Trans vs feminists: Are Trans women women?

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Is what it means to be a woman being fundamentally challenged if not destroyed by trans politics?

Recently over the past few years there's been a growing discontent between the Trans community and Radical feminists. Trans women, those who are post op and pre op and those who choose not to op are insisting that they all be called 'women' by other women and react with emotive language and bullying to force acceptance from groups they consider 'exclusionary' or TERFS (trans exclusionary radical feminists). TERFS always describes lesbians, feminists or any woman who does not consider trans women as real women, its generally considered a slur. According to Trans theory a woman can have a penis, a man can have a baby because as they put it your genitals don't determine your gender and they deny biological sex as being relevant at all. Actually they deny its existence, anywho...

The question is do women, feminists, lesbians have a right to their own spaces? Should they be forced to accept men who say they are women into those spaces? This is all happening in a climate when every 'identity' group is out carving 'safe spaces' for themselves so I find it amusing but not surprising that its female spaces that are now being forced to open themselves up to other groups. When a woman decides she's a male without even going through transition insists on joining a MGTOW group we'll see what happens.

Michfest, Michigan Womyn's Mustic Festival came under attack.

"In the summer of 2003, Julia Serano, a Trans activist, joined about a hundred people at Camp Trans, a protest camp near the Michfest site, which has run intermittently since 1994. Serano said that relations with Michfest attendees were often unexpectedly cordial. A few years ago, though, Vogel says, some protesters committed acts of vandalism—stealing electrical cables, cutting water pipes, keying cars in the parking lot, and spray-painting a six-foot penis, and the words “Real Women Have Dicks,” on the side of the main kitchen tent."http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2

The bombardment and harassment became so intense that it was finally shut down. The founder decided it was better not to have the festival than be forced to open it up to transgender women. Performers such as Indigo Girls were persuaded to boycott the event because it was 'exclusive' and 'transphobic'.

For the moment the answer is no, women are not allowed their own space but being forced to open up their spaces or be called bigots. Feminists such as Sheila Jefferys, Germaine Greer and Julie Bindel to name a few have all been No Platformed by trans activists and their allies. Strange isn't it? They're being called transphobic, Queer bashers when they are not called right out bitches. They are called out for being gender critical, rejecting the idea that gender is some sort of irreducible essence, wholly distinct from biological sex or socialization. They have forced RadFem to include trans women into their women groups. Failure to comply is punished by name calling, shaming and having trans people gate crash events solely to shut them down. Julie Serrano a trans activist is offended by these women, she claims "it’s akin to straight people refusing to share a locker room with gays or lesbians." Except gays and lesbians share the same sex as straight men and women.

There are incidents such as this one where trans activists burst into a Woman's library demanding representation

More frequently feminists cannot organize without being bombarded by trans activists

The chant they use against these women is "Trans woman are women", to think or state or believe otherwise is heresy. Which brings us to the bathroom issue, many feminists groups are against trans women having access to female only bathrooms and dressing rooms because as they put it, any man whether he dresses as a woman or not has access to a woman's space just by declaring himself a self-identified woman. Obviously trans men and women who look like their gender of choice don't have a problem since no one views them as the opposite sex than what they appear so access doesn't really apply to them. It applies to people like Danielle Muscato, an atheist activist who identifies as a trans woman. You can take a look at him here

Should that guy be allowed in a woman's locker room or bathroom? If you believe in the bathroom law then the answer will have to be yes.

So what does trans access to 'women's spaces' mean? It means access to rape & domestic violence centers and women shelters, women's bathrooms, dressing rooms, showers, female prisons, women's athletic sports, even the Olympics allows trans women to compete against other women. It also means trans women gain access to the financial resources allocated to that specific group called 'women'. Is this reasonable?

Now here is where it gets strange if you don't find it so already. Trans activists have created a new term called "the cotton ceiling" what they perceive as transmisogyny. It refers to trans women's feeling of rejection by women, mostly lesbians, who refuse to choose them as sexual partners because, well, they're men. They see this as a kind of discrimination and something that must change.

So what does it mean when a man with a penis insists that a lesbian is being discriminatory because she doesn't buy into the propaganda that trans women are women? Isn't this just another form of men disempowering women? I'm just asking. This guy explains it really well. I call him a guy because he still has a penis

Is this what's become of the Left? What a fucking mess! Like my grandmother used to say "Let god come take his world". LOL! I'm going to bet this thread doesn't do well, first because its about women and second because it would force people to confront the lie that trans people are not the sex they say they are and I know how much the sciforum community prides itself on political correctness.

So shoot. Anyone anywhere see a problem with this? And why is there no similar dispute concerning women who transition to men? Why aren't trans men banging on the doors of male only spaces demanding validation? Google 'feminist websites' and you will find that most you click on feature issues concerning trans women and not women which makes me wonder when the women's movement stopped being a women's movement.

 

[Tiassa]

And why is there no similar dispute concerning women who transition to men?

Because the whole of the American Gender Dispute is about women.

Think of it this way: If it was just us gay dudes, nobody would say anything, because the guys would see us as non-competition for the women, and the women would see us as people who ostensibly won't hit on them. The problem leading to the Gay Fray of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century is what has been described as the sufficiently invisible lesbian. We fight about gay men because, you know, ooh, men, scary, masculine, rapey, and they have penetrating penises; it's an easily accessible arrangement of symbols. The real problem among traditionalists in the Gay Fray was and remains women: Lesbians aren't under a man the way traditionalists think they ought to be. Once that possibility is honored, the traditionalists feel threatened; it becomes much harder to subjugate women.

Because this is all about what traditionalists think women owe men.

That's why men are following women into bathrooms to (ahem!) make sure they're women. You know, any excuse to access the genitals.

Those guys aren't excited to see transgender dick. And if they see a cisgender dick, they can't throw a fit, and then have to admit they were trying to inspect a dude's cock. Then again, maybe there's a cultural bridge, there, among the traditionalist men who date and have sex with each other in order to affirm their masculine heterosexuality.

Meanwhile ...

When a woman decides she's a male without even going through transition insists on joining a MGTOW group we'll see what happens.

... weren't you just falsely accusing↗ someone of "adding to it"? Well, why are you just randomly making shit up? Seriously, you title feminism, start with radical feminism, end with feminist websites, and in the middle describe this weird situation that is utterly irrelevant.

I think if the thread doesn't do well, something about its uneducated cruelty might be the reason.

 

[iceaura]

Is what it means to be a woman being fundamentally challenged if not destroyed by trans politics?

No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosteen_Klah

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Because the whole of the American Gender Dispute is about women.

Think of it this way: If it was just us gay dudes, nobody would say anything, because the guys would see us as non-competition for the women, and the women would see us as people who ostensibly won't hit on them. The problem leading to the Gay Fray of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century is what has been described as the sufficiently invisible lesbian. We fight about gay men because, you know, ooh, men, scary, masculine, rapey, and they have penetrating penises; it's an easily accessible arrangement of symbols. The real problem among traditionalists in the Gay Fray was and remains women: Lesbians aren't under a man the way traditionalists think they ought to be. Once that possibility is honored, the traditionalists feel threatened; it becomes much harder to subjugate women.

Because this is all about what traditionalists think women owe men.

That's why men are following women into bathrooms to (ahem!) make sure they're women. You know, any excuse to access the genitals.

Those guys aren't excited to see transgender dick. And if they see a cisgender dick, they can't throw a fit, and then have to admit they were trying to inspect a dude's cock. Then again, maybe there's a cultural bridge, there, among the traditionalist men who date and have sex with each other in order to affirm their masculine heterosexuality.

Meanwhile ...

... weren't you just falsely accusing↗ someone of "adding to it"? Well, why are you just randomly making shit up? Seriously, you title feminism, start with radical feminism, end with feminist websites, and in the middle describe this weird situation that is utterly irrelevant.

I think if the thread doesn't do well, something about its uneducated cruelty might be the reason.

Yeah I agree with what you say in your first paragraph but its not the 'traditionalists' who are trying to force an agenda on feminists and lesbians, its a group of Trans activists pushing their gender agenda specifically on women. Feminism rejected the idea of gender, working towards a world without gender as in masculine and feminine stereotypes society deemed innate to women but they never denied the biological reality of women because that's what they believed created the hierarchy, women risked pregnancy while males remained free and independent. They wanted freedom from patriarchal force where women could be all they could be. Transgender activists reinforce those notions, being a woman is about the hair, the tits and vagina. all the while denying that tits and a vagina are particularly female (Just check out the 'Genderbread Boy'). Its all about the tits and make up and 'looking' feminine reaching this idea of what they think it is to be 'a woman'. In short it doesn't make any sense! I can understand why its critical for a transgender person to insist that others accept them as being what they say they are and having a group of women deny them that delusion is annoying but forcing this concept on feminism and lesbianism is damaging. I would go as far to say that it breaks down the whole notion of 'woman' rendering it meaningless and feminism irrelevant.

Welcome the Gingerbread Person



Transexuals I feel sorry for because they do indeed suffer from gender dysphoria and go about all the rigorous work to reach the appearance of being a woman and many of them readily admit to being biological males even after they fully transition. Many transexuals also don't believe its their job to force all of society to alter itself to validate them, this thread isn't about them. I'm focusing on what's become of this amorphous term "transgender" and the trans activists who purport transgender theory, they are the ones who are at war with feminism, obscuring terms while creating new ones obliterating what it means to be a woman and twisting women's rights and women's issues.

Just take a look at this Washington Post headline

Feminist Germaine Greer still pummelled for ‘misogynistic views toward transwomen’https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ews-toward-transwomen/?utm_term=.f0260d022e4b

How did the Washington Post capitulate to using such a crazy headline? Gemaine Greer of all people 'misogynistic' for not accepting trans women as real women. Funny isn't it? I mean its fucking hilarious. Feminism is being stabbed in the back by transgender theory and their obscuration of terms. A man with a penis can declare a woman a woman hater just by co-opting the term for himself. They don't have to have a history of being a woman, they just have to declare themselves to be one. Because 'gender' is fluid don't you know and while feminists spent decades explaining that there is no such thing as a female brain, Danny turned Danielle comes along and claims gender to be completely in the brain, a matter of ones thinking and feeling, a female spirit whatever that is, its completely divorced from any biological reality like childbirth, menstruation, menopause, you know girly things that created a woman's movement to begin with. I don't use the word cis because its just gender babble, it doesn't even mean anything. Transgender terms eventually eats itself like an Ouroboros, you have non-binary nonsense, an umbrella so wide that to them a straight woman who looks butch can classify as 'trans'. A man who has no plan to ever transition can declare himself female. The term 'lesbian' is almost as antiquated as the word gay being used to describe 'happy', its all 'queer' now whatever that ambiguous term means. I think its interesting how they attack language with the zeal of a Michel Foucault, its sublime destruction. Wonder what's going to come of it.

What do you mean by "making shit up" and "adding to it"? I've no idea to what you're referring. Yes I begin the title with feminism because its the feminists who are experiencing the problem and it is they who are beginning to discuss it. I agree the MGTOW is a little out of context, what I meant was there are no large scale issues of women who identify as male while continuing to look as a female trying to crash male centered groups the way trans women are doing with *cough* real women.

Uneducated? None of us should be educated in this. Transsexuals are .003% of the population and doctors don't even know what causes gender dysphoria. Its a socially driven diagnoses NOT a scientifically based fact and yet its driving political agendas. Its a disorder and shouldn't be used as a template to redesign what we know to be true. Sex=male or female (biological sex based fact), Gender=masculine and feminine (a combination of social, cultural and biological factors), then there is a smaller population of intersex. Those simple truths are not part of transgender theory which I'm beginning to believe consciously or unconsciously is an attack on women and feminism. It renders it null and void. Where exactly was I cruel?

 

[iceaura]

Uneducated? None of us should be educated in this. Transsexuals are .003% of the population and doctors don't even know what causes gender dysphoria.

About .6%, according to this: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/health/transgender-population.html
About a million and a half people, or 30,000 people per State.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosteen_Klah

I've never heard of Hosteen Klah so thanks for the link but that doesn't really address my question. Transgender theory fundamentally challenges what it means to be a woman by insisting there is no biological reality to 'womanhood', the whole of feminist theory is based on physical differences between men and women being used to curtail women's freedoms and that forcing gender identifies such as 'masculine' and 'feminine' were damaging because they were not necessarily innate, women could have both masculine and feminine qualities same as men so its not an essentialist point of view. That's dramatically different than saying yes that sex based reality 'male' and 'female' is all in ones head, some ethereal thing inside detached from the physical, I mean never mind the feminine mystique now you have the feminine spirit. Gender roles assigned by sex is something feminists worked to change, helped of course by 'the pill' and access to abortion. Now transgender theory says there's gender but there is no reality to biological sex, or as they put it sex is irrelevant gender is everything, quite convenient for a woman without a womb (contraceptive and baby free just like men have always been).

One trans woman activist wrote "Since “biological sex” is actually a social construct, those who say that it is not often have to argue about what it entails. Some say it’s based on chromosomes (of which there are many non-XX/XY combinations, as well as diversity among people with XY chromosomes), others say it’s genitals or gonads (either at birth or at the moment you’re talking about), others say it’s hormone levels (which vary widely and can be manipulated), still others say it’s secondary sex characteristics like the appearance of breasts, body hair and muscle mass (which vary even more). Some say that it’s a combination of all of them. Now, this creates a huge problem, as sex organs, secondary sex characteristics and hormone levels aren’t anywhere close to being universal to all men or women, males or females." https://www.autostraddle.com/its-ti...cal-sex-to-defend-their-transmisogyny-240284/

That's like arguing because a human being normally has two legs, the moment a person loses both legs they stop being human. It just doesn't make any sense. Julia Serrano writes a lot on this issue.

"Although some feminists have historically framed sexism in terms of patriarchy, early trans feminists forwarded the gender binary—being nonconsensually assigned a female or male sex at birth—as a way to describe the myriad forms of sexism in our society. Those assigned a male sex are expected to grow up to identify as a man, to be masculine in gender expression and be exclusively attracted to women; those assigned a female sex are expected to grow up to identify as a woman, be feminine in gender expression and be exclusively attracted to men." http://msmagazine.com/blog/2012/04/18/trans-feminism-theres-no-conundrum-about-it/D

Published in Ms. Magazine no less. Can you see how this is so different from traditional feminism and alters it so its no longer about biological females or women but something related to identity. Feminism was about women's liberation but transgender politics means to open it up to include trans women even those who are still biologically intact males. So I really don't see where feminism can go from there. Its become an abstract notion divorced from the issues that created feminist theory to begin with I mean if a man can be a 'mother' then what's the point? Its become some universal ethereal womahood that anyone can possess, I mean how can you have women's rights that concern women's bodies if there is no such thing as a woman's body? So I see feminism dying but I'm not the only one. Feminist Elinor Burkett wrote

"Do women and men have different brains? Back when Lawrence H. Summers was president of Harvard and suggested that they did, the reaction was swift and merciless. Pundits branded him sexist. Faculty members deemed him a troglodyte. Alumni withheld donations.But when Bruce Jenner said much the same thing in an April interview with Diane Sawyer, he was lionized for his bravery, even for his progressivism.

“My brain is much more female than it is male,” he told her, explaining how he knew that he was transgender.

This was the prelude to a new photo spread and interview in Vanity Fair that offered us a glimpse into Caitlyn Jenner’s idea of a woman: a cleavage-boosting corset, sultry poses, thick mascara and the prospect of regular “girls’ nights” of banter about hair and makeup. Ms. Jenner was greeted with even more thunderous applause. ESPN announced it would give Ms. Jenner an award for courage. President Obama also praised her. Not to be outdone, Chelsea Manning hopped on Ms. Jenner’s gender train on Twitter, gushing, “I am so much more aware of my emotions; much more sensitive emotionally (and physically).”

A part of me winced.

I have fought for many of my 68 years against efforts to put women — our brains, our hearts, our bodies, even our moods — into tidy boxes, to reduce us to hoary stereotypes. Suddenly, I find that many of the people I think of as being on my side — people who proudly call themselves progressive and fervently support the human need for self-determination — are buying into the notion that minor differences in male and female brains lead to major forks in the road and that some sort of gendered destiny is encoded in us.That’s the kind of nonsense that was used to repress women for centuries. But the desire to support people like Ms. Jenner and their journey toward their truest selves has strangely and unwittingly brought it back."https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html

Burkett was No Platformed for writing this article. For trying to protect woman's rights unwittingly made her a misogynist. She continues to say "The “I was born in the wrong body” rhetoric favored by other trans people doesn’t work any better and is just as offensive, reducing us to our collective breasts and vaginas. Imagine the reaction if a young white man suddenly declared that he was trapped in the wrong body and, after using chemicals to change his skin pigmentation and crocheting his hair into twists, expected to be embraced by the black community."

Culture historian and feminist Camille Paglia said in an interview "It is certainly ironic how liberals who posture as defenders of science when it comes to global warming (a sentimental myth unsupported by evidence) flee all reference to biology when it comes to gender. Biology has been programmatically excluded from women's studies and gender studies programs for almost 50 years now. Thus very few current gender studies professors and theorists, here and abroad, are intellectually or scientifically prepared to teach their subjects.The cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible. Every single cell of the human body remains coded with one's birth gender for life. Intersex ambiguities can occur, but they are developmental anomalies that represent a tiny proportion of all human births."

I'm inclined to agree with her.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

About .6%, according to this: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/health/transgender-population.html
About a million and a half people, or 30,000 people per State.

Still miniscule.

Chris Hedges wrote an interesting article concerning feminism and transgender theory clash. Here is an excerpt "The Battle Over What it Means to be a Woman"

Patriarchy, across the globe, plagues humankind. In some regions female fetuses often are aborted because they are considered less valuable than male fetuses. Girls are sometimes smothered in infancy. Many women and girls are sold to men as rape and breeding slaves. Many endure genital mutilation. Many are trafficked and forced into prostitution. Many are denied abortions and access to birth control. Many, to survive economically, sell their eggs to donors or hire their wombs out to couples who cannot produce babies. In some countries, including Saudi Arabia and parts of India, women are considered the property of male guardians. There are villages in India where women have only one kidney because their husbands have sold their other one. Women are often denied education and, even in industrial countries, are paid less for carrying out the same work as men.

How, in an age in which some born with male bodies self-identify as women, can those born female define their unique oppression based on their experience? As laws in Europe, Canada and the United States are rewritten to broaden the definition of what it means to be female or male, how will such change affect the struggle for equality by those born as females?

The debate over gender identity pits the trans narrative against radical feminists. It is one of the most bitter and acrimonious battles on the left. Radical feminists are castigated by many on the left as reactionary for their insistence that those born female hold a unique and separate identity as an oppressed group, one that requires them to form protected spaces and organizations.

“Freedom of association is especially important to the oppressed,” Alice Lee, a co-founder of Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution, said when I reached her in Vancouver by phone. “It is absolutely necessary for oppressed people to be able to group together. It allows us to dare to identify and vocalize our shared experiences and find ways to effectively strategize to overthrow our oppressors. The formation of such civil rights groups, anti-racism groups, women rape crisis centers and shelters, caucuses, clubs, associations and religious organizations is a hallmark of a democratic civil society. Decisions about group membership must be a process of self-determination. Having the criteria dictated to us by the state, or by those who belong to the oppressor groups, means defeat at the outset.”

“The neoliberal approach centers on individual feelings and choice at the expense of shared group experience,” Lee continued. “It is a deliberate strategy to prevent the development of any effective challenge to male supremacy, white supremacy, heterosexual supremacy, and rule by those who control capital. Forcing us to open our groups to those who do not share the basic experiences of our reality cuts off the potential for revolution at the root.”

Many members of the trans community strongly disagree. One is Misty Snow, a Utah Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in last November’s general election and the first transgender woman to run as a nominee for such a seat. [Click here to read and hear an interview of Snow that Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer conducted for his KCRW podcast, “Scheer Intelligence,” in October 2016.] She recently announced her candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives.

When I spoke to Snow by phone, she said:

The argument that the inclusion of trans people in spaces traditionally reserved for girls and women somehow infringes on the rights of girls and women presupposes a collective sisterhood that does not exist.

Women of color, who have long been marginalized by white feminists, face different forms of oppression, in the same way trans people face different forms of oppression.

This recycles the old feminist argument from the 1950s when women of color were excluded from the feminist movement. A lot of this is about privileged women, especially white women, clinging to the status quo.

The equal rights of girls and women in the United States are protected under Title IX, but new laws are blurring the lines of what it means to be female. Feminists say these laws, passed in the name of inclusivity, amount to an erasure of what it means to be female. They charge that such change is a gift to patriarchy and the corporate state, which seeks to turn everyone, especially the most vulnerable, into disempowered, atomized commodities. As societies break down, it is girls and women, along with children and the elderly, who bear the worst abuse and violence. The need for collective strength, given the global unraveling of civil society and the rise of authoritarian and protofascist governments, is vital, these feminists say.

“Patriarchy is a millennium-old system of male supremacy by which male-bodied people are exploiting female-bodied people for reproductive, sexual and domestic labor,” feminist MaryLou Singleton told me during a conversation in New York. “When power and property are held by men and passed to the heirs of men, men need to police and control women’s bodies to know who their heirs are. Now it’s global in scope, where women don’t have control over their own reproduction and are dependent on men in terms of having and raising our children.”

The consumer culture grooms women through female socialization, which it defines as gender, to participate in their own subjugation. Prostitution and pornography, for example, are sold by patriarchy as liberating and empowering for women. Those who meet the rigid standards of female socialization are rewarded and celebrated. Those who do not are dismissed, marginalized and often attacked.

“Capitalism thrives on promoting extreme individualism and this idea that we are all separate, unique individuals,” Singleton said. “We are at a point in late-stage capitalism where identity is for sale. People take on consumer identities. I believe this particular [trans] identity is being marketed to our young people who are at an age where they experience a lot of questioning naturally about their identity. It’s always been acknowledged that children and teenagers and young adults question who they are and what they want to be.”

Trans activists, however, dispute the idea that being trans is a manufactured identity.“Being transgender is not a consumer identity pushed on us by a capitalist system,” Snow said. “Transgender people have existed long before capitalism and will continue to exist. Pushing the narrative that trans identities are simply a ‘consumer’ rather than an authentic identity only reinforces rigid standards of what it means to be female. Trans women are often dismissed, marginalized and attacked for failing to meet these rigid standards of what it means to be female. So-called ‘feminists’ who wish to label trans identities as being inauthentic are actually doing the patriarchy’s work of enforcing rigid standards and ideas of what it means to be female.”

There is a billion-dollar industry built around gender reassignment surgery. Pharmaceutical companies provide drugs and hormones that block puberty and the secondary sex characteristics of children. In our courts we do not try children as adults, recognizing that they do not have fully developed brains, yet children are permitted to ingest potent drugs that will affect them for life. Those who change their minds about a gender identity decision often must cope with permanently altered bodies. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-battle-over-what-it-means-to-be-female/

​

 

[billvon]

Is what it means to be a woman being fundamentally challenged if not destroyed by trans politics?

No.

Is what it means to be a woman being fundamentally challenged if not destroyed by trans politics?

No.

The question is do women, feminists, lesbians have a right to their own spaces?

Sure. Just not public bathrooms - which (note the name) are for use by the PUBLIC. That means you have to be OK with other people using them if you want to use them. By definition.

Should they be forced to accept men who say they are women into those spaces?

Yes. Many women with AIS are genetically male; women have been "forced to accept men who say they are women" into women's bathrooms for centuries. There are tens of thousands of AIS women in the US, so chances are you have been "forced to accept men who say they are women" in your bathroom; I assume this has not led to any trauma on your part.

(Of course that's just one of the 'traumas' that sensitive conservative snowflakes have to live with. Nowadays white women have to accept black women using public bathrooms - o the horror! And sometimes they even have to accept men using them - women will often take male toddlers into women's bathrooms to change diapers. Hopefully the most sensitive of the conservative snowflakes will not succumb to the vapors as a result.)

 

[ElectricFetus]

Radical leftist eat each other, what a surprise These "philosophies" have failed us so badly as to give us president trump so please fight each other to the death.

The idea was simple: tax the rich (who are usually white, straight, cis male) and provide services for the poor (who are disproportionately not white, straight, cis and male) but as it turns out many of on the left that had "megaphones" (money) were also not white, straight, cis males, and did not want to pay their share, so they diverted the issue, blame the white, straight, cis males, forget about the money. This has created a cult within modern leftism which has destroyed us politically, its only saving grace is that the "reactionary" counter movement it has spawned on the right which has taken over the goverment, appears to be utterly incompetent at actually ruling, but with years left of republican/alt-right domination I doubt they won't get something horrible done.


As members of the Hands Across the Aisle Coalition, these unlikely allies have banded together to combat the increasingly anti-woman positions adopted by the transgender movement.

The event, which focused on the impact of laws and policies that privilege “gender identity” over biological sex, was hosted by Ryan T. Anderson, the Heritage Foundation’s William E. Simon senior research fellow.


Leading off the panel was Kaeley Triller Haver, whose past as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse drives her current work fighting to protect the safety and privacy of women and girls. She first encountered the push to allow men in women’s restrooms while on staff at her local YMCA.

As part of her job duties, she conducted regular sex offender screenings, and the results were disturbing, as she recounted:


"Every single time that I would run one of these screenings, I would find somebody who’d infiltrated the system, because that’s what predators do—they prey, and they seek opportunity. And I recognized that this new policy that they were asking us to embrace and adopt was basically the equivalent of rolling out a welcome mat for any man who decided that he wanted to come in and access our spaces."

Haver recognized the transgender activists’ strategy of accusing those who oppose their agenda of being close-minded and unloving. Her abuser had used similar tactics to persuade her to compromise her personal boundaries, she said.


Emily Zinos, a mother of seven, was unable to attend the event, but her comments were read in her absence. Zinos faced this issue in one of her children’s schools. As part of the Ask Me First campaign, she advocates safety and privacy for all students.

She wrote:

"What worries me most is that schools across the country are quashing debate, abandoning academic pursuits, and reducing themselves to pawns in a political movement whose claims are highly questionable, unscientific, and have been shown to harm children. Public schools have a duty to serve all children, but schools cannot serve children and a totalitarian ideology all at once."

Miriam Ben-Shalom, a longtime gay rights activist and the first lesbian U.S. service member to be reinstated after being discharged from the military under “don’t ask, don’t tell,” spoke next. She asked conservatives to differentiate between the gay and lesbian community and transgender activists, whose agenda is more about infringing women’s rights and safety than protecting those of transgender citizens.

--- http://dailysignal.com/2017/03/03/f...s-link-arms-to-confront-transgender-ideology/

She said:


It’s not about bathrooms. It is about bathrooms, locker rooms, women’s shelters, women’s jails, and women’s spaces, and the real issue here is male violence. That’s what it is, and that’s what we’re talking about here. If trans women were really women, they would understand that the issue is male violence and they would sit down with us and civilly work together to find an acceptable solution to this problem.

Tiassa scream misogyny at the drop of a hat, but I wonder if tiassa would scream misandry if I said that men are disproportionately prone to physical violence, probably at an innate biological level. Now I'm not saying all men, just on average. What is the solution? Is it as some feminist have suggest of rounding all men up and segregating them to somewhere until they can "act like human beings" again? Even people with down syndrome, with a known and proven, absolute, genetic disorder, we NOT round up and do away with as untermensch, but instead provide special services and protections for to try to help them be productive and happy members of society. Likewise special services should be provided to boys to help reduce the rate of male violence and improve the outcome of men becoming productive and happy members of society, instead of prison convicts.

Sexual predators should be found and provided treatment, castration, chemical castration, deep brain simulators, etc. Yes some sexual predators are women and yes treatments must be found for them as well, but I theorize most sexual predators are men who at a fundamental level can't deal with the sexual urges that are inflamed by testosterone, remove the testosterone should greatly reduce the rate of sexual predation. This won't solve all sexual predators, but it will solve much of it.

 

[iceaura]

Culture historian and feminist Camille Paglia said in an interview "It is certainly ironic how liberals who posture as defenders of science when it comes to global warming (a sentimental myth unsupported by evidence) flee all reference to biology when it comes to gender.

You plan to get lots of useful criticism of how other people handle science from a CO2 threat denier?

Still miniscule.

About the same as the number of people in wheelchairs.

It's a serious matter no doubt - but mostly, it seems, because this culture (unlike others, such as the Navajo of Hosteen Klah) demands that one of two sexes be assigned, with actual physical consequences impossible to compromise (you're either in a room, or you are not, say). It's an arbitrary imposition on the world, and any sensible theory is going to have trouble with it.

 

[iceaura]

Radical leftist eat each other, what a surprise These "philosophies" have failed us so badly as to give us president trump so please fight each other to the death.

Neither Bruce or Caitlin Jenner is a radical leftist.
Neither is Camille Paglia, or half the others allegedly and therefore unavoidably involved.
Neither is Diane Sawyer, or the corporate ownership and editorial control of Vanity Fair.

This has created a cult within modern leftism which has destroyed us politically, its only saving grace is that the "reactionary" counter movement it has spawned on the right

You have the temporal sequence (and other facts of history ) wrong. Your ascription of destroying power to fringe factions with no governmental representation is likewise goofy. And you still confuse yourself by using the purposefully misleading vocabulary and framing of the wingnut media feeds (the same people you got your revisions of history from).

 

[ElectricFetus]

Mrs.Lucysnow,

I'm listening to those videos, fucking awesome, and the comment sections are a joy to read!

Neither Bruce or Caitlin Jenner is a radical leftist.
Neither is Camille Paglia, or half the others allegedly and therefore unavoidably involved.
Neither is Diane Sawyer, or the corporate ownership and editorial control of Vanity Fair.

Call them what ever you want! Anyone that advocates for sex, gender, race over economics has doomed us all.

You have the temporal sequence (and other facts of history ) wrong. Your ascription of destroying power to fringe factions with no governmental representation is likewise goofy.

No goverment power, that because they lost it all.

And you still confuse yourself by using the purposefully misleading vocabulary and framing of the wingnut media feeds (the same people you got your revisions of history from).

No I should use your conspiracy theorist vocabulary instead, please enlighten me on what to call them?

 

[iceaura]

Call them what ever you want! Anyone that advocates for sex, gender, race over economics has doomed us all.

Mostly rightwingers, in that crowd. Trump voters. Does that matter to you?

No goverment power, that because they lost it all.

When was that - 1968?
You cannot learn history from wingnut videos.

No I should use your conspiracy theorist vocabulary instead, please enlighten me on what to call them?

Vocabulary and framing, not namecalling. Do try to pay attention. Maybe if you play with a fidget spinner while you read, it will be almost like watching a video - only with, like, reasoning and evidence involved.

 

[ElectricFetus]

Mostly rightwingers, in that crowd. Trump voters. Does that matter to you?

Well then who ever your speaking of it not whom I speaking off, I'm speaking of self proclaimed "liberal" who voted Hillary.

When was that - 1968?
You cannot learn history from wingnut videos.

I've been over this with you, we had a president for 8 years that proclaimed the wage gap between men and women over the wage gape between rich and poor, and a liberal media that whined about "manspreading" more then homelessness. Their inability to focus on the issues that unify us, and instead focus on issues that divide us, destroyed the democratic party and gave the election to a pig boar.

Vocabulary and framing, not namecalling. Do try to pay attention. Maybe if you play with a fidget spinner while you read, it will be almost like watching a video - only with, like, reasoning and evidence involved.

Long-winded ad hominim is not reasoning and evidence.

 

[Tiassa]

I've been over this with you, we had a president for 8 years that proclaimed the wage gap between men and women over the wage gape between rich and poor, and a liberal media that whined about "manspreading" more then homelessness.

Yeah, well at some point you need to do better than make-believe. You have two assertions in that statement:

(1) Support your characterization with reliable evidence.

(2) Explain how the wage gap between rich and poor excludes the wage gap between men and women.​

The problem is that you just make shit up.

All you're accomplishing is a demonstration of the futility of your fantasy.

 

[Kittamaru]

Still miniscule.

​

So because it doesn't affect enough people, it isn't real or important? When would it be enough? A few million? A few Tena of millions? Maybe when it's your child suffering from a rare and barely understood disorder or disease, then you'd care?

 

[ElectricFetus]

Yeah, well at some point you need to do better than make-believe. You have two assertions in that statement:

(1) Support your characterization with reliable evidence.​

Just google "obama wage gap"

(2) Explain how the wage gap between rich and poor excludes the wage gap between men and women.

Because a gap of 200 times income to 1 is a BIGGER PROBLEM then what ever percentage you think the gender wage gap is. Because we will not be able to pay for services like maternity wage, higher wages and less hours without taxing the rich, because we can't win elections by bitching about the gender wage gap and not demanding massive tax increases on the rich.

All you're accomplishing is a demonstration of the futility of your fantasy.

Who is president right now, ergo you are wrong.

 

[ElectricFetus]

So because it doesn't affect enough people, it isn't real or important? When would it be enough? A few million? A few Tena of millions? Maybe when it's your child suffering from a rare and barely understood disorder or disease, then you'd care?

There a bigger problems that need to be dealt with before we can get to, aah free trans surgeries or what ever, first we need to not have a pig boar as president, then we need total liberal control of the goverment, then we need a stabilized economy, then single payer medical care, and then in that bill for single payer we can have free trans surgeries.

 

[DaveC426913]

I think the issue lies in the label.

As soon as you label someone to fit them into - or out of - a group, you got a problem. Labels must needs be general, (else they couldn't apply to two or more people at a time).

Throw away the label - in this case "woman" - and just deal with the individuals as each their needs.

The question becomes: how are person F (formerly "feminist")'s liberties threatened by the gender identity of person T (formerly "transgender")'s freedoms?

 

[birch]

I've never heard of Hosteen Klah so thanks for the link but that doesn't really address my question. Transgender theory fundamentally challenges what it means to be a woman by insisting there is no biological reality to 'womanhood', the whole of feminist theory is based on physical differences between men and women being used to curtail women's freedoms and that forcing gender identifies such as 'masculine' and 'feminine' were damaging because they were not necessarily innate, women could have both masculine and feminine qualities same as men so its not an essentialist point of view. That's dramatically different than saying yes that sex based reality 'male' and 'female' is all in ones head, some ethereal thing inside detached from the physical, I mean never mind the feminine mystique now you have the feminine spirit. Gender roles assigned by sex is something feminists worked to change, helped of course by 'the pill' and access to abortion. Now transgender theory says there's gender but there is no reality to biological sex, or as they put it sex is irrelevant gender is everything, quite convenient for a woman without a womb (contraceptive and baby free just like men have always been).

One trans woman activist wrote "Since “biological sex” is actually a social construct, those who say that it is not often have to argue about what it entails. Some say it’s based on chromosomes (of which there are many non-XX/XY combinations, as well as diversity among people with XY chromosomes), others say it’s genitals or gonads (either at birth or at the moment you’re talking about), others say it’s hormone levels (which vary widely and can be manipulated), still others say it’s secondary sex characteristics like the appearance of breasts, body hair and muscle mass (which vary even more). Some say that it’s a combination of all of them. Now, this creates a huge problem, as sex organs, secondary sex characteristics and hormone levels aren’t anywhere close to being universal to all men or women, males or females." https://www.autostraddle.com/its-ti...cal-sex-to-defend-their-transmisogyny-240284/

That's like arguing because a human being normally has two legs, the moment a person loses both legs they stop being human. It just doesn't make any sense. Julia Serrano writes a lot on this issue.

"Although some feminists have historically framed sexism in terms of patriarchy, early trans feminists forwarded the gender binary—being nonconsensually assigned a female or male sex at birth—as a way to describe the myriad forms of sexism in our society. Those assigned a male sex are expected to grow up to identify as a man, to be masculine in gender expression and be exclusively attracted to women; those assigned a female sex are expected to grow up to identify as a woman, be feminine in gender expression and be exclusively attracted to men." http://msmagazine.com/blog/2012/04/18/trans-feminism-theres-no-conundrum-about-it/D

Published in Ms. Magazine no less. Can you see how this is so different from traditional feminism and alters it so its no longer about biological females or women but something related to identity. Feminism was about women's liberation but transgender politics means to open it up to include trans women even those who are still biologically intact males. So I really don't see where feminism can go from there. Its become an abstract notion divorced from the issues that created feminist theory to begin with I mean if a man can be a 'mother' then what's the point? Its become some universal ethereal womahood that anyone can possess, I mean how can you have women's rights that concern women's bodies if there is no such thing as a woman's body? So I see feminism dying but I'm not the only one. Feminist Elinor Burkett wrote

"Do women and men have different brains? Back when Lawrence H. Summers was president of Harvard and suggested that they did, the reaction was swift and merciless. Pundits branded him sexist. Faculty members deemed him a troglodyte. Alumni withheld donations.But when Bruce Jenner said much the same thing in an April interview with Diane Sawyer, he was lionized for his bravery, even for his progressivism.

“My brain is much more female than it is male,” he told her, explaining how he knew that he was transgender.

This was the prelude to a new photo spread and interview in Vanity Fair that offered us a glimpse into Caitlyn Jenner’s idea of a woman: a cleavage-boosting corset, sultry poses, thick mascara and the prospect of regular “girls’ nights” of banter about hair and makeup. Ms. Jenner was greeted with even more thunderous applause. ESPN announced it would give Ms. Jenner an award for courage. President Obama also praised her. Not to be outdone, Chelsea Manning hopped on Ms. Jenner’s gender train on Twitter, gushing, “I am so much more aware of my emotions; much more sensitive emotionally (and physically).”

A part of me winced.

I have fought for many of my 68 years against efforts to put women — our brains, our hearts, our bodies, even our moods — into tidy boxes, to reduce us to hoary stereotypes. Suddenly, I find that many of the people I think of as being on my side — people who proudly call themselves progressive and fervently support the human need for self-determination — are buying into the notion that minor differences in male and female brains lead to major forks in the road and that some sort of gendered destiny is encoded in us.That’s the kind of nonsense that was used to repress women for centuries. But the desire to support people like Ms. Jenner and their journey toward their truest selves has strangely and unwittingly brought it back."https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html

Burkett was No Platformed for writing this article. For trying to protect woman's rights unwittingly made her a misogynist. She continues to say "The “I was born in the wrong body” rhetoric favored by other trans people doesn’t work any better and is just as offensive, reducing us to our collective breasts and vaginas. Imagine the reaction if a young white man suddenly declared that he was trapped in the wrong body and, after using chemicals to change his skin pigmentation and crocheting his hair into twists, expected to be embraced by the black community."

Culture historian and feminist Camille Paglia said in an interview "It is certainly ironic how liberals who posture as defenders of science when it comes to global warming (a sentimental myth unsupported by evidence) flee all reference to biology when it comes to gender. Biology has been programmatically excluded from women's studies and gender studies programs for almost 50 years now. Thus very few current gender studies professors and theorists, here and abroad, are intellectually or scientifically prepared to teach their subjects.The cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible. Every single cell of the human body remains coded with one's birth gender for life. Intersex ambiguities can occur, but they are developmental anomalies that represent a tiny proportion of all human births."

I'm inclined to agree with her.

I am SOO glad they are challenging what it means to be a woman and re-defining gender in so many ways. It sure beats the traditional view of women as just objects or property. Or men are all macho and deserve to overpower and control women. That narrow, boxed in identity is stifling, suffocating and paints people in a corner.

Why does this make you insecure or effect you?