I would say it's simply that traditional gender roles are alive and well because, contrary to your assertions, we haven't made sufficient progress as a society in breaking them down in the first place.
So you're saying that the reason that we haven't made progress in breaking down traditional gender roles is that we haven't made progress in breaking down traditional gender roles?
Wow. Mind blown. I'm going to need some time to absorb that.
That should be something feminists should be working on, but a lot of them seem to be more interested in shitting on trans people than anything else these days.
That might be your perception of what gender critical feminists are about, but that's a perception formed from biased hearsay, not first-hand exposure.
I'd love to see a definition of a magical gender smashing paradigm "generations of women" fought for that doesn't define itself against existing gender roles and stereotypes.
Feminism used to fight against gender roles and the notion that things were inherently "for boys/men" or "for women/girls". The goal used to be to do with that kind of thinking, not create new labels and categories of gender. If you want to argue that eliminating gender roles is still defining relative to existing gender roles, you should also be prepared to explain why "off" should be considered a radio station.
Except they're happy to make common cause with reactionaries against trans rights because, as you say, "allies are hard to come by."
This is a guilt-by-association type argument. It's actually pretty low-brow to suggest that people from different political viewpoints shouldn't cooperate to promote causes of mutual interest.
I suspect that being able to only associate with people who agree with all of your views is a luxury that is only available to very mainstream people. Barack Obama recently said something about this notion of an ideological purity test-- "You should get over that quickly."
When Jessica Yaniv was filing HRC complaints against those beauticians who wouldn't shave her nut-sack, one of those reactionary groups was the only legal representation willing to take their case, and they took it pro bono. I don't especially like that it was a Bible-thumper group that was the hero of that story, but I'm very glad that somebody did stand up for those women because it could have been a travesty otherwise.
The reason people think you guys don't support trans people's rights is because you never seem to give a **** about trans people and their safety.
That argument works both ways. We never hear progressive politicians and trans activists address concerns about women's rights and safety when they talk about putting trans-women in women's prisons and women's locker rooms and women's sports. By your argument I guess that means that progressive politicians and trans activists just don't give a
**** about women's rights and safety.
There are countless mainstream voices talking about the safety and well-being of trans people, but precious few willing to even acknowledge, let alone address, concerns over women's rights and safety. Why is that?
And, when women propose alternative solutions (ie, separate accommodations for trans people) it turns out that those propositions aren't acceptable to trans advocates because they're not "validating" for trans women.
Take the bathroom thing: so you want people to use the bathroom's that correspond with their biological sex at birth because men are horrible predators (nevermind that there's nothing stopping any man from entering a woman's bathroom with ill-intent), which is far more likely to result in transwomen's safety being compromised.
Not all men are horrible predators, obviously. Nobody is claiming that. And nobody is claiming all trans women are horrible predators either. That's a strawman that trans activists keep trotting out, but that's not an argument that any serious person is actually presenting. On the other hand, we know that there are predators that do exist, and that they will (and already have) taken advantage of on-demand gender self-ID.
I addressed the bathroom thing in
a post a few pages back, but I'll repeat those thoughts here:
if the bathroom is full, nothing bad will happen. And if it's empty then it's no different from being in any other empty room. But if there's one person in there, especially a vulnerable person, then who knows what might happen. The phrase "crime of opportunity" exists for a reason. To flip that argument on its head: if nothing could go wrong in a public washroom, why are transwomen afraid of using the men's room?
And I have to point out that implicit in the Reddit poster's thinking is that unless some sort of physical assault occurs, no harm has been done. The University of Toronto experimenting with unisex washrooms at their dorms a few years ago and surprise, found male students trying to record female students showering. BUT HEY, nobody got assaulted! A school in England changed their washrooms to unisex last year, and surprise, male students were trying to listen at the doors, peek through the cracks or over the the barriers, and even install recording devices. All the female students in the school ended up lining up to use the lone single-sex washroom left at the school BUT HEY, nobody got assaulted!
It bothers me that women's feelings at present have no value and are so casually dismissed. Don't feel comfortable showering with an erect **** pointed at you? You'll just have to overcome your discomfort. Your expectations of dignity and privacy no longer have any value.
And on a personal note, I disagree with the claim that "Bathrooms are the Rome of anti-trans arguments". A few short years ago I was all on board the trans rights train, back when I thought it was "we just need a place to pee". I was 100% supportive back when it was about fighting against "bathroom bills". There have been a lot of things that have gotten me off the train since then, but it wasn't bathrooms.
Same with the prison thing you like to bring up which ignores the fact that trans people are far more likely to be victims of assault in such environments than perpetrators. But I've yet to see anything in Quilette about that.
Earlier in the thread we talked about the UK incident where a male rapist discovered that he is actually a woman, and prison officials moved him to a women's prison where, surprise, he proceeded to commit sex attacks on female prisoners. And people here were stunned, like "wow, how could anybody be that catastrophically stupid? How could anybody with a brain in their head have thought that was a good idea?" And it turns out the same thing is happening in Canada and the US too. So stupidity is contagious, apparently.
Proper grammar is bullshit?
They/them is bullshit. Fake pronouns like xe/xir are bullshit. Referring to people as menstruators or uterus-havers or human milk feeders is bullshit. All this stuff is bullshit. If I have to go along with this
****, I am going to be as miserable as possible about it, and hope that it is contagious.
-k