Laurie Penny doesn’t like a woman shouting
If it doesn’t convince anyone the first 500 times, try again.
The dishonesty battles with the stupidity for first prize.
As always, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s anxious adherence to the rules or genuine delusional belief – in fact it’s impossible to tell just as it’s impossible to tell if any given naked man in a women’s changing room genuinely believes he’s a woman or is just taking advantage of the bizarro-world new rules.
Also she’s wrong about the homophobia. It wasn’t about thinking lesbians and gays would be raping people, it was about thinking same-sex love and attraction are weird and ooky. That’s all. It was just irrational squick, picked up from the culture because it had always been that way.
And she doesn’t matter because…………….?
But it’s not “cracking down.” It’s not punishment, it’s not deprivation, it’s not torture, it’s not imprisonment. It’s just barring male people from spaces where women are vulnerable. That’s all; that’s it.
Men’s desire to be “validated” as women should not be seen as more important and pressing than women’s need to be safe from predatory behavior by men. Men who really do think of themselves as women should be able to understand that in a heartbeat. If they don’t, and they refuse even to try, then in what sense are they women? For what reason should we sympathize with their desire to be accepted as women? Why should we prioritize men who put their own desires ahead of our needs? Why are men encouraged to put their wants first while women are ordered to put our needs last? What could be more patriarchal and unjust than that?
Nice! ZING!
And just like weightlifting, the “genuineness” and “sincerity” are irrelevant. These individuals are still men and should not be (or even ask to be, let alone demand) in women’s spaces.
By treating this as some kind of wildly unlikely hypothetical, she’s dismissing the fact it has already happened. Also, is Penny fine with dropping the whole idea of “Schrodinger’s Rapist,” because the issue of not being able to tell the “good” trans from the “bad” predator is just a subset of that guideline on how to behave in the presence of men.
Gender critical women are tone policed for being “Karens”, but it’s okay for TIMs to be pushy assholes? Have any trans activists tried advancing the claim that this belligerent entitlement is simply “gender non-conforming” assertiveness? I’d be surprised if they haven’t. They could turn their total lack of female socialization, and resulting boorishness and insensitivity into a “feminist” plus.
In the 70’s and 80’s it was about being able to be openly gay in public spaces without being harassed. That’s different from trans people wanting to be able to be naked in single sex spaces when their genitalia doesn’t conform to the specified gender. I don’t especially care who’s using the stall next to me in a public bathroom or changing area. I’m not going to go out of my way to peek but will allow them privacy. It a transwomen is in the next stall, I don’t care because I won’t even know. But it they are displaying their penis so that I can observe it, then they are the one being rude and I’m likely to stare because it’s not what I’m expecting to see there. I don’t see it as being different from flashers – i.e. displaying your genitals when other people aren’t wanting or expecting to see them. That’s considered a crime and I don’t think being trans means it’s not a crime.
The male violence to female violence ratio is well known to dip the scale down on the side marked “Men.” This isn’t some surprising recent discovery uncovered by a clever statistician, it’s been known throughout the history of humanity. It’s caused by a combination of nature (testosterone, strength) and nurture (gender, entitlement.)
The assessment of homosexual violence vs heterosexual violence is in no way as obvious or universal.
If the activists want to claim that the patterns of violence for transwomen resemble that of women, not men, the onus is on them to demonstrate that. Good luck getting any well-designed, neutral study protocol past the hair-trigger protective instinct of modern academia. The fact that the numbers of women’s crimes involving violence start to soar whenever transwomen are counted as “women” in crime statistics might provide a little hint about possible findings.
Most men would not accost or even leer at strange women in a changing room; head down, face red, change and get out. But I don’t see them whining about being accused of being predators every time they see a single-sex area.
This for absolutely sure. I’m glad that the overt reaction is less pronounced now. Not gone by any means, but for many gay people (men especially) life is a bit easier.
But then consider NAMbLA and similar organisations. There were gay men who openly campaigned to allow grown men to have sex with male minors. So adding pedophilia and statutory rape to the squick factor. So, Penny is being disingenuous or is utterly ignorant if she simplifies the argument down so much. It’s worth noting as well that many gay and lesbian people fought hard to eject and sideline those who wanted to legalise underage sex from the mainstream LGB activist movement. They understood what society was never going to accept. I guess they’d be regarded as sex-negative, kink-shaming bigots these days.
Maybe I’m wrong in saying this but I don’t particularly want TIFs in my locker room either… The reasons are a bit different but still…
Well, yes. Most adults don’t really want to play let’s pretend with other adults.
How completely surprising and unexpected that people don’t care for being falsely accused of moral deficiency. I’m flabbergasted.
A: “You’re a [bad person type], you know.”
B: “No, I’m not. How dare you accuse me of that?”
A: “Whoa ho! Looks like I struck a nerve. That proves you’re a [bad person type].”
“Cracking down on an entire category of people on the basis that one of them might one day commit a crime is, of course, the very definition of prejudice.”
This is the exact same reaction that ‘Men’s Rights Activists’ have to the idea of women-only spaces. ‘How dare you accuse me of being a rapist, I’m a perfect gentleman! You’re just prejudiced against men you filthy feminazi!’
I’m going to guess Laurie Penny would say she isn’t a fan of #NotAllMen, but yet here she is, adopting and furthering their talking points as her own.
As a “cis” male, I’m just gonna toss this out here:
I concur that transwomen in male-only spaces do, in fact, face considerable risks, ranging from mere offensive behavior up to violence and rape. However, while TRAs seek to correct for this by claiming space from women, I would advocate that the space be taken from my fellow cis males.
So make a third locker-room, which anyone can identify into, if they wish. Just trim off a segment of the men’s locker room to do it. Similarly with restrooms, prisons, and sporting competitions. After all, it’s my fellow cis-mens’ fault that transwomen don’t feel safe in such spaces, so we should be the ones to bear the burden, right?
Rob:
Yes, that’s a point worth making. In the UK, we had PIE, a semi-respectable organisation with the backing of some mainstream politicians. PIE stood for Paedophile Information Exchange – yes, it had “paedophile” built right into the name – and the organisation campaigned for removing the age of consent entirely. It was inextricably linked to the gay community, presumably because it was founded by gay men and was considered an offshoot of certain gay rights activism groups.
So while gay men were struggling to (rightly) disassociate themselves with rumour and accusation of paedophilia, groups like PIE were piggy-backing on the pressure to be less judgemental about other people’s sex lives to campaign for child rape in plain sight. If society is to remove the boundaries to gay sex, it was argued, shouldn’t it also remove those other tiresome boundaries that exist to protect children from predatory adults?
Does any of this sound familiar? It should.
Freemage, I’ve pondered that idea a bit lately. Part of that is that I just got back from two weeks in Provincetown, where, these days, one is more likely to run into trans people than ever before. I observed different reactions in myself to these encounters. One thing I contemplated is that if a person is dating a trans person, they must be neither straight nor gay.
In the dumpling shop, I was momentarily stunned by an obvious trans-man wearing the ‘full kit’ leather halter-top in a way that showed off her mastectomy scars. Her upper body – except for the scars – was almost convincingly male, despite the slight shoulders. Her lower body, however, was entirely different, with a large, clearly female behind, complete with cellulite pouring out from her tiny boy-shorts. I wondered how she is received at the tea dances. I know most gay fellows would never, never, date her, and many of them would even resent her presence more than that of other women. The little fellow she was with, clearly entirely male, was therefore not the same kind of gay as most gay men. Did that mean he was bisexual? I don’t know. But nobody looking to have a relationship with a man would look at this sexual hippogriff and think she qualified.
On another day, I talked to a handsome young fellow who was with a very pretty trans-woman, betrayed principally by his squawky voice. He had clearly had a lot of surgery in his visible portions, and it’s not worth speculating about the invisible ones beyond noting that a “neo-vagina” is not a vagina, but a wound prevented from closing at great effort. He was very pretty – clearly one of those case of ‘so gay he’s a woman.’ But if the other fellow was really looking for a relationship with a woman, he hadn’t found one. So he couldn’t have been entirely straight either. Must he be bisexual, then? Love is love, and not mine to judge. They seemed like a happy couple, and I’m happy for them. But it takes only seconds for anybody to notice that this is not truly a heterosexual relationship.
When we talk about trans-people in general, are we really talking about something like a “third sex?” There are different kinds or levels of trans-people, but the ideal of trans-people is full alienation from their born body, and surgery that renders them entirely infertile and neutered, with at most the cosmetic appearance of the opposite sex. Does a trans-woman have more in common with a trans-man than he does with non-trans people? Would it be reasonable to have three locker rooms, Men, Women, and (what to call it, trans, neutral, other, third sex)? Because the ding-dong dude does not belong in the Womens’ locker room no matter how femme he feels, no more than a man who feels young at heart belongs in the Boys’ locker room.
If it is punishment, then it is not punishment specific to being trans. For one thing, trans men are immune to it*, and for another all men share in it. Trans women are being singled out for nothing more than the accepted treatment all males get. Because they’re male.
*Though I’m sure there are some that have successfully changed their appearance such that they look convincingly male. In which case they too will be rejected from female dressing rooms.
I am going to get in trouble. I have spread this conversation away from this “safe space”.
:)
https://maasaiboys.wordpress.com/2021/06/29/we-are-still-here/comment-page-1/#comment-84675
Papito: Re the comment in your last paragraph. I just came out as Trans-chronological. Alas, I cannot persuade my HMO to pay for total plastic surgery to bring me into conformance with my 22 year old inner self. (I am 58!)