It’s completely possible to respect the identities of trans people without having to sign on to their mantras: “Trans women are women” and “Trans men are men”. Trans folks are humans with the rights of all humans, but the rights of a trans person, in my view, are not 100% identical to the rights of the sex they assume—the sex different from their natal sex. This has been particularly vexing to many (biological) women, who have demanded the right to have “women’s spaces”: women’s prisons, women’s shelters, battered women’s homes, women as rape counselor, and, as we often discuss, women’s sports. And I agree with the need for such spaces, which makes the “trans women are women” mantra a failure.
From now on, when I use the word “woman” or “man” to refer to a person, I am alluding to which of the two sexes that person was at birth. It they are trans, then I’ll refer to the sex they feel they are, saying “trans woman” or “trans man.”
But I can’t buy the mantras any longer, and so have to assert, at my peril, that “Trans women are men” and “Trans men are women,” for that’s what’s both scientifically correct and in accord with traditional usage. This, of course, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respect their wishes to be treated as the sex they assume, including the use of their desired pronouns, though your mileage may differ. And it does not mean that, say, trans women have any “right” to be put in women’s prisons or to participate in women’s sports.
Increasingly, I hear from female readers who are really upset at what they see as authoritarian behavior or dogmatism when either trans women assert their equality in all respects as women, or when people are asked to treat trans women as if they were women.
The latter was the case in a controversial ongoing exhibit at the famous Tate Museum in London, where I often go when in town to see the paintings of William Blake and J. M. W. Turner, two of my favorite artists (in the case of Blake, also a poet).
Now, however, the Tate is embroiled in a controversy because of the exhibit below (click to go to the site):
Here’s the description of the exhibit; note that it’s supposed to be about women and feminism, and it refers to “women artists”.
The first of its kind, this exhibition is a wide-ranging exploration of feminist art by over 100 women artists working in the UK. It shines a spotlight on how networks of women used radical ideas and rebellious methods to make an invaluable contribution to British culture. Their art helped fuel the women’s liberation movement during a period of significant social, economic and political change.
In the 1970s and 1980s a new wave of feminism erupted. Women used their lived experiences to create art, from painting and photography to film and performance, to fight against injustice. This included taking a stand for reproductive rights, equal pay and race equality. This creativity helped shape a period of pivotal change for women in Britain, including the opening of the first women’s refuge and the formation of the British Black Arts Movement.
Despite long careers, these artists were often left out of the artistic narratives of the time. This will be the first time many of their works have been on display since the 1970s.
Here’s the museum’s short video about the exhibit, in which I see nothing but women: pregnant women, lesbians, and pictures of women marching for their rights fifty to thirty years ago
The problem, as the article below from Reduxx notes, is that the Tate has an extraordinarily expansive definition of “woman”. The museum includes in the rubric not only trans women, who are men, but also cross-dressing men, who are often not trans women. Because feminism was a movement that derives from and still refers to (biological) women, this has caused some pushback.
Click to read:
A feminist activist going by the monicker of “Le Sorelle Arduino KPSS”, whose real name I can’t find, predicted that the exhibit might include men:
Women in revolt… will it feature men? Let’s see! pic.twitter.com/a52OQEsbQ8
— Le_Sorelle_Arduino KPSS (@Sorelle_Arduino) December 29, 2023
Sure enough, it did, as the Tate is apparently confused about women. Some excerpts from the Reduxx article:
A prestigious art museum in London has prompted backlash after featuring trans-identified males in a historical exhibition of the women’s liberation movement. The Women in Revolt! exhibit is a first of its kind project offering “a wide-ranging exploration of feminist art” made by over 100 female artists during the period between 1970 – 1990.
While the exhibit purports to amplify the work of women, some female visitors to the museum quickly noticed that a number of trans-identified males had been slipped in among the displays.
One of the most disturbing pieces include archival copies of a publication created by men with a sexual fetish for pretending to be women, including one letter from a transvestite who complains of being jealous of his wife.
“Once I had admitted my true inner self to others I felt great relief, and thereupon decided to be myself all the time and live life as it suited me and not as the way I had been committed to live since coming out of the womb,” reads the letter, written by a man identified as “Julia.”
“Prior to this, my marriage (to a woman), had broken up and my wife was seeking a divorce together with the custody of the children because of my attitude to life, namely brought about because of my jealousy of her femininity and her ability to become pregnant and know true happiness within the straight society.”
The admission was one of several personal anecdotes contained within a magazine primarily catering to gay men called “Come Together.”
Now that’s deeply confusing. For cross-dressers can be gay men, or non-gay men who simply like to don women’s clothes. However, in the letter mentioned above, “Julia” refers to himself as a trans-sexual, and it’s true that cross-dressers can eventually consider themselves as trans women. But they’re still men:
More from the article:
“Prior to this, my marriage (to a woman), had broken up and my wife was seeking a divorce together with the custody of the children because of my attitude to life, namely brought about because of my jealousy of her femininity and her ability to become pregnant and know true happiness within the straight society.”
The admission was one of several personal anecdotes contained within a magazine primarily catering to gay men called “Come Together.”
. . . Other displays featured articles from newsletters produced by the Beaumont Society, a group created in order to advocate for heterosexual crossdressers to be allowed to practice their sexual fetish publicly.
Note that the magazine refers to “gay men,” and the Society caters to “heterosexual crossdressers”—again, men.
Here are Le Sorelle Arduino’s responses to the exhibit continuing from her first tweet. Several trans males are mentioned, including well-known author Jan Morris, one of whose books I’ve just finished (it was pretty good):
Next to Women’s Liberation Newsletters from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham & others, we have Roger, a TiM bitching his wife has left him and wants the kids because he is jealous she can get pregnant, also featured is Jan Morris 🙄
2/2 pic.twitter.com/HPdXVa4J52
— Le_Sorelle_Arduino KPSS (@Sorelle_Arduino) December 29, 2023
And reactions by two other women:
“No cultural womens event can happen any more without men. Art has become a simpering pile of conformist junk,” one user said in response to @Sorelle_Arduino‘s thread on the exhibit.
“It would be bigoted to talk about women without talking about the ones that are men,” another quipped sarcastically.
And a couple more:
Here’s a good point:
I could go on, but these people have made the relevant points. The feminist movement in that era—and today—is propelled by women, not trans women; the title of the Tate exhibit is misleading; and though the Tate is catering to the woke mantra that “trans women are women”, many women aren’t having it. This exhibit should have been a women’s space, not a (women’s + men’s) space.
Demoralization is the first stage of Ideological Subversion.
That’s a paraphrase of Yuri Bezmenov, in case anyone was wondering how I came up with it in the past.
… mid-level provocation helps too (pretty sure Saul Alinsky’s writings will show that, as will Beautiful Trouble (2016) ) summed up as :
the target’s action is your real action.
Also, I have not gotten a clear picture of this so I tenuously state :
Feminism was dialectically negated at some point and synthesized into a sublated product with, perhaps, black feminism — and so on — a product of which survives today – there’s a number of feminisms, but radical feminism might be the modern creation. Conceptual polysemy allows these feminisms to all seem generally the same.
One of the worst aspects is that the title of the exhibition is a knowing reference to Andy Warhol’s film of the same name, which stars three transwomen and satirises the Women’s Liberation Movement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Revolt
I say “a knowing reference” because it’s beyond belief that a leading arts organisation wouldn’t be aware of the link.
:
Thanks for sharing this. I went to one AW movie and left because I was bored, so I did not follow his film output. Of course the art pros at Tate are aware of this and it is quite intentional. If the makers of the AW movie’s anti-feminist position is based on Valerie Solanas, who was the sole member of SCUM, they were looking for an excuse.
Yes. Warhol had an excuse, given that Solanas tried to kill him. I’m not sure how Tate Britain justify it.
“because of my jealousy of her femininity and her ability to become pregnant”
This statement is very confusing and, in my opinion, none of its premises imply a change of gender. There are many effeminate men that still identify as biological men, and transitioning will never make this person comfortable for their inability to become pregnant. They should make peace with their biology instead.
Re the Twitter/X username “Le Sorelle Arduino KPSS”, the KPSS stands for “Keep Prisons Single-Sex” and is used by many women’s rights campaigners on the platform.
That sounds sensible, but a reading in Butlerian/Foucaultian terms suggests :
Sex — different in degree, not in kind – dialectically synthesized, becoming One sex by negation.
Bonkers, but that’s Hermetic alchemy for you – and possibly the dialectical trap that is set to deliver the “single sex spaces” women are fighting for – just on a new basis (in theory, anyway).
There are two Tate museum buildings in London: Tate Britain (Millbank, London SW1P 4RG) and Tate Modern (Bankside, London SE1 9TG). “Women In Revolt!: Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990” is shown in Tate Britain.
Yes, interesting that this show could have been staged in either Tate Modern or Tate Britain, but presumably ‘Britain’ takes precedence over the modern.
Note to the editor : ‘Tate’ is now used as an umbrella term. There’s Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool etc. I guess the Smithsonian Institution and Guggenheim museums would be the American examples.
Quoting PCC(E): “But I can’t buy the mantras any longer, and so have to assert, at my peril, that “Trans women are men” and “Trans men are women,” for that’s what’s both scientifically correct and in accord with traditional usage.”
Completely agree! Now the question is how much “peril” will actually ensue — will a best-selling author and world-renowned evolutionary biologist be told he’s bigoted and wrong about this? Will people still insist that transwomen are women? Or has the conversation shifted towards reality in the past year or so?
The conversation has indeed shifted towards reality in the past year or so.
One of the major reasons for this is that reality-based commentary is no longer “shadow-banned” on Twitter by hordes of moderators — and what happens on Twitter does seem to be influential.
(This is partly why much of the mainstream media is now gunning for Twitter’s new owner.)
Totally agree — which is why anything the NYT says about Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter (X), Starlink, Elon himself, etc, I take with a huge grain of salt. Twitter is now a direct threat to their business model because people can now hear from all sides.
I doubt much “peril” will ensue. The majority have had enough with pandering to feelings and trans women are men who are lets be honest the biggest problem with the whole business. If any “trans”are offended by incorrect pronouns or recognition, so be it.
It is the women who are suffering and Macphersons Law is unfortunately so true. Women are fifty percent or so of Homo sapiens and have had and are still having rotten treatment mostly by men and it is time all men stopped this.
There was a time when men WOULD have stopped this. But such men today are held in rather low regard.
I must be one of those held “ in low regard” then because I refuse to be cowed or threatened or cancelled or any such other treatment because I always have and will continue to deal with people reasonably and honestly and respect has to earned, it is not a given right, just like feelings and if a man or woman is offended by my refusal to accept their feelings, so be it.
Robert, I love the spirit! I surely hope that my comment wasn’t taken as a swipe at you. No, I was thinking of a time and place in which a group of men, looking at events in their small locale, would take matters into their own hands to stop the insanity. Literally with their hands. There would be no “men” on the girls’ athletic field, let alone in their shower stalls. Such behavior had its advantages even though it could be abused. I am not advocating a return to that type of enforcement. Now, I would settle for seeing far more of the educated crowd of men stand up with your attitude.
Reply to Doug.
Doug, rest assured that in no way did I take your comment as a swipe at me.
I agree with your sentiments.
Happy New Year.
Robert.
To do a show about women’s feminist art of this era and include trans art is to attempt to rewrite history. Curators are expected to be scholarly at the highest level. As art historians, the basis for the show should be grounded in history especially when proposing new and unexpected ways of looking at the past. In this case, they are projecting current progressive views about trans onto the past. The work by transwomen they show does not support the current view that “transwoman = woman.” The feminist movement at that time was not engaging with trans issues nor including men in their organizations as “fellow women.” This actually is a big deal, as the manifestos of some of these shows in major museums become embedded in art history.
Some of the roots of this problem are actually feminist, however. Also, you could argue that more women are moving in the direction of becoming male. Although these people are not the same threat to men, the philosophical underpinnings are the same.
It was feminist and queer theory ‘scholar’ Judith Butler who argued that not only gender but sex was socially constructed.
Simone de Beauvoir argued ‘one is not born, but becomes a woman’ which some have interpreted as ‘okay I can become one too.’
I am familiar with de Beauvoir. The statement you quote was referring to all the ways a culture forms people’s ideas about what a woman is- dress, speech, work, position in marriage and other learned behaviors. She was not suggesting that men could literally become women.
Speaking as an old second wave feminist, anyone can call themselves a feminist. There are intense debates and disagreements among feminists. Feminists are at the forefront of protecting women’s spaces from encroachment by transwomen, taking great personal risks as a result. No, “feminists” are not the root cause of the Tate including men’s work in a show about women’s feminist art.
+1 !
Thank you.
I think feminism is among the causes rather than ‘the’ cause.
One aspect of your reply reminds me of the ‘no true Scotsman’ logical fallacy. The fact is that Judith Butler was a feminist, not an MRA.
You misunderstood my post if you would accuse it of Scotsman fallacy. I did not deny that Butlerism is an influential strain in feminism. To the contrary, I stated there are intense debates among feminists; so I obviously acknowledged multiple viewpoints.
Too many people delight in pointing to Butler and defining feminism in her terms. There are feminists out on the ground working to help victims of domestic violence and rape, working to protect women’s right to birth control and abortion and other matters that impact real women’s lives. Those are the feminists I admire. They are in no way responsible for trans encroachment on women’s issues and spaces. In fact, they are often victimized by this.
I will continue to ask people to distinguish between Butlerian feminism and the work of those who are primarily interested in women’s safety and welfare.
As a woman I find the whole trans movement utter bollocks with a side helping of tramping on woman’s rights.
A quick note about the art. The women’s art was about justice and equality and improving the lives of women. The male art was as always highly sexualised. How curious is that.
A quick side note
Of course the ACLU is now involved in prosecuting on behalf of some vile rapist of kids and women since the prison authorities won’t supply him with a wig and female panties. Some wag suggested that they give him male undies with a note attached saying it identifies as female underwear.
Bizarre world.
as someone who has respected you for a long time, all I have to say is that I wish you could hear how you actually sound when you say these things. consider that your experiences may be the result of being in a media bubble. if you say you reject the identity of trans people, consider that people that don’t agree with you simply do not bother to tell you. consider that a museum may do things that are silly or awkward and it doesn’t mean you have to blame a category of people for it.
if my comments section looked like Twitter, or if I sounded like Ron DeSantis, I’d hope that I would recognize how far down the path of radicalization i’d gone, and change my heart. it’s ok to be wrong. nobody online is going to hurt you for what you say.
i still respect the way you’ve influenced my life in the past and I hold no malice or contempt for you. rather, because I respect you, I ask that you reconsider the feedback loop you may be in and your understanding of trans issues.
When someone starts a comment like you did, I know the brickbats are coming. First of all, I’m not in a media bubble; I read tons of what trans people say and about transpeople.
And I did NOT reject the identity of trans people; I rejected their claim that they are in fact members of the sex that they aren’t. I respect that fact that they want to assume the identity of their non-natal sex, but that doesn’t mean that a. they ARE members of their non-natal sex or b. they have every single right accruing to their non-natal sex. And believe me, I know their views and that they don’t agree with me. Do you seriously believe that I don’t know that i”m bucking the “progressive” viewpoint? Give me a break. But that viewpoint is not, as far as I know, the dominant viewpoint, for many who agree with me remain silent. And that’s why I speak up.
And where did I blame trans people for the Tate’s missteps? You cannot point to my having done so. I blamed, which you’d know if you READ MY PIECE, the Zeitgeist: the woke atmosphere that’s pervading museums and academia.
Sorry, but I don’t think I’m wrong. Trans men and trans women are entitled to every respect accruing to a human being, and nearly all the rights that members of their non-natal sex have. But they cannot force me that they are in fact ACTUAL members of their non-natal sex, or that it’s fine for trans women to compete against women in athletics or be in women’s prisons. Perhaps you should do some thinking about that.
And recognize that I let you have your say here, even though I think you’re dead wrong.
I’m puzzled about what, exactly, you are objecting to. What I don’t hear you saying is what you think is the identity of trans people that you say people like me reject. When I say, “People who call themselves transwomen aren’t women; they are men,” what “identity” am I rejecting? When I say, “Men must not be recognized as women in society even if they say they are,” what identity am I rejecting? A man can believe, sincerely, that he is a woman. But society doesn’t have to give uptake to that belief, any more than it has to give uptake to his belief that he is the Son of God.
No one has ever produced evidence that the belief in a gender unmoored from sex is founded on anything firmer than belief in divinity. So why is it wrong-headed to say, politely but firmly, that both beliefs must remain private and do not create an obligation for society to play along? This is not a rhetorical question. I am sincerely interested in an answer, begging our host’s leave to ask.
Why has the understanding of trans issues resulted in:
Men in women’s prisons eg condoms are now issued in California female prisons.
Public displays of depraved fetishes
Encouragement of estrangement of children from parents. Their stories are harrowing and full of anguish
Men taking awards or positions of power that were reserved for females only
Men winning at female sports.
The removal of safeguards for children.
Sterilization and mutilation of kids.
The overt sexualization within children’s literature, do young kids need to know about a:;l sex.
The exploitation of kids by progressive parents for likes or money- Jazz Jennings.
Detransistioners who deeply regret the process and outcome and are often ostracized with no medical help or support.
The rape of women in shelters.
The presence of many pedophiles who suddenly become women.
The male aggression and violence to women is condoned as a necessary act to prevent a genocide.
I could go on but you get the picture.
Yes you can be kind and understanding but you should not expect other people to pay the price and suffer on your behalf.
“One must have the nerve to assert that, while people are entitled to their illusions, they are not entitled to a limitless enjoyment of them and they are not entitled to impose them upon others.“
Christopher Hitchens
“In a pluralistic, liberal society, can we force people to accept as literally true the metaphysical beliefs of others and to live as though those beliefs were literally true? The answer to that determines everything else.”
Gary Francione
HITCH!
“I’d hope that I would recognize how far down the path of radicalization i’d gone.”
https://thepostmillennial.com/trans-teen-died-from-vaginoplasty-complications-during-landmark-dutch-study-used-to-justify-child-sex-changes
“If you say you reject the identity of trans people…” – Chad Morrow
This formulation is ambiguous and ideologically tendentious, because there is a relevant distinction between sexual identity as an /objective identity/ (as what one really is) and as a /subjective identity or identification/ (as what one believes or asserts to be).
To reject a transwoman’s /subjective/ sexual identity (identification) is to deny that “she” really believes or asserts to be a woman, but who would do THAT?!
To reject a transwoman’s /objective/ sexual identity is to deny that “she” really is a man.
I’m sure Coyne does neither the first nor the second. The only thing he denies is that a transwoman’s /objective/ sexual identity is constituted or determined by “her” /subjective/ sexual identity (identification). Believing or asserting to be a woman doesn’t entail being a woman, and nobody has the moral duty to affirm that transwomen are really women! On the other hand, everybody has the moral duty to treat transwomen humanely!
Quoting PCC(E): “But I can’t buy the mantras any longer, and so have to assert, at my peril, that “Trans women are men” and “Trans men are women,” for that’s what’s both scientifically correct and in accord with traditional usage.”
Congratulations dear Professor, for speaking the truth, in the clearest way.
We seem to come to a moment where the woke emperor has no clothes.
Given that hair-raising (trans)gender madness, I can fully understand the anger of gender-critical feminists.
Speaking of gender-critical feminists, it is very important to mention that they are only *partly* “trans-exclusionary”:
“[T]he accusation behind ‘TERF’, or ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’, is partly correct. Gender-critical feminists are not exclusionary of trans people per se, but they include in their constituency transmen rather than transwomen, and female nonbinary people rather than no/all nonbinary people. Gender-critical feminists do this because our constituency, as already explained, is female people. Far from excluding trans people per se from the constituency of feminism, gender-critical feminists are very concerned with the situation of transmen and female nonbinary people. We are very concerned with the massive increases of young girls reporting to
gender clinics, with the risk clinical ‘affirmation’ policies for trans people pose to young lesbians and to lesbian culture, and with the increasing numbers of detransitioned women speaking out about their experiences.”
(Lawford-Smith, Holly. Gender-Critical Feminism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. p. 61)
DAVE CHAPPELLE: THE DREAMER (2023) | TRANSCRIPT
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/comedy/dave-chappelle-the-dreamer-transcript/
This is a quote: (Note** not duplicative language). It’s also a joke. Remember those?
+++++++++++++++++++++
Chappelle:
“And right before that time, my father had died. He never lived to see me do it. And when he died, I was inconsolable. I thought I’d never smile or laugh again. And the only thing that got me out of that space was a comedian friend of mine, the late, great Norm MacDonald. That’s right, shout out for Norm. And what Norm did, which I’ll never forget, as he knew that I was the biggest Jim Carrey fan in the world. I’m not gonna go into it, but Jim Carrey is talented in a way that you can’t practice or rehearse. What a God-given talent. I was fascinated with him. And Norm knew that.
He called me up, and he goes, “Dave, I’m…” He says, “I’m doing a movie with Jim Carrey…” “Do you want to meet him?” And I said, “Fuck, yes, I do.”
It was the first time I could remember, since my father died, being excited. And the movie was called Man on the Moon. I didn’t know any of this. In this movie, Jim Carrey was playing another comedian I admired. The late, great Andy Kaufman. Yes, and Jim Carrey was so immersed in that role, that from the moment he woke up, to the time he went to bed at night, he would live his life as Andy Kaufman. I didn’t know that.
When they said, “Cut,” this n*gga was still… Andy Kaufman. So much so that everybody on the crew called him Andy. I didn’t know that. I just went to meet him. When he walked into the room we were to meet, I screamed, “Jim Carrey!” And everyone said, “No!” “Call him Andy.”
And I didn’t understand. He came over and was acting weird. I didn’t know he was acting like Kaufman.
Just like, “Hey, how you doing?”
And I was like, “Hello… Andy?”
Now… in hindsight, how fucking lucky am I that I got to see one of the greatest artists of my time immersed in one of his most challenging processes ever? Very lucky to have seen that.
But as it was happening… I was very disappointed. Because I wanted to meet Jim Carrey, and I had to pretend this n*gga was Andy Kaufman… all afternoon. It was clearly Jim Carrey. I could look at him and I could see he was Jim Carrey.
Anyway, I say all that to say… that’s how trans people make me feel.”
+++++++++++++++++++++
The end.
Not much of a joke.