TERFs crash London Pride

kellyb said:
The problem comes in when the "gender-non-conforming" label eclipses the meaningful, important part of someone's identity they lived their whole lives with.

My sense is that, for a lot of lesbians, being gender-nonconforming is a minor (and not even necessarily existing or embraced) part of their sense of self compared to being a lesbian.
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I'd actually suggest the opposite for Lister. She consciously chose to live her life in a way that was absolutely contrary to what was expected of a woman of her time and of her class. Whether that was because she was a lesbian or vice versa, we can't say. A straight woman of her time and of her class could have lived in precisely the same way, absent her lesbian relationships, and would be just as remarkable an individual in retrospect.
 
Information Analyst said:
I'd actually suggest the opposite for Lister. She consciously chose to live her life in a way that was absolutely contrary to what was expected of a woman of her time and of her class. Whether that was because she was a lesbian or vice versa, we can't say. A straight woman of her time and of her class could have lived in precisely the same way, absent her lesbian relationships, and would be just as remarkable an individual in retrospect.
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I don't necessarily disagree, but if she were alive to chime in, she might weigh in with the position that substituting gender non-conforming for lesbian is indeed "lesbian erasure" and be glad it was corrected.
 
kellyb said:
Well, unless the woman in question was concerned with lesbian erasure, which I do think is a real "thing" and not just anti-trans lesbians being hysterical.

Honestly, I kind of feel like I'm not necessarily qualified to make that sort of determination, not being a lesbian myself.
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I've not seen any evidence to support this is anything like a significant factor never mind a major thing. I know a lot of lesbians and its never ever come up apart from when discussing the claims that there is such a movement!

As I'll have said a few times, I'm old enough to remember the "L" being put into the likes of "The Gay Centre" we are not going to see the L disappear because of a handful of extremist nutters no matter how much social media and click baiting amplifies their voices.
 
kellyb said:
The problem comes in when the "gender-non-conforming" label eclipses the meaningful, important part of someone's identity they lived their whole lives with.

My sense is that, for a lot of lesbians, being gender-nonconforming is a minor (and not even necessarily existing or embraced) part of their sense of self compared to being a lesbian.
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One of the reasons she is an important historical figure is we have her own words and reading those one quickly learns that in our modern terms being "gender non conforming" was very important for her self-identity as was her sex life. As with all people she can't be reduced to a few words on a plaque, at best we can hope a well worded plaque will pique people's curiosity and they go on and learn more about her.
 
kellyb said:
I don't necessarily disagree, but if she were alive to chime in, she might weigh in with the position that substituting gender non-conforming for lesbian is indeed "lesbian erasure" and be glad it was corrected.
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Remember there has been no evidence presented that was the intent behind the wording. The claim it was an attempt of "lesbian erasure" has been based on absolutely nothing at all.
 
Darat said:
Remember there has been no evidence presented that was the intent behind the wording. The claim it was an attempt of "lesbian erasure" has been based on absolutely nothing at all.
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I don't think intent is necessarily the core issue. "Lesbian erasure" could be a real phenomenon and an effect, with absolutely no ill will or bad players behind it.
 
kellyb said:
I don't necessarily disagree, but if she were alive to chime in, she might weigh in with the position that substituting gender non-conforming for lesbian is indeed "lesbian erasure" and be glad it was corrected.
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That assumes that such a substitution actually took place. If Lister had been heterosexual, but otherwise lived exactly the same lifestyle, referring to her as "gender non-conforming" would still be aprpopriate, but nobody would be now quibbling about the almost-certain absence of "straight/heterosexual" from any plaque comemorating her.
 
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tyr_13 said:
As far as I know, there hasn't been any studies into the 'xir' style pronouns and I doubt there will be as that's an exceedingly rare demand. I have never in real life or online met someone who wanted to use those ones, and as the trans population is already very small, it would be effectively impossible to control for I would say.
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Online, preferred pronouns were a big deal at the A+ forums. People would list them in their signatures, and I think some were taken to task for not respecting them.

And I think that "latinx" is starting to replace "latino/a" in editorial style guides. I saw it in the wild, in a newspaper headline, the other day. I consider it a related phenomenon to preferred pronouns.
 
Information Analyst said:
That assumes that such a substitution actually took place. If Lister had been heterosexual, but otherwise lived exactly the same lifestyle, referring to her as "gender non-conforming" would still be aprpopriate, but nobody would be now quibbling about the almost-certain absence of "straight/heterosexual" from any plaque comemorating her.
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That's because basically no heterosexual women lives their lives with a strong sense of self-identity with the "gender non-conformer" label.

I'm about as gender non-conforming as women come, but because I'm straight, it's just a personal quirk and not some thing I have ever had to identify with.
 
kellyb said:
I don't think intent is necessarily the core issue. "Lesbian erasure" could be a real phenomenon and an effect, with absolutely no ill will or bad players behind it.
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Yet where is the evidence that this is actually happening?

Certainly trans-erasure is happening, when the radfem fringe along with many others in society are denying their very existence, and murders of transpeople rising precipitously in the last few years.

But that's an old strategy, accuse your victims of the abuses that you are committing against them, to justify your abuses.

ETA: Again, as many have noted earlier, there is no evidence of this "lesbian erasure". And, in fact, lesbians are the least "erased" and most socially-acceptable part of the LGBTQ spectrum. They face less discrimination than gay and particularly trans people, and are more readily accepted by the mainstream overculture (albeit most often from a titillated, male-gaze perspective, given that mainstream culture is more oriented to cis-het male gaze and preference).

kellyb said:
That's because basically no heterosexual women lives their lives with a strong sense of self-identity with the "gender non-conformer" label.
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Like all such sweeping generalities, this one is patently and demonstrably false. In fact, I have several such heterosexual friends/acquaintances who do strongly identify as gender non-conforming, and are outspoken opponents of societal enforcement of gender roles.

I'm about as gender non-conforming as women come, but because I'm straight, it's just a personal quirk and not some thing I have ever had to identify with.
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Argumentum ad ignorantium is a fallacy, as is argument from such a drastically-limited, self-selected sample size.
 
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kellyb said:
That's because basically no heterosexual women lives their lives with a strong sense of self-identity with the "gender non-conformer" label.
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I don't think that's at all true.

kellyb said:
I'm about as gender non-conforming as women come, but because I'm straight, it's just a personal quirk and not some thing I have ever had to identify with.
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Ah, then I think we have different ideas of what it means to strongly identify with something. I don't have a badge saying "gender non-conformer" and there isn't a ticky-box for it on anything I've dealt with, but if I look at what it means to be that, I go 'Oh, yeah, that's definitely me.' I would say that that IS a strong sense of self-identity - it's just that the label for it is new or previously unknown to me so I wouldn't have gone to a parade and got behind the "gender non-conformer" banner. I usually just parsed it as 'passes for butch lesbian.'

ETA: Oh yeah, as a kid I was definitely a card-carrying tomboy. Dirt! Bugs! The whole package. I distinctly remember telling other kids I was a tomboy.
 
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theprestige said:
This is a poe, right?

The word "tomboy" was coined for a reason, and not all tomboy girls grow out of it.
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No heterosexual women are saying they'd find it necessary for the word "tomboy" to be on their grave or plaque or whatever describing them. That aspect of ourselves is too ordinary and not a necessary collective identity for solidarity-building purposes.
 
JihadJane said:
Yes, let's give the silly women a pat on the head, I guess.

If a blue plaque was erected in Stephen Hawking's honour, would you think it "important to mention" that he was a physicist rather than, say, an "anti-creationalist" or would it need a petition to get the word "physicist" mentioned on the plaque?

Who else would want to relabel a 'lesbian' 'gender non-conforming'
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Umm. Christians? Especially the fundamentalist ones.

besides transgender activists and their flying monkeys?
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In general, transgender activists (and even the ones who aren't activists) would find no problem with the term, and wouldn't object to it being applied to themselves.

They certainly wouldn't consider it to be a pejorative reference. Or demeaning in any way.

I'm not sure what flying monkeys you are referring to. I think that your hate is showing.
 
luchog said:
Yet where is the evidence that this is actually happening?

Certainly trans-erasure is happening, when the radfem fringe along with many others in society are denying their very existence, and murders of transpeople rising precipitously in the last few years.

But that's an old strategy, accuse your victims of the abuses that you are committing against them, to justify your abuses.

ETA: Again, as many have noted earlier, there is no evidence of this "lesbian erasure". And, in fact, lesbians are the least "erased" and most socially-acceptable part of the LGBTQ spectrum. They face less discrimination than gay and particularly trans people, and are more readily accepted by the mainstream overculture
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Unless, of course, they are transgender lesbians. In which case they are the lowest, most vile, most heinous of sexual and social criminals.

At least, that's the way that trans-hating, extremist feminists want them to be portrayed.
 
luchog said:
Yet where is the evidence that this is actually happening?

Certainly trans-erasure is happening, when the radfem fringe along with many others in society are denying their very existence, and murders of transpeople rising precipitously in the last few years.
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Evidence?

Most murders of transpeople happen because they work in the sex trade, not because they are transexual. Compared to real women, transwomen's murder rates are low.
 
Rolfe said:
https://fairplayforwomen.com/trans-murder-rates/
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Do you happen to have an unbiased source that does not use cherry-picked and manipulated? No, I thought not. Just anti-trans hate sites. Do you consult Stormfront for your information on race relations and civil rights?

Lots of misleadingly-associated data in those graphs and the article; and I notice that it conveniently ignores the fact that in many jurisdictions, transpersons are misgendered by reporting agencies, so the stats we do have demonstrate a substantial underreporting of the actual murder rates.

Further, it ignores the fact that the murder of transpersons has risen precipitously in the last few years, with each year worse than the last.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/us/transgender-women-killed.html

But keep posting that anti-trans propaganda, it just continues to illustrate to all and sundry your own rabid bigotry, as you engage in exactly the sort of erasure that you're so hot to accuse transpersons of.
 
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