Epic WTF

One example I heard recently was relating to cervical smear tests. When encouraging people with cervixes (sic) to have a smear test it is common to encourage “women” to have them. This can be seen as transphobic, but unfortunately if your public health messaging is about cervixes and not women you risk (say) a somalian refugee whose english is poor from not receiving that message and dying of cancer as a direct result. Is the right of a refugee with poor english to receive public health messages more or less important that the right of a woman who happens not to be cis not to be offended by the implication that you need a cervix to be a woman?

I agree with you here. There has to be an element of logic applied and I personally wouldn't see this particular example (saying women should have smear tests) as transphobic. There are going to be nuances like this where the language doesn't fit everyone. In this case, the procedure is relevant to people who are biologically women, but just saying "women" can have different connotations. However, as you point out, going into the details could then disadvantage other people who don't understand. There's a line between equity and equality that needs to be considered. How you do everything right, is way above my pay grade.

surely very very few are "assigned" male (sex) at birth - the vast majority are recorded. A tiny tiny minority are "assigned" male by a mistaken doctor, when the truth is that they are not male, they are intersex.

I can't find the thing I read but the number was shocking to me. And how often it was a best guess. But not all transpeople were incorrectly sex assigned at birth. Their genitalia could have been clearly male or female. That doesn't matter. It's a contributor, sure, but transgender issues are more than that.

It seems to me that feminism has traditionally been about cis-women talking about and fighting for rights as people with XX chromosomes and vaginas. One of the most important rights that feminists have traditionally fought is the right to challenge [disgusting, patriarchal, damaging] society-imposed gender roles / stereotypes.

Because, traditionally, the only people considered women were people with XX chromosomes and vaginas.

If you are right, steveo, that trans-women are not seeking to align themselves with cis-women, then that makes the attempts of many trans-activists to silence "TERFs" even more wrong than I used to think.

My wording was obviously clumsy. I was trying to distinguish between gender identity and cultural identity.

You are effectively saying that the trans-community does not see itself as part of the cis-women community

They don't. They want the right to be able to identify as women, they are not saying they are cis-women. They are not trying to silence, bring down or in anyway harm women or feminism. And if you think that's what is happening (through your own interpretation or the clumsy wording of a middle class, white, cis-gendered man), then you are a TERF. Or are exhibiting TERF-like traits.

Can you point me to the feminists who do not believe that trans-people do not exist? Can you point me to the feminists who believe that some people deserve less rights than others? I always thought that feminism was about equal rights for men and women, and I'm pretty sure there was never a "but if you're not cis you can fuck off" caveat.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical

Do you agree with me that the term "TERF" implies that there is nothing relevant to cis-women but not trans-women that is worthy of discussion?

What? That's not why TERFs are problematic. They are not preserving the rights of AFAB people. The rights of AFAB people are not at risk when promoting the right of transpeople. Just in the way the rights of white people are not at risk when promoting Black people.

You can build someone up without having to tear someone down. Again, the key concept here is equity, not equality. You don't/shouldn't create a level playing field by lowering the bar. You bring everyone up to the same bar.

I've run out of analogies and you're clearly just looking for an argument, so I'm out.

You acknowledged upthread that the rights of a somalian cis-woman could be compromised by using language in a way designed to avoid causing offence to trans women.

I did. But I also said logic could be applied to make sure that somalian cis-woman wouldn't be compromised and that doing so wasn't transphobic, in my view.

it is you who are seeking to silence anyone who seeks to assert cis-womens rights

Nope, never did that. What I don't like are people discriminating against transpeople under the guise of feminism.

mainstream trans agenda

And there's your nub. It's like suburban mother's clutching their pearls because of the gay agenda in the 90's. There is no agenda, no conspiracy. Other than wanting people to be able to live their lives in dignity.

The mainstream view within the trans community that seems to suggest that cis-women expressing concerns that their rights could be harmed are dismissed as bigotry and attempted to be silenced.

Which rights are you referring to?

for women, it's there to give people who have been disadvantaged by biological sex and assigned gender a helping hand?

It would have nothing to do with their biological sex. Unless your scholarship entry requirements were based on a physical. It would be for anyone who identified as a woman, regardless of biology.

people who have had the privilege of being brought up male in male bodies

This description of transwomen says more about your attitude to transgender people than I think you realise.

The more you write the more you are almost verbatim describing transphobia.

You still haven't said what rights are taken away from cis-women by protecting transwomen.

Whoops, replied to the wrong post, sorry.

This description of transwomen says more about your attitude to transgender people than I think you realise.

Although I don't agree with everything @Ed.It-Profile has said, I think this is a pretty uncharitable reading of their comment. If you believe in male privilege then it follows that a trans-woman will have benefited from it until they transition. The disadvantages of being trans (e.g., distress with regard to their own body and the judgement associated with being non-gender-conforming) might well outweigh this, but those problems are really orthogonal to the overall picture of male privilege. I think that's part of the discussion here; that trans issues are different from sex-based issues and it doesn't serve the purpose of either of them particularly well to conflate the two.

That's why the scholarship issue is interesting. The hypothesis is that it is specifically to compensate for the disadvantage of biological female sex (although it's really arguable whether any such disadvantage exists in education, since girls outperform boys). You immediately fought that hypothesis and said that biological sex couldn't have anything to do with it and that it should be open to anyone who identified as a woman. I don't think trans-women are hoovering up all the women-only scholarships (or awards or medals), but if something were specifically set up to address an issue that was a result of being female, I can understand why some women would be put out by that being opened up to people who hadn't had to deal with that issue as a result of being male (or AMAB if you prefer).

There is no agenda, no conspiracy. Other than wanting people to be able to live their lives in dignity.

I think it's worth noting that this doesn't come across as straightforwardly as perhaps you think. It seems to me like a gun-rights advocate saying that "they just want everyone to be free to defend themselves." Of course that's true, nobody is anti-freedom (in the same way that nobody is anti-dignity), but that's not what they actually mean is it? What they mean is actually much more specific i.e., that everyone should be free to defend themselves with a gun. Your comments reflect a fairly commonly-heard view that "trans people should be able to live their lives in dignity and the only way that that can be achieved is through full legal and social recognition of their self-identified gender as the basis of their identification." You may be right on that, but it would be a lot easier to have a constructive discussion about the practicalities and possible problems of that if it were presented right up front.

I'd also be interested to know if you have any thoughts on my philosophical musings of the last page, as I'd really like to untangle that.

How is TERF "a term deliberately designed to insult and not just describe"? It literally describes what a terf is, a trans exclusive radical feminist.

Whoops, replied to the wrong post, sorry.

👍

I can think of a couple of more words that are insulting and make people assume you're a bigot. Racist, misogynist, facist. Most of these bigots don't like being called these terms either.

If someone describes someone as a TERF do you assume that they are a bigot? Would you be insulted if someone called you a bigot?

Strawman much?

Take it to the fridge.

Going back to the thing that kicked this all off - as a half white British, half mestizo Puerto Rican (I look like a tanned Englishman unless you put me next to a Puerto Rican and see the similarity), I have generally identified as Puerto Rican as much as British despite spending relatively little time there, mainly because people here were so bloody unwelcoming and frankly racist when I moved back here from (elsewhere) abroad at around 10. So I have a lot of sympathy for Anya Taylor-Joy when she says this:

“When I was younger I didn’t really feel like I fit in anywhere,” she said.

“I was too English to be Argentine, too Argentine to be English, too American to be anything.”

That’s pretty much how I felt. I’m a bit sad it hadn’t improved for her given my experience was twenty years earlier.

Quote is from here: https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/rising-star-anya-taylorjoy-i-fled-london-at-14-because-i-was-bullied-so-much-a3443781.html

Pretty amazing in this covid year things like this are still being funded

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/04/australian-scientist-gets-baby-fish-to-bust-a-move-to-mc-hammer-classic?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1614813315

In a way could be a win.

Calling someone a terf is not insulting them, it's calling them out for their beliefs. One of the biggest signs someone is a terf, is when they take offence to the term TERF.

That seems a little reductive. If I call you a cunt and you take offence does that prove you are a cunt?

People who take offence to the terms like terf or racist, fascist, misogynist etc usually are yes. I'm not saying that if someone calls you a terf and you disagree you are one. But if you have issues with the term itself, then yes it's definitely a red flag.

To be fair, I don't think @Ed.It-Profile qualifies as a radical feminist, since that is a term with a very specific meaning. As such calling him a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist is just incorrect on its face. It is slightly annoying that the term gets bandied about so much to describe people who critique trans-activist movements, since it only really describes a subset of those people. That kind of "lumping" does a very good job of polarising the debate.

One of the main reasons your point doesn't hold water imo is any quick scan of social media shows that TERF is thrown about as an insult. Fascist is probably used more frequently as hyperbole than as a genuine description. It seems disingenuous to try and claim neither aren't used to suppress debate (although that doesn't negate the possibility that sometimes there is value to shutting down debate).

If you took a sample of 1,000 Corbyn supporters and called them all anti-Semitic racists, I'm going to go out on a limb and say an incredibly high percentage would find that offensive, regardless of their feelings towards Jewish people.

@Ed.It-Profile - one thing I think you have missed or possibly not given enough weight to is that trans people have a unique experience in that debating their rights usually includes a debate about the reality of their very existence.

I'll repeat myself because my argument seems to not be clear enough. I'm not saying that TERF can't be used as an insult, but what i am saying is questioning the term itself is a pretty good signalling of someone who does seem to question trans womans rights to be included in feminism. Trans peoples humanity isn't up for debate when you ask me. When someone does so they are the ones who suppress a debate, not the people who call them out for being a TERF. I agree that the experiences of womanhood of trans womans are different to those from woman who have not transitioned. But that is no reason to exclude trans woman from feminism, if you do so your feminism isn't intersectional.

I'm not saying those 1,000 Corbyn supporters are actual anti-Semitic racists because they find it offensive to be called one. But when all those 1,000 Corbyn supporters would reply with how anti-semitic is a problematic term, you would probably scratch your head wouldn't you?

I went looking for this conversation to link it in this thread. Glad it’s not necessary.

From a quick google I doubt I'd disagree much with radical feminism

What about the ones in the 70s who viewed all hetro sex as rape due to the power constructs of society making consensual mf sex impossible?