Goldsmiths University Diversity officer facing sack

[smokedout]

When you call transgender people "freaks" I began started considering your opinion on this matter worthless.

its pretty clear what I was implying was that enforced segregated spaces for trans-people suggests that that would mean society considered them freaks

 

[8den]

its pretty clear what I was implying was that enforced segregated spaces for trans-people suggests that that would mean society considered them freaks

Then why used such a loaded word like freaks to describe transgender people?

 

[Pickman's model]

Are you proposing this as some sort of safe space for subjective impressions? We had an amnesty for unpopular opinions on my spurs forum and it worked ok. Or are we going to lunge at each other's throats with razors if our perceptions turn out to be misperceptions?

surely the most popular opinions on a spurs forum based, if we're being kind, on a misperception.

 

[smokedout]

Then why used such a loaded word like freaks to describe transgender people?

because i think that enforced segregated spaces is a loaded idea and hoped that using a strong term would help depict that and what it meant about that view

 

[Pickman's model]

Then why used such a loaded word like freaks to describe transgender people?

can you understand plain english? go back and read the fucking post again.

 

[snadge]

BTW, Thora is bangonthemoney and this thread has become hilarious.

 

[campanula]

I find this whole identifying thing rather confusing - not least because people tend not to exist as isolates but as part of a social order where things such as identity are negotiable because there is the indentifier and the identifiee...and meaning is generally something negotiated dynamically, continually, contingently, between people who agree to a consensus...so I can see that the question of a the idea of a transwoman accessing an accepted female-only space such as a refuge (and there is an element of special pleading here - this is not a meeting or a social club and has implications for all parties - the women in residence, who may or may not be traumatised by a perceived male presence...but also, I am loathe to claim gender solely on the principle of biology and can fully understand the need to be accepted as female for someone with an identity challenge...I seem to recall this being framed as essentialism in my college days and was generally regarded as unacceptable... but language itself is never neutral either so I feel most uncomfortable with some of the certainties which are thrown around by both sides of the debate...and hereby consider myself to be a bit simple and unwilling to be drawn into making sweeping statements of intent...but having worked at a women's refuge, I cannot claim to be completely secure in allowing this self-identity thing to be the sole determinant of right.

 

[dendrite]

surely the most popular opinions on a spurs forum based, if we're being kind, on a misperception.

I'm sensing the edge of a banter black hole here I want to avoid. The stakes in the amnesty thread were pretty low I suppose.

This is my attempt to escape circularity and ambiguity along the lines of Rutita1's suggestion we define what we perceive as not a woman:
I guess that if I had a friendship with someone with classically 'fully' functioning male/female genitalia, and all the accompanying male/female sexed genotypes and phenotypes, who 'knew' that they are were a man/woman, I don't think I'd feel completely compelled to believe that they were the opposite gender just on their declaration. I even think people might feasibly be mistaken about this. So to my mind a woman is not just defined by someone reporting they are one. It's something more. Hopefully something you could know about them via empathy and being confided in. But not something which has to be accepted as full reality as soon as the concept's communicated. Maybe i'm wrong. Still ambiguous.

 

[killer b]

crikey.

 

[likesfish]

Guess it depends on the type of woman only space the behavior of the transperson and the reason they want to go into the woman only space.

 

[Citizen66]

No, that doesn't follow. Telling someone they're white when they tell you they aren't is different to referring to a group by that term. The latter is ambiguous about whether it's meant to include only people who self-identify or not.

It isn't a group being referred to when it comes to the policing of such a policy, is it?

 

[co-op]

no-one has to accept anything, the question is should we, as society, grant the same rights to all people who live as and identify as and are a particular gender

I think you're talking about legal rights here - we were talking about women-only spaces earlier and that's a different thing. Should mtf trans demand access to all women only spaces? No imo they shouldn't; doing so seems obviously antagonistic.

 

[Citizen66]

Isn't talking about "living as a woman" as a defining feature of womanhood just reinforcing gender and stereotypical gender roles?

This is at the heart of what irks me the most about intersectionalism. I'm sure it makes some valid points but then starts aping what it attempts to oppose by making everything about the colour of a person's skin or gender or whatever setting the ground work for new hierarchies to form.

 

[Citizen66]

what some sort of weird thirdy thing that doesn't deserve the dignity the rest of us are entitled to?

So why call them trans at all then?

 

[co-op]

I think some common sense should be applied and that if someones lives as a woman, presents as a woman and identifies as a woman then yes.

As Thora says - what does all this mean? What about women who like to dress in an "unfeminine" way and enjoy taking motorbikes apart, are they not women? A man who "presents as a woman" should be allowed to present any way they like - unless you are saying that women have to present in a certain way, a socially approved feminine way. This is why so much trans "theory" is so deeply reactionary imo.

I'm not seeing crowds of cis-men queuing up to try and pretend to be trans to access women only spaces, if that starts presenting itself as a phenomena then perhaps things need to be rethought

Should pre-op mtf trans should be allowed to use communal showers in women-only events? They may (probably will) meet your criterion of "someones lives as a woman, presents as a woman and identifies as a woman"

 

[co-op]

its pretty clear what I was implying was that enforced segregated spaces for trans-people suggests that that would mean society considered them freaks

No one has called for "enforced segregated spaces" for trans that I have seen. You apparently accept the idea of women-only spaces, the question is why shouldn't mtf or ftm trans people have their own spaces - if they want them? Why must they be shoe-horned into prevailing gender assignations? The fact that *some* mtf trans activists do want to be allowed into women-only spaces is down to their valorisation of the identity "being a woman" - which leads to utter nonsense like discussions of issues relating to menstruation etc, (i.e. consequences of being a person with female biology) being denounced as "exclusionary" to mtf trans people.

 

[Pickman's model]

I think you're talking about legal rights here - we were talking about women-only spaces earlier and that's a different thing. Should mtf trans demand access to all women only spaces? No imo they shouldn't; doing so seems obviously antagonistic.

should we as society consult the law books every time we encounter someone so we know what rights to grant them? shoyld what the law says on this area be considered a maximum irl - or a minimum?

 

[co-op]

because transwomen are women.
its not a binary thing.

Ironically, by demanding that mtf trans people *must* be considered women and nothing else, it is you that is demanding a binary - there are "men" and there are "women" and nothing else.

The whole concept "cis" - if that means that an individual successfully conforms to a socially-approved gender role that coincides with their genitalia - is a binary-demanding concept when it is applied to a society like ours which has a very binary gender split; blue for boys, pink for girls.

I hate the term and certainly do not consider myself to be cis. Speaking as a man approaching late middle age it is incredible the number of men I know (or have known in the case of the many dead ones) who in many ways conformed to a socially prescribed masculine gender role (that coincided with their male genitalia) and more-or-less destroyed their own lives in the process through alcohol, emotional atrophy, violence and isolation. Can these men really be called cis? Should we really be enforcing these roles? It seems to be clear that we should be unknitting both male and female social roles (something the despised "radfems" have argued for 40 years). Where trans people fit in to a new and far looser series of social gender identities will be up to them.

 

[Thora]

Ironically, by demanding that mtf trans people *must* be considered women and nothing else, it is you that is demanding a binary - there are "men" and there are "women" and nothing else.

Yes, this exactly. And also that being a woman boils down to looking/behaving in a feminine way. I find the whole thing quite worrying and offensive having read the views on this thread, it feels like a massive step backwards.

 

[Pickman's model]

co-op these societal notions of gender do change over time and are not statick as can be seen by the fact pink not always considered a feminine colour nor indeed are the notions universal

 

[Thora]

then you'd be treating transpeople differently, it isn't like they chose to be trans... they're women trapped in a mans body and struggle enough for acceptance - banning them from women only spaces because some other women have an issue with transwomen is a bit dubious. It is like saying that you realise they have to be accepted but since they're not proper women and some women are a bit funny about them then they really shouldn't be there - surely it is the other women who are the issue in that case.

Again, what on earth does "women trapped in a man's body" mean? What is it to be a woman? How do you know that you feel like a woman if you've never been one?

 

[Thora]

co-op these societal notions of gender do change over time and are not statick as can be seen by the fact pink not always considered a feminine colour nor indeed are the notions universal

So how do you know you feel like a woman then?

 

[Pickman's model]

So how do you know you feel like a woman then?

i know *i* don't. but how do you know at least some trans women don't feel like you? do you think they're doing it for a laugh or some other frivolous reason?

 

[Thora]

i know *i* don't. but how do you know at least some trans women don't feel like you? do you think they're doing it for a laugh or some other frivolous reason?

Feel like me about what? Surely my feelings about "being a woman" come from being born female and a lifetime of being raised female.

 

[Thora]

Why can't everyone, male, female or otherwise, dress and behave however they want? We should be moving away from these strict gender roles of man/woman - especially with them defined entirely on how you look and behave! Women have struggled for years against this.

 

[BigTom]

This is at the heart of what irks me the most about intersectionalism. I'm sure it makes some valid points but then starts aping what it attempts to oppose by making everything about the colour of a person's skin or gender or whatever setting the ground work for new hierarchies to form.

Yep, and there are some good things about it. One of the strands of intersectional thought I really like is the idea that (eg) feminism's job won't be complete when patriarchy is ended, because black women will still be oppressed by racism; disabled women by disablism etc, so there will still be oppressed women and feminism still has a job to do.

(intersectionalism came out of feminist academic theory and the above idea was a hot topic within feminism for a while iirc).

In this idea what is produced is unity & solidarity, not division. In real life (well, Twitter/Facebook) I see it mostly used to divide and stop discussion/dismiss people's viewpoint.

 

[spanglechick]

The trans phobia on this thread is incredibly depressing. There are two transpeople I know of (and presumably more I don't) who are semi-regular urban posters... And to see the trans state being referred to as a choice...

Just for the record, if any of the trans women I know were in need of rape support, or DV spaces, I hope they'd have access to the same spaces I, as a cis woman would.

 

[killer b]

In a world of jargon that sticks in my craw, I think 'binary' is the worst.

Killing it btw Thora. Loving your work

 

[Pickman's model]

Why can't everyone, male, female or otherwise, dress and behave however they want? We should be moving away from these strict gender roles of man/woman - especially with them defined entirely on how you look and behave! Women have struggled for years against this.

i didn't think i'd said anything about looks or behaviour. but i must be mistaken. cld you point out where so i can provide an appropriate edit?

 

[Thora]

The trans phobia on this thread is incredibly depressing. There are two transpeople I know of (and presumably more I don't) who are semi-regular urban posters... And to see the trans state being referred to as a choice...

Just for the record, if any of the trans women I know were in need of rape support, or DV spaces, I hope they'd have access to the same spaces I, as a cis woman would.

What a lazy way of attempting to shut down debate on an issue that has a massive impact on women.