No, I don't believe I have done so. If any of my statements read that way, it's by error on my part.
Some of the linked organizations I've been talking about are about as explicitly TERF as they get, places like LGB (no T, intentionally) alliance. They take an explicitly TERF viewpoint, in that they are feminist, pro-queer people that specifically exclude trans people in that ideology that is otherwise very accepting. I refer to them as TERFs. Again, TERFs are only a small subset of the larger anti-trans community, and a rather small subset at that. The largest group of anti trans people is probably your run of the mill reactionary conservative, the type of person who is also likely anti-gay and anti-abortion, etc.
Is there actually an "anti-trans community?"
I'm not being facetious, here. What I mostly see are individuals who disagree to various degrees with various assertions that come from trans-activists. I suppose there are some groups who have platforms that you could classify as anti-trans.
I suspect a lot of those groups arose, not due to animosity to trans-people, but because they perceived the priorities of their previous groups to be shifting towards trans-activism.
If I were a supporter/member of the National Heart Association, I want them to put their resources towards education, outreach, and research regarding heart disease. If they decided to focus a significant portion of their efforts towards researching liver disease, I might be unhappy and perhaps form another group that is specifically for heart disease and not liver disease. And I might resent the liver disease people for successfully hijacking the platform of the NHA.
So I ask you, is it OK to have a group that focuses exclusively on the concerns of biological women? Is it ok to have a group that only focuses on sexuality (lg or lgb) issues? If not, why is it unacceptable for an organization to have a narrow focus?
Evidence of this usually seems to boil down to screenshots of nobodies on Twitter. The "receipts" linked in this thread seems to be just a bunch of Twitter cranks. Social media is chock full of extremely noisy fringe groups, including TERFs and anti-lebsian trans people like you describe.
So...the bigots on one side are insignificant and the things they say should be ignored, but the bigots on the other side are significant and meaningful?
What you seem to not understand is that it's a matter of perspective. It doesn't matter what the issue is, one always considers the fringe nutjobs near their own side to be harmless cranks and not worth discussing, while at the same time thinking that the fringe nutjobs on the other side are problematic and the other side needs to address/disavow/ or do...something...about them.
Generally I wouldn't consider many of them worth much consideration. Unless I overlooked something, these fringe trans activists don't seem to have anything near the organization or reach of the TERF extremists. In the case of the Canadian TERF-run women's shelter, the group controlled a charity and was leading a campaign to challenge the now-passed pro-trans addition to Canadian civil rights law. They allowed their shelter to shut down rather than comply with trans-inclusive law. Or the more recent case of the UK TERFs advocating, successfully, for the state to prohibit trans-affirming medical care for consenting, under 16 year old patients. I'm not really seeing anything close to that level of power being wielded by the anti-lesbian trans extremists.
You don't watch YouTube much do you? There are a lot of channels devoted to this issue on YouTube, and they are very influential in influencing people's opinions. Unfortunately reasonable people don't draw hits. Novelty does. Outrageousness does. It's a world defined by shock jocks. Rational people are boring. (This is true for both sides.)
Even the mainstream media is tabloid media. Jessica Yaniv is a crank who gets attention because she's over the top outrageous. She's another sort of fringe in the trans community. The things she does make her visible and that visibility affects peoples opinions of the trans community (negatively).
My point is that loud voices, fringe or not, get heard and have influence. You can't really dismiss them without addressing them.
Is there anything equivalent from the anti-lebsian trans extremists you describe, or do they have little reach beyond their twitter screeds? You can see why I don't treat them as equally alarming, even if both are quite clearly bigoted in their ideology.
That's why I push back at the attempts for others on this thread to nutpick and try to smear all trans people by this fringe which, to my estimation, doesn't seem to amount to much more than twitter cranks harassing people on the web. That's repugnant, but doesn't really rise much above the general background level of bigotry that exists on social media and the wider web.
I wouldn't be surprised if many of the screenshotted examples are from accounts that are now banned from social media for violating anti-harassment policies. You won't see me bemoaning their absence, but there's no shortage of TERF defenders crying when bigoted trolls like Graham Linehan get the boot.
I don't think I've ever stated that anyone weighing in on the sex-segregated sports issue is a TERF. In fact, it's an issue that I'm still quite undecided myself and one that is quite tricky.
It is an issue in which the TERFs are very animated, as one small subset of those weighing in. I suspect they intend to use it as a wedge issue for the larger anti-trans agenda. Not all people opposing trans inclusion in sports are TERFs, but the TERFs are definitely very vocal on the issue.
People who want to engage on that issue is good faith should probably make it clear that bigots on their side are not welcome as allies. I would no sooner ally with a TERF on an issue than I would some fascist who happens to overlap in ideology about the evils of corporate power or whatever. Common cause with bigots always backfires.
Ok. But only if the reverse is also true.
If people who push back on some points of trans-activism must disavow their fringe, then those who argue for the trans positions should also have to make it clear that the bigots on
their side are unwelcome allies as well.
I mean, you wouldn't want to ally or make common cause with anti-lesbian bigots, would you?
Even if you think the TERFs hold the correct view on a certain issue, their broader, unwarranted animus towards trans people should be a dealbreaker.
And animus against lesbians who do not want to have sex with women with penises should also be a dealbreaker.
If one side must ostracize its bigots, then so must the other.
With all that said, notice that none of this position will be received and interpreted in good faith by some here, specifically Emily Cat, who will insist with this blatantly bad faith claims of "men trying to silence women". I have yet to receive a meaningful response to my point that queer people, including lesbian women, are supportive of trans rights. EC will try to claim trans women are just men trying to silence "real" women, meanwhile lesbian women vehemently disagree with these TERFs extremists trying to advocate bigotry in their name.
Emily has, in the course of these threads, made the observation that men and women are treated differently when they question some of the trans positions. I haven't been keeping score, so I can't say if she's right or wrong. But I recall she and I making essentially the same argument at one point where my point was addressed and hers dismissed. So I see where her viewpoint comes from.
The mistake you are making here is that you hear "women's opinions are dismissed," think it's absurd and dismiss it when you should be asking "Why does she feel that way?" That doesn't mean you have to agree with her points, but it does mean you should give them the respect of addressing them.
If she says "we need sex-segregated spaces," dismissing that as a bigoted position is not productive. What would be productive is why you believe they should be gender-segregated instead and listen, consider, and try to understand why she holds her position. (On that particular issue, you'll find that the reason has little to do with trans and everything to do with men. Arguing that trans-women aren't a threat isn't even addressing the issue. Find a way to include trans-women while addressing women's need of safety/privacy from men.)
