Sheffield: Why we Fight the TERF War on Tour

20/11/18

Full transcript

Where we have had difficulty understanding words we have indicated this as [inaudible], or simply attempted to spell the word phonetically but followed it with a question mark in brackets. [?]

Attendance List:
Speaker 1	S1 (female)
Speaker 2	S2 Jess (MTF)
Speaker 3	S3 Joshua (FTM)
AU		    Audience member

START

00:00:00

S1
The organisers have asked that no one takes any pictures during the day, no recording either, is there anything else you'd like us to say there?

S2 (Jess)
Yeah, so just following that there's a, if everybody can keep their phones in their pockets and stuff? Its cause the TERFs seem to be quite obsessed [inaudible] so if people can respect that [inaudible]

S1
Ok and without further ado, I'll go and get us started sisters [?]

S3 (Joshua)
Hello everyone, thanks so much for coming down. Can we start?

S2 (Jess)
Well, hello, this is the most official looking talk we've done yet, I realise there's not a lot of competition but, we're quite DIY but this is lovely, thanks a lot for coming, I guess we start with an introduction of who we are, my name is Jess, I'm known to be part of the DIY, part of the anarchist - autonomous whatever you want to call is scene / movement/ struggle that's been going for a lot longer than me, for a lot of years, since I was a teen, and more recently in the last couple of years we started to see a lot of movement within those movements to cast people like me out of those movements. And obviously they've got their wider goal is to eliminate trans people across the board but they're using what they've got, and what they've got is a lot of connections within the Left, and they're using those to mobilise people on the left, so personally I decided it was time to do something to try to counteract that, and that came in the form of wandering round this country doing this funny little talk. So thanks a lot for coming and this is you [?]

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah Hi, I'm Joshua and yeah, so we travel together and I guess one of the reasons that I think its really great, you know, that people come out to see this talk and to meet you all is to build more of a community across the country? Cause a lot of people are doing this kind of work and we've heard amazing things about Leeds which is partly why we're really excited to be here, and it's really great to meet people in person and to share ideas about how different people have addressed the growing problem that is the TERFS, so yeah. That's who I am, or why I'm here. I don't know if you want to..?

S2 (Jess)
Yeah, so another reason why we do these talks is kind of to discuss tactics and ways forwards? Not just to kind of be like 'Oh we do this and this is great, and we do it all the time until whatever', we want to kind of like, see like, they're[?] a very new threat. TERFs aren't a new threat, and we'll talk about the fact that they've been here since the 70's or whatever, a long time, but like, their new way of mobilising is a new threat to us, so we're kind of having to think on our feet on how to deal with it? Though personally, as the two of us, we tend to go for a style similar to the anti-fascists, with a tradition of no platforming, which isn't like, traditionally a lot of you might think of anti-fascists punching in the head – that's not what anti-fascism is, that's something that happens within anti-fascism, because anti-fascists are having to deal with very violent people, and that sort of stuff is going to happen, but essentially its about stopping them from mobilising, stopping them from mobilising on the streets, and stopping them from, basically doing what we're doing today, and having their meetings like this.

Obviously we recognise the no platforming, the whole concept of it has changed due to the fact that no platforming was invented when people literally had to stand on platforms to be listened to; now you can just sit with your phone in a coffee shop and tweet the most horrible transphobic stuff you want and there's not much we can do about that, but we believe that we can grow a movement strong enough to stop them having any form of street movement, and any form of like, physical threat to us. Because they, they've, they've got their people in the media, they've got the internet down, like, they can do that, that doesn't threaten my safety particularly, but if they build a street movement, if they build a, like a movement of gathering like this with this many people, then this starts to actually question my and other trans womens safety, other trans peoples safety because obviously trans women's their first target, [inaudible] marginalised elements of society.

So now we're going to talk a little bit about who they are, because I imagine most of you know, but theres some, um ...

00:04:54

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah, maybe, possibly, but interrupt me if get things wrong [?]

Yeah, so can I just talk a little bit about the history of TERFs, as you probably know TERF stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist and the term was actually coined by a radical feminist, which is kind of second wave feminist from the 80- er, 70's and 80's, who didn't want to be associated with people who are transphobic, so they, so that's why they, you know, the TERFs were like separate to them, although now they, you know,you've probably heard TERFs are all like 'But TERF is a slur' but they're all into calling the – they were all - they have at times been into calling themselves that, but yeah, so, there, they were one branch of the movement of second wave feminism.

The, what I like to refer to as the TERF Bible, a book called The Transexual Empire by Janice Raymond, it was published in 1979, if you haven't read it then I recommend not reading it, its really horrible, its a vile book, but if you look at some of the arguments that are made by Janice Raymond, even though that was, you know, like going on 40 years ago, are exactly the same kind of things that we're hearing the TERFs saying now? She basically writes this whole, whole book, I didnt know there was that much to say about it, about how trans women are just men in dresses trying to get into women only spaces, which is exactly what the TERFs today are trying to say. She talks about trans women just kind of getting sexual pleasure out of dressing as women and that's - and like fetishising womanhood, and that being violent in and of itself, so she completely, in a really horrible aggressive, violent, disgusting way, completely - just tries to dismiss what it means to be a trans woman. And trans men, then as - you know as - still quite - the tendency today are pretty much dismissed or ignored? Or just kind of not really real, you know. Sometimes they'll be like 'Oh those poor misguided women, they don't understand their real womanhood', but the focus has always been on trans women and on demonising and hurting trans women.

Its worth also mentioning that this gender binary that they're all so focussed on is also very linked to colonialism and it's something that was imposed around the world by Europe - Europeans, yeah, so the - its kind of, its impossible to separate out gender essentialism and trans feminists from racism? And colonialism? Its also worth mentioning that this erase -  their idea of this gender binary - Oh sorry I forgot one of the important points on the gender essentialism so, what they mean by that is, penis = man and vagina = woman, that's it, those are the two categories, anything else they will dismiss, or laugh at, or just, yeah ignore, yeah. So that obviously completely ignores and erases intersex people. But there'll be time for us to talk about that more a bit later.

And its also worth mentioning that transphobic radical feminism is really connected to SWERFs? Which is Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminism. Which is both anti sex work, but also anti sex workers? So their idea would be to kind of try and liberate women from sex work but they also, in practice they often demonise and attack and hurt sex workers.

So yeah. So, there has been a presence of TERFs? You know, throughout - since the emergence of second wave feminism? But as you might, as you are probably aware there has been a big resurgence over the last couple of years. And we have a theory as to why.

00:08:36

S2 (Jess)
Yes so we have a theory as to why, so this is just my theory, a few other theories in the tour which have been really interesting [?] but my poor memory sadly can't remember them. But the main reason that I think they have arisen is that they need to arise now, and they didn't need to arise before; 10, 20 years ago there was no need for there to be a movement of TERFs. Because the state and society completely agreed with the TERFs and was going along with TERF - and the TERFs was the general consensus in society. Luckily, through a lot of hard work, probably by a lot of people in this room[?] over the last – well, many years but the last 10 years, you start to see real, pushes forwards on that? When we've seen a lot more even though like transphobia is completely ingrained in society and the state, and it's going to be a lot more work until we've got it out – they're hiding it more and they're less proud to show it and there's even people that aren't transphobic within these institutions which is quite exciting, and because of that I feel that the TERFs are possibly overreacting, like they think that we're winning more than we are? And they're feeling the need to rise up now.

So its not like they, like they were really open minded, really nice people and they like 2, 3 years ago they just thought 'Oh actually I hate trans women'. No, they've always hated trans women, they've always been active against trans women but the reason why they're more publicly active against trans women, and the reason why they're doing more high profile stuff, more physical stuff and more of this sort of stuff is because they feel that they have to. Because they feel like the state is not on their side any more. They feel like society is not on their side any more. Because they know damn well that they are on the wrong side of history? And they're scared about that. And I think the perfect example of this is all, all these little things happening around the country and the world over the last few years – its kind of all in the UK has been like pushed into one single thing which is the GRA. The Gender Recognition Act? And that has become their call to arms essentially? And that - The Gender Recognition Act in one sense - like the reforms in it, is that declaration by the state and society to say, like a move away from the old way of it being, which is a breath of fresh air to people like me, and to anyone that isn't a TERF, I guess?

So, I feel like that's why they're coming out now, that's why they're doing it. I dont think that they just changed, because like, I have a friend, I've been friends with them since they were 16, since I was 16, and now we're not friends any more because they're a TERF. Its not that they just became transphobic a few years ago, its that they just never thought to bring it up before, because they were happy enough, they knew the state would deal with me eventually, they just let me plod along doing my thing. And now, they're starting to move forwards in these ways, and that's causing me to lose friends, and I'm sure at least a couple of you have lost friends over this as well, because these people that have these bigoted views, they've got no need to say them because everyone's saying them anyway. Whats the point in spreading transphobia when the news on the television is doing it for you? Its just chill out, drink your tea. Thats what they've done but now their tea's gone cold and they're coming for us? So thats my theory. But we'll talk later and maybe get some other theories [?]

00:11:54

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah, so, like Jess mentioned the TERFs have been really rallying around the proposed changes to The Gender Recognition Act. So as you probably know the original Gender Recognition Act came into action – that's probably not the right term – in 2004, and the, all the proposed changes are going to do is just streamline it a bit, to make it slightly less difficult for trans people to have our birth certificates changed – its really not nothing to do with any other – if you're not trans its really – I don't know why you would bother being engaged, I mean unless you were supporting your trans friends, but you know its not very interesting. So it would be to make the process a lot more streamlined, less bureaucracy so, for example, instead of having to appear in front of a panel and for the panel to get to decide 'Oh, are you man enough? ok we'll change your birth certificate' so basically, to cut out some of these – these problems that mean that a lot of trans people, you know don't have a – wont even bother going - trying to get our gender legally changed officially though - recognised by The Gender Recognition Act. It would also mean that non-binary people will actually be a a real thing according to the Government – because they know whats real and what's not real.

Yeah, but as you probably know or have heard the TERFs are massively connecting these changes to The GRA with The Equalities Act of 2010 and they're trying to spread fear that changes to the GRA which would allow - yeah literally, it will just be a very simple change - would mean that men would be able to enter women only spaces. Which is just factually inaccurate. Because The Equalities Act already means that trans women are welcome and need to be welcome into women only spaces. That's not to say all those spaces do that? Cause, you know that's far from perfect, there's a lot of really big problems with The Equalities Act? But the things that the TERFs are saying about it isn't true and this is what they're using to try and get people on their side, they're trying to scare cis women into joining them cause they're saying 'oh well these changes will mean that any scary, angry man will just say they're a woman and then they'll be able to get you'. As if like, cis men need any, you know, need to say anything to get women, you know like – I dont know, I'm not a very good feminist. But anyhow. Um. Yeah.

00:14:14

S2 (Jess)
[interruption] Do you want me to [?]

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah

S2 (Jess)
I feel like - I think you have to really look at what The Gender Recognition Act will change to understand what the TERFs want? The Gender Recognition Act is not going to change policy on luxury cruises around the world; The Gender Recognition Act will not change the policy on your third house. The Gender Recognition Act is going to change policies on women's shelters and prisons, and similar things to that. Now who does that affect? That affects people on the breadline, the working class people.

The bourgeoisie dont worry about going to jail, they worry about getting the right lawyer to not go to jail, the bourgeoisie don't worry about going to women's shelters, they worry about which is a nice place to buy a house when they want to move. They will not be affected by this, and that's why I feel like the point of what the TERFs are doing is not just an attack on trans women it's an attack on the working class, it's an attack on people on the breadline, it's an attack on people that need State services. Cos there's a lot of people in this country, they don't need the state, you know? They've got their own little world; the people that need services, they're the ones that will suffer. The people that are the victim of services, like, none of us need prisons, a lot of us will be victim of prisons, it will be in our lives, whether it's us or a friend or family, if you're from a working class background you probably know prison far too well. Because that's where we go, essentially.

And The TERFS are attacking people that go to those places and what I would like to say is like, this isn't just for trans people to be angry, this is for every working class person to be angry. Because if you're working class and you're cis, you're still being told that your trans brother, your trans uncle, your trans cousin, your trans whatever, they don't deserve to go to the right prison, they don't deserve to go to the right shelter, they don't deserve stuff, and if people within your family are being told 'you don't deserve this' – you're being told 'you don't deserve this', so I really feel like this is once again the TERFs showing their true colours, as bourgeoisie nasty little people, that don't like the working class? I mean why do they attack sex workers? Because they don't like the working class. Why do they attack trans people on these particular [inaudible] Because they don't like the working class and that's the issue that isn't being talked about, the fact that they're transphobic and they're classist, and that's pretty scary, considering how much money they've got, which has been evident in their campaigns, and the thousands of pounds that they've put into their promotions.

00:16:37

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah, cause even though the proposed changes to the GRA won't explicitly affect access to women only spaces, the fact that the TERFs are trying to generate this conversation has - is having - well hopefully it wont have - continue to have - but has had an impact on these services, even like, you know having - thinking about that? And encouraging TERFy views will have a direct impact on, yeah, trans women from being excluded from these services? And in terms of prisons, like Jess was mentioning, currently if you're a trans woman who doesn't have her GRA certificate it's at the discretion of the judge whether you would go to a men's prison or a women's prison. Which is really dangerous because if they've had a bad day or they didn't, I don't know, get the right amount of coffee that morning, they can - they can send you to the wrong - yeah, the wrong prison. And we know, as I'm sure many of you do, from the names of the trans people who have been killed in the last year from - to mark yesterday's trans day of remembrance, its disproportionality trans women, and also trans women of colour, and sex workers who are - those are the names being read out, 'cause as well as working class people its also people of colour and disabled people, and marginalised people, who are the ones who are going to be affected by lack of access to state facilities, and the people who we know are the most likely to end up in prison.

Yeah, so I want to say a little bit more about the impact cos, like, it is possible for trans women to appeal being sent to the wrong prison? But that might also be too late, and we don't know the true numbers of trans women who are killed in men's prisons because often even in death, trans women will be misgendered and they won't be recorded as women in death records. But we do know of some people and I'm going to just talk about a couple of people now briefly. Jenny Swift was found dead in her cell, just before New Year 2016 – 2017, she hadn't even gone to trial yet, she hadn't been convicted of anything, and she was bullied and she was denied her hormones and she killed herself, and we - our kind of stance is that any suicide in prison is State murder. She was you know, bullied into not wanting to exist any more.

Vicki Thompson was only 21 years old in HMP Leeds, she, yeah, she was - also died in prison and she knew that it was going to be horrible for her, like she told her loved ones going in that she was going to come out of there in a box. And she did. And it - as well - as much as it is really important to focus on a lot of the violence is directed at trans women, trans masculine people, they are also targeted through the prison system as well? And they're targetted by the guards, and beat up. There's a prisoner called Taylor who whenever he's been moved from one women's prison to another, he's severely beat by the guards cause he doesn't conform to what they expect someone in the prison to be like – I'm not suggesting that they treat other people in the prison nicely as well, but yeah so when the TERFs are trying to exclude trans women from women's prisons they're literally trying to campaign for trans women to die. That's - it's as simple as that? And so when they're saying 'oh cant we have a reasonable discussion?' its like, well no, this isn't a thing to discuss? This is a matter of life and death.

And this becomes especially important when we think about the way that the TERFs are willing to appeal to the criminal justice system to do their work for them, like, I'm sure that some of you are aware, or maybe all of you are aware of what happened at Hyde Park Corner last September? Where there was - so there was A Womans Place UK event, and there was an altercation outside of it. The TERFs called the police, the police came by, the - I dont know there was like someone pushed someone, I dont know, they were like 'this is a waste of our time, we see worse than this at Weatherspoons literally all the time', they drove away, got on with their day. The TERFS like, paid to have pictures like of some of the trans women that they identified put in the local - in local newspapers around London? To identify people. And one trans woman unfortunately was identified and because the TERFs lobbied the cops so much, she ended up being taken to court with charges of common assault? And fortunately you know, she didn't end up in prison, she got a fine, not that she should have got anything, but - so literally the TERFs know - they know what happens to trans women in prison and they lobbied for this woman to go to prison. So you know, they can say that they are just trying to be reasonable and reasoned as much as they want but behind that is a very deeply violent rhetoric.

Um, have I ranted enough? Shall we move on? Ok, the myths?

00:21:27

S2 (Jess)
The myths already?

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah so, we're gonna - now we're going to read out some myths that sometimes TERFs will say, just as a kind of like practice because I know I find, even though I know that what they say is really wrong, sometimes they can be a bit clever and sneaky with their words, so it can be quite helpful just to talk about ways to rebuff their things, although I need to find the list here.

S2 (Jess)
So we do this with like a hand-based system, because a lot of people so if you've got a witty or snappy answer, or not either of those things, if you've got an answer of any form, put your hand up and we'll try to get to all of you, and if you want to chip in a bit and we'll just talk about what's being said. These are not our views. These are the views of the bad people.

S3 (Joshua)
Sometimes people get confused when I start reading them out. Ok, so - Trans is a new slash modern idea. Slash. Why do all trans people have blue hair? They say that a lot. And oversized glasses.

S2 (Jess)
Um yeah, does anyone have an answer to that?

AU 1
Trans people have always existed it's just that media - that social media has brought us all - has brought more people together and made us more visible.

AU 2
You do have blue hair though [laughter]

AU 3
So the same control that's exerted over trans bodies is exerted over women's bodies under capitalism.

S2 (Jess)
Sorry?

AU 3
The same control that's exerted over trans bodies is asserted over cis women's bodies under capitalism. So we're kind of fighting the same problem?

S3 (Joshua)/ S2 (Jess)
Yeah completely yeah.

S2 (Jess)
Some people will agree. Any other hands? So, trans is a new concept.

S3 (Joshua)
I tend to say it might be a new concept to you?

S2 (Jess)
Not to me [General agreement] [laughter]

S3 (Joshua)
Not to you, no.

S2 (Jess)
Yeah sorry. Yeah thats a good one. Hand over there?

AU4
There's been a variety of studies on ancient history that prove that actually no, transgen - transgenderism is not a new concept, it's been there the whole time, obviously a lot of trans people have just been simply erased from history? If you look at, for example, how you know, the Stonewall Riots actually happened, a lot of that was erased from history by you know, cis, white people.

S2 (Jess)
Yup. We've got another hand there.

AU5
Even just like, the idea that trans stuff is - being transgender is a new concept is a very white, Western centric view anyway, cause there's lots and lots of other cultures in the world, where - there's been lots and lots of, you know many different genders for centuries, which is the – yeah, so even if people did think its a new concept in the UK for example, it's not a new concept in general, there's other parts of the world where its completely normal and always has been.

S2 (Jess)
Yup. And a hand there.

AU6
You could say anti-slavery's a new concept.

S2 (Jess)
There's a lot of good new concepts out there. [General agreement] [laughter] And also [inaudible] what you said I think is another point thats been made in the talk quite a lot is like, trans technically kind of is a new concept on some levels as in - cause like the gender binary is a new concept. As in like, in other cultures there's people who we would [?] deem as trans who would reject the term trans because like, their cultures just didn't have the binary that we forced on most of the world. I mean it's like the whole thing of like trans and cis is coming from a Western binary that was forced on people by colonialism – is that the right word? (you're trying to pretend you're academic) and so like, yeah just like that, so like there's lots of people who don't recognise trans but they also surely don't identify as OK with the binary that the TERFs are offering us.

Any other hands on that?

00:25:41

AU7
So, trans in some ways is a new concept in as much as its evolving the whole time, so the notion of transgender now as sort of like the next step on from - we used to talk about transexualism, which was sort of much more kind of confined, whereas actually it is - we talk about it now as an umbrella and I think thats potentially one of the things that TERFs have a very hard time getting their head around is, we're expanding, we're developing the language, the way we think about being trans, so its beyond just physical things too and understanding – greater understanding, greater knowledge, greater research is developing our understanding.

S2 (Jess)
Mm hmm. Have we got any more hands on that? We've got some more bigoted questions anyway. Is there a hand over there?

AU8
[inaudible] I think it's kind of like in future we'll look back on this like flat earthers? It's kind of like there was a new concept that came soon after that? [?][inaudible]

S2 (Jess)
You had our hand up didn't you?

AU9
I mean I just want to say like, if they're religious, if they're Christian, like if some people are transphobic and homophobic and generally bigoted because they're Christians then there's a Bible story that strongly strongly hints, there's a story about somebody and it really sounds like they are transgender. I don't know the details of it but you can like, quote that at them? If their bigotry comes from being Christian?

S2 (Jess)
We had somebody in Nottingham pointed out this interesting thing about Joseph's rainbow coloured raincoat or whatever it was? [General agreement] [laughter]
But whatever the word is for that coat is only used in The Bible one more time, to explain a woman's garment, or whatever, I'm not sure what terms they use in the Bible but yeah, like a feminine garment, so there's a theory out there that like the brother - Joseph's brother beating him, wasn't because he was jealous but because he was transphobic. So maybe something like that? I dont know, like its really [inaudible] [General agreement] [laughter] I just thought it was interesting. So maybe the Bible [inaudible] Anyone else? Good then.

S3 (Joshua)
More bigotry?

S2 (Jess)
More bigotry please.

S3 (Joshua)
Science! But what about our chromosomes and X and Y and puberty and, and um, chromosomes?  [General agreement] [laughter]

AU10
So pronouns like the he / him binary - oh sorry not the he / him binary wow! - [General agreement] [laughter] the he / she binary came in, like you know, that was invented way before we knew what chromosomes were. People say like, chromosomes relate to that. And its like, Nope.

AU11
Science has moved on since those basic concepts and we now understand more about genetics and biology and how that relates to sex and gender.

S2 (Jess)
Mm hmm. There's a hand there.

AU12
If somebody says something like that I tend to ask them where they got their degree in biology from [General agreement][laughter]

S2 (Jess)
Yeah. And you over there.

AU13
A lot of people seem to be under the impression that you know, only two sexes exist but if only two sexes - if only two sexes exist how can you explain intersex people? Like ...

AU14
I'd just like to add that they say that there are more ginger people than intersex people. So ginger people exist, and intersex people exist. Just.

S2 (Jess)
Yep I think the average was the same wasn't it? Though I refrain from using statistics out of skepticness, but yep, apparently redheads and intersex people are on the same levels in society.

AU14
Significant numbers yeah.

AU15
There are many other combinations besides XX and XY, XY chromosomes [inaudible] phenotypical and genetically male and female are not necessarily, not necessarily aligned. And you can have, you can have phenotypically male with [inaudible] with female chromosomes, and the other way round.

00:30:22

S2 (Jess)
Yeah. And I think they've, I don't understand any of this but there's so many different ways of putting it, and I think I'm not sure probably, not many of you in this room actually know what your chromosomes are? And I don't know if I'm XY, YY, XYX, I dont know [inaudible] Anyway any more people? I hope bigotry isn't too [inaudible]

AU16
I would say that if you're going on like your X - your chromosomes then like, how are you feminist in the first place? In that you're saying that your - your like birth sex like, gives you exactly who you're going to be [?] like, that just like, questions the whole idea of feminism in the first place. Which is just like, yeah.

S2 (Jess)
More hands?

AU17
[inaudible] I think that like, personalising it helps, if people come at me with like their sort of half remembered bits of science it's quite good to be, like, why are you trying to use these things to talk about things [?] that are like cultural and like legal and policy wise, whereas here's somebody, here's me trying to survive? You're getting in the way of that. Because you've got like, you're trying to be picky about what a chromosome is. That. [General agreement] [laughter]

S2 (Jess)
Yeah for sure like, though science is on our side at the moment I still choose not to use it, because this stuff's not relevant, like you said it's like if science was not on my side I wouldnt be like 'Oh well, I'm just going to die I guess!' [General agreement] [laughter] 'Bye!' You know what I mean, like, it doesn't really matter what science says, but coincidentally it's on our side anyway so we might as well [inaudible]

S3 (Joshua)
Sweet, eh? [General agreement][laughter]

AU18
One last thing. Science is constantly changing, like new theories come out every day, but how can you like base your understanding of the world on one like, scientific thing that you learned in like Year 5, you know what I mean like, science is always changing like go out and read a book please. [General agreement] [laughter]

S2 (Jess)
Yep.

S3 (Joshua)
So kind of leading on from that is some of the particularly nasty things that the group Transgender Trend kind of say about - like kind of using some fake science to kind of discourage teachers and parents from believing their trans children when they come out as transgender? Like do people know about Transgender Trend?

AU19
Unfortunately yes. [General agreement] [laughter]

S3 (Joshua)
Do you - does anyone want to like just briefly explain if ...

AU19
Right so, I'm a parent with a trans child, hence I know quite a lot about Transgender Trend. Transgender Trend is being is basically one single woman, she's called Stephanie Davies Arai, she lives in Brighton and very strongly believes that trans kids shouldn't exist. She's been fundraising, crowdfunding large amounts of money in order to print and distribute books that she's sent into every single school in the UK as far as I'm aware and getting her followers to do the same.

It looks very professional, its very well presented, and there's a lot of things in there that sound really, really, really reasonable, but actually the underlying philosophy is that they should - schools should all have sex-protected spaces and they should be excluding trans children from using the spaces with which they identify, so it's around the notion that wo- that girls need to be protected and essentially trans kids are - and generally trans girls are essentially predators. That they should not be allowed to use the toilets which which they identify, they should not be allowed to go on school trips and be with their friends, they shouldn't be able to go on girl guiding trips and be sharing tents because somehow there is some underlying biological determinist reason that means that they're either going to go and attack their schoolmates or that some other child is going to pretend to be the opposite sex in order to do the same thing.

So it's a very kind of insidious way of trying to influence teachers and their policies. The positive thing I can say is that I've spoken to quite a few schools and people in higher levels of education and they say that actually, just a parent walking this into school is not really going to have a huge amount of influence on the school policy, so schools are required to follow the 2010 Equalities Act, they have been reminded by numbers of organisations repeatedly that that is actually the law and if they do break that they are then breaking the law and they can be sued.

00:35:37

S3 (Joshua)
And as far as I understand but correct me if I'm wrong, one of the kind of things that is being promoted by Transgender Trend and their followers is that allowing children to transition before hitting puberty will make them infertile? And that's the kind of argument that they - I guess that's the next myth that ...

AU19
[inaudible] of that information is puberty blockers and statistics that say that there is -  there's two things that they're really concerned about, one is that there's this 80% desistance rate with children, and what that is working from is some very kind of outdated research that's come from Dutch studies. That generally is being - it's from research that included gender non-conforming children alongside those that are trans, so you can sort of debunk the whole study at the get go, but unfortunately its been reinforced by places like The Tavistock and Portland which doesn't help.

There is now - they're trying to push the notion that if kids take puberty blockers it's going to make them infertile, it's going to mean they cant have a sex life etcetera etcetera etcetera. Puberty blockers are reversible, they do, they are literally just a pause button? There are down sides with it which is to do with bone density etcetera but absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with fertility, they, they make you infertile in the same way that taking the hormone pill, taking the pill, is going to make you infertile – if you stop taking it, you get your fertility back.

The thing that impacts on fertility is when you then go on to cross sex hormones over an extended period of time. The thing that they're concerned about is that they say going, the kids going through The Tavistock that the majority of children who take puberty blockers go on to take cross sex hormones. The argument about that is that actually it's because it's so bloody difficult for kids to get puberty blockers in the first place, they have an 18 month waiting list and then they have to jump through hoops, and then the majority of the, you know, the therapists within the Tavistock are very, very resistant to allowing kids even taking puberty blockers that once a child gets to that point they've literally gone through hell and high water to get on to puberty blockers so you can damn well be sure that they are trans, that's why they're not dropping out.

S2 (Jess)
[General agreement] Do you want to take my seat [inaudible] [General agreement] [laughter]

S3 (Joshua)
I dunno yeah that's – does anyone else have anything that they would - I don't know could add to that about what you would say, or if you see sort of someone talking about children not being infertile - yeah

AU20
It's not about the fertility thing [inaudible] If trans girls aren't allowed in the girls toilets because of what they might do, well, I might run you over in my car, does it mean I can't have a car? [General agreement]

S3 (Joshua)
Completely yeah.

AU20
Yeah you can't stop somebody doing something basically on, on the pretext that it is possible that you can do something nasty. You're always going to get somebody who's going to do something nasty but, that is, that person would be doing it no matter who they were anyhow.

S3 (Joshua)
Completely yeah.

S2 (Jess)
Its very simplistic of them to think that if they have this one binary it will stop all violence. It's like – nope. Like every gender's going to be violent to every gender because there's violent nasty people out there. And that's part of something that we as a society have to deal with. But not through bigotry like this.

There was a hand there?

AU21
I was going to say that Transgender Trend, they do target schools a lot, but they also target parents? Specifically mothers, like they assume that women are going to be the primary caregivers of children, um ...

S3 (Joshua)
Thats very feminist of them [?]

AU21
And like really target Mumsnet and stuff like that, to like really get like transphobic stuff out there, and get parents, mothers, just in a kind of ... instinctive 'must check my children', therefore must hate trans people sort of way?

AU19
There's a large amount of fearmongering that goes on, that they are working to, exactly as you say, target the inherent fear that parents would have of 'oh my god, my child might be trans.' And, you know I am a massive trans advocate, I do a lot of stuff on social media to support the trans community, but I can tell you as a parent of a trans child that when they first come out it is a difficult thing. You know? I wouldn't deny that it is because I am aware of the fact that we are inherently having, you know, a sense of transphobia, its a fear, we do not understand what it is, its not anything that's being talked about, there is a great fear of the unknown and I would admit that I had a great fear of the unknown when my child came out to me 3 years ago.

They work off that fear of this idea that somehow, inherently being trans is a bad outcome. But actually, you know supporting a child to be trans – who is trans, is the best possible outcome. Of course, support - you know, trying to ask a child to be trans if they're not trans, thats not a good thing, you know, in the same way that you know, forcing a child who is trans to not be trans is not a good thing. Thats why we, you know, we need to be sure, but the best way that we can be sure is by listening to our children.

00:40:47

S2 (Jess) [?]
[General agreement] Could I ask a quick question based on that - how, how do you know and how were you absolutely certain that they, they were trans so that you could start supporting them, at what point did you think this is, this is not just a phase?

AU19
I think its a different journey that everyone goes through, you hear different stories from parents and some of them say – and particularly those that are kind of in the early stages, or that might even be a bit resistant, to sort of go 'well this has come out of nowhere and you know my, my girl's very girly [?] and sparkly and pink and all the rest of it but, and then suddenly said that they were, you know, they were male. My personal experience, my son came out when he was 11, between primary school and secondary school, he had always been a massive tomboy and I called him like 'the anti girl' cause he was just so kind of full on. An I was like really, really proud of that, I – you know I'm a feminist, I thought 'its fabulous, I've got this really kind of gender non-conforming child, brilliant, I'm going to bring up this girl to be this wonderful kind of like kick-arse feminist' and then he kind of came out and it all kind of like, it literally clicked straight away, and that was why I was probably so upset because I knew that was the truth. And that he, I had to deal with this and I knew that that was something that I was, it was not going to be an easy journey for him, and I knew that it was go- it was like everything changed at that moment. And it was the un- you know fear of the unknown and kind of understanding a little bit, and the bits that I had heard had all been the scary stuff, you know, but I dived in at the deep end and I educated myself.

S2 (Jess)[?]
Its really admirable how you've supported him.

AU19
Thank you. I mean I will tell you he told me on text message. I sat on the floor, I cried my eyes out, I said I love you, you know, whatever you are - he didn't know which.

S2 (Jess)[?]
Did he have the hormone blockers as well?

AU19
(43:12) My son has been through The Tavistock, because he's currently on hormone blockers, and actually he's currently [inaudible] cross sex hormones, so we've gone through the whole lovely Tavistock and I can tell you a lot of scare stories about that as well [?]

S2 (Jess)[?]
And is he completely happy?

AU19
I would not say he is completely happy I think it is a difficult journey I'm not going to sort of lie, I don't think its something, its not plain sailing. Hormone blockers do have, and have had an impact on you know, mental health, they have impacts as a lot of drugs do, but I think that in balance, and this is everything you know, all you can do as a parent is say 'that's what's going to happen if I do that and that's what's going to happen if I do that, then this is the best for my child, and that's what, absolutely what he needed.' And we went in with our eyes open. [inaudible]

S3 (Joshua)
Did you have something?

AU22
I just wanted to ask that I think that the materials that they've produced are being used to accuse people of child [inaudible] vulnerable, insidious time for teachers, parents, carers with a young person to help with information that looks credible [?] It's used to tell them if they support their child they are being abusive.

AU19
I'm a child abuser. [General agreement] [laughter]

S3 (Joshua)
And its kind of, yeah its kind of like - reiterate what they - probably couldn't say any better [?] find there's difficulties in accessing stuff, but also it's so important to support trans children cause there's such a high rate of self harm and suicide attempts among like, trans people who aren't supported so yeah, its really important like exactly what you're doing. Um yeah.

S2 (Jess)
I think this isn't even a trans issue, this is a parenting issue, its just so important to support your children? Whatever they are, whatever they want to do? And like that doesn't change when your kid is trans, like surely all parents should have that thing like 'I'm going to support my child whatever they end up doing' Just don't be a dick [laughter] But you're not. [laughter]

00:44:43

AU23
Kind of on the same note as that, there was a protest that some of us were on a while ago, and an older lady came to just discuss ideas, and she was asking, well what about the children and what if it's a phase and they change their minds? And is that such a bad thing, if a kid, you know sees themself one way one day, and then changes their mind? Some kids for sure might go through a certain process and then maybe detransition and a lot of them won't. Is that such a bad thing?

S2 (Jess)
Yeah, I think that's one step the trans community need to take now a little bit more, is like to fight the demonisation of people detransitioning. Because we get hooked onto the like, 'look the majority of people don't detransition, so we are right.' That doesn't even matter. Even if the majority of people do detransition at least those people have the journey available to have in their lives to know who they are. And that's the important thing. D'you know what I mean, like? It's not about 'we are all 100% sure', it's a case of 'we are all in need of going on an adventure' so [indistinct] figuring it out. Don't stand in our way. Yeah, so, it doesn't matter if a kid isn't sure if they're trans, what matters if a kid will never be sure if they're trans, if you can never [indistinct] That's the problem, not [indistinct]

AU19
The truth as well is that with kids, it's so difficult for them to get any kind of medicalisation. The hoops that they have to jump through to do this, even the ones that are absolutely sure, 100% sure, present themselves in that way, there is such a long wait to have any kind of physical support, by the time they actually get to that point, the likelihood of them actually detransitioning is so minimal, which is why they say, 'oh these kids are going from blockers straight onto cross-sex hormones.' So there's this myth that they build up around the idea that there are these kids that 'oh one day they're going to do this and then the next day they're going to do that'. Well actually, if you're talking about just changing names and pronouns and, you know, how they want to be dressed and if they've got short hair or long hair, or you know, pierced bits or whatever they want to do - so fucking what? [laughter] I did that when I kind of ... I used to have bleached blond hair, it grew out, you know. I've got a tattoo, it's spreading a bit, you know [laughter]

S3 (Joshua)
Amazing. So on that note, shall we do the next bigoted thing that we're about to say? That transwomen are socialised as men, so when TERFs start going on about how transwomen have male privilege, how do we respond to this?

AU24
[indistinct] five and six year olds as well, I'd like to see how much five years old of socialisation is going to have on them when they carry on yelling through [indistinct]

AU25
It's like, we all have different privileges? Like some of us have white privilege, some of us have pass [?] privilege, able privilege, or ... there is no one universal experience of what it is to be a woman, you're not less of a woman if ... yeah ... you can't say oh, this woman hasn't had ... this one specific woman that I say - experience that I say is womanhood and therefore you're not a woman.

AU26
Thank you guys for organising this cos this has just been open to my mindset how bad it was, I didn't know how bad it was. But that was one of the biggest things that people kept trying to use. A lot of people might not know, but recently there's been an open cascade of people on social media, who I thought were just normal people, who were loving and part of the LGBT community. And then boom, Black History Month came and it just went crazy. I did not know a lot of, so first of all I want to apologise to anyone in this room who was offended and hurt by that incident. But that was one of the biggest parts. That bigoted comment was what a lot of people were using, saying, well, a transwoman ... I can't even say it cos it upsets me ... had the privilege of a man and that meant ... and even the way they were speaking had so much anger. It threw me off guard that I actually didn't know how to defend it. You know when you see hate in clear daylight? I can deal with racism every day, I can be a part of standing and shouting for islamophobia. I honestly froze, because I honestly didn't understand what was going on here, and it was people from within the community. It would have been different if the person was straight up homophobic and I could see they were about to bible bash or something. It was people who have been oppressed, people who've been told that they didn't have a voice, and ...

What you need to also understand sometimes when you're black, when it comes to standing and trying to fight, you also need to think about yourself, because you understand also what white privilege looks like and how quick a couple of really transphobic people can destroy your career with one text, one phone call, and at that moment a lot of people couldn't understand that cos it was me against a lot of people.

So I think there's a lot of education that needs to be done around bunking [?] that myth on saying that person now still has that male privilege that they had when they were ... which ... I don't know how ... a transwoman is a tra- is a woman, end of story, there's no conversation about it. Whatever pronoun they tell you about, you just need to respect that. The privilege doesn't really ... come into that context and that point. So I think there's a lot of work that we need to do, mostly the intersectionality of it. Cos one of the biggest parts I struggled with was the intersectionality, and knowing where cultural appropriation and cultural conversation and trans rights mixed.

So those are things that, as Equality Officer, I'm really keen to learn more about and know how to challenge those kind of conversations when they do come, because it was a flood, it was literally a flood. And before you can even say no to one person and you're dealing with that one person, you have ten other people saying things and your mind can't ... mentally, it was mentally draining and a [?] process so we need to see how we get those conversations and really remove this myth on the privilege, cos I don't see anyone's privilege in that situation. Cos they're targetted on a daily basis, they are vilified on a daily basis, they're hated on a daily basis, so what privilege are you talking about?

00:51:56

S3 (Joshua)
Exactly, yeah, thank you very much

S2 (Jess)
Can I just interrupt the meeting? I do believe people were asked to put their phones in their pockets at the beginning of the talk [indistinct] Was this something that happened in Leeds then?

AU26
Yes [laughs]

S3 (Joshua)
Was it London you've come from before?

AU
Bristol

S3 (Joshua)
Bristol, sorry [inaudible]

S2 (Jess)
So you're not from Leeds, so the context of what happened, or is that just [inaudible]

AU26
LABOUR WOMAN: OK, so the context was, I'm, hi, I'm a Labour Party person, hey [laughter], I'm proud of it too [laughter]. So I'm the Equality Officer for Labour and I was the only black person in my CLP so I was asked to organise Black History Month and then I asked the black community who would you like? They go, they want the founder of Black History, who is ... Linda Bellos [murmurs of consternation] I didn't know none of the story, so I then did what the community wanted me to do, the black community wanted the founder of Black History. Then ... shhhh ... the floodgates opened, and I removed her - I revoked her invite and told her that she couldn't come. Well then I had the backlash from the black community calling me Bounty and Oreo, and then I had backlash from a lot of people who were transphobic who was like, you're taking her voice away, and stuff like that. And I was like, it doesn't matter who it is, equality is equality, if there's going to be that little stain [?] So that's where that came from, and then also I think I posted something about the fact that the Woman's Place people were even given access to the Civic Hall? And that then took a wildfire and then I saw real people's intention, and ...

I host something called Challenging Conversation cos I want - I wanna know my racists and I wanna know my homophobes, I want people to talk. The only way you can change society is giving people the opportunity to talk, but from when discrimination starts you tell them to shut up and you block them. But they came from so many different angles I didn't even know where they were coming from, and if you ever looked at the thread, you didn't even know certain people knew certain people, cos they just kept recycling the messages and before you knew [clap] I had so many people commenting on it, so it kind of exposed transphobia in a different light, and everybody started name calling and they weren't really ...

I don't know how many people in Leeds actually saw that post ... yeah, you did, right? Well if you did, I just felt the pain, because yes racism, microaggressions, we get it every day. Doesn't mean it's OK, but at that moment, mentally, I just thought about my son who lives in a gender neutral house, and sometimes is like Elsa, and sometimes he's Spiderman, it's totally fine. So at that moment I just remembered all the kind of mean stuff people have said to him in my house. So yeah it would be great to kind of know, how do you challenge that? Online, in person and then ... even with the trans peop- ... people that I thought I was ... people questioned my trans allyship based on the fact that I entertained the conversation, or that conversation happened on my page, too.

S2 (Jess)
Thanks for sticking your neck out. We've got a hand there and a hand there. That one's been up for a long time.

00:55:05

AU27
Hi, just in terms of the whole socialisation, I like to call it a myth really, cos it's not true. The thing about socialisation, about you know, transwomen were socialised as men. The reason why a lot of transwomen were socialised as men is because they were forced, it wasn't through choice, you know, if I'd have known a lot younger ... well, not if I would have known, but if I'd have lived in a houshold for example, that was more accepting of transgender people, I probably would have come out a long time ago. Now, personally I didn't come out until I was at university, so yes, I guess technically I was socialised as a male. But even then, in my opinion it's such bullshit because how does that then kind of cancel out the fact that now I experience so much transmisogyny. All kinds of different people, you know? A lot of men don't respect me, to be honest a lot of cis women don't really respect me. And it's like, how can you then say, 'oh well you're privileged because you grew up with that male socialisation' when it's like, 'well, am I really privileged?' when, you know, every time I get in a relationship with a man he treats me like shit, or every time I speak to cis women online and then suddenly find out they're a TERF and like, oh crap, you know, so it's like, well, where is this privilege that people keep talking about? Because personally I can't see it.

S2 (Jess)
yeah, for sure [inaudible]

AU28
I think I can go on the back of that bike [?], I'm gender fluid ... whatever, I'm not really ... um ... when people read me as female, I get the social drama [?] that goes along with that, and when I get read as male, I get all the privilege that comes along with that. It's nothing to do with how I'm socialised, it's how society treats you. If you are presenting as one or the other, or neither, then people are going to put on you what they think in their own head is relevant, it's nothing to do with your upbringing at all.

AU26
Can I say that in the black community it's actually really worse, so a lot of people ... I think this is a safe room and no-one's taking pictures or recording, right? ... OK, great. So, a lot of people didn't know that I dated someone who identified as trans and was Nigerian, for four years. But the biggest problem was having to remember not to out them because certain rooms we couldn't call them with the 'he' pronoun, and certain rooms we couldn't, we had to [sigh] ... mostly after Chimamanda said what she said, it almost kind of amplified that - transwomen have male privilege and really kind of solidified it in the black community a little bit, and that really made it hard for that person and at this moment they've had to come and say they're just, you know like, gender fluid and not really say it and saying they're non-binary. But to me that's also a loss because that did affect our relationship, because you couldn't be who you wanted to be in that relationship. Yes it's safe for me to say in this room, but ... because I work with disadvantaged and marginalised young people, I know a lot of their parents will not even let me anywhere near them based on some of the things you said, and ... we need to find a way that, no matter what we're doing, we put that person, cos mentally what that person - that partner had to go through was so, so hard and I know what it feels like when they see that, that no-one actually understands that they don't have any privilege, no matter what.

S3 (Joshua)
Is there one at the back?

AU29
[inaudible] I've just had quite a different experience with privilege. So I'm non-binary - there we go. I used to volunteer at a few charities and I would get thanked a lot for what the women were doing and that's still, like just as if, I mean, maybe it was just because of how people read me actually, yeah. Like, even though I'm not male, I don't identify as male, I still get - I still recognise the male privilege I have. It's misguided, but for the [inaudible] it has male privilege.

AU19[?]
I'm very aware of the fact that I am cis, female, educated, eloquent, very privileged, grew up in a nice middle class family, went to university ... unfortunately I grew up in the same town that Posie Parker lives in, but um ... that was a down note. And I use my voice and I use my platform to elevate those who don't have the privilege that I do. So I'd just like to let you know that I use my privilege to ensure that those who don't have that get lifted up and have the spotlight shone on them, and have their voices heard.

S2 (Jess)
Any other hands?

1:00:00

AU30
This is kind of second hand because this is about the journey that somebody I know has been on rather than myself, but this is somebody I don't know very well, an acquaintance who is a trans woman, who has openly said, she didn't transition for, she didn't come out for a very long time because she was trying to fight what she thought she was, because of perceptions in society, of people like her. As a result of that she suffered abuse in relationships. She eventually did come out and became more - became more comfortable with herself, but as a result of the transmisogyny that she experienced, she was tempted to de- she was tempted to detransition. Not because it wasn't who she was, but because she couldn't deal with how society treated her as a woman. If that's having all the privileges of being socialised as a male, then how is that a positive thing? How is that a dangerous thing?

S2 (Jess)
So are we done with the hands on that subject?

S3 (Joshua)
Did you have anything you want to say?

S2 (Jess)
I [inaudible] ... Yeah, so I guess the point is to say like privilege is forced on you as a child, but like, privilege is a two way street, you know what I mean? So if you're having like, male or female privilege forced onto you and it doesn't make sense then it doesn't sink in and it doesn't work basically, that's personally what I feel [inaudible] you all covered it pretty well.

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah. And I'd kind of add really that as much as we're here to talk about the TERFs out there and this thing that they say which is really horrible, I think that its also important to check ourselves, even like within the trans community and amongst transmasculine people, but also amongst allies, about tendencies sometimes that I've definitely noticed, like even if someone falls out with someone who's a trans woman, to start saying criticisms of them, like transmisogynistic, and you know like, 'ah so and so's really bossy' or 'so and so's really controlling', and its like, just to kind of stop that, I mean obviously I'm not saying, you know people fall out whatever that's fine, but not, not to like check ourselves and internalise transmisogyny and being a part of that same thing that the TERFs are pushing, cause as much as it is out there from what you're saying that we do need to check our own communities as well, because that, that's very much present, so yeah.

S2 (Jess)
Well if somebodies an asshole, they're an asshole. That doesn't mean they're not trans, they're a trans asshole [inaudible][General agreement][Laughter]

AU26
I think one thing that we should talk about privilege is that privilege - you didn't work for it, you did not do anything to be entitled to it, and what, when people say 'check your privilege', people – sometimes a lot of people get offended. To be honest its a lot of white people get offended once you say 'white privilege – you need to check your privilege.' And what you said is the most important thing is looking at the platform, if you don't share someone story without their permission, don't talk about their situation without you being able to make sure you've asked them, or given them the mic to do that for themselves, or supported them to be able to amplify their voice.

Yes, we might not understand it but if then we need to do more workshops on debunking and sharing our privilege and turn it into power, because its great to have privilege, I've got privilege to be in this room right now, you've got privilege to be in this room, it's - the power's how you use what you've learned today to make a difference in the community, so just constantly, just check your privilege and rooms [?] - who's not in this room? Who needs to be in this room, who couldn't hear what's happening in this room? And who – this information could save their life. Or stop them from being a dickhead. So [General agreement] [Laughter] all of the above can be great.

01:03:53

AU19 [?]
Can I just say you made a really good point that, and, as you did, that actually there is a huge amount of diversity in every group. There's massive amounts of diversity in the trans community and one of the – I think the biggest eye-openers to me actually is getting to know more and more people is watching some of the dynamics that go on that you know what? just because you're all trans, that you know, doesn't mean everyone is going to get on with each other, it doesn't mean that, and I think that this is one of the biggest issues in representation of trans people within the media is that it points at one trans person, and they call out one tweet, or they look at some - what some awful person has done, and they use that as an example, as representative of every single trans person that there is in the whole country. They literally go 'That person's done that who's in prison and therefore that means that every trans person is like that'.

I think the thing to learn about that as well is that the reverse is true, and I know that we use this term 'TERF', and its a nice catch-all and its got 4 letters, and its great to use on Twitter because it means we don't have to use the bullshit term of 'gender critical feminists' because that's a lie, but anyway, I think we need to be really careful as well to not tar every single TERF, essentially, with the same brush. I've been looking at them for a very long time and there are very distinct groups within them. There are those that are very kind of hardcore which, you know, absolutely deserve all the vitriol that we, kind of like you know, put onto them, but I think the thing that's been really concerning more recently is that we see through a lot of the groups that have gone around such as A Woman's Place and you know, We Need To Talk etc etc, is that they're actually bringing on board a lot of moderate feminists, because you know, they're spinning a yarn and it all sounds really kind of like, compelling and it all sounds very scary, and a lot of the kind of moderate feminists are going along with them, and then they're becoming radicalised, because people are then going 'TERF!' to them, and actually they're not, they're just people that have heard one side of a story, they've bought into it, they think it sounds reasonable, they're going 'oh shit, well that sort of sounds like it could make sense' and they're not hearing other voices because trans voices are not being kind of, you know voiced and given a platform within the media, and they're being represented in a very, very negative way, and I think in the same way that we look at our own community and we kind of say, 'yeah, some of us have privilege, some of us don't', we need to make just absolutely certain that we're just not tarring everybody else with the same brush, because I think in doing that we end up becoming two echo chambers and marginalising people. And we miss the opportunity to educate.

S2 (Jess)
There's two hands, I'd just like to, before that, define how I define TERFs? Everyone has their own definition of TERF, and there's transphobic people that [inaudible] TERFs, there's transphobic people that will have a few pints and try to attack me in the street, they're not really that politically active, they're just people that want to fight. So for me, how I define TERF is people who want to politically mobilise against me? And people who support people who politically mobilise against me. And allow people, and support people to politically mobilise against me. Thats how I define it. I wouldn't say 'Oh so you're holding A woman's Place meeting, and you've got loads of transphobic stuff, I'm going to do some research to see if you're a TERF; now you're a TERF' because [inaudible] if you are standing with them, if you are supporting them in any way, then you're one of them, and welcome to my wrath.

Um, but there was two hands, people that ...

S3 (Joshua)
Can I just? sorry quickly, yeah so I guess that's partly why we include this section of the talk because we definitely, there's definitely people who are on the fence, and who we think its worth talking to, like some people like, there's no point in talking to Julie Bindel about anything, I got her name wrong [?], but anyway, yeah, but other people, and that's kind of why we talk about this myth busting, because there's people like you say are on, who yeah, we don't want to push further away, but yeah, sorry.

S2 (Jess)
Those myths are for these people we are talking about. And there was two hands up? You? You had your hand up.

AU
He was just saying what I wanted to say.

S2 (Jess)
Sorry?

AU
He was just saying what I wanted to say.

S3 (Joshua)
Oh sorry

S2 (Jess)
Anyone else at all or is everyone happy to ...

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah was it?

AU32
Mine was in response to like, the myth that you said? I can't remember what the words were.

S3 (Joshua)
Um, which one was...?

AU32
About being socialised as a -

S3 (Joshua)
Oh yeah, trans women are socialised as men.

AU32
So like, that myth is quite often used to target an individual trans woman and her behaviour? Like, oh you're a bit bossy, that's proof that you're a man [inaudible]. But like when it comes to privilege and stuff, you can't ... tell if someone's personality traits come from their privilege or if that's just their personality? Like yeah, its true that in general men are more likely to have more confidence and feel more comfortable speaking and that sort of thing, but when you look at individual cases, you can't tell if it's because of male privilege or they're just an outspoken person ... because it's their personality?

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah that's really true like because its interesting how like people wouldn't say the same thing about a bossy cis woman. Or maybe they would, because they're misogynistic as well. [General agreement] [Laughter] But the fact that our minds go there, you know sort of those specific things about trans women? Um yeah. So where there any other, sorry ...

AU19
Sorry I know I'm speaking a lot hah, just building on what you said actually Some of the hardcore TERFs actually revel in the fact that they behave in a very misogynistic way, so they actually say 'yeah do you know what, I'm going to be like a man', and 'fuck you' kind of thing. And 'you can't do anything about it and I'm not going to be polite' – they actually, you know, go out of their way to say 'I'm done with being polite and this is how we can be as rude as possible.' The unfortunate thing is that they then in the next breath go 'you've got to kind of protect me because I'm a poor defenceless woman.' And so actually, for trans women they can't win either way, really, because if they behave in a - I don't want to say aggressive way but if they behave in a defiant way and say sort of 'no you've got to listen to me' 'Ah well you're being a misogynistic man'.

S2 (Jess)
Um yeah [inaudible] shall we move on?

S3 (Joshua)
Shall we do the next one?

S2 (Jess)
Lets move on to the next myth.

S3 (Joshua)
OK. Trans people are obsessed with conforming to gender stereotypes.

01:10:00

S2 (Jess)
Hand there.

AU
Have they met any trans people? [General agreement] [Laughter]

S2 (Jess)
Um any other hands? Yep.

AU
I ask people to define the stereotypes.

S2 (Jess)
Mm hmm [inaudible]

AU23 [?]
Most cis people I know are much more gender conforming - most cis straight people I know are much more gender conforming than any trans person I know.

AU33
Yeah and I guess it follows on from what that person over there was saying really which is that it creates a situation where you can't win, because if you're a transgender person but you're acting too feminine the TERFs will just say 'oh well you're just acting up to stereotypes', but if you're not acting that femininely, if you are a, if you're a butch trans woman or a butch trans feminine person then they'll say, 'ah well, you're obviously a man then' so it's, they don't really give a way out? And that's because at the end of the day as well, like somebody else was mentioning really, it's the TERFs who are obsessed with gender stereotypes, and as a part of that the TERFs, they hate femininity? They scapegoat femininity and that's why, you know that sort of misogynistic behaviour often comes out in them, you know, TERFs, they don't like cis women wearing make up and having lipstick and beautiful things and high heels, because they see that as conforming to patriarchy? So there's this, there's this misogyny that's at the heart of it that then particularly targets trans women, which I think is important not to forget.

AU34
There's sometimes a lack of [inaudible] when people first come out, or they're first coming out in public, they think about how they want to present, and assume they have to present in a certain way, rather than growing, for want of a better word, or finding their own identity.

AU35
I think when, when you first start to transition, there's so much, so little confidence and ... that can easily be knocked, so I think, well I know in my case I've tried my best to present to the whole world my femininity, so if I was to wear, if I was to wear jeans and a t-shirt, I think I would be giving a mixed message, so I think maybe some people, especially early on, are trying to give as many cues for femininity as they can, because they are sick of being misgendered.

S2 (Jess)
Thats a really good point.

AU36
Yeah, and following like, a lot of people experience gatekeeping from cis people and especially with regard to medical transition, so people often have to up their femininity to be considered trans enough to get their care.

S2 (Jess)
[inaudible]

AU19
Just one comment regarding trans kids, I was talking to somebody about this the other day and there's a lot of complaints for trans kids, they sort of say, oh well there's always this narrative of, oh I like wearing pink clothes or my son was sort of playing with boy's toys and they kind of conflate that and say, just because your child was wearing pink doesn't mean that they were meant to be a girl. But I have a theory along that - those lines, that we talk about kind of language, and the way we kind of try and express ourselves, and when you kind of become old enough to understand what it is that you're feeling, and be able to come out, as a child you don't have that language and all you can do is see those social norms that have been imposed upon kids to say 'well girls like pink sparkly things and boys are playing with trains and football', and if as a child you kind of are not identifying within the confines that you believe you have been put into, so as a - you know if you're assigned female at birth and you think that you should be a male and you say 'well actually I don't think that I am meant to be wearing pink things, I think I should be, you know, I don't agree that I'm one of that group of people,' they will start to, actually [inaudible] and doing some of the things that they - of the group of people they do think that they are meant to be with, that doesn't mean to say that just because they play football that, you know they should be a boy; its that 'no I think I'm a boy therefore I'm going to align myself with the kids that are sort of boys and thats what they're doing'.

S2 (Jess)
Mmm.

AU37
Mildly anecdotal, a friend of mine is an out and proud, very, very camp trans man. And we heard on the radio somebody saying something along the lines of 'Why can't you just be a masculine woman?' And he shouted at the radio very loudly, 'because I'm not masculine, or a woman' [General agreement] [Laughter] Its not, its not the same thing.

01:15:09

S2 (Jess)
[General agreement] [Laughter] [inaudible] because as you may have noticed I wear jeans and t-shirt, I always get shit for that - 'Why don't you dress more feminine?' and I say 'because I'm a female, not feminine and there's a big difference. Sorry but that's just the case.' But I think – have we got any more hands?

AU38
Just that if somebody, yeah if somebody is [inaudible] curious because like gender stereotypes are being enforced then why not go up against the institutions that are enforcing it, like the medical establishment that [inaudible] to transition, rather than like getting trans people [inaudible] and calling them on that.

S2 (Jess)
Mm. I've got two reasons for it, one is, a lot of the time we have to, and that as a trans woman like, there's certain ways I have to dress if I want to take a piss, it's as simple as that, its ridiculous but that's just the world I live in, you know what I mean? Especially when I was going for, trying to get the hormone replacement stuff? I did not wear what I wanted to that, no way, I had to wear, I had to be like tactical about that sort of stuff, we have to, for survival and for – stuff in life, and two - if you've been refused that fancy-arsed dress for 21 years, hot damn you're going to wear it when finally [inaudible] [General agreement] [Laughter] I might wear these now but I went through a year of looking quite ridiculous.

AU
Whoo!

S2 (Jess)
Everyone's allowed to do that. Any more hands before we move on?

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah, so I guess we kind of already touched on this one [inaudible] a bit quick, I guess? but TERFs saying that trans people will grow out of it slash regret it. And by 'it' I think I mean transition.

AU39
Isn't the detransition rate like 1% or something like that, I heard some people mention recently?

S2 (Jess)
Mm hmm.

AU40
There is a detransition rate but if you compare it to other medical interventions actually the success rate, you can treat that as people not detransitioning, is incredibly high compared to other medical treatments [inaudible]

S2 (Jess)
Mm hmm.

AU41
Just so what? [General agreement] [Laughter] I mean what harm can it do? And like, what does it matter if you think you think you're transgender and you change your mind, or like if you're gender fluid then your gender is going to change, it doesn't mean you were wrong about what your gender was, and, it's just that your gender has changed again. It happens. It doesn't do anyone any harm.

AU42
For me, it just has so many echoes of when I was a teenage boy growing up gay and, and the narrative then was 'its just a phase, we don't want to encourage it' and that all comes from the starting point that there's a normal and there's an abnormal and we want to encourage everyone into the normal and not choose the abnormal, and you know, the strides that lesbian and gay people have made ... I think largely as a response to, so clause 28 happened just at the time I came out at 16 and the response to that I think, and the visibility it gave us propelled that movement forward far quicker than it might otherwise have done. And now, how often do we hear attitudes like that? So it just feels like it's just the same argument, why are we having to like make the same point again?

S2 (Jess)
The parallels ...

AU33
Oh, just following on from that I think its quite interesting when you look at the very early TERF movements as well? Many of them were deeply homophobic, and really against lesbians and they saw lesbians as just trying to copy patriarchy, they're obsessed with phalluses and things like this, so there's also a historic root to that, the arguments are so similar at the end of the day.

AU43
I just wanted to say that I identify as a cis woman now but when I was 13 I had all my hair cut off and spent [inaudible] six months wearing my brother's clothes and telling anybody who would listened that I wanted to be recognised as a boy. I changed my mind. It sounds daft but the reason I changed my mind was because Garbage were popular at the time and I thought Shirley Manson was amazing. And has it harmed me, has having that experience harmed me or anybody else? No. So, go back to what you said – so what?

S3 (Joshua)[?]
So would you say that you would have been more harmed if people had not accepted you when you were younger.

AU43
I don't think it makes a diff – a bit - for me, I recognised that because ultimately it was a short period of time, and I was lucky to live in quite an accepting household, where nobody said 'oh its just a phase' or tried to stop me ... and ... I wasn't a popular kid at school anyway, so what the kids thought of me wasn't important at the time. I'm quite privileged, in the sense that that didn't affect me as much as it might have affected somebody else who'd gone further in that journey.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that in terms of my life - in terms of my significant outcomes in life, it hasn't made any difference to me that I changed my mind, and it hasn't made any difference to anybody else either.

01:20:37

S2 (Jess)
Mm hmm. Any more hands? Yep.

AU44
[inaudible] There's a bit of an expectation that there's only one – maybe go back a few years it was more the case - there's only one route to being trans, that you're trans and you transition and that's it, and I think now there's more of an acceptance that there are, there are other ways of speaking to someone who's – don't decide to transition [?] [inaudible] whats more there are sort of other ways in which people's gender identity can be expressed.

S2 (Jess)
Is that it? I'd like to add [?] to trans myths with the tattoo story?

S3 (Joshua)
Oh yeah

S2 (Jess)
[inaudible] So the detransition, the regret of transition in the UK is ridiculously low around 1% [inaudible] 2%, I make it 4% [inaudible] yet the regret of tattoos is at 40% [General agreement] [Laughter] So we got thinking that the TERFs can make a positive change in their lives without having to change anything drastically, they could change their campaign, they could leave trans people alone, and they could keep the word TERF, and be 'Tattoo Exclusionary Radical Feminists' [inaudible] We'll pose that to them and see how it works out. Totally stole that from a really fine person [inaudible][General agreement] [Laughter]

S3 (Joshua)
Um yeah, just you know, to bring the mood back down ...

S2 (Jess)
Get sad again ...

S3 (Joshua)
But yeah, I guess I feel like probably people in this room already know this but just the importance of believing trans people and people say, however old or young you are that you are going to transition in any way. Cause it can have a massive – I know just for me personally like people being like 'are you sure?' 'have you thought about it?' before I got my top surgery, was really distressing and disturbing and made me doubt myself so much. Although my favourite was my friend being like, 'Oh I'll buy your bras, what are you going to do with them?' [Laughter] But yeah, so like people or trans people who get medical interventions or gender reaffirming surgery yeah they [?] have thought about it – um yeah.

S2 (Jess)
You've got plenty of time to think about it because you've got to wait.

S3 (Joshua)
Um yeah, so shall we move on now to kind of the last bit which is talking about what's been done thus far to kind of address TERFs and then what people think we can and should do in the future. Exciting bit. Yeah, so do you want to...

S2 (Jess)
Yeah cause I mean we can have like, we both remember about a third of the thing so [inaudible] two thirds of the things if we both talk. So like, there's been a lot of stuff going on in the UK which has been quite exciting and there's been a few attempts all over the country to stop them from having their events, so like their like – A Womens Place is it? Is their events and they all have different things, but there's been a lot of attempts to stop them – from what I hear Leeds was a particularly successful one – and erm – so there's some, like, the ones I hear haven't been particularly successful in the traditional sense, have been successful in building a movement, because that's what we're doing here, we're not like 'ok we've got a pre-constructed anti-TERF trans movement ready to go, we've been sat on it for 20 years wondering what to do with ourselves.' Like, we're like, we're kind of thinking on our feet right now?

And the building of the movement has been happening in really exciting ways, like there was a demonstration in Bristol a couple of years ago where sadly the people who organised it couldn't find out where the venue was, but they started with maybe a hundred people converging, with all like nice banners and flags and that, really nice atmosphere, there's a photo of it in this 'zine [Laughter] So there was that, then we got news that we couldn't find out where their thing was so a lot of people left for that reason but then there was about 40 people that weren't content with that answer and there was like a mob of 40 people masked up with suspiciously big placards running around the city just looking for them. They didn't find them but I think everyone in that little mob definitely felt quite empowered after that, and I think the TERFs were very grateful that we didn't find them.

There was another time that people tried to block them from coming into a space, the space was successfully blocked, but there was a side door that was let open for people to go in, but they had to wait outside for a lot of hours, again, they got to have their meeting, but all the people that were blocking the door then went to an open window and did a beautiful chant that was 'you're shit and you know you are'. [General agreement] [Laughter] So I like to think their entire talk had 'you're shit and you know you are, you're shit ...' like in the background, and some people like, broke in at some point and some stuff happened, I don't know. There's that sort of thing, there's also a lot less like physical stuff, because it's not just about physical stuff, even though thats the stuff we like to romanticise and talk about ... other elements ... do you want to ...

01:25:50

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah because it seems as if from what I understand, you know a really successful movement of finding out where these different pla- like you know like you all did in Leeds, of finding out who's hosting and getting attacked and these events being cancelled sometimes at the last minute, to the point where it seems as if the only venues that will host TERFs at the moment are people who are already TERFs? So that's kind of cool because its a really, really limiting their kind of venue choice? Which is, which is great, I guess that's like a really important step.

Yeah, and there's also been a statement that was written by Sister Not Cister, for groups to sign? Like feminist groups to sign, to explicitly stand with trans women? And it started off quite a small thing it was just meant for vaguely disorganised lefty kind of groups? But then the NHS got in touch and were like 'we want to sign it too!' So it's kind of massively spread, so if people are involved in any groups that want to sign it you can find it - um, on the internet? [Laughter] On the Sister Not Cister Facebook page more specifically.

There was also a lot of work that took place around the reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, yeah, so a lot of different workshops and guidance was produced by a bunch of [inaudible] not only Sister Not Cister but also Stonewall, NUS women's campaign, yeah, and a lot of people, and I guess we'll find out the results in February. From what I understand the people in charge of the consultation are pretty trans positive, and then I guess the next stage will be lobbying all of our MP's to make sure that they take, when it goes to Parliament that we, you know, have success.

There's also been other forms of resistance, so as you may be aware of the really horrible advert that was taken out in the Metro? Apparently it was taken out twice, I didnt realise that I thought it was only once but it was twice. Yeah, so a group of, as they were labelled by Mumsnet, TERF Terrorists - not TERF Terrorists, Trans Terrorists sorry! My bad. The Trans Terrorists were throwing smoke grenades apparently at the Daily Mail, that wasn't actually true from what I understand, but the Daily Mail was kind of shut down for a couple of hours, to you know, kind of demonstrate that you can't just produce transphobic literature and adverts without being ... oh sorry ...

AU45
I'm really sorry to interrupt, I'm just in shock that feminists are writing about The Daily Mail being shut down, this whole thing [inaudible] [General agreement] [Laughter]

S3 (Joshua)
Thats a really good point [inaudible] [General agreement] [Laughter] Yeah. Its definitely interesting to see who they're aligning themselves with? Yeah. So yeah. So there's been like some really great, like different - around the country, like different activity and different, like, groups coming together and also like a lot more confidence it seems like there was a group of, in Bath who got together, to oppose the Woman's Place event there, and like you know just, you know, standing together outside with our placards just to show that, you know they can't, they can't get together and talk without being resisted, yeah [inaudible]

S2 (Jess)
And reminded how shit they are

S3 (Joshua)
And reminded how shit they are, exactly, and how do they sleep at night? Do you have any other things?

S2 (Jess)
Yeah I just forgot it when you asked, yeah, there's been lots of stuff, I can't quite remember now ...

S3 (Joshua)
OK just does anyone else want ...

AU19
Can I put forward what's probably going to be quite a controversial perspective within this group? I think that it was useful to raise awareness of these groups to start off with. I've been following them right from the start, I was watching watching what was happening when all the stuff was happening with Hyde Park. I'm also very close to what's happening in the media as well, and there's a very clear pattern that they've been following and they've been using the resistance against trans people. So, because they have control over the national news media, the only story, the only narrative that's being put out there is that there are these TRAs. Every time there's one of these events, and what happened in Leeds was really kind of clear, they followed that same pattern. And I think we're playing into their hands at the moment by ... whatever we do, in saying we're going to oppose this, is being seen as aggressive - an aggressive reaction.

I would suggest, as an alternative, that actually what is better to do now is almost ignore what they are doing and look at putting alternative forms of feminism forward. You know, we were talking about these people that are sitting on the fence at the moment, the only feminism they are hearing about at the moment is A Woman's Place, who have shown themselves to be 'oh, we're very reasonable,' or Fair Play For Women, or Transgender Trend - 'look how reasonable we are, look how polished we are'. If we ignore what they are doing and we don't give them a platform, and actually look at groups like this who are talking about intersectional feminists, and show those moderate feminists there is a different way forward, they won't get the platform, they won't get the media exposure, rather than running around with placards, and I'm not saying that was the wrong thing to do, but I think going forward maybe we shouldn't give them that platform, we shouldn't give them that exposure.

01:31:02

S2 (Jess)
There are a lot of hands ...  [General agreement] [laughter] [inaudible]... you answered your own question. They run the media and they say what they want, they're going to keep saying what they want, so we have to just let that slide, we have to do what we feel is the thing to do. We have to keep our resistance honest and real and effective. We can't just ... there's been people who've said let's just ignore them about a lot of bad people, and a lot of people died because of that concept. We can't ignore bigots, we can't ignore right wing arseholes and can't ignore fascists ...

AU19
I'm not saying we can, but we pick our fights, like we talk about lobbying MPs. That is absolutely the right thing to do ...

S2 (Jess)
But I think the point is we pick our fights, I completely agree with that, the point is there are so many different people in this room, who want so many different types of fight. Some people want to lobby at MPs, some people want to go up to newspapers. I think we need to just say, like, we don't pick one fight, we don't say 'we ain't gonna do this' we're not a unified ... we're individuals, we do our thing and we don't critique what other people do. I'm not saying 'no, you, get a banner now, here's a gasmask, here's a speaker, go and do in that fucking shop [?] right now'. No, I'm sure you've got much better things to do with your time, and things that would be really good for this movement, and that's when ... we all have our thing, but there are those aggy kids that are hurt and are scared and they want to get gasmasks and go out there and do their thing. I'm not going to tell them not to, cos I feel we just need like, a mixed diversity of tactics and we need to really be pushing, and we need to be keeping our dignity and that's the most important thing because the main thing they do is they're taking our dignity. That's their main goal.

If we don't physically stand in front of them and say no, if we don't physically defend ourselves when they attack us, if we don't verbally defend ourselves when they verbally attack us, we've lost because we've lost our dignity and I feel like, as a transwoman the most important thing is to stand in front of the people that hate me and say 'no, you're not coming in', you know? And to be there physically on the street I think that's the most important thing - for me personally, and for other people personally. And for other people personally they think the most important thing is doing stuff on Twitter or writing messages on balloons and letting them out ... there's a million different things to do. That's the nice thing about the struggle, it's like a candy shop of options. You do what you want but you never tell anyone ... you don't tell people what sweets to eat, you know what I mean? you go in, you eat what you want, you do what you want, and I personally believe in everyone do whatever. The most important thing is, if it's not empowering you stop doing it. If it's making you feel miserable stop doing it. Do something that empowers you. Do something that you feel is working, whether it's working or not doesn't matter, as long as you feel it's working then keep going, yeah? And that's what I want to say, now we'll get to other hands.

AU33
Yeah, just following on, there's a few things I could say ... I feel strongly about that ... I think one thing, it comes up a lot in the antifascist movement as well, is something like we, if we, by having counter protests against fascists or trying to [inaudible] them we almost give them more of a platform, but I think when you actually stop them having a platform and you stop them meeting, you're stopping them from gathering together and having that platform and meeting each other, that makes them [inaudible] for a start. I think in terms of the media stuff, again, I mean they already define us as violent by what we do and how we live. You know, their definition of us is violent because, well phalluses [?] or something like that, so trying to not appear violent in their eyes isn't going to work. But in the eyes of everybody else as well I think there's a question of diminishing returns as well, right? So the first time, maybe OK, big deal, you see this with the alt-right in the United States, OK? First time they were shut down by loads of people - woah this is big news! Second time - OK, it's news. Towards the end when it's like the hundredth nazi protest was shut down by antifascists it wasn't news anymore, people were bored of it, right? So I think the same thing could happen, and is happening already I think within our movement here. And then, I think the last thing is whatever other people think, it's a question of yeah, how do we feel empowered. What is it that makes us strong? You know, because we can't always decide how transphobia, transphobes or society are going to respond to us, and if we keep trying to double guess that, you know, we're playing their game. Whereas if we talk to each other and think, how can we be strong, how can we have self defence within our community, and we won't be messed with. Cos that's the story of every oppressed group through history, is direct action is what got the goods, you know? We forget things like the vote for women, it was only won because MPs' houses were burned down, you know? There's a lot of I think trying to gloss over that and make social [?] struggles look respectable, when actually that's what we have to do is ... direct action is I think what we need in this situation.

01:35:33

S2 (Jess)
There's a lot of hands now so I'm just going to go across the room like this, so we'll start with you.

AU46
[inaudible] ... you can find allies in some unusual places as well [inaudible] ... a few weeks ago ... disclaimer: I'm not a tory, I'm not a [inaudible], but he'd been on Question Time and he'd been [inaudible] on the same night. And so after having spoken to him both during Question Time and afterwards, I very much turned his opinion round as regards to trans rights. You know, there are people out there who will be responsive who you might not, you know you might not expect a tory minister to be all that responsive, but he actually is, and there if that's somebody in a significant position, who can be quite an effective ally. And it's about recognising [inaudible] progressive movements - I've seen people write off a huge chunk of the [inaudible] political sphere as just, well we don't agree with them on a vast number of issues. But actually you can build, you don't have to agree with them on brexit or austerity or anything else, if this is the issue on which they [inaudible]

S2 (Jess)
I think that comes under the diversity of tactics. Not all of us want to spend our time talking to tory MPs. But, some people probably do, and like, good on you, and bon chance!

S3 (Joshua)
Yeah it's going to be important that people do, in the build up to voting on the GRA changes because there are a lot of tories in parliament so yeah, completely, it's really good that there are a few on side. That's the nicest thing I've ever said about a tory
[General agreement] [laughter] [inaudible]

AU47
So, I'm involved with Trans Leeds [?] and we have lobbied our local MPs, including the tory [?] and we've also lobbied the council, we have a really great relationship with the council. But equally I think that's why it's really important that there was a movement of allies, absolute allies, a lot of whom are in this room, who did shut down the Woman's Place meeting, because it was in a council building. Because if we've spent all that time lobbying and building up a relationship with the council, only to then be left with a bunch of transphobes organising the civic hall. It's almost like all that lobbying has gone to waste. So like you said, diversity of tactics is really important. And I know the group that did organise to shut down that meeting - there was discussion in there about ... oh, we know they're going to use this against us if we manage to shut down the meeting. I think we probably think they deliberately organised it in the Civic Hall because they knew it was likely to get shut down. But I still think it's important that we shut down those meetings. I mean, they went and met in the back room of a pub, but I'd rather they have to squeeze themselves into the back room of a pub than they get the kudos and the platform of being able to say, 'hey look, we met in the Civic Hall, like Leeds City Council supports us' bla bla bla. So I do think that having those diversity of tactics is really really important.

S2 (Jess)
You had your hand up?

AU26 [?]
Yeah, people mainly covered it, I think. Just mainly they will always portray people as having been at things and then the media write up of it, you're like 'that didn't happen' or see how they describe someone. And also some of the things like the GRA, the state are important and like we've talked about like, they will literally save lives and there will be incremental things that happen, but you can't rely on the state for your liberation. And if the GRA goes through it doesn't stop there. There's that danger of feeling too comfortable when you get that victory [?]

AU48
A little can go a long way and sometimes you don't even know how long it's gone. I work at a pension company which has half a million members. At present it has only M/F genders and it does not have any gender neutral titles. In the past year we had two complaint calls from people insisting that there had to be an Mx title. It's now happening because me and my manager have said hey, there's a demand for it, it's happening. You know, two people out of half a million. All it takes is a phone call here and there and sometimes it goes a lot further than you think [inaudible] a positive message.

S2 (Jess)
And that's the sort of message to like, to TERFs that are involved, just think, a reminder you're on the wrong side of history, go home have a cup of tea. Yeah, so, any more on that? I guess we've moved on now, so what are we going to do next? Contact an insurance policy company? [inaudible]

AU48
No, it's just like a pension company, I don't want to name them.

S2 (Jess)
Contact pension companies, talk to tory MPs [laughter] two valid things, I'm not taking them away. So now [inaudible] next really. I think we've covered what we believe in, but everyone's just got to put our heads together on how to push forward. Because we've got the shutting them down thing, we're doing that. I think smaller groups where people, individual groups in individual cities are talking about individual tactics on that and I feel like that's something more for small, for them to talk about how to do it more effectively or whatever. Is there other directions people feel it could go in? Obviously keep it organised [?]

01:41:14

AU19
Can I just qualify something about my comments earlier about shutting it down, was more around ... one thing I've noticed is that the women get very excited about, almost like, 'oh it's so exciting, we're going to be shut down and oh we're being really rebellious and we've got this new feminist movement, and we're the new suffragettes' type of thing, is to actually, if you're going to do that to make it almost as boring for them as possible, like it's unexciting. It's like, 'oh what a pain in the arse we've got to go to a pub' and actually I think the way it was done in Leeds was really good, you know, stand there very neutrally, it's not present yourself in an aggressive way that could be misinterpreted. I know they're going to try and do that anyway, but it's just kind of, take away the thrill and the drama and it just becomes a bit of a boring chore for them.

S2 (Jess)
Yeah well they might enjoy the fight but they won't enjoy losing, so let them have their fun for now. That's my personal stance on it.

AU23
I think especially in Brooklyn they did something [inaudible] people who are organising already or event promotion to have a club night, a zine, a reading group, anything - if you haven't done it already, making it very explicit that it's trans inclusive and that there are certain things you won't stand for. Because you always get someone who comes like 'oh but why?' and then at least you know who have to face up against. I'm thinking of, there was this, I don't think it's very famous but there's a lesbian disco in Todmorden that was I think relatively popular and then they started retweeting things from A Woman's Place and that kind of showed their true colours and there was a bit of discussion there where people were shocked that they supported this because it wasn't previously known. So I think making your politics very explicit, rather than - regardless of what it is, try to make things clear about who you are [inaudible]

S2 (Jess)
That reminds me of what I forgot earlier, in Bournemouth Anarchist Book Fair, they had on their flyer for the book fair, it just said 'TERFs not allowed'

S3 (Joshua)
On toilet paper

AU
There was a picture on toilet paper?

S2 (Jess)
Yeah, so like, that's basically what you're seeing, more like openly trans welcome, but also openly TERFs not. Yeah, so that's definitely something that can be done on a small level. I think that's definitely happening, you're seeing more and more, people picking a side of the fence ... hand at the back?

AU50
[inaudible] people who aren't defined as TERFs yet [inaudible] I think particularly that work should fall on allies and people who are going to hear conversations happen that might not be around trans and non binary people. It's like our duty to challenge that sort of [inaudible]

AU51
I think some of the conversations that allies can have [inaudible] on the verge of things [inaudible] the most ridiculous thing about TERFs is that in my eyes they're not feminists, like their idea of their feminism which is hating transwomen is just like ... it's just ridiculous that their whole political ideology which is about challenging the idea of gender and what gender can be, and then they focus their hate so intensely, on ... some, they're supposed to be allies ... I think those are the kinds of conversations you have to have, like well how do even define your own feminism in the first place if you are anti transwoman, like, how do you [inaudible] it doesn't make sense to me at all.

01:45:06

S2 (Jess)
So we've got one hand there, then that hand there, then I think we're going to have to wrap it up because we're almost done.

S3 (Joshua)
I have got something to say at the end, am I allowed?

S2 (Jess)
Yeah you're allowed. Make it quick though, you've been talking all week.

AU52
[inaudible] particularly thinking about the Transgender Trend stuff, which is probably the most insidious thing I've seen [inaudible] it's very very well presented. If I didn't know who it was coming from, you'd read it and you'd be quite convinced by it because it's presented in a way, if I was really malicious that's [inaudible] that's the sort of thing I'd do. And actually the information that you need to counter that needs to be very very accurate and very very well referenced and I think some of that then is about giving allies specifically the confidence to have that information that won't crumble if it's challenged, that is their resource, so they can come back with things that [inaudible] how often you get people who will have friends who say racist things and they know they should challenge it, they know they don't agree with it and they don't because they just think, oh I don't want to get into an argument, I don't know whether I've got the right facts to do that.

S2 (Jess)
That's what we try to do with this but ...

S3 (Joshua)
Was there ... over here

AU53
Just the last point. This is mostly directed towards the trans people in the movement. Sometimes it's OK to take a break and sometimes you really shouldn't burn yourself out, sometimes you do have to take that seat back and just let the allies do their thing, because at the end of the day, if you're on Twitter and someone's harrassing you or whatever, it's OK to block them, it is OK to block it out. You don't have to be at every single event, you don't have to be at every single talk, every single debate, you can take a break. I'm just saying that from personal experience because I was very, very heavily involved in the movement earlier this year, and I did burn myself out, and it did affect my mental health quite badly, so, I just wanted to just end it and just say that you know, it's OK for trans people to just take a break. And to be fair, even if you're an ally, you know, take that break. Just take breaks. Don't be on the go constantly cos you will just burn yourself out.

S2 (Jess)
Yeah, definitely, thanks for saying that.

S3 (Joshua)
So really really quickly because we literally have to leave the room - one thing you'll find in the zine, which you should definitely grab on the way out, is one really important thing to do is support trans people in prison. Because there's a lot of trans people in prison, people are often alienated from their families, and there's groups like [inaudible] collective and red bars project, you can get in touch with who can link you up with a trans pen pal. There's also a transwoman of colour who's facing up to two years probably in a men's prison, her trial starts on 16th April. If you're interested in supporting, or writing her a card, or doing a solidarity banner drop or something in Leeds then we can give you details of how you can get in touch, but there's a lot of this kind of stuff that's going on, and like making someone feel a tiny bit less lonely and a tiny bit less crap about not just transphobia but also the prison-industrial complex is really really important. And I must stop talking now because we have to leave the room. But thank you so much for coming.

01:48:37

END