Neo Cortex wrote:The "Right wingers against trans" or whatever they are make me laugh.
Aside from the harm they can cause to trans or vulnerable people they don't make me laugh, they make me feel sad. Sad for the TERFs themselves. In general I define transphobia as "gender criticism minus the empathy", it is ok to have concerns but you should to be kind in airing them.
Transphobia is not acceptable, but I infer cis female TERFs (or more radical feminists in general) have often been hurt by men (for example JK Rowling is a survivor of domestic abuse), which sadly may inform their views. TERFs supposedly believe in "biological gender" and oppose trans inclusion as they see it "men" invading female spaces. Such TERFs [understandably in the case of abuse survivors] are more "anti-men" than other feminists. TERFS include trans-women in their anti-men stance as they do not see trans-women as women.
Being a cis-male TERF [CMT] must be awfully lonely. In the case of the type of female TERF I mentioned above, I presume they would dislike the CMT; moreover, TERF are unwelcome by actual feminists. There seems to be a subset of CMT who are fallen left leaning people (Graham Lineham) - TERF arguments aren't finding roots in their [supposed] ideological allies (the left, non-radical feminists) but rather the people who generally agree them would be right-wing anti-women types. Like, I say it must be lonely.
Then of course there are extremely unpleasant TERFs whose ideology is built around being mean to trans people.
Neo Cortex wrote:They genuinely think that men are only doing it to sneak into women's toilets. Completely disregarding that that isn't the only type of trans person, like female to male doesn't exist. And if it does you are a SICK PERVERT.
I think we should move away from the following arguments
1) Enforcing traditional sex division would mean this passing trans man would have to use/compete in (whatever) womens spaces - ha cis women wouldn't feel safe then either
Whilst ideological inconsistent on the part of the TERF, lets not pretend we don't know all the "concern" is around trans-women in women spaces not the inverse. I think very few people are concerned [from a fairness or safety stance] about trans men in male spaces. Pretending otherwise whilst maybe "satisfying to own the TERFs" is unhelpful and does nothing to alleviate real or manufactured "concerns" around the practicality of self-ID of trans-women in womens spaces.
2) Dismissing cis-womens safety concerns as illogical [e.g. a male inclined to cause harm to women would be unincumbered by which toilet they are allowed in]Re. "sneaking into womens toilets", it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that someone with ill intent could feel embolden by all this. I'm not a feminist but this is one area we should defer to cis-womens authority within reason. I would like women to be comfortable in affirming their own boundaries and whether or not they feel safe and/or comfortable - I wouldn't counter eitherway in this scenario. I worry there is a liberal pressure on women not to voice concerns - I hope I am mistaken.
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