1) I DEMAND #transrights . Instead, tragically we have trans rights conflated with a ‘right’ to minimise or obliterate the reality of biological sex instead of a fight for equality, freedom from violence & discrimination, to proper services & a real fight vs systemic transphobia
2) Instead of targeting forces reproducing/policing the gender role oppression that underpins transphobia (clue-it isn’t feminists) we’re in effect told there’s a ‘right’ to throw biological science into the trash and remove entirely from women the right to define their own sex.
3) In practice there’s also by virtue of the demonisation, harassment & marginalisation of women with a shred of independence from the priorities of this campaign, a de facto removal of a legitimate, long established right as a sex to organise their own defence against sexism.
4) History will indeed be a savage judge of those who undermine women’s rights & simultaneously, the basis for a real fight against transphobia & for equality. Tied as it is to the overthrow of gender roles, that will only be possible in voluntary unity and solidarity with women.
5) It will certainly never come from a marriage forced upon women without their consent. No, the inherent sexism of the self identity campaign is not in my name as a proud transwoman. Socialists must recognise that there are TWO oppressed groups involved here.
6) Trans peoples interests will be far better served by a debate which seeks to value BOTH groups equally without extinguishing anyone’s autonomous rights & which seeks consent for access to women’s spaces, NOT in effect telling women to shut up & submit or be abused as bigots.
7). Women & trans people could be huge & powerful mutual allies fighting our oppression but the self-ID campaign is entrenching a permanent war with women. It’s incapable of building the unity & mutual respect which underpins the lifeblood of our movement, democracy & solidarity
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@parislees 1)This illustrates much of what’s wrong with trans activism atm. Instead of targeting toxic masculinity, male violence & a male dominated economic system whose employment practices, tabloid scapegoating & priorities oppress us, it’s women (themselves oppressed) who are targeted.
@parislees 2) We’re not stigmatised because people understand the validity of sex and that you can’t fundamentally change it. That’s just a biological fact, not hate. No, we’re stigmatised & discriminated against as transwomen and transmen because
@parislees 3) successive conservative, political and religious elites & their right wing supporters in the media, politics & culture perpetuate harmful gender norms & the idea that gender non conformity is deviance, perversion, even sickness.
1) It’s surreal & frightening to see people who’ve never attended wpuk public meetings, tripping over themselves to declare it as a violent hate group. In their haste they show deliberate ignorance, perhaps even their own projected hatred of women who refuse to know their place.
2) We have a word for that but I fear there is little point in trading insults, we need to raise the level of discourse. In their movements’ jaundiced rush to demonise women who are merely trying to peacefully & democratically discuss changes which directly affect them,
3) they show absolutely no concern for women’s opinions or even their right to have one which differs from their own. It is shameful. There is no acknowledgement of the history of many of the leading women at @Womans_Place_UK as fighters against all forms of discrimination.
2) & young people. The very act of being more true to your own personality even if conflated with sex often risks losing everything, family, friends, sometimes the chance of a job or a partner. It requires enormous courage just to face all or part of that depending on your.
3) circumstances. Another issue for GNC kids in our culture is the constant message, implicit & explicit that masculinity is only attractive & legitimate in boys and femininity only attractive & legitimate in girls. We also have a lack of role models.
I don’t need validation. I KNOW I’m not a woman. Neither did I freely choose this path. Now that I have & almost literally cut off other possibilities there are certain realities to my life. Social relationships are real & women do exist in a broad but distinct social reality
You can dismiss that as stereotypes but I conform less to female stereotypes than most women do. Even Julia is not immune to the social norms, pressures & context in which we live. No-one is, that’s an impossibility. We are a social species & we conform to some norms that help
us to navigate society. I was unable to fit into the social reality of men because of how oppressive, menacing & isolating it was. Yet we still live in a deeply binary world in which people like me, a tiny minority still have to live day to day.