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Deliberate and orchestrated silencing of trans rights supporters on GN

(610 Posts)

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GagaJo Fri 25-Mar-22 22:01:21

As the usual posters on trans threads know, I support trans rights and also self-label as an intersectional feminist.

The irony of that statement however, is that after the first few posts on the threads that deal with trans issues, I invariably more or less step away from them, other than the occasional comment. There are quite a few other posters that do the same. I could name them, but that would be inappropriate. The reason that we do this is due to the animosity and personal insults that are bandied about, towards those of us that support trans equality. No doubt, the same things will happen on this thread.

The point of this thread, therefore, is to show, publically, that despite the orchestrated attacks from gender criticial feminists, that there are still a good number of us that do not take that position.

To anyone that reads these threads but is too intimidated to join in for the reasons given above, I'm just saying, we are still here!

VioletSky Sun 27-Mar-22 14:19:29

When you accept trans women as women and the fact that trans men actually do exist and balance the scale, that sort of thinking is not necessary

Doodledog Sun 27-Mar-22 14:16:50

I wonder which section of society will be impacted most by losing scholarships by having to compete against men. Not rich women is my guess.

Agreed, Galaxy.

It's not as though women are in a place of advantage in society. Although some are more advantaged than some men, as a group we are far from being so. Events, initiatives and anything that is organised for women (particularly if it has public funding) is done to try to equalise things, and the minute they become open to all, that equalisation stops in its tracks.

VioletSky Sun 27-Mar-22 14:16:05

Mollygo

I'm not sure if you mean me again

That's not true if you do mean me

Trans people already had rights and were using facilities according to gender identity

The Equality Act just filled the hole where gender reassignment needed to be a protected characteristic to make it unlawful to discriminate

I don't believe in taking any rights from anyone to give anyone else more or less rights

That's silly and unnecessary and not feminist

Galaxy Sun 27-Mar-22 14:13:42

Its not excuses its reality.

Mollygo Sun 27-Mar-22 14:04:50

So explain equality. I saw your answers to another poster. Your equality consisted of giving trans rights which negated the rights of women. That’s not equality.
Well it could be called Robin Hood equality I suppose.

VioletSky Sun 27-Mar-22 13:59:59

There will always be excuses not to accept trans women as women.

The Equality Act already protects refuges.

Courts are down to how the judge interprets trans inclusive policy. No one would be forced to say "she" though that's illogical. They and them exist.

Sports are something that will need adjustment so that everyone may compete fairly.

Are they really reason enough to say trans women aren't women?

I don't believe so

Galaxy Sun 27-Mar-22 13:51:41

I wonder which section of society will be impacted most by losing scholarships by having to compete against men. Not rich women is my guess.

Elegran Sun 27-Mar-22 13:46:44

VioletSky

If you need to understand how being trans inclusive supports all women

www.hrc.org/resources/5-things-to-know-to-make-your-feminism-trans-inclusive

Except for the ones who need refuges where there are no males, or who compete in all-women sports categories, or who have to describe their rape by someone with fully operational male genitalia in terms of "Then she . . "

VioletSky Sun 27-Mar-22 13:44:14

Whoo is to say if a trans woman is headlining an event, she wasn't held up and put there by other women.

Especially women who want to celebrate other women in the face of the current climate.

VioletSky Sun 27-Mar-22 13:41:28

"We will not have equality until the most marginalised among us have equality"

Doodledog Sun 27-Mar-22 13:40:54

Sorry, my post is to GagaJo

Doodledog Sun 27-Mar-22 13:40:19

Ok, so we are saying the same thing but labelling it differently?

Where I remain confused is with the idea that thinking that TWAW can possibly put rights on a par.

How do you answer GG13's post above? How is it ok for Lia Thomas to win the race, and/or to parade his maleness in the changing rooms?

If a TW coming into a women's space means that women from separatist religions is unable to attend, whose rights come first?

If a man says he is a woman and gets to headline a poetry event that is intended to celebrate women (and got funding on that basis), even though there are plenty of female poets who could have done it equally well or better, is this ok by you?

Is changing the language so that women are unable to discuss their concerns with one another (assuming that they are able to find a space in which to do it) acceptable to you?

There are numerous possible examples, but all of these things deny women equality, IMO, and anyone who is looking out for the rights of women (which is my definition of a feminist) would see that at first glance.

Galaxy Sun 27-Mar-22 13:38:48

I dont have a gender identity so the whole of the article makes no sense to me.

VioletSky Sun 27-Mar-22 13:36:33

If you need to understand how being trans inclusive supports all women

www.hrc.org/resources/5-things-to-know-to-make-your-feminism-trans-inclusive

GagaJo Sun 27-Mar-22 13:31:38

I can only speak personally. What drives me, thoughts and actions, are seeing everyone as equal. That isn't virtue signalling. It's me knowing I have no place or reason to feel superior to anyone.

I can, and do, label that as intersectional feminism. But I didn't set out to be one. I learned thru my multi racial, multi national family, that different women face different challenges.

And FWIW, I don't put Trans rights before cis women's, I put them on a par. Equality.

GrannyGravy13 Sun 27-Mar-22 13:31:26

This

Doodledog Sun 27-Mar-22 13:25:25

GagaJo

It's not 'rules'. It's a sociological categorisation tracking ideological changes.

I don't think anyone suggested we shouldn't think for ourselves and make our own decisions and judgements. The whole idea of debating an idea encourages independent, surely? The whole point of an open forum.

But there are so many posts on here about 'as an intersectional feminist. . . .', and 'intersectionalism means . . . ' - even 'intersectional feminism includes men', as though that is all that's to be said on the matter. Intersectional feminism 'says it', so anyone who doesn't agree is somehow lacking. That isn't debating an idea - it is judging others by how they measure up to it (in your view).

What I am saying is that the terminology is just that - a sociological shorthand (like Functionalism, Pluralism and so on) that describes the thinking - it shouldn't drive it.

Of course life moves on, and of course feminism (as well as other schools of thought) moves on. If it didn't we'd still be fighting for equal pay (although we still have some way to go there). Nobody is saying otherwise. But to assume that because someone does not believe that feminism should put the 'rights' of transwomen ahead of those of women means that they are behind the times, or lacking in some way is simply arrogant. It is a valid point of view, and not one that ever gets gets debated on here. I've tried. As soon as anyone says that they think like this (as I do) we are shouted down, called names or sneered at.

FWIW I do recognise that I have certain privileges, as does everyone posting on here. I have had an education, I am able bodied, I belong to the dominant race in the UK. I earned more than average, particularly for a woman, and can afford more than essentials. I was born into a democracy and so on. I know that, and I am grateful for it. My politics reflects the fact that I am aware that others have not shared in my good fortune, and I do not see myself as superior because I have been lucky.

None of that means that I should believe that transwomen are women though, or makes me see it as ok to put their rights ahead of those of women, and I don't see any logical reason why it should.

GagaJo Sun 27-Mar-22 13:22:19

I really don't think it's as exclusionary as it's being painted on here.

The US Civil Rights Movement fed into Black Lives Matter. No one has ever suggested that the CRL was useless. Just that the world has changed and therefore the focus is different.

Smileless2012 Sun 27-Mar-22 13:21:48

But women have done that for decades of course they have Elegran which for me, is why some identifying as intersectional feminists is a nonsense, and I dislike the implication that their idea of what it is to be a feminist is more inclusive than mine.

Elegran Sun 27-Mar-22 13:17:54

VioletSky

I don't think it's really very feminist to look at another another's feminist movement and insult it.

It's just different, not less

"It's just different, not less" True.

It is also true the other way round - when intercessional feminists regard as inferior has-beens those who make no lordly claim to intercessionism but continue to weed their own small patch.

Elegran Sun 27-Mar-22 13:12:31

But women have done that for decades - centuries even. It is possible for a woman whose prime focus is on the equality of women at the ballot bax to also see the parallel or wider issues facing society and work to improve them too.

They campaigned for equality in voting, not just for themselves but for women everywhere, and for the abolition of poverty, racial discrimination, all the kinds of things which the current generation of intersectional feminists seem to think they are the first to notice and want to change. Rather like our children thinking they invented sex and that their parents only did it two or three times through their (married) lives, purely so as to conceive them.

However, the current ethos is revisionist - to debunk previous workers in all fields and balance their human frailties in the scales against their aims and their achievements. Partial success doesn't count, if they didn't succeed in completely reversing the evils of their age like Superman zooming down out of the sky, they are judged as useless and deluded.

VioletSky Sun 27-Mar-22 13:09:08

Also trans women right?

GagaJo Sun 27-Mar-22 13:04:40

Smileless2012

I agree with your last post GagaJo; that's what being a feminist is. It isn't only intersectional feminists who do so.

??? Great!

Smileless2012 Sun 27-Mar-22 13:02:22

Exactly Doodledog and it's nothing more than a name change.

VioletSky Sun 27-Mar-22 12:58:36

I don't think it's really very feminist to look at another another's feminist movement and insult it.

It's just different, not less