For the woman who I intensely hated, for a while.
We argued fiercely. You love your child, and are fearful of their predicament.
We crashed headlong into one another. Both angry, frightened and raw - me, with my trauma and rage; having been raped and my privacy and dignity potentially threatened. You and your friends, you all looked so self assured and dismissive. It cut all the way through me. It stung.
And you, with your fears and hurt that, now I'm calm enough to think about it, doesn't have an end point - your child is in pain, and afraid. And whatever trauma you and they carry, and how it's reflected in this row.
We collided at full pelt and actually, now I think about it, if we'd met discussing any other conceivable subject, we'd have likely bonded.
You saw me as an insidious threat to your child's safety, no matter how much I tried to explain. You wouldn't hear me out, you thought you knew me, my mentality. I promise, you don't.
It felt like you projected onto me a generic mask created to dismiss me. It's what I suspected you project onto any woman who resists this - a political movement you see as there solely to protect your child, that I see crushing my last vestiges of humanity.
I wish we could actually speak to each other.
I'm pretty sure our feelings were mutual.
I often wonder how I'd feel if I was trans and had to read the headlines of media we think of as sincere, left-wing and often veritable.
From The Guardian to The Independent, Vice, Vox, pretty much any LGBTQ publication... They all tell trans people they are hated, that everything is a dog-whistle and women with concerns over their safety, ability to participate in society as set out by women-only short lists, same sex spaces, sports etc are actually evil bitches with a vendetta.
There's almost never a genuine, unbiased article which clearly sets out the situation and opinions of those involved. Shock tactics and sensationalist one-sidedness, along with unforgivable misinformation and omission, seem to be everywhere.
I know, having spoken to many (transwomen especially), that some are genuinely terrified about their risk of being beaten and murdered.
There's an ever-present fear of being ridiculed, with some believing supposed allies when they claim laws have quietly been brought in that will mean they could be prosecuted for using a women's toilet without a GRC, or similar hyperbole and scare tactics.
I'm a mother, too. I am trying to imagine myself in your position; the pain you've seen your child go through, the struggle to find peace and acceptance. I know I won't be able to fully understand, but I do try.
And now, I'm trying to imagine my child reading these things, now pertaining to them. That hurts. That induces in me a flinch, and makes me want to look away or fight.
You must be frightened. I would be, too. And I'd be every bit as angry as you are, and - depending on how much I'd read about it - I'd maybe be saying the same things that you just have to me.
What I see is a group of activists claiming the title of greatest saviour. They wander like missionaries into the posts, feeds, media most likely to get attention and throw themselves into furious rages at the treatment of trans 'folx'.
They garner a lot of social capital from their advocacy, it's a vocation and adds meaning to their lives. I think some are heartfelt, but others appear as cynical and deceitful as possible to be.
They stand on the periphery, shrieking alarm calls in a never-ending stream of stories, gaining kudos and a claim of righteousness by sending fear through huge swathes of people.
They lie about suicide rates and continually push on with language around suicide and self harm that breaches all media guidelines.
They smugly create a logical fallacy, a straw man, so they can skewer it and elevate themselves yet again. They lie about the murder rate (please see Verilybitchie, a transwoman, debunk this here), or exaggerate it with forced perspective - placing trans people in high-resolution close up, with worse affected demographics in the background, looking small and blurred.
They conflate hate crimes that involve nothing but a perceived slight, or a casual, even accidental misgendering, with violent attacks. They never mention women have no protection under hate crime law, so of course, you are supposed to think your child is under sustained attack unlike any other group.
And who wants to read about the other side? Who sees their potentially suffering, vulnerable child being marginalised and abused and thinks "I really should hear them out"?
No one, of course. Not to mention you're told by the same people, that 'we', i.e. feminists, are devious, hate-filled transphobes who should never be entertained, allowed an audience to blast with dog-whistles or an excuse to weave our tangled web of propaganda.
Someone is terrorising your kid, but it isn't me, and it is not who I associate with. Have a good look at what these people are saying, ask for the sources, the numbers. Treat it with some scepticism while knowing this is not and can never be a sign of wavering in the love and support you have for your child.
Some sensible thoughts from John here:
I'm sure when you see these conversations online, or protests on the street, you think we're unnecessarily cruel.
Perhaps we look hardened, gleefully spiteful, resistant to compassion - this is our typecast, it's been built and constructed in the tradition of all heretics. We are the witches, the nags, the bitter, spiteful bigots. We are shoehorned into it, with inconvenient parts obscured or excised.
And the occasions we do show a triumphant, antagonistic smirk it's difficult to express how much is from a final resignation to being perceived as awful whatever we do. For however many times you try to articulate it's not hatred; that you're frightened because of PTSD resulting from rape, and you are laughed at; for the abuse and threats and relentless misrepresentation, finally it can be the obvious and joyful route to fuck with the social pressure to be earnest and adult and just relish the whole thing.
It's not a natural state, it's almost survival.
It's another reason to dismiss us though, because everything is, and confirmation bias from all those partial headlines holds it firmly in place.
I imagine that anti-abortionists think of pro-choicers as cruel, heartless, as mindlessly, destructively stupid.
While you might always find a couple of individuals in any movement who really are nasty little fucks who delight in edgelord shock tactics and being as offensive as they can claim licence to be - the vast majority don't think transphobia is any funnier than abortion is. (That of course comes with the caveat that transphobia never has a utility, time or place, that there's never a reason to abuse someone based on their presentation, beliefs about themselves or gender non-conformity.)
Gender critical or radical feminist stances are positions we have come to by examining our lives. There's an idea that anti-intellectual, reactionary hate speech is everywhere in our conversations; but this isn't true.
This is feminism and analysis based on our experience, from academic discussion, reading, the exchanging of personal stories and theories. The notion we are speaking our true beliefs in dog-whistles, pushing trojan horses of concern past the gates so a squad of genocidal maniacs can leap out, it is everywhere: while we say what we mean, and are depicted as trying to dress up bigotry, trying to use feminist sounding rhetoric to cover ourselves.
Yet I don't know how much plainer I could make myself - I see biological sex as an extremely relevant category, and I want the ability to speak about it and it is not about causing anyone harm, because so much of the suffering I and others have sustained is integral to our sex.
These lenses of viewing the world and all of its dynamics are built on the many factors, dangers and balances we all have to take into consideration. It isn't hate of trans people any more than being pro-choice is hate of foetuses and babies. It's about recognising difficult situations and facing them. It's those often traumatic, upsetting, yet still inescapable facts of life.
Women are often taking considerable risk in speaking out. People are rounded on by supposed friends, dog-piled, sent abusive and disturbing messages. Activists celebrate their attempts to get us fired, abuse our loved ones. I know some women who have had to move after their homes and families or pets were targeted, for saying things which would have been unremarkable a decade ago: for saying they want single sex spaces, or they don't agree with self identification as a workable policy.
At least understand this is a sincerely held position, with reasoning and deep thought invested in it, which is difficult to talk openly about. I held my tongue for a long time, like many others are doing now.
Probably the worst bit of agitating is within public discourse and the journalists, public figures and social media accounts which relentlessly misrepresent us. The lies about what people say and mean, what they want, the facts and stories are truly jaw-dropping.
For example; Paris Lees tells The Canary that the 'average life expectancy of a trans woman of colour in America is just 35'. It's not true - the average age of a trans murder victim in America is 35. Katelyn Burns rages about the women-only Mitchfest, decrying the alleged misgendering of a trans woman performer almost 50 yrs ago and lauding Camp Trans, the protest against them. Burns and others can celebrate the end of Mitchfest in 2015, and never mention it was that year the organiser of Camp Trans, Dana Rivers, murdered two women attendees and their son after tracking them down to their home. Susie Green has frequently lied about trans kids committing suicide.
Transwomen without even a GRC can rape someone with their intact male body and be reported as women. Maria McLaughlin can be assaulted and then mocked, slandered, subject to objective lies and still painted as the guilty party.
There's essentially a media blackout on these cases; the hanging of an effigy meant to be Carmen Calvo, Spain's deputy prime minister because of her criticism of new legislation; the assault by trans activists on survivors of the sex industry as they campaign against prostitution or when protesting self ID; the harassment of and distortion in cases of women like Rosa Freedman, Louise Moody, Kate Scottow, Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Jean Hatchet, JK Rowling etc is as breath-taking as it is unforgivable.
I do not hate your child, I do not imagine them as a threat or pretender. I do not hate anyone for living their lives as best they can. I have a lot of empathy for anyone who is suffering, and I know very well there's plenty of transwomen who stand with us. They have been erased, abused as truscum, even prosecuted for transphobia by 'cis' people, and it fucking stinks. I'm sick of the dishonesty, the mendacious fallacies and bad faith. This, I fear, will ultimately impact on trans people too, and I don't want to see that. We just need to be able to talk about our lives and our needs. No one is being represented well here, very few are prepared to listen.
Never before would I have challenged the assertion 'transwomen are women'. This is because it was a little show of kindness and compassion and one of the million tiny acts of etiquette we use to oil the wheels of society. These things matter, and the emotional vulnerability of those with gender dysphoria is very real and deserves genuine compassion and sensitivity.
The reason we are making noise is because someone has to, because the activism that's underway is not helping trans people and it is seriously harming others.
I don't believe any of the rhetoric below (which is a tiny snapshot of what is an unrelenting torrent) is ok. I think it's abusive. It really would be good to talk.
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