First, the idea that TS/TG's don't have "a background of experience as a woman" or can't be feminists seems to ignore that they come in two flavors: MtF and FtM. Whether you accept them as the gender with which they identify or stubbornly insist on the destiny of their genes, surely you must accept that at least one of the two groups meets the criteria? No?
Second, feminism is not what you do or what you are (though some do things because of it), but rather a set of ideas, like any -ism. And anyone who holds those ideas is a feminist. Even men can be feminists, so of course TS/TG people can, too.
Finally, can I just comment on the unintended humor of a discussion of LGBT topics which includes the phrase "cultural assumptions of difference" and then says:
- FAG BREAK -
Which means something entirely different depending on which side of the pond you're on. :) Il faut se dépêcher d'agir, on a le monde à reconstruire
Finally, can I just comment on the unintended humor of a discussion of LGBT topics which includes the phrase "cultural assumptions of difference" and then says: - FAG BREAK - Which means something entirely different depending on which side of the pond you're on. :)
hahahahahahahahahahaha. sorry, totally missed that. It was Stephen Whittle who said that and I'm pretty sure he didn't realise. I wonder if susan Stryker smiled. keep to the Fen Causeway
After all, there is a whole area of feminist misoginy where "radical" feminists, in claiming to eradicate gender, simply adopt an androgyny that is practically identical to male presentation. They do not create a new genderless form, they have simply eradicated femaleness. Which suggests that there is, somewhere in their psyche, a hatred and rejection of their own womanhood. I'm sure they would suggest that they are not dressing to please men, but that's just a burqa argument dressed up as political radicalism.
So FtMs are a-okay with radfems for rejecting femininity.
Equally, for them feminism is for separists by separatists and against men. So men cannot be feminists and trans women cannot be women because they don't have an ingrained fear of men. and if they cannot be women, then they are not feminists.
But the point here is not that bindel won't acknowledge that I am a woman. She's entitled to have that an opinion, just as a KKK member has every right to think coloured people are sub-human. What she shouldn't be allowed to do is write her smears and misrepresentations in the national press and have them left unchallenged. Let alone be honoured for them by a gay rights campaign. She has no idea about transgender reality, she knows nothing of our lives or the treamtents we undergo. She has her faith, her ideology where dirty reality and inconveneint truth have no place.
Indeed she actually admitted last Friday about another story that she misrepresented her own childhood because the lie made for a better story. There is a fascinating comments thread on guardian Readers editor comments where lack of bindel's journalistic ethics come in for a serious trashing from several different directions. keep to the Fen Causeway
