Goldsmiths University Diversity officer facing sack

[Wilf]

The groups run on this basis would argue not; that women-only groups are never open to all women - some women will always be excluded, without their womanhood being denied.
.

Yes, but we are talking here about 'women's groups', not 'black women's groups', 'lesbian women's groups' etc. You are coming up with a reason to choose trans women as the 1 group you would exclude (or at least excuse the exclusion of) from a women's group.

 

[Athos]

Are you asking if fear-based bigotry is less bad than supremacist-type bigotry? My answer to that is that it's more understandable, but just as marginalising.

Are they bigots?

 

[Wilf]

'Look, we accept you are women, but if we let you in you might get blokes coming in'. FFS!

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Are they bigots?

Quite possibly. Give us an example.

 

[Athos]

But you're doing it again! Why would you only select trans women as the group who put at risk the 'women only' principle?

I guess they argue the practicalities; by opening the group to anyone who identifies as a woman (which is what you'd have to do to properly welcome trans women), you're offering far more opportunity to men to infiltrate.

 

[Athos]

Quite possibly. Give us an example.

Read back, you'll see one I posed.

 

[Athos]

'Look, we accept you are women, but if we let you in you might get blokes coming in'. FFS!

Faulty logic, certainly. Bigotry, not necessarily.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Read back, you'll see one I posed.

You will have to be more specific, I can't see one.

 

[smokedout]

No, but I haven't said I would accept the exclusion of trans women - quite the opposite! The point I was making is that such a position isn't necessarily motivated by bigotry.

in practice I'd guess most transphobia in hostels/refuges amongst residents is generally driven by bigotry rather than a radical feminist analysis of socialised gender roles, but how do you tell the difference, how do you even know yourself whether you are just intellectualising your prejudices

 

[Athos]

Yes, but we are talking here about 'women's groups', not 'black women's groups', 'lesbian women's groups' etc. You are coming up with a reason to choose trans women as the 1 group you would exclude (or at least excuse the exclusion of) from a women's group.

I'm not coming up with it! I'm explaining the argument that some groups use.

 

[Treacle Toes]

I guess they argue the practicalities; by opening the group to anyone who identifies as a woman (which is what you'd have to do to properly welcome trans women), you're offering far more opportunity to men to infiltrate.

If I believe everyone who purports to be an anti-racist I run the risk of experiencing racism.

However if I don't, experience tells me that I will experience racism anyway.

 

[Mation]

I don't personally conceptualise gender as binary. That's not too say that I don't identify as binary.

Forgive me (not just you) if I sound like an arse, I don't mean to, but (inevitably)...

Would polar be a 'better/less confusing for people who are coming to this new/relatively untroubled' description than binary?

Polar suggests that even if you identify as being at the unambiguosly female or unambiguously male end of the spectrum, that you do recognise that there's a spectrum. In my head, the term binary sounds like there's no spectrum (despite the fact that people who identify as binary may be perfectly fine with acknowledging a spectrum).

AuntiStella ? Apologies if this is an already done to death idea!

 

[cesare]

Are they bigots?

I've already answered that!

 

[Wilf]

I guess they argue the practicalities; by opening the group to anyone who identifies as a woman (which is what you'd have to do to properly welcome trans women), you're offering far more opportunity to men to infiltrate.

But here we go again! Why do you have to 'open the group up' in this way to allow trans women in? If it's simply a 'women's group', would that not allow trans women to attend? There's no need to open anything up, no Pandora's box to open.

 

[campanula]

In practice, I think the admittance of transwomen could be an issue if a transperson was pre-op, still had male genitalia or dressed and acted as male. Because, to the people they interacted with, they would be male.... Identification is a negotiation, not a given...and we require validation and acceptance from outside ourselves because we are social animals There is no hierarchical preference between women and transwomen but power relations between men and women are not equal...and appearing male, to all intents and purposes carries more weight than what is under one's shirt and within one's brain, in such highly charged situations as a refuge.

Having worked in one, there has always been some power to remove or segregate - to maintain a level of safety and security within the wider group, disruptive or violent women have been excluded...and I would expect any powers to refuse admittance would be predicated on behaviour, aggression, dominance or other disruptive attitudes. I recall some painful and searching problems relating to the age of boys who could be admitted with their mother - some refuges had a very restrictive limit of 12/13 years while others maintained a more liberal ruling, allowing boys to stay with mother's until 16 or 18 years...and again, in practice, these situations were rarely amenable to dogmatic rules and regulations but had to be considered on a more case by case basis. I believe this would certainly be the case with transwomen.

 

[Athos]

But here we go again! Why do you have to 'open the group up' in this way to allow trans women in? If it's simply a 'women's group', would that not allow trans women to attend? There's no need to open anything up, no Pandora's box to open.

In the example I gave, it was an existing group of cis women.

 

[purenarcotic]

In practice, I think the admittance of transwomen could be an issue if a transperson was pre-op, still had male genitalia or dressed and acted as male. Because, to the people they interacted with, they would be male.... Identification is a negotiation, not a given...and we require validation and acceptance from outside ourselves because we are social animals There is no hierarchical preference between women and transwomen but power relations between men and women are not equal...and appearing male, to all intents and purposes carries more weight than what is under one's shirt and within one's brain, in such highly charged situations as a refuge.

Having worked in one, there has always been some power to remove or segregate - to maintain a level of safety and security within the wider group, disruptive or violent women have been excluded.

Sorry, but wtf is this shit? So now we want trans women to prove they've had the op before we'll let them access refuge? Are you having fucking laugh?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

In the example I gave, it was an existing group of cis women.

I really don't see what your point is here.

 

[Wilf]

I guess they argue the practicalities; by opening the group to anyone who identifies as a woman (which is what you'd have to do to properly welcome trans women), you're offering far more opportunity to men to infiltrate.

What is this 'infiltration'? What do you actually mean, an abuser in women's clothes? What's being breached for you, security or some not completely obvious principle?

 

[Athos]

If I believe everyone who purports to be an anti-racist I run the risk of experiencing racism.

However if I don't, experience tells me that I will experience racism anyway.

And you are quite free to make the choices you want. What I wouldn't like to see is someone ascribing a dodgy motive to that choice where that wasn't necessarily the case.

 

[cesare]

Sorry, but wtf is this shit? So now we want trans women to prove they've had the op before we'll let them access refuge? Are you having fucking laugh?

The genital test on all abused women seeking refuge.

 

[purenarcotic]

The genital test on all abused women seeking refuge.

This thread is becoming more ridiculous by the minute, innit.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

If anyone wants to know why Young People Today take the piss out of old school "marxist dudes", by the way, this thread is a great example.

 

[Athos]

What is this 'infiltration'? What do you actually mean, an abuser in women's clothes? What's being breached for you, security or some not completely obvious principle?

As I keep saying, it's not for me - I'm explaining the motives of some exclusionary groups, despite I've said more than once that I'm pro-inclusion. And the only reason I'm doing that is because I think the debate suffers when any woman who doesn't accept a particular diktat as to how she should define her own gender is dismissed as a bigot. But, as far as I can tell, the argument is that men i.e. potential abusers will be able to enter the groups, get access to vulnerable women, disrupt their work etc.

 

[cesare]

As I keep saying, it's not for me - I'm explaining the motives of some exclusionary groups, despite I've said more than once that I'm pro-inclusion. And the only reason I'm doing that is because I think the debate suffers when any woman who doesn't accept a particular diktat as to how she should define her own gender is dismissed as a bigot. But, as far as I can tell, the argument is that men i.e. potential abusers will be able to enter the groups, get access to vulnerable women, disrupt their work etc.

Who has suggested that women shouldn't define their own gender?

 

[Athos]

I really don't see what your point is here.

The point is that, in the example I gave, a group of abused women had organised for mutual support, but would be dismissed as bigots for refusing to offer entry to trans women, even where that decision wasn't informed by bigotry, but by their assessment of the risks of adopting that policy for the existing members.

 

[campanula]

Because if one of the objects of your oppression was a penis I can see why it might be preferable not to come across one in a place of safety. Often a small shared residence where privacy is not on the cards.

 

[Athos]

Who has suggested that women shouldn't define their own gender?

There's the suggestion that where, for the purposes of women-only spaces, some women define womanhood in a way the excludes trans women, they are bigots. Women being told how they should and should not define womanhood.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

The point is that, in the example I gave, a group of abused women had organised for mutual support, but would be dismissed as bigots for refusing to offer entry to trans women, even where that decision wasn't informed They'by bigotry, but by their assessment of the risks of adopting that policy for the existing members.

I'm tired of the sort of half-arsed justification for bigotry that you are promoting. People can come up with all sorts of justifications. Nobody ever believably says anything like what you are suggesting.

 

[cesare]

There's the suggestion that where, for the purposes of women-only spaces, some women define womanhood in a way the excludes trans women they are bigots. Their being told how they should and should define womanhood.

Some women exclude women without a reproductive system or with polycystic ovaries - how would they check?