I'm sorry, Aunt Lydia.darynluna wrote:There's nothing radical or feminist about trans erasure. Being a TERF is just conservatism and ignorance in disguise.
So, what should I expect?
Call me Celina. This forum still have a long way to go until it gets filled with its intended public. And I'll do my best to help us reach that goal. I'm a battleaxe, and when you hear my voice it'll be as loud as a thunder and as clear as a blue sky.
I never participated in the other forum, though I've been following this comic almost since the beginning. I've absolutely loved the current direction and shared it with a lot of my friends as a great example of a feminist webcomic. I have a Sinfest comic as the background on my desktop right now. So when I read there was a forum for people who liked the comic's message and wanted to talk about it I signed up, hoping to find some like-minded people.
And then I read this thread. I can't tell you how devastating it is to see the creator of this comic I love telling transgender women that they shouldn't be concerned about whether they're welcomed here. Tatsuya completely ignored the anti-trans post right above his when telling Razlynne to get out because of her "inflammatory rhetoric."
What's more, I really don't understand this viewpoint. It's a poor discussion about getting rid of porn or prostitution or sex trafficking if you don't welcome transgender people and their viewpoints. Trans women are frequently arrested for "walking while trans" because cops assume they are prostitutes: https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/when-wal ... crime.html
The extremely high rate of homelessness among LGBT youth leads all of them, including trans people, to be at a higher risk of falling into prostitution or sex trafficking: https://polarisproject.org/blog/2017/03 ... rafficking; https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/fs/2017/272724.htm.
Clearly you don't have to menstruate to be forced into prostitution or arrested for it, and I thought that's what this forum was about.
I could go on and on making well-reasoned arguments with citations about why excluding trans people from any version of feminism is dumb, but that's not why I'm writing this post. I'm writing it because I am disappointed beyond words with Tatsuya and the apparent values of this forum. I'm writing it because I believe in speaking out for marginalized communities, even in communities I otherwise agree with.
I am not coming back to this forum. I may not be coming back to the comic. I say this as a statement of fact and not a threat since I'm sure one person leaving isn't really going to matter. But I couldn't leave without saying why I am leaving because trans people deserve the support and respect and solidarity of all feminists.
And then I read this thread. I can't tell you how devastating it is to see the creator of this comic I love telling transgender women that they shouldn't be concerned about whether they're welcomed here. Tatsuya completely ignored the anti-trans post right above his when telling Razlynne to get out because of her "inflammatory rhetoric."
What's more, I really don't understand this viewpoint. It's a poor discussion about getting rid of porn or prostitution or sex trafficking if you don't welcome transgender people and their viewpoints. Trans women are frequently arrested for "walking while trans" because cops assume they are prostitutes: https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/when-wal ... crime.html
The extremely high rate of homelessness among LGBT youth leads all of them, including trans people, to be at a higher risk of falling into prostitution or sex trafficking: https://polarisproject.org/blog/2017/03 ... rafficking; https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/fs/2017/272724.htm.
Clearly you don't have to menstruate to be forced into prostitution or arrested for it, and I thought that's what this forum was about.
I could go on and on making well-reasoned arguments with citations about why excluding trans people from any version of feminism is dumb, but that's not why I'm writing this post. I'm writing it because I am disappointed beyond words with Tatsuya and the apparent values of this forum. I'm writing it because I believe in speaking out for marginalized communities, even in communities I otherwise agree with.
I am not coming back to this forum. I may not be coming back to the comic. I say this as a statement of fact and not a threat since I'm sure one person leaving isn't really going to matter. But I couldn't leave without saying why I am leaving because trans people deserve the support and respect and solidarity of all feminists.
As you may already know, terms like 'Terf' and 'Swerf' are not only misleading, but are generally considered to be hateful/slurs and silencing labels. Most radical feminism is quite welcoming of trans-identified females, as well as being a resource for de-transitioners. Being anti-porn/anti-prostitution is no more against the prostituted than anti-child labor is against children.There's nothing radical or feminist about trans erasure. Being a TERF is just conservatism and ignorance in disguise.
Disagreement isn't violence. Violence is violence. And male violence in particular is a huge problem. There are transgender individuals who count themselves as being radically feminist. If someone is in this forum to speak from a radical feminist perspective about the comic and its message, I don't know that it matters what one's gender identity is.
I'm not trying to speak for Tatsuya, of course. But this is my feeling.
"Because as we all know... there is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself!" -Hannah Gadsby
Too bad sadwaffle left, those were some good points on how the sex industry does affect male human beings, especifically transgender ones. The thing is, I did not say that wasn't also their concern, I said feminism is not about them.
Just because we are not focusing on a small percent of the people that are harmed by the sex industry - the majority being female human beings - that does not MEAN that we are pretending that doesn't exist. But transgender males, a.k.a. trans women, which is not a derogatory term, is just a simple observation, are not the focus of Feminism. Try to understand, that's not erasing, that's just what being a focused social movement means.
Female human beings are the focus on feminist politics, or at least we should be, and we are also know as women, or "cis" women if you really need that much of an accomodation in language. It's not supposed to be so... complicated.
Ray asked what she shoud expect community wise, and, at least my posture is: don't expect to be the focus here, cause I'm sure not focusing on males.
I'm not here to be silenced for my vocabulary, or to be pushed around - and we KNOW how trans women often push around radical feminists when we decide to share the same space. And it's basically because of "linguistics". Well, I mean no disrespect, but I ain't having none of that.
If anyone think it's heretic to call a trans woman a male human being, even thought that's the reason those people are trans in the first place, I'm not here to be unsinful.
I'm here to be outspoken about radical feminism, and my posture as an anti-prostitution and anti-pornography feminist.
I do think Transactivism and Feminism should work together. But let's respect eachother's focuses. Okay?
Just because we are not focusing on a small percent of the people that are harmed by the sex industry - the majority being female human beings - that does not MEAN that we are pretending that doesn't exist. But transgender males, a.k.a. trans women, which is not a derogatory term, is just a simple observation, are not the focus of Feminism. Try to understand, that's not erasing, that's just what being a focused social movement means.
Female human beings are the focus on feminist politics, or at least we should be, and we are also know as women, or "cis" women if you really need that much of an accomodation in language. It's not supposed to be so... complicated.
Ray asked what she shoud expect community wise, and, at least my posture is: don't expect to be the focus here, cause I'm sure not focusing on males.
I'm not here to be silenced for my vocabulary, or to be pushed around - and we KNOW how trans women often push around radical feminists when we decide to share the same space. And it's basically because of "linguistics". Well, I mean no disrespect, but I ain't having none of that.
If anyone think it's heretic to call a trans woman a male human being, even thought that's the reason those people are trans in the first place, I'm not here to be unsinful.
I'm here to be outspoken about radical feminism, and my posture as an anti-prostitution and anti-pornography feminist.
I do think Transactivism and Feminism should work together. But let's respect eachother's focuses. Okay?
Call me Celina. This forum still have a long way to go until it gets filled with its intended public. And I'll do my best to help us reach that goal. I'm a battleaxe, and when you hear my voice it'll be as loud as a thunder and as clear as a blue sky.
-
BlueUnicorn
- Posts:35
- Joined:Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:08 am
Hi! This is my first time posting in this forum. I've been reading Sinfest for so many years, I forget how many. +1000 to Tatsuya Ishida for a well-drawn and well-thought-out comic.
(WARNING: WALL OF TEXT FOLLOWS)
I clearly remember the feminism of the 1960's and early 1970's (the bra-burning stuff), and while I wasn't myself into setting fire to my clothing to make a point, I did my best to live the life: I was one of the less than a handful of females in the AV Club (and involved with the audio-visual equipment) in high school, the only girl in my junior high to pass the test that made me one of the best AV operators --which back in the day was the 16 mm film projector, I took classes where I'd be one of less than a handful of girls in the class because it was stereotypically male to be interested in such things, or I'd be one of the groundbreaking female students in the shop classes for females when that started to become a thing. Yes, I was in high school then, that does date me, doesn't it?
I've watched feminism evolve into what it is today, something I don't recognize as true feminism, because it's so tolerant of the porn/prostitution industry, and it's turned the concept of "a woman's choice" into "you danged well better get the abortion". It's interrelated, as I see it, because with females getting abortions all the time, it's easier to use them as sexual objects in the porn/prostitution industry. "Oops, you got pregnant? Let's get rid of that so you'll be ready to make me some more money boinking more men." The videos about how Planned Parenthood employees look the other way when pimps bring their underage workers in for an abortion and don't even report that there is underage prostitution going on, tells volumes as to how the two are closely interrelated. Roe v Wade was never meant to have been an enabler of the prostitution industry, but that is what it has become, and PP is its big tool.
Planned Parenthood was also there in the early days of Roe v Wade to encourage women who were from poor households to not have babies. Also, even within hospitals, there was a push among nurses to abort a pregnancy at the least little sign of trouble. I was one who pushed back against that, myself vs two and then three nurses who tried to keep me from preventing the loss of my child. "If you don't sign the permission form for the abortion, your husband will," was the threat, and they kept us separated from each other so that one did not know what the other was going to do. Their main argument was that the baby was "obviously dead" but at no time did anyone attempt to check for a heartbeat (I had heard the baby's heartbeat a week before!), nor did my insisting that they check first with the ultrasound do any good - they were absolutely not going to check for a heartbeat because they had declared the baby dead and my stupid self should accept it. I was in no position to get violent, but I sure was in a position to get very loud, and I let the entire hospital know that if an abortion was forced upon me (it was not MY choice, it was THEIR choice), I'd be pressing criminal homicide charges and a civil suit on top of it. That fight lasted an hour, maybe two hours, it was a long time, but finally I was admitted and steps were taken to prevent an abortion. Today, that threatened unborn baby is my son, and he has been heavily involved in the medical life-saving business for many years.
When my son and daughter were attending junior high and high school, my daughter was subjected to some of the worst bullying I've heard about, involving boys who easily got away with calling her "slut" and implying that she was "easy" and/or that they "did it with her" when, in actual fact, she did not date anyone or spend any time alone with any boy. (With them treating her in that manner, why would she want to?) That this sort of behavior was tolerated, even when the schools boasted Zero Tolerance for a good many things, is part of the problem we face if we're against porn/prostitution. Tolerance and acceptance of this behavior begins very young. (My daughter learned about sex, the "dirty" side of it, on a school bus heading for a Kindergarten class.) This stuff was happening every day, and there was little that could be done to fight it. From what I read from time to time in various internet media about the various types of bullying that occurs in schools today, it's still a hard uphill battle for parents. "Boys will be boys." I agree that boys need an outlet for their extra energy, but objectifying girls is not that outlet.
Back in my own junior high/high school years, somehow our schools did not prevent girls wearing the latest fashions (mini skirts, see-through blouses), and I remember seeing, daily, some behavior in the hallways that, if it had been videoed and set up for viewing, would be considered porn, maybe soft porn in some cases, but porn all the same. At the time, we had no choice but to wear mini skirts because that was all that the stores sold for us to wear, and it was an uphill fight to get the schools to allow us girls to wear jeans and t-shirts (which were much less sexy) to classes. Yes, we had to dress according to our gender, and because of the way of fashion in those days, it was hard to fight the sexual objectification that the fashion industry was pushing on us. To some extent, it has not gotten much better since then, but at least some of the fashions are aesthetically pleasing to the eye (those 1960's and 1970's color combinations were an eyesore!).
I'm strongly against the porn/prostitution industry. It turns people into non-persons, objects for the pleasure of someone else who has the power over the non-person. It is very much a form of bullying. Stopping it will have to be heavily worked on at the public school level (Pre-K and up - yeah, it starts that early) and even the daycare level, as well as through societal manipulation. I'm not sure marches will do that (marches to cut down on violence in schools hasn't done much, and the marches against Trump haven't done a thing to change his agenda - they're just feel-good moments that make one believe that they're part of history).
What will do it is thinking and acting locally to fix the problem, with emphasis on acting, doing. Raise children not to bully. Raise children with the armor and weapons they need to counter bullying (don't just say, "deal with it" and expect the child to be able to think on his/her feet at any given moment when he/she is verbally or physically abused by someone else - children are often too young to know how to defend themselves effectively when assaulted by their peers who have learned the art of bullying). Start early training your children/grandchildren to defend themselves so that they don't turn into a future school shooter (so many of the school shooters have been bullied and pushed to that point, bullying most definitely causes mental issues in children who are already dealing with issues of self and community during the years while they transition from child to adult, and after years and years of such treatment, they end up as mass murderers or suicides).
Get involved with schools and youth organizations to ensure that bullying and sexual objectification is made into historic behavior, much as men clubbing women over the head to drag them to the cave to start a family has not been acceptable behavior in a civilized world for a couple or few millennia. (And really, what's the difference between clubbing a woman over the head and dragging her to the cave, and giving someone a drug to make them incapable of fighting a rape? The second one leaves less blood on the ground.)
We also need to be much more active against the media which pushes the pro-porn/prostitution narrative. The media is one big enemy in this war. They glorify and glamorize women as sexual objects (men to a lesser degree), they think they're forcing acceptance of LGBTetc lifestyles when in fact they're showing it as a freak-show on the one hand, something to shock and disgust the viewing public and turn away from the programming on the other hand. They encourage a stereotyping of people who don't fit into the basic male/female dichotomy, to the detriment of those people. Keep in mind that we look at TV shows as TV "programs" and indeed, they are programming us, but not necessarily in the right direction. Until that is changed, it will continue to be part of the problem that parents/grandparents and just about anyone else will be up against when fighting to do away with the porn/prostitution industry.
I'm also enough of a feminist (radical or otherwise) that I'm disturbed by the current need to allow transgenders who identify as female to compete in sports events with what is called cisfemales. The outcome of these contents has been to show, as we knew back in the day, that those who have been brought up cisfemale are physically different from those who have transgendered into female by use of steroids and other drugs, and that those transgendered females have had years of natural male upbringing and internal hormones such as to produce a physically superior being. The long, hard fight to get female sports and female sports contests is slowly being lost to the push to include transgendered females in girls' or women's sports. (Solution to that problem may be to start a whole new category: transgender female sports, and then another one for transgender male sports, since females transgendering into males will not be able to compete fairly with what we today call cismales in sports for the same reason that cisfemales and cismales cannot fairly compete with each other in certain sports.) I know that this isn't a porn/prostitution situation, but I cannot help but think that it's still somewhat interrelated to the problem: It all comes down to the difference between the sexes and how we deal with those differences.
Okay, end of Wall of Text. I hope I sound like I belong here with those of you who are radical feminists, although I have a feeling that some of my stands on issues may not jive with that of the radical feminist as he/she is portrayed here.
(WARNING: WALL OF TEXT FOLLOWS)
I clearly remember the feminism of the 1960's and early 1970's (the bra-burning stuff), and while I wasn't myself into setting fire to my clothing to make a point, I did my best to live the life: I was one of the less than a handful of females in the AV Club (and involved with the audio-visual equipment) in high school, the only girl in my junior high to pass the test that made me one of the best AV operators --which back in the day was the 16 mm film projector, I took classes where I'd be one of less than a handful of girls in the class because it was stereotypically male to be interested in such things, or I'd be one of the groundbreaking female students in the shop classes for females when that started to become a thing. Yes, I was in high school then, that does date me, doesn't it?
I've watched feminism evolve into what it is today, something I don't recognize as true feminism, because it's so tolerant of the porn/prostitution industry, and it's turned the concept of "a woman's choice" into "you danged well better get the abortion". It's interrelated, as I see it, because with females getting abortions all the time, it's easier to use them as sexual objects in the porn/prostitution industry. "Oops, you got pregnant? Let's get rid of that so you'll be ready to make me some more money boinking more men." The videos about how Planned Parenthood employees look the other way when pimps bring their underage workers in for an abortion and don't even report that there is underage prostitution going on, tells volumes as to how the two are closely interrelated. Roe v Wade was never meant to have been an enabler of the prostitution industry, but that is what it has become, and PP is its big tool.
Planned Parenthood was also there in the early days of Roe v Wade to encourage women who were from poor households to not have babies. Also, even within hospitals, there was a push among nurses to abort a pregnancy at the least little sign of trouble. I was one who pushed back against that, myself vs two and then three nurses who tried to keep me from preventing the loss of my child. "If you don't sign the permission form for the abortion, your husband will," was the threat, and they kept us separated from each other so that one did not know what the other was going to do. Their main argument was that the baby was "obviously dead" but at no time did anyone attempt to check for a heartbeat (I had heard the baby's heartbeat a week before!), nor did my insisting that they check first with the ultrasound do any good - they were absolutely not going to check for a heartbeat because they had declared the baby dead and my stupid self should accept it. I was in no position to get violent, but I sure was in a position to get very loud, and I let the entire hospital know that if an abortion was forced upon me (it was not MY choice, it was THEIR choice), I'd be pressing criminal homicide charges and a civil suit on top of it. That fight lasted an hour, maybe two hours, it was a long time, but finally I was admitted and steps were taken to prevent an abortion. Today, that threatened unborn baby is my son, and he has been heavily involved in the medical life-saving business for many years.
When my son and daughter were attending junior high and high school, my daughter was subjected to some of the worst bullying I've heard about, involving boys who easily got away with calling her "slut" and implying that she was "easy" and/or that they "did it with her" when, in actual fact, she did not date anyone or spend any time alone with any boy. (With them treating her in that manner, why would she want to?) That this sort of behavior was tolerated, even when the schools boasted Zero Tolerance for a good many things, is part of the problem we face if we're against porn/prostitution. Tolerance and acceptance of this behavior begins very young. (My daughter learned about sex, the "dirty" side of it, on a school bus heading for a Kindergarten class.) This stuff was happening every day, and there was little that could be done to fight it. From what I read from time to time in various internet media about the various types of bullying that occurs in schools today, it's still a hard uphill battle for parents. "Boys will be boys." I agree that boys need an outlet for their extra energy, but objectifying girls is not that outlet.
Back in my own junior high/high school years, somehow our schools did not prevent girls wearing the latest fashions (mini skirts, see-through blouses), and I remember seeing, daily, some behavior in the hallways that, if it had been videoed and set up for viewing, would be considered porn, maybe soft porn in some cases, but porn all the same. At the time, we had no choice but to wear mini skirts because that was all that the stores sold for us to wear, and it was an uphill fight to get the schools to allow us girls to wear jeans and t-shirts (which were much less sexy) to classes. Yes, we had to dress according to our gender, and because of the way of fashion in those days, it was hard to fight the sexual objectification that the fashion industry was pushing on us. To some extent, it has not gotten much better since then, but at least some of the fashions are aesthetically pleasing to the eye (those 1960's and 1970's color combinations were an eyesore!).
I'm strongly against the porn/prostitution industry. It turns people into non-persons, objects for the pleasure of someone else who has the power over the non-person. It is very much a form of bullying. Stopping it will have to be heavily worked on at the public school level (Pre-K and up - yeah, it starts that early) and even the daycare level, as well as through societal manipulation. I'm not sure marches will do that (marches to cut down on violence in schools hasn't done much, and the marches against Trump haven't done a thing to change his agenda - they're just feel-good moments that make one believe that they're part of history).
What will do it is thinking and acting locally to fix the problem, with emphasis on acting, doing. Raise children not to bully. Raise children with the armor and weapons they need to counter bullying (don't just say, "deal with it" and expect the child to be able to think on his/her feet at any given moment when he/she is verbally or physically abused by someone else - children are often too young to know how to defend themselves effectively when assaulted by their peers who have learned the art of bullying). Start early training your children/grandchildren to defend themselves so that they don't turn into a future school shooter (so many of the school shooters have been bullied and pushed to that point, bullying most definitely causes mental issues in children who are already dealing with issues of self and community during the years while they transition from child to adult, and after years and years of such treatment, they end up as mass murderers or suicides).
Get involved with schools and youth organizations to ensure that bullying and sexual objectification is made into historic behavior, much as men clubbing women over the head to drag them to the cave to start a family has not been acceptable behavior in a civilized world for a couple or few millennia. (And really, what's the difference between clubbing a woman over the head and dragging her to the cave, and giving someone a drug to make them incapable of fighting a rape? The second one leaves less blood on the ground.)
We also need to be much more active against the media which pushes the pro-porn/prostitution narrative. The media is one big enemy in this war. They glorify and glamorize women as sexual objects (men to a lesser degree), they think they're forcing acceptance of LGBTetc lifestyles when in fact they're showing it as a freak-show on the one hand, something to shock and disgust the viewing public and turn away from the programming on the other hand. They encourage a stereotyping of people who don't fit into the basic male/female dichotomy, to the detriment of those people. Keep in mind that we look at TV shows as TV "programs" and indeed, they are programming us, but not necessarily in the right direction. Until that is changed, it will continue to be part of the problem that parents/grandparents and just about anyone else will be up against when fighting to do away with the porn/prostitution industry.
I'm also enough of a feminist (radical or otherwise) that I'm disturbed by the current need to allow transgenders who identify as female to compete in sports events with what is called cisfemales. The outcome of these contents has been to show, as we knew back in the day, that those who have been brought up cisfemale are physically different from those who have transgendered into female by use of steroids and other drugs, and that those transgendered females have had years of natural male upbringing and internal hormones such as to produce a physically superior being. The long, hard fight to get female sports and female sports contests is slowly being lost to the push to include transgendered females in girls' or women's sports. (Solution to that problem may be to start a whole new category: transgender female sports, and then another one for transgender male sports, since females transgendering into males will not be able to compete fairly with what we today call cismales in sports for the same reason that cisfemales and cismales cannot fairly compete with each other in certain sports.) I know that this isn't a porn/prostitution situation, but I cannot help but think that it's still somewhat interrelated to the problem: It all comes down to the difference between the sexes and how we deal with those differences.
Okay, end of Wall of Text. I hope I sound like I belong here with those of you who are radical feminists, although I have a feeling that some of my stands on issues may not jive with that of the radical feminist as he/she is portrayed here.
What are you really asking here? What do you mean by "valid"? Allowed? Why wouldn't trans-identifying women or men be allowed here? Despite the rhetoric from neoliberal feminists, radical feminists don't hate trans-identifying people. Patriarchy harms everyone. Trans-identifying women--people assigned from birth to the class "female" based on biologically real markers--are as centered in radical feminism as any other women. Trans-identifying males--people assigned from birth to the class "male" based on biologically real markers--are not centered, but dismantling the social construct of gender will make things better for all people who do not conform to the gender stereotypes of their sex.TheMightyHeracross wrote:Tat, you said this forum is for people who want to learn about radical feminism. So, I want to know the answer to the original question, which you have not answered: are transgender (and nonbinary) people valid on this forum?
So, if you're here to tear down the artifice of gender, to fight against the exploitation, commoditization, and objectification of women's and girls' bodies, in the construct of a feminism that centers women, recognizing that throughout history the metrics by which patriarchal society has sorted people into the underclass and overclass are the biological markers of our sex... then great!
On the other hand, if "valid" means you're a trans-identifying male who's looking to push neoliberal sloganeering like "trans women are women [and if you disagree we'll beat you to death with barb wire-wrapped baseball bats [but TERFs are the Nazis [and we definitely weren't socialized into male violence]]]" and are looking for that misogynistic delusion to be validated, then no, not the right forum. This isn't the place for narcissistic hysterics on how failure to play along with someone's self image is literal violence/murder, or for pats on the back for AGP fetishists being so brave, or for homophobic "cotton ceiling" creepiness. This is not the place to argue for letting men into women's single-sex spaces they want to keep that way, or putting men on all-women shortlists in politics or scholarships, or letting men compete against women in sex segregated sport leagues. Nor is it the place to complain that feminism prioritizing abortion rights or destigmatizing female anatomy isn't "inclusionary" or "intersectional".
It's appalling that such obvious, unabashed misogynistic behavior needs to be explicitly called out as "not feminism", but that's where the neoliberals have driven things. Fortunately, there are signs that the bulk of the left and center are waking up to the fact that as loud and violent the neoliberal TRAs are, they don't speak for the majority of people and their ideology is utterly incoherent. Seeing the UK put the brakes on self-ID (from both left and right) was a good start.
We have our answer
Although no one has been willing to say it in so many words, I think we have an answer to Razlynne's question.
No, trans women are not welcome here.
The number and virulence of the posts denying and demonizing our very existence make that clear. (And Tatsuya's response sends a message, too.)
I suppose we could participate if we pretended to be cis men, but, speaking for myself, I spent 60 years trying to live as a man and it almost killed me. I transitioned to save my life, and there's no online forum that is worth my life.
No, trans women are not welcome here.
The number and virulence of the posts denying and demonizing our very existence make that clear. (And Tatsuya's response sends a message, too.)
I suppose we could participate if we pretended to be cis men, but, speaking for myself, I spent 60 years trying to live as a man and it almost killed me. I transitioned to save my life, and there's no online forum that is worth my life.
Re: We have our answer
This is NOT what anyone said here, don't distort our words to fit your narrative. But people willing to silence women and radical feminists are probably not welcome on a forum that's been pretty much to radfems since the first one had way too many people trying to silence women that don't think like them. Which, honestly, I was willing to change, but Tat step up and made a forum that explicitly welcomes the radical feminist narrative. If you can't handle women being outspoken about radical feminism, anti-prostitution and anti-pornography, about being anti-misogyny, then I wouldn't feel surprised you feel unwelcomed. But that's your own fault. Stop demonizing us.Allison wrote:No, trans women are not welcome here.
Call me Celina. This forum still have a long way to go until it gets filled with its intended public. And I'll do my best to help us reach that goal. I'm a battleaxe, and when you hear my voice it'll be as loud as a thunder and as clear as a blue sky.
TinT wrote:What are you really asking here? What do you mean by "valid"? Allowed? Why wouldn't trans-identifying women or men be allowed here? Despite the rhetoric from neoliberal feminists, radical feminists don't hate trans-identifying people. Patriarchy harms everyone. Trans-identifying women--people assigned from birth to the class "female" based on biologically real markers--are as centered in radical feminism as any other women. Trans-identifying males--people assigned from birth to the class "male" based on biologically real markers--are not centered, but dismantling the social construct of gender will make things better for all people who do not conform to the gender stereotypes of their sex.TheMightyHeracross wrote:Tat, you said this forum is for people who want to learn about radical feminism. So, I want to know the answer to the original question, which you have not answered: are transgender (and nonbinary) people valid on this forum?
So, if you're here to tear down the artifice of gender, to fight against the exploitation, commoditization, and objectification of women's and girls' bodies, in the construct of a feminism that centers women, recognizing that throughout history the metrics by which patriarchal society has sorted people into the underclass and overclass are the biological markers of our sex... then great!
On the other hand, if "valid" means you're a trans-identifying male who's looking to push neoliberal sloganeering like "trans women are women [and if you disagree we'll beat you to death with barb wire-wrapped baseball bats [but TERFs are the Nazis [and we definitely weren't socialized into male violence]]]" and are looking for that misogynistic delusion to be validated, then no, not the right forum. This isn't the place for narcissistic hysterics on how failure to play along with someone's self image is literal violence/murder, or for pats on the back for AGP fetishists being so brave, or for homophobic "cotton ceiling" creepiness. This is not the place to argue for letting men into women's single-sex spaces they want to keep that way, or putting men on all-women shortlists in politics or scholarships, or letting men compete against women in sex segregated sport leagues. Nor is it the place to complain that feminism prioritizing abortion rights or destigmatizing female anatomy isn't "inclusionary" or "intersectional".
It's appalling that such obvious, unabashed misogynistic behavior needs to be explicitly called out as "not feminism", but that's where the neoliberals have driven things. Fortunately, there are signs that the bulk of the left and center are waking up to the fact that as loud and violent the neoliberal TRAs are, they don't speak for the majority of people and their ideology is utterly incoherent. Seeing the UK put the brakes on self-ID (from both left and right) was a good start.
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Call me Celina. This forum still have a long way to go until it gets filled with its intended public. And I'll do my best to help us reach that goal. I'm a battleaxe, and when you hear my voice it'll be as loud as a thunder and as clear as a blue sky.
Re: We have our answer
One doesn't have to explicitly say that someone is unwelcome to make them unwelcome. Your posts in particular contain many, many tropes that we are all too familiar with from transphobes and trans-exclusionary feminists. And this in response to what seemed to me to be a simple question: is the radical feminism that is part of the ground rules here trans-exclusionary? I think it's reasonable to assume that contributions from known trans women are likely to receive an even more hostile reception.Z6IIAB wrote:This is NOT what anyone said here, don't distort our words to fit your narrative. ...Allison wrote:No, trans women are not welcome here.
I don't think I have much more to add to the discussion. Ultimately, it's up to Tat. If someone really wants to discuss this with me, please take it to PM.
I couldn't have said it better myself. That's your answer, alisson.TinT wrote:No one is posting tropes, people's posts reflect the misogynistic experiences they've suffered at the hands of a loud and violent TRA strain that is presently overrepresented on the left.
No one cares if you're trans or not. Anyone who can contribute without being misogynistic is welcome.
Call me Celina. This forum still have a long way to go until it gets filled with its intended public. And I'll do my best to help us reach that goal. I'm a battleaxe, and when you hear my voice it'll be as loud as a thunder and as clear as a blue sky.
Re: We have our answer
I never did, tbh. But I won't let anyone push me or any other woman here. This is a place for people that actually enjoy Sinfest, the way it has become, for anti-prostitution and anti-pornography feminists to converse and, in Tat's words "favor the radical feminist perspective over a liberal or conservative one".Allison wrote: If someone really wants to discuss this with me, please take it to PM.
I don't know why any of our opposition even bothers coming here to call us "TERFs", especially when that's a non-issue to us and to feminism.
Please, keep ranting about how the world is unfair to (non)dysphoric males, that kind of defy sexist roles and stereotypes but often assume the ones imposed on the female sex, anywhere else.
It's literally all *I* ask.
Thank you.
Call me Celina. This forum still have a long way to go until it gets filled with its intended public. And I'll do my best to help us reach that goal. I'm a battleaxe, and when you hear my voice it'll be as loud as a thunder and as clear as a blue sky.