Worrying developments
Marie Le Conte writes for the New Statesman and has the Approved Views. She’s sad about those people who have the Unapproved Views – they’re so obsessed.
Her thoughts on this were prompted by a Mumsnet discussion with MPs Stella Creasy and Caroline Nokes on what women should care about.
Though some questions focused on childcare for politicians and media attacks on the appearance of female MPs, the vast majority concerned one topic. “Should males be included in women-only shortlists?” was one. “Would you be happy if Labour’s first woman leader were a transwoman? (Biological male)” was another.
Le Conte found it “odd” that so many women asked questions about that one topic. She tweeted about it and got more replies than she wanted.
I am not here to complain about it or to make a case for transgender rights. I am not going to convince anyone to change their mind in a handful of sentences, and see no point in attempting to do so. Instead, I would like to point to two worrying developments in online feminism, which I believe were made depressingly clear by this incident.
The first is the obsessiveness of the “gender critical” movement.
We think about it and talk about it way too much. She, the normal one, doesn’t think about it that much, and neither do her trans friends. Normal people just get on with life. If only gender critical feminists were normal like her.
This leads us to the second point. By deciding to centre their online persona and their feminism around gender issues, these women now refuse to recognise the legitimacy of those with opposing views. It does not matter that feminism has always had strands and internal disagreements; if you support transgender people, you cannot be a feminist.
What would a feminism that doesn’t focus on gender issues look like? Like a big box with nothing in it, right? Like zero. Like empty space. Like nothing. She might as well rebuke BLM for focusing on racial issues.
As for opposing views and internal disagreements – as with everything, there are minor disagreements that needn’t lead to a split and then there are fundamental ones that can’t be ignored or accommodated. If you think men who say they are women are literally women, and that feminism is for them too, and not just “too” but “instead” and “more,” then your feminism is no longer feminism. It’s all in the “fem” part.
I have been called a handmaiden, a “pick me” girl, and been accused of vying for male attention. It does not matter that I have been a feminist all my life and have the receipts to prove it; my views on gender apparently mean I have taken the side of sexist men.
If your “views on gender” include the view that men are women if they say they are, then I don’t know what to tell you. You are in fact in solidarity with men in a disagreement over what feminism is, so yes, it’s true that you’re not a feminist, despite the receipts.
Well, we can’t all be normal, can we.? There have to be some standouts, otherwise, what a boring old world it would be. Just normal animals like dogs, cats; maybe cows and horses. Just normal plants, like petunias and daisies. Normal people, like her, and normal trans types born with normal male genitalia who want the normal right to use womens’ washrooms and let the normal women in there know in no uncertain terms that they had better cop it sweet if they don’t want a belt in the gob; sorry, normal belt in their normal gob.
Boring, boring, boring.
They refuse to define their terms. They ignore facts. They make hyperbolic claims. They openly declare their desire to shut-down alternative views. They (some of them anyway) make threats of violence against their ideological opponents.
It’s frightening and depressing the way otherwise decent people behave when they join the trans cult. And they do an awful lot of projecting.
Women talking about gender issues means that trans activists will be less able to do things secretly, hidden from oversight ,accountability, and public discussion. That women are not “supposed” to talk about this shows that TAs pine for the days when things could be slipped by quietly in backroom deals. It also shows that they cannot offer actual arguments for why they want what they want; women are just supposed to accept imposed changes in law and practice that erode their own safety, well-being, and right to organize away from men, without complaint or question. They insist that women looking out for their own rights are doing this just to be “anti-trans,” but can’t see that their own narcissistic demands are fundamentally anti-woman.
TL;DR summation of Le Conte: Shut up, TERF. Same old, same old.
If that is such a bad stance, don;t forget to express the same disapproval of the TRAs that claim GC feminism is not feminism. Maybe start with the numpties at FTB.
Gosh, how unfair. The pro-gender identity side has so graciously recognized the legitimacy of our views.
Such a feminism would be about “empowerment.” The empowerment to dress to please men, or live the Cosmo lifestyle and learning 117 ways to blow our minds in the sack, or to be empowerd to use sexuality to make money by having an OnlyFans account, or charging the boys to pay for text books, empowerment to dress like sluts during Slutwalk because none of the men are there for ogling are they? This is the modern, intersectional feminism, that gives women the power to please men without, um, what was it liberation from again?
But, it’s progressive, at least! No clucking tongues at the Harper Valley PTA to worry about anymore.