nevermind
If it does turn out that that a high proportion of the would-have-been gay and lesbian teens transitioning now end up regretting their decision, will it bother you at all?
I can’t call myself a woman and be understood that this only means that I’m an adult human who belongs to the female sex class. Now I got people assuming this might also mean I’m a fan of twirly dresses, I like lipstick and gossip and pink sparkly shit, I like pics of cute kitties, and/or I might have a penis and kids that I’ve fathered.
It doesn’t much matter that I can call myself a woman if “woman” has now been colonized into regressive meaningless because TRAs like Andrea Long Chu think the essence of femaleness is an open mouth, expectant asshole, and blank eyes.
But can’t you see that there is a fundamental difference here?
We have sex-segregated bathrooms for a fucking reason. It isn’t for gender affirmation; it’s because most of us are socially programmed to feel some kind of way about being unclothed in the presence of someone in the opposite sex.
The trans movement is turning this on its head. Which I would be OK with, actually, if “turning this on its head” actually meant “let’s get rid of it completely”. But that’s not what your side is fighting for. Your side is telling us that gender identity segregation is what we should be doing–that maintaining this fosters the fundamental right of gender affirmation. And I just can’t with this bullshit. I stopped acting like I was OK with bullshit when I left the church.
Your side is fighting for the entrenchment of the shittiness that my side has always fought against. I am not someone out here “acting” like a woman. I don’t want someone to ever my claim to “woman” is the exact same claim that some 19-year-old Incel who has spent way too much time on Reddit has. I don’t want someone to ever intimate that because I don’t dress or act very feminine, I have a flimsier claim to women’s spaces than a butch queen who always looks fabulous. I’m a woman because I have female sex organs, period (ha!). My reality on this planet stems from this, not because I occasionally wear skirts and wear two earrings rather than one. If I wore nothing but men’s clothing, I would still be treated like a woman, like a female. Why? Because sex is real. If your side can’t speak to this basic fact without accusing folks of hating transwomen, there will always be an impasse between the TWAWers and the JKR supporters.
No, they aren’t. Nobody anywhere is telling you, or YWTF , or DemonTree that you can’t call yourself women, or females.
You’re naive if you think that this isn’t the direction we’re headed, if nonsense keeps being indulged the way it has. If something like this becomes normalized, then it is reasonable to worry that writers who wish to use “women” even in medical contexts where effective communication matters will be vilified as “insensitive” and “unkind” along with everyday women who wish to identify themselves and their experiences as “woman” and “female”. On the flip side of this nonsense, we’ve already got young people acting like not declaring one’s pronoun preferences in an email signature is not properly inclusive. I don’t want to wait for older folks to start doing this too before I speak out on it. I don’t want my group to be erased from health pamplets, but I also don’t want to be socially pressured to have a “gender identity” that is reflected in my email signature (of all things!). I don’t do this with my nationality, racial, or religious identities. Why the fuck should I do this with my gender? I don’t want to remind the world that I’m a woman. I don’t want to elevate that to a “very big deal”. I want people to see past their preconceived stereotypes and just see me as monstro. And I wish to see other people the same way and relegate their gender identity to the same tier of importance I currently reserve for their Myers Briggs Personality type. Making gender identity into a serious thing is regressive, IMHO. I understand you and others don’t agree, but your lack of agreement isn’t enough to change my mind (even though I generally like all of y’all).
You know, if you want to convince people that your concerns here aren’t primarily driven by hate, maybe talk to your sister about her defense of the “Transphobe” t-shirt? Because she’s over there arguing that “gender critical” and “transphobe” are basically the same thing, and that’s not doing wonders for the optics of your side.
Maybe when your side (not necessarily you) stops throwing around “TRANSPHOBE” for anyone who has a negative opinion about anything related to gender ideology, then maybe I’ll worry that people might think my sister is hateful. But right now, I see a lot more hate coming from the folks attacking JKR than the folks defending JKR. I see the folks supporting JKR being in support of trans rights and practicing kindness and courtesy to the trans individuals in their lives. But I don’t see anti-JKR folks conceding that she might have anything worthwhile to say about women’s concerns in this brave new world of gender ideology. I see them writing her off completely and refusing to listen to a single thing she has to say. Apparently if you aren’t marching in the streets waving a TWAW banner, you don’t support trans rights. There is no moderate middle ground anymore.
Real trans rights are the middle ground. Freedom from discrimination in employment, education, health, law enforcement…those are the real trans rights. Five years ago we couldn’t say trans rights were the moderate position, so obviously a lot of progress has been made. Which is why fighting JKR on the excesses she’s complaining about is extremely stupid to me. Fighting what she said is losing sight of the very remarkable evolution society has experienced over the past decade. . It’s undermining that achievement. I’m not a political strategerist, but this doesn’t seem real smart to me
It’s the supporters of the trans movement who needs to worry about how they look right now. Not @YWTF, @DemonTree, or monstro.
I hereby self-identify as queer because although I’ve only been attracted to men my entire life, I sometimes crush on gender nonconforming ones. Like Prince and David Bowie.
You might say this doesn’t make me queer, but who are you to dictate that? Who is anyone to dictate that except me and others like me who feel entitled to be called queer? Seriously, you might as well be Jim Crow himself by questioning my right to appropriate queerness and then bully others for objecting to my shameless presumptuousness.
Btw, I’ve always been queer. From the minute I realized Prince did it for me, I’ve had the lived experience of queer folk. I know the stigma that comes with being attracted to a man who likes lace and heels instead of cargo pants and Timberlands; I know the discrimination that awaits those whose sexual tastes is a quarter of a standard deviation different than what I’m gonna presuppose white bread America’s is. As a straight black woman who is also queer, I have more axes of oppression than anyone. I defy anyone to threaten might right to exist by silently believing cishet queers is an oxymoronic concept that negates queer as a meaningful sociopolitical identity.
I agree, there is an avenue for legitimate concern here, which I, and virtually every other trans rights advocate in this thread, has recognized. But there are also a lot of bad actors who are using that avenue as cover for bigotry. Someone walking around with a “Sorry about your dick, bro” pin on their lapel isn’t coming from a place of concern or respect for trans people - they’re just being a piece of shit. I’d like to be able to distinguish between that latter type of person, and folks who are acting out of genuine, if misguided, concern, but y’all aren’t making that easy when none of you will step up and say, “Yeah, you probably shouldn’t walk around in a shirt proudly declaring yourself an anti-trans bigot.” I see shit like that, and I think, “This isn’t going to stop with trans people, this is the start of an attempt to roll back every advance queer rights has made in the last half century.” Remember, you guys are a minority on your own side of this debate - most people pushing back on trans rights aren’t concerned feminists, they’re hard-core Christian fundamentalists. If this movement picks up steam like you think it will, you’re a fool if you think you’re going to be the ones in control of it. It’s going to be the Mike Pences of the world who end up steering it.
That’s @monstro’s point. By taking the hard line that it has, the gender movement is creating enemies quicker than it’s picking up allies. Your side has not only dowsed itself in gasoline but it’s passing out matches. When the day comes that someone strikes one and throws it in self-defense, he who has dowsed himself in gasoline is gonna to be the one that burns. That’s who the fool is. Fools play with fire.
That’s @monstro’s point. By taking the hard line that it has, the gender movement is creating enemies quicker than it’s picking up allies.
Correct.
I would never vote for Mike Pence or someone like him. I don’t think we’re on the same page on trans rights to begin with. But conservatives don’t tend to care much about anyone’s civil rights, and that’s a no-go for me.
But I will vote for someone who is a moderate, despite me considering myself a progressive. I will vote for someone who stands for trans rights, but who promises not to kowtow to the radical voices that have taken over the trans movement. Someone who believes in honoring pronoun usage and protecting all gender and sexual minorities from violence and discrimination, but who doesn’t think this requires enshrining the right to gender affirmation into law.
I’m right here too.
The last 4 months has really had a doozy on my political beliefs. I used to be all aboard the progressive train. I questioned why anyone would support moderate candidates. Moderates just want to maintain the status quo and not do the hard work to make the world better, I so naively thought.
Well I was wrong to think that way. We need moderates (and sane conservatives) to keep liberals from plunging head first into shallow, rock-bottom ponds. We need someone whose feet is planted solidly enough on the ground to say to the rest of us “wait, this idea is fucking bananas and dangerous as well”. Moderates are needed for this very purpose.
Progressives are not immune from the same cognitive biases that conservatives succumb to.
I’ve heard of lesbians saying that transwomen aren’t lesbians. That’s not the same thing, though.
That’s not really true. The UK doesn’t have enough fundamentalists to fill a bucket, and it’s terf central. But I think you’re right to worry. I said earlier I don’t know if I’m more afraid of the TRAs succeeding in their aims or of the backlash they are helping to provoke. People in this thread have acknowledged there are legitimate concerns, but out in the world, where it matters, politicians and activists have been stuck in the mode of denial and silencing dissent. Alienating the people who would have been your allies is not a smart move.
It was that badge in particular that made me say they were mean spirited. I don’t think anyone should be walking around in a t-shirt saying ‘transphobe’, and probably the only concern the owners of the website have for trans people is that a lot of lesbians are transitioning and may ultimately come to regret it.
(Although I am tempted by the ‘Fuck your pronouns’ one, because people who ask for weird pronouns are just annoying.)
Lol, I’m pretty sure that’s what queer actually means. Dunno why gay people put up with straight ones muscling in on their movement.
Thirded. And nice analogy.
This so much. Progressives also aren’t immune from wanting an out-group to hate and dehumanise - they just choose a group based on their (supposed) beliefs rather than some other characteristic. And for those who usually have to hide or suppress their misogyny, how perfect to have a socially-approved group of women to hurl abuse at.
So you mean to tell me I really am queer?? Well all righty then.
The first change to the social order I’m going demand is that men who have sex with men be called “people who sodomize”. “Sodomizers” also works for me. We need this term for inclusivity purposes since cishet queers like myself feel triggered when it’s insinuated that penis-in-vagina sex is not really queer sex.
Now you might be saying that sodomizers is horribly offensive, bringing to mind Sodom and Gomorrah and all that. And to that I say shut up with your brain-fart having mouth. As long as it’s used specifically when talking about sex, it’s perfectly appropriate to refer to people in a manner that conjures up images of fire and brimstone raining down on gay people’s heads for all of eternity. Protecting me from being triggered matters more than preserving the humanity of homosexual men.
My second demand as a queer activist will be to abolish marriage altogether. Yes, SSM was a battle that was won only just a few years ago. Yes, some us queers have really enjoyed exercising the right to marry the ones we love, regardless of how boringly heterosexual our couplings appear from the outside. But still, marriage is an outdated relic from a more backward time in society and the very idea of “husband” and “wife” do not cater to what I, as a queer activist, feel is needed in queer society. The only way queer folk will be able to successfully assimilate in society is if we dismantle all systems that enshrine cishet, cishom, transhet, and transhom normativity into our ways of life.
Does me trying to dismantle marriage make any fucking sense? Hell no. But neither does dismantling single-sex spaces while pushing for single-gender spaces. So don’t bother me with your logic and reason!
Well, it would help if you dyed your hair blue and put pronouns in your bio…
I think I’ve seen Christians referring to ‘sodomite marriage’ but I didn’t really want to go there. Personally I don’t think we should change everything we say because some tiny group find it offensive; we need to be reasonable about stuff like this, but if people are going to do it then they need to do it fairly and not put some groups’ feelings above others.
If gender is understood as claimed, to be deep rooted feeling that has no observable effects on someone’s appearance, personality or behaviour, then it makes no sense at all for anything to be single gender. However, if we assume that most people will transition to be as close to the sex that matches their gender identity as possible, as indeed seems to be the case, then it makes some sense to divide up facilities based on appearance aka gender presentation. But if that was the case we’d be telling people to use the facility that doesn’t make other people uncomfortable, and providing unisex spaces, extra privacy in locker rooms etc to make that possible. Instead of putting up signs saying not to question anyone else in the bathroom and telling women to get used to seeing penis while getting undressed.
That’s a stereotype and pressuring me to conform to stereotypes is harmful. Yeah yeah yeah. My claim to queerness rests entirely upon stereotypes about what non-queer heterosexuality looks like. I know that. But it’s still wrong for others to project stereotypical assumptions on to me.
(Parody mode-off)
I expect that everyone on the TWAW side of the debate will find my parody too bothersome to engage with. They probably can’t even stomach reading it because it offends them so. Any minute I anticipate a drive by “wow, just wow” type response. Because that’s all they’ve got. They will not be able to rationally refute any of the parallels I’m drawing. Because to argue against “sodomizers” means the words that we call people does matter. To dismantle hard-fought rights because of the opinion of a vocal minority looks extremely sinister when those doing the dismantling are also the ones advocating for “sodomizers”.
I’m gonna need people to wake up and realize what all of this really and truly looks like.
It is an interesting comparison to sexual orientation. If being gay can be distilled down to something like just “being attracted to men”, then straight women can say they are gay. Of course, gay traditionally meant a man who was attracted to men, but if being born female is no longer a requirement for being a woman, then being a man should not be required to be gay. And furthermore, straight women should then be able to take leadership roles in gay rights movements and redefine what it means to be gay.
If one actually believes TWAW, then this has to be accepted. If there’s no material difference between men and women, there is no difference between gay and straight.
The “wow, just wow” comment was in reference to someone that claims not to be bigoted complaining about trans women “trying to cram their girl dicks down her throat”.
Which sums up her position in this entire 4000+ post train wreck quite succinctly.
Heh. No, not really. Most of what you wrote represents actual attitudes within the queer community. For example, you generally will not get much push back for identifying as queer despite never having had non-hetero sex - this isn’t all that an uncommon situation for a lot of bisexuals. “Marriage is straight people bullshit, and we should get rid of it,” is, likewise, a viewpoint shared by a lot of people in the queer community. There’s a lot of debate about the extent to which being attracted to someone who is genderqueer (and, yes, I’m aware that neither Prince nor David Bowie ever identified as genderqueer) counts as being queer yourself. The whole “sodomizers” thing sort of falls apart, in that referring to all queer sex as “sodomy” doesn’t really resolve the “penis-in-vagina sex is not really queer sex” concern, but there’s certainly no end to people in the queer community taking slurs and using them as self-identifiers. See, for example, the word “queer.”
It was a valiant attempt at a gotcha, I’ll give you that, but all it really did is show how little actual knowledge you have about queer culture or queer sexuality.
This is an interesting turn. I’m not really seeing the fundamental. difference between transwomen redefining the term women and straight women redefining queer. Obviously this is just a point of discussion and not a sincerely held belief, but why is one okay and the other not? Here you are pointing out that YWTF doesn’t understand what it means to be queer, but how is that different from ciswomen pointing out that transwomen don’t understand what it means to be a woman? And furthermore, how would you feel if the straight community started saying you were a bigot because you didn’t embrace this new definition of queer that YWTF is espousing?