Transwomen are not women - X (XY?)

[d4m10n]

TERF was coined as an insult, from the start, by the people doing the insulting.

I am skeptical of this claim, given what little I've read on how the term originated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF#Origin



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[Rolfe]

This, in a nutshell.

Basically, what they want is our things. The prison situation is actually a case in point. The first case where a transitioning man petitioned to be moved to the female estate, although it was partly about allowing him to "live as a woman" for the purposes of getting him a GRC, that could have been done by supplying him with the necessary bits and bobs in the male estate- it would just have been more difficult logistically.

The reasons for moving him were partly to make it simpler to supply him with the bits and bobs he wanted for his "feminine" lifestyle, but also, and this was a big consideration, to allow him contact with and association with women. Because this was deemed to be helpful for his transition.

Nobody asked the women. Well, why would they? These were incarcerated women. Except the prison staff, but they were employees, nobody asked them either. Nobody even considered what the effect on the women and the women's estate might be, not just of this bloke being there, but of setting a precedent that was guaranteed to see more blokes with lady-feels demand to be accommodated. It's always just about the trans person, what's best for him. Women are just supposed to put up with it.

They want our stuff, and when authorities are making decisions about this, the last thing that occurs to them is that granting the request/demand will deprive women of something.

 

[Rolfe]

And just going on in the same vein, they want all our stuff. They want everything we've got, and we mustn't have anything they can't have. If we heave a sigh and say, OK you can have that (say) lesbian dating app which you've now made mixed-sex/heterosexual, we're going to set up another one in parallel for women-only, they scream to high heaven that that's exclusionary, discriminatory and transphobic. It's not allowed and they will stop it!

If a venue says OK, we understand your concerns, you don't want to use the men's facilities. Here is a dedicated trans-only space all for you! They moan and complain that that's still discriminatory and exclusionary and transphobic. We're women, we shouldn't be forced to use this other space! The best excuse they dreamed up for that was that it would out them as trans if they had to use that space. Which is of course nonsense. If a transwoman can only be seen to be a transwoman because he goes to the unisex facilities, he actually doesn't have to - nobody will know if he uses the women's! The people who make that argument are obviously men in dresses, no outing required.

It's all about the AGP, and the sexual thrill of being in the female space, being part of the women's mysteries. And most women, once they realise this, do not want to be props for the public performance of their fetishes.

 

[Rolfe]

And here we go again.

Man Who Identifies as Transgender Files Legal Complaint Against Korean Sauna After Being Denied Access To Nude Women’s Space

To summarise, this bloke who runs some sort of gym and teaches an Eastern martial art, a former military man, has decided he's trans. He goes to a Korean spa which has compulsory nudity in the bathhouse areas, which are sex segregated. He is given a ticket for the men's section. He kicks up merry hell. He is told that he can go in the areas where clothes are worn, but no, he wants the naked area, and he wants the women's facility. (There is a suggestion that if he had had full "bottom surgery" they might have let him in.) So he's suing them for "economic loss, humiliation, mental pain and suffering."

He says also that he'll go to a different spa, which has a fully trans-inclusive policy and even warns people not to say anything if they see someone in the "wrong" area. The female patrons of that spa are up in arms saying they won't go back.

This is getting more and more common. A lot will depend on the law in the location in question, but whatever it is, this has to be stopped. There is nothing that trans-identified men are suffering that justfies allowing any man at all to insist on being naked in a public facility designated for women to be naked.

Oh yes. Like all the others in cases like this, trawling his record and his social media reveals porn, hypersexualisation and kink.

 

[Rolfe]

Your midnight check-in on the petition reports 78,372 signatures, so 502 new signatures today. It's certainly picked up again, perhaps because of last night's BBC Question Time where "India" Willoughby made such a fool of himself. He yelled that he was a biological woman, and then asked, "supposing I was raped, which prison would you put me in?" Yes, you did read that right.

The new magic number is 284.6.

 

[Rolfe]

Someone (Darat?) was insisting a while back that no female prison officer would be made to do an intimate search on a male prisoner.

https://twitter.com/NoXYinXXprisons/status/1621647990443151360

The newspaper front page (dated tomorrow) is only available as an image as yet, but it is a photo of the dreaded Andrew Burns a.k.a. "Tiffany Scott". The strap at the top reads "EXCLUSIVE: PRISON GUARDS HIT OUT". The large headline reads "TRANS STRIP SEARCH FURY". The subheading reads "Female prison officers' anger after they are ordered to conduct intimate examinations of violent prisoner Tiffany Scott."

What can be read of the start of the story reads "Female prison officers have to carry out strip searches of violent trans convict Tiffany Scott. They have been doing the searches since the gender identity of Scott - formerly Andrew Burns - changed. One officer said, "Nothing has changed physically, she still has the same male parts." Full story pages 4 and 5.

Can we please put this to bed. This is happening and has been happening for some time. Even though Burns is in a male prison he is still managing to abuse women, because his "gender identity" means that he can insist on being strip-searched by female prison officers. This is absolutely outrageous and these women are victims just as much as the women in Cornton Vale who have to shower in the presence of these creeps.

 

[Stout]

Another question that has been exercising me is, now that anybody can marry anybody else and the pension age has been equalised (or I think it has), what real benefit is there to a man to having his legal sex changed? And I mean sensible benefits, not simple appropriation of things that are women's on account of their being women?

It's all about me, and I mean it's all about me personally. The extremely good looking and well dressed guy out on the prowl looking for some action in the disco bar. She catches my eye, I buy her drinks then whisk her off to my penthouse only to discover...she has an outie, not an innie.

I'm not supposed to have any sort of problem with otherwise I'm a horrible person, a terrible human being plagued with all sorts of phobias. But that's OK. I've learned to live with myself.

 

[Sherkeu]

And here we go again.

Man Who Identifies as Transgender Files Legal Complaint Against Korean Sauna After Being Denied Access To Nude Women’s Space

To summarise, this bloke who runs some sort of gym and teaches an Eastern martial art, a former military man, has decided he's trans. He goes to a Korean spa which has compulsory nudity in the bathhouse areas, which are sex segregated. He is given a ticket for the men's section. He kicks up merry hell. He is told that he can go in the areas where clothes are worn, but no, he wants the naked area, and he wants the women's facility. (There is a suggestion that if he had had full "bottom surgery" they might have let him in.) So he's suing them for "economic loss, humiliation, mental pain and suffering."

He says also that he'll go to a different spa, which has a fully trans-inclusive policy and even warns people not to say anything if they see someone in the "wrong" area. The female patrons of that spa are up in arms saying they won't go back.

This is getting more and more common. A lot will depend on the law in the location in question, but whatever it is, this has to be stopped. There is nothing that trans-identified men are suffering that justfies allowing any man at all to insist on being naked in a public facility designated for women to be naked.

Oh yes. Like all the others in cases like this, trawling his record and his social media reveals porn, hypersexualisation and kink.

If people don't understand the whole "Korean Spa" thing, let me tell you that going into the pool without being naked, AND not having showered, washed, and scrubbed off any bit of toilet remnant, including things on the inside is seen as verboten before entering communal baths. Clothes are seen as dirty.
Males, and all their genitalia, are not welcome. Grandmothers and small girls are welcome.

 

[novaphile]

Regarding TERF as a deliberately coined insult...

I doubt that most people would consider me to be a feminist, at best I could be described as an egalitarian.

I have met, socialised with, and worked with radical feminists (of various factions) and can quite confidently state that I would not be welcome within their ranks.

To paint everyone that doesn't think that intact males should be allowed into female-only segregated spaces, as a radical feminist, is clearly intended to be a put down.

And, by the way, I think I started as a bit of a fence sitter on this topic, because I've also known a couple of men who lived and worked as women.

But since reading this topic, especially the input from LondonJohn, I've firmly come down on the 'keep the bits in their own rooms', side.

Note, as an egalitarian, I'm more than happy for people to wear any clothes that they want to wear, to date and sleep with any willing partners they like, and for people to be paid the same for the same work, and of course to perform any job that they have the skills to perform.

But nude men hanging around inside the female showers/changing rooms... Just no.

 

[Ziggurat]

I am skeptical of this claim, given what little I've read on how the term originated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF#Origin

Nothing about that makes me think I'm wrong. From that account, the term was coined to describe other people with whom the coiner disagreed. And while that page has the claim that is was "technically neutral", that's a fig leaf. "Exclusionary" isn't actually neutral, regardless of technicalities.

Contrast this with a term like "social justice warrior", which has acquired negative connotation, but it started as a complimentary self-descriptor. TERF was never meant as a compliment, it was not a self description, it was always meant to describe an out group.

 

[d4m10n]

Nothing about that makes me think I'm wrong. From that account, the term was coined to describe other people with whom the coiner disagreed.

Disagreement is not the same as insult. ISF encourages the former, not the latter.

And while that page has the claim that is was "technically neutral", that's a fig leaf. "Exclusionary" isn't actually neutral, regardless of technicalities.

If I were to say World Rugby is currently exclusionary of males in the women's leagues, would that be a neutral description or a biased description?

TERF was never meant as a compliment, it was not a self description, it was always meant to describe an out group.

It is possible to describe out-groups without being insulting about it. I describe people of faith using their preferred nomenclature instead of the usual insulting shorthand used by my fellow atheists.

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[Nick Terry]

This was a good long piece by Ian Leslie, obviously starting with Sturgeon and the double rapist, taking a more conciliatory line in some respects, but still rejecting the intrusion of trans women into single sex spaces.

Death Of A Slogan
Why 'Trans Women Are Women' Created More Problems Than It Solved
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/death-of-a-slogan

In one sense, the slogan ‘trans women are women’ (TWAW) has been remarkably successful. The trans rights cause has made much progress over the last twenty years, in the US and UK. TWAW has played an important role in establishing the ground rules for public discussion of gender identity. But it’s also true that the discussion has been virulent, cacophonous and confusing, and that this is in large part caused by TWAW, which is fatally ambiguous, both true and not true.

In late 2016, as the Prime Minister, Theresa May, struggled to corral her divided party and parliament into agreeing on an exit from the EU, she adopted the slogan, “Brexit means Brexit”. It was used as an argument-clincher, a question-swatter, a critic-scarer. It sounded firm, strong, bracingly clear. In a way, it was unarguable - what else could Brexit mean? But it was also an obfuscation which occluded the whole substance of the debate: which kind of Brexit the country should pursue. Of course, that was the point.

“Trans women are women” is true in the sense that trans women should be treated as we treat women wherever possible; in the sense that we should respect the sensitivities of anyone who identifies as such. But it passes over and obscures the question of what kind of woman is a trans woman - that’s to say, what are the meaningful differences between trans women and female-born women, and what do those differences imply for how we organise society. It suggests a perfect identity between two categories which only overlap.

Trans women are not women in the sense that biological women are, because trans women are not born with female anatomy, are not spared male pubescence, and consequently have significantly different physical and social capacities and formative experiences. These differences needn’t always be considered definitive or even important; in most contexts, trans women are women. But in others, the differences absolutely matter - as Nicola Sturgeon is discovering. On Thursday, she said in parliament that she didn’t have “enough information” to say if Adam Graham, who has raped two women with his penis, is a woman or a man. All she could manage is that “a rapist should be considered a rapist”. TWAW is an evasive tautology that breeds evasive tautologies.

 

[Lplus]

Regarding TERF as an insult, what should be the term for a non radical feminist who would exclude transwomen from females' private spaces?

As a Cisgender Heterosexual male, I'll assume I would be described as a TECH.

And cis doesn't faze me at all - I'm biologically male and my gender is generally masculine, so I don't care if it's meant as an insult - I'll take it as a simple fact and give the insulter the bird.

 

[Rolfe]

People who are in the dominant, privileged group often shrug off insults, or fail to understand why people in the underclass group perceive them as insults.

It was ever thus.

 

[Rolfe]

This was a good long piece by Ian Leslie, obviously starting with Sturgeon and the double rapist, taking a more conciliatory line in some respects, but still rejecting the intrusion of trans women into single sex spaces.

Death Of A Slogan
Why 'Trans Women Are Women' Created More Problems Than It Solved
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/death-of-a-slogan

That really is brilliant. I'll probably come back with more to say about it later. (Right now I have ten pages of polyphonic music to edit that I need to get back to our conductor later today, so see you later.)

 

[Francesca R]

I think that the person who was distressed was the woman who ran from the ladies' toilet because she was confronted by a man in a dress.

I agree, and apparently I said so at the time too. She has a legit complaint in my view. She was not, however, identified in any way in the tweets, nor do we know anything about what became of her apart from leaving the loo.

Nobody can be hounded off Twitter. It's trivially easy to block any account you don't want to see, or mute an entire thread, or simply set your account to private for a bit. Or all of the above. This performative "oh poor me I feel unsafe because someone has criticised me" schtick is something we see from the trans side all the time.

This reads like you would tell the many gender critical women who take a stand (against misogynistic trans rights activism) and are subsequently inundated with rape threats and death threats, to go and grow a pair. Since I don't believe you would do that, drop your brazen double standard.

Someone who has the (literal) balls to put on a dress, heels and a wig and go prancing into women's single-sex spaces is not going to be reaching for the smelling salts because of things he reads on Twitter.

That pre-assumes the person is an intentionally predatory male and nothing else, therefore "he" should do one and can't complain. It's circular rationalisation on your part.

 

[Francesca R]

I am skeptical of this claim, given what little I've read on how the term originated.

Apparently (your link) TERF was coined by a cis woman. I would naturally agree with you if that's correct, that it was very likely not made up as an insult.

It is strange nonetheless to come up with a trans-exclusionary label that would overwhelmingly apply to (cis) women, and not to men. What's Donald Trump? A trans exclusionary radical misogynist? Is his ilk so rare and, erm, to quote LondonJohn nowhere near the levers of power, . . . apart from being leader of the free world for a bit . . . . . that no category label is needed?

I wouldn't mind betting that TERF is predominantly used by biological males mostly these days. And the observation that the term that has thrived is one focused overwhelmingly on female people--they are the ones that trans activism needs to march into combat with, let's face it--speaks volumes about the nature of its use today an insult.

 

[lionking]

I wouldn't mind betting that TERF is predominantly used by biological males mostly these days. And the observation that the term that has thrived is one focused overwhelmingly on female people--they are the ones that trans activism needs to march into combat with, let's face it--speaks volumes about the nature of its use today an insult.

Not to mention the “Kill a TERF” banners brandished at TRA rallies.

 

[HansMustermann]

Honest question: do you "woke" clowns even realize how ridiculous you are when trying to tell an actual trans (at one point) how he/she/it should feel and think about trans issues?

Because, for better or worse, I actually was a trans-girl at one point. (Or arguably "transed.)

You weren't.

Do you even have ANY idea of what the actual issues an actual trans faces? Like, what it's like to actually go to the high school principal and demand to play basketball with the girls instead of football with the boys? Or to, honest to god, go demand to get a mammogram like the rest of the girls? (Yeah, so I may have gone overboard a bit)

No, I don't think you do. But somehow you feel secure in patting yourselves on the back for being so 'progressive' bleating to me about it.

Yah, in spite of that, some of you "woke" clowns feel entitled to tell me how I should feel about it, and what a reactionary I am if I don't let you tell me what I should think.

That's not being an ally. That's the 18'th century "mission to civilize" mind set, where you're the superior race, and I'm the one who should be 'civilized' by you superior folks. It's that much being a stupid wanker, feeding your ego at the expense of those you're supposedly 'protecting' from themselves.

No, you're not 'progressive', or anything else you tell yourselves to prevent realizing how much of a waste of oxygen loser you are. You're the epitome of an entitled wanker exercising their entitlement.

 

[d4m10n]

Apparently (your link) TERF was coined by a cis woman. I would naturally agree with you if that's correct, that it was very likely not made up as an insult.

I'd venture to guess that whatever term had been invented, it would've become an insult eventually.