Does the trans activist community overall support The silencing of females, and/or violence and intimidation towards females, and is this an issue the wider trans community has a responsibility to address?
(Much as I think GC people have a responsibility to address and disown/combat right wing transphobia when they come across it.)
Lately there seems to be more and more violent, intimidating language and behaviour by trans people, toward radical feminist women who are critical of transgender theory. Violent rhetoric in social media - calling anyone not fully supportive "terfs", and calling those labelled terfs "Nazis", wishing for their death or rape, talking about punching terfs, etc etc. These statements are made frequently by trans activists and are easy to find across twitter and Facebook, and other platforms.
There is also more and more silencing and deplatforming of feminist natal females who are critical of gender and transgender theory, even if they are not speaking on transgender issues, and even if they are not against transgender theory but merely questioning/cautious, or wary of certain new laws being proposed.
There are also an (increasing?) number of incidents at protests, marches, and gatherings, where trans natal males intimidate and act aggressively towards natal females in order to try to make them back down/leave. From the Vancouver Women's Library, to the trans natal male at the International Women's Day march in Melbourne, who began a confrontation because they tried to silence and shut down natal females who had every right to hold a different opinion, and ended up knocking a camera to the ground, thus escalating the confrontation from a verbal argument to a physical incident.
This kind of intimidation, violence, and silencing that trans activists are engaging in is identical to the way in which non-trans natal males behave in order to dominate females and force them to submit. I do not see any evidence that radical feminists are doing the same thing to trans people.
My questions are - do you think this is a problem, or do you support it? Do you think that this behaviour is increasing in the trans activist community? And, do you think the wider trans community should call it out?
Some sources with excerpts:
Linda Bellos became the most recent feminist whose invitation to speak was withdrawn for raising questions about the direction in which modern-day gender politics is heading. Bellos, who is responsible for establishing Black History Month in Britain, was uninvited by the Beard Society, a “gender and feminist group” within Cambridge University.
During her address to Peterhouse College, Bellos told organisers she planned to publicly question “some of the trans politics … which seems to assert the power of those who were previously designated male to tell lesbians, and especially lesbian feminists, what to say and what to think”. In response, a representative of the Beard Society responded: “I’m sorry but we’ve decided not to host you. I too believe in freedom of expression, however Peterhouse is as much a home as it is a college. The welfare of our students in this instance has to come first.”
Regardless of your views on gender, Bellos speaking at Cambridge University in no way compromises the welfare of its students. It is ludicrous to claim that someone who has committed her adult life to liberation politics is a risk to the wellbeing of those who listen to her perspective – and deeply insulting. Black, female, Jewish and lesbian feminist, Bellos is not exactly a preacher of hate.
When a group of transgender women objected to signs being held by the feminist group, the feminists questioned whether one of the other group was really a woman.
'Can you ask them to remove their signs?' the transgender woman asked a bystander when an argument breaks out.
'You sound like a man,' responded one of the radical feminists.
'Yeah that's my f***ing voice, I sound like a man,' replied the transgender woman.
'They came up and tried to rip our signs out of our hands,' said one of the feminists to the bystander.
The encounter soon became nasty, with the feminists telling the transgender woman she was really a man, causing her to fly into a rage.
Video here: https://youtu.be/yFffmUsf4OI
The Hyde Park violence has triggered the setting up of a new feminist group, Woman’s Place UK, whose co-founder Kiri Tunks said she was “horrified” by the incident.
“We need to be able to discuss this in a respectful way. Women need reserved places and separate spaces. Women’s voices must be heard.”
The trans extremists, however, appear unlikely to listen. After the attack ATH’s Edinburgh branch sent out a series of tweets defending the use of violence: “punching terfs is the same as punching Nazis. Fascism must be smashed with the greatest violence to ensure our collective liberation from it”, and “violence against terfs is always self defense”.
Bradley tweeted, “Terfs are using Nazi tactics. Don’t let it work”, and directed readers to a blog that supported the violence. The ATH account retweeted her message.
A group of 22 women including the gay activist Linda Bellos, the author Bea Campbell and the Labour peer Baroness Prosser have condemned the incident in Hyde Park.
“Violence against women is always wrong. Attempts to minimise or justify this violence . . . are deeply worrying,” they wrote.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-group-ath-condones-punching-feminists-n6mz06pj3
Feminists who hired the club’s conference suite for a meeting last week about “how concerns raised by women are being shut down through threats, harassment and accusations of transphobia” say Millwall cancelled the booking after pressure from transgender lobbyists.
The event was to protest against potential legal changes allowing people born male to “self-identify” as women. Feminists say the move threatens women’s spaces and rights.
Venice Allan, the meeting’s organiser, said: “I got a call from the club saying they’d never seen anything like it — constant phone calls, emails, tweets. They were really spooked. It wasn’t exactly ‘No one likes us, we don’t care’.”
The cancellation came as it emerged Therapy Today, the official journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), has been bombarded with protests by trans activists after publishing a letter saying some young people were identifying as trans through “youth culture” and “social contagion” and being encouraged to “medically alter their bodies” even though they might later change their minds.
More than 500 people signed a statement attacking the letter as “transphobic” and saying that “affirmation of a child’s . . . gender identity is non-negotiable”. The statement added: “This is not a free speech issue. Therapy Today is not a tabloid newspaper or TV talk show.”
Within days the editor, Catherine Jackson, published an apology for the “serious error of judgment on my part”.
The letter’s author, Stephanie Davies-Arai, of Transgender Trend, an organisation questioning the diagnosis and treatment of children as transgender, said: “Things are in a bad way when even a letter in what is supposed to be a forum for debate can be suppressed,” she said. “Attempts to bully and silence are revealing only of the fact that this new dogma cannot withstand scrutiny.”
...
Meanwhile, a woman who criticised a transgender charity on Twitter has been questioned under caution by police and told she will be arrested if she tries to leave the country. Kellie-Jay Keen- Minshull accused the group Mermaids of “suppressing free speech”.
She had accused Mermaids, which calls for children to be allowed irreversible sex-change treatment the NHS currently prohibits, of “prey[ing]” on gay teenagers and of “mass child abuse”. Mermaids declined to comment.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/tough-millwall-cave-in-to-transgender-bullies-nltnkpv3d
Posted Mar 12, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC