Some of the actions required
#ExpelMe is trending on Twitter. What’s it about?
There’s this:
Which we can read here.
Below find our founding statement and pledges for all Labour Party members who support trans rights to sign.
Meaning, I guess, if you don’t sign, you don’t support trans rights.
The Labour Campaign for Trans Rights has been founded by transgender and non-binary Labour members in order to advance trans liberation through the Labour Party. Trans people today are disproportionately affected by the evils of homelessness, unemployment, poverty and hate crime. We live under a Conservative government which restricts our rights and puts those with transphobic views in positions of power; whilst we are attacked relentlessly by a reactionary press.
Liberation from what, though?
Obviously no one should suffer homelessness, unemployment, poverty, or hate crime. But what’s this about restricting rights? What rights exactly?
As the party which stands for socialism, the Labour Party must play an active and crucial role in the fight for transgender liberation. Although Labour is the party which has worked hardest to advance LGBT+ rights, when considering the level of oppression trans people face, our commitment to trans liberation has often been equivocal or inadequate. There are still transphobes in our ranks, and we have often failed to act as transphobia has gained ground within our party. Now that trans people face the onslaught of a Conservative majority, this must change, and it is this campaign’s goal to create a Labour Party which stands firmly on the side of trans people.
That’s just more of the same, and it clarifies nothing. Liberation from what? What is transphobia? What does “standing firmly on the side of trans people” entail?
We firstly urge all allies and sympathetic Labour members to sign our founding pledges, and to encourage your comrades, and especially your representatives in the Labour movement, to do so as well. These pledges have been written to outline some of the actions required to rid the Labour Party of transphobia and to stand up for trans people.
Ok, finally we get to specifics.
1. Accept the material reality that trans people are oppressed and discriminated against in British society, facing a rising risk of hate crime, and difficulty accessing public services, healthcare, housing and employment.
I don’t know how true any of that is, but it’s not outlandish.
2. Believe that trans liberation must be an objective of the Labour Party, and that transphobia is antithetical to our collective aims.
Before I know what “liberation” we’re talking about and what “transphobia” is? No.
3. Commit to respecting trans people as their self-declared gender, and to ensure that the Labour Party is an inclusive environment for trans people.
Ah, there we go, finally something we can grasp.
And no, I’m not going to do that. It doesn’t matter, because I’m not in the UK and so not in the Labour Party, but if I were I wouldn’t. No. I’m not going to “commit” to respecting anybody as their self-declared anything. It’s much too general and sweeping an order to obey. No.
4. Accept that trans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary people are non-binary.
No. They’re not, they’re not, and that doesn’t mean anything.
5. Accept that there is no material conflict between trans rights and women’s rights, and that all trans women are subject to misogyny and patriarchal oppression.
No, and fuck off.
6. Listen to trans comrades on issues of transphobia and transmisogyny, allowing trans people to lead the way on our own liberation.
I might, if I hadn’t been paying close attention for the past five or so years, but I have, so no.
7. Support the work of trans members and organisers within the Labour movement, including supporting motions on a local, regional and national level which are presented for the furthering of trans liberation.
See above.
8. Oppose transphobic motions which run contrary to our own party equalities policy, and support the NEC striking down such motions on this basis.
On whose say-so? What if we think they don’t run contrary to our own party equalities policy? So that’s another No.
9. Organise and fight against transphobic organisations such as Woman’s Place UK, LGB Alliance and other trans-exclusionist hate groups.
Oh hell no. Meanwhile – how about trans comrades listen to women more? There’s an idea.
10. Support the expulsion from the Labour Party of those who express bigoted, transphobic views.
Hence #ExpelMe.
Go on then.
11.Support reform of the Gender Recognition Act to improve transgender rights, as well as supporting policies which would improve trans people’s access to necessary healthcare, housing, and employment.
What rights? Improve them how? Better access to necessary healthcare, housing, and employment would be good for everyone, trans people included – included, not especially included, or singled out for extra.
12. Organise against and oppose any further transphobic policy from our own party or any other.
Clearly “transphobic” here just means not taking orders from entitled narcissists who want to kick feminists out of Labour.
So that’s why #ExpelMe is trending.
Yeah there is. This is one of those phrases that one wouldn’t say if it was true – because if there was no material conflict, people wouldn’t be conflicting.
But to get more into it, if I as a straight male called a lesbian names because she didn’t want to have sex with me, what would that make me? An entitled homophobic creep. Why would it be different if I put on a dress and told people to address me with different pronouns?
Consent is a central issue for women’s rights, and the TRA argument that rejecting trans individuals is a hate incident, puts that on the firing line. This is the main conflict between the LGB movement and the LGBT movement.
Other issues include women’s sports. If we had a world of all things being equal, feminism would demand getting rid of the gender divide in sports, but as a species we are more sexually dimorphic than every other ape, so treating female athletes like scum for having doubts about competing against male bodied athletes is itself quite unreasonable.
In boxing one of a promoter’s most important jobs is ensuring their boxer doesn’t go into the ring with someone who will fucking kill them. Is it unreasonable for female MMA fighters, who are already risking significant injury, to not want to get in the ring with an opponent who they think is physically stronger because that opponent has a male body?
Even if you argue that trans athletes don’t have real physical advantages, the right to have concerns is a material issue on which there is conflict.
And here I agree actually – toxic masculinity is a thing and nonconforming men in general are not treated all that well. A big chunk of homophobia has traditionally been part of patriarchal society, and even for men who aren’t gay or trans, having “girly” interests can get you mocked quite thoroughly.
A big chunk of being gender critical is noting that the norms that make up patriarchy have to be enforced, demonstrating the falsity of those norms in the first place. However the way this statement is structured – as a support of the previous point, umm, no.
If one accepted that argument, one could argue that there is no material conflict between the feminist movement and MRAs, or hell, incels (who are “oppressed” by the fact that patriarchal culture often judges worth by number of mates, and an incel by definition doesn’t have any.) Just because patriarchy causes problems for everyone doesn’t mean that there are no material conflicts.
With trans there are definite issues with just how you define man and woman when you boil it down to traits outside of sex, in that you’re essentially bracketing social and psychological cues into masculine and feminine that never quite fit either bracket all that neatly. There are nurturing men, there are aggressive women, we’re all individuals at the end of the day and trying to define the exceptions to any of these as sexual dysphoria plays right into a lot of sexist tropes.
And here is the thing: That there are conflicts isn’t itself a problem. It is why we have discussions, it is why we argue, it is why we seek to find solutions to those conflicts. Simple denial of those conflicts does nothing to solve them, it simply takes issues which could be resolved in discussion and turns them into deal breakers.
This is what is so toxic about “cancel culture” – the fact that it stops serious discussions about these issues, and turns them into irreparable fractures. There may well be ways forward, but we’re never going to find them so long as we engage in denial.
Do you get a little patch or armband if you sign?
Bruce @ 1 – one small factual nitpick, which I know only because I worked with the Great Apes (minus chimps, which we didn’t have) at the zoo: we’re not the most sexually dimorphic of the apes. Gorillas get that honor, with orangs next. Mature male gorillas are huuuuge.
Ophelia.
Eish, my error. Thanks hey!
A very trivial “error”; I just had to share my up close and personal awareness of This One Weird Fact.
So then transwomen don’t really have an advantage, right? Just don’t let gorillas who identify as orangutans compete against orangutans. /s
So good to see that we have taken the advice of trans activists to “educate ourselves” and that our educational journey has led us to the reality of sex dimorphism in the great apes. I recently noticed that the “educate yourself” line seems out of favor with the TRAs now……………wonder why? Maybe because it leads the curious to articles like this?
https://carta.anthropogeny.org/moca/topics/sexual-body-size-dimorphism
So does TRA make this better or worse?
If you’re, say, a 14 year old gender non-conforming boy in the school locker room, is it worse if the other boys say “faggot” or “We respect your gender identity, so you should be in the girls’ locker room?”
I was once in that position, and I think I’d have preferred “faggot.”
And since feminism is about being gender non-conforming, and trans is about conforming to the opposite gender because reasons and move into new box without replacing old box, who is truly the progressive force?