Goldsmiths University Diversity officer facing sack

[Treacle Toes]

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.

I personally only frown at the ones that claim to be holier-than-thou but default to the very same hierarchy setting, preaching, but at the same time as building mirror image empires of 'know your place'...almost as is internalised prejudice isn't a real thing and they have read so many important books they are above that crucial work.

Speaking as a young person, but not as young as I used to be.

 

[purenarcotic]

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.

Probably more of an argument for those refuges that are not already self contained flats to become that over dormitory based accommodation than an argument for women only being women if they have an obvious vagina.

 

[Athos]

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.

If you don't believe the women who give that as the reason for their stance, that's fine. But to suggest I'm promoting bigotry is bollocks. How many times have I explained I'm pro-inclusion? The idea that to even accept that there might be non-bigoted reasons for trans exclusion amounts to promoting bigotry is ridiculous.

 

[Treacle Toes]

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.

How would one come across it? Unless one was being shown it in some way.

 

[Athos]

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

You seem to think I'm arguing for a system of checks, despite me repeatedly saying that I'm pro-inclusion. My point was that there can be trans-exclusionary positions that are not motivated by bigotry.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Probably more of an argument for those refuges that are not already self contained flats to become that over dormitory based accommodation than an argument for women only being women if they have an obvious vagina.

Obvious vagina. Do I have one?

 

[cesare]

How would one come across it? Unless one was being shown it in some way.

Or being subjected to the genital check.

 

[Wilf]

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.

Well, okay, let's go with your logic. Our imaginary women's group holds it's inaugural meeting, only to find a number of trans women are present. Item 1 on the first agenda is to decide if there are any women who should be excluded. Would those trans women be allowed to vote on that?

 

[cesare]

You seem to think I'm arguing for a system of checks, despite me repeatedly saying that I'm pro-inclusion. My point was that there can be trans-exclusionary positions that are not motivated by bigotry.

I'm not suggesting you're asking for a series of checks - I'm suggesting that you haven't thought through how this exclusion plays out when deciding it's not bigotry.

 

[Treacle Toes]

You seem to think I'm arguing for a system of checks, despite me repeatedly saying that I'm pro-inclusion. My point was that there can be trans-exclusionary positions that are not motivated by bigotry.

But you haven't made this point sufficiently without imagining things that I have never heard anyone actually say.

You talk about bigotry/prejudice as an all encompasing thing... like it is a fixed/universal that permeats all that someone is... That is not my experience.

 

[Athos]

Well, okay, let's go with your logic. Our imaginary women's group holds it's inaugural meeting, only to find a number of trans women are present. Item 1 on the first agenda is to decide if there are any women who should be excluded. Would those trans women be allowed to vote on that?

I don't know. As I said at the beginning, it's not my place, as a man, to tell these women how to organise. Would you?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I don't know. As I said at the beginning, it's not my place, as a man, to tell these women how to organise. Would you?

So stop. Just stop.

 

[Athos]

I'm not suggesting you're asking for a series of checks - I'm suggesting that you haven't thought through how this exclusion plays out when deciding it's not bigotry.

I explicitly recognised that it may be discriminatory. But that's different to being motivated by bigotry.

 

[campanula]

Yes, well I was responding to a very specific situation from a position of having both used and worked in a women's refuge myself and thought I had made myself quite clear that all these sort of decisions, debates and attitudes are never fixed and unchanging but dynamic and contingent - it behooves us all to look beyond restricting definitions, especially regarding power relations.

 

[Athos]

So stop. Just stop.

No.

 

[Treacle Toes]

No.

 

[cesare]

I explicitly recognised that it may be discriminatory. But that's different to being motivated by bigotry.

Accidentallied an exclusion?

 

[Athos]

But you haven't made this point sufficiently without imagining things that I have never heard anyone actually say.

You talk about bigotry/prejudice as an all encompasing thing... like it is a fixed/universal that permeats all that someone is... That is not my experience.

I don't accept that the idea that some trans-exclusion might not be motivated by bigotry is predicated upon a monolithic idea of what prejudice is. Happy to agree to disagree.

 

[Athos]

Accidentallied an exclusion?

No, deliberately, but motivated by something other than bigotry.

 

[cesare]

No, deliberately, but motivated by something other than bigotry.

Deliberate exclusion motivated by what?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Jesus. MAYBE THEY WEREN'T BIGOTS BUT JUST MISUNDERSTOOD OR SOMETHING FFS

 

[Wilf]

I don't know. As I said at the beginning, it's not my place, as a man, to tell these women how to organise. Would you?

No, I wouldn't tell them, but I'd have an opinion on it - that it would be discriminatory and lacking in basic solidarity.

 

[Athos]

Deliberate exclusion motivated by what?

A desire to protect the existing group (abused cis women in my example) from the increased risk of male infiltration that would be a corollary of allowing membership to anyone who purported to identify as a woman.

 

[cesare]

*lobs dictionary at Athos's head*

 

[cesare]

A desire to protect the existing group (abused cis women in my example) from the increased risk of male infiltration that would be a corollary of allowing membership to anyone who purported to identify as a woman.

And in so doing abuses all women seeking refuge there - wtf is the risk management in that?

 

[Athos]

No, I wouldn't tell them, but I'd have an opinion on it - that it would be discriminatory and lacking in basic solidarity.

I think I'd agree with you that it would be discriminatory and lacking solidarity (which is why I'm pro-inclusion). But it doesn't follow that I would believe that the decision was necessarily motivated by bigotry.

 

[Treacle Toes]

I don't accept that the idea that some trans-exclusion might not be motivated by bigotry is predicated upon a monolithic idea of what prejudice is. Happy to agree to disagree.

IME prejudice and bigotry are things/terms that explain a state/decision/perspective that may be temporal and specific, yet upon examination is the culmination of very complex reasoning, much of which is internalised unconciously. There is no monolith in that sense...yet the experience for those on the receiving end of the resulting dismission/oppression/exclusion etc, it transpires is pretty much the same in terms of how it pigeon holes/abuses/isolates/undermines/excludes. Imagine that?

I too am happy to disagree. That's what I am doing, happily.

 

[TopCat]

I think this correctly identified model has been the modus operandi of the re named Special Demonstration Squad for quite a long time.

 

[Athos]

And in so doing abuses all women seeking refuge there - wtf is the risk management in that?

It's not for me to dictate to these women how to weight risk. My point is that their decision is not necessarily motivated by bigotry.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I don't think you have Julie Bindelled quite enough here. Perhaps you'd like to a bit more and then we could have done with it.