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Saturday 6 June 2020

TERF Wars: The Quest For Peace

Danielle, a cartoon by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
I've been talking about trans issues for a while, first from the perspective of a bemused outsider, then from a more critical angle. After throwing my lot in with the gender critical side, I found myself in conversation with the mother of a trans child. This is what happened.

Danielle looks a little like the picture I've created of her. A decent, kind, friendly woman, she told me her story over a Zoom call we arranged in order to start a series of round table talks to set out the terms of peace between the TRAs (trans rights activists) and the TERFs (a catch-all term for gender critical people who don't accept that trans women are women, particularly on say-so alone).

The Conversation


Danielle and I got talking on one of Graham Linehan's threads that was hashtagged #GenderWooWoo. She and I agreed that there's a lot of bile and ignorance on both sides. Some TERFs (a term I use for those women who are hostile to trans folk, and who show up with alarming regularity on Graham's threads) have been insisting that gender reassignment hormones are being prescribed by the NHS to kids. Not true per Danielle; they can get puberty blockers, though. We started to talk and agreed to meet on Zoom. At first the plan was to get a group of people together from all sides to debate. In the end it was just herself and I.

The rules


We agreed on some ground rules:

Rules of Engagement


● Please be respectful of all members of the debate. Our very presence is testimony to our desire to collaborate to gain mutual ground. It is perfectly acceptable to disagree with an ideological principle. It is not acceptable to personally attack a member of the debate, use willfully inflammatory language (e.g. TERF, deadnaming, derogatory or misogynistic language) or to attempt to deplatform somebody by speaking over them and refusing to let them make their point.
● The members of this forum are, by definition, coming from opposing sides of the discussion. It is not wrong to disagree and it is not the aim of this forum to pull one side entirely onto the other. The goal is to find and grow common ground and solutions that do not cause harm or suffering to the majority of invested parties. Therefore please accept before entering that you will encounter opinions contrary to your own and accept that it should not be your aim to “convert” somebody to your way of thinking.
● If you make a claim, please be prepared to back this with a reference to an article or document that can be verified and clearly support the claim. There is space for anecdotal experience in the context of this informal discussion between reasonable people but if you are making unsubstantiated, sweeping statements or using figures that are not evidence based, this will be challenged and the point you are making could potentially be undermined.
● Please listen carefully to the point being made and use that to respond. Ignoring what a member of the discussion is saying and taking an entirely unrelated direction will not further the mutual aims of this discussion.

Above all know that we are here to move forward together, not to engrain and widen divisions. Please ensure all of your interactions enact the spirit of this fundamental principle. Disagreement is expected, disrespect is not.

These are entirely reasonable, so I agreed. We settled on a date, and we Zoomed.

The call


We greeted each other, then Danielle spoke first. She's the mother of a trans child, identified as lesbian, and has to reconcile her feminist beliefs with the fact that her kid is trans. The child was born male and was effeminate from early on. Danielle believed the child would grow up to be an effeminate gay man; the idea that Kid was trans never occurred to her. When Kid was old enough to express herself, she made it clear that she wanted to live as a girl.

Puberty blockers


When puberty hit, Kid started self-harming. After seeing a range of doctors, social workers, and medical professionals Danielle agreed to take her child to a gender identity clinic. They prescribed puberty blockers and the self-harming stopped. The medical professionals are still involved and will be for some time. I asked about the effects, etc. I know for a fact that they can stunt growth and affect future fertility, and pointed this out to Danielle.

She advised that Kid has been given permission for blockers as part of her treatment, she’s not yet started them. She needs to be further along in puberty first. "Puberty blockers can save a child's life by taking away the reason for wanting to self-harm, i.e. the sex-specific changes that puberty brings. At school, everyone thinks she's a girl. Only a few of the senior teachers know she's trans. She will be getting regular bone scans and tests to ensure she is healthy."

I once saw a video of a young man castrate himself so I get the part about distress. Better to let medical professionals treat gender dysphoria than to leave it to armchair medics and lead them to self-harm.

Trans activists


Danielle has had grief from trans activists too. They gaslight her and try to bully her as they do with me. She's caught between a rock and a hard place; trying to be true to herself as a woman and protect her child from the hostility she is likely to face in the world beyond her home. As a young woman, she's at risk from the creeps and perverts who threaten us. Kid is on board with women's rights to dignity and privacy.

Queer all the things!


The TRAs are not a homogenous bunch, though they like to present themselves as such. The trouble with muliple sexual and gender identities is that they muddy the waters, then agitators get in and start up trouble using DARVO techniques.

 DARVO is an acronym used to describe a common strategy of abusers. The abuser will: Deny the abuse ever took place, then Attack the victim for attempting to hold the abuser accountable; then they will lie and claim that they, the abuser, are the real victim in the situation, thus Reversing the Victim and Offender. This usually involves victim blaming. Some therapists see DARVO as a specific form of gaslighting. - Wikipedia
You can see the kind of thing I'm talking about in the exchanges below.

DARVO in action



Note the use of the words "their truth."


Single point of truth??!


This is some A-grade gaslighting, but it gets better.


Oh dear... every biology textbook ever. While there has been talk of transplanting the reproductive equipment of a woman into a man, the attempts made failed and it's not likely to be possible due to, erm, biology.

Look, I understand they have suffered abuse when they express themselves. I get that. However, their problem is with men and their violence. It's not my job to validate anyone's identity. About that...


They can not and will not accept that male violence is the problem, or that it ought to be addressed and challenged. They insist the ball is in the court of women and it's our job to both validate them and to offer them shelter from their oppressors, i.e. men.


Nothing remotely creepy about that at all, is there? They really don't get it.


My response: "Boys will be boys" has been used to excuse male violence for centuries. In any case the causes are societal; we tend to put women in shelters instead of locking up abusive men. People who want us to accept them as women should never, ever say these things if they want to be accepted. We managed to agree on the fact that the social safety net needs to be expanded and that separate, self-contained locker rooms are the answer to dignity and privacy for all, but then the gaslighting started up.


When objective reality gets thrown under the bus because feelz, I lose patience. Science = magic is worse, though:


I muted the thread at "The truth is what we say it is."


This ain't no game (of thrones). Mind you it doesn't mean I can't get along with trans folk. I had a lovely conversation with one today.

Trans allies and friends


Rai the Witch is a new convert to the idea that not all GC (gender critical) people are evil monsters intent on robbing her of any rights. The story began in one of Grahamm Linehan's threads. She started out complaining about Graham's combative attitude, which I have also called him out for. After a bit of to and fro she began to realise I wasn't out to get her.


This is common ground, so we could move forward. I defended Graham and pointed out that he doesn't bite my head off when we disagree, which I did right there in that thread. Graham duly failed to bite my head off. I then told her about my Round Table talks and invited her to join. She declined.


Such friendly comments can only ever lead to a mutual virtual hugfest:


I loved her positive energy. This is the way I want to see conversations pan out going forward. Hostilities must cease and a will to discuss our differences peacefully must prevail. I want more of this:


Conclusion


The trouble I have with TRAs is that many of them seem to be men who claim to be women and demand that we accept it on their say-so. My conversations with CritFacts and Grace appear to bear this out, heightening my understandable paranoia. Instead of reassuring us they paint themselves as victims of evil paranoid women, i.e. me. I'm having none of it.

If they don't understand our struggle as women under oppression by the Patriarchy and that their struggle is also against the violence of the Patriarchy we have nothing to talk about. A firm grounding in a shared reality is the starting point for any discussion. I have feelings too, and when they are considered as worthy of discussion and acceptance I'll accept that this is about equality. Till then, it looks like bullying and gaslighting from where I sit.

Anyone wanting a serious discussion needs to learn to play by the rules. Equality means we have the same rights and nobody has to give up theirs.

I'm hoping to have another Round Table talk with Danielle this week and expect to have some others in here with us. I'll let you know how we get on.



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