own. Allowing femine men to stand in all women shortlists in politics, femine men being given jobs as women’s reps, femine men entering and competing in women’ sports, femine men taking womens places in prisons, hospitals, shelters etc etc. It’s real and it’s happening and no matter however small a scale it is happening on it still impacts a whole other group of people. People talk about white male privilege on here, and this issue is the ultimate example if it. Men deciding that femine men are not acceptable as men therefore driving them to be women instead where they must fit in better as they are not like us. When women question this the men get upset and start banning them from things instead of discussing in a rational matter. That’s why the definitions are important and matter, women for ever have been disadvantaged due to the biological differences they have with men. They are still fighting to overcome this.

Yeah, that’s definitely it – “femine men” are being driven to become women. 🤦‍♀️

Rachel

instead of discussing in a rational matter.

I like a lot of what you wrote but the but above is a problem (along with the being driven to change bit). I think a lot of people are trying to discuss this in a rational manner but there are some real conflicts and in the end someone has to make a decision, even if that is changed later.

If gender is a social construct and people want to transition to another gender then yes they are to a degree being driven to make that change. Gender shouldn’t matter, that’s what feminists have been arguing for years. When some people realise this they then switch the debate to biology, and when it’s pointed out that biological sex is different to and does not equal gender then they start to blur the lines and as is happening now the line disappears altogether.

I shall give way to your greater knowledge and experience of the subject, Rene59…

rachel

more pressing issues like poverty and inequality that can be forced off the agenda by gender and identity politics and calling people out etc etc.

Not sure why a company would have internal groups and initiatives for poverty and inequality in society so don’t understand how that could possible be forced off the agenda?

I shall give way to your greater knowledge and experience of the subject, Rene59…

rachel

A proper and literal LOL at that one 😂

👍👍

Not sure why a company would have internal groups and initiatives for poverty and inequality in society so don’t understand how that could possible be forced off the agenda?

Ever worked somewhere and watched some idiot get promoted because they went to private school with the boss/boss’ offspring, or play golf, or some other old boys network. Or noticed how the board of directors get huge bonuses and parachute payments when they leave whilst the cleaner gets a pay freeze and subcontracted out so they don’t have to even be paid the same workplace benefits as regular staff. Same problems in recruitment.

Workplaces shaft the poor just like any other marginalised group.

Laugh all you want but if you think gender and sex are the same thing then the jokes on you.

Somebody needs to think of the pansexuals in all of of this.

Laugh all you want but if you think gender and sex are the same thing then the jokes on you.

Oh we’re laughing alright but at you.

‘That’s why the definitions are important and matter, women for ever have been disadvantaged due to the biological differences they have with men.’

This. If you think biology is irrelevant, if you think women don’t suffer discrimination and disadvantage because of biology, you clearly haven’t been following the news in Ireland. Not a single biological male – whatever gender they identify as – has ever died of sepsis due to being denied an abortion while miscarrying. Not one.

Somebody needs to think of the pansexuals in all of this

huckleberryfatt

If you think biology is irrelevant, if you think women don’t suffer discrimination and disadvantage because of biology, you clearly haven’t been following the news in Ireland. Not a single biological male – whatever gender they identify as – has ever died of sepsis due to being denied an abortion while miscarrying. Not one.

Sorry but that right there is transmisogynist hatred.

Sorry but that right there is transmisogynist hatred.

Wait… a hatred of people who who hate women and trans people?  Count me in too, please.

Laugh all you want but if you think gender and sex are the same thing then the jokes on you.

Of course you are right – they are different. I did use the wrong word I should have said trans-woman not trans-female.

Your argument is the same one that got Jenni Murray sanctioned by the BBC and Germain Greer ‘no-platformed’ by a university or two.

It is sort of ‘through the looking glass’ though when a feminist argues in such a way as to make them sound trans-phobic.

It is sort of ‘through the looking glass’ though when a feminist argues in such a way as to make them sound trans-phobic.

Is it? Never heard of a TERF* then I take it?

Rene’s whole post reads as a TERF argument. Yeah, because it’s male priviliege that makes people want to change sex. Of course women never do that either, that would be ludicrous…

*Trans-Excluionary Radical Feminist

For the record I’m neither radical or a feminist and I fully support transpeoples right to identify, dress and present as anything they want to.

I believe the term TERF is considered by many women to be misogynistic.

Women identifying as men doesn’t have the same impact on men as men identifying as women has on women. Have a think about it. If it did then there wouldn’t be an argument about it at all. It wouldn’t be happening.

Well considering I know plenty of feminists from a wide cross section who are more clued up than I am and use the term quite happily I’m not sure who thinks it’s misogynistic. Or even how it could be taken as such.

‘Never heard of a TERF’

Yes. Often preceded by the words ‘punch a’ or ‘burn in a fire’, TERF is a derogatory and misogynistic term used to silence women seeking to discuss self id.

Recent research using brain scanning technologies has shown that trans people show clear activity in their cortex that is appropriate to the gender they identify with, not the gender their physical appearance says they should be. Which supports what they’ve been saying all along.

Ever worked somewhere and watched some idiot get promoted because they went to private school with the boss/boss’ offspring, or play golf, or some other old boys network. Or noticed how the board of directors get huge bonuses and parachute payments when they leave whilst the cleaner gets a pay freeze and subcontracted out so they don’t have to even be paid the same workplace benefits as regular staff. Same problems in recruitment.

Workplaces shaft the poor just like any other marginalised group.

I haven’t worked somewhere like that no but realise it exists.  I think it is a a different thing though and would not just be promoting awareness and would not be pushed off the table because of the “gay agenda”

An awful lot of these issues would be solved or at least become non issues if people tried harder to follow Wheaton’s Law.

Very insensitive bringing up a law about dicks on such a thread.

Women identifying as men doesn’t have the same impact on men as men identifying as women has on women. Have a think about it. If it did then there wouldn’t be an argument about it at all. It wouldn’t be happening.

I can’t see how you can make any kind of argument for anyone coming out as anything as having an impacft on anyone beyond the immediate circle of friends of the person doing the coming out.

How can someone coming out as a trans-woman have an impact on women in general?

Now I do understand the argument that Germain Greer made, and for which she got ‘no platformed’, which is that you canno equate the experience of a trans-woman to that of someone who has lived as a woman their whole life. That’s simple the nature of experience, in the classic way that Laing described it in ‘The Politics of Experience’ but that applies to everyone about everything, not just gender.

Naturally Greer takes that argument furter by saying that a trans-woman will have benefited at least in part from a degree of ‘priviledge’ associated with having lived as a man for some of their life but then we’re just back into this issue of apparent priviledge and you know what I think about that!

I read ‘The Female Eunuch’ for my undergrad and thought very highly of it. I think at the time it was written it must of resonated very strongly and even when I read it, in 1993, I could see evidence that supported it. I think though, like most cultural ideas, the progress we’ve made has rendered it largely irrelevant, which is why we have ‘third wave feminism’ as the last gasp effort to keep the movement alive.

The main problem with saying that the lived experience of trans women is different to that of other women is it implies the experience of other women is totally consistent. And it’s not.

Rachel

I’m just here to agree with Rachel.

Carry on…

Re the o.p. I think whoever “defaced”the sign has a chip on their shoulder.

fwiw , where I work ,an individual has just transitioned in a very public manner and I am glad to say that my colleagues(ruftytufty engineering types) have not said one disparaging word. Two of those colleagues , when I started(14years ago)where reticent to be open about their gay children. Now they don’t give a monkeys. Hurray for the 21 century. Imo.

Again, only ever women and one trans I’ve heard discussing TERFs, obviously they must be self hating.

By TERF I am talking about those in the feminist community that actively hate and discriminate against trans folk.

And Rachel, you nailed my thoughts on that argument right in the head.

Laugh all you want

I’m actually still smiling about it now to be honest 😆

the jokes on you.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Not convinced you know what it is that I was amused by anyway. 👍

I can’t see how you can make any kind of argument for anyone coming out as anything as having an impacft on anyone beyond the immediate circle of friends of the person doing the coming out.

How can someone coming out as a trans-woman have an impact on women in general?

Is it it not the argument that was pushed out when Bruce Jenner came out (I want to say Kylie/Kendal Jenner but feel that/they might be different) and then won woman of the year awards. It should not have any impact on people not directly involved but it seems to and I guess that would be the point of the inclusive event in the op…

It’s not homophobic as such, any more than “all lives matter” is racist. But it’s a fair bet that the venn diagram of people who’d do that and people who are homophobic probably has a lot of overlap.