Quote:
Originally Posted by Ammi
...and it is undoubtedly a ‘battleground’ situation atm...Niamh, who has always consistently been an ally in every way to LGBT, having...’well that’s not very ‘transgender friendly’ stuff ...and Liam and Dezzy, who have always consistently been allies in every way to Feminism, having...’well that’s not very feminism friendly’ stuff...when we all strive for the same thing of equality, not a ‘sister against sister’, type situation...which it all seems to more be atm because progression needs to address some things in discussions first, I think...
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I think this is a big part of the issue though and a large part of why the conversation is such a non-starter. There's this generally held starting point that if anyone has concerns around the trans rights debate, why, they "must be" one of those standard issue, right leaning, "PC gone mad" bigotted types who don't understand anything LGBT related and are just puffing hot air without good cause because they're hateful -phobes. So there's a tendency for the same tactics to be used that have always been used in such situations against unreasonable, unthinking bigotted people.
Except if you then take a look at it - it just doesn't fit. A lot of the people with very well expressed, very well developed questions and concerns quite clearly do NOT fall into that category at all - many are clearly center or left leaning, many who are generally highly supportive of social justice issues, and so when the same old "you are just a bigot" tactics are used they simply fall flat... it's a starting point that simply doesn't exist and there's no justification for, and if justification or reasoning is requested, it's largely radio silence because really there's very little to point to.
The flipside, I suppose, is that as the "battle rages on" people forget to sympathise and understand that transpeople are frustrated with the situation which of course IS a sad situation. I think it should be possible to empathise with transpeople on this while still holding firm to the basic fact that "unfortunately, things are not that simple, we can't just say that everything is going to be roses over night and there are concerns that have to be looked into". That can be met with an angry response but I do understand why that is. These conversations must make exceptionally hard reading.
Until a point is reached of one side saying "We have concerns that need to be taken seriously, but we can see that your situation is difficult too" and the other saying "We would like things to be progressing faster for us but we're willing to hear your concerns without going on the attack" - I just don't see any progress being made at all - and actually a very real possibility of significant back-sliding.