This article in the New York Times gives some helpful background on the history of the different attitudes towards trans women in the US and the UK.
The author says that, in the US today, TERFism is "a scattered community in its death throes," while TERFism in the UK has taken on a "strangely virulent form" that is unexpectedly influential in the British establishment.
I think that is partly because legislative change initially happened somewhat under the radar. There is a lot of legislative protection for trans rights in the uk - and you can get surgical transition free on the NHS (though there is a long waiting list).
I suspect living as a trans person in the UK is probably easier than in the US, though I could be wrong.
Also, the civil war in feminism slightly reminds me of what has happened within labour about anti-semitism. Focusing on a fight within narrow parameters, when standing over there stirring the pot are the people publishing articles on how eugenics is a good idea in right wing influential rags like The Spectator.
Terfs may be a problem, but not as much of a problem as those who would literally just want to kill you.
I wonder if the split over this in UK feminism, reflects a left right split, as some TERFs seem to get in bed with right wingers. But as that article says, it also seems connected with the hard line positivist or behaviourist position adopted by New Atheism, and other skeptical groups. Hence, the hard line position is that my identity is defined by others, and is biological. Whereas gender identity is often described subjectively, by me, and this can be dismissed scornfully by TERFs as just "feelings" . You feel like a woman, big deal, but you have a penis. So there is a philosophical split here, and I wonder if this connects with the tradition of British empiricism, which can be caricatured as, if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist.
Also, interesting points about colonialism, and how empire imposed heterosexuality and the gender binary, which survive in English culture. In the US, there is a greater challenge to this from black, Latinx, and other minorities, and a greater interrogation of gender, class, race, and so on. Strikingly, Irish feminists seem to reject English TERFism, as of course, Ireland was an imperial possession.
It's also curious that anti-trans feminists are very adamant on the biological status of gender. My impression is that in the 60s and 70s, this was opposed by many feminists, who didn't want being a woman defined by physical attributes, such as periods, childbirth, etc. Well, this was called essentialism, or biologism.
But trans identities "queer the binary", and anti-trans figures seem to assert the binary, and no pasaran, no-one shall cross it. At the same time, some seem to assert that gender doesn't really exist, as it is a socially created artifice.
However, this is such a massive field, and I am flagging.
On the flip side, as it were, TERFs don't seem very interested in discussing trans men in women's spaces ... probably because it would drive them into one of those Star-Trek-alien-computer-in-endless-illogical-loop meltdowns.
Trans men tend not to be discussed, partly because many of them "pass" quite well, and also I haven't heard men trying to defend their own spaces. You can interpret that in various ways, e.g., men are in control, or men are oblivious, etc.
The requirement to go in toilets conforming to your birth sex, produces odd results with trans men.
I know why the term was developed but I've come to the conclusion that TERF is the wrong word for the anti-trans folk. Feminist anywhere in the label just obscures what they are: which is socially conservative populists.
Populists pit the 'commonsense' of the ordinary people against the 'woke' nonsense of the 'elites' where elite is defined not as billionaires or bankers or Old Etonians, but simply as people of any class who don't want to attack the designated scapegoat groups and who hence are deemed not to be 'listening to the voice of the people' or not to be 'on the side of ordinary people and their genuine concerns'
Socially conservative because this movement goes to right wing/Putinist sources while claiming to be left, goes along with right wing conspiracy theories like the George Soros stuff and tropes like 'bathroom panic' and attacks stuff like Gillick competence (crucial for young women's contraceptive access) and now despite some LGB figureheads, is making it socially acceptable again to attack gay people as a menace to children in schools, as we're just seeing in Scotland. Gay people who stand as Trans/ gender non conforming allies are now getting monstered as potentially dangerous to kids.
Calling these people feminists obscures that they're the outriders for a brand of populism which is coming not just for Trans folk but for gay people and women and also obscures their connections to the right and far right.
This stuff is also weaponised against left wing parties to persuade socially conservative leaning voters to defect to the right and be harmed by austerity.
Good post, Louise. I was aghast when I saw anti-trans feminists lining up with right-wing bigots, but it seems to happen more and more. Then I noticed Germaine Greer citing Meghan's supposed fake orgasms, which is basic misogyny. Admittedly, she is very old, and dotty.
Another striking aspect of anti-trans feminists is the use of biology, to support their view that trans women are biological males, and this is the key criterion. To someone like me, who read plenty of feminist literature from the 60s onwards, this is startling, since feminists then tended to argue against biological reductionion, or essentialism as it was called. Thus, there were the arguments that women were not defined in terms of reproduction. This countered Victorian ideas that women are fragile, because of their biology, and should not ride bikes, vote, or compete in athletics.
We seem to have come full circle, for transphobes, for whom gender itself is biological, and gender identity is a delusion. As Freud said, in a different context, anatomy is destiny, although he wasn't referring to gender.
@Louise
I agree that TERF unnecessarily tars feminism, but I am hesitant at a label change.
One because they are part of the feminist movement. Both by self-identification and popular identification.
Another is that people know the word and it is very pointed.
Although, there is a word that exists, doesn't mention feminism and is perfectly apt. Bigot.
Does calling people names (that they do not call themselves) and may perceive negatively enhance understanding and discussion?
Noting that in an online world of short responses, catch phrases and quick judgements, that it is convenient to create a name for others. Which may stop discussion and assist in staying within an identified group solitude and solidarity.
Does calling people names (that they do not call themselves) and may perceive negatively enhance understanding and discussion?
Noting that in an online world of short responses, catch phrases and quick judgements, that it is convenient to create a name for others. Which may stop discussion and assist in staying within an identified group solitude and solidarity.
Allowing groups which harm others to name themselves perpetuates the problem.
Have we got to be so ... controlling??? Seriously: "Allowing groups..." Never mind the basic impossibility of preventing people from doing any darn thing they wish. The controlling language here basically makes you just like them.
As I recall, the terminology was originally coined to describe a group of people who generally self-identified as radical feminists and who believed that trans women should be excluded from women-only spaces. The terminology may not exactly be friendly, but it was descriptive and not merely abusive.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with @Louise 's comments that seem to want to completely disassociate TERFism from mainstream progressive feminism - at least historically, I don't think that was the case. I tend to think of TERFism more as a kind of ideological hardening of some ways of thinking about gender that are not actually that difficult to find in progressive circles, in a way that prioritizes abstract ideological consistency over openness to learning from the experience of other human beings.
Have we got to be so ... controlling??? Seriously: "Allowing groups..." Never mind the basic impossibility of preventing people from doing any darn thing they wish. The controlling language here basically makes you just like them.
Allowing isn't always about permission. In that context, allowing is about responding, not controlling.
I'd think about this as the challenge of reframing an issue to shift the debate away from negative associations with feminism. Not all radical feminists are trans-exclusionary even if there was a historical problem with essentialism defences of 'woman'. A term like TERF does more to attack radical feminists (and by association women who identify as lesbians) than it does to promote trans activism.
If it is necessary to name those opposed to trans activism, one might refer to 'transphobes' or transphobic thinking.
I'd think about this as the challenge of reframing an issue to shift the debate away from negative associations with feminism. Not all radical feminists are trans-exclusionary even if there was a historical problem with essentialism defences of 'woman'. A term like TERF does more to attack radical feminists (and by association women who identify as lesbians) than it does to promote trans activism.
If it is necessary to name those opposed to trans activism, one might refer to 'transphobes' or transphobic thinking.
The problem with this is that TERFs are transphobes, and more. They are considered in effect traitors to trans women. People you'd think they should be protecting, not attacking. Any racist sexist homophobic white guy could be a transphobe. TERFs are not just that. They're in some respects worse.
I don't agree they're 'worse', mousethief. TERF is a term used of a specific group back in 2008. The meaning of the term has now expanded to include and refer to people who are transphobic or trans-exclusionary but who have no connection with radical feminism. Why can't the term be replaced or dropped and the concept reframed?
I'd think about this as the challenge of reframing an issue to shift the debate away from negative associations with feminism. Not all radical feminists are trans-exclusionary even if there was a historical problem with essentialism defences of 'woman'. A term like TERF does more to attack radical feminists (and by association women who identify as lesbians) than it does to promote trans activism.
If it is necessary to name those opposed to trans activism, one might refer to 'transphobes' or transphobic thinking.
Transphobe works.BUt will likely also upset those who think transphobes should define themselves.
Transphobe works.BUt will likely also upset those who think transphobes should define themselves.
Transphobes do define themselves; where I live they tend to call themselves "normal," "ordinary," "God-fearing," and "Bible-believing." We don't have to take their word for it, of course.
Transphobe works.BUt will likely also upset those who think transphobes should define themselves.
Transphobes do define themselves; where I live they tend to call themselves "normal," "ordinary," "God-fearing," and "Bible-believing." We don't have to take their word for it, of course.
Well, yeah, and that is the problem with NP's position.
The reason I bring it up is because in my Scottish context I'm now faced with the mind-boggling spectacle of misogynist men proudly proclaiming their feminist credentials simply because they hate trans people and are thus, as they see it, sticking up for women's rights.
They oppose anything to close the gender gap in candidate selection, they side with men accused of serial harassment, they hand out to Nicola Sturgeon the same sort of misogyny that Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren attract but they want to be thought of as feminists. It seems to me to be a kind of fig leaf for smuggling socially conservative views back into progressive parties, though I don't doubt that they sincerely hate trans folk too.
Transphobe works.BUt will likely also upset those who think transphobes should define themselves.
Transphobes do define themselves; where I live they tend to call themselves "normal," "ordinary," "God-fearing," and "Bible-believing." We don't have to take their word for it, of course.
Well, yeah, and that is the problem with NP's position.
The reason I bring it up is because in my Scottish context I'm now faced with the mind-boggling spectacle of misogynist men proudly proclaiming their feminist credentials simply because they hate trans people and are thus, as they see it, sticking up for women's rights.
They oppose anything to close the gender gap in candidate selection, they side with men accused of serial harassment, they hand out to Nicola Sturgeon the same sort of misogyny that Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren attract but they want to be thought of as feminists. It seems to me to be a kind of fig leaf for smuggling socially conservative views back into progressive parties, though I don't doubt that they sincerely hate trans folk too.
That's strange because I had a Scottish friend, who seemed quite progressive, supported feminism and so on, but he suddenly started putting loads of anti-trans articles online, said he was supporting women's rights, gender is biology, and so on. I was dumbfounded, and argued with him for a bit, but he repeatedly said I was misogynist. I 'm still baffled by it, although I can see the same stuff on Mumsnet, in the New Statesman, and so on. So there is a whole raft of liberal anti-trans opinion, who will maybe cuddle up with the right wing, and try to remove facilities for trans people. This seems to be happening with various attacks on the Tavistock, hormone blockers, Gillick competence, and so on. Bigotry dressed up in fancy clothes.
The problem with this is that TERFs are transphobes, and more. They are considered in effect traitors to trans women. People you'd think they should be protecting, not attacking. Any racist sexist homophobic white guy could be a transphobe. TERFs are not just that. They're in some respects worse.
That sounds awfully like you think they're worse because they're women.
But in any case, the term TERF has become completely meaningless now, beyond being a derogatory dog whistle used mainly in the online world.
Over the last week I've seen people called TERF because they've been confused by people being described as "bisexual lesbians". Or because they've said that they don't want to have sex with someone who has a penis.
The term has become so associated with abuse, and flung around with such abandon that it only serves to try and shut down discussion. Someone says something you don't like? Just say "Fuck off TERF".
Scotland seems to have flared up because Mhairi Black decided to go into a primary school to do 'Drag Queen Story Time' with someone who has (or had, they may have protected their accounts now) a lot of explicit material readily accessible under their social media accounts. If you're uneasy with this you're just branded a TERF, or homophobe.
Scotland seems to have flared up because Mhairi Black decided to go into a primary school to do 'Drag Queen Story Time' with someone who has (or had, they may have protected their accounts now) a lot of explicit material readily accessible under their social media accounts. If you're uneasy with this you're just branded a TERF, or homophobe.
So are you saying that bigotry against trans people is increasing in Scotland because of Black? I find that difficult to believe, but would be happy to see evidence for it.
Transphobe works.BUt will likely also upset those who think transphobes should define themselves.
Transphobes do define themselves; where I live they tend to call themselves "normal," "ordinary," "God-fearing," and "Bible-believing." We don't have to take their word for it, of course.
Well, yeah, and that is the problem with NP's position.
The problem with this is that TERFs are transphobes, and more. They are considered in effect traitors to trans women. People you'd think they should be protecting, not attacking. Any racist sexist homophobic white guy could be a transphobe. TERFs are not just that. They're in some respects worse.
That sounds awfully like you think they're worse because they're women.
But in any case, the term TERF has become completely meaningless now, beyond being a derogatory dog whistle used mainly in the online world.
Over the last week I've seen people called TERF because they've been confused by people being described as "bisexual lesbians". Or because they've said that they don't want to have sex with someone who has a penis.
The term has become so associated with abuse, and flung around with such abandon that it only serves to try and shut down discussion. Someone says something you don't like? Just say "Fuck off TERF".
Not my experience at all. And if misuse of a word disqualifies it from use, it would be necessary to cease using English to communicate.
The reason I bring it up is because in my Scottish context I'm now faced with the mind-boggling spectacle of misogynist men proudly proclaiming their feminist credentials simply because they hate trans people and are thus, as they see it, sticking up for women's rights.
They oppose anything to close the gender gap in candidate selection, they side with men accused of serial harassment, they hand out to Nicola Sturgeon the same sort of misogyny that Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren attract but they want to be thought of as feminists. It seems to me to be a kind of fig leaf for smuggling socially conservative views back into progressive parties, though I don't doubt that they sincerely hate trans folk too.
That's strange because I had a Scottish friend, who seemed quite progressive, supported feminism and so on, but he suddenly started putting loads of anti-trans articles online, said he was supporting women's rights, gender is biology, and so on. I was dumbfounded, and argued with him for a bit, but he repeatedly said I was misogynist. I 'm still baffled by it, although I can see the same stuff on Mumsnet, in the New Statesman, and so on. So there is a whole raft of liberal anti-trans opinion, who will maybe cuddle up with the right wing, and try to remove facilities for trans people. This seems to be happening with various attacks on the Tavistock, hormone blockers, Gillick competence, and so on. Bigotry dressed up in fancy clothes.
I'm doubting your friend is representative of what Louise describes. Her examples appear more to be using TERFs as a blind than to be true allies of them.
The problem with this is that TERFs are transphobes, and more. They are considered in effect traitors to trans women. People you'd think they should be protecting, not attacking. Any racist sexist homophobic white guy could be a transphobe. TERFs are not just that. They're in some respects worse.
That sounds awfully like you think they're worse because they're women.
Only if treachery is worse than attack from without.
Scotland seems to have flared up because Mhairi Black decided to go into a primary school to do 'Drag Queen Story Time' with someone who has (or had, they may have protected their accounts now) a lot of explicit material readily accessible under their social media accounts. If you're uneasy with this you're just branded a TERF, or homophobe.
I'm a lot more than uneasy with that, and it has nothing to do with drag queens or trans people. If you invite a speaker into a school, pupils are going to google the speaker. If their public presentation is sexually explicit, they're probably not appropriate as a speaker.
(And no, this isn't a "you should monitor your kids on the internet" thing - when schools share web links with their pupils, they (should) take care to ensure that they are appropriate. The same goes for people they share with the kids.)
Scotland seems to have flared up because Mhairi Black decided to go into a primary school to do 'Drag Queen Story Time' with someone who has (or had, they may have protected their accounts now) a lot of explicit material readily accessible under their social media accounts. If you're uneasy with this you're just branded a TERF, or homophobe.
That's because that is straight up homophobia - the excuse for it being got off the back of the anti-trans stuff which has been going ever since GRA reform was suggested. Primary school children in Scotland go to see drag acts every winter - they're called panto. It's considered traditional and wholesome and panto dames are famous for their innuendoes - though not even the jokes you would normally get in a Scottish panto were going on here. Nobody normally gives a damn what any het adult coming into contact with kids has on their twitters and facebook and instagram that is about consenting adults - so yes straight up homophobia, treating gay people differently as if they're a menace to children. And if your early primary age child - too young even to have a phone even these days - has unfettered computer access and is roaming social media looking at explicit stuff then the problem is definitely yours.
But yeah, this is the point I'm making - it's straight up social conservatism right down to 'won't someone think of the children' smuggling itself back in under a 'progressive' guise.
The Drag Queen Story Time with Mhairi Black seems to have been ill thought out. The Drag Queen appeared at the school as "Flow" but posted photos of the event including photos of the children on her social media where she uses the name Flowjob. Other photos on the same social media account were semi-pornographic (Flowjob posing with a dildo etc) The photos of the children were removed as soon as parents protested.
There are strict rules about posting photos of children online - we can't post photos of kids at holiday club on the church website without the written permission of the parents/ guardians. The primary school parents may have signed an agreement that their children could be photographed at school activities, but couldn't have envisaged them ending up on a social media account with adult content.
There are other drag queens in Scotland who simply use glamorous names; I don't know why they chose one called Flowjob, who also works as an adult entertainer.
They should have been told not to post photos anywhere that wasn't explicitly agreed with the school. The problem isn't that children are going to see the photos, but that adults are going to see them and that's surely the same problem whether the adult's social media account has dildoes or prize marrows or knitting patterns on it.
The Drag Queen Story Time with Mhairi Black seems to have been ill thought out. The Drag Queen appeared at the school as "Flow" but posted photos of the event including photos of the children on her social media where she uses the name Flowjob. Other photos on the same social media account were semi-pornographic (Flowjob posing with a dildo etc) The photos of the children were removed as soon as parents protested.
There are strict rules about posting photos of children online - we can't post photos of kids at holiday club on the church website without the written permission of the parents/ guardians. The primary school parents may have signed an agreement that their children could be photographed at school activities, but couldn't have envisaged them ending up on a social media account with adult content.
There are other drag queens in Scotland who simply use glamorous names; I don't know why they chose one called Flowjob, who also works as an adult entertainer.
I remember Mrs Walsh, the schoolteacher I most admired in my primary school, saying "That means sweet FA" in earshot when I was seven or eight. I was one of those schoolkids, so I said "Miss, miss, what does Sweet FA mean?" to which she replied "Sweet Fanny Adams." I and my pals giggled our heads off, because she said fanny... it was a long time before I realised what she actually meant.
So, there was my actual teacher using shorthand for the F word in front of her class, and then using a euphemism for the female pudenda to distract from that.
How we survived, I cannot say.
I severely doubt any of the kids were in any way damaged by Flow's reading them a story, or by Flow being dressed up as a woman, or even by Flow being an adult entertainer with evidence of such online. If they are capable of equating Flow with Flow Job, and Flow Job with Blow Job, and Blow Job with fellatio, then they are unlike any six year old I've ever known - and they are clearly in an environment where being read a story by a biological man in a dress is not going to be the tipping point into whatever (what? I really can't tell). It simply makes no sense.
Could they have found out Terrible Things as a result of this? If you have kids of any age with unrestricted access to the Internet, they're going to be typing and seeing all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. Flow's presence in that school for that event will not in any way be a thousandth of any problems that liberty engenders. If you think six year olds with access to the Internet is an issue worth discussing, then I entirely agree with you. Is that the problem you're worried about? If so, what has Flow got to do with it?
That photographs of the kids were published online without permission was entirely against protocol. But that would be the same whether it was Divine or the Rev I M Jolly visiting - what the visitor wore or what they did otherwise has no bearing here. This happened, it was wrong, why and how needs to be determined and needs to be fixed. No argument here. Haven't seen this raised as the big problem, mind, but if it is, I'm there.
It is laudable that people want to protect young children from harm - of course, we all do. But in the list of harms that six year old Scottish schoolchildren may be exposed to, and I could start at A for austerity and end at Z of zenophobia, Drag Queen Reads Me A Story would be up there with Eating Chocolate At Panto Gave Me Dental Caries at around 75 in the chart.
I really don't think this is about protecting children. If it were, we'd be talking about assessing the harms that need guarding against and setting priorities. It's about the fear that exposing children to trans people will mean that trans people become normalised. That's a fear without foundation - trans people are people first, trans second, and their existence threatens nobody. A society where children can grow up thinking that is simply one with less fear.
(Avast there, Shipmates. I was last here many years ago when the creationists were roaming the boards and I found their thinking really rather irksome, and against everything I cherished about being human in a greater cosmos, where love warms us from within as much as the sun from without. Transphobia - any otherphobia, really - triggers me in the same way, and so I stir from my complacency once again. Sorry about that.)
The reaction to the Mhairi Black incident illustrates homophobia, full stop.
If a storytime participant had been hetero, the focus would be on the behaviour. Since the participant is LGBT, the focus is on that.
They should have been told not to post photos anywhere that wasn't explicitly agreed with the school. The problem isn't that children are going to see the photos, but that adults are going to see them and that's surely the same problem whether the adult's social media account has dildoes or prize marrows or knitting patterns on it.
Not just agreed with the school, but with the parents also. As you say, there's a real problem in the photos being in a place where Flow's clients could see them; another problem is that the children might want to look at their photos on Flow's site. visit it and see the sort of thing that most parents of primary school children would much rather they did not.
The problem is with photos being where any adults can see them when it's not been agreed. And you're assuming that six year olds have a degree of internet literacy that they simply don't. They're supposed to be clamouring to look at photos that they won't even know are anywhere online and which they wouldn't have the first idea how to find. This is just silly.
And since when did performers have 'clients' rather than followers or fans? That's an interesting word choice.
The reaction to the Mhairi Black incident illustrates homophobia, full stop.
If a storytime participant had been hetero, the focus would be on the behaviour. Since the participant is LGBT, the focus is on that.
You either didn't read or did and decided to ignore.
The reaction to the Mhairi Black incident illustrates homophobia, full stop.
If a storytime participant had been hetero, the focus would be on the behaviour. Since the participant is LGBT, the focus is on that.
You either didn't read or did and decided to ignore.
Comments
The author says that, in the US today, TERFism is "a scattered community in its death throes," while TERFism in the UK has taken on a "strangely virulent form" that is unexpectedly influential in the British establishment.
I suspect living as a trans person in the UK is probably easier than in the US, though I could be wrong.
Terfs may be a problem, but not as much of a problem as those who would literally just want to kill you.
But trans identities "queer the binary", and anti-trans figures seem to assert the binary, and no pasaran, no-one shall cross it. At the same time, some seem to assert that gender doesn't really exist, as it is a socially created artifice.
However, this is such a massive field, and I am flagging.
The requirement to go in toilets conforming to your birth sex, produces odd results with trans men.
Populists pit the 'commonsense' of the ordinary people against the 'woke' nonsense of the 'elites' where elite is defined not as billionaires or bankers or Old Etonians, but simply as people of any class who don't want to attack the designated scapegoat groups and who hence are deemed not to be 'listening to the voice of the people' or not to be 'on the side of ordinary people and their genuine concerns'
Socially conservative because this movement goes to right wing/Putinist sources while claiming to be left, goes along with right wing conspiracy theories like the George Soros stuff and tropes like 'bathroom panic' and attacks stuff like Gillick competence (crucial for young women's contraceptive access) and now despite some LGB figureheads, is making it socially acceptable again to attack gay people as a menace to children in schools, as we're just seeing in Scotland. Gay people who stand as Trans/ gender non conforming allies are now getting monstered as potentially dangerous to kids.
Calling these people feminists obscures that they're the outriders for a brand of populism which is coming not just for Trans folk but for gay people and women and also obscures their connections to the right and far right.
This stuff is also weaponised against left wing parties to persuade socially conservative leaning voters to defect to the right and be harmed by austerity.
We seem to have come full circle, for transphobes, for whom gender itself is biological, and gender identity is a delusion. As Freud said, in a different context, anatomy is destiny, although he wasn't referring to gender.
I agree that TERF unnecessarily tars feminism, but I am hesitant at a label change.
One because they are part of the feminist movement. Both by self-identification and popular identification.
Another is that people know the word and it is very pointed.
Although, there is a word that exists, doesn't mention feminism and is perfectly apt. Bigot.
Noting that in an online world of short responses, catch phrases and quick judgements, that it is convenient to create a name for others. Which may stop discussion and assist in staying within an identified group solitude and solidarity.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with @Louise 's comments that seem to want to completely disassociate TERFism from mainstream progressive feminism - at least historically, I don't think that was the case. I tend to think of TERFism more as a kind of ideological hardening of some ways of thinking about gender that are not actually that difficult to find in progressive circles, in a way that prioritizes abstract ideological consistency over openness to learning from the experience of other human beings.
If it is necessary to name those opposed to trans activism, one might refer to 'transphobes' or transphobic thinking.
The problem with this is that TERFs are transphobes, and more. They are considered in effect traitors to trans women. People you'd think they should be protecting, not attacking. Any racist sexist homophobic white guy could be a transphobe. TERFs are not just that. They're in some respects worse.
Transphobes do define themselves; where I live they tend to call themselves "normal," "ordinary," "God-fearing," and "Bible-believing." We don't have to take their word for it, of course.
They oppose anything to close the gender gap in candidate selection, they side with men accused of serial harassment, they hand out to Nicola Sturgeon the same sort of misogyny that Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren attract but they want to be thought of as feminists. It seems to me to be a kind of fig leaf for smuggling socially conservative views back into progressive parties, though I don't doubt that they sincerely hate trans folk too.
That's strange because I had a Scottish friend, who seemed quite progressive, supported feminism and so on, but he suddenly started putting loads of anti-trans articles online, said he was supporting women's rights, gender is biology, and so on. I was dumbfounded, and argued with him for a bit, but he repeatedly said I was misogynist. I 'm still baffled by it, although I can see the same stuff on Mumsnet, in the New Statesman, and so on. So there is a whole raft of liberal anti-trans opinion, who will maybe cuddle up with the right wing, and try to remove facilities for trans people. This seems to be happening with various attacks on the Tavistock, hormone blockers, Gillick competence, and so on. Bigotry dressed up in fancy clothes.
That sounds awfully like you think they're worse because they're women.
But in any case, the term TERF has become completely meaningless now, beyond being a derogatory dog whistle used mainly in the online world.
Over the last week I've seen people called TERF because they've been confused by people being described as "bisexual lesbians". Or because they've said that they don't want to have sex with someone who has a penis.
The term has become so associated with abuse, and flung around with such abandon that it only serves to try and shut down discussion. Someone says something you don't like? Just say "Fuck off TERF".
So are you saying that bigotry against trans people is increasing in Scotland because of Black? I find that difficult to believe, but would be happy to see evidence for it.
Only if treachery is worse than attack from without.
I'm a lot more than uneasy with that, and it has nothing to do with drag queens or trans people. If you invite a speaker into a school, pupils are going to google the speaker. If their public presentation is sexually explicit, they're probably not appropriate as a speaker.
(And no, this isn't a "you should monitor your kids on the internet" thing - when schools share web links with their pupils, they (should) take care to ensure that they are appropriate. The same goes for people they share with the kids.)
That's because that is straight up homophobia - the excuse for it being got off the back of the anti-trans stuff which has been going ever since GRA reform was suggested. Primary school children in Scotland go to see drag acts every winter - they're called panto. It's considered traditional and wholesome and panto dames are famous for their innuendoes - though not even the jokes you would normally get in a Scottish panto were going on here. Nobody normally gives a damn what any het adult coming into contact with kids has on their twitters and facebook and instagram that is about consenting adults - so yes straight up homophobia, treating gay people differently as if they're a menace to children. And if your early primary age child - too young even to have a phone even these days - has unfettered computer access and is roaming social media looking at explicit stuff then the problem is definitely yours.
But yeah, this is the point I'm making - it's straight up social conservatism right down to 'won't someone think of the children' smuggling itself back in under a 'progressive' guise.
There are strict rules about posting photos of children online - we can't post photos of kids at holiday club on the church website without the written permission of the parents/ guardians. The primary school parents may have signed an agreement that their children could be photographed at school activities, but couldn't have envisaged them ending up on a social media account with adult content.
There are other drag queens in Scotland who simply use glamorous names; I don't know why they chose one called Flowjob, who also works as an adult entertainer.
I remember Mrs Walsh, the schoolteacher I most admired in my primary school, saying "That means sweet FA" in earshot when I was seven or eight. I was one of those schoolkids, so I said "Miss, miss, what does Sweet FA mean?" to which she replied "Sweet Fanny Adams." I and my pals giggled our heads off, because she said fanny... it was a long time before I realised what she actually meant.
So, there was my actual teacher using shorthand for the F word in front of her class, and then using a euphemism for the female pudenda to distract from that.
How we survived, I cannot say.
I severely doubt any of the kids were in any way damaged by Flow's reading them a story, or by Flow being dressed up as a woman, or even by Flow being an adult entertainer with evidence of such online. If they are capable of equating Flow with Flow Job, and Flow Job with Blow Job, and Blow Job with fellatio, then they are unlike any six year old I've ever known - and they are clearly in an environment where being read a story by a biological man in a dress is not going to be the tipping point into whatever (what? I really can't tell). It simply makes no sense.
Could they have found out Terrible Things as a result of this? If you have kids of any age with unrestricted access to the Internet, they're going to be typing and seeing all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. Flow's presence in that school for that event will not in any way be a thousandth of any problems that liberty engenders. If you think six year olds with access to the Internet is an issue worth discussing, then I entirely agree with you. Is that the problem you're worried about? If so, what has Flow got to do with it?
That photographs of the kids were published online without permission was entirely against protocol. But that would be the same whether it was Divine or the Rev I M Jolly visiting - what the visitor wore or what they did otherwise has no bearing here. This happened, it was wrong, why and how needs to be determined and needs to be fixed. No argument here. Haven't seen this raised as the big problem, mind, but if it is, I'm there.
It is laudable that people want to protect young children from harm - of course, we all do. But in the list of harms that six year old Scottish schoolchildren may be exposed to, and I could start at A for austerity and end at Z of zenophobia, Drag Queen Reads Me A Story would be up there with Eating Chocolate At Panto Gave Me Dental Caries at around 75 in the chart.
I really don't think this is about protecting children. If it were, we'd be talking about assessing the harms that need guarding against and setting priorities. It's about the fear that exposing children to trans people will mean that trans people become normalised. That's a fear without foundation - trans people are people first, trans second, and their existence threatens nobody. A society where children can grow up thinking that is simply one with less fear.
(Avast there, Shipmates. I was last here many years ago when the creationists were roaming the boards and I found their thinking really rather irksome, and against everything I cherished about being human in a greater cosmos, where love warms us from within as much as the sun from without. Transphobia - any otherphobia, really - triggers me in the same way, and so I stir from my complacency once again. Sorry about that.)
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If a storytime participant had been hetero, the focus would be on the behaviour. Since the participant is LGBT, the focus is on that.
Not just agreed with the school, but with the parents also. As you say, there's a real problem in the photos being in a place where Flow's clients could see them; another problem is that the children might want to look at their photos on Flow's site. visit it and see the sort of thing that most parents of primary school children would much rather they did not.
And since when did performers have 'clients' rather than followers or fans? That's an interesting word choice.
I'm sticking with homophobic moral panic here.
Totally agree with your assessment of risk. I did think 6 year-olds would have the necessary net savvy, though.