How to be a Woman on Twitter, by Alessandra Asteriti
How to be a Woman on Twitter, by Alessandra Asteriti
On 28 May 2019, I saw on my TL on Twitter an article about how
Imperial College, with funding provided by the NHS, is planning to trial womb
transplants on transgender women. The wombs would be sourced either from dead
women donors, or from transmen wanting a hysterectomy. Amongst the proponents
of the procedure, a plastic surgeon from London, who runs a clinic where surgical
procedures are offered to transgender people wanting to undergo a complete sex
change (which for transmen includes a complete mastectomy and hysterectomy; the
trans community likes to refer to these as top and bottom operations, partially
to obfuscate, partially to make them sound harmless by adopting an infantile
language. But they are operations that render these females sterile and deprive
them of their breasts and uterus. Any woman who has wished to be sterilised
will know how difficult it is to get this operation done, as doctors will tell
them that they might change their mind. Trans rights groups advocate for minors
to be able to undergo these operations). The article further suggested the
wombs could come from transmen, in my opinion evidencing a clear conflict of
interests for these doctors, who have a financial incentive to convince
transmen to undergo an hysterectomy in order to have a supply of wombs to
implant into transwomen.
I had already been critical
of gender theory on Twitter, which I consider a regressive and misogynist
approach to rights, both of women and of trans people. Additionally, I have
been particularly vocal about the gaslighting of women on social media, forced
to accept that the penis can be a female organ and accused of being transphobic
if they refuse to accept this piece of anti-scientific, obscurantist misogynist
propaganda (I am not mincing words). This has included putting pressure on
lesbians to accept male-bodied ‘lesbians’ and giving them advice on how to have
sex with these transwomen. Many lesbians have complained that this practice is
particularly damaging for younger lesbians who might be struggling with their
sexuality and might be bullied into accepting sex with males. believe that women have the right of self-determination,
and this right includes the absolute right to exclude males from our sex group.
I believe the definition of woman (adult female) is crucial
to guarantee rights to women that are inextricably linked to our embodied
experience as females. This is not biological essentialism, as
faux-progressives and faux-feminists will say: the oppression of women as a
class is intimately grounded in our biology, and to deny biology is to deny and
erase our oppression, and allow males to colonise the very idea of female.
I believe gender is a collection of stereotypes, and I refuse
to be reduced to my ‘gender’ (this yes a form of essentialism).
I believe sex is a biological fact and gender a social
construct, and not the other way around.
I believe the penis is a male organ and the claim that transwomen
are born in the wrong body and at the
same time that the penis is female is the height of absurdity, and that
this sort of illogical gibberish would get you kicked out of any university
department, were it not that it has to do with gender theory.
I believe gender theory is the rancid by-product of
neo-liberal academia and unsurprisingly it is funded by big Pharma.
I believe that the millions donated to academics and NGOs by
right wing Republican Jennifer Pritzker, a man until the age of 63, have
corrupted academic and public discourse.
I believe that women are women, and do not need a prefix to define
themselves. I believe the people who ask us not to call ourselves women, lest
we offend trans people, are engaging in a form of cultural genocide.
I believe asking women to refer to sex offenders as women is
a form of group libel and to force victims to do so a further, extreme violence.
Women do not rape. Women engage in sexual offences, especially against
children, in extremely small numbers. Sexual violence is male violence, and 35%
of women around the world are victims of it (and this is probably a
conservative number) and have the absolute right to call it out for what it is.
I believe women have an absolute right to female-only spaces,
and males have no right to try to invade those spaces on the basis of feelings.
Woman is something you are, not something you feel. More girls died of female
infanticide than people died in World War II (UN data) and they died because
being female is something you do not choose.
For my beliefs, and for the following tweet: [below]
I was suspended from Twitter indefinitely. It is clear that I am concerned here with ideology, not the community of transgender individuals. The doctors to whom the criticism is directed are probably not
I was suspended from Twitter indefinitely. It is clear that I am concerned here with ideology, not the community of transgender individuals. The doctors to whom the criticism is directed are probably not
transgender, or not necessarily transgender.
I know many academics, especially females, agree with me but
are afraid to say so. I know many women decide to be anonymous on Twitter
because they are afraid of losing their jobs, or of the threats of violence and
rape that accompany expressing feminist opinions (I have received them. The
people who wished me dead or raped are still on Twitter, because apparently
wishing a woman dead or raped is not hateful. Twitter does not protect sex as a
category, only gender, but it seems that if you reject gender stereotypes, you
also forfeit any protection as a woman).
I also know academics and students that believe in gender
theory and I would like to engage with them, but many either ignored me, or
blocked me, or accused me of being transphobic, or ignorant or incapable of
understanding nuance (because obviously the cultish mantra that trans women are
women is imbued with nuance).
To the ones who think I am wrong, I would like to ask if this
is the model of academia and society they want, where a socialist feminist
woman scholar is silenced for defending the rights of women.
Thanks again for this! Now also censored by Medium
ReplyDeleteAlessandra, you can contact the technician of FeministWiki.org to aks for a handle there. The Wiki has also blogging features, and it will be very happy to host gender critical content.
Deletehttps://feministwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
Thanks!
DeleteI am so shocked that you received a ban for your comment.
ReplyDelete