Category: Transgenderism

Women who challenge discourse around “gender identity” have been largely isolated on the front lines for the past decade.

Sheila Jeffreys argues, in her talk, that “transgenderism is an invention that is socially and politically constructed,” and that, rather than being innate, exists in direct connection to the forces of power that exist in a heteropatriarchal society.

Jeffreys connects the notion of “gender identity” to American neoliberalism in that it is, of course, a very individualistic notion, but also in the way that it connects to capitalism and the cash cow that transgenderism is for Big Pharma, gender identity therapists and clinics, and cosmetic surgeons. It seems odd to discuss gender identity outside the context of capitalism, considering the way “identity” and “expression” is so connected, in modern society, to consumerism.

In fact, Jeffreys suggests feminists drop the term “gender” entirely. She says instead, “We need to talk about sex class or sex caste” as “gender” has become meaningless and conflated with biological sex.

As feminists, what we really are doing is working towards an end to gender — a thing that was invented and imposed in order to naturalize the sex class hierarchy that positions men as dominant and women as subordinate

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/09/27/need-braver-feminists-challenge-silencing/

When academics and leftists dismiss women’s concerns about their rights as a “moral panic,” they place themselves among the ranks of anti-feminists and the alt-right.

Women’s rights remain under threat and those who claim to be allies — queer activists, the left, and liberals — have attempted to reframe feminist analysis as hate speech.

Feminists and women’s rights campaigners have been painted as hysterical and had their concerns dismissed as some kind of “moral panic” since the first wave. Feminist advocacy against sexual harassment, domestic abuse, rape, pornography, and prostitution have been labelled as “moral panics” in order to write women’s concerns about their own lives and oppression off as emotion-based and irrational, rather than genuine, rational, and worthy of consideration.

When we question men’s right to buy access to the bodies of women and girls we are called “whorephobic,” for example. When we challenge the efforts of trans activists to destroy women’s spaces and to infringe on women’s sex-based rights, we are labelled “transphobic.”

Within only a few years, policies and legislation supporting the notion of “gender identity” have been proposed and adopted throughout Western nations, with little debate or attention to impacts on women. Simultaneously, those who question, challenge, or simply attempt to discuss the idea of transgenderism, the transing of children, the righteousness of trans activism, and gender identity legislation are bullied, no-platformed, smeared, and subjected to threats.

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/01/04/thanks-trans-activism-2017-saw-return-old-school-sexist-dismissals-women-womens-rights/

A prominent anti-trans activist has reportedly been suspended from the Labour Party pending an investigation into transphobic bullying and harassment.

“If stating that males are men means that Labour don’t want me, quite frankly I hope they chuck me out,” she said.

She continued: “A meme stating the simple biological truth, that ‘transwomen are men’ does not compare to the relentless harassment against myself which has included doxxing where I work, death threats and threats of violence, not to mention an overwhelming amount of misogynistic abuse.”

Allan then called being transgender ‘a men’s sexual rights movement’ and said she remains determined to campaign against trans inclusion after her suspension.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/01/23/hateful-terf-suspended-from-labour-party-after-posting-transphobic-memes/?

Asked by Jonathan Last why there has not been an open confrontation between feminism and transgenderism, Paglia responded that there has already been such a confrontation in the United Kingdom, citing the transgender community’s attacks on iconic feminist Germaine Greer and radical Australian feminist Sheila Jeffreys, the author of Gender Hurts.

Then, the shot straight from the hip: “The cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible. Every single cell of the human body remains coded with one’s birth gender for life. Intersex ambiguities can occur, but they are developmental anomalies that represent a tiny proportion of all human births.”

Paglia added, “Like Germaine Greer and Sheila Jeffreys, I reject state-sponsored coercion to call someone a ‘woman’ or a ‘man’ simply on the basis of his or her subjective feeling about it.”

http://www.dailywire.com/news/17591/feminist-camille-paglia-transgenderism-cold-hank-berrien
[category: global, reproductive rights, feminism]