Deliberate and orchestrated silencing of trans rights supporters on GN

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

But listening to other groups of women, acknowledging our own privilege and our own role in a system which may not equally represent others, is essential as the world, societies and cultures change and evolve.

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.

Yes, giving something a rebrand, and calling it 'New, Improved Feminism' makes 0.000% difference to the impact it has when all that rebranding has done is change the name.

I've never really got to grips with the rules-based approach to things like feminism (or politics, or sociology etc). I prefer to think for myself, and not wait for someone else to tell me which group I belong to and therefore what I should be thinking or doing.

To me, 'feminism' is about foregrounding females. Not necessarily at the expense of others, as that would clash with other beliefs I have, such as socialism. I wouldn't defend the right of a woman to exploit a male worker, just because she was a woman, for example.

That may, or may not, be intersectional - I don't care, really. To me is it just common sense, as a desire for fairness underpins most of what I think and try to practise. If someone wants to categorise the thinking so that they can teach it to the youth of tomorrow they can crack on, but I won't be driven by other people's categorisation.

Calling it intersectional doesn't make a difference. If a woman only looks at discrimination in terms of how it affects her and those she identifies with, then she isn't a true feminist.

Identifying as an intersection feminist at times comes across to me as if someone who doesn't is somehow a 'second class' feminist.

It's a bit like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs isn't it Iam.

Why are you guys insulting intersectional feminism?

Also why are you insulting yourselves?

It's a fair cop, Iam.

Doodledog - think on ?. I’ve been informed that I’m an out of date 70’s feminist. Remember those days, when we white women didn’t care about men, gay men, trans people, people who weren’t white and of course the ultimate put down, middle class.
Terf

So how did calling it 'intersectional' make a difference?

The "intersectional goes without saying" concept was what many women brought to the table when intersectionalism was first discussed. It was of course mainly a white middle class opinion and many were surprised to find that others disagreed with them. That because of who they were women had different experiences, and those shaped their lives and opinions, and those opinions were not always intersectional, even though the woman believed they were. They often hid preconceived ideas and opinions which surfaced not in the things the women said, but in the things they did.

Me too Doodledog!

Me too Doodledog.

Smileless2012

None of us as women will experience everything that women can and do experience. I am a feminist. I support all women and recognise all forms of discrimination and have no need to identify as an intersectional feminist.

Indeed!

To me, the intersectionalism goes without saying.

None of us as women will experience everything that women can and do experience. I am a feminist. I support all women and recognise all forms of discrimination and have no need to identify as an intersectional feminist.

Now, you may disagree. But unless you were a woman of a marginalised group, you won't have had that experience.
By that token, only those who are M/F trans could comment on the experience of transwomen. Only victims of rape could know it is wrong. Laws could only be made by those who had suffered from their lack. Humans can empathise - I am not, and can never be a black American, woman, but my experience of other (albeit different) forms of discrimination allows me an insight into how they might feel. If we could only act for others with the same experiences as ourselves it would be an even more fragmented world.

The Cass report confirms that a comprehensive assessment of the children referred to the GIDs clinic was omitted with the emphasis on accepting the child’s belief s/he was born in the wrong body.
Despite poor record keeping, it appears neuro diverse children are over represented in the clinic.
Like other posters, I know young people in this group. They share life experience of never quite fitting in, feeling excluded, many have found an active friendship group in the trans community on line.
No one is denying trans people have always been with us. What we don’t have enough research on is what is fuelling what seems to be an increase in children seeking help. Neuro diversity, the impact of the pandemic and mire

Something I was talking about with friends recently actually

We have all faced discrimination based on sex and that will obviously mostly come from men...

Yet judgement we all agreed has been so much worse. Judgement about whether we work or stay at home with children, breastfeed or bottle feed, have children young or later in life, keep a pristine house or live a little messy, whether we like to wear make up and get our nails done or prefer to go without those things, how we dress, whether we have sctice social lives..... Hang on, I need to stop listing but it's literally everything....

Every judgement on who we are as women and how we express it comes primarily from other women, we agreed. For some of us it started with our own mothers.

Is it really that hard to admit it happens on these threads when we don't really know each other well enough to judge, yet... Some think another's belief on one subject somehow defines them as a whole and means they know how they think and feel and its right to subject them to unfair judgement.

Well until men, by which I mean biological men, can gestate and deliver a human baby then procreation will heavily depend on women. Nature being what nature is will 'program' women to have these nurturing reactions. That's not to say men can't be nurturing but men can't breastfeed (well not without questionable drug regimes) but they can give skin to skin contact that's so important in newborns. In my unit we would encourage fathers of premature babies where the mother was poorly to have skin to skin contact with their babies.
In gay marriages where there are babies (usually born to a surrogate mother in the case of two men which is a whole other thread) one partner will assume the major portion of childcare exactly the same as in most heterosexual marriages. I don't believe an exact 50/50 split is achievable for the vast majority in terms of employment or wages. And before anyone accuses me of homophobia one of my closest friends is in just such a marriage and she accepted the major childcare role as her wife has much greater earning capacity.

Elegran

Doodledog

I'm not convinced that maternal instinct is a gender construct. It's hard to be sure, but I'm willing to believe that it is at least partly biological. It's not guaranteed to be there in all women, and many men are also nurturing types, but on the whole I think it's more about sex than gender.

As it is very strong in most animals, who are not driven by gender stereotypes, I would say that it is primarily an innate response to motherhood, fuelled by the hormones which flood the female body at that time. Many women say that they were not particularly interested in babies until they had their own, when they were overwhelmed by the emotions that were triggered.

Although this may be a valid reason for a woman's response directly after birth it cannot possibly be the reason for the continued emphasis on maternal care for children as they grow older. This is the gender construct. That men should be the provider and woman the carer. It's interesting that many high achieving girls who do better than boys in school don't go on to fulfil what would appear to be their potential to achieve, settling instead for lower levels of work, or part time work. Medicine is a prime example. The numbers of women medical students has hugely increased, but most of them will not progress to the highest grades and many will become GPs and work part time to fit in with child care. Now this is absolutely a valid choice but it is to do with gender roles.The question of who drives gender roles and if it is women who choose not to surrender child care to men, or men who feel child care isn't a man's role is debatable. These roles have shifted massively in the last 50 years but they remain heavily weighted towards the concept that caring is a woman's activity.

Smileless2012

Feminism supports all women and recognises all other forms of discrimination which of course includes trans phobia. That said, saying that a man cannot be a woman and a woman cannot be a man is not trans phobia.

But it didn't. Women who were not white western women moved away from feminism because it didn't support them. Womanism, an African American movement, started because 2nd wave feminism didn't recognise the dual discrimination they faced.

Now, you may disagree. But unless you were a woman of a marginalised group, you won't have had that experience.

Yes it is wearing Doodledog but we are not being silenced.

More and more women are choosing not to have children which is valid. My own mother once admitted she was not maternal. That's the closest she ever came to admitting she wasn't a good mother. When I rather bravely stood up to her and said so, she suddenly thought she was the best mother in the world lol

Again, only part of my post which mentioned Autism has been picked up on.

I didn't suggest that Autistic people are more likely to be non-binary, but that many of the the young non-binary people I know are (apparently to my untrained eye) Autistic. I mentioned this in reply to a direct question asking about NB people, made it clear that I was speaking only from my own experience, but still, one tiny part of the post is laboured, when it isn't particularly relevant to the discussion - it was a side issue.

This happens to a lot of things posted by those who challenge the 'trans rights supporters'. In fact, I've just drawn attention to it on one of the other numerous 'trans threads' that are live tonight. It is wearing, and I assume is designed to silence us by making the effort of posting as onerous as possible.

Feminism supports all women and recognises all other forms of discrimination which of course includes trans phobia. That said, saying that a man cannot be a woman and a woman cannot be a man is not trans phobia.

Doodledog

I'm not convinced that maternal instinct is a gender construct. It's hard to be sure, but I'm willing to believe that it is at least partly biological. It's not guaranteed to be there in all women, and many men are also nurturing types, but on the whole I think it's more about sex than gender.

As it is very strong in most animals, who are not driven by gender stereotypes, I would say that it is primarily an innate response to motherhood, fuelled by the hormones which flood the female body at that time. Many women say that they were not particularly interested in babies until they had their own, when they were overwhelmed by the emotions that were triggered.