Mind of a terf....

[SailorMars1994]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5529707/Germaine-Greer-reveals-heard-close-friend-raped.html

Attached here is a link, one of many where self discribed "feminist " and mega transphobe Germaine Greer defends her actions on her female friend being raped by her husband while doing nothing. She even seems to defend the husband. Perhaps not a suprise since she has also defended Harvey Wiestein and his evilness.

My question is, where does this mknd set come from. To people like her, I shouldn't be allowed to use the proper bathroom since even tho I am not nor ever was or ever will be a sexual predator, I am accused as such or have "potential " somehow? Yet she actually seems to dismiss true sexual predators and people who prey and women

Where does this massive contradiction come from? People help me understand because to me she just sounds like a bigot always trying to justify her own cowardice and flat out awfulness.

[Gertrude]

She's a second wave feminist. I had a couple of them as professors. It seems to me they have underlying issues that have created a desire to have a narrative that justifies some internal beliefs based on their mess.  She's as bad as SoCons and Paul McHugh types. At one time we'd just say she has a chip on her shoulder and she's gone off the deep end with it.


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[SailorMars1994]

I'd wager you're right. After all another "feminist" terf named Kathy Brennen even admitted during one of her anti trans talks that if she grew up in today's age she may have transitioned ftm. Lots of self loathing from very damaged souls.

[SadieBlake]

SailorMars, I may get whacked for not expressing condemnation of a 'TERF' but let me start with the link you gave has nothing to do with feminist views on trans women (or ms Greer's views). It seems to be that you're saying this person who has awful ideas about trans women also has awful ideas about sexual assault / #metoo. That in turn is a strawman argument that pretty clearly relies on an ad hominem on Greer.

So let me unpack that some.

First (as I noted in a post in the recently deleted thread about "TERF" views), there were some actual reasons that second wave feminists took those positions. You or I may or may not consider those valid, however trust me the people there at the time did. The women's movement was being pulled in a lot of directions.

There are reasons that those views were taken, the whole Michfest/campTrans dichotomy heavily polarized it and that's how we wound up where we are today. A lot of people have done a lot of thinking about these things and a fair bit of arguing / activism as well.

Where we've wound up today is 3rd / 4th wave feminism which *is* by and large both inter-sectional and inclusionary.

Has Ms Greer personally done anything to harm you (directly, not counting effects of anything she wrote or will write in the future)?

I'd suggest keeping eyes on the people we actually interact with and by all means write Ms Greer and say she's wrong but that branch of feminism being a thing of the past. Movements are made of individuals, change happens when a majority of individuals within a movement change. Same can be said for whole societies.

Sitting here as a Chomsky-wave radical I don't think america became a bad place when Nixon, Bush, Reagan or Trump was president. If I were a conservative of any particular stripe I wouldn't declare that the US was a bad place just because JFK, Carter, Clinton or Obama was in the oval office.

Lastly to Ms Greer's statements I can see her POV in how she was quoted and how some people who are talking about #metoo could be offended by those things. Let me assure you plenty of feminists have said both better and worse things over the years. I genuinely believe feminism has been a positive force in the world, just as I believe the US while far from perfect does some good in the world.

[SailorMars1994]

No one ever said feminism was bad or not good here. What I'm saying is that Greer seems like she has a messed up priorities. To accuse a demographic of being confused predators (transwomen) while excusing real predators shows that Greer is no different from the religious far right. They seem to think the same , women who get raped in marriage are "not really raped " and transgender women are messed up predators . It's basically the same mind set that holds the female gender far back. Greer is allowed to give lectures at universities because of ignorance, yet the things I hear out of her mouth are things I would expect to hear when I am dropping change into said persons cup during a ramble. It is people like her who hold women and indeed all of civil society back.

[SailorMars1994]

Also, if you know of ms Greer you would know she is a terf and a well known one at that

[Kylo]

There's not much to understand, some of them just have a lot of bottled up hate. The kind of people who take the SCUM Manifesto literally, lol. But more importantly, a lot of it is about mobilizing hate and resentment between groups to get more power for themselves.

I don't believe all that many "activists" really care about trans people. We're just more bodies for the 'collective', they often appropriate our issues either to use them to shore up their own position, or use against us if they're TERF types. Ironically there's a lot of opportunistic, unscrupulous people among them.   

[Michelle_P]

Germaine Greer has a personal interest in some of this. Her star was waning until she was "discovered" by certain extreme political and religious groups, who began promoting her views from decades ago and bumping up book sales for her. Since soliciting articles for web and press publication by their organizations, she has found a fresh market that she is pandering to.

That's why I refer to her taking the patriarchy's 20 pieces of silver.

She has found a fresh path to get in the limelight again, and she does thrive on the attention.

I'm more than a little disappointed in her. She is quite intelligent and a very good writer. She is in some ways taking the easy path, one that lets her stick with old oppositional feminist theories and pick up publicity with minimal effort. It's sad that she cannot apply her considerable intellect to adopting intersectional feminism, but that appears to conflict with her core ideologies.


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[Gertrude]

And what I get out of this too is the consequence of becoming set in a belief system that doesn't allow heterodoxy. The fault lies with her for not recognizing change in what we know and her perception that she has to defend an archaic position. I skipped the official religion and political party nonsense a while back as it's like putting on a straight jacket and puts one in a position to have to defend ideas and sometimes words that neither came from ones mind nor mouth. Heterodoxy is the only rational view in that issues are taken on their own individual merits and it removes the motivation of social acceptance and collective coercion. Sometimes giving up your own mind to be part of a group has some negative consequences. Nearly all the time. If she really believes what she says, she's stuck. So is Paul McHugh for that matter and a plethora of other folks. Most people don't understand why they believe what they and some don't even understand what they believe.


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[SadieBlake]

Michelle, I agree with you on some points.

I have friends and family who worked in the OSS, CIA, etc. One at least was for a time responsible for positions being sent directly to POTUS for policy formation.

Trust me, these people viewed the soviet union and their allies with a very jaundiced eye.during the cold war, Vietnam etc.

These people held some fairly nuanced views but college students protesting the war didn't come in for their sympathies.

I spent time in republican districts in Ohio in '08 working for Obama. There were people there who took a pretty dim view of LGB people, trans people weren't even vaguely on their radar. It was my task to convince these people to vote for Barack no too long after the MA decision that enacted gay marriage.

Trust me, these people weren't fans about that and I wasn't going to lie to them about Obama's positions. I nonetheless convinced quite a few to vote for him.

Hell, my own sister is a TERF. I understand why and having tried coming out to her two decades ago I'm not bothering to have that conversation.

People believe what they do for the reasons they do. Perhaps Ms Greer is as self-serving as you think. What I'm saying is there are well and truly valid reasons for women *especially then* to want to be separatist. I'm not saying they were or are right, I just don't care and I'm not willing to label them 'wrong' either.Some of them had other prejudices.

Hell, I'm separatist. a fair fraction of the men I know I want as little contact with as I can get and I truly find I'm happiest among queer identified women, depending on the venue, queer identified people of all genders.


bah, have to go back to work, as fun as this is :-)

[Michelle_P]

I'll agree that marginalized groups may need safe spaces from time to time. We actually have those, largely by tacit social agreement.

I would not expect to encounter a heteronormative straight couple in a space like The Dungeon, a BDSM club (other than tourist victims of a jape!). I would not expect to find members of Westboro Baptist Church in a LGBTQ support group. 

That said, I believe there is a difference between safe spaces for basic services and safe spaces for marginalized people to caucus. Ms Greer argues that women's shelters and women's restroom facilities should be for ciswomen only. I should be excluded from these spaces on the basis that I have or once had a penis. (Never mind that it's been turned inside out)

I happen to disagree with her. We have a culture that genders some such services, often with fairly good reasons in the larger cultural context. People need these services. Some people do not fall neatly into the service providers gender categories. I am of the opinion that persons should be allowed access to services in the nearest safe gender category to which they identify.

A battered trans woman should be able to access a battered women's shelter as long as they, like ANY woman, meet the shelter's intake requirements necessary for community safety (and NO, "ciswomen only" is not a valid requirement. We evaluate potential clients on stability and ability to honor boundaries, not on their birth certificate!)

Same goes for restrooms!  I need to pee just like everyone else. Special trans-only restrooms are unlikely, and gender inclusive restrooms are rare outside a few places.

Ms Greer has found an eager audience for her views in certain political and religious circles, groups widely considered to support and maintain the instrumentality of patriarchy.  She's happy to take their coin. That makes her an instrument of patriarchy as far as I am concerned.


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[Karen_A]

There are reasons that those views were taken, the whole Michfest/campTrans dichotomy heavily polarized it and that's how we wound up where we are today.

That was an interesting situation... you could easily find the extremes on both sides... but the majority at fest were not rabidly anti-trans and never were. In fact a number TSes who were know to be TS by more than a few there attended fest without issue,  while Camp Trans was protesting outside the gates. I have personally known some TSes who were part of Camp Trans and others who just attended the MWMF during those years.

- karen

[josie76]

I recently had a conversation with a group who would definitely qualify for the description of TERF on social media. I responded to a post being open and honest. I brought science which they did not approve of. I explained how biology explains the gender specific development of the brain and body.

After a stressful number of posts which I endured their personal attacks and a number of them stooped to humiliation I learned much of what they believe. I was shocked by their beliefs about transgender people but seemed focused only on trans-women.

If someone deems this as inappropriate then feel free to remove it.

Essentially their contention revolves around an idea that gender is a concept created completely by socialization and training. Specifically gender was created by men to control women for sexual reasons. Now at least one of this group stated she had been assaulted at one point in her life. Bearing that in mind I can perhaps see where some individual strong emotional response comes from.
As they believe there is no biological cause for gender (as they deny the existence of gender specific brain neural structures) they think trans-women want to fulfil a sexual fantasy. A very aggressive woman insisted that trans-women were 80% straight men with fully functional reproductive parts. She actually said that she believed a trans person's greatest wish was to self pleasure in a girls locker room.

I defended myself with very personal information about my life experiences being trans and how medical transition stops testosterone production. For talking about my life they said I was narcasistic and attempting to pull them into my own sexual control fantasy. Anyway after calling me a sexual predator, challenging my parenting and as I told them my very humanity, I told them that if they dislike the science then they have a much bigger issue as that is what is taught in medical schools for prenatal endocrinology and neurology. For that they simply commented that I was using emotional manipulation to control them.

[Michelle_P]

That was an interesting situation... you could easily find the extremes on both sides... but the majority at fest were not rabidly anti-trans and never were. In fact a number TSes who were know to be TS by more than a few there attended fest without issue,  while Camp Trans was protesting outside the gates. I have personally known some TSes who were part of Camp Trans and others who just attended the MWMF during those years.

- karen

On the other hand, there's the 16 year old trans woman who came in with a lesbian group in 1999, was clocked, hounded, and threatened, reduced to tears before she could escape.

In talking with attendees, it was fairly easy if one had passing privilege, or was with an experienced guide that could help one evade the "Man on the Land" police. 

Getting in doesn't make it exactly a safe or accepting environment.

[SailorMars1994]

I recently had a conversation with a group who would definitely qualify for the description of TERF on social media. I responded to a post being open and honest. I brought science which they did not approve of. I explained how biology explains the gender specific development of the brain and body.

After a stressful number of posts which I endured their personal attacks and a number of them stooped to humiliation I learned much of what they believe. I was shocked by their beliefs about transgender people but seemed focused only on trans-women.

If someone deems this as inappropriate then feel free to remove it.

Essentially their contention revolves around an idea that gender is a concept created completely by socialization and training. Specifically gender was created by men to control women for sexual reasons. Now at least one of this group stated she had been assaulted at one point in her life. Bearing that in mind I can perhaps see where some individual strong emotional response comes from.
As they believe there is no biological cause for gender (as they deny the existence of gender specific brain neural structures) they think trans-women want to fulfil a sexual fantasy. A very aggressive woman insisted that trans-women were 80% straight men with fully functional reproductive parts. She actually said that she believed a trans person's greatest wish was to self pleasure in a girls locker room.

I defended myself with very personal information about my life experiences being trans and how medical transition stops testosterone production. For talking about my life they said I was narcasistic and attempting to pull them into my own sexual control fantasy. Anyway after calling me a sexual predator, challenging my parenting and as I told them my very humanity, I told them that if they dislike the science then they have a much bigger issue as that is what is taught in medical schools for prenatal endocrinology and neurology. For that they simply commented that I was using emotional manipulation to control them.

So in other words they just want to play the oppression Olympics while at the same time oppressing others.

[josie76]

So in other words they just want to play the oppression Olympics while at the same time oppressing others.

Yes. Hate seems to fill their days. Also when I asked if they had the same opinion about trans-men, they simply ignored it.

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[Karen_A]

On the other hand, there's the 16 year old trans woman who came in with a lesbian group in 1999, was clocked, hounded, and threatened, reduced to tears before she could escape.

At one time I knew more of the details around that 1999 incident, but have forgotten over the years.

As i said the extremists are a minority but a VERY vocal minority and  included Lisa Vogel. Her position I believe is one of the factors (along with greater societal acceptance of lesbians) that helped drive Fest attendance down and why it is no more.... which shows that it was not the majority.

As i said some I know for a fact that some of the TSes that went to fest where known to a fair number at fest to be TS... and some were workers...

While it was for some on both sides, the overall reality was not just black and white, but had a lot of shades of gray.

BTW I have met Nancy Burkholder (she was the TS who's ejection sparked the creation of Camp Trans in thr first place)

I have also tangled with TERFS back when I was younger and not wise enough to realize that was pointless.

- Karen

[Karen_A]

Yes. Hate seems to fill their days. Also when I asked if they had the same opinion about trans-men, they simply ignored it.

They always had a double standard that way.

- Karen

[Michelle_P]

As i said the extremists are a minority but a VERY vocal minority and  included Lisa Vogel. Her position I believe is one of the factors (along with greater societal acceptance of lesbians) that helped drive Fest attendance down and why it is no more.... which shows that it was not the majority.

And that very vocal minority is everywhere.  When I go to lesbian meetups, I contact the event leader first to make sure my presence won't trigger someone.  Some extremists will remain quiet when they are the only one in a group, but they will show passive-aggressive behaviors, pretending I am not there, for example, skipping me when passing out event tickets and such.

Ah, good times...

[Gertrude]

I recently had a conversation with a group who would definitely qualify for the description of TERF on social media. I responded to a post being open and honest. I brought science which they did not approve of. I explained how biology explains the gender specific development of the brain and body.

After a stressful number of posts which I endured their personal attacks and a number of them stooped to humiliation I learned much of what they believe. I was shocked by their beliefs about transgender people but seemed focused only on trans-women.

If someone deems this as inappropriate then feel free to remove it.

Essentially their contention revolves around an idea that gender is a concept created completely by socialization and training. Specifically gender was created by men to control women for sexual reasons. Now at least one of this group stated she had been assaulted at one point in her life. Bearing that in mind I can perhaps see where some individual strong emotional response comes from.
As they believe there is no biological cause for gender (as they deny the existence of gender specific brain neural structures) they think trans-women want to fulfil a sexual fantasy. A very aggressive woman insisted that trans-women were 80% straight men with fully functional reproductive parts. She actually said that she believed a trans person's greatest wish was to self pleasure in a girls locker room.

I defended myself with very personal information about my life experiences being trans and how medical transition stops testosterone production. For talking about my life they said I was narcasistic and attempting to pull them into my own sexual control fantasy. Anyway after calling me a sexual predator, challenging my parenting and as I told them my very humanity, I told them that if they dislike the science then they have a much bigger issue as that is what is taught in medical schools for prenatal endocrinology and neurology. For that they simply commented that I was using emotional manipulation to control them.

Yup. It's basically religion.


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