Do I look like a doormat with Welcome written on it?

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l it. (Was this helping trans people? Was it coming from them? Mostly I think not.) I made the mistake of losing my temper and insulted my antagonists back. I would not be lectured on feminism or womanhood.

There was a new word. TERF. It posed as an acronym — trans exclusionary radical feminist — but it was used as a slur. On this row went. The label “transphobe” may as well have been tattooed on my forehead. My own history and activism was irrelevant: my years with Act Up, campaigning around Section 28, my lifelong commitment to campaigning for abortion. Nada!

I watched woman after woman denounced as a TERF. Attempted suicides of young trans people were the fault of women like me. The murder of trans people by men was somehow refracted onto feminists. Masculinity is never the problem, you see. Masculinity sets the rules. Women are always the other, the outsiders….

Comments

  1. Van_Patten Avatar
    Van_Patten

    The problem is Mick while I have some sympathy with her position, she has to know that any socialist ideology ultimately collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. She’s also been an enthusiastic supporter of efforts to bar certain speech on grounds of ‘racism’, ‘sexism’, ‘homophobia’ so she has reaped the whirlwind of her attachment to a Left wing ideology that is ultimately evil. Be careful what company you keep is sound advice…

  2. Maia Selene Avatar
    Maia Selene

    quals in all important ways, sexism socially unacceptable. Racism, also in the UK mostly a won battle. So many of the winnable identity battles have been won.
    The joy of trans rights, especially framed as self identification is that even winning is losing. Suppose everything the trans activists want is achieved: self identification, access to women’s spaces, women’s sports, the whole shebang. Women’s sport will be decimated, there will be some nonzero rate of abuse of natal women by men self identifying. Recorded as woman on woman crime, of course. Vulnerable women will be harmed and new campaign groups will form for and against. The battle will go on with a new vulnerable group, natal females and a new target group somehow will be defined.
    The battle is framed in a way that does nothing practical to support actual trans people trying to live in society. What is being campaigned for, if won, will lock in a reasonable, legitimate dislike of trans people for a generation, making a permanent victim group.

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