What the specific demands for liberation ARE
Jane Clare Jones reads another piece by another trans activist, this one by
Torr Robinson, a person with they/them pronouns who is the Trans Officer for London Young Labour and one of the founders of the recent pledge defaming Woman’s Place and calling for us to be expelled from the Labour Party.
Is it a good piece? It is not. Does it contain surprises? It does not.
The piece is called For Trans Liberation, and this idea is summoned throughout. There is, however, no specification about what Torr is calling for liberation from, or what the specific demands for liberation are.
There never is. There is never any explanation of what “trans rights” are, either. There is only ever slogan-brandishing.
… the overwhelming majority of the piece is about the fight against transphobia, and it would seem therefore that the overall thrust is about ‘liberation from transphobia.’ (In this it mimics one of our most common observations about the TRM. Why have you not devoted your considerable resources and organisational power to pushing for the material resources that you need, rather than going all in on trying to politically abolish sex and bullying the many women who object? Answer: Because ‘Trans Liberation’ isn’t actually ‘Trans Liberation.’ It’s ‘Trans Validation.’ And what ‘Trans Validation’ demands is that we all collude with you that sex does not exist.)
Quite so. “Validation” is not a reasonable political goal in the first place, especially when what we are supposed to validate is an absurd fiction. As I’ve said long past the point of tedium, there is no “right” to be confirmed or believed or “validated” as something one is not. If anything it’s the other way around – we all have a right not to be compelled to affirm lies. I can accept that some men are acutely uncomfortable with being male and can relieve their discomfort by thinking of themselves as female. That doesn’t violate our understanding of the world. But accepting that acute discomfort with being male equals literally being female is a different thing altogether and, like Alice, I can’t believe that. Even if I try I can’t. The most I can do is echo it, and I think there are good reasons not to echo lies, and there are many good reasons not to echo that one. The fact that women are women, and only women are women, and we have not achieved full liberation from male dominance yet, is one such good reason.
Jane goes into the whole thing in detail, with her usual panache.
I’m guessing TRAs are in the habit of believing six impossible things before breakfast?
No, iknklast, TRAs are in the habit of believing sex impossible things before breakfast.
Papito nominated for today’s internet.
What a great article by Jane Clare Jones. I’m genuinely surprised that anyone has to refute this fantastic garbage point by point, over and over, but here we are. If you look at the Labour Campaign’s pledge, I see number 4 is the most disagreeable part. Everyone must see trans women as women and trans men as men, but really, if they could agree that trans women are trans women, and trans men are trans men, and men are men and women are women, then there wouldn’t be much to work out. I don’t understand the resistance to trans women and trans men having their own categories. It would be much more palatable to the general public and the masses if everyone would agree that they need their own categories, and their civil rights as trans poeple should be upheld. I don’t see anyone disputing that trans people need to have the same civil rights as anyone else, but they seem to think everyone needs to acquiesce to their dysphoria and see them as real women and men. Most people in the world do not see things that way, but they could be made to see that trans women are trans women, and trans men are trans men? It’s truly frustrating when the solution seems so simple.
JCJ:
‘The Roadmap to Trans Liberation’ that Torr advances to counter the transphobic hordes involves the prescription that ‘trans power’ should create “structures and organisations (p.4)” to advance their interests”.
So what “interests” are there that no amount of “self-identification”, or no number of makeovers can give them? The ability to bear children?
Using the term “liberation” is just a clever attempt capture of the rhetorical moral high ground. Nobody wants to be seen or accused of being against anyone’s”rights” or “liberation.” That’s just evil, right? That’s how we’re supposed to respond. But we’re also not supposed to think about it too much. The sloganeering is a substitue for thought and debate, which TRAs want to avoid, because this so-called “liberation” movement is really a colonial one. What is being colonized is the concept of “woman” itself, and along with it , women’s spaces. Colonialism is bad, right? See, our side can take the rhetorical moral high ground too. But we do not discourage thought or debate; in fact we welcome it, because we have better arguments, (arguments period) based on the foundation of material reality.
In this struggle, language and definitions are key, which is why I will now only ever use the term “trans identified male”:”transwoman” concedes far too much; everything in fact. TIMs are not women, howver many times the mantra TWAW is repeated. Even if it’s ALL CAPS. Using any term with “woman” in it gives them ground they have no right to. Pronouns are Rohypnol
I think we have to hold fast to the distinction between sex and gender. Gender is culturally dependent, and its expression is a matter of habituation or choice. Sex is biological and immutable. We may consider trans-women part of the gender “women,” but they are not part of the sex “women.” To think otherwise is irredeemably to conflate sex and gender.
One of the fascinating bits of the TRA ideology is how they are happy to preach that sex and gender are not the same thing, as long as the preachees keep their mouths shut, but if you ask them whether they think that sex and gender are different things they’ll stick their fingers in their ears and shout OPPRESSOR! TRANSPHOBE! because they know full well the inevitable conclusion is that TIMs are not part of the sex “women.”
This sort of stuff adds a whole new dimension to those traditional words of encouragement from the old to the young: ‘You can be whatever you want to be.’
twiliter, #4
But that wouldn’t give transwomen what appears to be their main goal, unlimited and unquestioned access to female-only spaces.
Add that to the long list of similarities to creationism, alternative medicine… all unevidenced mysticism ever.
So…. on my understanding, as long as you self-identify as transwhatever, you have a right to use females-only spaces. Got it.
Only one question remains: where does Gwynneth Paltrow and her GOOP fit into this scheme?
;-)
‘I can accept that some men are acutely uncomfortable with being male and can relieve their discomfort by thinking of themselves as female.’
Up until fairly recently I was perfectly happy to accept this as well. But I think one of the things that’s come out now is that there are orders of magnitude more men (usually white, middle class and middle aged) who get a sexual thrill out of ‘being treated as women’ by strangers in public, and I’m finding that somewhat more difficult to accept.
Like guest, for some time I was able to accept that too, but I don’t now. For one thing, the evidence I’ve seen suggests that it does not make them happier, it does not resolve the problem in any way. If there is evidence to the contrary, the TRAs need to direct us to that, rather than just shouting TWAW!!!
For another reason, for a lot of them (probably not all) this seems to center around female/male stereotypes. Oh, I like wearing make up, so I must be a woman. Or something like that. In that case, it would probably make them – and us – and everyone else (except extreme traditionalists) happier to break the stereotypes and realize that liking make up, high heels, or wearing a tutu to the grocery store, does not make you female, it makes you you. And it would give oodles of relief to those of us who were born women and have been forced into these stereotypes for so long. We are often seen as failing at being women because we don’t “woman” right.”
Well, now, I was careful about how I worded that. I didn’t say I was happy to accept it, or that I accept it with any enthusiasm – what I meant was that it’s not flat-out impossible to believe, the way “men become women by saying so” is impossible to believe.
But also I guess because I think fantasy can be quite healthy and useful…but it has to remain fantasy, which can’t possibly be binding on anyone else. This whole idea that people can make their fantasies law and punish the rest of us for not playing along just makes me want to smash everything.
They’re getting a lot of traction by comparing “gender identity” to “homosexuality.” And I don’t think it’s just a tactic. Most of the people who identify as trans seem to believe they’re close to the same thing: it’s innate; you’re born that way; it goes against the way men/women are supposed to behave; and there are people out there who deny that it’s real. Just like homophobes think a gay person is only superficially attracted to the same sex and is really just acting out, “transphobes” think a trans person is only superficially the other gender and is just acting out. They can both be “straightened out” with prayer and therapy.
The Gender Critical have explained over and over that this is a false analogy, and why it’s a false analogy, but either it’s ignored, or dismissed in favor of the more flattering narrative. If it’s wrong to believe gay men don’t genuinely like men, then it’s equally wrong to believe trans women aren’t genuine women. Listen to what they’re saying ABOUT THEMSELVES. You can’t tell them you know them better than they do.
OB, #14: Absolutely. I have fantasies of my own. I don’t even let other people know what they are, let alone insist on validation. They are fantasy and I do feel happier for indulging in them. So I guess, yes, I can accept it on those terms. But actually assuming that fantasy is real? And that other people need to agree it’s real? Wow. That’s something I just could not do (though I suppose if I get senile dementia, I might start to mix things up, but as a non-senile, non-demented person, I am able to tell the difference).
Whenever I encounter the “trans women are women” thing, I’m reminded of a passage by Swedenborg I happened to read long ago that tickled me:
The angels … discard the dogma that the understanding must be kept in obedience to faith, and say, “What is this, believing when you do not see whether the thing is true?” And if somebody says that still it is to be believed, they reply, “Do you consider yourself the deity that I am bound to believe you? or do you think me mad enough to believe a statement in which I do not see the truth? Cause me to see it.” Thereupon the dogmatizer betakes himself elsewhere. The wisdom of the angels consists solely in this: that they see and comprehend everything they think about.
(No I’m not a Swedenborgian :)
@14 Yes I see from your following sentence that I read ‘can accept’ differently than what you’d intended, sorry–and yes, I also ‘can accept’ that some men may feel/believe that way.
There’s something to be said about the role of fantasy in the recent trans mania. Right now, the overwhelming majority of top-money-making films are comic-book fantasy movies. Almost all top-rated television series today are science-fiction or fantasy, or at the very least involve the supernatural in some way. The total domination of science-fiction/fantasy in popular entertainment is a brand new phenomenon! Werewolves, vampires, aliens, cyborgs, super-spies… virtually all popular narratives these days revolve around the supernatural. This was not at all the case in any previous generation. Young people today are absolutely bombarded by narratives about supernaturally transforming into something more than your ordinary boring non-magical self. Surely that has some kind of influence on young people and their eagerness to define themselves as trans.
I’m aware of what I sound like: it’s never easy to criticize the media’s role in influencing people’s behaviour without sounding like a prude or a reactionary… I don’t want to sound like Tipper Gore, terrified and sure that rap music needed to be controlled and censored lest it turn young men into criminals (I’d say she was misguided but… not entirely wrong! Rap did influence young men and encourage misogyny! But it should not have been censored or banned), nor do I want to echo Richard Dawkins at his worst, like when he complained that The X-Files was bad because it was about conspiracy theories and aliens, and therefore unscientific, un-skeptical and un-atheistic. (C’mon! The X-Files was a fun, smart-as-fuck show and it didn’t breed a generation of paranoid alien-hunters. I’m pretty sure if anything it bred a generation of women who admired badass Dr. Dana Scully and were influenced to pursue science degrees because of her. Also it was smartly written! It doesn’t matter that it was about aliens. I would have loved it if it was about astrologers and homeopaths. It was well-written intelligent drama.)
But I digress….
It seems a bit ridiculous to think the stories people tell each other in any culture DON’T influence the behaviour of those people. And don’t forget Harry Potter–I was, I think, possibly too old for it when it hit, and after reading half of the first novel gave it up as boring and derivative, but I’ve read and heard some things that make me think it would be difficult to overestimate its effect on the generation it was aimed at. I never watched the X-Files myself, but your recommendation is making me think I should check it out. It just seems a shame that the stories in our culture are, at base, designed not to teach lessons or preserve culture, traditions or history but to generate income for the tellers.
Here’s something I wrote the other day:
I went to a talk last night in which the speaker mentioned the idea that our narrative is what drives our perceptions and behaviour. I think there’s a lot of truth in that. I’ve thought (and possibly written) before about the kinds of narratives I remember from the media I consumed as a child—stories, movies, Saturday morning cartoons. Two in particular seemed to be persistent/consistent. The first was ‘when you first encounter X it’s frightening/confusing/stupid, but the more you learn about X the more you realise why X is what it is and, if not sympathise, at least understand.’ The example of this narrative that comes to my mind is the Horta in ST:TOS. But there were several stories of ‘the primitive people do X, the white rational invaders show up and say X is a backward superstition so they make people stop doing X, either by neglecting it or forcing them to give up their customs, and horrific consequences ensue.’ Moral of the story: if you don’t understand something then learn about it; every ‘other’ is a subject of its own story, every ‘irrational’ ‘primitive’ behaviour has a reason.
The second was what I call the ‘heist story’ and what a friend called the ‘D&D story’. A random group of people, from different backgrounds, with different histories and different skill sets, come together or are forced together, and each contributes something unique to the success of a project they carry out together. The example of this that comes to my mind, though it wasn’t something I encountered as a child, is Sharon Green’s ‘Blending’ novels (though I wish the two female protagonists weren’t ‘a prostitute’ and ‘a merchant’s daughter’–particularly as, in the pseudo-preindustrial England of typical Anglophone fantasy a ‘merchant’s daughter’ is basically ‘a merchant’), but any ‘quest’ story has this element. Moral of the story: every person, even a marginalised/othered person, has some value if you can find it. People succeed when they contribute to diverse groups.
So what happened to these narratives? As far as I can tell we have different ones now—it seems the most popular narrative now is the superhero story. Moral of the story: some people (a very few special people) are just naturally better than others. They may work as a team occasionally, but they are an elite team. The rest of us can only hope that these elites might do something that benefits us; we have no agency, and can only rely on the good nature and integrity of the ‘good’ elites, who will protect us from the ‘bad’ elites.
My question at the moment is which comes first, the narrative or the reality, and which drives the other?
Excellent points here. Much food for thought.
Artymorty, I couldn’t agree more on that assessment of the idea that all books, movies, etc should be realistic. I am currently writing a series of young adult fantasy novels involving witches, and I think the crucial words are fantasy and novel. They are not meant to be taken literally. They are for the purposes of fantasy.
The problem we have now is that too many people don’t seem to grasp the difference between fantasy and reality, and fantasy seems to be bleeding over into reality. Why? I don’t think it’s the novels or movies. Those have been with us a long time, and there have always been people who took them too seriously, but this is a systemic societal thing now. That’s what cries out for explanation.
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