See Ruminations 1
But also see this previous post
What kind of world is it when yesterday someone I love was threatened with rape and death countless times (she stopped counting at 500) for posting the simple, scientific and biological fact of "Women don't have penises."
I had written a very long follow-up post to my previous one. But I'm not going to bother posting it.
Suffice to say is I only have one question for those who believe that being a woman is just a feeling:
Can you describe what that feeling is without resorting to stereotypes?
Please. I am serious.
The women with penises brigade and their supporters don't want to engage in any serious and respectful debate. Instead they spew hateful and murderous threats. It is absolutely frightening.
And yes, I know, just like #notallmen #notalltrans. But only 10% of trans have SRS. And are raised with all that masculine privilege affords them. And FYI: there were trans in my inner circle in Toronto.
I offer you this one insanity without comment, there are hundreds of others: an abused woman in a Toronto Women's Shelter.
Women have been colonized and oppressed for far too long. We need our safe spaces. Desperately. Including our girls. In a restaurant recently I was asked by a dad holding his little daughter's hand outside the washroom was it safe for her. Dear Goddess. We have come to this.
As to my beloved, the matter was reported to the police who announced they could do nothing in a world of free speech. Death threats are free speech. This is how women get murdered in Canada when they complain about restraining orders being ignored.
I'm too old for this shyte.
Loud and proud: The emperor wears no clothes.
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Do we HAVE to have comments? I enjoy reading your posts and thinking about them. The few times I've read the comments, I've usually checked out feeling less than - less than enlightened, less than inspired, less than informed. Maybe the commenters could set up their own blog? Meanwhile, please know that some people read your work and consider the topics and your perspective without judging your value!
ReplyDeleteThank you Journey Woman, maybe I should consider not allowing comments. I'll see what this post brings. :)
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Not addressing Journey Woman directly. I know where that leads. Nowhere.
DeleteNot allowing comments? Then why blog in the first place? A blog post is a starting point, a teaser. To me the value of blogging is below the line; when comments start kicking off and in. When dialogue starts. If we, or rather Journey Woman, don't want dialogue, exchange of views, we might as well just stick to a private journal.
U
I hear you Ursula and interestingly, I realized I've dropped reading blogs that don't allow comments. Such blogs are like town criers, blaring out opinions without counterpoint or disagreement.
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Rape and death threats ought not to be tolerated - whatever might have provoked them. Facebook, Twitter and the like have brought out the worst in human nature, as well as allowing benefits of easy communication. Staying away from such venues is wise, let 'em fight between themselves, because nothing you or I or anyone says will change anybody's views on certain issues.
ReplyDeleteOn this particular issue I have no recent experience, but as I commented in an earlier thread, I sometimes suspect that not all trans people are 100% genuine these days - as they once were when I had any contact with some of them. That was in those innocent days before social networking took over and provided platforms for hyperbole, self-promotion and, I feel sure, a bit of "let's pretend" and get some feathers ruffled.
And also allowing men, to all intents and purposes, presenting as men, declaring themselves women and then invading women's private spaces. Can't count the number of convicted rapists who have done so, being sent to women's jails because they declare themselves women and then being charged with additional rapes. But stats are skewed because these are "women" rapists.
DeleteI don't know how we are going to fix all of this, T, but it's getting to be a huge issue with young girls being forced to tolerate "transgirls" in locker rooms and camps. It's a world gone mad. All a man has to do is declare himself a woman and be admitted to girls' and womens' previously private spaces.
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Being the weaker sex, women are assaulted by men all the time. Death threats are nothing new. Women assault women, too.
ReplyDeleteMale violence is rampant, Gigi. Everywhere. Stats from Hawaii for instance: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4009173/
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I read both your posts on the subject, the recent and April 2015. I know too little about the subject of transgender to be able to contribute much.
ReplyDeleteAll I know is that I am happy to be a woman. Just as I am happy for anyone who is a man. I don't get the fighting; the gender war. I do believe there are fundamental differences between men and women - take hormones for starters. Testosterone. I have a lot to say about testosterone - not least being the (grand)daughter of a grandfather and a father, niece of many an uncle, sister of a brother, friend to many a man and mother of a son. All good. But that's another subject.
I agree that there must be a difference between being BORN a woman/man to then later transgender. In the wake of your post a few days ago I pondered, on and off, what it would be like to "trans"form myself into a man. The whole thing is preposterous in as much as, yes, I can totally imagine myself behaving like a man, but - chiming in with what you say if I understand you correctly - I'd still not BE a man.
It's a dastardly difficult subject. Kudos to you to tackle it.
On a lighter note, and you mentioned it: I have no problem sharing a toilet with anyone. Not even the cat. What I do have a problem with are public toilets. Like when (I think it was Waterloo Station) the toilet attendant told me I couldn't take my son (he was about ten) into the Ladies. What the eff? Send him, unaccompanied (being a woman I, obviously, wasn't allowed to take him for a pee there), into a men's toilet? You can imagine how that ended. Sometimes it's best to just ignore and do. "I am his mother" I told her. End of.
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It's very difficult Ursula and I don't have a solution to the inherent danger of it all. Women have been colonized and oppressed forever. I view such matters objectively and will go down fighting for the liberation of all women and girls. We're still not there and admitting trans to our private spaces violates our safety for who is to know who is a predator amongst them?
DeleteHere is just one such report, the victim was 10. There are many such stories out there.
http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2017/october/transgender-woman-convicted-of-raping-10-year-old-girl-in-nbsp-restroom.
Like I said, how can one tell a predator. And yes I have known trans who wouldn't hurt a fly. These posts have not been about them. These posts have been about womens' safety.
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You know, there's an easy solution to the private spaces/bathroom issue. Individual, non-gendered bathrooms. Small rooms with a toilet and sink, one person (or a parent and child/ren) at a time.
ReplyDeleteI find there is a whole new world out there, did transgender exist when I was growing up, maybe. But of course what has happened is now fuelled by social media, and a sense of 'righteousness'. But the loo problem is difficult as Ursula says when you have the opposite sex child to contend with.
ReplyDeleteWe all need safe spaces to go for a wee, that sign on the door tells us so, whether it is a skirted female or a trousered male, maybe a third loo for transgendered people.
And on a lighter note, I'd fall around laughing if Grayson Perry in one of his dresses was in the loo!
Frankly, I am surprised. Here, in India, death threats are recognised as crime and the accused can be arrested, prosecuted and punished. https://lawrato.com/indian-kanoon/ipc/section-506
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about this all day, and my response is rather long and possibly irrelevant, but here goes:
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that unrestricted access to female public toilets by people with penises is not a good idea, I also think that trans-women are subject to the same fears when consigned to male public toilets. Public toilets should be safe for all, we need a better solution. My son’s roommate is trans. They (their preferred pronoun is 3rd person plural) don’t feel safe in mens’ washrooms. They also do not dress up as a woman, to all appearances they are male (strictly speaking I should be writing ‘they is’ but I’m not quite there yet) and their sexual orientation might best be described as ‘bi’. I have had the public washroom debate with my son, we haven’t arrived at a solution that doesn’t entail major public renovations. Unlike Ursula I have rarely felt happy to be a woman. Some of my worst childhood memories are of bullying by other girls and living in fear of being found out as not a ‘real’ girl. Perhaps I should have been trans, but that wan’t an option then and is irrelevant now. I am grateful that young people are declaring themselves to be whatever they think are and are demanding change in public attitudes. I don’t always agree, particularly with the more strident opinions, but I am glad they are doing this.
Feelings are good for some things.....sex doesn't matter if you are what you are not what you "feel".
ReplyDeleteCommon sense, Yes?
You feel all kinds of things it doesn't make it so.
Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. I acknowledge that no one answered the question of what being a woman "feels" like.
ReplyDeleteI myself have now been threatened for what I have posted. I have lived under the threat and actions of male violence and predation since I was 6 years old and have written extensively about it. This latest invasion of female spaces is appalling and abhorrent to me. I am sick and tired of women's rights being constantly on the table for negotiation and termination.
This is why I speak up.
And every day there are more incidents of women being assaulted and violated in their safe spaces by men and so very few are outraged. The silencing and threats and epithet-calling have been successful.
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