Recognition Makes TiMs Safe From Violence
But, and this is not a rhetorical question, How does that work?
Volker Türk is the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. The #16Days hashtag refers to a 16-day campaign against violence against women and children. We now have come to expect that any campaign for women must include mention of transwomen and that includes Mother’s Day, International Woman’s Day, Women’s History Month, and probably Emma Watson’s birthday. This is because it is literal violence not to recognize that TiMs are women, according to many and everytime a TiM is left out of the conversation a trans angel gets zir wings clipped.
I want to know from Volker, and everyone else who makes the claim that recognition as women protects TiMs, how this actually works. How does recognizing a man as a woman if he so desires raise the magic shield of protection from male violence when women are overwhelmingly the targets of male violence? The concept is counter to logic. There are several things that need to be demonstrated in order to accept this demand that it is a matter of urgent safety for the most vulnerable for us to comply and call them girls, even when they are middle-aged men.
If, in fact, TiMs face particularly high levels of violence, how is this established? I am serious when I say that even one victim of violence is one too many, but is it really true that this one group is in constant danger of being stabbed in the Men’s rooms of the world? We need some actual data to show that they face particularly high levels of violence, and we need to know which group of people this is in comparison to. A high level of violence is a comparative statement, so who are the lucky ones who face a lower level of violence? What’s the full truth on this statement? I think I know, but I would like to hear it said or see it written with references to data. If they’re talking about a comparison to women, which I suspect, they are lying.
Next, along with data that would show that they face particularly high levels of violence, we would need to find out why this is so. Why are so many TiMs beaten, murdered, raped, told that they are men, or whatever violence they are subjected to?We don’t get that information, but the implication is that violent men don’t respect them, and take their cues from radical feminists and gender skeptics such as myself. Someone could be reading this right now, and decide that since I don’t think that Trans ID Males are women, they have free reign to go out and kick one in the shins or worse. Is that how it works?
Okay, so that’s a bit of hyperbole. Not enough people read this blog yet, but I’m sure I’ll achieve literal violence soon (at which point I’ll be able to add a paid subscription option.) But to hear tell, the books and blogs and tweets of TERFs cast enough doubt in the minds of violent men that they don’t respect transwomen, and so they feel validated in their desire to commit physical crimes against the men we refuse to refer to as women.
I honestly find that laughable.
Tish Still has done the research, and in January of this year published an article in UnHerd examining the violence in the UK - The Truth About the Trans Murders and discovered that things are not as dire as reported:
Three of the nine victims were murdered by a violent punter while working as prostitutes; another was killed by their husband, who lived on her earnings from prostitution. Another of the victims died at the hands of someone who was also trans-identifying. Another was a gay man who cross-dressed occasionally, and the motive for the murder has been ascribed to both transphobia and homophobia. Two of the murders were linked to drug use.
In other words, despite the way their deaths are often framed in the media and by activists, the large majority of these trans victims were not killed simply for being trans. Almost half appear to involve prostitution — a fact that has been quietly brushed under the carpet.
Nor is this wilful misunderstanding confined to the UK: according to global statistics, 58% of transgender murder victims were born male and work in prostitution. It seems remarkable, then, that “Trans women are women” and “Sex work is work” remain two of the most heavily promoted mantras in trans-activist circles. Indeed, a number of role models in the trans community go as far to claim that it was only because of prostitution that they were able to afford their treatment and surgeries.
The men who kill transgender prostitutes are all the type of men who kill women prostitutes, and if I were a betting man I would lay strong odds that not a single one of them has read a book by Kathleen Stock. Such men do not have any respect for women, and most likely hate feminists of any stripe but particularly radical feminists.
This leaves us with the big question that Volker does not address, and on it we hang in suspense. How does recognizing1 TiMs as women afford them any sort of safety? The reason that there is a 16 Days campaign is to try to reduce the violence that women are subject to in great numbers. If women and girls were safe from male violence then there would be no need for the campaign.
So, before I can accept the proposition in Volker’s tweet, someone had better show their work and demonstrate how this can possibly be a valid solution to violence against Trans ID Males.2
I think there is a simple explanation for his tweet:
And the word recognizing has many meanings, but the one that does not apply here is “identify”by sight. We can recognize a man who is trying to be seen as a woman. I mean “acknowledge,” even though we know better but just to make someone’s AGP wank more intense.
I may seem a bit flip about the violence, I’m not. Violence is wrong whoever it’s directed towards. I would stand with a trans ID male who is being threatened by violence and help defend him.