UK Labour Women Mass Resignation

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

If your argument rests upon a faluty definition (one like "Feminism is the advocacy of the rights of women including trans women") then providing the correct definition is all that is required to debunk it.

Well it’s rather odd feminists look at me and decide I don’t deserve equality

Why's that?

[Internationalist Bastard]

Well it’s rather odd feminists look at me and decide I don’t deserve equality

Why's that?

I’m a trans sex worker, and so many feminists,not all or dare I say even the majority, but many decide that means I’m a horrible person.

[Sovaal]

Why's that?

I’m a trans sex worker, and so many feminists,not all or dare I say even the majority, but many decide that means I’m a horrible person.

I swear some of the more radical wings of feminism come across as being fundie carbon copies.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Why's that?

I’m a trans sex worker, and so many feminists,not all or dare I say even the majority, but many decide that means I’m a horrible person.

Absolutely. What grinds my gears to near-destruction point is the people who handwave away these people as not real feminists and don't think they should be taken into account in assessing the overall balance of whether modern feminism is a good or bad thing. They "don't count" and everything bad can be shoved off in the corner because it's not a membership organisation and other feminists have no responsibility to think about how problematic it is they're enabling them by unthinkingly pushing the idea that Feminism Is Unequivocally Great, Any Bad Things are Just People Doing It Wrong, and Any Critics Are Automatically Misogynist or Have Internalised Misogynist Values.

That's not a strawman by the way, if you've been on the end of the expression that many feminists and their supporters give you the moment you start suggesting you have some legitimate hurt over actions taken by those who are part of the movement then you'll know they've marked you as filth for your inability to take your punches and still smile and tell them everything about the movement's great. It's an official religion in our society and if you pick fault the screams of "heresy!" and "burn the witch" aren't far away.

There's a wide spectrum of feminists who to some extent can be placed on a scale of self-interested lying bigotry because of their actions and complicity in diminishing trans people, sex workers, male victims of assault and violence, basically anyone who doesn't comply to their black and white "born as woman = oppressed, born as male = privileged, sex = negative" framework of the world. Conclusion: feminism is problematic. Corollary: people who try to claim it isn't and paint the movement as whiter than white are complicit in helping perpetuate these issues.

That's me finished channelling my inner Ostro, now I'm gonna go punch a wall.

[Imperializt Russia]

Dictionaries aren't "correct". This is why "appeal to the dictionary" is a fallacy. Dictionaries provide a generalised definition of a term for the purpose of a layperson.

This means that in specific contexts, they will be lacking in detail if not totally absent a meaning.

They're not "correct," no, but they give the established meaning, which is usually good enough. Sure, sometimes, it could be lacking in detail, but the majority of the time it does fine, and usually if someone's definition of something deviates from the dictionary, the burden of proof falls on them to justify the deviation.

Maybe they deviate because the dictionary, as I said, provides generalised definitions for laypersons in a generalised context, and doesn't consider specific nuances of all uses of that term.
As I already said. Because it doesn't need to. I wouldn't refer to Oxford's to explain the concept of quantum particles, velocity or nuclear decay.

For an example, let us consider the three distinct waves of feminism. 1st wave feminism, 2nd wave feminism and 3rd wave feminism are all distinct ideologies that are basically covered by reducing "feminism" to "the advancement of rights for women".
No-one will contest the factual accuracy of that statement, or argue that it doesn't apply to each wave of feminism.
What this does not mean is that the 1st, 2nd or 3rd waves of feminism were therefore same. They were different movements, fighting at different times, for different goals, by different groups of women.

Therefore, why does feminism have to be trans inclusionary in order to be feminism. "Feminism is supposed to fight for all women." TERFs think that trans-women aren't women.

Your argument lies heavily on supposing that "transwomen aren't women" is a legitimate argument.
Transpeople are, well, people. If they are transitioning from men to women, it's because they wish to live as women. The distinction between "women" and "transwomen", is meaningless and needless. Transwomen, particularly transwomen of colour, are probably the least safe group of women.

This is the most basic reason I can give you why "feminism" likes transwomen and doesn't like TERFs.

[Imperializt Russia]

I’m a trans sex worker, and so many feminists,not all or dare I say even the majority, but many decide that means I’m a horrible person.

I swear some of the more radical wings of feminism come across as being fundie carbon copies.

Not strictly, like with my dictionaries argument. They have the same core tenet - that sex workers don't need protections and/or "it's not real work" and that "transwomen aren't women", but they don't both believe that for remotely similar reasons.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

They're not "correct," no, but they give the established meaning, which is usually good enough. Sure, sometimes, it could be lacking in detail, but the majority of the time it does fine, and usually if someone's definition of something deviates from the dictionary, the burden of proof falls on them to justify the deviation.

Maybe they deviate because the dictionary, as I said, provides generalised definitions for laypersons in a generalised context, and doesn't consider specific nuances of all uses of that term.
As I already said. Because it doesn't need to. I wouldn't refer to Oxford's to explain the concept of quantum particles, velocity or nuclear decay.

For an example, let us consider the three distinct waves of feminism. 1st wave feminism, 2nd wave feminism and 3rd wave feminism are all distinct ideologies that are basically covered by reducing "feminism" to "the advancement of rights for women".
No-one will contest the factual accuracy of that statement, or argue that it doesn't apply to each wave of feminism.
What this does not mean is that the 1st, 2nd or 3rd waves of feminism were therefore same. They were different movements, fighting at different times, for different goals, by different groups of women.

Therefore, why does feminism have to be trans inclusionary in order to be feminism. "Feminism is supposed to fight for all women." TERFs think that trans-women aren't women.

Your argument lies heavily on supposing that "transwomen aren't women" is a legitimate argument.
Transpeople are, well, people. If they are transitioning from men to women, it's because they wish to live as women. The distinction between "women" and "transwomen", is meaningless and needless. Transwomen, particularly transwomen of colour, are probably the least safe group of women.

This is the most basic reason I can give you why "feminism" likes transwomen and doesn't like TERFs.

I'm not arguing that all the waves and schools of feminism are the same, in fact I'm arguing that since Feminism has many different schools, it's not correct to claim a form of feminism that deviates from yours is "not real feminism."

It is a held position, it matters not whether it is legitimate.

[Galloism]

Well for one example, under Tony Blair's "New Labour" rebranding of the Labour Party, it was still, ostensibly, a democratic socialist organisation. The party anthem was still The Red Banner.

But Blair's direction of the party was an interpretation of "third-way centrism", less charitably described as "Thatcher-lite but socially liberal", and objectively not democratic socialist or socialist on any reasonable level, and Blair and his top staffers were evidently not socialists, or not very interested in implementing democratic socialism.

His legacy lives on with the undermining of Corbyn's direction of the party back towards democratic socialism by "Blairite" factions within the party (which is not true of all internal criticisms of Labour, not least the one in the title of this thread).

I'm not sure how this relates.

What's very interesting about this, and I am going to quote you:



Basically, if you are a black feminist who only cares about the empowerment of black women and not white women, you are NOT a feminist by this definition. If you are a white upper class feminist who only cares about white women, you are NOT a feminist by this definition. If you are a transfeminist that only cares about transwomen issues, you are NOT a feminist. If you're a rich woman that cares about rich women issues, you are NOT a feminist. If you are a poor woman that cares about poor women issues, then you are NOT a feminist. If you are a lesbian feminist that only cares about issues affecting lesbian women, you are NOT a feminist. If you are heterosexual feminist that cares about issues affecting heterosexual women, you are NOT a feminist.

Basically, you're telling me that feminism does not exist in any meaningful sense, and that those who have historically and "still" dominate the movement are NOT true feminists.

If you are a black feminist, then typically you will care more about the empowerment of black women because intersectionality explicitly argues that the intersection of being a woman and black will lead to (in some aspects) greater oppression than a white woman or black man faces.
I would suppose that black feminists who "do not care about white women" are few in number because anything they stand for will likely benefit white women more than them anyway.

White feminists who "do not care about black women" is a complex topic since some may be actual racists, while others may have a somewhat blinkered view of race relations and not consider black-specific issues to be important. Unlike black women, what white women push for will benefit them both as women, but leave black women behind due to the issues they suffer for being black.

Well, I saw an interesting article here - from the Guardian, regarding some of the issues regarding women of color vs white women in the movement (spoiler alert - I identified a lot with this black woman in a lot of ways she will probably never understand). There really is a black/white dichotomy with both telling the other to shut up, effectively.

You'll find that about as compelling as arguing that no US president was ever capitalist, because they didn't ever endorse laissez-faire capitalism

You're including Reagan in that argument?[/quote]
Yes.

Let's not forget the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.

[Galloism]

You can argue they're bad feminists and we shouldn't listen to THOSE feminists, which I encourage (again, I don't like TERFs), but they are still feminists, until the Pope of Feminism excommunicates them. Also feminists get together and elect a Pope of Feminism.

...
TERFs being disowned by the wider feminists movement basically is excommunication.

A Catholic being excommunicated can't stop them from going around claiming to be Catholic, practising Catholicism and pushing their views as being "Catholic".
Just like "excommunicated" TERFs can't be stopped from calling themselves feminists, which they do, which you argue means they're still feminists, but you're still saying they need "excommunicating", you are not making sense here bro.

No, they're feminist because they use the feminist framework and feminist ideology to push their hatred in accordance with said feminist framework. They meet the historical, dictionary, and logical definition of feminist.

And while it is true that Catholics can excommunicate, and no they can't charge people with a crime for claiming to be Catholic illegitimately, there is a reason for excommunication that is actually that the person did something (typically very egregiously) contrary to Catholic doctrine and continues to do so. TERFs do no such thing.

Show me where feminism is defined as the struggle for the empowerment of ALL women, including trans women, in official universal definition accepted by all persons. Go.

This is incredibly disingenuous.

This is like when alt-righters on Youtube throw up dictionary definitions of racism, sexism, patriarchy, socialism, fascism et al and claim that this "debunks" arguments.
I am not being hyperbolic here, I honestly mean that.

I don't know how this is disingenuous. There is no historical reason to assume that feminism's quest to empower women includes those who are/have been/are undergoing MtF transition. TERFs don't define them as women, so they are still within the feminist framework, and no one has made an authoritative determination - by vote, consensus, or any other way - that they are. TERFs are working within the feminist framework - they're quibbling over a definition.