Latest from Mridul Wadhwa

Galaxy I really haven't accused you of anything but can you really not see the effect of saying that transwomen and men dressing as women are a danger on what will happen to women who look a little different? You may be the sweetest nicest most considerate person in the world but not everyone is.

Nope not sweet or nice. Get me trashing those gender norms.
As I have just said I dont think transwomen are dangerous I think they are of the male sex.

And there again you fail to acknowledge anything Galaxy does it not bother you that some people will use what you say to attack other women?

Saying that because the majority of women in the UK are white and therefore their views matter more than any others is just about as far from real feminism as you can get.

I didn't say anything resembling that, as you can clearly see.

You think the fact that I am saying we need to enforce the exemptions of the equality act will make people (I take it you mostly mean men) attack some women. I dont think that's the case. And obviously women arent responsible for the violent actions of men even if it were.

The government recently asked for peoples views when they were proposing reforming the GRA, are you saying that request for views will have led to women being attacked.

Currently, there are very few offences carried out by males in women's spaces.
When places are mixed sex, there is an increased number of offences.

If all places become effectively mixed sex because any man, whatever he looks like, can claim to be a woman, the number of offences will increase even more.

If men, whatever they look like, can claim to be women and actual women are not allowed to challenge them that will decrease challenging of non-conventional women but increase general suspicion of women towards everyone around them.

Galaxy

You think the fact that I am saying we need to enforce the exemptions of the equality act will make people (I take it you mostly mean men) attack some women. I dont think that's the case. And obviously women arent responsible for the violent actions of men even if it were.

It won't just be men Galaxy there are women out there who can be pretty violent when they spot (or think they spot) someone who isn't exactly what they expect. Ask girls who are Goths or a bit different who gives them a hard time. You are giving them a back story to legitimise their aversions. "Well how would I know she was a woman,she looks like a bloke in drag"

Ps
Do you have experience or evidence that non-conventional looking women being harassed by other women happens often?

Nope I didnt decide that men should access womens spaces. If women are anxious about this and want to discuss this, as requested in the consultation, then no they are not responsible for others violence. If that was the case I would be blaming you for the violent threats and assaults on gender critical women. After all you are giving them a backstory arent you. White right wing feminists they deserve a kicking.

Nobody deserves a kicking Galaxyand I don't understand how advocating everyone deserves consideration but some suffer more than others could actually be interpreted in the way you have chosen. White right wing feminists (can you really have such a thing) can air their views as long as in doing so they do not harm or damage others.

Yes FarNorth I have experience.

They arent right wing, that's just the narrative, most are lefties but that confuses people! I think everyone should be treated with consideration too, but sometimes there is a clash of rights, it's a bugger when that happens.

*Basically intersectionality gives white women a position of privilege- they are white and a position of oppression- they are women. The privilege is the default position, and contrasts with BAME women who are oppressed in both areas.

If you refuse to recognise people who are challenging gender roles are you not, even if unconsciously, supporting established ones?*

Does anyone really get up in the morning and think 'You know what? I am going to start living my life as an Intersectionalist Feminist, and put my Third Wave views in the bin, where they belong?'

These terms are just shorthand used by sociologists to describe the ways in which feminism of the time (or in history) is being, or has been discussed. They are not series' of rules to live by.

Anyway, I agree with Galaxy that it is the idea that to conform to gender norms it is necessary to 'live as' the other gender that is not recognising people who are challenging those norms - most of us, at least some of the time, probably. Transitioning, whilst a valid choice if someone believes firmly enough in gender roles to feel the need to do it - is the ultimate in not recognising that conformity is not necessary.

I can see that for a man to remain 'masculine' and wear a dress, enjoy embroidery and 'be in touch with his feminine side' would be difficult in a lot of cases. We are not yet a society that makes that easy for most people. But we will never get there if we keep insisting that the only way to 'be female' is to do those things, and be called female. Why not just stretch the parameters of what 'being male' encompasses?

I don't think anyone has said they were rules Doodledog my post was an answer to a comment about an article I had posted a link to where the idea was simply accepted as understood and not explained. So I explained it. You can agree or disagree as you wish It's nothing to do with putting anything in the bin. It's about moving actions and discussions on, recognising degrees of oppression and how such oppression can be best eradicated. It's reasonable to expect me to recognise the privilege being white has given me just as it is reasonable to ask men to recognise the privilege being male has given them.

As for the stuff about dress etc. I think we passed that point some time ago. I know men who knit and embroider, men who wear more jewellery than me. They do seem to try kilts and not really like them. Feeling you are in the wrong body is something entirely different.

But you are the one who keeps talking about 'presenting as a woman'. There are probably better examples of how to do this than the ones I gave (and I am aware that knitting was traditionally done by men in some cultures - women did the spinning). You can definitely argue with my unimaginative examples, but the point remains that if we stretched the parameters of gender behaviour there would be less of a need for people to feel that if they don't conform to them they need to change sex.

As for the theories - again, it is you who brings up feminist terminology in this way (I don't remember anyone else doing so), and all it does is pull together some people's ways of thinking and call them a theory. Intersectionality doesn't function to actually give white women a position of privilege - it just forwards that position when white women also encounter the forms of sexism experienced by women of colour.

Doodledog I use presenting as a woman to describe how someone look because that is the conventional terminology not because I accept any restrictions on anyone's appearance. It is extraordinary how you choose to pick up on small irrelevancies.

As for feminist theory I posted a link which had references in it which seemed to need some explanation and then explained intersectionality in a short phrase. If you are not interested in the theory you don't have to read about it.

I have read about it, so it's not that I'm not interested, just that it's not relevant to trans issues, but keeps getting dragged into these discussions along with suffragettes and descriptions of waves of feminism.

The whole business of whether 'presenting as a woman' or transitioning is a better way of dealing with gender dysmorphia isn't a small irrelevancy, though - it is central to the debate. I appreciate that it is not my decision to make on behalf of others, but when I hear people talking in those terms it does make me question the logic of attempting to change sex, with all that that entails, if we could just stop seeing gender constructs as defining what it is to 'be' a woman.

But it isn't a question of that Doodledog there are people who for whatever reason feel they do not have the body they are supposed to belong to. I know a lot of people on these threads go on about how they were always a tom-boy etc and there are undoubtedly people who do that. I did it. But I always knew I was a girl and I never really thought my body was wrong. I see it as a sliding scale with people who absolutely fit at one end and those who absolutely don't at the other. Most of us come somewhere in the middle, but for those who really don't fit life can be dreadful. It doesn't help when people keep accusing them of somehow being responsible, because they want a less medical and more user friendly means of IDing, of facilitating or being connected with men who want to hurt women.

It's completely wrong. It's dangerous and it doesn't help. Because the person a woman really needs protection from is not the odd flasher in a spa, or someone in a loo. It's the abusive partner she chooses or the abusive male relatives who hurt and control her.

Of course women need protection from abusive partners and relatives. And yes, the figures show that they form the vast majority of abusers - we all know that. But that is not to say that there are no instances of attack (or upskirting, or voyeurism) from strangers.

And as has been said, it's not just about attack. It's about privacy and the right to choose. As has also been mentioned, it is about respecting the religious obligations of those who adhere to them.

I am not at all dismissing the right of transwomen to 'feel different' from other men and somehow know that they are in the wrong body. As I haven't felt that myself, I can't really empathise, but neither can I deny someone else's experience.

By the same token, however, I don't think that, as a transwoman, MH has the right to decide that a woman who has been raped or sexually assaulted should be counselled by anyone with whom she is not absolutely comfortable.

MW has not said that Doodledog it is the way her comments have been presented by MSM and that has been seized on by all those who are against her. She states regularly that any counselling is survivor led and any attempt to deal with bias and prejudice would only happen when the survivor was ready, and with her consent.

Trisher ????

MW's actual words Mollygo So for some organisations they might be at a place where they are actually able to have open conversations with survivors, if they wish and are willing to engage around what equality and diversity means, whether it's in the context of group and if survivors bring it up in the context of healing, but many of us are not really there. And if we do it, then it's always, and should be, survivor led.
I know it is much easier to accuse her and say she wants to harm survivors in some way. But actually she has never said any survivor must do anything. Just that part of recovery could be looking at prejudice and bias. (underlining is mine)

They may be actual words from MW, trisher, but there are lots of reports of her also saying that bigots are raped too, and must learn to 'reframe their trauma'.

You can't just quote something else that she said as though it erases what she said earlier.

She actually said Doodledog and if I could be arsed to find the quote and I thought it would make the slightest difference to the bias and prejudice exhibited on this thread I would copy it. That at some point when the survivor was ready it might be appropriate if she was willing to address bias and prejudice and to discuss the political basis of rape, that it was deeply rooted in a patriarchal society. She thinks this also helps with the feelings of guilt a survivor may carry.

We've been over all this already, and as neither of us was there I don't suppose we will ever convince one another that what we have read about what she said is the right version.

I could say that I will never make the slightest difference to your bias and prejudice, but I try not to make personal remarks.