Ironhide wrote:I'm a straight guy who doesn't know any LGBT people but I really do find it incomprehensible that people can feel genuinely threatened by someone just because they don't identify as the gender they "should" be, especially when they themselves frequently face prejudice.
I would imagine it's similar to why so many second wave feminists (but not all!) become TERFs - second wave’s focus was on women (not exclusively but as good as) changing the way society thought about women, and they believe that shouldn't include Trans as that isn't reflective of the “true” experience of women.
There's also a strong undercurrent that the best source of knowledge is experience. And it's largely binary - women and men. Oppressed and Oppressor.
If you or I stood up for trans rights against them that would be a man attacking them. Women (subtext 'like me') should define women's safe space.
It's cis feminists telling (trans)woman that they do not have that shared experience that almost defines what it is to be. That cis women were (in the 2nd wave) and still are discriminated against based on biological sex, and if you don't have that you're not a woman. A person needs to be socialized (with an undertow of "in a certain way") as a gender in order to actually be that gender. In there eyes if anyone can be a woman, then no one is a woman because it means nothing.
And often socialised in a certain way to have the "correct" experience of being a woman. There's a lot in there but TERF ideology/2nd wave feminism tends to elevate the cis (and usually white, mostly straight) experience of womanhood as the "gold standard" - if you don't have that experience you're not in the club.
There's a reason so many TERFS are concerned with trans(women) and not trans(males). They're not concerned with trans rights - they're actually transmisogynistic (If that's a word)
They're concerned that people without that "shared identity" (in this case trans women) are not “real women” and therefore should not have a voice in female focused discussions, or benefit from the rights women have fought so hard for. (The worst case in were the TERF thinks their wilful infiltrators bring down women obtained benefits - but they're rare.). Transmales don't threaten that so aren't even on the radar.
This "We are women" thing is why people calling out TERFs are often accused of misogyny.
There's sometimes also an sensing they're fighting against a perceived unfairness "If you've been a man, you're part of the patriarchy, and you've had years of privilege. So you've put on a dress. You're not a women. You've not suffered for years. You've not earned it like us. You can't have years in the special club and then take our few special bits on whim"
In can see bits of this focused on in the splintering of feminism in the 1960s- 1980s over race issues. 2nd wave feminist was could be (
very simply) characteristed as middle class housewife's fighting for the right to work. Black women (mostly) never had that problem...and they didn't get support for their issues. 2nd wave feminism has often not been an ally to the similarly disadvantaged - but focused on correcting specific (and to be fair/clear) real issues.
There's a reason you can (often) say "If they weren't women, TERFs wouldn't be feminists". They focus on their problems.
You don't tend to get many third or fourth wave feminists focused on it - there's a lot more intersectionality there.
Second wavers also tend to (obviously be) older - so there's an element of "you weren't there, you didn't see our struggle fight" which again come back to identity defined by oppression and having to be "socialised" in the right way to have a valid view on the female gender.
TERFs have fought against men for so long (And to be fair they had) for rights. They think they're still fighting against men now. I expect I come off rather negative about them, and 2nd wave in general above, but they kinda of had to be. The problem isn't what they were - they problem is what they still are. The fights changed (although the oppression's still there). Look for allies rather resorting to the previous binary essentialism that defined that fight. But in the end there are still actively working against marginalised groups with high violence/suicide rates so strawberry float them
Sorry that was a bit (lol) rumbly for 1am (And I'll have certainly dropped at least 1 clunker talking about complex issues at that time) but the same "You haven't suffered as we have, so you're not us" will be behind the people I'm thinking - do you have any specific examples?