#???? GIRL THEY ARE THERE BECAUSE TRANS PEOPLE WANTED TO CHANGE LAWS TO BE MORE “INCLUSIVE”
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at this point im begging for some random white guy to read up on radfem theory and make a youtube video explaining why trans ideology is inherently misogynistic idec about being vindicated as a feminist i just need someone generally considered to be a human being to take a stand against this in a reasonable way so people will actually listen
#I can’t take this insanity any more i really can’t I can’t hear about trans women are women for 10 more years#point out that the law permits males in women’s prisons and suddenly it’s oh those aren’t real trans people though#???? GIRL THEY ARE THERE BECAUSE TRANS PEOPLE WANTED TO CHANGE LAWS TO BE MORE “INCLUSIVE”#Yes i know Matt Walsh exists but he has zero feminist perspective#Fuck everyone this shit is so frustrating
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Ohio Senate overrides governor’s veto on trans healthcare & sports bans
The Ohio Senate voted 24-8 on Wednesday to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) veto on House Bill 68 (HB 68), a bill banning gender-affirming care for trans minors and trans females from participating in scholastic sports. The override makes Ohio the 23rd state to ban gender-affirming care for trans minors and the 24th to ban trans sports participation. While Ohio’s law is expected to go into effect in 90 days, on April 23, it will likely face a legal challenge, possibly delaying the law from going into effect. The Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has already pledged to “do everything we can to fight this.” Related: Ohio governor defends trans candidates & tells election officials to stop kicking them off ballots The law has been used to disqualify three trans Democrats from running for office. But at least one is fighting back. DeWine vetoed HB 68 on December 26, 2023, saying, “The government [doesn’t know] better what is medically best for a child [more] than the two people who love that child the most, their parents.” DeWine said he decided to veto the bill after visiting with parents of trans youth who are currently receiving gender-affirming healthcare. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. “They told me their child is alive only because they received care,” DeWine said, according to WHMC. “These are gut-wrenching decisions that should be made by parents and should be informed by teams of doctors who are advising them. These are parents who have watched their children suffer for years.” Agreeing with DeWine, the Ohio ACLU parked a truck outside of the Ohio statehouse on Wednesday with a message on its sides that said, “Health care decisions belong with patients, providers, & families.” In a follow-up tweet after the Senate’s vote, the organization wrote, “This is a shameful legislative act. We will do everything we can to fight this.” The state’s leading LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Ohio also said it is looking into legal and legislative actions against the law. The state transgender advocacy group TransOhio said it has already spoken with 68 families and seven trans adults who requested emergency relocation funds to leave the state because of the new law. “Their government is forcing them to uproot their lives,” TransOhio’s secretary Dara Adkison told NBC News. “They’re selling their homes, they’re changing jobs and careers and closing out all of their savings. They’re closing their businesses, they’re leaving their medical practices. The intense amount of personal and community trauma that is being inflicted by the government right now and putting these families through who just love their f**king kids is so cruel.” Ahead of today's vote on overriding the veto of HB 68, we want to remind Senators that healthcare decisions belong with patients, providers, and families. NOT anti-LGBTQ politicians. We're parked outside the Statehouse to say trans youth belong and Ohio is home. pic.twitter.com/6ZhS2Rlx3j— ACLU of Ohio (@acluohio) January 24, 2024 The Ohio House voted 65-28 to override DeWine’s veto on January 11. The law will revoke the trans-inclusive policies of the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA), the body that oversees high school sports. The OHSAA’s policies allow trans women and girls to compete if they have completed a minimum of one year of hormone treatment and/or demonstrated that they do not possess physical or physiological advantages over “genetic females of the same age group.” OHSAA’s policy has allowed seven trans girls to play high school sports this school year. “HB 68 would have a direct impact on the OHSAA’s transgender policy, which has been in place since 2015 and has served our member schools to provide participation opportunities for transgender students without putting biological females at a competitive… http://dlvr.it/T1r2r8
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Things I really want TRAs to get through their fucking skulls.
B*tch, c*nt, and wh*re are misogynistic slurs. This isn’t something I am ever going to debate. These are derogatory terms used specifically against women and using them against women doesn’t make them less of a slur. Using them because ‘in some places c*nt isn’t a slur’ doesn’t make them less of a slur. Also, I’m literally fucking British and have lived in Scotland for some years now so before you start with the whole ‘but in some places it’s completely normalised and used commonly’: it’s not. I have heard some men use it to insult their friends, but it’s not thrown around constantly and is still typically used to degrade women.
R*tard is an ableist slur which should also never be used. (And, to be honest, lots of radfems need to learn this one too.)
We don’t want trans people dead. We don’t want them to struggle and be without help. We just disagree on the help that they should get. You think the only way to help them is to validate their gender and help them to change their entire body in the hope that might make them feel better. We think that mental health support designed to help them cope with their body issues is a much more effective form of support. No situation involves killing them or letting them all commit suicide. We want those who are genuinely struggling to get help.
Slight caveat to the point above: the males who fetishise womanhood and being a lesbian and who aren’t struggling with their body and their identity but just get off to being in a dress and want lesbians to fuck them? They don’t deserve help. They’re pornsick men. But the ones who really are struggling and just trying to get by do need help.
Your community is homophobic as shit. Saying that it’s just a ‘small minority’ who support genital preferences and say rejecting trans people is transphobic and call lesbians TERFs for not liking dick does not fix the problem and only serves to diminish what those who have been at the receiving end of this hateful and homophobic rhetoric have been through. You need to start speaking up against this rhetoric and telling people that it’s not fucking okay. You need to start taking a stand anytime someone says lesbians need to learn to like (girl)dick or to have a sexless relationship with a trans woman to be inclusive or uses the term genital preference (certainly if they’re saying it’s wrong/that people can learn to get over a ‘preference’; but even saying that it’s okay is homophobic because an inherent sexuality is not a preference).
Your community is misogynistic. Even ignoring the fact that the idea that trans women are women and that they know exactly what womanhood is like is misogynistic in and of itself, trans ideology is deeply misogynistic. It’s not okay to use misogynistic slurs, even against women you don’t like. It’s not okay to send rape threats to women, even ones you don’t like. It’s deeply misogynistic to blame all transphobia on TERFs when it’s men who are typically in charge of laws being changed and men who are the ones going around assaulting and mustering trans women. And it’s deeply misogynistic to tell women to get the fuck over themselves and learn to deal with having trans women in their spaces. Women built female spaces for a reason and you are completely ignoring our sex-based oppression which is deeply misogynistic.
Oh, and trans inclusive language? That’s misogynistic to. Forcing women to refer to themselves by their organs and functions especially when women have been seen as little more than their organs/reproductive abilities; making this language completely inaccessible to many women, especially those who speak English as a second language; forcing this language almost exclusively on women while men are still called men (or sometimes just cis men to be a little more specific); and telling any woman who has a problem with it, regardless of their reasoning, to get over themselves? That’s all deeply misogynistic.
Self-ID will be dangerous. I don’t care what stupid reasoning you come up with it not being dangerous because it will be. Men have and will continue to pretend to be women to access those spaces and creep on women because self-ID means that all they have to do is claim that they’re a woman and suddenly it’s transphobic for them to not be allowed to enter. There is no ‘you can tell the difference’ because it doesn’t matter what your personal opinion of that person is: if they say that they are a woman, they have to be allowed into women’s spaces and creepy men will abuse that. (And, no, you can’t argue that trans women ‘have always used women’s spaces and it’s been fine’ because we both know that we live in a different time now. It’s no long a very, very small number of trans people who genuinely tried their hardest to pass as the opposite sex. So unless you’re happy to exclude non-transitioning and non-passing trans people from the spaces which match their ‘gender’, these are the only options.)
Keeping spaces sex-segregated is the only viable alternative to self-ID for most public spaces. I’m happy to hear any ideas of how you’re going to make sure that only trans women can access women’s spaces and that cis men will never be able abuse self-ID to get in, but I don’t think such a solution exists. Therefore, I will continue to defend these spaces being sex-segregated because that’s the best way to ensure that the women in these spaces are safe from the abuses of males.
Continuing to scream that we’re so worried about sharing spaces with trans women ignores what you’re actually asking for in regards to self-ID. As above, literally any person will be able to say ‘I’m a woman’ and access these spaces so while you may focus on the ‘genuine’ trans women who just want to use the bathroom and be more comfortable than they would be in the male spaces, we worried about every single male abusing the existence of self-ID in order to abuse women. Remember what self-ID is: anyone can identify as any gender at any time just by claiming that they are that gender.
‘You shouldn’t be scared of public bathrooms because the bathroom in your home is gender neutral’ is the stupidest fucking argument. Like, I’m sorry, but how fucking idiotic do you have to be to think that comparing a private and public space is not only a good idea but will also support your point? You share a bathroom in your house with people you choose to live with and invite over; you share a public bathroom with strangers. Do you not understand that people can be comfortable sharing a space with family and friends, but uncomfortable sharing with literal fucking strangers who don’t always have the best intentions???
Saying women are adult human females or that they have vaginas does not reduce women down to their organs and you are ignorant as shit is you continue to repeat this lie. Reducing someone to their organs (or any other feature) means that you think the only important/significant thing about them, that you view them as being only of value because of this feature. You know like conservatives saying that women are only valuable/useful for sex and giving birth to children? That’s what reducing women to their organs really means. Stating the common characteristic shared by a certain group does not mean you view the whole group as being valued for that one thing. It’s why no one says that lesbians are female homosexuals reduces lesbians to their sexuality: because, in this case, we recognise that we are stating the shared characteristic that lesbians have.
Radfems don’t believe in gender as a concept. If you’re talking about how radfems believe sex = gender then your argument is already flawed. If you’re talking about radfems believing in gender in any way then your argument is already flawed. We believe in the existence of biological sex and recognise its impact on people in current society, fighting for rights of women who are discriminated against on the basis of their sex. We use the words women and girls which describe people of the female sex based upon their age: adults are women and minors are girls. Men and boys work similarly. These terms are therefore sex-based, not gendered/gender-based. We believe that, functionally, gender is a set of misogynistic stereotypes which tells people (though especially women) how they are supposed to act and serves no purpose in society other than to make people continually question themselves and force people into little boxes. We believe that TRAs and conservatives have gone two different ways with gender and both are harmful: conservatives telling people that they must follow gender roles based on their biological sex and TRAs telling people to identify with a gender based upon what gender roles they like/take up.
Define woman. Please. All we want is a coherent definition of woman which doesn’t rely on stereotypes, debunked brain sex, circular reasoning, or calling it ‘a feeling’. No one has ever been able to give us a coherent definition.
Yeah, brain sex has been debunked after some fucking massive studies into it. Turns out, it was always rooted in misogyny and most of the previous studies were basically just confirmation bias to ‘prove’ that men and women are ‘wired differently’ to give a scientific foundation to all the misogynistic stereotypes surrounding women. Once you account for brain size, we’re really not all that different after all. So no, a trans woman cannot just be born with a female brain; a trans man cannot just be born with a male brain. No such thing exists.
Which argument do you want: there is absolutely no difference between cis and trans people and therefore many people have probably had crushes on trans people without knowing it OR trans people are in danger of being abused/raped/murdered specifically because they’re trans? Because the first argument would suggest that trans people could never be targeted for being trans because people will always see them as their chosen gender and the only people who would know that they’re trans is people that they’ve told but the latter point means trans people are targeted because people can see that they’re trans and therefore many/most trans people don’t pass and so it’s unlikely that people have had all these crushes on trans people because it’s fairly obvious that they’re trans? Because I’m willing to admit that some trans people really do pass and I would not know that they’re trans unless directly told, but the percentage who pass that well is minuscule and hardly representative of all trans people.
Your community is racist. Stop leaning on the whole ‘black women had their womanhood denied from them like trans women are’. Black women weren’t seen as women because they were seen as less than human; they were still viewed as female which is why they were raped and forced through pregnancies. Stop saying that attributes we say are more likely to be found in men are more commonly found in black women therefore we see black women as men. That’s an argument used in bad faith and you know it. Like please learn the difference between ‘more commonly found’ and ‘exclusively found’.
Your community is intersexist. Intersex people are not pawns to be used in your argument. Like 0.1% of the population having a condition which genuinely makes their biological sex more complicated than male or female does not disprove the sex binary and, if anything, the fact that these people struggle with many health problems and are typically infertile goes to show that the sex binary does exist. Moreover, if gender is completely different from sex then conditions which make your biological sex complicated/mixed should say nothing about gender. (And yes, I said 0.1% of the population even though intersex conditions occur at a higher rate than that because most intersex conditions don’t make your sex more complicated than male or female so only a small percentage of intersex conditions overall make people’s biological sex complicated.)
Shut the fuck about PCOS. My condition is not to be used in your arguments. Radfems have never used my condition against me or called me less of a woman for it, so you don’t get to say I’m less female for it either or tell me that you somehow know that radfems see PCOS sufferers that way. You’re the one who abused the existence of my condition and implies that I’m not fully female to make some backwards arguments. You’re the ones abusing the existence of my condition.
Going one step further than PCOS, shut up about women without a uterus or ovaries or post-menopausal women. We know they’re fucking women, dipshits. They’re still adult human females, just ones who are older, went through some trauma which resulted in surgical removal of their sex organs, or had a developmental issue in utero which resulted in them not developing certain organs. (See that I said developmental issue? Because you know what we call people who didn’t grow a uterus but that’s not a problem/issue at all? Men.)
A lot of your views of gender are based on stereotypes. A lot more than you’re willing to admit. You can try to pretend that you’re above all the stereotypes and I’m certain that you genuinely believe that you are, but no one has been able to define woman without referring to brain sex (which is normally just down to stereotypes and debunked anyway) or just straight up stereotypes. And so many people list various stereotypes as one of the reasons they knew that they were trans or non-binary. Even when people say that they don’t ‘feel connected to womanhood’ or whatever as a reason why they’re NB, it’s often because they’re androgynous or not completely feminine 100% of the time. They won’t ever admit that as being the reason, but you can see from how they speak about womanhood and their disconnect to it that it’s true.
Not everything is a fucking dog whistle! A dogwhistle is an inconspicuous term/phrase/symbol which a group uses and only those who are within the group recognise. Like how 88 is a white supremacist number because H is the 8th letter of the alphabet so it’s HH which is Heil Hitler or how ‘I just want the trains to run on time’ is a fascist phrase because it refers to people saying that Mussolini was bad but at least he got the trains to run on time. The only thing that might be considered a radfem dog whistle is TIM/TIF, not because it has a secret double meaning that only we recognise, but because it’s a term which radfems typically use and often isn’t understood outside of radfem circles. It stands for Trans Identified Male/Female and we mean exactly that. We don’t have things that secretly mean that trans people should die. We say exactly what we mean but you just choose to believe the secret meaning you made up over what we are directly telling you, probably because ‘I hate all trans people and I want them to all die’ isn’t something we say.
Saying that we only care about what genitals we have is a simplification of our views which is basically incorrect and used to ignore all our actual issues while making us out to look like creeps. Do you also not understand the homophobic history behind it? Being used against gay people to ask why they were so obsessed with what genitals someone had and why they couldn’t be with the opposite sex? (I’ll answer that: of course you don’t give a shit because you don’t care about homophobia or using homophobic rhetoric which supports your ideology.) We don’t actually care about if someone has a dick or vagina. We care about the fact that the dick havers were raised with male socialisation and that means that they experience life differently from us. We care about the fact that the penis owners are much more likely to abuse women and that far too many will do whatever it takes to be around vulnerable women so that they can abuse them. We care about the fact that we have faced specific issues because we have vaginas both directly (eg: menstruation and childbirth) and indirectly (eg: period stigma, medical misogyny, catcalling, and other forms of discrimination) and we want spaces away from the very people who uphold this misogynistic system to be able to discuss our issues openly. But you constantly ignore all of these issues and make it out to be just about genitals because you ignore our arguments and want to make it out like we’re fucking idiots.
‘Here’s six women. One of them is a trans woman. Guess who’ Isn’t the argument that you think it is. Firstly, literally no one is saying that trans people cannot pass at all. No one. Of course we understand that SOME trans people do pass really well and we would never be able to differentiate them from actual women. Secondly, just because they appear like women doesn’t make them women. They are still biologically male and hence a man. It really doesn’t matter how feminine or well passing they are; they’re men. Thirdly, it is not representative of all trans people. Yes, some people pass well but the photos you show are almost exclusively of rich models who are wearing heavy makeup and who’ve had extensive work done which isn’t accessible to most trans people and you’re basically telling them that if they can’t pass so well then they must not be women. Isn’t that wrong by your own ideology? Fourthly, you really going to do that and then accuse us of saying that women must be feminine? Really? And finally, this is almost always used as a trap against us, hence why we often refuse to respond, but you’re not proving anything. You’re not fighting against any of our arguments; you just think you’re fighting against the whole sexual dimorphism and generally being able to tell women and men apart but being able to generally do something doesn’t mean that there aren’t exceptions? Exceptions don’t make the rule.
I’m not here to argue about what I would believe in some theoretical utopia. I’m here to argue about what is happening in reality. I’ve heard the line ‘but would sex be important if we lived in a society which didn’t discriminate against people by their sex/gender aside from when medically necessary?’ way too much. And the answer is no, but we don’t live in that world and that world is not going to exist within my lifetime at the very least, probably not for centuries. We live in a world where women are treated differently because of their sex. We live in a world where period stigma and medical misogyny and catcalling and rape and domestic violence and devaluation of women’s labour all exist, among other deeply misogynistic issues. So me fighting to get people to recognise that sex is an important characteristic and defending it’s legal protections is not because I deeply believe that it should be an important thing, but because the way in which women are treated by society, particularly at the hands of men, shows that we have built a world in which someone’s sex is an important characteristic and which will affect many aspect of our lives and hence we need to recognise the reality of the world in which we live in. If the end goal is to build a world in which sex is irrelevant outside of medicine then we first need to recognise why it’s not a reality now and work to fix that rather than pretending that everyone’s going to go along with us and misogyny will completely disappear overnight or arguing the what-ifs of this purely theoretical world that we will not live to see.
Radical feminism is about freeing women from their sex-based oppression and fighting for sex-based rights. As a result, males of all genders all inherently excluded from our feminism. To say that we exclude trans people completely is ignoring the fact that trans men and AFAB non-binary people are included in our fight for women’s rights because, regardless of how they identify, they have and will continue to be oppressed on the basis of their sex and they deserve rights to protect them from that discrimination. Your unhappiness that we’re only including people on the basis of their sex is not my fucking problem. Your unhappiness over trans women specifically not being included is not my fucking problem. Movements which seek to free people from their oppression don’t owe it to you to include everyone, they only have to include the oppressed people that they are fighting for. Your inability to understand that is not my fucking problem and only goes to show your entitlement.
If you don’t argue with me in good faith, don’t except me to argue in good faith either. If you’re going to twist my words, ignore what I say, tell me my sources are wrong with no evidence (or tell me that it’s not a source you like/trust enough), and refuse to respond to many of my points then don’t expect me to do the same. I have tried way too many times to argue in good faith only to end up having my points ignored, my sources dismissed, my words twisted if not just straight up having words put into my mouth. If you are not going to be open minded when you talk to me, don’t expect me to put the time in to explain things to you. If you are rude or dismissive or ignoring me or not asking questions, I’m not going to put in all the mental and emotional labour to explain concepts to you and you have not ‘won’ the argument if I have enough and stop responding. You are not owed our time and effort and you should never expect it just because you claim that you ‘really want to learn’.
Please learn some critical thinking skills. I know radfems say this all the time, but I really mean it. If not to understand radfems more, but to be critical of literally all the information that you absorb. I am tired of explaining to people that just because you don’t like or trust the source (like the Daily Mail) doesn’t mean that the actual story itself is untrue. Newspapers like this are incredibly bias and will publish stories which feed into their specific narrative, but it doesn’t mean that what they publish is actually false? Unless you can actually find a source which can tell me that whatever story I’m showing you never happened/was objectively false, I’m going to keep using it. A story which goes against your beliefs doesn’t make it a fake. Biases in newspapers come from the stories which they choose to publish (or not publish), the details they focus on, and the wording they use. My favourite example of this is a few years back when every newspaper was publishing articles about how the Labour and Tory proposed budgets were never going to work/actually balance because the assumptions they used weren’t right. The Daily Mail, however, published only that Labour’s proposed budget wasn’t going to work. Was the story correct? Yes. Did they purposefully leave out information which therefore gave a bias perspective of the two budgets? Absolutely. If you throw everything out which has any biases (which was a thing a TRA I argued with claimed you should do and said that was what they were taught to do), you would have to throw out literally everything ever written. Instead, it’s significantly better to be critical of what you read and understand what biases are in place and why.
#I will probably be adding to this list at some point#also interesting that when TRAs used to come and ate on my blog that my pinned post was often a target#make some stupid little hate comment about inclusive language#telling me that I am *inclusive language* so it’s factually correct/accurate#or telling me about the importance of inclusive language because OBVIOUSLY I just hate it because I don’t understand#but this#this they’re silent on#radical feminism#trans ignorance#gender critical#masterpost
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THE JAMMIEDODGER VIDEO ABOUT JK ROWLING (as recommended by a very polite anon)
so I go point by point after the cut but in short: they should read more feminist theory, they are lying, they are not as coherent as they think they are but they make some points, notably about the rapid onset gender disphoria that’ll need to check in more depth later on.Most of their sources were unfortunatly either on points I already knew or already agreed with. Also that woman ( the “cis” one not Jammy), should really stop thinking being born a woman is somehow a privilege.
So the video starts by saying three things I agree with :
1) Biological sex is definitely real
2) Women’s right and girls’ right need to be protected
3) JK Rowling is entitled to like support and write whatever she wants
So far so good. Except it then goes on to say that TRA agree with that. Now maybe most do but at least some don’t. Don’t lie to me, Jammie Dodger.
They then go on to misrepresent what our problem with “cis” is. Are they going to spend that entire video about trans people at destination of the non educated on that subject without ONCE defining what a trans person is? They are aren’t they ?
“TRANSPEOPLE AGREE THAT BIOLOGICAL SEX EXISTS!!”
see earlier but given the number of people who are saying “sex is a social construct” and “sex is a spectrum” and “a neovagina is just like a vagina”, you may at least put a “most” in your statement here. Anyway this is not the problem we have, we wouldn’t even discuss this if it weren’t for the brain dead morons who argue with us about it.
“my biological sex -the one I was assigned at birth- was female”
is Jammie here telling me he knows biology exists but his sex WAS female ? It still IS female. You’re a female. Moreover you cannot say I know biology exists and I was assigned a sex. The entire “assigned sex” is a refutal of biology by implying doctors choose a sex for you. This is stupid.
Strawman. They are saying radfems have no argument against “gender identity is a real thing”. The lies. Gender identity is not a real thing it’s just gender stereotypes and gender is a tool of oppression for women, it’s sexist garbage. I also notice they don’t define gender identity, this is starting to be a pattern, this video is aimed to normies but the only thing they defined so far is terf.
They did 5 fucking minutes on “transpeople know that biological sex exists” I am already exhausted.
Oh my bad they defined “gender identity” as “the gender you know you are”. THANKS A BUNCH THIS IS SO HELPFUL . Define gender please I beg of you.
“They know they are a man but their bodies don’t match”
okay so you agree that man and woman are words that depends on your body right? Since it can “match”, they are not gender then ? Nevermind he then says that man is their gender identity. This is not making sense.
Ooooooh the floating head analogy never heard that one before, this is a stupid one because gendies also argue that their gender is innate (unless Jammie here specifically says he doesn’t think that I’ll act as if he agrees with that statement) so the good question would be if you were born as a floating head and never even had a body would you still be a woman? And my answer here as well as plenty of people I suspect is “men and women don’t make sense if we’re born as floating heads what are you on about?”
“transwomen needs women’s right too”
I know you think that is self evident but I’ll ask what exactly are the women’s right transwomen need. Abortion? Affordable periods product ? The right to have places free of male? oh wait. They are male so they can never have that can they ?
“so feminism also needs to believe in gender identity”
because if we don’t our feminism is only for females and we exclude males. Notice how they didn’t continue their logic by saying how THIS feminism excludes transmen and nonbinary? Because it does, but guess who actually need the women’s right of abortion for exemple?
“transmen don’t need women’s rights”
I FUCKING CANNOT YOU STILL NEED IT WTF ARE YOU ON ABOUT. OK I need them to define women’s right asap
“well JK Rowling said she supports trans rights”
funny how you can understand how those words are not a proof that she in fact does but you still started your video by “we support women’s rights !!!”
“adding [to Harry Potter] content that was LGBT+ friendly”
she added things that were gay friendly. I don’t remember her adding trans characters.
“transphobic” = saying men can’t become women. Whoah. The hatred.
“the lack of belief [in gender identity] is what she wants protected”
yes and ? Atheism, the lack of belief in a god, is protected. Gender identity existence only proof is some people saying it does exists, it is not a scientific reality in any way shape or form.
“His biological sex was previously female”
BUT WE KNOW WHAT BIOLOGICAL SEX IS WE SWEAR; Damn they spend 7 minutes on “transpeople know biological sex exists” and then keep acting like they fucking don’t.
After that they point blank say that gender identity is more important than sex, having someone who passes as an exemple. What about transpeople who don’t pass? How much you bet this will never be discussed in this video.
Anyway they follow that with that :
Which is true but defining what a woman is does affect women actually (I know weird right) so it’s completely irrelevant to the discussion here.
“When a large group of transpeople are telling you something is wrong please listen to them”
please afford women the same courtesy. We are a large group of women saying males are not the fucking authority on what womanhood is but we are told to shut up. Listen.
“we cannot take the behavior of the minority [online abuse] and group it onto the majority”
I agree with that statement but the majority still didn’t condemn the abuse. Honestly the people in this video did -just before saying HOWEVER but hey – but it is pretty rare to see TRA actually confronting the people who abused JK Rowling online, they cheered them on more than anything.
It is very telling how they spend more time in this video saying people collecting screenshots of the abuse JK Rowling suffered were “not cool” than the TRA giving them a bad name by actually abusing JK Rowling. They even say Jammy was also insulted online so TERF and TRA are as bad as each other right ?? Being called delusional or idiot is not the same as death threats sorry Jammy. (I doubt the “freak” one was from a terf tbh but even then, this is not even comparable) I mean didn’t you get at least one person saying they were going to kill you ? Because I did, and I have ,like, 200 followers. I find very weird that the woman here said “I received sexual assaults threats and this is as a cis woman!” as if women weren’t the primary target of sexual assaults threats. Yeah it’s the misogyny. What’s new. You really should stop thinking you are somehow priviledged even when you are being sexually threatened ffs. What gender ideology does to a mf.
“neither of these sides are innocent”
oh come on, you cannot possibly means that the men who gave you sexual threats were terfs, this is ridiculous, you are just trying to excuse and diminish what people did to JK as per fucking usual.
“persistent low level harassment”
it hasn’t stayed low level tho. Stop trying to say you and JK are receiving the same abuse it’s embarrassing.
JK Rowling’s essay having real life effects on policies for exemple has an element of thruth ,even tho we disagree on wether or not this can be a good thing but your are deluding yourself if you think people assaulting transpeople are the sort of people whose views are in any way influenced by feminists. This is laughable. Also please stop with the guilt tripping, we are not responsible of the mental health of transpeople, we are not their therapists, sorry.
I love how they implied that the guy who forced GNC kids to behave as their assigned gender would somehow give a letter of thanks to a feminist. This is implying “terfs” want the same things as this maniac which is just a straight up lie, terfs absolutely adore GNC people and are mostly GNC themselves.
“What rights of women are actually being eroded by the inclusion of transwomen ?” I am glad you asked !! Well apart from the freedom of speech since “terfs” are losing their jobs and being deplatformed because of this, we have the inherent dangers of replacing sex by gender in what the law protects : https://www.aclu.org/blog/speakeasy/firing-mom-because-shes-breastfeeding-sex-discrimination this is a link to a story about a woman who was said being fired for breastfeeding was not sex discrimination because men can lactate. Do you see the problem ? Moreover there is quotas for women in politics etc….Women fought for their quotas and now males can have them, who do you think an employer would prefer someone who probably will be pregnant at one point or someone who never will ? and let’s not forget the right for women to have women only places :Women in prison are raped by the trans identified males in it .
“I cannot think of a single right that is removed from me”
good for you maybe you should have actually researched radfems talking point before doing this video ? Your ignorance is not a good argument.
“transwomen can use the women changing room because they are women”
you keep saying that but apart from “they feel like women” you didn’t explain how they are women. This is the basis of this entire video and you never explained. Also allowing any person who say they are women into the women’s changing room does not only allow transwomen does it ? It also allows lying freaks.
“You can protect cis women’s rights and transrights simulteanously” HOWWWWWWWWWWW, please tell me how to keep female only spaces (women’s right) while saying TWAW (transrights apparently according to them).
“transwomen can be the victims and cis women can do the voyeurism”
true but did you forget we actually live in the real world and in that one males are much more likely to be sexually harassing people than women ? It is a brazen form of lying to tell women that since theoretically other women can also be creeps they don’t have to worry about males. Get a grip. Live in the real world for a change.
“It doesn’t reference transwomen but men pretending to be women”
apart from “they feel it” you still haven’t told us what the difference is. You are aware nothing from an outside perspective distinguishes the two right ??
“there is no evidence of men pretending to be trans to enter female only spaces” and how would you know they are pretending ? This is the same problem again and again, if you define transwomen as men who feel like women then there is absolutely no way of verifying someone really is trans. And that’s a lie anyway since we do actually have proof of that happening?? There was that video making the room on radblr a while ago of a clear male pissing in the women’s bathroom saying (lying) that he was trans.
Yeah actually radical feminists would accept transmen in their bathrooms, but it’s not an easy question with an easy answer to know how to check they really are transmen. Although notice how they are again only talking about transpeople that passes ? I would feel safer with Jammy in my toilets than Hannah Mouncey for exemple :
That is so obvioulsy a man in a dress.
“ If a transman with a beard and penis and balls can go into a women’s toilet and that is deemed okay because of his biological sex what is to stop a cis man from doing the same”
I am sorry but are you saying a transwoman cannot have a beard and penis and balls ?????????? This is incredibly transphobic of you, you said that gender identity Is just feeling like a gender, how exactly does that mean transwomen cannot have beard ? If you want to know, radfem are arguing for a third toilet for transpeople, that’s our solution. What is yours ?
Ok the next part is racist I’ll skip that thanks
On accusation of TERFery intimidating people and organizations “we haven’t seen these” again, your ignorance is not an argument, I am posting these on Tumblr where cryptoterfs arer numerous. Why do you think that is ?
Are they seriously saying Nike and addidas “accepted” transpeople because they “realized it was the right thing to do” ?????? Those companies employs slaves IN WHAT WORLD DO YOU LIVE IN??
“trying to make transpeople look crazy”
the clownfish things were said online by real transpeople. We don’t need to invent thing to make transpeople look crazy, if there is large enough group some people belonging in that group will say stupid shit .
“We support these rights”
when speaking about women victims of abuse. This is a lie, the Vancouver rape shelter relief is often targeted by transactivists, recently a gofundme for it was cancelled because of transactivists, they are quite litteraly stealing money from raped women. This is not a small, inconsequential part of transactivism.
“The trans-inclusionist views expand the meaning of women to include transwomen”
It doesn’t expend shit actually since it excludes transmen and non-binary. If anything it reduces it.
They go on to say that transwomen deserves protection as women because of their murder rate. It doesn’t explain how being seen as women will help them here and anyway it’s a bold lie considering their murder rate is actually quite low. They also fail to consider how depriving transmen and nonbinaries of those same women’s right might be a problem.
Again they make the distinction between transwomen and men pretending to be transwomen without a way to identify which is which. This is starting to get repetitive and tedious. The problem is not that all transwomen are predators is that there is no way to see a difference until the predators acts, until a woman gets hurt, so accepting transwomen is accepting predators and saying transwomen feelings are more important that the women being hurt because of this. I disagree. The tiny tiny percentage of transpeople doing bad things is actually the same percentage as men doing bad things. If your argument could be used to say women only spaces shouldn’t exist at all because not all men are dangerous maybe you should reconsider your argument because I will not reconsider women’s right to have female only spaces.
“If you push transwomen out of female only spaces you push transmen in”
Yes. I don’t even see where the problem is here. Now why don’t we analyse the fact that if you push transwomen into female only spaces you push transmen out of them ? I don’t think transmen belongs in men’s prisons, do you ?
“Transpeople don’t dispute biology and don’t impact how female only diseases are treated”
eat shit. They do impact this, every woman trying to say “female biology” get shit thrown at her faster than you can blink, stop lying to me Jammy. Do you think I would get called a bleeder, a fetus carrier, a motherfucking birthing body if transactivism wasn’t trying to erase sex ? Don’t you think the sentence “men can have periods” is not eroding biology ? Fuck off
Back to JK, Jammy is saying her disabling comment on her blog was not conductive to a conversation, I have to salute the straight face he says it with because do you really think a nice educated conversation would have taken place on JK Rowling’s essay ? They flooded her children’s book tag with porn for fuck sake.
“Thre is no explosion in young women who wishes to transition” sources ? Because it does seem to be true :https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jsm.12817
“the detransitionners rate is actually really low” hard to know but most people who transitioned did it not so long ago since transgender is a recent trend, we will have to wait and see to have a more robust number. But maybe they are right on that one, this is not going to be the one argument that changes my views unfortunately.
“Does that mean we should stop people from getting plastic surgery then ?”
lol you don’t know the radfem stance on plastic surgery do you ?
“There is more significant transphobia than homophobia”
sources ? Because transition is used as converstion therapy in Iran so it is at least untrue in one country.
“If transmen transition to escape womanhood why is there transwomen ?”
You really didn’t research this did you ? the radfem answer is that transwomen are either gay men who have gender disphoria OR AGP (autogynephiles) read this if you want to learn more about it: https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-elephant-in-the-room
“why would people who have male privileges choose to give that up”
you are assuming they lose their male privileges but I will need sources on that because most transwomen do not pass and are treated more as special men than as women.
“We have already shown you that transphobia is far more rife and damaging than homophobia”
did I miss that part ? When ? You just said that ? Without backing it up ?
“anti trans narratives constantly contradict itself”
No we do not, we are feminist so we OF COURSE we analyse men and women differently, this is an issue of gender which radical feminism posit as an hierarchy, trying to explain transwomen and transmen with the same arguments is doomed to fail because they were not equal in their relation to gender to begin with. Do you think black people trying to pass as white do it for the same reasons white people try to have more black features ? Of course not.
“What am I a lesbian or a homophobe ?”
You are both, you are a lesbian in denial with a deep case of internalized misogyny and homophobia. You know yo can be both sexist and a woman right ? Well it’s the same here.
I heard “Simone de Beauvoir” and I knew they were going to be really fucking stupid with that “One is not born a woman but rather becomes a woman” quote and THERE IT IS! Please read the book. She is not saying male can become women if they try hard enough, she is saying basically the same thing JK Rowling’s quote said which is that “womanhood” as it is forced on women is alien and not natural and the point is that we should not accept it, it’s a feminist quote on femininity and I am so sick of men using it to say that they are women.
Transactivists acting as if sex recognition patterns don’t exists is exhausting so I won’t comment on “nobody checks if you have XX chromosomes before passing you over for a promotion” other than to say : passing over for promotions happens a lot when women are pregnant and after giving birth stop acting as if misogyny is unrelated to our reproduction capacities it is fucking insulting.
“transwomen will support [fights against tampon tax and FGM] too”
FGM was a bad choice here considering transactivists tried to stop a bill against FGM . I will need sources here actually since I never seen a transwoman fighting for women’s right in my life.
Ok I let a lot passes here because I’m tired but we are 48:40 in the video and fuck you “intersectional feminism” is not about males. It was for black women. It is not reductionist to say women are people with a vagina, this is just a definition, and one that applies to 50% of the population at that, there is litteraly no definition of woman that includes more people than that.
Imagine thinking “women are people with vagina” is reductionist but not calling women “vulva owners”. Please , I am begging for coherence.
“transwomen who experience greater abuse than cisgender women will ever experience” .
This is revolting. I don’t have any other words. I am glad this is the end of the video because I would have stopped immediately if this was at the start. What abuse transwomen can experience than ciswomen cannot ? Because I would have thought forced pregnancy was horrific but maybe this doesn’t compare to being misgendered?
“most people are comfortable with transwomen going into women’s bathrooms” https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/39147/bsa34_moral_issues_final.pdf
It says 13% of women are at least uncomfortable with sharing bathroom with transwomen, why are we ignoring their wishes? Because 0.1% of the population wants to ? Whatever, the really interesting thing in this study is that for this question they defined “transwomen” as someone who has gone through all the steps to become a woman aka someone with surgery. I find extremely misleading that this is used for bathroom bills which defines transwomen as male identifying as women. Do you think the numbers would be the same if they specified the transwoman in question still has a penis ? Which is the case for most transwomen btw?
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A bit of reading : orwomen.()scot/did-you-know/?fbclid=IwAR0H7TqxQNqemZcAGFtvR_HLkbkxmZ4FY6srcgrULWxGPyWuc6QPTmDQfVI
Did you know…
…that 80-95% of people who say they are trans choose to have no medical treatment at all – no surgery, no drugs, not even therapy? Transwomen are just male people who subjectively believe that they are female. That’s it. That is all that’s required.
Despite some commentators describing an “epidemic of violence against trans people“, transwomen are no more likely to be murdered than anyone else, and the best data available shows it’s half as likely. In Scotland, zero have been killed. In fact, transwomen are almost twice as likely to be the perpetrator of a murder than to be murdered in the UK, which is not surprising since a male pattern of violence is retained regardless of any transition or cross-dressing.
The 48% of trans youth have attempted suicide statistic is nonsense too. It was based on just 27 trans people (aged 26 and under), from a self-selecting online survey – which made the data worthless. Yet that hasn’t stopped the TIE Campaign peddling similar in Scottish schools (or is it 27%, they seem confused?), contrary to Samaritans advice on avoiding attributing the cause to any one incident. The NHS Gender Identity Development Service actually says “suicide is extremely rare” and rates of self-harm, distress and suicide ideation are similar to other children seen by CAMHS.
Did you know that 1 in 50 males in prison now self-id as trans according to Ministry of Justice figures? If it is so dangerous to be trans why do so many choose to come out when in jail?
Were you aware that 95% of prisoners are men, and 5% women? That most women in prison are there for financial crime, and most men are in for violent offending. Did you know that men commit 98% of sex offences? That 48% of transwomen prisoners are sex offenders (compared to less than 20% in the general male estate) and would swamp the female estate if they all transferred.
What makes these convicted sex offenders, who were born male, women? Why should female prisoners be locked up with rapists if they say “I am a woman”? Are you willing to be in a prison cell with a male rapist on that basis? And if not, do you think other women should be? Are you aware that women have already been sexually assaulted and raped, in several countries, because of this policy?
Did you know that Scotland already has a policy significantly more liberal than England’s, stating that transgender prisoners must normally be housed according to the “social gender” with which they self-identify? And that this policy was brought in by a senior prison officer, himself now a convicted sex offender? A policy put in place without even talking to women’s groups or considering that there would be any impact on female prisoners at all. Despite warnings of abuse, including from former women’s prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss, the promised policy review has not been forthcoming.
What about women’s refuges, have you considered what it could do to a woman fleeing male violence to encounter a male in that refuge? Read why the CEO of a domestic violence charity, Karen Ingala Smith, considers it imperative that refuges remain women-only, and her speech at the Scottish Parliament.
Did you know that a woman was asked to leave a shelter because, as a rape survivor, she couldn’t sleep in the same room as a strange male, regardless of how he identified? Are you aware that a man used self-id to access a women’s shelter where he sexually assaulted vulnerable women? Are you aware that a rape relief shelter in Canada lost all public funding for insisting they remain women-only, and had a dead rat nailed to their door?
Are you aware that the Scottish Government imposes a transwomen inclusive policy on Scottish Women’s Aid as a condition of funding and that Rape Crisis Scotland refused to guarantee a female counsellor for a traumatised teenager? We know from private meetings that they erroneously believe they cannot provide a single-sex service due to a lack of ‘case law’, despite having previously done so for many years. Did you know there is a male manager of a rape crisis centre, who failed to disclose his sex at interview, and which still claims to be women-led?
Are you aware that despite less than half of changing rooms in swimming pools and sports centres being mixed sex, 90% of sexual assaults have happened in them? Yet mixed-sex, ‘gender-neutral’ facilities are constantly pushed, including in schools – contrary to law and building regulations requiring separate sex provision – when it would be more responsible to increase third space unisex provision for the comfort of those who need it.
That’s before you even get into the issue of how to keep out predatory men who aren’t trans, if you say that any man who ‘identifies as a woman’ can use communal changing/showering areas at will. A man exposing himself in a park commits a crime. A man doing so in a women’s changing room, where you’re also naked, who need not have even told staff he identifies as a woman, may no longer be committing an offence.
Did you know that the Scottish Government funded LGBT Youth Scotland, a spin-off group from Stonewall, to write guidance for schools that breaches children’s rights in at least eleven ways? This includes the unscientific belief in gender identity, which even the Justice Minister is at a loss to define, the promotion of harmful breast binding and the removal of all single-sex spaces and sports. No-one should be surprised at this as Stonewall have long campaigned for the removal of women’s rights, although single issue political pressure groups should have been no-where near schoolchildren.
It took the Government until June 2019 to commit to replacing this guidance, having privately received advice that it was “not legal“. Yet, this new legally compliant guidance is seven months overdue and the Education Minister is refusing to withdraw LGBTYS’s guidance in the interim.
Why should we accept smear tests from any male who feels they have a womanly gender identity – what does that even mean (let’s ask the Justice Minister again)? And yes, it is happening. A rape survivor who wanted a woman to carry out her breast screening found her letter used as an example in hospital trans guidance as ‘unacceptable’ and ‘highly discriminatory’. And a woman in a psychiatric ward who was terrified at being locked in a ward with an “extremely male-bodied” fellow patient was regarded as a transphobic bigot. The truth is that women in mixed-sex hospital wards, particularly psych, have very real reasons to fear men.
Did you know that 35 clinicians have resigned from the Tavistock (children’s gender clinic in London) over their failings, including the Governor? Who later wrote a damning account of the abject failure to heed evidence that their affirmation-only policy is harmful to children, especially to the huge influx in girls who may suffer other complex problems, such as trauma, autism, a history of sexual abuse or discomfort with their developing sexuality. A staggering 48% of children referred to Tavistock have ASD traits, and a BBC Newsnight investigation revealed significant numbers of children seeking transition treatment based on their family’s homophobia.
Are you aware that studies show that puberty blockers result in 100% of children progressing to cross-sex hormones – whereas, if left unmedicated, the Tavistocks’s own research shows over 90%, if supported by counselling, are happy with their sex once they emerge from puberty. Did you know hormone blockers may cause sterility, a large decrease in IQ, bone density loss, and more? An investigation by the Health Review Authority concluded that blockers are really the start of irreversible physical transition and recommended that “Researchers and clinical staff should…avoid referring to puberty suppression as providing a ‘breathing space’, to avoid risk of misunderstanding.” This led to a major overhaul of the NHS UK website which no longer considers blockers to be fully reversible and confirms long-term effects are unknown.
The young person’s gender clinic at Sandyford, Glasgow has recently withdrawn their information booklet and we trust it will be similarly updated. Do you think all the government funded trans organisations will be scrupulous in updating their information too – including LGBT Youth guidance in Dumfries and Galloway, Scottish Trans/NHS guidance, and Stonewall advice, among many more, including of course the already deemed “not legal” school guidance by LGBT Youth?
Are you aware that the number of children referred to Sandyford is rising at a faster rate than the rest of the UK? Yet they don’t actually know how many girls have been referred as children can select what sex they want recorded on medical records – although unofficially, clinicians report similar concerns as elsewhere about the huge proportional rise in young girls seeking to transition. Did you know that bias, and not evidence, dominates the WPATH transgender standard of care followed in Scotland? And it is woefully out-of-date considering the fundamental change in patient make up since it was written in 2011.
Read the speech given by Dr David Bell at the Scottish Parliament and consider why, if his report about issues at the Tavistock prompted the Director to resign, was it not enough for the Health Minister, Jeane Freeman, to instigate an enquiry into identical practices at Sandyford? Perhaps the Government will listen to the outcome of a Judicial Review that is being sought by Keira Bell, a detransitioning woman, who wants to protect other troubled young girls from similar treatment.
Are you aware that women with our views are threatened with violence, rape and death, almost as an everyday occurrence? We are told TERF is not a slur, but I challenge you to find any instances of it being used without abuse or threats attached to it. Do you think it’s in any way acceptable for lesbians to be on the receiving end of these menaces for asserting, or even just trying to be proud of, their right to be same-sex attracted? Do you really think there’s such a thing as a lesbian with a penis?
All that hate is from transactivists, and is aimed at women with our views. I challenge you to find anything remotely equivalent from here, from our recorded talks, or indeed anywhere else. This is NOT a case of two sides as bad as each other. And it’s notable that the hate is not aimed at genuinely transphobic, aggressive men. It’s aimed at women. It’s aimed at us.
And JK Rowling. Read the tweets she posted and look at the replies. Read the essay further explaining her thoughts and ask how anyone could possibly think she deserved such atrocious abuse, or how transactivists thought it in any way acceptable to post penis images in retaliation (don’t worry, it’s been edited!) on a child’s thread about Ickabog art.
Did you know women can be, and often are, fired for believing sex is real, that humans cannot change sex, and women and girls are entitled to privacy when undressing or otherwise vulnerable? And yet poll, after poll, after poll, after poll show that this is the majority view, by at least 80%. You may well wonder why then, is the Scottish Government proposing to bring in Hate Crime legislation that would see even JK Rowling imprisoned for up to seven years for expressing views deemed abusive by transactivists, yet affords women no such protection in law, based on their sex.
Innate gender identity is a belief system. There’s no evidence one exists. If our Government cannot even define it, then it should not be presented as fact to our children. It should not over-ride women’s hard fought for rights.
Do you know that the very word ‘woman’ will change definition, if the trans lobby succeed? If we can’t define what a woman is, how can we accurately capture data? How can we record male violence, the pay gap, our representation in government, business, finance, law, media…anywhere? Police Scotland already record incidences on the basis of gender identity, but can’t seem to recall when, or why that happened, and the census looks to be going the same way, despite the importance of recognising sex being shown quite dramatically by COVID-19.
An influential lobby loudly insisting that they won’t be erased (when trans organisations are heavily state funded and train all major businesses, branches of government, school teachers, universities and NHS boards) are actively campaigning to erase the very definition of what a woman is – best archive it, just in case! Have you noticed how easy it is to define a woman when we’re being aborted, subjected to FGM, married off, denied the vote, raped, murdered, paid less, represented less in every single sector of government and industry, expected to perform most of the world’s unpaid labour, and constituting 71% of the world’s modern slaves? The only places that seem unsure on what a woman is are the places feminism was starting to make inroads. It’s almost like there must be some sort of a connection, isn’t it?
We don’t have any fear, resentment or hatred for trans people. We agree there should be protection in law against discrimination and violence. We just don’t agree that our rights need to be railroaded over in the process. We don’t agree that male people should access women’s spaces, or benefit from women’s provision, at will, without our consent. Our name is WOMEN and our rights matter.
Don’t you agree…?
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Hey, could you explain what being a feminist means? I’ve heard all these terms before, and there’s this huge stigma around it. So do you think there’s a way you could clarify at least what your beliefs are, and what you believe it to be? I’m simply trying to study stuff and see what it’s become or is. Thank you.
Sorry I wrote so much i just wanted to make it comprehensive:
General definition of feminist is someone who believes in the socio-economic equality of the sexes. In the beginning this was a straightforward ideology to follow. Women needed to be equal to men. It’s only fair, there’s no reason not to be. But sharing power is not something the ruling majority particularly enjoys so there’s been some bumps in the road. Decades and decades of bumps.
The feminists of the past started this push a long time ago with one message: “we want to be taken seriously, we are humans too and we need rights that benefit us and protect us from you[men]” and they were right. Sex based crimes against women were happening at an alarming rate. So much so that it had become part of some cultures and traditions, meaning it would be defended and men would be protected while women basically died, physically and socially. Women lived in fear and helplessness, being sold a dream of subservience promoted by religion and ego in exchange for protection from men. What about the women that still, despite the odds, wanted to choose a different path? Well, they were brave enough to step out of line and others followed. They exist throughout history, inspiring other women will their bravery and confidence, proving that it was possible to have the power and authority that men had. Now imagine giving every woman that access to power? They’d have everything right? Well feminism didn’t start like that (it was racially exclusive actually) but fortunately the ideologies spread out through cities, across oceans and into continents where women wanted, no, NEEDED such power; the power to change their destinies that had been set upon them by another mere human being.
So feminism is like a sisterhood, where we’re only related by a common goal to protect each other while trying to defeat our common enemy. Here’s where the simplistic ideology begins to mutate based on strategy and cultural progression.
Feminism is a sisterhood, but not a monolith. There’s been different waves (eras) of feminism where each sisterhood used different tactics to achieve their goals for equality. Its like making a new checklist after the old one gets checked off. However there’s been one item that still needs a lot of work before ticking off and that’s dismantling gender roles. Gender roles are the root cause of every.single.thing. Toxic masculinity, performative femininity. Gender roles were created to control humans and keep them in their place. For a feminist to push her way into male dominated spaces, she must first acknowledge that gender roles have been constructed to work against her and break through it. So take note, everything is the way it is because of gender roles.
In this era, the sisterhood has been split into two major groups, two warring tribes if you will: libfems and radfems.
Liberal Feminists accept everyone. They use the tactic of assimilation, where they water down feminist ideologies to make it inclusive for everyone. They follow the lead of oppressed minorities who reclaimed slurs and instead reclaim methods tused to oppress women that past waves of feminists fought to dismantle. Remember what I said about gender roles? These women are bringing it back and think they’re reclaiming it. How do you reclaim something that hasn’t been dismantled yet?The only power they’re concerned with is the feeling of superiority that comes from thinking bowing down to the patriarchy is their idea. Their feminism tackles issues like rape, victim blaming and misogyny, things that affect them personally, while taking on the burden of other marginalised groups as their own, pushing their own goals to the backseat while feeling a self-righteous high. Basically, they’re activists who have lost the plot but would keep pushing blindly than admit it. The second group was born from libfems that wanted more than a feel good pat on the back from the patriarchy for not being too interfering.
Radical feminists are still following the original objective of their predecessors. They still have their eyes open to sex-based oppression and are aware there’s still a lot of work to be done. They don’t put the opposite sex’s needs above their own or let other group’s ideologies influence theirs and because of this, other groups as well as libfems have dubbed them as enemies to progress. Ironic isn’t it? The group that still fights for sexual equality has been silenced by none other than their own. Of course hatred for this group of feminists didn’t come out of nowhere. Radfems and their female-only values are presumed to hurt trans women, as trans women are biologically male and don’t have the same sex based experiences as biological women. Trans activists took these as transphobic fighting words and ostracised radfems, silencing them and their ideologies, claiming that everything they fought for was an attack against the trans community. Conservative americans also share some radfem values, basically the one on keeping the movement focused on female only issues, and because the right is notoriously bigoted (ironic because conservatives are the ones who uphold the gender roles feminists fight against so a conservative feminist is paradoxical) this is enough to tell people that radfems can’t be trusted. That they’re all racist, transphobic white supremacists. Because all groups that share similar ideologies are bad. The public, not wanting to be on the Unpopular Opinion side of history, shifted away and further pushed radfems into the background while libfems and their blind acceptance values were hailed as the patron saints of feminism.
So what feminism was and what it is now are vastly different. It started as a movement in different countries with different goals, then it graduated and took on more serious topics. It was like a game where every level gets tougher to prepare you for that last boss, the one who holds all the power you need to physically change your reality.
Today in the year 2021, young girls are being told that it’s feminist to enjoy selling their bodies for money. That it’s the same as working in a mine (a common comparative statement). That it’s feminist to look as womanly as the gender roles men created dictate. That it’s feminist to watch porn and be happy your romantic partner watches it to; this means you’re sexually liberated. Grown women go to Tiktok full of minors in the style of pimps to show off stacks of money they’ve made from pleasing men. They say “i did it because i wanted to and so should you”. Minors are all over twitter trying to lure men with financial dominatrix tags. They can’t wait till they become legal to start selling their nude bodies to men. They were told it would make them feel powerful. People who are skeptical are shamed into silence, because the popular crowd is always in control and no one wants to be the odd one out.
Now compare that to women who spend time researching horrifying news of sexual violence still happening today. Women still having to sell themselves to survive in 2021 is a clear indicator that we’re still not taken seriously. Sex buying, pimping and displaying women as commodities is the reason little girls are being stolen off the streets and shipped off to a disgusting dreg who think he’s owed sexual satisfaction.
Radfems want to end child sex trafficking, sex slavery, wedding night virginity checks, honour killings, femicide, sewing up little girls vaginas to avoid them exploring their sexuality before their wedding night and bring attention to way more hardcore shit being run by top dogs who are cooperating with the old powers that influence the governments.
Whose side do you think the media will be on? Whose side is worth not risking ruffling feathers?
Feminism has become many things now. You can choose the one that reminds you of the cruelty of man or the one that creates a comfortable fantasy of false empowerment while women’s violence continues. Both get stigmatised anyway.
If it wasn’t obvious already, I’m a radical feminist.
I’m an autistic radfem living in a backwards country where the lgbt community can’t thrive so there’s no pride parades, no trans movement, nothing that can be publicised anyway. I can’t create a fantasy where everything works because nothing works. Women are dying around me everyday for being female, my best friend is trapped with an abusive father who hates her for being a female firstborn (something babies get killed for), I’m not worthy of basic respect without a husband, a poor woman from a muslim state gets death threats from her fellow muslims for wearing a backless top while a rich married one gets praised and women can’t apply for anything important without a man’s permission.
Now why on earth would i want to pamper the gender that made and uphold those laws? The battle here is still greatly a battle of the sexes. Despite this stale level of progress, our movement, like many others have allies. Male allies are great, allies are great, we need them to push buttons yes but also remember they can never fully understand what we feel. All they can do is try their best to help and in return we give them acknowledgement and support; so no we’re not supposed to be misandrists or transphobes. We just hate anyone who uplifts what we and our ancestors have been fighting to destroy.
That’s all
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TERFs are wrong. But, so are social constructionist Gender Theorists
You know it is not a question of one extreme or the other. As much as both like to think they are morally right and have “the science” on their side, they don’t. Both are god damned annoying, totalitarian, and are interpreting reality and what that means in order to browbeat and push others, both socially and legally, towards doing things based on what those mean.
Both are trying to control the parameters of all things based on the fundamentals by their interpretation of reality, not by the objective facts. Both are wrong.
TERFs are not wrong in that someone that is born with XY chromosomes and a standard male sex conforming body is male, and you need dysphoria in order to be trans. They are not wrong that your gender is not just a wily nily purely social construct.
They are, however, wrong about absolutely everything else regarding what those genders MEAN, where they’re derived from and why they were derived that way.
And the social constructionists aren’t wrong in that we should make exceptions to the biological rule for people with transgenderist disorders of the mind and brain. But, they are wrong in that so many are totalitarian. They do not want these exceptions to be exceptions, they want the very basis and fundamental understanding, how we define gender and sex, to change to be based not on biological empiricism, facts or truth, but by legal and social oughts and things they argue “should be held true else it demoralizes and oppresses a minority.”
There are not, “millions of genders.” There’s your basic standard assed functioning, and then there’s a disorder we otherwise can’t do anything with or about right now where it’d simply more healthy for everybody around if we let them live with the identity that is in their minds and body.
Furthermore, the nonbinarist movement needs to stop being such a cowardly little bitch and argue for itself outside the umbrella of trans rights, because it sits there demanding changes and exceptions and validations be made for it on the basis of bowing to trans rights, when it itself hasn’t stepped out of its parasitic sphere to fight for any on its own. Strategically using trans rights as a platform for both offensive and defensive purposes.
TERFs, up to now, have been virtually unchallengable because, “you must be a horrible right wing fundamentalist religious monster to oppose EQUALITY for WOMEN!” And they’ve just skirted on that since the 60s. Which was absolute hell trying to convince anybody that radical feminism was nonsense and harbored deep, authoritarian bends on takes with social ramifications. Yall were in their corner when they were talking about how, “society” needed to give women, exclusively, help to go to college because of past oppressions. But when someone tried to tell you they had weird obsessions with vaginas and using them as rubber stamps for whom gets special treatment and privileges and exceptions to defaults that make men do dirty work and women get clean pay? Deafening silence.
But the minute TERFs don’t want transwomen in their magical witch girl’s clubs, fucking with the cosmology? Ohho they’re visible now. You can see their bullshit now. They’re weirdos drawing female symbols and self-portraits with menstrual blood and making hacky poems about their uterus, now. They’re bad people now. You can actually see they weren’t, “being hyperbolic” or “just venting about the evil MEN around them” now. Hahahahaa. Hilarious.
TERFs are wrong. Point blank. But so are the social constructionist extremists and postmodernists behind the appropriated bandwagon of what calls itself the trans rights and nonbinarist rights movement in the west. The basis for which they’ve defined their norms is not one of reality, but “oughts” and “should be’s” and “must bes” and “or else”s. To the point where they invented a slur specifically to denounce those that do not share their view. “Bioessentialist.”
That makes as much sense as calling someone a dirty, “bioessentialist” because they say you need to be an elephant, to be an elephant. Yes, you do need the physical, biological characteristics to really BE that which you aspire to be. No, you don’t get to redefine what an elephant is to force the elephant to “identify” as an elephant so something that is not an elephant can also be an elephant.
If misgendering someone is triggering for a minority, it’s just as triggering when you deny someone’s sexuality or gender when they’re hetero and cis. And many are repulsed by the idea that the reason they’re compatible with their sex and gender conformation is because they, “made a choice.” For that matter, if you’re actually transgendered and not some bandwagoneering asshole, being trans isn’t a choice either. It’s a psychological and neurological impossibility to be anything else, not a lifestyle, not a hobby, not a “preferred state of mind.” Arguing anything else is arguing not for trans rights, but for psycho-social dominance in law.
And if you think misgendering someone that’s transgendered is bad, people that make up at MOST, 0.7% of the human species, and some say as few as 0.3% of the human species (people with cleft lips, born missing limbs and more are born more often) then what the FUCK do you think it is, redefining the identities and realities of 99.3% to 99.7% of the human animal, not to mention how every other animal works? (not counting some exceptions like clownfish.)
Gender is not, wholly, a social construct. It’s a derivative and pluto’s shadow from SEX. SEX is not psychological. Sex is not negotiable. Sex is biological and disease can make it express incorrectly or correctly to function as intended by natural selection. Gender is only a social construct in that some cultures have assigned thoughts and characteristics and responsibilities for people on the basis of said sexual role. That’s it.
But people that try to live purely in the psychological sphere or argue that sphere belongs in the dominant position for mankind try to argue it’s the only one that really matters, and while we’re at it, lets let the minority dictate what is normal and rational and good. So their believe gender as feelings supersedes sex as reality.
And why would they argue this? Because they’re, “just such big fans of trans rights?” No. Because they hate disparity and immutable, biological difference. And so want to use the arbitration of human law and culture to marginalize it and pretend it doesn’t exist- to where using technology to circumvent it and the penal system to enforce that view seems like a reasonable, moral thing to strive for. Trans rights for these people have always just been a nice coat of paint to put their real activism under.
And the biggest bitch of it all is, Radical Feminists and Trans Inclusive Radical Feminists and Social Constructionists all receive their marching orders from the same ideology. The same stupid take that says bugger reality, live in a communal fantasy and enforce everybody else to live in it, too. Else they’re a bad person. Else they’re a fascist. They merely differ in the rules and the fundamental parameters.
Know the difference between, “this person is bad and they should be shamed for their beliefs because they are bad,” and, “This person is bad because they’re sitting on a throne that I want to sit on as is rightfully mine.” TIRFs don’t hate TERFs because they’re wrong, they hate them because they’re in the middle of a power grab.
But we have the opportunity to end this “Critical Lens” shitshow forever. Both sides are exposed and showing their true colors as terrible ideologies and people. Both sides are showing their totalitarianism in the form of competitive propaganda and using the legal system to get their way based on past manipulations and exploitations they got from lying to a public that didn’t want to be misogynistic or prejudiced against the transgender.
All it takes is connecting the dots and understanding just how and why it’s not a matter of “bitter evil borderline-conservative Karens Vs. noble oppressed transgenders.”
TERFs are fucking NOT conservatives. They’re typically the same far-left assholes as the TIRFs. They differ ONLY in that they believe critical theory fucking STOPS at the immutable reality of biological sex, because they stand to lose dominance if it’s not immutable- so they demand it be CONSIDERED immutable. Their status as oppressed inherently, hinges on it.
So that’s it then. You’re left with no real heroes in this fight. But if you take anything away from what I’m telling you today, it’s that you can argue legally for trans rights. Just, on the basis as exception to the biological basis, as has been proven. Asterisks. Hyphens. Acknowledging the reality that the existence of the transgendered does not negate the reality of biological sex, nor those whose genders are a direct result of their biological sex as the norm.
It’s not bigotry to sexually discriminate to some degrees. When dealing with subjectives, it’s a matter of argument. When dealing with biological realities and imperatives, opinion is irrelevant to the self-evident realities, and interpretation matters less than the reality.
But to those that believe any discrimination based on physical differences or state is inherently wrong, just the idea of male and female being two different, named things, (”classes”, if you will) with different, “unequal” functions and capacity, fills them with rage.
Your moralism stops where nature begins. Period.
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Even though I often don’t feel confident enough to use my own words to support the causes I believe in, I try to make sure I share the words of other people to my small audience. However, I feel I can’t stay silent on the issue that is currently brewing with J.K. Rowling at the centre. I’m not the most eloquent and this has turned out much longer than intended, and probably quite disjointed. But the transgender community is near and dear to my heart. I can no longer be content with standing by and allow other people to speak. I need to add my voice to the conversation.
I was born and grew up as a girl with a different name. My parents were both kind and accepting people, encouraging me to be who I wanted to be. Even if society tried to push me into a box they never did. As a child I saw myself as a tomboy; I enjoyed playing guitar, masculine clothing, and getting down and dirty at Scouts. I hit puberty young and that was when my inner turmoil started. I saw myself as ‘one of the boys’ and the changes happening to my body weren’t welcome ones. This started an ongoing battle with my self image that I am still fighting today but thankfully I feel I am finally winning. As I met more people in my teenage years I outgrew my ‘one of the boys’ mindset and tried to embrace my female-ness, but something still didn’t feel right. Eventually in the summer of 2017, aged 19, I came out as transgender. I had been using the name Finn online for a while at that point and chose that as my new name, started using male pronouns, and started binding and looking into medical transition. I spoke to two gender therapists over the following years and was officially diagnosed with gender dysphoria. I was also recommended for hormone treatment as that was what I had expressed an interest in and was going to be able to start that as soon as I was ready. Around the same time I was offered hormones I met my current boyfriend who helped me get more comfortable with myself and I paused to think about my identity. In the years I have been with him I have since come to realise that whilst I don’t identify as a transgender man, I do still experience gender dysphoria and believe that I would be happiest somewhere in the middle. There are aspects of my body that I am uncomfortable with in a way that only transgender people will understand. It’s not simply the uncomfortable facts of being human such as body hair and odour or the pain of menstruation. It feels tangibly wrong. This isn’t how my body is meant to be or to function and it makes me feel so awful that it transcends the issue of body positivity many people face.
Socially I am a detransitioned transgender man. If you were to ask people would call me a girl and refer to me with she/her pronouns, however, in an ideal world that is not how I would be perceived. I have a great deal of anxiety in social situations and I am not brave enough to request that the people I meet use neutral pronouns for me and avoid referring to me as male/female, nor am I brave enough to ask that of even my friends. I have made my peace with the words that people use for me as I hope that one day when my physical appearance aligns more with how I feel inside and the world has progressed to be more accepting of non-binary people I can garner the courage to claim that part of my identity.
The reason I feel the need to put this out there is that J.K. Rowling has taken it upon herself, a cisgender woman, to speak for the trans community and proclaim that the most vocal portion of the community is damaging. My years spent as a trangender male have made me stronger, more confident, and more aware of who I am and how I identify. They were not a mistake, they were a part of my growth as a person. My struggle with my gender identity has been long and hard. I’ve fallen on many sides of the debate through the years, even holding views at one point that were transphobic. Which is exactly why I feel qualified to tell J.K. Rowling and others like her that they are wrong.
Rowling thinks that the transgender movement is aiming to “erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender”. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I cannot speak for all transgender individuals, we are a varied group with a myriad of opinions, but the main push is for sex to not be the defining characteristic on legal documentation. Why do our drivers licenses or passports need to make people aware of the chromosomes we likely possess, or the genitals we were born with? They don’t. It is none of Rowling’s, or anyone else's, business that I was born female. It is an unfortunate reality for transgender people that, no matter how far they medically transition, their body may never be exactly how it would be for someone born male/female. Sex is biological, it is how you are born. You may be male, female, or be born with something that makes it harder to define your sex such as Klinefelter’s or Turner’s. That biological fact you are born with is not of importance to anyone but your doctor. The only thing that the law and anyone else should be interested in is your gender, how you identify, and this is what we wanted reflected on legal documentation. She also laments how easy it is to get a gender recognition certificate now, that you only need identify as a woman/man to get it changed and, *gasp*, you don’t even need to medically transition! But that is exactly how it should be. Medical transition is not a requirement. Some people may choose not to and some people may not be able to. It does not make them any less who they say they are. And again, who cares what’s on their documentation? What exactly is that going to change about your life? Absolutely nothing.
She also expresses a concern for a “huge explosion” in AFAB (assigned female at birth) people transitioning, and subsequently the increase in AFAB people detransitioning. As one of those people I can say with confidence that I do not think this is not due to any kind of brainwashing or misguided feelings. It is due to the fact that in the age of the internet information is more freely available to us. As I mentioned, my parents were incredibly accepting people. I grew up knowing two lovely trans women, however for some reason I was not aware that AFAB people could be transgender too and transition into men. This is something I have heard many trans men express, and my therapists both commented that it was a common reason for why people like me had not begun transitioning earlier in life. I can’t deny that the increased awareness and acceptance of transgender people will lead to some mistakenly identifying as transgender. Butch women and effeminate men exist and many are perfectly comfortable with their sex, however some may have issues with their self image or identity that can lead to them questioning their gender identity. But allowing people to explore their gender identity is a good thing. Medical decisions should not be taken lightly of course, and I believe there is a discussion to be had about making sure that we do not allow people to make those decisions without speaking to professionals, but that is a different debate that I do not wish to get into now. However, having said that, the choice to medically transition is the choice of the individual. No doctor can tell you what is best for you, they can only help guide you to the right decision. The correct response to the increase in people identifying as transgender is not to invalidate them and tell them they cannot ever be “real” men or women, or accuse the transgender community of poisoning the minds of the youth. We should instead seek to be better educating our children, increasing the quality and availability of resources for transgender people, and providing everyone with the tools they need to discover who they are and make the right choices for themselves.
Defining women by their biology is a harmful ideology to hold, not just for transgender women but also for cisgender women. Womanhood is not reliant on whether or not you have a uterus. She is right in that it is also not defined by a love of pink or shoes. How to define womanhood (and manhood) is a difficult and nuanced conversation, one that I do not feel yet able to have. But an easy way to tell is if you feel and know in your heart that you are a woman then you are and you can claim womanhood. She takes issue with referring to women as “menstruators” or “people with vulvas”. It was actually the phrase “people who menstruate” that offended her enough to start this whole debacle. Women is a useful phrase, and it does need to be used when talking about women’s rights in general. But the article in question was talking specifically about menstruation. When menstruation is the issue at hand I cannot understand at all how referring to that fact is a bad thing. Trans men and non-binary AFAB people who menstruate need to be included in the conversation; menstruation is not a topic that is solely for women.
Lastly, she tried to speak out for women who were abused that are being “wronged” by the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces. I understand more than most how hard it can be to recover and trust those who may remind you of your abuser because I have been there. I understand the need for safe spaces away from anything that may trigger you. But transwomen are not all going to trigger those who were abused by men, unless of course you still view them as men. Maybe a trans woman has a deeper voice or more masculine facial features that remind you of your abuser and that triggers you. That is not a personal attack against her, it is an unfortunate result of your abuse, but a cisgender woman may also have a deeper voice or masculine facial features that trigger you. If that’s the case then of course you need to decide for yourself whether you need to remove yourself from the environment for your mental well being. However, if you enter a woman’s space that has a trans woman in it and you demand her removal on the basis that she was born biologically male you are nothing short of transphobic. Whilst, yes, allowing trans women into these spaces would theoretically allow for predators to pretend to be transgender to access vulnerable women it simply does not happen. I can’t point to any studies to prove this, but I feel common sense says that the likelihood of a predatory man pretending to be a woman to access women's only spaces is much less than a predatory woman accessing these spaces. The world is a scary place filled with horrible people and it is impossible to barricade against all possibilities of harm. Barring trans women from these spaces is not going to solve the problem that horrible people exist and protect you from them. It will only harm trans women.
Gender is hard. It can be complicated. Especially for those older who are having to change how they think. But all that we ask is that you respect transgender peoples identities and pronouns, that you use inclusive language, and that you don’t fight against our rights to simply exist in this world with the right name and gender on our papers. It’s really not that hard to just be a decent person.
#i feel like this is something that should be attached to my public accounts#this is less personal ramblings and more of a thought through post to make my stance clear#jk rowling#transgender#not art
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Ooooh my god. Read the whole thing it's mind boggling and written by a TRA that doesn't actually know what oppression is
Last month, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon posted a heartfelt video statement online.
She said that she would make a stance to address transphobia in her party, outlining that it ‘is wrong and we must treat it with the zero tolerance we treat racism or homophobia.’
I – like many other Scottish National Party members who left in January – watched in tears.
Yet, I fear that Sturgeon’s words have come too late to undo the SNP’s slide into becoming one of the most concerning hubs of transphobia in Scotland.
When I, a non-binary person, joined the SNP In February 2019, the party felt like a beacon of hope. Scotland had a great LGBTQ+ equalities rating, and Nicola herself, as a life-long feminist and LGBTQ+ ally, was a role model I held in deep respect.
But at just three months in, I felt first-hand the party’s disregard for the safety and wellbeing of trans people.
After I appeared in a short social media video for the SNP’s official student wing, I became the focus of a disproportionately large hate campaign launched by anti-trans activists online. They pored over screenshots of my body shared over Mumsnet, mocking my features, which they found unfeminine.
As I watched the party fail to act as the same activists who attacked me sent thank you cards to SNP politicians like Joanna Cherry for her opposition to trans rights, I never took it upon myself to report what had happened. I was aware of other complaints that had received no response.
That was until I came to a crisis point in 2020 when I was subjected to coordinated, planned abuse by anti-trans activists at a branch meeting I had been invited to.
The leaked branch meeting minutes were seen by The Herald describing, ‘At one point photocopies of men taken from the internet were passed with the comments that they had all been convicted of predatory and paedophilic behaviour against women and girls while self-identifying as women’.
In shock at their actions, I did not look at them all but one picture stood out to me, of a well-known UK trans public figure.
This trans woman had experienced abuse online for her appearance not fitting the patriarchal ideal of what ‘woman’ looks like. Yet they compared her to convicted rapists and paedophiles, just for being who she is.
I couldn’t help but compare it to what happened to me over the SNP Student video; the sheer disgust at our bodies – objects to be ridiculed.
As the night went on that room devolved into a den of transphobia. The minutes detail that anti-trans activists ‘shouted comments of men getting access to women/girls in toilets and changing rooms and raping them and the infiltration of LGBT information in primary schools encouraging children to identify as gay or trans.’
I was too scared to say anything although the branch executive apologised for these activists’ actions and ushered me to safety; it took me three months to summon up the courage to talk publicly about it.
And my fear was justified. Six months after I formally complained, nothing was done. I felt hurt and betrayed when I did not receive the support I should have been able to expect.
I emailed the new National Secretary Stewart Stevenson MSP, setting my intention to leave unless an update on my complaint was provided within two weeks.
He said nothing. And so, I left.
The sad part is many other instances go unreported due to the survivors being too scared to come forward out of fear of harassment. I was not the first trans person to come forward about being abused in the SNP.
Emma Cuthbertson, the former convenor for the party’s official LGBTQ+ wing, said she sent ‘at least 21 complaints’ outlining instances of transphobic abuse she received from other party members to SNP HQ, the national secretary and even Sturgeon herself. She said no one responded and subsequently left to join the Scottish Greens.
The rumbles of bigotry and party inaction came to a crescendo on Tuesday January 26, the day before Holocaust Memorial Day, as prominent SNP MP Joanna Cherry appeared to defend an anti-trans activist whose Twitter account has been suspended for violating its ‘hateful conduct’ policy.
Cherry tweeted claiming that ‘Twitter moderation policies are a violation of #FreeSpeech & your hateful conduct policy does not protect women…As a Member of Parliament I’m calling you out on your sexism & your #HumanRights violations’, which was to me insinuating that sexism led to the account being banned rather than acknowledging the discriminatory remarks aimed at trans and Jewish people.
Last week, the SNP had a reshuffle and dropped Cherry from the front bench – Anne McLaughlin MP has been appointed instead as the party’s spokeswoman on justice and immigration.
Recently, Justice Minister Humza Yousaf submitted highly controversial proposals to the Hate Crime Bill, which seems to enshrine in law the demand of anti-trans activists to be exempt from hate crime regulations when criticising trans people’s identities.
This accumulation of stories shared over social media, to significant outrage, meant it was understandable that a sliver of recognition from Sturgeon in her video was enough to make mytears start.
Watching her was like having two years of fear and silence finally be put into words. I cried out of pain, mourning and exhaustion because I feel this has come too late to heal the harm done to trans people both inside and outwith the party.
At this time, I don’t think the SNP support trans people on our road to an equal and inclusive independent Scotland at all. Trans healthcare was already at crisis levels prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now, waiting times are at such severe levels that some trans people wait up tothree years just for their first appointment at a Gender Identity Clinic.
Trans women are experiencing an epidemic of Intimate Partner Violence, including domestic and sexual abuse from their partners.
I’ve watched as close friends’ lives have been ruined by these problems, but they seem of little interest to a party in which the mere mention of trans rights acts as a lightning rod for amplifying transphobia, and distracts from the mission of independence. Trans people are tired of having to ‘wheesht for Indy’ (‘wheest’ meaning hush).
It’s a horrible situation. Young people joined the SNP out of hope for a new Scotland and now many are regretting that decision.
Sturgeon has promised change and I believe her to be an ally but until change happens, I cannot see the SNP as a safe space for already marginalised trans people.
The onus is on all of our allies to pressure the SNP leadership to launch an independent, external review of its transphobic culture, with a focus on many ignored instances of discrimination and abuse, before a generation of its activists are lost.
‘We hope our efforts will reaffirm the status of the SNP as great supporters of the LGBT+ movement. The door remains open for Teddy, other trans people and trans allies, should they wish to re-join the party at any time.’
Joanna Cherry QC MP said: ‘I am not aware of anyone in the SNP who wants to undermine the rights of Trans people. As a lesbian, a feminist and a veteran of the struggles for equality I believe that everyone deserves equal protection under the law and I am very proud of the fact that in Scotland we have very good rights-based protections for Trans people.
‘There is currently a debate about changing the Gender Recognition Act in Scotland. Some people have advocated for a policy of self-identification of gender. In response Women have raised legitimate concerns about the impact on their sex-based rights enshrined under the Equalities Act. It is concerning that in this area it is difficult to express a viewpoint without being labelled a transphobe. The Scottish Government’s proposed amendment to the draft Hate Crime bill was designed to ensure that people who wish to discuss women’s sex-based rights would be protected from charges of transphobic hate crime. Without such protections Scotland will end up in breach of Article 10 ECHR which protects the right of free speech.‘
-End of article-
You read that right folx, this idiot is actually saying that women being able to congregate and speak about issues that affect us is hate speech and wants it to be enshrined in law. The trans movement couldn't be any more anti-woman if they tried
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JK Rowling’s essay about why she’s a TERF: Abbreviated
My last post was LONG, much longer than I’d intended, and difficult to read on tumblr I’m sure (if anybody would like it sent as a pdf please let me know). So I’m making a shorter post and only including the paragraphs that I responded to with links to a source, for people who are more interested in the places where JK Rowling provably lied in her essay.
“For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.”
First of all, Maya didn’t lose her job. Her contract was simply not renewed by her workplace, something that she was not entitled to under any law. JK Rowling also continues to falsely assert that Maya’s belief was that ‘sex is determined biology’, when she actually asserted that under no circumstances is a trans woman a woman nor a trans man a man, and the judge ruled that it did not fit all five necessary limbs to be a philosophical belief (it actually only failed the last one). The judge ruled that the ‘under no circumstances’ part of her assertion was absolutist, and that is what ultimately failed the fifth limb. [source]
“All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.”
First off, this goes against the statement a spokesperson made for her when this happened, stating that she had a ‘clumsy middle-aged moment’ and liked the tweet by ‘holding her phone incorrectly’. The tweet she liked also had no content that she could research, it was a baseless claim that men in dresses get more solidarity than cis women (which I won’t even dive into, we have so much more to cover). [source] I also won’t dive into the use of ‘wrongthink’ as if we are all characters in George Orwell’s 1984, simply because nobody is controlling her speech, she is simply facing consequences for the shit she chooses to fling at the wall.
“I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.”
Can we salute the man who decided to tell JK Rowling that he composted her books, because that’s absolutely hilarious. But really, I just want to point out that no matter how many threats of violence JK Rowling thinks she is getting, transgender people are subjected to much more abuse both online and in real life, and it affects their wellbeing much more directly than simply being called a cunt or a bitch on twitter. [source] While JK Rowling thankfully isn’t killing trans people, she’s disappointing so many of her LGBT+ fans who looked up to her and found comfort during their childhood in her books that encouraged people to be brave and be themselves.
“What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.”
I’ll tackle this paragraph from top to bottom. Firstly, the reason you believe the overwhemling majority of people supported you is because many of those who don’t (myself included, until now) simply rolled their eyes and ignored you, because you are not worth our time. We have lives to live that are unconcerned with your bigotry. Second, I hope those people who were working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people have since left their jobs, because they have no business serving a community who they secretly harbour unsupportive ideologies about. And finally, the idea of supporting and helping trans people (specifically trans youth) is DANGEROUS to young people, gay people, and women’s and girls’ rights is simply false. No women’s rights have been repealed in favour of trans people’s rights (mainly because trans women continue to shockingly be women). In fact, trans youth with parents who are very supportive and affirming show a statistically significantly lower rate of both depressive symptoms and suicide attempts. [source] [specific graph]
“If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.”
The first two sentences in this paragraph are true. Viv Smythe, a trans inclusive cis radfem, is credited with coining the term TERF to describe her fellow radical feminists who are ‘unwilling to recognize trans women as sisters’. It has also become widely used to describe feminists who exclude trans women from their feminism, even if they are not radfems. [source] I don’t care about who has been called a TERF, all I need to know is that they are transphobes, which they should feel equally disgusted at the fact their behaviour warrants the label. Trans men do not want to be included in radical feminism because we were ‘born women’, and JK Rowling including this as if it is an excuse is appalling. Trans men are not women, therefore we do not appreciate radfems claiming to support us based on their obsession with what genitals we were born with.
“The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.”
There is a lot to unpack in this paragraph. And I don’t have the room in this already much too long post to dive into detransitioning, so I’ll say this: it sucks that some people transition only to realize they shouldn’t have. But these people are a staggering minority of people who do transition, and there is no external person they can blame for believing them when they relay their symptoms (as doctors are supposed to do) and acting accordingly, with the patient’s consent. The issues I have here are the language JK Rowling uses to say young women are transitioning, purposefully misgendering trans masculine people. And implying that people are transitioning because they are gay, because their families or society push them to not be gay and instead transition, is absolutely laughable. Studies have already shown that society as a whole is much less accepting of transgender people than they are of gay people and lesbians. [source]
“Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.”
There are a number of factors that could have led to such an increase in referrals, and no studies have a definitive answer, though most speculate that the increase in acceptance and visibility of trans people is likely a major contributor. [source] Additionally, I personally believe that more trans women seeked transition years ago because it was impossible to be accepted as a trans woman without fully medically transitioning, whereas trans men could get by without transitioning and simply presenting as their gender. Now that transition is more acceptable and available, trans men do not need to hold themselves back from transitioning, but unfortunately, with more visibility has come more vitriol that is specifically aimed at trans women, and this could discourage them from transitioning or coming out at all. I won’t dignify the statement about autism in afab trans people being prevalent other than saying that cis people can be autistic, trans people can be autistic, and implying that neuro-atypical people cannot make informed decisions about their bodies and healthcare is abhorrent.
“The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:
‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’
Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’”
Lisa Littman’s study can be read here. There are a multitude of issues with this study, and many big names in psychology and gender studies have spoken up about the issues in her conclusions and in the methods to begin with, which are unscientific and deeply flawed. [source] The biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that the study interviews parents of trans youth as opposed to the trans youth themselves, and takes the parents’ limited knowledge of their child’s inner thoughts and experience as fact without consulting the trans person at all. Additionally, recruitment for the study was mainly done through anti-trans organizations. All of this information is available in the original study and in the rebuttal. Because of this, I cannot take anybody who cites Lisa Littman or her study seriously, because it is not credible whatsoever.
“When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’”
More people than JK Rowling is probably aware of feel ‘mentally sexless’ in youth, because they have no crippling discomfort regarding their gender identity, and either do not feel pressure to prescribe to gender stereotypical behaviours or actively rebel against it. According to brain studies, everyone is technically a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ because there remains to be no such thing as a male brain or female brain. [source]
“I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.”
First of all, the number of kids who “desist” from their gender dysphoria are not reliable. Mainly because the methods in these studies are not robust (ie one study defined gender dysphoria as exhibiting any behaviour that was not typical of their gender, such as boys playing with barbies and girls playing with monster trucks; another study classified subjects that did not return to the clinic and did not follow up as desisters without confirming). [source] Additionally, studying children who do exhibit true gender dysphoria, the main factor determining whether it will persist or desist seems to be the intensity, and not at all related to peer relations. [source] Trans people wishing to transition medically may no longer need to subject themselves to extensive and unnecessary therapy to convince medical professionals that they are who they say they are, but they still need to wait on very long lists for our turn to access hormone replacement therapy and surgeries, and can spend all of that time being sure that we are indeed trans and want these medical treatments. JK Rowling is also purposefully misreporting facts in regard to Gender Recognition Certificates. In order to get one, one must be over 18, have lived as their true gender for at least 2 full years, and provide two medical reports (one from a gender specialist and another from a general practitioner) citing that they have gender dysphoria. If they have not had any medical transitional treatments, the medical reports must state whether they are waiting for them or why they are not pursuing any, in direct contradiction of JK Rowling’s assertion that any man can get this certificate. [source]
“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.
So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”
‘Natal girls and women’ is another transphobic dog whistle. There is a non-offensive way to say this, which I am sure if JK Rowling has done all the reading she has claimed to do, she must have stumbled upon the word ‘cisgender’ at some point. It effectively communicates the same information without alienating trans people and implying they are less than cis women. Trans women are not ‘men who believe or feel like women’, and this long standing myth that cis men will use the guise of being a trans woman to gain access to public bathrooms and changerooms has been thoroughly debunked, because trans women have been using women’s bathrooms and changerooms for years with no issues. [source] And scroll up for the claim that Gender Confirmation Certificates are given out to any man who decides to be a woman for a day above, this is just more misinformation, no ‘simple truth’.
“On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.”
First of all, JK Rowling is blatantly lying. The Gender Recognition Act Reform has been completely shelved by the Scottish government in light if the more pressing need to fight the coronavirus on April 1st, and I cannot find any updates on this being considered by the government. [source] The only trans related news out of Scotland I can find is that on June 5th, the Scottish government included trans women in the definition of women in guidance for school boards, which will have none of the effects that JK Rowling is fear mongering about. [source] Again, I am upset to know that JK Rowling is a survivor, but she is using this revelation as a weapon to make people fear that it will happen to others as a result of trans people gaining access to the same public spaces as their cis counterparts. Women’s and girls’ safety is NOT being put at risk by trans people using a bathroom or changeroom.
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Final Project
Pt 1; a perfect ending. feeling a rush of shared excitement - finally! just like me!
warmth, embraced, a queer kind of friendship. we sat in the grass and talked about how our lives were growing up, how our queerness was realized and how it affected the way we walk in the world. our stories are so similar yet so, so different. miles and miles of time away, you announce to your friends that you’re probably maybe gay. you start a spark in their minds, and soon after you’re deemed the trail blazer of coming out. you are brave, do you know it? you were the person who i wished for. so desperate for approval from others, and not meeting anyone like you, i took it upon myself to starve my queerness, the differentness, the part of me that i knew i could definitely be hated for. and i can’t stand the thought of being hated. and a part of me hated myself for who i was. i was taught that i couldn’t love like that, that it wasn’t *real*, that anything other than normal is impossible, wrong, destructive. so i listened, and i believed them. not completely, that is also true. that’s why i never stopped immersing myself in online queer culture, why i desperately searched for any sign of queerness in the online personas i followed and in the fiction that i read. we talked about this too, how we’d entrench ourselves in media and later realize that we were part of the group we were so obsessed with. finally... just like me
you opened your heart so quickly - your friends, they tell me that they’re so happy that you’ve met me. you open a window into your life and lend a hand to help me hop in. i see how you love others, and how they love you. we run through the lawn of a backyard riddled with ripe fruit and laugh like children at how sweet the juice is. we share a meal and spend hours talking about nothing and everything. i sometimes stop and listen to the chatter, and i feel complete warmth even when i cannot understand what is being said. we read the cards i brought and i learn how each of you sees love. i see the way you interact with your loved ones, the way you so deeply care to spend time with them. letting go, giggling in giddy joy, acting like absolute fools. finally, just like me
cried a farewell last night
thank you for offering me a bizarre, unfair amount of kindness
thank you for showing me a glimpse of your life, your entire world
thank you for extending a hand in friendship, in solidarity
thank you for being my friend
I feel like my time here, my glimpse into another person’s life, feels like a glimpse into an alternate timeline. A timeline in which I accepted myself from the beginning. A timeline in which I told a friend about my crush on Jen from Buzzfeed. A timeline when I refused to normalize myself, refused to uphold the boundaries that were unfairly placed on me. A timeline when I was brave. A timeline when I stopped being so damn scared. A timeline when I realized that my friends would still stay friends with me, and those who didn’t want to, I should let go of anyways. There will always be people who don’t match up with your values, your energies, your being. I won’t lie to myself and say that it wouldn’t hurt like a bitch, but it’s a hard fact of life that homophobes, transphobes, racists, xenophobes, ie bigots exist and there will be always be bullies and people who don’t care about you, who WANT to put you down, who want to hurt you. In a world of power, there will be those with some and those without. I was given a small window into my friend’s life and saw a life pathway built around friendships who learn and grow right alongside you. I’ve always thought about that – what if? What if I let go earlier? In my timeline, the forces around me were not as kind to me. I was told queerness was ugly, so utterly upside down. I didn’t have anyone to tell me otherwise. Perhaps if I had a positive role model to tell me that it WAS okay, that it was beautiful and wonderful. Perhaps if I had a friend like them in my life who was the first to come out and encouraged others by simply living their life the way THEY want to, perhaps I would have had the courage to do so earlier. I can’t change the past.
But I can think about how the events of my past shaped my present, and how my present shapes my future. Thank God - I DID let go! There’s no race to live your truth, but oh god it feels so good to do it NOW. I’m so thankful that I found the bravery these people I know now have embraced so many years ago. I feel like my own person, like an entire human soul. I don’t feel the need to please anyone. This queer experience, of finding yourself and maybe even fearing yourself, but, ultimately, coming to love yourself despite dominant society failing you, that is a queer experience. Regardless of any experience, something we all share is having to live in a world that ultimately does not accept us, does not want us.
An ode to knowing that although things are different here, and that there’s no possible way that I could have had a similar timeline just simply because of how different our spheres and worlds are... despite this, despite the fear and self hate and internal violence I was forced into because of the life I was born into, despite all of this, I was still able to find myself and love myself and find others who love me for my whole humanness.
There’s a lot of work to be done in the world, for our lives and our safety and our happiness. I think the friends I’ve met here are doing that work. Through their love for each other and thus their refusal to conform, to stay quiet, to accept the norms in place.
Meeting this special friend may have been completely chance, but I believe fate had a little bit to do with it too. To give me this window, to let me see what beauty it is to allow a person to be themselves. The sooner, the better.
____ DISCUSSION
Pt 3:
It’s funny to see how these ppl’s reflections of their lives fit in line with exactly what we discussed through our readings and class discussions. Norway may be progressive in law, but not necessarily in practice. Each of the queer people I asked this about, or asked them to speak about their queer experience, expressed frustration at there not being much of a strong queer community here, and how they still experienced everyday oppression (you may call these micro aggressions).
Nordic model of inclusion + welfare, making this a space where it is looked down upon to discriminate for someone’s sexuality
A different relationship to Christianity
In the U.S., I grew up in a heavily queerphobic, heavily strict and monitored environment where I was even monitoring myself, reprimanding myself for all of the gay content I was consuming but allowing myself to keep doing it because I was “outside” of the community and thus could not be associated with it or have to think of the consequences.
In middle school I was fully aware that I had strong crushes on gay female celebrities but was petrified of sharing that information with anyone.
I shut myself down immediately, but continued to consume gay, lgbt, and trans media for years and years after, allowing myself to do this because I could convince myself that I was just “a straight girl” who was a big fan of the community.
After coming to college and experiencing true freedom from the expectations and values placed on me, it took me less than three days to come to the realization that I was in fact, extremely not straight. It took me 6 more months to fully feel comfortable admitting to myself and claiming the label that I was gay. It took me another year to “come out” to all of my friends and folx I really cared about.
-talk about how this is a divide between my experience and the experiences of the friends I made here. L & their friends came out when they were extremely young, in middle school actually. Our timelines diverge here.
Only recently, I began to make friends on the shared experience of our queerness. Meeting my close friends now, sharing intimate + tender moments. Loving each other and supporting one another the way family might do. A queer kind of love shared in these emotional bonds. A kind of love I had not experienced before my full acceptance and life as a queer person. Tender, radical love.
Meeting L, sharing on our experience of being queer and trans. And not to say that their life in Norway is so much better. The Nordic model may allow for some general acceptance, but queerphobia still has its roots in other malicious ways. Many of L’s friends still don’t use their pronouns. A is called the slur version of the word lesbian, and she recognizes that being a lesbian is not favorable to society. She wants to be a prof of gender studies at her uni but told me that since there is already one queer person on staff, she’ll never be hired on.
M telling me about how even tho queer ppl are accepted on the outside, and in the law, in practice, not so much.
-A telling me that people hate lesbians
-in Norwegian, the word for lesbian is also really similar to the slur, “fucking lesbian”
CONNECTION TO THE FIRST ARTICLE WE READ
Norway’s state feminism and inclusion of queerness is heteronormative, only assimilating those that fit into the family, hetero model (thinking to naked sculpture park, extremely family oriented)
Same sex has to still be straight – family, private, culturally straight.
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I posted this on Reddit but I’ll use this as my Tumblr intro too.
I used to be the most trans accepting person ever. I am (nearly) 29 and I've been trans accepting since a teen cos I myself had gender issues at that age. Turns out I'm just a bisexual who likes both female and male clothing, hobbies, etc. Because I had been on the trans movement side for so long, I never questioned when recent trans issues started to arise e.g. bathrooms etc. I openly labelled myself as anti-terf and blocked anyone who I thought was a terf. But my peak trans moment came when I saw people advocating that lesbians aren't real lesbians unless they also accept TiM "girl dick". I'm like, hold on, that sounds reaaaaally rapey and conversation therapy sounding. Then I found my own bisexual identity being called transphobic cos I am "only attracted to two genders" I thought, hold up, I thought transmen and transwomen wanted to be identified as just men and women so how is my sexuality excluding them? Then I'm being called transphobic cos I only want to have sex with vaginas on female bodied people and dicks on male bodied people. I've spent most my life sticking up for trans people but just because I dare to have a sexual preference, means I am transphobic. That's when it hit me that many TiM and TiF (especially TiM I find) literally are doing this to force people to have sex with them. TRA think they are being woke by supporting trans people, but so so so many trans ppl will turn around and call you transphobic for refusing their advances. Doesn't matter how much of an ally you are, you are transphobic if you don't agree to sex. I then realised that many of the things that especially TiM are fighting for is access to spaces that aren't socially acceptable if they were to say it as their birth sex, e.g. bathrooms, changing rooms, women's only spaces, etc. The amount of TiM I see wanting things like anti discrimination at work laws for example, is far LESS than ones that are advocating for "gender neutral" bathrooms. It is all about getting into women's spaces. As women we are already being attacked from every angle e.g. recent abortion ban bills, but now we can't even say "women's rights" without someone chiming in saying "not all women have uteruses, be more inclusive". Why can't be have a single discussion or cause to ourselves without someone being a input hoe that we got to think about men too? So yes, I am a reborn GC. I will always be for ACTUAL trans people, the ones that are not doing this for sex and just want to get on with their lives without fuss, (lost a trans friend to suicide in my teens, they were NEVER like this) but those types are very rare and are getting spoken over by these men creeping into our spaces and wanting our bodies.
I’m here on Tumblr to support my lesbian/bi sisters (and gay/bi brothers!) away from our identities being erased.
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Showrunner Krista Vernoff and out trans actor Alex Blue Davis talk with THR about how they'd like the ABC medical drama to advance the storylines for trans characters and actors.
There's a line of dialogue in Thursday's Grey's Anatomy that showrunner Krista Vernoff rewrote more times than she can count. But the impact of the line — from out trans actor Alex Blue Davis (who plays new intern Casey) to his boss, Bailey (Chandra Wilson) — was worth reworking a million times: "I'm a proud trans man, Dr. Bailey. I like for people to get to know me before they find out my medical history."
The moment comes after Casey has just saved Bailey and all of Grey Sloan Memorial from a hacker who, having taken over its computer systems and air conditioning, left several patients in jeopardy and pushed the hospital to the brink of closing. The episode also followed Casey's very personal reveal, having let both his new colleagues and viewers alike get to know him as a person before they learn something deeply personal about him.
"We worked very hard and very closely with Alex and [LGBTQ advocacy group] GLAAD on this storyline," Vernoff tells The Hollywood Reporter. "The scene in which Casey disclosed to Bailey that he was a 'proud trans man' was rewritten more times than anything else — we wanted it exactly right."
Inspired by President Donald Trump's proposed (and since blocked) ban on transgender individuals serving in the armed forces, Vernoff set out to tell a story about a trans veteran. Vernoff then intentionally cast a trans actor for the role of Dr. Casey Parker, one of the long-running medical drama's six new interns for season 14.
"We wanted the audience to get to know this character before they knew his private medical information; we wanted his disclosure to not feel like an 'A-ha!' shock but a genuine unfolding of this character's truth when he felt safe with someone," Vernoff says.
Thursday's episode resolved the hospital's cliffhanger from last year's midseason finale as Casey confides in Bailey that he was arrested for hacking into the DMV's computer system. Bailey is initially stunned as her background check on her new intern didn't catch that very important fact. That's when Casey discloses that there was a mistake on his driver's license that wasn't a typo: his local DMV declined to issue him a new license with his proper gender after he transitioned so he hacked into the system and fixed it himself.
"A lot of people don't understand what you mean when you say 'mistake' on a driver's license — they think it's a typo," Davis tells THR. "It wasn't enough for people to understand what female-to-male is and it's hard to have that changed [on your driver's license] in a lot of states. It's a serious issue."
Davis, whose previous credits included episodes of 2 Broke Girls andNCIS: Los Angeles, says he knew when he was cast that he'd be playing a character with comedic sensibilities that come from a Sandra Oh-like level of directness — who also was transgender. "What's cool about the show, the episode and Krista's vision for this character is he's about way more than being trans," Davis says, noting that he sees Casey's story as unexplored territory on the small screen. "I cried at the table read, it was very moving for me. I've been waiting for a moment like this on TV my whole life. I am so honored I got to say that line on TV because it's a long time coming."
Indeed. Just like Ellen's coming out on her ABC comedy in 1997 proved to be a landmark moment in television and pop culture, transgender characters have become more common on the small screen: Showtime's Shameless features trans actor Elliot Fletcher (who also played trans characters on Faking It and The Fosters) in a romantic storyline with a gay character; Orange Is the New Black star Laverne Cox made history last season as broadcast's first openly trans actress playing a transgender series regular character (on CBS' short-lived Doubt) and multiple trans actors have had roles on Amazon's Transparent. But what Davis and Vernoff hope Grey's can do is advance the types of storytelling featuring trans characters and actors.
"Trans people for years have been represented as punchlines, victims and villains and not as whole people and I was not aware of that until I went through the experience of my friend's son disclosing that he was transgender," Vernoff says.
Those (married) friends were former Grey's Anatomy showrunners Tony Phelan and Joan Rater (whose son helped inspire Cox's character on Doubt) and whom Vernoff remains close with after working with them as far back as season two of the Shondaland medical drama. (Phelan and Rater's son, Tom Phelan, played a trans character on Freeform's GLAAD Award-winning drama The Fosters.)
"When Tom transitioned, I found myself confused, frightened and bewildered by it all because I had never personally known a trans person or understand what it meant for Tom," Vernoff confesses. Rater, Vernoff recalls, at the time sent a lengthy email to friends and family in which she posed questions and answers that they might have about her son. Vernoff was moved by the experience and never forgot the feeling of love and acceptance she saw for Tom from Phelan and Ratner and those around them.
"Realizing that a trans person is like any other person with a journey in this lifetime — they are not victims, villains, weird or wrong; they're none of the things people believe when they support laws like the one that Trump put forward," Vernoff says. "My goal as a storyteller was to help illuminate that experience as an ally. I reached out to GLAAD for help in doing that because I am only an ally and not a member of LGBTQ community. They were more than happy to help."
For the L.A.-born Davis, also a singer-songwriter whose music has been featured on shows including MTV's Pranked, seeing more inclusive storytelling in which trans characters are not sensationalized is a welcome change.
"TV is opening up a greater range of roles [for trans characters]: Laverne played a lawyer on Doubt, and I'm playing a doctor — both roles haven't really been seen before [for trans characters]," Davis says. "People can see trans folks in a new light: these are people who walk among us and are human beings who have lives. They're not defined by being trans." And just like the gay actors playing straight roles debate that has (thankfully) come and gone, Davis and Vernoff hope the next frontier is seeing trans actors playing characters in which their gender is not the central storyline as well as trans actors playing heterosexual characters where their trans-ness also has no impact on the role.
"What's important for me to remember is there are opportunities out there where I don't have to play trans," Davis says. "I'm an actor. I love acting. I do love that I'm also representing a group of people who have been underrepresented, and that's awesome. But being trans is not my identity; I identify as male. There are male roles out there that I want to play. And being an actor who happens to be trans, it'd be awesome if all those roles opened up for me because people see me and how I define myself."
As for what comes next for Casey, Vernoff says the writers have talked about casting a love interest for Davis' character. The showrunner also hopes to reunite with Fletcher, with whom she worked on Shameless, and cast the actor as "just a dude" on Grey's.
"There's so many beautiful stories to tell and representation changes minds and hearts," Vernoff notes of the impact of art on society. She pointed to Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes adding characters like Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) and Callie (Sara Ramirez) at a time when it was still considered a rarity to put gay or bisexual people on TV and having audiences fall in love with them before revealing their sexuality. "When there's bigotry in the world, people can point and say, 'No, I have a friend who is gay and it's someone you know' — and you realize that it's a character you love on TV. That's how we influence people to open minds and hearts."
That's part of the reason Vernoff wants to try and avoid telling a story in which Casey faces any backlash just because of who he is. "One of the things we talked about with GLAAD is wouldn't it be revolutionary to just tell human stories about trans characters? There's a fair amount of hate that's already depicted and hate feeds hate. I just wanted Casey to be a whole person who is an Army veteran, a good doctor and one of the gang — who happens to be trans. I didn't want to do hate," she says.
That's not to say that Casey won't disclose his medical history again in an upcoming episode as Vernoff and the Grey's writers have yet to break the last third of season 14.
"We talked about how, when and why trans people disclose their private medical history to their community. Casey might disclose out of advocacy, if we had patient who was trans or doctor who was insensitive to patient but I imagine Casey has disclosed to some of the interns," Vernoff notes. "My goal for Casey was to gently disclose his private medical history to Bailey and, by extension, to America and then keep him in our world as the doctor he is becoming. I told GLAAD and Alex that I'm open to continuing to talk and work with them if there are more stories that would be helpful or ways that I can be an ally."
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Charlie Craggs - Nails Transphobia / Internal Presentation at Privacy International
May 30 2018
Thoughts: I’ve been interested in trans issues for a while, and have had discussions about various aspects of it with different friends. Listening to Charlie speak, and being able to ask her questions later during the manicure (!!), was very eye opening for me, as I don’t know any trans people. I was especially interested about her experience with the NHS, the terms “trans broken leg syndrome” (lol) and “stealth”, how important surgery is, how the community feels toward the police, how she knew she was trans, bad experience with Tinder, and her concern about which platforms she goes on because of their audience. She really hammered home the idea that as a trans person, just being alive and existing is an act of activism, and trans people are forced into the role of activists when they simply defend themselves. Really glad that I was at PI when she came to speak here!
Links: https://www.instagram.com/charlie_craggs/ and https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Trans-Sisters-Charlie-Craggs/dp/1785923439
Notes
GRA - board of men who decide if you’ve been living as a woman long enough?
being able to self identify (decide your own gender / identity)?
ireland has a law you can self identify? but you can’t stay married if you want to transition (family life)?
allows a less binary approach
need both messaging - about male and female health issues (breasts, testicles, cervical scans, etc)
malta is apparently the best for trans right? but abortion is illegal?
UK is now lower on the LGBT friendly scale because of the dated GRA / trans
roseanne cox on OITNB, janet mok released her book, carmen c came out on drag race
collective conversations helped change the overall conversation
hate crimes have increased (170%), and she/none of her friends have reported being attacked because they don’t have trust in police - there’s no point going through it, nothings going to come of it, victim blaming, being made to feel like its your fault, being laughed at
power holders are often perpetrators of what you’re reporting
feels affirmed when being called “she”
from 2013, only got referred for surgery in 2018 (NHS i think)
3x to get referred
psychosexual counsellor person - asking about sex, a lot of random questions (do you stand up or sit down when you go to the toilet) [privacy issue]
wait two years for the gender identity clinic
after passing all the tests to prove your trans-ness —> referred to surgery?
have to be diagnosed by transgenderism (scrapped by DSA)
spreadsheets online of trans friendly GP to get referrals
finds it amazing that NHS provides downstairs surgery
trans broken leg syndrome
going to any medical thing - you get asked about if its because you’re trans
at bereavement counselling
having a cold
And people in general ask very invasive questions and think that’s ok
Like homeless people: every professional they come into contact with wants to know their story (conditioned - have to tell them up front)
“stealth” they identify as trans but no one knows (in the closet)
abuse on social media from broadly piece/podcast that has been shared with all of vice’s audiences - wouldn’t have done it if she knew vice was sharing it
brands have DoC not to put her in a position like that
you tailor your conversation to who’s listening
instagram/IG: they’ll find your nipples ASAP but their priorities are clearly skewed
power holders don’t recognise it as a problem?
guys feeling entitled to your time - guy at meet and greet saying that he’s been following her on IG and said he added her on FB 2 years ago and she didn’t accept and he showed it up on his phone
part and parcel of putting your life online
they can see where i’m going to be next and come and beat me up
christina grimmie
social media is dangerous
she never attacks, just defends
feminists who believe trans women aren’t women
channel 4 gender quake - paid anti trans people to heckle
suspended from tinder every couple of weeks - take down her profile + read all her messages because of guys that report her (her profile says it)
are algorithms transphobic?
court cases?
never been taken down on bumble or grindr
old tactic: syrian free army report human rights reporters
feels like crap when you got suspended, nasty/dirty/embarrassing
public figure - can leak them if they’re nasty messages
hypocritical: all swipes for everyone etc, trans inclusive
Q from lucy: many trans people have been unfairly denied by Facebook’s draconian identity policies. http://transadvocate.com/trans-people-have-99-problems-and-facebook-is-just-one_n_14727.htm
drag queens have been affected?
boys who watch her story everyday and post on her wall that “you’re a man” - generally its because they want her
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlBMeq7lN6r/?taken-by=charlie_craggs
“it stinks of tokenism/just trying to make money” - they have trans people in front of the camera, but not behind the scenes — need more diversity BTS
even if gender terms are all removed, if advertising/society still genders living / smooth legs — thats still gendered. taking away language, bodies are still gendered - physically its still a label.
most people just want to be able to identify for themselves - not just eradicate gender, trying to impose a genderless future on people
Facial feminisation is a thing
a need to change your sex - “transexual” (medical + surgical intervention)
Really depends on the individual
None of her trans friends want surgery
But she is getting surgery because its integral to her identity - she can’t even get into a long term relationship because she can’t get intimate with her partner in this body
how did she know she was trans?
never felt like a gay man
growing up - feminine, put on girls clothes, liked guys. —> very textbook transexual
when she was younger said she wished she was a girl - strong sense of dysphoria on her body (when she had to start shaving, she wanted to hide the razor, was embarrassed of it and thought her parents would be too which makes no sense as a teenage boy)
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your entire reply is bullshit since some of the first words outta your mouth are “radfems are predominantly white”. since the majority of countries on this planet are populated by people who not white, and since the majority of women in the world are not white, and since sex based oppression is a global system stretching back thousands of years, and since many women globally fight back against this sex based patriarchy, wouldn’t that make radfeminism predominantly NOT white
No. The trans-exclusionary radical movement is chronically white. And this is just evidence you do not listen to the few black and brown women in the movement because they have spoken about this. Extensively. It is all over the rad fem tag. Your either unwillingness to listen to their grievances with the movement or ignorance of their grievances tells me all I need to know about you and your support for those in your community.
You are unwilling to hear a feminist take that critiques whiteness. Does that make you uncomfortable?
also love the sneaky little racist comparison of sex segregated spaces to racial segregation. haven’t black women told you to fuck off for that
Literally what? You do realize that most countries segregate places by sex, right? Public transit. Bathrooms. Restaurants. Like, the whole of the public sphere is often sex-segregated in many, many countries.
That... has nothing to do with racial segregation. But thank you for expounding upon your ignorance.
And you do know that sex-segregation was use to stall and block racial integration in the US, right? Right? Like... Jim Crow's defenders "often used the unquestioned legitimacy of sex segregation to illustrate the absurdity of outlawing racial segregation." Then, post Brown v. Board, they felt that sex segregation was the perfect answer to white fears about interracial marriage and children. They didn't want their white daughters in school with black boys because they believed this would lead them to dilute the purity of the white race. But, surely, you know this part of our history, right? You wouldn't have thrown this comment out there without knowing this, right?
no correlation between males in bathrooms and increased violence? funny, since it’s actually literally the opposite. males are going into women’s changing rooms, restrooms, locker rooms, rape shelters, etc, and using cameras to record unsuspecting girls and women, even masturbate and assault in there.
There is literally no correlating uptick in harassment or assault in women's restrooms following the passage of trans non-discrimination laws. The source isn't shit. It's a literal study. If you think you could do better and have better methods to getting an answer, then, by all means, start doing the work.
Trans women in women's restrooms does not lead to an uptick in assault or harassment.
There is no link and that is literally a fact. Die mad about it, I guess.
and transwomen are male, and retain male rates of violence.
No they do not. If you had done literally the bare minimum in reading any of the above linked articles, you'd see that. Do they get harassed by police more than cis women and cis men? Yes. Do they have higher rates of violent crime? No. There is only one site that claims that: FairPlayforWomen. Only one site against federal prison statistics and several dozen non-profits dedicated to studying incarceration in the US.
if sex is a spectrum, then what are the other gametes
Congratulations on not understanding the meaning of spectrum, I guess.
When I say, "Autism is a spectrum" am I saying "there are multiple different DSM5 classifications for Autism types" or am I saying "Autism manifests in people in different ways?" Because if you had bothered to read any of the links I provided, you'd know it's the second. Sex does not present in a binary fashion. People even have XX and XY chromosomes at the same time. Some people have XX chromosomes in some parts of their body and XY in other parts of their body. Some people are born with a dick and a vagina. Some people are born with a dick and a uterus and ovaries. Some people are born with a vagina and no uterus. Some people are born with a vagina and uterus and ovaries and testes.
Sex is more complex that it seems and than you'd like it to be. Some have suggested that it may be better described as bimodal rather than binary. For a lot of people, their chromosomal make-up might say one thing, but their gonads and reproductive organs say another while their secondary characteristics might say something else. "New technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that almost everyone is, to varying degrees, a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that might not match that of the rest of their body."
"Changes in the activity or amounts of molecules (such as WNT4) in the networks can tip the balance towards or away from the sex seemingly spelled out by the chromosomes," and there are preliminary studies that show this can be done post-natally in species which they are allowed to experiment on, morally.
However, I never used the word "spectrum" in my argument. In fact, I never made that argument. I argued that our definitions and categorizations we apply to bodies are influenced and determined by the patriarchy and white supremacy, but I never made the argument you're arguing against. Did you not read and just continue to regurgitate buzz-points because you thought I must have brought that up?
Or did you just see the headline of one of the articles and make an argument against what you guessed it was saying rather than the points it actually put forth. Because none of them made the argument you seem to suggest.
Illuminating, once again, that you came ill-prepared.
also DSDs aren’t other sexes; they’re disorders of sexual development, and are specific to one sex. you cannot have Klinefelter’s and be a woman, or Turner’s syndrome and be a man.
Wow. You don't know what bimodal means.
Believe it or not, someone can have XX and XY at the same time and a mixture of XX and XY at the same time. Where do we put them, and why? Is it maybe that the assigning of sex is... arbitrary; that is is determined on the basis of "correct-looking" genitalia and "best fertility" within a binary system? Because it is. And this results in intersex children being forced into sex reassignment and correction surgeries as infants.
"...[U]nderstand[] that male dominant society has long striven to define "woman" as a discrete biological category: female, with the purpose of stripping certain people of personhood can really challenge so much of the pro-gender/sex binary bull we are all fed from childhood.
We can no longer ignore how biology, biological discourse, and the terms and words we use to refer to our material reality are structured by historic and current social and political views. A biological reality becomes cognitively significant through this discourse and these terms we use and concepts we engage with. So, defining 'women' as 'females' -- and thus emphasizing a label that is ascribed to all at birth along patriarchal standards of 'correct' genitalia and 'best' fertility -- is itself a political choice influenced by one’s socialization rather than one that can claim to neutrally reflect what the world is 'really' and 'materially' like.
The fact society already defines 'women' as ova producers and child bearers (i.e. the very definition of human female; the sex that has the ability or potential to bear offspring or produce eggs) or even as vagina havers and uterus havers (i.e. the insistence that, 'only someone with a uterus or vagina is a woman') is a result of socialization in a male dominant society that has striven to define 'woman' as a discrete biological class, female.
Even radical feminist Catharine MacKinnon (an actual radical feminist, and she supports trans women) understood that to be defined as female is to be an object. You do not get to consent to yourself; to your femaleness. It has been defined and ascribed to you and for you. Because male dominant society must see to it that female is a woman and "clearly" a woman, opposite that of "man." It must see to it that women are women and men are men and that the two ought be separate because this allows said society to prescribe certain bounds to each group.
Certain bounds of behavior. Certain bounds of public life. Certain bounds of private life. Certain bounds of presentation.
And this all helps foster the reification of gendered associations that decrease the perception of women as empowered agents and even human. These bounds of behavior assign to men the role of Aggressor and to women the role of passive Recipient, helping to reproduce sexual violence against women by decreasing their agency. These social prescriptions encourage men to act on behalf of women from making financial or relationship decisions, to deciding when and where and how a woman has sex, to the definition and social prescription of 'female,' and to the reproductive alienation of those assigned female.
Thus, 'female' is far from a neutral scientific observation and 'woman' is far from a scientific category. It was defined by the patriarchy and the white supremacist power structure and it was designed to strip certain people of their agency and humanity. It is a classification that popped up during the period of post-enlightenment rationality as the European colonial system controlled the world. Enlightenment rationality brought to Europeans a renewed fascination with analyzing and categorizing the world, most especially its people. The enlightenment fascination with categorization was the justification for the colonization of and dominance over non-white, non-European people.
But from the enlightenment also emerged the idea that a 'natural law' governed all people; that we were subject to a natural hierarchy; that there were some individuals more human than others. The modern definitions of "male" and "female" evolved alongside our creation of the definitions for "black" and "white" and alongside our definitions of and prescriptions of personhood.
'In the United States, the man known as the father of gynecology, J. Marion Sims, built the field in the antebellum South, operating on enslaved women in his backyard, often without anesthesia—or, of course, consent. As C. Riley Snorton has recently documented, the distinction between biological females and women as a social category, far from a neutral scientific observation, developed precisely in order for the captive black woman to be recognized as female—making Sims’s research applicable to his women patients in polite white society—without being granted the status of social and legal personhood. Sex was produced, in other words, precisely at the juncture where gender was denied. In this sense, a female has always been less than a person.' -Andrea Long Chu, Females
The insistence upon one standard definition for the female-experience, is laughable, at best. And not just because definitions are inherently imprecise and inadequately encompass the entirety of our lived experienced and the material world. But also because the definitions of words are literally socially constructed. They were created and have since been defined and influenced by oppressive structures like the patriarchy and white supremacy and colonialism. This defining of human experiences is influenced by cissexism, intersexism, heterosexism, and sexism.
There isn't a single property that makes 'femaleness.' And that's pretty widely accepted. There's no single thing that single-handedly makes for 'womanhood' or 'female.' It's not like after a certain number or configuration of properties converging at a particular time, you get 'female.' There should never be some one standard against which all bodies are compared or measured for the correct amount of 'femaleness.'
So, when people want to create a standard measure for 'femaleness,' we need to ask WHO gets to set these standards or properties of 'femaleness' and WHY they're the authority. In any claim about which measures or properties are adequately 'female-enough' are assumptions about power and authority. Who has the power and authority in our society to decide who is 'female-enough?'" X
you really think men from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia were too stupid to understand biological sex and know who to oppress? really?
What? Literally what?
First, not all cultures have been patriarchal. Not all cultures are currently patriarchal. They did not all have gender or sex relations or traditions even close to similar to us. Some people just... didn't do that. They didn't think, "Oh, pregnant means weak" or whatever you're assuming.
I find it strange that you'd assume all men indigeneous to Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia would have created violent and oppressive systems around sex and gestation. Matriarchal societies currently exist in China, Indonesia, Costa Rica, and Kenya. There were also several matriarchal (either that or they were/are matrilineal) societies in the Americas pre-colonization.
A binary sex hierarchy and caste (meaning there is no overlap at all, whatsoever and no movement between, ever) rather than bimodal and flexible sex relations is definitely colonial as well as patriarchal. The patriarchal systems seen in colonized countries today are very different than the sex and gender-relations they had pre-colonization, even in places where a patriarchal system was already present. Colonization did jack-shit to improve any of these sex relations or the conditions of women living under patriarchal systems already. It made it worse, often by stoking conflict and racial and ethnic tensions in occupied regions. And gender relations, being purely and exclusively social in nature, would- yes- have very likey looked different from what we know today. Hell, gender relations 60-70 years ago look very different from what we know and experience today.
trying to peak my friend rn. she actually came to me about it first shes struggling so bad but goes to an echo chamber liberal farts university where TIMs run the show, and shes so afraid to peak. its like she thinks if she stands up for females for half a second itll be bigotry against the transes. she is literally spiraling doing impossible mental gymnastics trying to continue holding males up on this pedestal. she is so afraid of hurting anyone it is heartbreaking. she has disregarded her own feelings and comfort so much. jesus christ.
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Is Germany nailing diverse and inclusive entertainment? | Film | DW
New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/entertainment/is-germany-nailing-diverse-and-inclusive-entertainment-film-dw/
Is Germany nailing diverse and inclusive entertainment? | Film | DW
“Why kiss a frog when you could kiss a princess,” goes the tagline for “Princess Charming,” the self-proclaimed first lesbian reality dating show in the world that is being aired on the German streaming platform TVNOW. Modeled after The Bachelor, the show has several lesbian women vying for the affections of one woman. And for gay men, there’s the show Take Me Out: Boys, Boys, Boys to the same effect.
And then we also have the Heidi Klum-produced-and-hosted show Germany’s Next Topmodel 2021, which features trans model Alex Mariah Peter as its latest winner and Druck, a YouTube series on teenagers in Berlin that aims to represent different ethnic groups in the German capital. It would appear that German TV reflects the kind of pluralism that the country is known for around the world.
Even in the less agile world of cinema, there’s been a steady trend toward greater representation: In recent years, films like Türkisch für Anfänger (2012) — which was spun off from a TV series — and Fack ju Göhte (2013) have also tried to reflect Germany’s changing social structures. But is all this enough?
Transgender person wins ‘Germany’s Next Topmodel’
The winner: Alex
Alex Mariah Peter from Cologne became the first transgender person in the history of the show to win the competition. “Being different is much more normal than we admit to ourselves,” said the 23-year-old, who barely broached the subject of inclusion throughout the season. Speaking about future plans following the victory, the winner said, “First of all, I’m going to get a schnitzel to eat.”
Transgender person wins ‘Germany’s Next Topmodel’
A gender-sensitive avatar
“Inclusion” is now a global catchphrase, and the show also brought it into focus by adding a ‘*’ to its logo — a symbol for diffuse gender roles. Women who were previously marginalized or left out because they were different could now present themselves on GNTM. Refugees, curvy women and transgenders — all got a chance under the spotlight.
Transgender person wins ‘Germany’s Next Topmodel’
Curvy is beautiful
Ukrainian-born Dascha has been living in Germany since she was five and says she was bullied for most of her life. That’s why she didn’t just want to win but also make an important statement: “I want to be an ideal and support people who are bullied.” The confident 21-year-old weighs 85 kilos (187 pounds).
Transgender person wins ‘Germany’s Next Topmodel’
Living the dream
In 2015, Soulin and her family fled Syria and arrived in Germany via Turkey. The 20-year-old was all teary-eyed while modeling for a jeans brand: “I am the girl who could not achieve her dreams. Now I’m here and living my dream.” Soulin is now a model and made it to third place on GNTM.
Transgender person wins ‘Germany’s Next Topmodel’
Small is beautiful
At 1.68 meters (5 ft. 6.1 inches), Romina is hardly someone you would call “short,” but aspirants for GNTM need to be at least 1.76 meters tall. Romina had a very natural look for the show but earlier, she copied stars like Kylie Jenner and even got botox injected into her lips. Now she wants to support young girls who blindly follow social media trends.
Transgender person wins ‘Germany’s Next Topmodel’
Beauty beyond skin color
Sara Nuru’s parents immigrated from Ethiopia, and she says she was the first Black baby to be born at a hospital in the town of Erding in Bavaria. She was also the first Black model to win GNTM in 2009. Nuru has gone places since then and is now involved with developmental projects in her parents’ home country.
Transgender person wins ‘Germany’s Next Topmodel’
Heidi Klum’s ‘circus for models?’
“Germany’s Next Top Model – by Heidi Klum” has been on air since 2006 with the supermodel as its host. For decades, its catwalks only displayed mostly white, slim and tall women with long legs. Transgenders, small-sized women or those with curves had no chance of walking on the ramp.
Transgender person wins ‘Germany’s Next Topmodel’
Physical beauty is skin-deep
Heidi Klum and GNTM boast loyal fans among many Germans, especially young girls, who idolize the show and its models. But critics say that teenage girls often copy anorexic models on GNTM, which sends out the message that beauty is more important than education. This year as well, feminists protested the sexualization of female bodies on the show.
Author: Suzanne Cords
German popular culture seems to be getting more inclusive, at least when it comes to acknowledging the presence and existence of LGBTQ individuals and of people from different ethnic backgrounds. But until now, television and entertainment in general have primarily stuck to stereotypes when portraying such minorities.
And there has been little public discussion on the various dimensions pertaining to diversity that issues like inclusion in society and — by consequence — the representation of minorities in television and entertainment generally should entail.
Too Turkish to be German?
“You can see that homosexuals, transsexuals and others are indeed represented in German television. Germany is much more liberal than other countries,” says actor Dean Baykan, who was born in Germany to Turkish parents. Compared to Germany, other European countries like Hungary, for example, have been very strict in their punitive attitude towards homosexuality, with a recently tabled law there practically outlawing the public representation of lifestyles that don’t fall in line with so-called traditional family values.
“But while Germany is open in some ways, in other ways it’s actually more conservative,” Baykan continues. “For example, foreigners or those with a foreign background are not taken seriously in feature films or in serious acting projects.”
Actor Dean Baykan has missed out on many ‘meaty’ roles
Baykan himself explains how he once almost scored a major role in a popular crime series on a German TV channel — but only almost. “I made it to the final round,” he said, adding that he feels that his Turkish background may have been the reason for producers deciding against him — despite the fact that he has a western first name. Whether his ethnic background was a dealbreaker or not may never be known, but actors like Baykan feel that they are not being considered for certain roles not because of an apparent lack of talent but rather because casting directors prefer when they are reduced to representing stereotypes.
‘Drug dealers, criminals and weaklings’
Filmmaker Deiu Hao Do agrees with that sort of assessment. The son of Chinese minority immigrants from Vietnam is part of the project Vielfalt im Film (diversity in film), and represents the Berlin Asian Film Network (BAFNET).
“You have Black people selling drugs, Muslims being cast as criminals, Asian women playing weak characters … But there is much more complexity to these ethnic groups, and these also need to be represented,” he told DW.
In a recent survey conducted by Vielfalt im Film, 5,500 participants said they found that such clichés were being perpetuated by the industry. Nearly 88% said that Arabs were usually represented in stereotypical ways on German television. The number was nearly 83% for Muslims in general, nearly 75% for Asians and 56% for Jews, as anti-Semitism is on the rise across many parts of Europe once more.
Born this way
German-Nigerian actor Sheri Hagen
Furthermore, 13% said they had faced bias because of their body shape and weight, while 10% of the participants said they had experienced discrimination because of their sexual identity. The study also mentioned homosexual participants saying that they had tried to hide their sexual orientation in order to improve their chances of finding work or obtaining a certain role in a film or show.
Earlier this year, 185 actors in Germany publicly announced in a newspaper article that they identified as “different” and that it was time for them to publicly acknowledge that they were gay, bisexual, lesbian, queer, non-binary and transsexual. They all demanded more visibility and representation in the German entertainment industry, having been pushed into hiding, ignoring or glossing over their identities.
Indeed, broadcasters themselves have been rather reluctant about addressing their actors’ sexual identities directly, even reflecting a sense of denial in some instances. German actress Ulrike Folkerts, for example, is a lesbian in real life but plays a heterosexual police officer in the crime series Tatort.
In a recent interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, she said that she had only recently been asked by the producers of the show — i.e. the regional public broadcaster SWR — to finally reveal her sexual orientation publicly. She refused, saying it was too late to do so.
185 actors revealed their sexual identites in the Süddeutsche Zeitung
Diversity = complexity?
Actor Sheri Hagen says that the concept of diversity is not just limited to having LGBTQ stars and the token person with a non-German background being featured in a show. The Lagos-born actor moved to Germany in the early 1990s. She identifies as being a German with Nigerian roots.
Hagen has acted in films like the Oscar-winning Das Leben der Anderen or the previously mentioned television crime series Tatort, and often speaks about the importance of greater inclusion in the German entertainment industry.
“Diversity for me is not just about skin color or gender, which is what the dominant thinking in the German film industry, is” she says, adding that diversity also “includes disabilities, sexual identity, weight-based discrimination, east-west discrimination — especially here in Germany — class-based differences, ethnic differences, cultural differences, skin color and more.”
Filmmaker Deiu Hao Do agrees that in this context, it is important to understand how these various dimensions of diversity and the related aspects of potential discrimination interact with each other. Fighting this sort of exclusion is central to promoting the cause of diversity, he stressed.
Deiu Hao Do: campaigning for inclusion
A sore lack of perspective
Streaming platforms have created alternative ways for filmmakers from around the world to showcase their work and reach new audiences. And while content from some parts of the world has certainly capitalized on this potential, these new opportunities haven’t translated into creating a greater amount of diverse streaming content coming from Germany.
Hagen says that Germany can learn a lot from best practices of inclusion currently employed in the British film industry, where shows like Bridgerton and a recent limited series on the life of Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII, have used colorblind casting as a means to promote diversity even in period dramas.
Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
Tsitsi Dangarembga
Dangarembga is not only a filmmaker but also successfully writes novels and screenplays, including for the film 1993 “Neria” that went on to become the most-watched film in Zimbabwe. In 2020, Dangarembga was arrested in Harare at a protest against government corruption and still faces trial a year later.
Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
Wanuri Kahiu
Born in Nairobi in 1980, the director had a global cinema success with her 2018 film “Rafiki.” The first Kenyan film shown at the Cannes Film Festival, it portrays a love affair between two young Kenyan women and was banned in her home country. Kahui is now off to Hollywood, where she will direct “The Thing about Jellyfish,” based on the acclaimed novel by Ali Benjamin.
Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
Kemi Adetiba
The Nigerian filmmaker, who also makes television series and music videos, is a big name in Nollywood — which is what people call Nigerian cinema, the second most productive in the world after Indian film. Commercially, Adetiba’s feature films are hugely successful. She is producing her next film, a sequel to her blockbuster “King of Boys,” exclusively for Netflix.
Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
Kunle Afolayan
The Nigerian director is one of the most important representatives of the new Nigerian cinema (“New Nollywood”), which is characterized by narrative complexity, a new aesthetic — and a much bigger budget. Afolayan’s thriller “The Figurine — Araromire” (2009), one of Nigeria’s most commercially successful films, is considered to have launched the movement.
Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
Abderrahmane Sissako
Sissako’s films deal with topics including globalization, terrorism and exile. Born in Mauritania and raised in Mali, the film director and producer is considered one of the best-known filmmakers from sub-Saharan Africa. His 2014 film “Timbuktu” was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars and won several prizes at France’s Cesar Awards as well as at the Cannes Film Festival.
Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
Philippe Lacote
The film director from the Ivory Coast most recently premiered “La Nuit des Roies” (2020) at the Venice International Film Festival. The film, reminiscent of the stories from the “One Thousand and One Nights” Arabian folk takes, tells the story of convicted criminal named Zama who becomes a convincing storyteller in order to survive at La Maca prison in the Ivory Coast capital, Abidjan.
Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
Macherie Ekwa Bahango
Promising new talent: The 27-year-old director from the Democratic Republic of Congo saw her film “Maki’La” debut at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival. The young self-taught director spent three years working on her first feature film, which is the story of a group of street children in Kinshasa. The film won top prize at the Ecrans Noirs African film festival in Cameroon.
Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
Moussa Toure
Moussa Toure is a Senegalese film director, producer and screenwriter and has long been a major figure in African cinema. His feature films and documentaries are often political. Toure describes his 2012 film “La Pirogue,” which tells the story of refugees’ journey by boat from Africa to Europe, as a “slap in the face of the Senegalese government.”
Author: Maria John Sánchez
Sheri Hagen says that diversity is indeed not about the token actor of color in a television series but rather about a more holistic approach. The recently aired German TV-series Breaking Even, which stars Ugandan-German actor Lorna Ishema in the main role, is a case-in-point for her. Hagen says that diversity is also about who’s writing the story, how these stories are communicated and who executes these ideas on camera.
As of today, she adds, the boards of most German media broadcasters are still “male and white” — and her assessment is, de facto, not wrong. Dieu Hao Do agrees that in order “to acknowledge the multiple perspectives in storytelling,” the German television and film industry needs more diversity, “and this is something we don’t have at the moment.”
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