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Some points, and a question for uk politicians;

  1. There are around half a million trans people in the uk, including eggs.
  2. There are a few thousand TERFs.
  3. Trans people will vote for you if you treat us like human beings.
  4. Nothing you do will ever satisfy TERFs.

And so to the question: why are you so bad at basic arithmetic?

in reply to Sarah Brown

TERFs are weird. They talk exactly like Trumpazoids on the subject of trans people. I wasn't prepared for that. (Not trans myself, just an old straight white man who occasionally gets into online knife fights on their behalf.)
in reply to Rusty Ring

@RustyRing

I think you've put your finger right on it - TERFs are indeed just conservatives of that extreme kind.

I don't really think their views have anything to do with gametes or safe spaces or any of the things they say they're about, because they make no sense in relation to those things.

What I think does explain their views is that conservatives fear any change to a status quo they're invested in - and a certain kind of (generally older) feminist is also invested - I mean intellectually and emotionally - in a neat division of the sexes. They've made that division part of their 'feminist' identity, so they mistake the emergence of cracks in that neat binary as an attack on their own way of being in the world. For them, it's personal.

@goatsarah

in reply to GeofCox

Anglophone feminism in general has an ideology problem. I learned this while living in France during a formative part of my life. (My twenties.) Having grown up in the 70s, battered by the angry, often hypocritical feminism that was prominent in the States during that era, I had a visceral aversion to the word "feminism".

So when I found myself in a nation of ideologically introspective feminists I had no idea such a thing could exist, and was astonished to find they actually shared some of my resentment of the American movement. I spent much of my time there listening to women and seeking conversations with overt feminists; hell, just finding myself in a place where a man _can_ talk about these things with women was exhilarating. I was completely converted. Frankly, they saved my life. I shudder to think what I might have become in the Internet Age.

So yeah. As French feminists say: "American feminists are more American than they are feminist."

This entry was edited (4 months ago)
Unknown parent

Stingray's Badger Friend

@jjnevis
Morning Jay.
The technical definition of a TERF is a trans-exclusionary radical feminist. More here: nwlc.org/happy-pride-dont-be-a…

An egg is someone who is showing signs of being transgender but hasn’t come to realise it / come out yet. “Egg” because this person hasn’t “hatched” yet.

Sadly there's loads of #transphobia expressed by #UKpol If you're interested to learn more about transphobia there's a really good read here transactual.org.uk/transphobia…

in reply to Sarah Brown

I don't like it but my reading is that the TERFs are the swing voters especially in the seats labour wants to go after. I really hope thats the reason
in reply to atomically unstable nat

@natomic
This is the problem with the UK system. Politicians need to (1) keep a "core" vote and then (2) get some "boundary" votes to get over the line.
in reply to Paul H 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺

yeppp and because we basically have a 2 party system and FPTP means we can't afford to not tactically vote in most cases labour knows they can count on the left voting for them no matter how right they go cause further left parties are green (who will never win, but I'll probably vote for anyway), SNP (who will never win outside scotland) or lib dems (who have lost all trust since that stunt in 2011). I'm just really hoping the swing to the right is to collect tory votes and it's not indicative of their actual plans... I can hope
in reply to atomically unstable nat

@natomic they aren’t though. There simply are not enough of them. They just shout a lot.
in reply to atomically unstable nat

@natomic
That would still be a terrible reason, and yes, they may think so

But I don't see how it can be. Unless the pro-human-rights vote (including everyone with a trans person they care about in their life, not just trans people themselves) are deemed to be already far to the left of Labour and trapped with nowhere to go, electorally.

That may be true in parts of England, (not at all true in Scotland and Wales) and it's not sustainable as younger voters lean Green.

in reply to Sarah Brown

Well, they’re not very good political debaters. It’s a source of constant amazement that most pols haven’t yet formulated the way to deal with the infantile gotchas of the GC-Press-ERG nexus in the way I’m sure the last generation of actual statesmen could. It doesn’t help that they’re so afraid of the mere idea of trans that they have never done the basic homework to blow off the nonsense lies. Instead they look like they’re caught in the headlights.
in reply to Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖

@christineburns Honestly in terms of the general electorate, there’s no votes in anti-trans policies.

If there is political maths being done, it’s all about the influence to be gained among people who are active politically, both within parties and without.

Terfs are over-represented in political parties.

in reply to Katie Fenn

@katiefenn Judged by how it has spread within the chattering classes of North London (which explains the press/SPADs/ middle class bubble concentration) I think it is spread through inadequately sanitised private dinner parties. It’s something you have to affect belief in to be assured of continued invites. It’s a classic example of a groupthink contagion and the danger lies in the power of the people who get the mind virus.
in reply to Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖

@christineburns
Debate is useless. Worse than useless. Debate is a losing game for human rights, because as soon as you concede that human rights have to be successfully debated to achieve progress, you've conceded that they are negotiable and therefore not rights.
in reply to Pete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫

@petealexharris I’m not a fan of debate so I agree with you. But if someone is coming at you with rhetoric built on falsehood and the trickery of political debate then an effective response is needed, not caving and running away
in reply to Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖

@christineburns
Yes. You stick to a clear statement of your position and don't allow yourself to get derailed.

If your position was highly dubious this wouldn't fly of course. But for example "people have the right to live as their true selves and it isn't within the legitimate authority of the state to say whether they are allowed to" is a good starting point.

Unknown parent

Sarah Brown
@Paul Harland It’s estimated that trans people are about 1% of the population. A minority of those transition. Trans women and trans men currently transition in about equal numbers.
Unknown parent

Sarah Brown
@Paul Harland Paul, people know if they’re trans or not. I knew when I was five. I transitioned at thirty two. I was still trans the whole fucking time, despite the fact that I used male toilets and suchlike.
in reply to Sarah Brown

@Paul Harland Furthermore, there is no test for being trans. You just know. “Self identification” as you call it is literally the only thing there is. It’s not like Lt Commander Data comes along with a gizmo that scans for transion particles.

Sometimes the stuff cis people come out with boggles my mind a bit. I swear, you lot have some very odd ideas.

Unknown parent

Sarah Brown

@Paul Harland No. it’s an umbrella term but is generally short for transgender.

Are you seriously asking me why I didn’t transition at the age of five? Seriously, maybe just think about that for a few seconds.

Unknown parent

Sarah Brown
@Paul Harland 5 year old me knew she was a girl.
Unknown parent

Sarah Brown

@Paul Harland The fuck am I supposed to know? I’m an expert in microelectronics, not human sexuality, gender and psychology.

And that’s at the age of 50. At 5 I barely knew my own native language. You seem to expect a lot from toddlers.

Since you seem very interested in sexuality, let me quiz you about yours. Presumably you have a preference with respect to who you fuck?

How do you know?

Unknown parent

Sarah Brown

@Paul Harland I don’t believe I used the word confused.

I wasn’t confused. I knew.

As for how. I just did.

And my point is that that same situation consistently, regardless of demographic, occurs in about 1% of live births.

And when people like Sunak or Starmer portray trans people as dangerous predators who don’t deserve healthcare or equal rights, those roughly half a million people, evenly distributed about the Uk, the majority of voting age, know they’re speaking about us.

Of the other 99%, meanwhile, almost none of them actually care. Studies consistently show this.

Regardless of whatever intrusive questions you ask us about whether we had sexual stirrings as toddlers (seriously, dude?), we still know they’re talking about us.

And we vote.

Unknown parent

Sarah Brown
@Paul Harland Between the ages of five and my mid twenties I hid it, Paul, because I was (sensibly) scared of people like you.
Unknown parent

Sarah Brown

@Paul Harland You are being weird, intrusive, annoying and patronising, and asking questions which are facile and exhausting.

We learn very early on that society at large does not tolerate who we are, and that it puts us at a profound risk of being systematically medically and psychologically abused if we are found out.

One develops an instinctive warning system for what’s unsafe, and you’re lighting it up like a Christmas tree.

Unknown parent

Sarah Brown

@Paul Harland We can explain it. It’s been explained many times. Research again and again and again concludes that we are, straightforwardly, who we say we are.

And yet people like you never accept it, and demand it’s done time and time again, and that we repeatedly explain ourselves to our.

Who the hell do you think you are?

Unknown parent

markus
@Tinker52 I don't think you should ask anyone to justify who they are. Your statement looks like that to me.
Unknown parent

Stingray's Badger Friend

@essjayjay @jjnevis
I love the alternative acronym for TERF Sue, thanks, I will use in future, as it certainly is more fitting.

#TransRightsAreHumanRights

Unknown parent

markus
@Tinker52 I don't think this is true.
Unknown parent

Sarah Brown

@Jay @Stingray's Badger Friend @Sue Briccay :QueerCat_Ace: The likelihood of me sharing a beer with people who are on the record as using words like “eradicate” about me and my sisters is zero.

And that false equivalence is not only missing the point, it’s also profoundly offensive.

Unknown parent

Sarah Brown

@Jay @Stingray's Badger Friend @Sue Briccay :QueerCat_Ace: I mean obviously.

Unsure what the point of you is at this point. Don’t care to find out. *plonk*, as we used to say a very long time ago.

in reply to Sarah Brown

Maybe it's too much social media.

The Tory hopeful for the mayor of London went all in on ULEZ / 15 minutes city conspiracies after her dog whistling got good echoes there. Total flop IRL

in reply to Sarah Brown

I have a legitimate interest for work in the number of trans people; may I ask where that number comes from?

More than happy to explain more but would have to be by DM as it would give away where I work which I do not want to do on open social media

in reply to Sarah Brown

Just got a reply to this post from a single sure TERF instance.

Should be noted if you’re an instance mod, the best thing to do with these is to defederate without replying. A reply will inflict them on the other servers that you federate with.

in reply to Sarah Brown

It's also potentially a good idea to post a link to their reply with the hashtag # fediblock so other trans instances can pre-emptively defederate.

(Specifically, I would like to defederatethis server.)

Unknown parent

CharLES ☭ H
trans / chasers

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This entry was edited (4 months ago)
in reply to Sarah Brown

re: trans / chasers

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