Transnegation Roundup/2020/08/07

Even the US Has Anti-Trans Bigotry; Who Knew

The Wedge Issue That’s Dividing Trumpworld (via): "A group of social conservatives wants the president to embrace anti-transgender issues to reverse his sagging poll numbers. Some Trump advisers think it's political suicide."

In a way, this is good: even among Trumpnazis, attacking trans rights isn't a guaranteed win.

That said, it cites a Republican strategist repeating the "men-I-mean-trans-women to compete in women's sports is unfair" trope, because it's what got the most negative reactions -- including from Democrats. The same strategist is apparently planning to use the "forcing young kids to transition" and "de-transitioning is common" tropes against Biden in this year's presidential election.

Also note who is on the Trump side (of course): Concerned Women for America, yet another group (in this case, a right-wing hate group) posing as supporting women while actually being the opposite.

Queer Theory Misrepresentation, etc.

This tweet was in there somewhere. Red meat for the "trans women aren't women" crowd.

2020-08-05 05:31 @ProfessionalJu2 “I don’t know anyone outside of the internet that uses that disgusting slur. / These days the ‘queers’ support the homophobic gender identity pseudoscience. / It always signalled homophobia only now it’s on the left. / We’re here, we’re not with the queers, get used to it.” (retweet of this tweet)

• 2020-08-05 05:38 @ChrisThody “Good grief / @sunrayswench / Supporting LGBTIQ+ is now homophobic?” (I think the @sunrayswench mention is to pull them back into the discussion, since the retweet didn't mention them.)
• 2020-08-05 05:40 @ProfessionalJu2 “Supporting an ideology that argues that lesbians and gay men should include the opposite sex in their sex lives is both homophobic and biphobic. / I wouldn’t expect a straight man to quite understand that.”
• 2020-08-05 05:42 @ChrisThody “I'm not straight.. I've been fighting for LGBT+ rights for 35 years/ What don't I understand?”
• 2020-08-05 05:44 @ProfessionalJu2 “If you’ve been supporting us for 35 years you’ll understand how we’ve been pushing back against pressure to include opposite sex in our sex lives and be recognised as exclusively same-sex attached. / What don’t you understand about your support for the homophobia of the queers?”
• 2020-08-05 05:45 @ChrisThody “Tell me about the queers / But don't have sex with anyone you don't want to”
  • 2020-08-05 06:17 @socialtechno “The Queers were a New Hampshire punk band in the 80s. Queer and gay people are regular folks who date and marry their own sex. Most people are cool with that.” (bold added for clarity)
  • 2020-08-05 05:48 @ProfessionalJu2 “Do you understand what gender identity is and how it’s being pushed by orientations like Stonewall? / Do you understand the consequences of reframing homosexuality as being “same gender” and not “same sex” attraction? / You say you’ve been fighting for our rights for 35 years.:thinking face:” (I think she means "organization", not "orientation".)
  • 2020-08-05 05:51 @ChrisThody “no.. I believe in gender”
    • 2020-08-11 12:13 @msbeingviolent “Yeah, read about John Money, before I [read] him I thought gender is stupid, after that I think it is evil. Besides gender didn't always exist, sexism and sexist stereotypes did.” Um, no, the David Reimer case -- for which John Money became infamous -- just proves that gender is not entirely socialized. The science still overwhelmingly shows that it exists, and history shows that it always has.
    • 

      The poster looks like it may have been placed so as to give the impression that the University of Liverpool distributed it. No organizational attribution is shown.
      2020-08-05 18:04 @edeysal “If you erase sex then you erase same sex attraction ” What does this poster have to do with... anything? Yes, it's erasing sex -- but who is erasing sex? Trans people generally do not agree with this poster (though some do). This belief is not fundamental to the idea of transgenderness.
      • 2020-08-07 08:30 @ifawomandidit “Wow” Indeed.
      • 2020-08-05 18:42 @MargaretOfAnj “It's pretty wild how TERFs try to paint trans activists as homophobic while simultaneously demanding that gay trans people don't call themselves gay.” -- so, she's going along with the assumption that trans activists generally support this? Or even that it was placed there by a trans activist? While some trans activists may believe this, it seems just as likely to me that it was put there as a provocation -- a literal false flag.
        • 2020-08-05 18:43 @ChrisThody “Bigotry has no logic”
          • 2020-08-05 18:46 @TheWolfSpirit1 “Transphobia rots the brain.” - Based on the level of logic in the argumentation against trans rights here, I'd have to agree.
        • 2020-08-11 02:45 @MadeofChange “This actually constitutes hate speech IMO but also is an extraordinary example of rape culture and the denial of consent” - YES. This is an excellent point.
        • 2020-08-05 19:45 @Truthbomb_Queen “If sex were erased, you’d still be attracted to the same people you’re attracted to. Trans people don’t want to erase sex. Gender isn’t sex and hasn’t been since before we figured out agriculture.” - Yes. Thank you. This is all true.
          • 2020-08-11 12:14 @msbeingviolent “If that's true then why is it "controversial" to say that transwomen are male? :thinking face:” It's not "controversial"; it's wrong -- and why do you think that your question follows from what Truthbomb_Queen said?
          • 2020-08-07 13:54 @DemelzaPussycat “‘If sex were erased, you’d still be attracted to the same people’. If schmiff. This is about as meaningful as saying, ‘If we were all made of cheese, we’d all eat each other’. And how can you possibly know whether you or anyone else would still fancy the same people?” It's a statement of belief, not an argument from evidence -- although there is evidence to support it.
          • 2020-08-05 19:45 @edeysal “You make it sound so easy, like it's nothing - that doesnt mean it's true though / All gay rights and womens rights are hung on the legal concept of sex, if that is erased things like lesbian only events would be open to all / P.s. cavemen knew sex, not gender or we wouldnt be here” -- speaking of unsupported statements...
            • 2020-08-06 08:28 @McdowallLucy “Can you tell me how allowing trans women to identify as trans women will take away my right to vote, or the right to reproductive healthcare, or my right to marry another woman? These are the rights I currently enjoy living in Scotland as a cisgender, bisexual woman?”
              • 2020-08-06 08:36 @ProfessionalJu2 “Are lesbians sexually attracted to people who have a penis? / The issue isn't transwomen identifying as transwomen, the issue is transwomen trying to force everyone to believe that they are actual women. / They're not, they're male.” At last, she comes out and says it: Trans women are men disinformation Also, this is changing the subject.
                • 2020-08-06 08:39 @Truthbomb_Queen “The issue here is that you’re a transphobe who spends every day making specious and unfounded attacks against trans people. :woman shrugging:” Seems about right.
                  • 2020-08-07 13:04 @ProfessionalJu2 “Can a male be a lesbian and can lesbians be attracted to males?” - She's also a broken record. No, a male can't be a lesbian. hidden premise is the myth that trans women are really men. Some trans women are lesbians, and hetero men have been known to be attracted to trans women as women because trans women are women.
                • 2020-08-06 08:40 @McdowallLucy “Not relevant to my question, but what the heck. / Perhaps it's my bisexual ways, Judy, but if someone I'm not sexually attracted to asks me out? / I just tell them 'no thanks.' / Whatever happened to using your grown-up words? / So. Which rights do I actually lose? Vote? Abortion?” - kudos for both answering the question and not falling for the subject-change
                • 2020-08-06 08:40 @McdowallLucy “And trans is an adjective. Trans [space] woman. 'Transwoman' is dehumanising, sexualising and objectifying. As feminists, we don't sexualise or objectify people—at least not without their consent.”
                  • 2020-08-06 08:51 @ProfessionalJu2 “Transwomen are transwomen. / I’m using us as a noun.” So... we're not talking about trans women at all, but something different? (I'm not at all sure what she means by "using us as noun".)
                    • 2020-08-06 08:53 @Truthbomb_Queen “Separate words. (And women.) [screenshot of "trans woman" in Merriam Webster]”
                      • 2020-08-06 09:01 @ProfessionalJu2 ““Words change”” ...yes, they do; what's your point?
              • 2020-08-11 03:21 @terriehasler “It won't remove that particular set of rights which I'm assuming you carefully chose to make your point.” -- because they're the ones that are relevant. I notice this response does not include any counterexamples.
              • 2020-08-06 11:17 @EmJaRo2 “If anyone can be regarded as female on nothing more than their say so, it will be impossible to track whether employers and other institutions are discriminating on the basis of sex. It will be impossible to keep accurate crime stats which will potentially impact funding.” -- This seems to be assuming that some large percentage of the male population is going to start identifying as female. Like, larger than the ~1% of people who are trans female. It also presumes that trans women aren't women. ( hidden premise is the myth that trans women are not women)
                • 2020-08-06 11:19 @EmJaRo2 “If you require intimate care through illness, injury or age, you will potentially lose the right to a female carer. / You will lose the opportunity to compete in sports to the highest level.” ...nno... But if gender identity is not permitted to determine legal gender, then that would deprive trans women of both of these things. ( hidden premise: trans women are not women)

Editor's note: I've already spent hours mapping out the above thread, in hopes of trying to trace all the way back from the below to how the conversation started -- but although I can get to part of the above discussion by going to the following tweets, figuring out the connection is more than I have time for today. Thanks, Twitter, for such an opaque interface.

• 05:43 @McdowallLucy “
  1. Your right to give or receive consent is not affected—there is no evidence of this.
  2. Trans women have been using single sexed spaces for 30 years and the EHRC has confirmed there has been no increase in assaults in women's spaces.
  So. Which of my Universal Human Rights?”
• 08:22 @janeclarejones “There is no evidence of this????
  I do not consent and neither does Maya and neither do thousands and thousands of other women.
  THAT'S your evidence.”

Apparently Dr. Jones does not want even fully-passing trans women to access women's spaces.

This is sounding more and more like the "Christian" businesses who refuse to serve gay people because it violates their right of religious freedom.

Which of Us Is Glorifying Reproduction, Again?

• 2020-08-07 08:51 @wendycockcroft “Anyone else noticed that trans women are celebrated for their achievements and trans men for having babies?”

I think what's going on here is:

1. Wendy is claiming there's a dichotomy in how trans men and trans women are treated, in which trans women are taken seriously as individuals while trans men are still seen primarily as baby-factories.
2. I think she is trying to argue that this dichotomy illustrates that trans women continue to have male privilege after transitioning
3. I don't think the evidence supports this.

My personal answer to the question? Not really, no. I do remember a few examples of each, but that could easily be media bias and anyway, so what?

I assume she's not trying to say "trans men aren't men because they can have babies", because that would be a circular argument.

Conversely

• https://twitter.com/JuliaSerano/status/1291880094957355008
• https://twitter.com/lisaquestions/status/1291724298843852802