Sometimes the truth hurts. Exposing “unSafe Schools” for what it is and exposing the same sex agenda is a good thing because it shows that our human desires (sin?) cannot override reality, but rather reality overrides our desires. For some people to try to undermine the family unit and create the illusion of “moral relativism” which destroys society (as my example above is just one example) is creating discussion and critical thinking. The more, the better. Is our biological sex determined by nature or nurture?….it’s obviously the former. Is our gender different to our sex?….nope!….it’s only  the subjective, post-modernist person of the “progressive” gay mindset who thinks that redefining words can somehow change reality. Since when is “progress” always a good thing anyhow? It’s all just tricky word-smithing and targeting the naive young children of our society (without parental approval) because they are easy pickings. Make-believe “medical” reports just facilitate the illusion. The separation of “sex” (male/female biology) and “gender” is the latest attempt to trick people – because the biological make-up of a man and a woman is SOOOOO obvious, the same sex lobby has conceded that your biology (your anatomy) has either man parts or woman parts. QED. …..but now you can have “gender” which is the male/female/other that you “feel” you want to be – this is what the “unSafe Schools” program is ultimately teaching. So you can feel like you are a “man” (gender) in a woman’s body (sex) or a “woman” (gender) in a man’s body (sex)…..or you can be both “man and woman” (fluid gender) in a man or woman body (sex)…..or a “man” in a man or woman body but dressing in a woman way or visa versa…..or a “both gender” in a body that needs added hormones and body parts snipped off…..or a tuck and nip penis/breast body adaptation in a fluid-trans-intersex-hetro/homo gender (…..did you just laugh?…..no, no, no…..this is actually what they are trying to instil in our children at a pre-puberty age). Can you imagine how totally screwed up in the head these poor children will be as they grow up through their teenage years and then have to actual “decide” what “gender” they feel like for the rest of their lives – that’s right…..once the physical anatomy has been changed in their young, immature years, their bodies cannot be reversed back when they wise up and make a mature decision to be heterosexual in a God-given way. The scars are there for life – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually (the latter being the spirit of anti-Christ).

Male and female are not identities. They are states of being. Do you identify as human? I sure don’t, I just am one. I also do not identify as female, I just am female. Biology is bigger than you.

“if you are sexually attracted to male-bodied people”

you = if you are female, and also attracted to female-bodied people.

Clearly I need coffee.

If you are sexually attracted to male-bodied people you are bisexual, not lesbian. You don’t get to invent your own facts, no matter how you feel about it.

A male-bodied person who is attracted to women is a heterosexual male, not a lesbian. See above.

Men are not entitled to be in woman-only events unless specifically invited because whoever holds the event has a broad and incorrect definition of “woman”. If you’re not invited, stay out. If you don’t like it, hold your own events. God knows that in some areas of the USA you literally cannot find woman-only events anymore because all the feminist events are run by queer-theory adherents and trans-friendly people. It would be nice to have a choice. And yes, we could follow our own advice and start our own events, problem is that trans and their allies would take it as a personal insult and harass and persecute us. So who is really being intolerant here?

Even the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival allowed trans to attend. Yes, they did. They did not institute crotch checks, though they did not encourage trans participation explicitly. If some so-called “female identified” (no such thing) person could attend and behave, they could stay. This is something you won’t hear from the trans crowd, because it doesn’t benefit them for you to know the facts.

Gender is a stereotype, not a biological state. If you went around acting out the stereotypes of Aborigines, you’d be roundly condemned, and you’d deserve it too.

Trans and bi are two entirely different things. And it is not transphobic to point out that someone cannot actually change their sex and that gender is stereotype. Wanting to wear high heels does not make you a woman. It makes you a human being who likes to wear high heels.

Do you identify as a human being? I don’t, I just am one. The second you say you identify as something, that introduces doubt into the situation. There is the possibility that you might not actually be that thing. In this case they definitely aren’t.

Then go yell at Germaine Greer. It’s only reciprocal if you’ve done it to the person who did it to you.

By the way, “pantomime dames” is exactly what transwomen are–they aren’t actually women, they’re pretending to be women, and they’re doing a very bad job of it too. Why are they doing a bad job? Number one, they aren’t women, and no amount of putting on an act is going to change that. Number two, they associate womanhood with stereotypes about womanhood. They literally do not understand the difference between the two. It is the difference between sex and gender–sex is biology, gender is stereotype.

Basically they’re going around making fun of all the ridiculous standards to which women are held, but they think they’re being earnest. They’re already insulting us. I even run across transwoman bloggers who claim they are better women than women ourselves, implicit in that statement is that they act out the stereotypes better. This after over a hundred years of women trying to destroy those stereotypes, now we are expected to go back into the box. So you might say that when women say things like “pantomime dames” we are engaging in our own reciprocity. Don’t like it? Stop making fun of us and calling it an “identity”.

I am coming more and more to feel the same way about drag queens. I don’t care what gay men THINK drag means, it’s mockery. We in the USA have come to the general belief that it is insulting to perform in blackface. It’s high time everyone felt the same way about womanface.

(And manface, while we’re at it, but that’s about as “devastating” to men as saying “cracker” or “honkey” is to white people. Still, if what we’re after here is greater civility, acting out stereotypes is not the way to get there.)

So it is ethical to invoke misogyny against Germaine Greer, and to hell with how this effects lesbians in the LGBTI community?

This article was not a critique of Germaine Greer’s views, it was a reflection on just how tolerated misogyny and abuse of women is in the LGBTI community, as in the broader community. It would be wonderful to continue to centre women in the comments, as in the article, but that would hardly be in line with our broader social dynamics, would it?! Women’s needs are only allowed to be central once everything else is addressed, which means never.

In your comments you seem to be saying that it was acceptable to abuse women, lesbians particularly, because a single woman was saying something that was deemed objectionable.

So, when a woman is killed by male violence every three days in Australia, does this justify mass action against men, in your view? Murder is, of course, rather more concrete than hate speech, after all, and this is a persistent epidemic…

Just curious, because as far as I can tell, the right to self defence is only ever socially sanctioned when used by men. When women use it we are told to STFU and get back in our box.

Or to take another example, would you have had me respond to the abuse I fielded, as discussed in the article, with abusive invective of my own?

If we support a never ending cycle of abuse, triggered and justified by what has been done to us, we all become complicit in that abuse. Wouldn’t it be better to stop and analyse what is happening and the dynamics behind it?

Spelling (2nd paragraph): ‘the situation isn’t as you *present* it’

Actually, reciprocal ethics isn’t just a position to be taken for granted, as you suggest. You are not always entitled to do unto others as they have already done unto you. I’m not saying it’s necessarily wrong, but it’s one among a myriad of ethical positions, the majority of which would completely disagree with you.

Your self defence example is also flawed, as the self defence argument relates to preventing an attack, whereas responding to hate speech with hate speech is like getting beaten up, and then king hitting the person as they walk away – again, maybe justified, but the situation isn’t as you prevent it.

Just saying, there are a lot of complex issues here and everyone needs to be precise, and nuanced, in their understanding of the issues lest particular objections to a certain aspect of an issue become (or at least, sound like) blanket statements about a group which sound like hate speech, e.g. legitimate concerns about the erosion of female lesbian identity through admission of non-biologically-female trans folk becomes, when inarticulately expressed, a statement along the lines of ‘GTFO trans-women, you’re not real women’.

I think we really experience our stories in an individualised way that both belittles their importance and stops us from really understanding their broader meaning in social terms.

If you have experiences you are prepared to share, or just to see what it’s about, please come and visit my blog at listening2lesbians.com.

Liz

Hold on. Firstly it’s not what people consider Greer’s harmful speech. Greer’s speech is clearly and unequivocally Hate Speech. Calling people things like ‘Pantomime Dames’ was hate speech pure and simple, denying Transphobia exists when 1 in 2 are assaulted and 1 in 3 assaulted with a weapon and a murder rate in many countries at extreme levels is inexcusable, that too can only be hate speech.

Now returning Hate Speech with Hate Speech is often a bad tactic, but it is ethical and not hypocritical by way of Reciprocal Ethics. Once someone has done something to you it is tacit permission for you to reply in kind. You are always entitled to do unto others as they have already done unto you.

Just as in self defense against physical assault it is ethical to hit back, and it is not hypocritical for someone to object to being assaulted and also to hit back to protect themselves or drive off an attacker.

Now of course it’s often a bad tactic, because a person prepared to start using hate-speech against a community, to oppress a group of people, is likely going to not realize they are just getting a taste of their own medicine. Nor someone defending their hate-speech. They won’t sit back and reflect thinking “Wow is that how it feels” because they started without empathy in the first place.

So Ethical, not Hypocritical but ineffective.

It is also awful that on an article about lateral violence in our community, a number of people thought it was appropriate to continue that lateral violence against another part of our community.

I expect, from the down voting of comments calling out the transphobia, that my comment will also be down voted by bigots in this community. Please, just stop hating.

The authoress of the article is “gender critical ” and as such has those from that community posting here. I have seen this posted on several anti trans pages.

Of course there’s also the same to be said of the exclusionary side of things. Keeping trans lesbians out of events, labeling our non trans partners that are lesbian as not. Often with accompanying actual blacklisting them out of the lesbian community.

Really, all people need to treat others the way they would wish to be treated themselves – with kindness and respect. It’s a good starting point.