Define “rights”
The latest captive:
Lots of people are finding Billy Bragg’s lack of compassion for the female community troubling. He seems to have no concern about what might happen to a woman in a female prison that confined trans women with actual women and to have an indifferent attitude to their reduced participation in sports taken over by trans women.
I’ve been unable to resist retorting.
It’s frustrating to see how thoroughly he doesn’t get it and how well he’s digested and incorporated the stupid slogans.
He is nonetheless going to get absolutely hammered for “sees transsexuals sharing spaces with women”, because he just stated that trans women are not in fact women, but there should be some negotiation to create camaraderie (weird notion) in order to enable that sharing. That won’t pass the litmus test.
One canever be Pure Enough. Men’s experience of these issues can never be as immediate and versceral as those of women. He’s never going to be denied a medal is he? It’s easy for him to be so generous giving away spaces that are not his to give. Perhaps Mr. Bragg’s peak trans awaits him, just around the corner…
Perhaps that’s part of the problem. He has nothing to lose if transmen share the bathroom with him, or enter men’s sports. The biggest risk in this case is to the transman from the men who don’t want to share their space, and have men’s bodies.
Yeah, it’s always those with women’s bodies who have to move aside. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
He’s all about “compassion” for the “trans community” but trans is less a community than a hodgepodge of people who have a variety of reasons for wanting to be perceived by others as the opposite sex — some that merit compassion, and some that very much don’t.
It’s not just self-IDing women in a male prison, it’s men who are effeminate or slight and slender who also risk sexual attack. Add to that the overweight, disabled, and the unsightly. They all draw unwelcome attention, bullying, and even violence. And let’s not forget what happens to prisoners with crimes which somehow trigger the other inmates — like child molesters. Plus, squealers and informants. We definitely need to be concerned about what will happen to them.
Women are the caring sex. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath incarcerated air less dangerous…
You can tell he has no clue. “Transsexuals”? What are you, Billy, truscum?
How would trans activists respond if women in prison treated trans women prisoners the way that men treat them?
The ‘oppression narrative’ (young trans women forced onto the street by hostile family, engaging in noble, empowering, sex work, being assaulted or killed by enraged men) is magically reversed into a license to bully women.
So far, ‘legitimate’ trans women have been silent on the pathological fringe. Its like gay rights activists refusing to denounce NAMBLA back in the 70s. Without the Karen White/Jessica Yaniv brigade, self identification would be a workable principle. Otherwise you’d have swab tests, or genital inspections. If we weren’t dealing with an identifiable mob of misogynists, people like Bragg wouldn’t be putting themselves on the wrong side.
I don’t think “self-identification” can be a workable principle if it means self-id as something you’re not – except when there’s nothing substantive at stake. Self-id as a bookworm or a nerd or a sports fan etc, fine, but as a woman, not so fine.