FabricLiveBaby!
Live Baby Fabric!
Quite.
"Solidarity for both trans rights and women's rights" by Janine Booth
- Thread starter Fozzie Bear
- Start date
- Status
Quite.
bimble
floofy
Invoking those comparisons seems just bonkers tbh, some sort of weird thinking where 'butch' / not very 'feminine' women are being thought of a bit like honorary trans women somehow, or something. Just bizarre.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yes, and if you had some awareness of the history of women's sport and the obstacles that have been put in the way of women's participation, you might get that, in the context of sport, that is really rather important. You don't care? Fine. So don't comment.
The irony here is that the widening of opportunities for women in sports - running the same distances, throwing the same kinds of things, playing the same team sports, boxing, etc etc, many of them very very recent - represents the overcoming of gender stereotypes, a triumph of sex over gender.
Last edited:
mojo pixy
...שלא נמצא בשמאל
IIRC (the 1980s hardcore punk scene is a long way away now) "straight edge" means
No drinking
No drugs, no smoking
No meat or fish
No leather clothes
No dairy or eggs
No promiscuity
Absolute ruthless honesty in every situation even if it ends up causing trouble for you.
Helps to draw a black cross on your hand so everyone knows
Basically a kind of edgy puritanism for the youth.
I was straight edge myself and I can assure everyone that if you claim to be straight edge but are missing any of the above then you're a poser wannabe with no integrity.
I'm just glad I grew up.
Anyway, back to the trans show.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
Welcome to the logical conclusion of much of the current anti-trans debate.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
There has been plenty of policing of Caster Semenya.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
IIRC (the 1980s hardcore punk scene is a long way away now) "straight edge" means
No drinking
No drugs, no smoking
No meat or fish
No leather clothes
No dairy or eggs
No promiscuity
Absolute ruthless honesty in every situation even if it ends up causing trouble for you.
Helps to draw a black cross on your hand so everyone knows
Basically a kind of edgy puritanism for the youth.
It was a pendulum swing away from the excesses of earlier punk culture.
They were rather fond of violence, so not entirely indulgence-free.
is that this trans debate though?
FabricLiveBaby!
Live Baby Fabric!
By who? On this thread? Where?
bimble
floofy
Yep, aka feminism for the last few generations basically.. Which is probably why 'gender identity' redefining what woman means is creating such a clusterfuck.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Maybe not on this thread (tho deffo on Urban), but amidst the debate in general. Lets not pretend we can completely separate the two
Treacle Toes
Time
The emotional blackmail and stroppiness is all over the last few pages and not just from the person who felt that the point being made was being used to close down debate if that's how you are going to characterise that poster's reactions to things they don't like/are making them feel 'silenced'. The response is, 'no you are wrong, this is why' surely?
It's pretty shit IMO to be accusing them of blackmail when there is pathetic name calling and abuse being posted but is being ignored because why exactly?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I don't see how bringing up Serena Williams is anything other than comparing people's attitudes on this question with flat-out naked racism. if that's not trying to silence people, I'm not sure what is.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
I've been reading the thread with interest. And I think one of the valuable things about this discussion being far more reasonable, on the whole (!
), is that I've actually read it. Which has had the effect of me actually questioning my own stance at various points. In various directions. And for that I’m grateful for the reasoned contributions from a range of viewpoints.I think it’s a very valid point to raise that we’re all a bit older on these boards, on average. (I’m 53, you know: these are all my own teeth). That’s bound to make a difference to the way we think, just because of the shape of the culture we've been raised in. In the last 20 years public perception has changed enormously. My younger daughter is 18. She has several friends who are trans, gender fluid, or genderqueer. To her, it’s quite normal, and not the novelty it is, frankly, for me. (And she’s often had to tutor me and her mum on language. Which I probably still get wrong, though I don’t intend any disrespect). When I was her age, there was no such visibility. I had read of “sex changes”, but it wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I met anyone who, to my knowledge, had transitioned. And it was a long time before I met the next person. Now, though, I have friends whose (grown up) child prefers to be referred to as “they”. There does seem to me to be a huge generation difference on this.
The sports issue that has been discussed over the last few pages is not something I’ve ever felt the need to take a view on. Sports don’t interest me, and I suppose I’d vaguely thought it would be a tiny number of people this would affect anyway: people competing at an elite level. Though I do take the point that in the US, sports scholarships are a way into further education for people on lower incomes.
So, I was speaking to my daughter this morning about this and asked if she, as a cis woman who is both a feminist and supportive of trans issues, has a view. She said she isn’t interested in sports either (as opposed to exercise), so she doesn't care “who runs in what race”, but she pointed out that if trans women had an advantage, then trans men had a disadvantage. I asked if she, as a cis woman, thought trans women had an advantage being socialised as men up until their transition. She said maybe, but that any advantages were probably offset by the disadvantages of being assigned by society a gender identity they didn't recognise. So, then I, being cruel, asked her if she thought trans women were placing too much value on sexist gender stereotypes for their sense of identity. She, being frank, said “Oh for fuck sake, stop over-thinking it. Some might. But then some cis women do too. Everyone needs to just relax more about the whole thing. Let people do what they want”.
(I apologise to my daughter if in reporting this conversation I have misrepresented any of the language she used, or if I have misapprehended her views. Any errors are my own).
I'm not sure if any of this helped me further calibrate my views, but I thought it might be of interest to discussion participants to see, albeit at second hand, the views of a younger person.
Carry on the good work.
Athos
Well-Known Member
Surely separating this discussion from the background of rancour would be something to strive for?
I'm nor sure how much value there is (in terms of trying to find opportunities for solidarity and positive next steps) to respond to a post here by saying that someone else said something else somewhere else sometime in the past.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
Ridiculous argument, this, whenever it crops up.
If our discussion was limited purely to what has been said on this thread there would be nothing to talk about. No links to websites, no discussion of sporting bodies, no talking about medical standards, no debate about the GRA, no mention of anything that actually matters. The thread wouldn't exist.
This entire discussion is about stuff going on out there, not just us tapping at our keyboards and screens like some isolated society of 12 locked in a vacuum.
The anti-trans debate impacts on a wide range of things, from the most obvious and direct as the way trans people are treated, to issues around the general policing of bodies and gender and sex. It brings in mental health issues, discussions about the role of the state, implications for others who are LGBT+, it shines a light on class as it relates to access to different types of support and access to the means of passing.
This isn't a narrow issue. It can't be laser-focused on only the things you want to talk about in any given post. It must be discussed in context. Part of that context is the way anti-trans rhetoric is impacting on how we talk about cis women. Butch cis women are already being accosted in public toilets and elsewhere as a direct result. Cis women are routinely being called men online if they disagree with anti-trans bigotry, and are being told they 'look like men'. This seems antithetical to the supposed goal of freeing us all from patriarchy. That is the goal, isn't it? A very narrow concept of authentic femininity is being moved towards, little by little, as a means of excluding trans women, and of which the consequence is that narratives around acceptable femininity for cis women are entrenched around that narrow conception.
These contexts are important. In some measure it goes towards the idea of arguing in good faith. Many anti-trans and 'gender critical' arguments go that women are oppressed and the goal is female emancipation. It demands scrutiny then, when one of the consequences of this current debate is that the boundaries of acceptable womanhood are ever more constricted.
Athos
Well-Known Member
I've been reading the thread with interest. And I think one of the valuable things about this discussion being far more reasonable, on the whole (!
I think it’s a very valid point to raise that we’re all a bit older on these boards, on average. (I’m 53, you know: these are all my own teeth). That’s bound to make a difference to the way we think, just because of the shape of the culture we've been raised in. In the last 20 years public perception has changed enormously. My younger daughter is 18. She has several friends who are trans, gender fluid, or genderqueer. To her, it’s quite normal, and not the novelty it is, frankly, for me. (And she’s often had to tutor me and her mum on language. Which I probably still get wrong, though I don’t intend any disrespect). When I was her age, there was no such visibility. I had read of “sex changes”, but it wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I met anyone who, to my knowledge, had transitioned. And it was a long time before I met the next person. Now, though, I have friends whose (grown up) child prefers to be referred to as “they”. There does seem to me to be a huge generation difference on this.
The sports issue that has been discussed over the last few pages is not something I’ve ever felt the need to take a view on. Sports don’t interest me, and I suppose I’d vaguely thought it would be a tiny number of people this would affect anyway: people competing at an elite level. Though I do take the point that in the US, sports scholarships are a way into further education for people on lower incomes.
So, I was speaking to my daughter this morning about this and asked if she, as a cis woman who is both a feminist and supportive of trans issues, has a view. She said she isn’t interested in sports either (as opposed to exercise), so she doesn't care “who runs in what race”, but she pointed out that if trans women had an advantage, then trans men had a disadvantage. I asked if she, as a cis woman, thought trans women had an advantage being socialised as men up until their transition. She said maybe, but that any advantages were probably offset by the disadvantages of being assigned by society a gender identity they didn't recognise. So, then I, being cruel, asked her if she thought trans women were placing too much value on sexist gender stereotypes for their sense of identity. She, being frank, said “Oh for fuck sake, stop over-thinking it. Some might. But then some cis women do too. Everyone needs to just relax more about the whole thing. Let people do what they want”.
(I apologise to my daughter if in reporting this conversation I have misrepresented any of the language she used, or if I have misapprehended her views. Any errors are my own).
I'm not sure if any of this helped me further calibrate my views, but I thought it might be of interest to discussion participants to see, albeit at second hand, the views of a younger person.
Carry on the good work.
Mine were too busy Instagraming pictures of their breakfast.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Mine do that too, but I had her trapped in the car being given a lift.
Athos
Well-Known Member
Of course, context is important. But sometimes it comes across as little more than straw-manning. We needn't be trapped in the same round-and-round.
FabricLiveBaby!
Live Baby Fabric!
.
mojo pixy
...שלא נמצא בשמאל
Pretend "violence" in mosh pits is fine (even fun) though, and actual violence against nazis, sexist homophobic casuals and other antisocial muppets (including police) not only fine but an actual benefit .. IMO at the time. Hey ho.
/toxic masculinity
bimble
floofy
I honestly don't recongnise that at all, my experience is quite the opposite, I hear women fighting loudly to not be defined by any gendered notion of 'femininity'. Maybe that mostly just reflects the small worlds we get stuck in online i don't know.
Athos
Well-Known Member
Which everyone on this thread agrees is wrong. Now what?
wayward bob
i ate all your bees
i genuinely don't recognise (or support) this. but i certainly haven't been able to follow the ins and outs of every discussion in every place.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
For those who don't recognise these things, that's why it's important to talk about them, yes?
I recognise it well from it being raised over and over on threads like this, despite it never occurring here. I also recognise the apalling things said and done by many people on the other side of the debate, which there seems to be some genuine effort to avoid talking about for the sake of a discussion which doesn't follow the tried and tested patterns of every other discussion on this topic.
bimble
floofy
Internet is full of nutters flinging abuse at each other over this all day long obvs but what Vintage Paw said about gender critical feminists working to narrow an idea of 'authentic femininity' just seems the opposite of the truth to me: The whole point is the inverse, its a refusal to go along with the idea that what makes someone a woman is clothes/ makeup, acting 'feminine' or an ineffable feeling of innate womanliness etc. So am just nonplussed by it tbh.
- Status
Similar threads
