Piers Morgan - Transphobe

[San Bernardhinault]

For a start you're conflating sexuality (gay, straight, bi, etc) with gender (male, female, non-binary), which is both silly and also not going to endear you to anyone.

[Tactical Genius]

For a start you're conflating sexuality (gay, straight, bi, etc) with gender (male, female, non-binary), which is both silly and also not going to endear you to anyone.

I don't think I am conflating here. I don't think it is something young kids seriously concern themselves with.
And when i say sexuality I mean sexual identity as well as sexual preference. because I mention them in the same sentence does not necessarily mean i am conflating.

[Sits]

But did anyone raise the Charleze Theron topic? I know far, far too little to contribute to this thread in a meaningful way so I'm reading it and learning.

[Tactical Genius]

But did anyone raise the Charleze Theron topic?

If you read posts properly, you will have your answer.

[MsD]

Just piping up to say that even fairly femmy-femme gals like me find the whole thing a bit of a straitjacket. You may think I'd benefit from a straitjacket, and would pay £500 for a Westwood one, and you might not be far wrong, I just mean that meeting the expectations of being a woman are restrictive enough for CISsies, even in our supposedly liberal society.

I was a tomboy as a youngster and got stick for it, was called "Sonny" a lot. I don't wear make-up every day now, and would be in jeans a lot if I could get into my old size. Ooh, so transgressive.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Yes. But we never hear about TIRFs. Radfem has become inseparable from trans-exclsuive. i want to challenge that, if only to provide a theoretical space for radical feminism to move away from terfery.

Do you think that's possible? What is there in the "radical feminism" currently espoused by terfs that's salvagable? I feel like "trans-inclusive radfem" is a little like "non-avian dinosaur" - the only lineage of radical feminism which survives (as "radical feminism") is the transphobic one (and its cousin anti-sex-worker feminism). That's a good thing (IMO) because the problem with radical feminism wasn't that it was radical but that it was radical only about gender. Those who were open to critiques from feminists of colour and socialist feminists and trans feminists have improved their analyses and politics and taken on board other ideas and aren't really "radical feminists" any more. Unless you're meaning something different (and broader?) by "radical feminism"?

Although, as you said, most terfs aren't and have never been radfems, and the influence of radical feminist thought in contemporary terf movements is as fragmentary ossified dogma rather than a living, developing theory. Change the R to "reactionary" and it fits a lot better.

I know (or more accurately, knew) two people who've over a period of years, become increasingly active in terf circles. I wouldn't say they were ever close friends, but I shared (distinct) social and organising circles with both for several years. And like watching them get sucked into terfism was like watching someone get sucked into a cult. When eventually each one got challenged, they abandoned their long-standing friends and comrades in favour of people who find allies in fundamentalist Christians, anti-abortionists and holocaust deniers. What terfs offered both these people was refreshing certainties about the world at a time when things were difficult for both of them.

The whole culture resembles the alt-right in many ways. They share lexical similarities (white men who oppose racism are "cucks", cis women who oppose transphobia are "handmaids"; alt-right members similar words for being), an obsession with documenting offences committed by minority groups, a culture of harassing organisations and people who use trans-inclusive language.

The only difference is that terfs are frequently tolerated in and recruit from left circles. Which is why I think it's important to stress that they're not misguided potential comrades, but a dangerous and corrosive reactionary movement preying on and attacking our comrades.

I never saw any of my four children concerned about their sexuality or gender identification at a young age.

Sexuality and gender ID are socially constructed ideas that kids don't instinctively understand. What they do quickly pick up on is normative behaviour prescribed by adults. And when their wants and needs cut against those norms, they view that as arbitrary and deeply unfair ("why can't i have those shoes"/"those are girls' shoes").

Young children, of course, view any rules applied to them as arbitrary and deeply unfair because they lack the mental scaffolding to understand why the rules exist."You can't have ice-cream for every meal" is a rule that has relatively solid grounding but might upset a small child. Instead they just internalise them. And when they do decide that their own self image is opposed to the norms proscribed on them, they're taught they need to suppress that.

Surely it's far better to let kids freely and non-judgmentally explore their own self-identification and gender presentation from as young an age, so that they don't have to consider whether or not they're broken as their own self-image begins to emerge. A young child can't be trans, but they also can't be cis.

[Satchmo Distel]

If my three year old son told me he wanted to wear a dress, I would laugh and tell him to put his trousers on. If he was 16 or 18, I would take him more seriously.

That would not be a loving response. At the very least, a loving response would be, "Tell me why you want to wear a dress?" and truly listening to his answer. And if he kept repeating the behaviour and insisting he was a girl, the ONLY loving response would be to believe he means it and is probably a she.

But if you cannot agree to that, we can have no further dialogue because we simply do not live in the same moral or mental universe. Also basic netiquette and empathy should tell you not to post that sentence here of all places, as many trans people are made extremely vulnerable by such social attitudes.

[Janik]

Surely you can see the contradiction in your own logic here, TG? If, as you assert, a three year old is not yet at a point where they can make a judgement if they are a male or a female, then that applies equally (more) to what we would consider gendered items such as clothes. The difference to the kid with that mindset between a dress and trousers would be essentially meaningless, they are just bits of cloth cut in different ways. So the request is empty. And this empty request is to be met by resistance and even mockery? The child won't be as innocent of gender after that conversation, they will be starting to gain the clear idea that dresses are for girls and trousers for boys.

Or what BLT said here:- "A young child can't be trans, but they also can't be cis."

[Tactical Genius]

All fair points here and I am asking as this is something I don't really understand.

BLT

Surely it's far better to let kids freely and non-judgmentally explore their own self-identification and gender presentation from as young an age, so that they don't have to consider whether or not they're broken as their own self-image begins to emerge.

I agree, kids work out very early what their gender is physiologically. For example, my son worked out at the age of two/three that his father and mother had different bits and the significance around that when it came to simple things like peeing, and washing to the stage where I had to be very mindful of my conduct around him as he was picking up some bad habits.

A young child can't be trans, but they also can't be cis.

Ok, I don't really understand what this means, could you explain. I am not trying to be funny or catch you out, I am not very familiar with these terms, what they mean and the differences.


Satchmo

That would not be a loving response. At the very least, a loving response would be, "Tell me why you want to wear a dress?" and truly listening to his answer. And if he kept repeating the behaviour and insisting he was a girl, the ONLY loving response would be to believe he means it and is probably a she.

That's a fair point, However, can a child really know this at the age of three, that is my question?

But if you cannot agree to that, we can have no further dialogue because we simply do not live in the same moral or mental universe. Also basic netiquette and empathy should tell you not to post that sentence here of all places, as many trans people are made extremely vulnerable by such social attitudes.

That is unnecessarily harsh and aggressive.
I was posting in response to Charlize Theron and nothing else. I have passed no opinion or objection to Trans people at all besides that. If I have, then please point it out.

[Tactical Genius]

Surely you can see the contradiction in your own logic here, TG? If, as you assert, a three year old is not yet at a point where they can make a judgement if they are a male or a female, then that applies equally (more) to what we would consider gendered items such as clothes. The difference to the kid with that mindset between a dress and trousers would be essentially meaningless, they are just bits of cloth cut in different ways. So the request is empty. And this empty request is to be met by resistance and even mockery? The child won't be as innocent of gender after that conversation, they will be starting to gain the clear idea that dresses are for girls and trousers for boys.

Or what BLT said here:- "A young child can't be trans, but they also can't be cis."

I haven't claimed my logic is particularly sound here, hence the questions.
And thanks for explaining it clearly to me. I guess it puts the parent in a difficult position. either way, you could potentially be doing long term harm to the child.

My discomfort with Charlize Theron was the age and (I am sure most of you had guessed that by now) the ethnicity of the child. There are numerous social and historical reasons behind this and I was asking questions about this before I went in two footed. To be fair, I was going to bring this issue up on the white Supremacy thread until her name was brought up here.

[Satchmo Distel]

TG, no aggression or harshness was intended.I simply ask you to consider how the sentence "If my three year old son told me he wanted to wear a dress, I would laugh and tell him to put his trousers on" might appear to trans people now who were rejected by their parents when they first revealed their feelings. You then said you'd behave differently if the child was 16 or 18 but that is far too late. What about aged 7 or 8? I am just asking you to consider the effect of words on others who may read this thread, especially when you know we have transgender posters here. I'm not saying you are being deliberately nasty or aggressive - just not taking account of all reader sensitivities and vulnerabilities.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

That's a fair point, However, can a child really know this at the age of three, that is my question?

Well I know one who refused point blank to wear anything else a little bit earlier than that . It suspect it depends very much on the child. And you're also not going to know how common this sort of thing at each age until it is completely unremarkable.

That is unnecessarily harsh and aggressive.

......heh, in fairness your opening post was the equivalent of lord Flashheart crashing through a window in Blackadder.

[Tactical Genius]

TG, no aggression or harshness was intended.I simply ask you to consider how the sentence "If my three year old son told me he wanted to wear a dress, I would laugh and tell him to put his trousers on" might appear to trans people now who were rejected by their parents when they first revealed their feelings. You then said you'd behave differently if the child was 16 or 18 but that is far too late. What about aged 7 or 8? I am just asking you to consider the effect of words on others who read this read, especially when you know we have trans posters here.

Again, my comments were around at what stage you take those requests seriously. My thoughts were three years old is too young, and I would definitely take these seriously at an older age. I am more than open to education on that, hence my tone, I used the ages 16 or 18 as those are the ages of consent for sex and when one is considered an adult.

I don't think I have said anything disrespectful to Trans people or what they have or are going through. I have conceded to yourself and Janik such requests should be handled more sensitively.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Ok, I don't really understand what this means, could you explain. I am not trying to be funny or catch you out, I am not very familiar with these terms, what they mean and the differences.

cis and trans are latin prefixes meaning "on this side of" and "across". The Napoleonic client state the Cisrhenian Republic occupied the French side of the Rhine. Up until the Six Day War, Transjordan occupied both sides of the River Jordan.

In the context of gender, cis describes your assigned gender at birth matching your internal self-determined gender. Trans means it doesn't your assigned gender at birth differs from your internal, self-determined gender.

Gender is socially constructed and is normally assigned at birth by inspection of of an infants genitalia, and sometimes accompanied by unnecessary surgery to ensure physical conformance to a binary model. Society and culture regulate and enforce a gender binary as well as gender roles that we are expected to perform. We generate an internal view of our own gender by internalising external knowledge.

But young children don't have the wider context to have an awareness of what their gender is. Left to their own devices they are blissfully unaware of the societal rules and norms that police gender. They are neither cis nor trans as these are both concepts that rely on an internal sense of gender, but that relies on having external knowledge of those (arbitrary) rules.

But as they come up against those rules, and are disciplined by them, they gain external information that informs their internal gender and forces the formation of an internal id. Many/most children accept the externally imposed rules and go with the flow. Others find them distressing and alienating.

[Tactical Genius]

That's a fair point, However, can a child really know this at the age of three, that is my question?

Well I know one who refused point blank to wear anything else a little bit earlier than that . It suspect it depends very much on the child. And you're also not going to know how common this sort of thing at each age until it is completely unremarkable.

That is unnecessarily harsh and aggressive.

......heh, in fairness your opening post was the equivalent of lord Flashheart crashing through a window in Blackadder.

I wasn't having a go at Trans people Berbaslug. That should be clear to any reasonable person, I have worked with enough Trans people and seen the shit they have to go through to know it isn't something that is done lightly.

[Tactical Genius]

cis and trans are latin prefixes meaning "on this side of" and "across". The Napoleonic client state the Cisrhenian Republic occupied the French side of the Rhine. Up until the Six Day War, Transjordan occupied both sides of the River Jordan.

In the context of gender, cis describes your assigned gender at birth matching your internal self-determined gender. Trans means it doesn't your assigned gender at birth differs from your internal, self-determined gender.

Gender is socially constructed and is normally assigned at birth by inspection of of an infants genitalia, and sometimes accompanied by unnecessary surgery to ensure physical conformance to a binary model. Society and culture regulate and enforce a gender binary as well as gender roles that we are expected to perform. We generate an internal view of our own gender by internalising external knowledge.

But young children don't have the wider context to have an awareness of what their gender is. Left to their own devices they are blissfully unaware of the societal rules and norms that police gender. They are neither cis nor trans as these are both concepts that rely on an internal sense of gender, but that relies on having external knowledge of those (arbitrary) rules.

But as they come up against those rules, and are disciplined by them, they gain external information that informs their internal gender and forces the formation of an internal id. Many/most children accept the externally imposed rules and go with the flow. Others find them distressing and alienating.

Got it and thanks for taking the time to explain to me, much appreciated.

[Janik]

'cis' and 'trans' were scientific (chemical) terms before they got applied to gender. They identify a particular sort of isomerisation, in particular geometrical isomerisation which deals with the spatial arrangement of molecules. 'trans' means molecules where the key functional groups are on either side of the carbon chain and 'cis' is where they are all on the same one. This is of more than just esoteric interest, the shape of a molecule can change it's behaviour, boiling point, melting point etc*.

Trans was also used in the 'across' sense for gender. But there was initially no term for non-Trans; it was simply considered 'normal'. Which, of course, implied that transpeople were not normal, and that is a bad place to be. Hence a term was sought that was the inverse of 'trans' and there it was in free use in chemistry - 'cis'.


* - and in more complicated scenarios isomerisation can be actively dangerous. Thalidomide is a drug that has optical isomers. One of these, the r-type, is a safe and effective analgesic (which is still for sale today under a different brand name and has very clear warnings about not being taken by pregnant women). The s-type, however, interferes with foetus development in alarming ways. The limited clinical trials were done using small runs of drug synthesised in the lab and containing the nice pure r-isomer form. However, when the process was industrialised what was produced was a mix of r- and s-isomers. And these were not sufficiently tested (pedantically, sufficiently animal tested, as the birth defects thing was highly unlikely to have shown up in a petri dish but needed a whole life system to become clear) leading to, well, you know what.

[laverte]

What is there in the "radical feminism" currently espoused by terfs that's salvagable? I feel like "trans-inclusive radfem" is a little like "non-avian dinosaur" - the only lineage of radical feminism which survives (as "radical feminism") is the transphobic one (and its cousin anti-sex-worker feminism). That's a good thing (IMO) because the problem with radical feminism wasn't that it was radical but that it was radical only about gender. Those who were open to critiques from feminists of colour and socialist feminists and trans feminists have improved their analyses and politics and taken on board other ideas and aren't really "radical feminists" any more. Unless you're meaning something different (and broader?) by "radical feminism"?

This is a really good question and shows up how nostalgic and kind of mournful my own conception of feminism is. i hadn't paid it enough attention, but as you surmise, i do mean something broader; i mean those feminists whose worldviews bear the imprint of the second wave but have transcended it in the ways you describe. i do still tend to get caught up in a 1990s mindset whereby all feminsms that are not liberal or marxist owe, at the very least, a debt to the radical. And i have tended to ignore the toxic legacies of the second wave in a bid to salvage what i think remains valuable. i suspect my excessive hesitancy to throw my lot in with the claims of trans women and their allies is related to this reluctance to cut the cord with the radical past. It will be painful but i do probably need to let it go. Those twats who have just forced a queer/kink porn festival to go underground will lighten the burden.

The whole [terf] culture resembles the alt-right in many ways.

i find your characterisation of terf culture compelling and scary. It certainly is reductive, entrenched, brittle, and incapable of asking questions of itself. i hadn't thought of it as a cult before. i knew some of these women before they became utterly obsessed with attacking trans people, and similar to what i said above, i think i'm hanging onto the image of how they were before in the hope that the obsession will blow over and they'll go back to taking the piss out of sexist adverts and pseudo-empowerment bullshit. i need to move with the times.

Change the R to "reactionary" and it fits a lot better.

i'm down with this.

And i really appreciated your synopsis of cis and trans and the way that gender 'sticks' to children.

for trans-women... there is a distinct pressure to be all Woman all the time to 'prove' their seriousness about their need to transition (a weird viewpoint, because as if people would embark on this as a whim).

Yes, and it has similarities with the pressure that girls are under, pretty much until post-adolescence when the policing of gender norms wanes a little at last, but in a more concentrated timespan and with even less room for failure. It astonishes me that there are feminists who don't see these similarities. (i'm less surprised that Piers Morgan doesn't see them.)

But transmen and transwomen do have behaviours and presentations that are believed by themselves to be physically real rather than purely identities, because they are experienced in the body and all 5 senses, not just in the mind, so we cannot just take an 'idealist' position but must also incorporate the corporeal.so a transman or transwoman may feel their gender is more real than a self-identified 'queer'.

Yes, i see this. Perhaps i took delicatemoth's dislike of “identifies as” to be more universalising than she intended it to be. As i said, i think “identifies as” can be useful when it's used as a positive affirmation. Had she not explicitly registered her dislike of the term i'd feel comfortable in saying something like: “she's a woman and she identifies as trans” because the latter is neither evident nor essential. Unfortunately what we usually hear is “she's trans and she identifies as a woman” which is problematic for the reasons that she and you point out.

Thinking about it, i also consider “identify as” to be useful in normalising a queer (and maybe trans) journey. Not all of us find the right label to describe ourselves straight away. It's important to be able to choose to say we once identified differently, without throwing doubt on the veracity of the term we use now. There is still a stigma around questioning, exploring and being uncertain, so that people can be afraid of getting themselves wrong, which is something that transphobes like to exploit (eg, their focus on detransitioning, or on children coming out and then changing their mind).

I am approaching this from a standpoint where I am disturbed at the sexualisation of kids

i'm sure it doesn't need to be said that kids are bombarded from birth with examples of hetero-sexualisation (and cis-gendering): pinks and blues, dolls and trucks, princesses and superheroes, zany dads and sensible mums, etc.

A few days ago i was asked to play mummies and daddies by a five-year-old. She is fine with the idea of us both being mummies when she plays with me, but she won't let me be a dad or play any male role. Somehow that would torpedo the fantasy, make it unthinkable. Gender really does seem to be the final frontier.

Just piping up to say that even fairly femmy-femme gals like me find the whole thing a bit of a straitjacket. You may think I'd benefit from a straitjacket, and would pay £500 for a Westwood one, and you might not be far wrong, I just mean that meeting the expectations of being a woman are restrictive enough for CISsies, even in our supposedly liberal society.

I was a tomboy as a youngster and got stick for it, was called "Sonny" a lot. I don't wear make-up every day now, and would be in jeans a lot if I could get into my old size. Ooh, so transgressive.

Pipe away, please, MsD!

Contrary to you, i was always quite girly and not tomboyish at all, much to the chagrin of my father who would have loved me to be the adventurous, outdoorsy, tough cookie kind. And clothes have never really loomed as an issue for me: i do feel both a thrill and a sense of being at ease when i wear men's or mannish clothes, but i've never made a habit of it and don't feel the urge to. i think my look is quite feminine, in a cosy way; it's been described as cat lady, children's tv presenter, and my favourite, arty gran. The only clothes that i don't feel comfortable wearing are those that are supposed to look 'sexy' or 'slutty', but i don't get het up about women who do like wearing them. It's just where the double standard is most obvious. If it wasn't just women who wore tiny shorts and high heels i wouldn't give it more significance than preferring one colour over another.

When i talk about gender making no sense to me, i mean to say that masculinity doesn't compute any more than femininity. The whole idea just seems alien and pointless. i know, through learning, what you mean by “the expectations of being a woman”, but on an intuitive level all i can think to say is “what is that supposed to mean?” Perhaps i just lack interest or ability in any of the types of 'capital' that women are supposed to be able to leverage: glamorous and seductive, caring and relational, feisty and kickass, etc.

Ooh, so maverick, me.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

arty gran.

this could mean......literally anything. I mean the possibilities conjured up by this phrase are as infinite as the universe.

[MsD]

Corbyn congratulates Arsenal's Women. A couple of TERFs are on there like flies on shit: "soon there will be men playing for them who are too shit for the men's team" blabla, and I got called a "fucking idiot" who knows nothing about the issues.

[ursus arctos]

These people are seriously deranged.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

not particularly on topic but I read this today about hijra people in india and the british campaign against them in the nineteenth century and their contemporary struggles for recognition from the indian state.

anyway, a useful reminder that cissexism is essentially a continuation of a colonial project (you can draw parallels between the language of colonial administrators against people with non-western genders and contemporary terf rhetoric imo).

http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/re...olonial-india/

[MsD]

I love that Warrior Male is onside. A nice thread.

https://twitter.com/warrior_male/sta...90379034316800

[ChrisJ]

not particularly on topic but I read this today about hijra people in india and the british campaign against them in the nineteenth century and their contemporary struggles for recognition from the indian state.

anyway, a useful reminder that cissexism is essentially a continuation of a colonial project (you can draw parallels between the language of colonial administrators against people with non-western genders and contemporary terf rhetoric imo).

http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/re...olonial-india/

As you're a fan of Arundhati Roy, I'm going to assume you've read the Ministry of Utmost Happiness?

Can I also say that I've been referring people who want to know more about trans issues and experiences to this thread. Both they and I have been profoundly grateful for the insights and education gifted.

[Diable Rouge]

Helen Lewis eulogises TERFs in the New Statesman:

http://twitter.com/helenlewis/status/1131218863113351169