Leading feminist launches bizarre ‘racist’ attack on trans community
MEMBERS of the Indigenous and trans* communities have slammed bizarre comments by a leading feminist academic comparing trans women to racist entertainers who only “pretend” to be female.
University of Melbourne Professor Sheila Jeffreys, who is a lecturer in sexual politics and international feminist politics, made the claims during a feature interview on ABC Radio’s Sunday Night Safran with hosts John Safran and Father Bob Maguire last month.
An influential figure in the second wave of feminism of the 1970s, during the interview Jeffreys suggested trans women were no better than the racist entertainers of the early to mid-20th century in the USA who engaged in blackface.
“In the States for instance they (trans people) were often compared to the black and white minstrels. The black and white minstrels were white men who dressed up with blackface to imitate what they thought were the behaviours of black singers and entertainers. That was seen as very insulting by the black community,” Jeffreys said.
“Transgenderism for men is about the right to imitate and pretend to be members of the subordinate class even though they are members of – biologically and were brought up in – the superior class. That was problematic for the black and white minstrels. It’s problematic generally when a group of people claim to be another group of subordinate people.”
Jeffreys also suggested that all trans women fell into one binary: “homosexual men who don’t feel they can be homosexual in the bodies of men”; as well as cross-dressing fetishists whom women were afraid of sharing space with such as in domestic violence refuges.
“The vast majority though are heterosexual men who have a sexual interest in wearing women’s clothes and having the appearance of women. So it’s about sexism and homophobia,” Jeffreys said.
“But we’re not allowed to talk about the politics of it really, we’re only allowed to talk about the stories of individuals and feel sorry as I genuinely do for the life experience of those men who have this form of very serious mental distress.”
Indigenous queer sistergirl, Andrew Farrell, who was brought up on the NSW South Coast and is currently undertaking postgraduate studies at the University of Wollongong told the Star Observer that Jeffreys’s understanding of gender/sex categories was in many ways an anachronism of essentialist radical feminism which has not carried well into a progressive period of race and queer politics.
“There is a fear that racist, mysoginistic, queerphobic and transphobic people will take her message as truth and enact these prejudices against trans identified Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
“By reducing transgender identities to that of histrionic mimicry is more reflective of her prejudice than it is of my understanding and practice of gender as a genderqueer Indigenous person,” Farrell said.
“I argue that Jeffreys opinion is reductive and reinforces the divisive lines of a binary that is not of valid use in various cultures worldwide including some Aboriginal cultures here in Australia. Genderqueer sistergirls, such as myself, do experience overlapping dimensions of oppression highlighted by Jeffreys hypothetical.
“I cannot change my racial configuration. I can however mould and express my gender identity as unique and valid to my culture.”
LGBTI community activist and Transgender Victoria spokesperson Sally Goldner admitted to the Star Observer that listening to Jeffries’ theories were difficult to stomach.
“Denial that a group even exists is the first and most intense form of prejudice/vilification. The next most intense form is hugely inaccurate representation re trans women being lumped into one of two categories as either homosexual men or fetishists,” Goldner said.
“This shows no awareness of the truth re the infinite possibilities for trans and gender diverse experiences and confuses gender identity, sexual orientation and other factors.
“The idea that trans women – or anyone in the trans and gender diverse kaleidoscope – are pretending in any way gets close to the deception idea portrayed by offensive fictional media such as There’s Something About Miriam and Bamboozled. All of these sort of comments are the equivalent in degree of inaccuracy to the religious supremacists saying being gay is more dangerous than smoking.”
I had to check that I was still on the Star Observer website – what is it with all of the trans* hate going on here?
Sheila Jeffreys is well-known for her trans*phobia, and I cannot understand how any university can hold its head up high whilst she is on their staff.
It makes me wonder if she has ever met the leading Sociologist of this country, Raewyn Connell.
This is about Gays and Women, Keep us out of it…. yall fucking crazy….
The argument that trans women have not experienced the cumulative effects of sexism because they were raised as boys misses the count on two points;
1. A trans girl being raised as a boy does not experience male privilege in the same way as a cisgender boy.
2. The younger generation of trans people are increasingly likely to transition as children. At what age of transition is someone a “real woman” by this argument? If she started living as a girl at age 15? 12? 10? If she socially transitioned at 5 years and used puberty blockers and then started estrogen at 15 is she a “real woman”? I somehow suspect the TERFs will respond to that with any last grasp of biological essentialism. “Ah but,” they’ll say, “she never menstruated.”
There is no winning with this argument, no flexibility, and ultimately a very outdated biological essentialism that I thought we’d escaped after the 1980s.
I heard that interview and I was just livid listening to it.
Many people have already said my exact sentiments, but again to point out that Sheila Jeffreys shows such a narrow view and understanding of “what” trans people are and not “who” we are, it really just beggars belief.
If someone were to try and put any cis woman into a box as Sheila did an entire diverse section of the community in that interview, wow, good luck.
I also do remember when Sheila said on the radio several times that she did not want to make a huge issue of her views on trans* people… So why did you come on the radio for a show exclusively focusing on trans* people to talk about something you would rather not talk about?
Pretty much the whole interview was mind boggling and down right disgusting to trans people. No wonder extreme feminists like her and Germaine Greer get glitter bombed.
If trans women are equivalent to blackface minstrels, then so are butch lesbians, by the exact same line of flawed reasoning.
For us ACTUAL feminists (meaning sex work and Trans* INCLUSIONARY feminists) who have been paying attention, this is nothing new. The mainstream white feminist industry has been shitting on sex workers and Trans* folks (especially Trans* women) for a LONG TIME.
Mainstream white feminism is bullshit. This is merely one small example.
For more proof of this VERY problematic trend, read anything by Meghan Murphy, or google SWERF and TERF.
If you believe that male transwomen are women then you are not a feminist. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not a feminist.
Let me guess — Brazen Lee is a white male. Whenever you start getting all the “mainstream white feminism” BS, 99% of the time the complainer is white, and most of the time male. There are radical women of all races. Stop erasing radical women of color with this BS.
Do note that most gender non-conforming people are made up of crossdressers who are by majority straight males, and some are fetishistic transvestites, i.e. men who have fetish seeing themselves as women, and are typically the ones who go out dressing overtly sexually. Only a handful are certified transsexual women who have been diagnosed by a qualified gender-psychiatrist of their gender-dysphoria with a GID-letter, and have experienced GID since their childhood years.
You have a fucking screw loose, lady. How DARE you speak about ANYONE in the way that you have.
There is a way to talk about male privilege and societal misogyny without name-calling and attacking groups with whom you may not have had sufficient interaction to make a sound judgment. I know many, yes many trans persons who look at their transition as “stepping down from patriarchy” and are fully aware of the subjugation of women and ethnic minorities. In fact many trans people understand that we can never “be” our true gender because of our history and life experiences. So we really do understand your passion. Do you understand ours? Would you sit down to discuss? You can reach me at: [email protected] if you care to do so. I would welcome it.
She’s a walking joke in academic circles. She also asserts that women who get tattoos are mutilating themselves to appease the patriarchy. I sometimes wonder how many tinfoil hats she has.
Also, I find it more than a little disingenuous that she never, ever disclosed the fact that it was HER OWN COMMUNITY – Australian lesbians – who pioneered trans medical care in her community. I guess her own community is part of the big conspiracy too.
SJ is an opinion leader in a branch of feminism that most other feminists shy away from. In fact, the feminist community popularized the term, “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist” (TERF) back in 2008 to try to distance TERF rhetoric from feminism. Feminists felt as if TERFs were trying to speak for feminists. They wanted to make sure that people understand that TERFs speak only for TERFs because feminists were tired of having feminist discourse colonized TERFs who happily claim to speak on behalf of feminism. SJ doesn’t speak on behalf of feminism and her burblings are rejected by feminist leaders throughout the world.
She’s basically made a career out of sweeping generalizations supported by anecdotal and cherry picked data and more than a little equivocation. For instance, take the word “gender.” She behaves as if when the world speaks of gender, we only ever mean cultural rules. The reality is that when folks talk about gender, they’re ALSO talking about their subjective and innate experience of their body’s sex (which would exist with or without culture), the VERY complex and nuanced ways they conceptualize that experience (which would exist with or without culture) and the ways they communicate that experience (which would exist with or without culture). People like SJ like to pretend that gender *only ever* means cultural rules, but such ontological gesticulations are ultimately meaningless to practical discourse.
On top of that, the idea that gender doesn’t exist because it’s just in the mind is at it’s core a tacit appeal to dualism. I mean, I guess if you believe that the mind has nothing to do with the biological reality of (specifically) the brain, the rest of the central nervous system, the endocrine system or things like genetics and epigenetics, then yeah… gender is 100% uninfluenced by biological factors. On that basis, I guess you can claim that gender isn’t real on the basis that it has nothing to do with the body, but just know that you’re drinking the dualism koolaid.
One must believe that “gender” is *ONLY* a program that culture writes upon a John Money-esqe ‘blank slate’ (look up the outcome of John Money’s tragic ‘blank slate’ research) and that our biological/genetic reality *in no way* brings *anything* to the table in this one single instance of human existence.
Moreover, I find the entire TERF world view sadly laughable because they are famous for asserting (in one breath) that gender isn’t real and then (in the next) appealing to a Male-Assigned-At-Birth (MAAB) and Female-Assigned-At-Birth (FAAB) binary. It’s as if they’re saying, binary gender is BS but the MAAB/FAAB binary to totally real! It’s just equivocation. They figured out that they can’t describe in what non-gender is and just skipped over that entire debate. Instead of appealing to “gender,” they instead appeal to a MAAB/FAAB binary. TERF arguments are full of rhetoric and excruciatingly short on substance.
If you’ve noticed that SJ sounds like a right wing demagogue, there’s a very good reason for it:
“Now one of the things I find puzzling about it is that, when I look at the House of Lords debate on this legislation, those I agree with most are the radical right. Particularly the person I find that I agree with most, in here, and I’m not sure he will be pleased to find this, is Norman Tebbitt… Tebbitt also says that the savage mutilation of transgenderism, we would say if it was taking place in other cultures apart from the culture of Britain, was a harmful cultural practice, and how come we’re not recognising that in the British Isles. So he makes all of these arguments from the radical right, which is quite embarrassing to me, but I have to say, so called progressive and left people are not recognising the human rights violations of transgenderism or how crazy the legislation is.” – SJ
People like SJ wrap their hate in the language of feminism because to do otherwise would make it immediately recognizable for exactly what it is.
You might like to brush off people like SJ as harmless conspiracy theorists attempting to pathetically validate their own existence by contrasting it against a strawman of their own making. Sadly, t’s not a benign as all of that.
The TERF movement played a significant role in the revocation of trans healthcare access. In fact, TERF activist, Janice Raymond, authored the American government’s anti-trans position.
The National Center for Healthcare Technology was a government funded body that reviewed metadata so that Health & Human Services (HHS) would be able to make evidence-based judgements about the efficacy of medical technologies. In short, they informed the US government on what was and what was not medically efficacious. The NCHCT had Janice Raymond, author of The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male issue their position on the efficacy of trans medical care in a paper titled, “Technology on the Social and Ethical Aspects of Transsexual Surgery.” This position paper makes practically all the same assertions about trans people commonly found in far right-wing anti-trans propaganda; however, unlike other extremist group propaganda, this misleading report informed HHS’ position on trans medical care. The report was available through the Office of the Associate Director for Medical and Scientific Evaluation, Public Health Service.
Raymond asserted that trans medical care was a new phenomena, unethical, asserted that legislation should block trans medical care and that it would be best to institute a national program of reparative therapy.
Until Raymond’s HHS paper, the US government supported trans care as medically necessary. I want you to reread that previous sentence. This meant that poor trans people could freely access psychological and medical care and it meant that public and private insurers had no basis upon which to reject coverage of trans care.
It was only after the NCHCT pushed Raymond’s bigotry in 1980 that the US government reversed course in 1981 and took up Raymond’s views and rhetoric. Raymond’s hate became the government’s stance. Raymond – a Catholic ethicist, not a clinician – was the architect of the anti-trans stance the US government adopted in the 1980s. This official anti-trans stance soon spread to private insurers and the American trans population soon found itself without access to medically necessary health care.
There’s a reason many trans people lay the death and suffering of untold numbers of trans people at the feet of Janice Raymond, PhD.
In a time when employment discrimination against trans people became legal, Raymond helped dismantle the trans community’s ability to access trans health care through public and private insurance. Raymond heralded in the era in which trans people (many to most of whom were unemployed, depending upon the study) had to pay out of pocket or go without. In essence, Raymond helped ensure the future of a medical system that was unresponsive to the needs of the trans community at every level.
If you want to get a sense of just how many trans people her policy killed, look up the April 13, 2012 State of California Department of Insurance paper titled, “Economic Impact Assessment, Gender Nondiscrimination in Health Insurance” (file # REG-2011-00023). Pay close attention to the number of deaths that are attributed to the unresponsive health care system TERFs engineered.
People like SJ are happy with those outcomes and they’ll never apologize for a single death their movement caused. To quote TERF pioneer, lecturer, and writer Bev Von Dohre, “They expect we’ll be shocked to see statistics about them being killed, and don’t realize, some of us wish they would ALL be dead.”
Gee, dude, cut-n-paste much? I’ve seen this exact same screed posted all over the Internet.
Another threadbombing by anonymous radfem trolls… “how novel.”
(yawns)
– bonzie anne
1. It’s racist because Jeffreys made false equivalencies. Comparing misogyny to racism isn’t a good idea not only because it’s generally offensive but race and gender also intertwine – and misogyny, transphobia, classism etc don’t need to be compared to another form of oppression to be taken seriously, they’re serious on their own.
2. How is Jeffreys even allowed to teach there?! I am seriously baffled I didn’t know she still had such a prominent voice… Like, do y’all actually think trans people are gonna go through ALL of the shit they face just because they want to imitate cis women and femininity? You REALLY think they face poverty, rape, abuse, MURDER (trans women make up most of the LGBT deaths) etc because they WANT to?! No.
3. I think a lot of terfs really don’t understand cis privilege – because we’re not privileged for being women, we’re privileged for being cis and it’s a whole different oppressive structure. That’s something I see a lot of terfs write about…
4. I saw someone mention that Jeffreys is a “political lesbian” (as they’re called). I didn’t know this until now but BOY that is really appropriative of lesbianism and just… absolutely disgusting. For feminists, radfems SURE ARE MISOGYNISTIC.
5. The asterisk after “trans” is transmisogynistic. ‘Trans/transgender’ includes non-binary genders already.
Jeffreys is notorious for hating on every woman who isn’t a lesbian separatist. I’ve read her articles about bisexual women (spoiler alert! We’re invaders and pretenders too), so her transphobia doesn’t surprise me. It’s sad to see how many vulnerable women have been poisoned by her toxic ideology.
Ironic statements from a woman who poses as a “feminist”.
Hey white women/womyn, black oppression isn’t your pedestal. So to more than a few of you, including Jeffries, please decentre your white privilege. Back off attempting to be allies to the black community through ridiculous attempts like this. There is no shared/similar oppression going on. Using Blackface as an example only endears Jefferys to her ilk, and evidently you are in the numbers. By the way the article doesn’t call Jefferys racist, it highlights that her using a ‘racist’ euphemism is quite ‘bizarre’ and quite frankly using blackface to further her own agenda speaks volumes. Sincerely a black person.
Way to miss the point. A man putting on lady-face is POLITICALLY identical to a white putting on black-face. It’s a member of the oppressor class appropriating the identity of a member of the oppressed class. It’s not all that hard to see the parallel.
In defense of Ms. Jeffreys, as a ‘ciswoman’, I am disgusted by the translobby’s attempts to make the rest of believe that penises can be female, and vaginas male. Talk about suspending beliefs. And I am also tired of reading the b.s. about ‘brainsex’. If you have issues about gender identity, you should be discussing those feelings with parents-not running to the nearest doctor demanding hormone blockers. Who ever started this crap about your ‘insides’ matching your physical self ….
How can we make windows into another person’s soul and decide what may be their motivation? Not easily, I suspect. Each of us has a road to tread, and for those who are transgendered I cannot hope to begin to understand their feelings: I will neither criticise or politicise them, but rather listen to their stories, cherish their hopes, dreams and aspirations, and wish them every happiness. Surely it is churlish and oppressive to do otherwise?
It’s not all that hard to figure out: 80% of male transwomen will come right out and tell various researchers that they are sexually gratified by cross-dressing, wearing women’s lingerie turns them on sexually, they use fantasies of themselves “as beautiful women” to get off, etc. You see them posting “vamp” pictures of themselves as “sexy ladies” all over the internet for a reason. The vast majority of trans* people are heterosexual males with a condition called autogynephilia and their primary romantic/sexual attraction is to THEMSELVES as “women”. It’s a paraphilia, like people who are turned on by feet or by wearing latex. This is why so many end up in dangerous sex work situations. They get off on being sexual “as a woman” and feel validated if they can get someone else to have sex with them “as a woman”.
You know, you are as ignorant and as big a ranting tw*at as Jeffreys.
sorry but what you have wrote is b******t 1. transwomen are not male. they have in the past been forced to grow up as males. The rest is just old repeated garbage. autogynephilia was created by a hack doctor who has been discredited. you really have no clue about trans women. please get help
I’m waiting to see how many Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists respond to this article. Sheila Jefferys and her followers have been saying this vile stuff for years. Sheila once wrote:
“that female-to-male trans people are only trying to buy into male privilege”. In her article “FTM Transsexualism and Grief,” Jeffrey bemoans that “FTM transsexualism destroys the lesbianism not just of the woman who ‘transitions’ but that of her female partner too.” In Unpacking Queer Politics, Jeffreys asserts that all feminists should be lesbians or should adopt “political lesbianism” because women shouldn’t sleep with their oppressors.”
Sources:
http://www.insufferableintolerance.com/terf-ideology-one-massive-logical-fail/
http://www.feminist-reprise.org/docs/jeffreysftm.htm
http://radfem.org/unpacking-queer-politics/
Not too mention more vile things that the radfem community say about transwomen:
– All trans women are men who want to become women to get into women’s only spaces and rape them (featured in Cathy Brennan’s Letter to the UN).
– That allowing gender identity to be recognised as a legitimate concept, it will allow any man to step into women’s only spaces and rape them (featured in Cathy Brennan’s Letter to the UN).
– That all women (straight and bisexual ones) should stop having sex with men and either become lesbians or celibate (featured in Cathy Brennan’s article “When I Grow Up, I Want To Be A Lesbian” – original article found here).
– Further to that, all women should stop having sex when men and become political lesbians because “because women shouldn’t sleep with their oppressors.” (featured in Sheila Jefferys book “Unpacking Queer Politics“).
– Apparently “that female-to-male trans*people are only trying to buy into male privilege” (featured in Sheila Jefferys article ““FTM Transsexualism and Grief“).
– Also I’m not certain how but “FTM transsexualism destroys the lesbianism not just of the woman who ‘transitions’ but that of her female partner too.” (also featured in Sheila Jefferys article ““FTM Transsexualism and Grief“).
– According to a TERF on Twitter I tangled with, the only people who can commit violence, particularly sexual violence are “males” (her words not mine, screenshots here).
– According to the above TERF, she’s sick of women telling lesbians how violent we are (do TERF’s really want to sweet sexual abuse and violence by women under the rug? We all know how that turns out).
– It seems Cathy Brennan believes that sexuality can be changed, she recently aligned herself with the Pacific Justice Institute to aid them in their efforts to out a transgender student. The PJI also believes in Ex-Gay conversion therapy.
Source:
http://www.insufferableintolerance.com/unpacking-terf-arguments-nothing-conspiracy-theorist-bunkum/
And lastly if you tell lesbians that transwomen are women – you support corrective rape:
Source:
http://www.insufferableintolerance.com/terf-brigade-changes-meaning-consent/
I’m a trans woman, and I’m quite butch. I don’t dress up as a woman. I dress in jeans and shirts that fit my figure. These shirts are usually geeky. I wear Converse shoes. I don’t play femininity, it’s just a state.
The people who can’t tell the difference between trans women and blackface are seriously ignorant of how trans women behave, live, and experience discrimination.
By being trans, we risk make persecution. Trans women of colour are one of the most disadvantaged groups in our society. Trans women face homelessness, abuse, and death.
Why would someone choose this? Why would you choose to be someone who gets felt up on the train, offered taxi rides in exchange for oral sex, harassed on the street, denied housing and employment, etc?
This rhetoric is based purely in armchair philosophy, and not in reality. It’s logic, though internally consistent, does not gel with the real would, or what we know about trans women, and what (little) we know of the brains of trans people.
“Why would someone choose this?” I understand from my research that there is a strong thread of sexual masochism in male transwomen as a group. This is well documented and unfortunate, but not the fault of feminists like Jeffreys. Reporting on the facts is not the same thing as creating the situation. Why would a 30-something man quit a well-paying job in IT, put on female drag and go out onto the streets looking for work as a prostitute? Because he has a strong paraphilia (sexual fixation) which drives him to seek validation as a “sexy lady” from strangers. Sometimes it gets him beaten and there is always the risk of death. I think the attraction is partly masochistic, partly thrill-seeking and partly the obsession with getting validated “as a woman”.
You are a sad person get help
Hi Belle,
I think woman-face, generally (not SJ use if it) relates to drag shows, not usually performed by transwomen but by self-identified men, parodying us in a very misogynist way. This is no less insulting to transwomen than to the female born. It’s making our very existence a thing to be laughed at and debased.
‘Leading’ and “feminist” are misleading terms in reference to Sheila Jefferies
A point/question on the use of the term ‘trans*’ in this article: A few years ago it seemed that the word ‘transsexual’ was no longer acceptable to transsexuals. I remember using this word and being told I was ‘perpetrating ignorance and therefore violence’. ‘Trans’ had apparently become the acceptable word. Now it seems the word ‘trans’ is no longer OK and for some reason it must be ‘trans*’ – i.e. with an asterisk. Yet other transsexual/trans/trans* people have told me that none of these terms are correct and they should be referred to as ‘ISGD’. Can someone PLEASE explain to me the difference between all these terms and why the trans/trans*/transsexual/ISGD/whatever you’re called this week ‘community’ have to be so bloody precious?!
Let me take a stab at explaining this:
“transsexual” – The are multiple problems with this label, the most glaring being that it’s not very inclusive. In fact, the moment someone uses this label to identify the community, the crossdressers and gender queer (who do not transition sex for the most part) feel excluded. Add to that, the label itself has decades of negative stereotypes attached to it thanks to the porn industry. I personally use this label to identify myself (I am a transitioning male-to-female, who now lives full time as female-identified) only in cases where the need for differentiation is necessary (almost always in dealing with medical issues and relating to others in very similar situations).
“trans” – A half-hearted attempt at inclusion was made with this label, and it was hoped that most under the ‘umbrella’ would feel more comfortable using this, where ‘transsexual’ did not apply. The problem being, the moment most see ‘trans’, they think of the long existing ‘transsexual’ or more often, the now mostly defunct ‘transvestite’.
“trans*” – In an attempt to fix the underlying issues with the label ‘trans’, an asterisk was then added by many in the community, as a placeholder for trans(whatever label you use). This more accurately covered both the ‘transsexual’ (transitioning or not, but mostly identifying with one gender or the other) and ‘transgender’ (mostly not transitioning or part-timers). Again, the lack of inclusion is pretty glaring. What of the gender queer, the crossdressers, those who express multiple or no genders, or anyone expressing any other mixture of one or more non-binary gender expressions who do not identifying with any of those labels but feel themselves a part of the community (so far as I have seen, ‘membership’ appears mostly subjective to the individual.. as often times the labels they choose to use).
“ISGD” – This is a relatively new label, representing “intersex, sex and/or gender diverse”. Slightly more inclusive but this label also presents new issues.. foremost that of inclusion of the intersex community into the broader gender community. Many intersex individuals feel no kinship at all with the gender diverse community, and it has often been expressed that these political groupings be kept separate. I suppose “gender diverse'” can cover many in the community but again, what of those who go from Sex A –> Sex B and choose to then identify as part of the gender binary?
Thus far, I have not seen any labels which accurately cover the diversity of our community (although currently ‘transgender’ and ‘transgender umbrella’ are being pushed heavily by the more vocal of us. My own identification is not one of transitioning gender expression (as I stated above, I live and identify as female) and I tend to reject these particular labels when applied to myself.
Anybody who dares speak the truth regarding the misogynistic stereotypes propagated by transgenderism, instantly becomes the target of a deliberate campaign to discredit them. Instead of refuting the evidence or arguing whatever point is being made, trans will always engage in character assassination. It’s a well-worn pattern by now, and boring.
Just like the KKK who claim that Black folks have a brain which is magically different from caucasian people, so too does trans claim that females have a “female brain” which is different from males. So according to trans, little girls who like to climb trees and play with trucks must really “be a boy on the inside” and her parents need to prepare her for a sex-change. Sounds like old-fashioned sexism to me. Maybe if the parents of these kids truly believed in their heart of hearts that it was okay for a boy to like pink and wear dresses (or whatever traditional feminine thing he wanted to do) then there wouldn’t be so many trans.
Or maybe it’s a fetish, who knows? But I do know that stereotypes are harmful and sexist. Ask a trans person which specific behavior or thought pattern makes him think that he’s a woman, and IF he bothers to respond, it’ll be with a laundry list of stereotypes. He thinks he’s a woman because he likes to wear pink, or he thinks he’s a woman because the thought of being a submissive boinktoy arouses him. None of that means he is. I can say I feel like a cat, that doesn’t mean I am one. What do they mean precisely when they say they feel like a woman? Be specific, and notice how every response is a stereotype.
Cheryl, perhaps you and the rest of those here with similarly narrow viewpoints could enlighten us with the scientific evidence you have used to arrive at your conclusions, and also put forward your arguments as to why it seems to differ from all the scientific evidence in favour of transsexualism, including that of Dutch Professor, Dick Swaab
As a transwoman who has spent an outrageous amount of my life ascertaining who indeed I am, I find your stereotyping to be highly offensive.
What right do you think you have to tell me and other trans women who have spent such inordinate amounts of time in our lives questioning who we are and finally learning to like who we are – that we are nothing more than misogynistic stereotypes. How dare you and everyone else!
“I think I am a woman because I like to wear make-up and ONLY women like to wear make-up, so that makes me a woman”.
“I think I am a woman because I tend to be scatter-brained plus I’m very artistic and ONLY women are scatter-brained and artistic, so that makes me a woman”.
“I think I am a woman because my personality is very submissive and dainty but ONLY women are submissive and dainty so that makes me a woman”.
Trans’s criteria which explains why they believe themselves to be women, is nothing more than a laundry list of sexist stereotypes. What is it precisely which makes you think you’re a woman or a man? Can you answer the question without resorting to sexist stereotypes?
“I think I am a woman because the thought of having breasts makes me feel whole and happy, like I’m in the right body”.
That’s a fetish, a mental disorder. No woman actually believes that her euphoric emotional response towards her own body, is the criteria for whether she is a woman or not. I’m a woman because I was born XX, not because of how I feel about my chromosomes or my genitalia. What some trans are describing — a state of arousal created by contemplating one’s own body parts — matches the clinical definition of narcissism. And dozens of peer-reviewed studies have refuted the sexist idea of “brain sex” by now if one would only bother to read; Cordelia Fine does an excellent job of discussing those in her meta book “Delusions of Gender”.
Anyway, none of this discussion would even be necessary if men with intact penises would stop forcing themselves on already traumatized women and girls in the women’s locker rooms, rape crisis centers and women’s prisons. If trans don’t feel safe being around penises in spaces segregated by biological sex, and expect special accommodation because of their need for safety, then how come they won’t allow women the exact same consideration? Not to mention telling lesbians that we must have sex with a “lesbian trans woman lady stick”! When are they going to insist that heterosexual men must have sex with a “het trans woman’s lady stick”?
Claiming that biological male bodies are the exact same as female bodies, is a very handy tool if your goal is preventing women from uniting as a political class. Transgenderism demands that society ignore the sex-specific abuses we face as females by reducing “woman” into merely an amusing costume to be worn and discarded per whim instead of a lifelong struggle against sexist stereotypes. Transgenderism frames our oppression as feel-good identity mumbo-jumbo and not the very real, very inescapable sex-based inferior class we are forced into at birth because of the reproductive organs we were born with. Pander to trans and you hate women — it’s just that simple.
Cheryl reading the tripe you type up leads me to believe you have never ever ever met, or even spoken to a trans person as long as you’ve lived. I am trans, I transitioned because my body felt physically wrong. I tried talking therapy first, here’s a hint, on us it doesn’t work. So I went in for surgical transition, 10 days post op I no longer feel suicidal, my PTSD has lessened I can look in a mirror without feeling sick and am aiming to go back into training to become an architect. So please tell me again how my aiming to improve my quality of life oppresses you, I no longer have a penis so your penis being a magic recipe for rape on entering a room theorem is out, I actively assist in feminist actions nationally contributing physically and financially wherever welcome and financially if needed even if I’m not.welcome physically. I volunteer 7 nights a week as a youth suicide prevention specialist. So tell me what part of this is an evil conspiracy to oppress you with a nonexistant wang?
Your quaint propaganda straw-man “quotes” do not of course refute the genetic links already found almost a decade ago.
And before you go any further in your suggestions that place Transgender people as being belonging to a privileged class or suffering no real disadvantage and harm compared to non-transgender (Cisgender to use the appropriate ancient Latin prefix) Women lets compare the stats shall we?
Key survey results:
Received verbal abuse:
69 per cent of females
92 per cent transgender male to female
Physical assault without a weapon:
15 per cent of females
46 per cent transgender male to female
Physical attack with a weapon, knife, bottle or stone:
6 per cent of females
38 per cent transgender male to female
Source – AAP/Speaking Out: Stopping Homophobic and Transphobic Abuse in Queensland.
3 times the experience of assault, 6 times the experience of assault with a weapon.
Seldom do I read comments that encapsulates everything that is wrong with the “gender critical” anti-trans feminist narrative.
It’s infuriating to see Jefferys called a “leading feminist” and for you to come here, spewing TERF lies and fear mongering, in the name of protecting people like me and representing my interests.
You don’t.
Here’s a good read refuting your simplistic concepts of gender: http://freethoughtblogs.com/godlessness/2014/02/19/gender-julie-bindel-and-gia-milinovich/
But I suspect that’s not something you would be willing to engage with, so you can go straight to the telling off if you wish: http://sinmantyx.wordpress.com/2014/01/11/terf/
Your comments are despicable!
For me it was who I looked to for role models. I wasn’t interested in what my father was doing nearly as much as my mother. I wanted to do as the girls I grew up with. Well except for pink I hate pink. :-P I would play with my girl friends the way they played. When I tried to do as the girls did in my clothing and toy choices parents freaked. So I hid and did I wanted in secret. I lived in shame of who I was til it almost killed me.
I was denied the socialization of my identified gender so I filled in the blanks with stereotypes. It takes time to fill in those blanks with lived experiences.
Parents that force assigned gender on their children are doing them harm.
Children know who they are and what they want. What they want is based on who they admire. Who they admire is a reflection of who they aspire to be.
Cheryl I am (amongst other things) a trans woman.
NONE of what you have said applies to me. NONE of it.
I am here, living my life as suits me and there is nothing you can do about it.
Good day
“Instead of refuting the evidence or arguing whatever point is being made, trans will always engage in character assassination.” – “Cheryl”
“Cheryl” proceeds to engage in character assassination:
“Just like the KKK who claim that Black folks have a brain which is magically different from caucasian people, so too does trans claim that females have a “female brain” which is different from males.”
The fact is, the brains of men and women ARE different, and the brains of trans women are different from those of “normal” men. This is apparently the case even for trans women who are attracted to women:
“New MRI Studies Support the Blanchard Typology of Male-to-Female Transsexualism” – James Cantor (2011) – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3180619/
Make of this what you will, the differences exist.
“I can say I feel like a cat, that doesn’t mean I am one.”
So “Cheryl” believes the difference between men and women is really like that between two different species? Fascinating! — I thought we were supposed to be FREEING ourselves from gender stereotypes!
Sincerely,
– bonzie anne
How about, “I have always felt like I am a Native American Indian, but that doesn’t mean I am one”? My original point still stands.
I am truly sorry for the pain, confusion and anxiety experienced by transgendered individuals yet my sympathy for that does not blind me to the tremendous amount of harm and suffering which is dumped on women when a society persists in it’s support of sexist stereotypes. Every moment that doctors spend devising new plastic surgical techniques so that “someone’s body can match their mental image of themselves”, is another minute that doctors are wasting, as opposed to trying to find a genuine cure which harms no one and only helps. Doctors could be exploring the various connections and structures in the brain which are associated with false beliefs and fetishes much like what causes a man to think he needs a healthy leg amputated in order to feel whole (look up “Amputation Disorder”) while sociologists could research the many complex familial and societal factors, but they don’t, mostly due to highly orchestrated fear campaigns originating from within the trans community.
It does seem to be the case that the cause of transgenderism is quiet different for each subgroup of trans, and sympathetic doctors and bystanders ARE out here, waiting until such time as it’s safe for us to come forward. We don’t mean trans any harm and instead intend only kindness and understanding for those individuals and their families but we’re not willing to throw women under the bus in the process. It’s time to find a new way to help trans.
You seem to forget that trans women are not the only kind of trans person. Trans men exist as well… But I would assume you’d think we were somehow threatening to women as well? I am trying my best not to get upset here. You say how doctors could be doing this or that to be more “useful”… I personally think feminists could be doing a lot more to be productive. I think there’s a far more productive use of a feminists time than to worry about trans* individuals, no? To put it in perspective, trans* people really are not a harm to society in any way. There are no “men” in women’s locker rooms, bathrooms, etc. the fact of the matter is that trans* people tend to like to PASS before they enter the girls room (if MTF) or the men’s room (if FTM) I never entered the men’s room looking like a woman, and once I knew I passed 100% I never was questioned. I went in, did my business, and exited. As nearly EVERY trans* person does. MTF’s do the same. Wait to pass, enter the woman’s room, do their business, and exit. Reading through your comments makes you seem extremely ignorant. I am not saying that to come at you or to insult you. I am saying it simply meaning you really don’t know much of anything about trans* people. You don’t know of our struggle. You don’t know about our life. The funny thing is so many people are learning about us from a book, or from the internet. They then THINK they know about is. Hell, sometimes that book was written by a person who learned from a book and so on. I just cannot handle the ignorance….
I’m just going to leave this right here. ;-)
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38643880/ns/health-womens_health/t/us-doctor-repairs-victims-female-genital-mutilation/#.UzI-_oXwAlc
Character assassination? That’s rich Cheryl. You say, “Maybe if the parents of these kids truly believed in their heart of hearts that it was okay for a boy to like pink and wear dresses (or whatever traditional feminine thing he wanted to do) then there wouldn’t be so many trans.” Here you try to blame parents of transgender women for “creating” a false trans identity in children who would otherwise be happy just being gay. Your comment betrays your appalling ignorance on the basic facts of gender identity versus sexuality and sexual identity. Sexuality is about who you are attracted to. Gender is about who you feel yourself to be. Women and men express their gender in all different ways: that is gender expression which is distinct and separate from gender identity.
You have no idea what it’s like t parent either a gay child or a transgender child have you? Do you even know anyone with a trans child? To suggest that transgender identities emerge because parents can’t cope with their son wearing pink is outrageously simplistic, naive and ignorant of the facts.
Admittedly, there are gross prejudices, inequalities and injustices in existence around how boys “liking pink” which is problematic in and of itself but entirely separate to transgender identity.
I agree that stereotypes are harmful and sexist but you engage in plenty yourself. “Maybe it’s a fetish, who knows?” People who know what they are talking about know Cheryl, and you are another one of these commenters with plenty of opinion based on ignorance of the basic facts. You are bending to stereotypes yourself with your crass comment “he thinks he’s a woman because the thought of being a submissive boinktoy arouses him”.
You know nothing about core gender identities which is actually separate and distinct from gender expression within a culture and how stereotypes are created. Plenty of natal (or cis gender) women adhere to stereotypes and they are empowered in doing so because they feel they have a choice over their own identity and expression. Just because yo don’t approve of it doesn’t give you grounds to deny trans identity. (Which is different of course from me saying you don’t have the right to your opinion. You do, but prepare for it to be exposed as ignorant opinion. You know nothing.
Thank You Sheila Jeffries for talking about the militant extemist trans who always threaten violence when presented with the truth.
Thank You Cheryl for speaking out.
“You can paint stripes on a horse but it’s still not a zebra”.
Great article that touches on militant extremist trans, the “sacred cows” of the LGBTIQ community.
I’m sorry? I’m confused here, but I seem to recall the same stupidity emitted from people who tried to impede various benefits emerging from the Civil Rights Movement 50 years ago.
‘Militant extremist trans’? … I seem to recall Sheila Jeffrey’s clique in London, assaulting staff and clubbers with crowbars at the Lesbian SM club ‘Chain Reaction’. Naturally Sheila totally didn’t have any hand in the ski-mask toting thuggery and brute violence.
Only that those in her ‘Feminist’ circle did …. huh. But like any person with a brain I will not then say that Sheila Jeffreys is DEFINITELY GUILTY, despite being at the right time, in the right place, having the right motives and that some of her picket circle were outed beating the shit out of a worker in the process.
Funnily enough from the platform that sexual Sado-masochism “persists attitudes of violence against women”. evidently breaking the arm of a woman in said Lasbian S&M is inherently peaceful.
“Stop willingly hurting yourselves or I’ll hurt you unwillingly” … clever.
To date I don’t recall any event where ‘militant extremist trans’ raiding the University of Melbourne and breaking down the preposterously expensive (jointly taxpayer and student fee funded by the way) Germaine Greer archives.
You know the ones slurring trans* folk of all ‘equines’, striped or no striped? Yeah, apprently that required University and government funds because .. as you well know. Free Speech should (ac)cost EVERYONE, whether they want it or not.
But you know what? That’s okay … you keep playing that there is some trans* illuminati plottin against your MAJESTIC AND GLORIOUS RIGHTEOUSNESS. After all, how can they not see it? The gigantic scientific pitfalls and the lack of any philosophical credibility isn’t because TERF literature is bad or written by false academics only interested in circle jerking..,
…it’s because scienctific method and philosophical discourse that the rest of society uses is bad. See, all those trans* subhumans and their dastardly trans* conspirators.
The scientific evidence, and the philosophical truths that confront the GLORIOUS and RIGHTEOUS 2nd Wave TERF Bibles!? How DARE they oppose you with their SCIENCE and their PEACEFUL ACTIVISM. How DARE they use their TERRORIST glitterbombing protests of 2nd Wave personalities. They should COWER before the might of our singularly correct logic.
Those dastardly trans* folk … now we can’t even hold TERF groups in various private venues. It’s not that the organisers are disgusted by the hate-spiel, it’s because the trans* illuminati use their terrorism to scare people away from the truth!
Sure, I work maintenance, wear tshirt and jeans so that makes me a man, oh and I hardy call pink my color of choice. You seem think gender is something external when its not. You are refering to crosddressers maybe, but trans people are themselves, in the nude, far from any stereotypes you might invent.
Sadly many women, who address what is disconcerting about transwomen demanding to be included in traumatized women only space, are threatened with rape and death. It is disturbing the bully energy i have witnessed. In my community, a transwoman was seriously sexually harassing young men. Because she was of color, anyone calling her on her completely unacceptable behavior was called racist and transphobic. There is a lack of integrity in how this whole conflict is being addressed and it is macho and macha actions that i find very frightening. Where is any code of honor? Why should women who have been raped have to take on the double burden of being in a supposed safe place with a penis, often used as a weapon of war, in times when few men in general have done anything to prevent or stop rape? Then we are supposed to trust transwomen we don’t know when in a condition of trauma from battering and/or rape? Just seems damned domineering. Transwomen safe places are needed but not where others will be further traumatized. Can’t just shrug away trauma connected with penises.
“…in times when few men in general have done anything to prevent or stop rape?” That’s a particularly disturbing accusation against men. As if men don’t work to protect women against rape? Ever met the men who deal with rape through the courts? Ever met the male relatives of a rape victim?
And “Can’t just shrug away trauma connected with penises.” Does anyone with a penis qualify as a potential rapist or collaborator in your book?
Equating trans women with rape and battery and trauma stinks of the old US Southern States attitudes about “negro men around their white women.” It’s sad.
Trans women are actually not queuing up to “invade” rape crisis centres or traumatise victims of rape further. It’s just not the case. TERF’s on the other hand are so blinded by misandry and prejudice that they seek to deliberately exclude trans women from feminist spaces and not content with that they want to deny their existence at all and malign them constantly.
You do realize that Transgender women also get Traumatized, assaulted and raped too. You do realize that non-transgender women even commit child sexual abuse and sexual assault on other women, and while not that common have you evidence that it occurs less than Transgender women committing sexual assault?
Speaking of Death Threats did you ever oppose the death threats made by non-transgender women against Transgender ones? Such as for example the famous drive to get Sandy Stone thrown out of Olivia Records? Or some so-called feminists throwing around words like ‘final solution’?
And as for bullying what about the outing of a Transgender schoolchild by non-transgender women?
Let us not pretend that one side is all angelic victims and the other all monstrous.
Not when non-transgender women have publicly assaulted Transgender ones, where they have murdered Transgender people, where some even suggest that Janice Raymond’s attack on Transgender healthcare caused hundreds of thousands of Transgender deaths.
Getting cornered and abused in the men’s room cause I’m a girl that needs to pee, but because I try to respect the bigots on both sides of the fence I didn’t use the women’s room is nothing to shrug at. Not like I asked for it, I had tshirt jeans and converse shoes, the only remotely girly aspect was my face and earrings.
Too much to say in response to this hateful, harmful, tortured individual – Sheila Jeffreys.
Adding to Sarah’s response above … “I am here, I am alive, I am happy and free – and I am not afriad of you bigot”!
I have no idea how the author of this piece came to the conclusion that Jeffreys had made a racist attack. I heard the interview with John Saffran and Bob Maguire and thought Jeffreys’s remarks comparing tradespeople with the old black and white minstrels was spot on. There was nothing racist or disrespectful in her comments.
On another point, the description of Jeffreys’s analysis as “an anachronism of essentialist radical feminism which has not carried well into a progressive period of race and queer politics” is very subjective – and just plain silly. To begin with, there are a great many people who don’t accept that today’s race and queer politics are progressive. Radical feminism is entirely relevant to today’s reality.
While I have some sympathy for the stress and trauma people must go through before deciding to transition, I insist that, in the interests of women’s safety, transgendered people who are biologically male should have no place in women’s refuges, women’s prisons or women’s toilets.
I make your words mine Betty. You can disagree with Professor Sheila Jeffreys and criticize her anytime but there was nothing racist on her statement and the way the writer played with the trans-people’s interview quotes to make it look like their race/ ethnicity in any way opposed to what Jeffreys said was real bad journalism and misrepresent the real debate.
Considering the state of politics and society for aboriginal and NESB women in Australia I would actually prefer if we were discussing race and racism but that was not the case.
I thought that the reason “racist” is in quotes in the title is that Jeffreys used the word “racist” in her attack, not that the attack itself was racist. It seems that the author (or editor) chose sensationalism over clarity in titling the piece. I thought the article itself was fairly clear.
the trans community are after Sheila Jeffreys again; any woman who dare to resist trans invasion of female space are transphobes; from bathrooms to shelters, women’s services to reservations, trans must be allowed to occupy both male and female space, at the same time, or else it is discrimination; wtf? seriously, wtf?
Well Sheila , no matter what you say, you better get used to seeing more transgender human beings in our society because the revolution has only just begun!
A trans* woman will never understand what it is to be bought up with the disadvantages and subordination of cisgendered women – that’s just a logical fact because they haven’t had that experience or upbringing.
All persons other than trans* persons, however, WILL NOT understand the disadvantages and subordination of what it is to be trans*. The state of being Trans* is in itself a re-identification to a gender alternative to what a person was born with, however, in essence as a consequence of the practicalities it is in itself an identity and unless you have experienced that identity frankly you do not have a right to judge them.
The question is I put to uneducated persons like Sheila Jeffreys and the authors of previous comments on this page is if we claim as one of the arguments in support of LGB being a natural characteristic on the basis that why would someone “choose” this – why on earth would someone “choose” to be trans* where they are by virtue subordinate, discriminated and hated by a large proportion of the world? The answer is, again the same for LGB persons, because the alternative of ignoring their inner feelings leaves them accepting that they are nothing more than a freak and that they are wrong and that the bigots are right.
What I find utterly shameful that as a supposed Queer community (recently celebrated at Mardis Gras), persons are first outcasts in mainstream society and then outcasts again in what it supposedly the community designed to accept these persons!!!
A message to Trans* people: don’t lose hope, you are beautiful, I love you as my family and there is nothing that people like Sheila Jeffreys can do, say or write that will undermine the strength that we have.
Peace out xx
There are many people out there who can articulate a far more measured and intellegent response than I, so I will leave that to them.
What I will say is I am a trans woman. No matter what this academic and the two posters above say, I am here, I am alive and I am not afriad of you
Kindest regards
Sarah
Isn’t this the same woman who “became” a lesbian because she thought it was wrong to “sleep with the enemy”? By her own logic, isn’t she just pretending to be a member of a subordinate class as well?
You don’t seem to have thought this comparison through.
Women who are perceived as lesbians are oppressed as lesbians, for the most part. However, those born male do not experience the life-long, sex-specific oppression of women. Female oppression is a cumulative experience that begins forming us from birth. Even those who ‘transition’ and come to be perceived as female-born do not experience it, but rather a shadow of it.
They do not grow up being treated as female-born. They are not reared both expecting and being expected by others to be constantly caring more for others than themselves, to become the birthers and rearers and to care more about others’ sexual satisfaction than their own. Even women who discover they are infertile (or more commonly, are made so by their oppression) have this experience, that the male-born do not.
To be honest I agree that the ‘blackface’ analogy is an inexact and unhelpful one, but Jeffreys does have many pertinent comments to make about transgenderism and she would more helpfully be written about by someone who realises just how essentialist queer politics is. Someone who reads Jeffreys’ work before writing about it, in other words.
“Women who are perceived as lesbians are oppressed as lesbians, for the most part.”
Yeah, and trans* women are oppressed as women and trans* people!
Every TERF commentator seems to be obsessed with “transition”, as if trans* people adhere to a gender or sex binary and that being trans* means ‘transitioning’ from a man or woman or a male or female. Truth is plenty of trans* people aren’t adhering to this shitty spectrum: people can identify as trans* or as woman or a man or anything and still have penises, not take hormones, take on masculine/feminine behaviours, wear dresses, wear pants, etc. Stop misrepresenting trans* people by claiming that they want to reinforce a gender binary, or claiming that they’re appropriating the identity of women when they experience misogyny and transphobia on a daily basis! Do you seriously think that people who dressed in blackface were subject to racism in the same way trans* women are subject to misogyny?
Actually, comparing transsexual women to racist entertainers who only “pretend” to be female is spot on, and many LGB people get this.
We need to abolish gender, not perpetuate it. Be yourself, not an imitation, a stereotype, or a pharmaceutical sucker.
Disagreeing with transsexualism is not violence. Professor Jeffreys points out that many activists have no historical understanding of the brutality of gender as a hierarchy, and the abuse & disrespect of women and children that it perpetuates.
We need to be questioning genderism, just like we question racism and sexism. Genderism is brutal, universal human rights are universal, the biological body is worth respecting, the experiences & biological realities of girls socialized into a rape culture must be respected. This is what feminist LGB activists are saying – this is a women’s rights issue, at core.
Also, transactivists who promote hate and threats of violence upon those who disagree with them are actually sabotaging progressive dialogue, and making the State very happy. Some of them are no doubt on the co-intel payroll, according to the recent Greenwald report on JTRIG.
I do also agree with parts of this extreme feminism. Trans men are just that – men or once were men. They will never know the disadvantages & subordination of woman & if they do experience these disadvantages, most can simply change clothes back into a man. NO MAN or TRANSGENDER man should ever be placed in a Women’s Domestic Violence Centre. The women & children in these centres are supposed to be in a women’s ONLY space. There are plenty of men’s support groups that can assist men dealing with domestic violence. I do appreciate the struggle, discrimination etc these men go through. As a woman & lesbian I cant ignore our own struggle.
Claudia, you’d be surprised how few DV services there are for men, and how appallingly bad trans women would be treated in such places.
Men are not the problem in DV. Violence and those who perpetrate it is. To make blanket lock outs on all men, be they perpetrators or not, is genderism in itself.
how would anyone know? what if two men were fighting and one ends up in a shelter with hostility towards women in general? a safe space is not so safe anymore; why don’t trans men advocate for their own shelters, services, spaces, etc? why must they benefit at the expense of women, when men are the real perpetrators?
in a nation the size of the UK the entire nation there are about 2000 of us, hardly a h8uge population with which to gain a support base. We’re too spread out and limited in numbers. Besides which we just wanna be treated as human beings, we don’t need people booting us to the back of the bus or pointing at us and screaming how we’re different based on jefferies pet theories that were out of date in the 1970s we need people to engage their own brain and actually THINK.
Why are there so many #notallmen arguments in this thread? Ffs
From your comments you know NOTHING about transitioning! Do you actually know any transgender people? Fortunately, the lesbians I know, have a lot more knowledge about the subject!
Claudia, transmen where once female and transwomen were once male. You might find it easier to grasp if you think of female and male as biological sex and man and woman as referring to the person’s predominant gender.
So over ignorant and moronic gays and I am gay! About time the hate of feminists is aborted! You can live exactly as you want to! Get over it and forget about your HATE for anything male! Just as bad as the African religious Christian fundamentalists!
1. I’m confused because I thought a lot of people here incl. the OP were critical of making analogies of racial between sexual oppression – yet you and many others are doing so.
2. Those of an oppressed group harbouring fear/prejudice towards a privileged group is NOT the same as the reverse.
Claire, Several years ago I was sexually assaulted and raped by 2 other women. This would by your very same reasoning mean that we should ban lesbian women from woman’s shelters because it is not a safe space anymore if we’d let potential rapists in.