A lot of support and kindness towards trans people
We always have to be kinder. Kinder and kinder and kinder and kinder. There’s never enough. No one bother about being kinder to us though. We’re just old boots.
Trans rights are a major part of the remit of [Tory MP Caroline] Nokes and her committee, which is currently undertaking the inquiry into the government’s response to Gender Recognition Act reform. (May’s government held a long consultation on updating the GRA and committed to introducing those reforms, which were later shelved by Johnson’s administration.) The committee hearings are extraordinarily sensitive, empathetic and detailed sessions with some of the leading figures on both sides of this debate, one of the most bitter in the current political landscape.
Nokes, in ways that largely go unnoticed, quietly encourages a lot of support and kindness towards trans people.
Why trans people in particular? The most visible and audible ones are male. Why do they need so much support and kindness? Especially from women?
“These are people who have the worst experience of the health service, they, as young people, have a really rough time in education, they then end up in a relationship where they’re the victim of domestic abuse. You sort of look at it and think we have to make the system kinder to trans people, and instead of focusing on having a massive row about what constitutes a woman, and whether we’re going to refer to a pregnant person as a woman or not, can we not please just be a little bit kinder to people and work out how we can make life easier for trans people?”
Instead of making sure we don’t lose the meaning of the word “woman”??? No we fucking cannot, and why in hell are you asking?
“When we’ve become so much more tolerant about so many aspects of life, it just seems to be really, really awful that we can’t be more understanding, and everybody the whole time wants to drag it back to sort of the lowest common denominator and to wheel out, you know, the one example they can find of a trans woman who’s attacked someone. Please, you know, we can be kinder than that. We can be nicer than that.”
Jesus, point missed by a mile. It’s not primarily about trans women who attack someone, it’s about opportunistic men who can claim to be trans to get access to vulnerable women. What about being kind to those women for a second?
“I have a massive problem with the whole sort of ‘cancel culture’,” she adds. “He who shouts loudest is not always right. And I think that we as a society have lost the ability to debate issues and views without resorting to abuse, and people just wanting to destroy others because they happen not to agree with them.”
You mean like Owen Jones, Jolyon Maugham, Gregor Murray? Tell them to “be kind” why doncha.
Yes, it’s better to be nice than right. /s
Does God exist?
“Instead of having a massive row over whether God exists or not, let’s make the system kinder to Christianity and write the Bible into the law.”
Does alternative medicine work?
“Instead of having a massive row over whether alternative medicine works or not, let’s make the system kinder to natural healers and mainstream it into clinics and hospitals.”
Did Trump instigate an insurrection against the government of the United States?
“Instead of having a massive row about it, let’s be kind, say he won, and just give him another term, shall we?”
If transwomen are not women, but men, then that matters. It makes a difference. Trying to make an end run around the MAIN ISSUE by wringing your hands over how women aren’t being kind enough to them is not compassion. It’s a slick trick, and we see it.
And still the constant hammering on about the worst experience, the worst abuse, the worst everything. No data to support it, just say it.
I’m sure to the men who think they are women it is the worst, because they probably assume how they were treated as men (white men) is the norm for everyone. If that’s the case, they must have it worse. They never saw any of the abuse leveled at people of color. Domestic abuse against women never drifted through to make an impact on their way of life. So now the group that has never been held in slavery, has never been driven off land that was theirs by right, has never been given blankets laced with smallpox, has never been slaughtered in a mass genocide, and do not have an epidemic of domestic violence feel quite comfortable thinking they have it worse than any other group – people of color, Native Americans, German Jews, women…do they even have it worse than people who’s shoes pinch?
My final answer? Fuck off.
Well it’s been a while since William the Conqueror, right? Can’t expect them to remember what that was like.
iknklast, while I’m certainly sympathetic to your position, I wonder what percentage of TiMs are White. I really have no idea. Are there any statistics at all?
The ones I always see shouting are white. I know there are some non-white trans, and some of them do indeed fuss about things a lot. The runners in Connecticut, for example. But overall, it does seem to be driven by white men. (so white-transism? Does that resonate like white-feminism? Why do white men get to get out there and tell white women they can’t be proper feminists?)
There was an incident at a local (Montgomery AL) hotel in which a reportedly drunk hotel guest allegedly harassed a trans-identified male employee of a trans advocacy organization called TKO. The organization is described as Black and trans led in a less-detailed news article.
Precious few details are provided in any of the reports. The TKO employee felt his life was threatened? How? What was said and done? The TKO employee was subjected to transphobic slurs? What slurs in particular? So I’m skeptical of the report. Trans advocates have a tendency to exaggerate the severity of slights. It’s entirely possible that this hotel guest was actually drunk and said or did bad things, but I am pretty certain I would not agree with at least some of what they might consider bad things.
I found it, well, unsurprising but disappointing that such an emphasis is placed on “misgendering” in the various reports, which seem to rely largely on the Facebook post in the first link. If it’s publicly humiliating for this male employee to be referred to as male, perhaps it’s also publicly humiliating to be forced to refer to this male person as female. Surely it’s a bigger deal that the TKO employee’s life was threatened?
“These are people who have the worst experience of the health service, they, as young people, have a really rough time in education, they then end up in a relationship where they’re the victim of domestic abuse.”
I vaguely remember that there is some other group whose members end up in relationships where they are victims of domestic abuse (disproportionately so) but for some reason I can’t quite remember the right word.
Iknklast #2
I would imagine there is a big overlap in the demographics of transwomen and people who’s shoes pinch, given the discrepancy between the size of men’s feet and the size of women’s shoes.
Domestic abuse probably includes spouses unwilling to put up with a paraphilia.
Almost certainly. The DARVO is strong in this one.
My cup runneth over.
Oh, wait. I knocked it over and dumped all the kindness.
Sackbut @6:
Or you would agree that it was all very bad, but none of it had anything to do with trans-ness. Drunk hotel patrons can do very bad things.
So, there was this article in todays NZ media…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/gender-and-society/127368266/violating-transgender-passenger-upset-by-patdown-or-nofly-call-at-wellington-airport
The gist of it is that a trans person went to fly and there belt buckle triggered the metal detector. That requires an automatic divert to a full body scanner. turns out body scanners are terrible at interpreting trans peoples bodies (presumably those who have had surgery). They’re all terrible for people with amputations, prosthetics, colostomy bags etc. International procedure says that in event of a body scanner picking up something strange, or giving an ambiguous result, you get a pat down or no fly. Trans person refused pat down, came back next day without belt on, flew to destination. Now talking about how violating the order was and we should make exceptions for trans people.
Now I agree the ordeal is violating – for everyone who goes through it, which includes thousands of non-trans people every day as well. It’s also shameful that the manufacturers and certifiers of this equipment (TSA) have known about how shit these systems are for years and haven’t fixed it. To be a little fair to the manufacturer, it seems they have developed a new algorithim that doesn’t require an initial ‘male’ or ‘female’ input. A non-binary algorithm if you will. the TSA won’t certify it for whatever reason.
So, I think pretty much everyone hates the system, we all know it’s flawed and is a violating experience. Many people want it discontinued. There’s very little evidence that it has ever thwarted a terrorist incident. personally I don’t see this as an opportunity to be kind to a trans person, but instead one to talk about how fucked up the whole system is and whether there is a better way that balances security, personal autonomy, and returns air travel to being merely tiresome rather than hell.
Rob@13
I agree, and I think this is true in a lot of areas where people want special exemptions. Religious exemptions are a common case; if beards aren’t really a problem for this kind of job, figure out a less restrictive beard policy rather than granting a policy exemption for a religious group, just to pick an example.
GW@12
That’s a good point. I don’t know that TKO alleges that the abuse had much to do with trans-ness, other than supposedly transphobic slurs and “misgendering”, and perhaps this man being targeted for abuse because of (I assume) feminine appearance, but details are scant, so who knows? I don’t condone abuse and threats, of course, but I don’t consider “misgendering” to be abuse, so I’m wondering what else was said.
I checked for any updated information, and no more details, just a statement from the mayor and a meeting set up with the hotel management.
Michael@11:
I knew it: you’re a cat!
Rob, I have had to go through pat down because the scanners picked up the metal of my shoulder replacements. I know the “abuse” I suffered had nothing to do with being trans; does that mean I didn’t go through it? Because they are the mostest oppressedist ever?
James Garnett, I have a friend who said he had developed a great proof that the world isn’t flat. He said it it was, the cats would have knocked everything off by now.