Re: [Marxism] Open Letter In Support Of Trans Labour Members

[John Edmundson via Marxism]

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On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 3:02 PM DW via Marxism 
wrote:

>   [So...this is my first tippytoe into this debate, something I've avoided
> as it is impossible to have a calm rational debate about this, it seems, at
> least on the left. Ergo, my own ignorance around these questions will
> remain as such since no one can discuss it with me or others who are trying
> to figure it all out.--David W.]
>

I certainly  know where you're coming from there. This list should be a
place where such a civil discussion should be able to be held.


> John wrote the following:  "
> So concern about trans women having unfettered access to women's spaces is
> patently *not* about transphobia, but about male violence - exactly the
> reason such female only spaces were established in the first place."
>
>
> Yeah...no it wasn't and it's both historically and anthropologically so
> much BS to say that.
>

I was thinking of rape crisis centres when I made that point. Apologies for
being unclear about that. Obviously places like huts to keep women apart
during menstruation weren't what I was thinking about and are not an issue
for trans activists either as far as I know . . .


> Where I live in the Bay Area womens
> washrooms are going away replaced by non-gender specific ones in public.
> GOOD.


So you, a *man*, think it is good that "*womens* washrooms are going away
replaced by non-gender specific ones". Hmmm, I just don't see why women
should be being expected to give their spaces up yet be de-platformed or
threatened for questioning whether that is the way forward.


> Like the single non-gender bathroom and washrooms we find at small
> businesses (and that have always been found there) separating out washrooms
> and bathrooms was a function of KEEPING women separate from men for the
> obvious religious/cultural reasons and had zero to do with women spaces as
> "safe spaces".
>

Washrooms etc, yes. Evidently the first incarnation of that was in Paris
(maybe the great exhibition?) and was seen as a curiosity. I used to think
the best option was to go for unisex but my wife pointed me to evidence
that unisex facilities are higher risk for male assaults on women, even
though obviously it is possible for men to assault women in women's toilets
etc also. She also pointed out that sometimes women really want that space,
such as when they have a heavy period to deal with, or even to get away
from unwanted attention. I've rethought my view on that.


> I've always felt the washroom/bathroom (as opposed to the changing room or
> locker room...a related but quite different issue) was a silly argument in
> terms of transwomen (or for transmen) who, for all appearances, are the sex
> they identify and whose outward appearance is what they choose...as wholly
> irrelevant to the trans rights issue anyway as trans people for centuries
> have used bathroom of their choice and no one is the wiser.


I won't argue with you on that. I think the current demand for this is all
about asserting a political point - that trans women are women - rather
than something that really needs to change. No one asks for ID now and
won't where self ID is enacted.


> Only the right
> wing has ever raised this as something to go after trans folks for. They
> lose every time in these arguments for that very reason. I believe in safe
> spaces for women *when they chose to assert this*.


My problem is that right now, "when they [do] chose to assert this", they
are dismissed as transphobes, threatened with sexual violence etc by people
who simultaneously claim to also be women themselves.


> The issue is trickier
> when we are talking what substantiates a trans person and what is "merely"
> *just* a self-declaration of same. THAT is a huge issue (locker rooms --
> also a prudery issue I should add -- and women's sports). I'll await more
> discussion on those if it comes up.
>

I don't think the changing room thing is just a prudery issue - women who
have been subjected to sexual violence in the past are not simply being
prudish in wanting a place to undress where they won't be subject to men
looking at them. It does surprise me though how many women I know who used
to fight tooth and nail for women's spaces at universities etc, who now
tell me they have no problem with mixed gender changing rooms. I suspect
they don't believe they will ever have to face it in reality.

Another issue of course is the "cotton ceiling", where lesbians who won't
have sex with trans women with penises are condemned as transphobic. All
power to those lesbians I say, but they are demonised by this movement. I
just can't see the liberation in this. How is this not a 

Re: [Marxism] Open Letter In Support Of Trans Labour Members

[DW via Marxism]

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 [So...this is my first tippytoe into this debate, something I've avoided
as it is impossible to have a calm rational debate about this, it seems, at
least on the left. Ergo, my own ignorance around these questions will
remain as such since no one can discuss it with me or others who are trying
to figure it all out.--David W.]

John wrote the following:  "
So concern about trans women having unfettered access to women's spaces is
patently *not* about transphobia, but about male violence - exactly the
reason such female only spaces were established in the first place."


Yeah...no it wasn't and it's both historically and anthropologically so
much BS to say that. Original womens' only spaces were established
*totally* as a function in prudery of class society. MOST primitive
societies untouched by Christianity, Abrahamic religions more generally,
"Western society" had no such thing as "womens spaces". People pissed,
shit, washed, and did all manner of human social intercourse without
regards to any sort of gender. Where I live in the Bay Area womens
washrooms are going away replaced by non-gender specific ones in public.
GOOD. Like the single non-gender bathroom and washrooms we find at small
businesses (and that have always been found there) separating out washrooms
and bathrooms was a function of KEEPING women separate from men for the
obvious religious/cultural reasons and had zero to do with women spaces as
"safe spaces".

I've always felt the washroom/bathroom (as opposed to the changing room or
locker room...a related but quite different issue) was a silly argument in
terms of transwomen (or for transmen) who, for all appearances, are the sex
they identify and whose outward appearance is what they choose...as wholly
irrelevant to the trans rights issue anyway as trans people for centuries
have used bathroom of their choice and no one is the wiser. Only the right
wing has ever raised this as something to go after trans folks for. They
lose every time in these arguments for that very reason. I believe in safe
spaces for women *when they chose to assert this*. The issue is trickier
when we are talking what substantiates a trans person and what is "merely"
*just* a self-declaration of same. THAT is a huge issue (locker rooms --
also a prudery issue I should add -- and women's sports). I'll await more
discussion on those if it comes up.
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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-CivWar]: Glaze on Sheehan-Dean, 'The Calculus of Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War'

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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-- Forwarded message -
From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW 
Date: Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 4:57 PM
Subject: H-Net Review [H-CivWar]: Glaze on Sheehan-Dean, 'The Calculus of
Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War'
To: 
Cc: H-Net Staff 


Aaron Charles Sheehan-Dean.  The Calculus of Violence: How Americans
Fought the Civil War.  Cambridge  Harvard University Press, 2018.
480 pp.  $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-98422-6.

Reviewed by Robert Glaze (Lincoln Memorial University)
Published on H-CivWar (October, 2019)
Commissioned by Madeleine Forrest

Robert Glaze on _The Calculus of Violence: How Americans Fought the
Civil War_

With its now estimated 750,000 deaths, the Civil War was
unquestionably a bloody affair. Conventional scholarly wisdom posits
that violence increased in quality and quantity over time as the war
transitioned from limited to total and Union occupation policies
evolved from soft to hard. It reached its crescendo in the bloody
battles of 1864 and Sherman's subjugation of Georgia and the
Carolinas. Reassessing this consensus, Aaron Sheehan-Dean
convincingly reveals a more complex and nuanced story. Instead of a
simple chronologically linear progression, Sheehan-Dean argues that
violence in the Civil War, which he significantly identifies as the
product of human agency, varied across time and space. Simply put,
what was the bloodiest day of the war for one locale was likely the
most peaceful for another. In this masterful exploration of Civil War
violence, Sheehan-Dean ultimately concludes that the war was "a
catastrophically bloody conflict that could have been much worse" (p.
7). During the bloodiest conflict in American history, warring sides
both aimed to wage a "just war."[1]

Numerous factors such as Christianity, Enlightenment ideology, and
respect for a shared past are credited with restraining violence, but
the author argues that the Union and Confederate governments were the
most important practical tools in limiting bloodshed.
Nineteenth-century Americans believed that only states could make
war. Both nation-states valued international opinion and respected
accepted rules of war. Both practiced conventional warfare, accepted
surrenders, and took prisoners. State-initiated restraint played out
in numerous ways. For example, despite vocally denouncing the
Confederacy's legitimacy, Lincoln and the Union treated their
adversary as a legitimate nation-state, not as a treasonous cabal.
Both sides tacitly--and usually practically--recognized the sanctity
of noncombatant life. While acknowledging that both polities failed
at times to restrain violence, Sheehan-Dean provides the
sure-to-be-debated conclusion that "the Civil War reveals that states
matter" (p. 3).

While Sheehan-Dean's thesis emphasizes restraint, he acknowledges
that the war did include episodes of unrestrained violence. In that
respect, _A Calculus of Violence_ is concerned with explaining both
the rule of restraint and the exception of excess. Guerilla warfare
proved the most significant catalyst for cruelty. Indeed, the
Confederacy's failure to bring partisans to heel is shown to be one
of that state's failures in containing bloodshed. Guerilla violence,
typically occurring at the periphery of state power, led to a violent
cycle of attacks and reprisals. Because Union officers considered
guerilla warfare a violation of accepted norms, they were less
inclined to treat partisans and their supporters with restraint.

Emancipation, which the Confederacy saw as proof of Yankee barbarism,
often led to excessive violence. Rebels saw the end of the peculiar
institution and the enlistment of black soldiers as tantamount to a
slave rebellion. With the fabric of their reality unraveling, white
Southerners lashed out in brutality. Confederate massacres of black
troops at Fort Pillow and the Battle of the Crater are cited as
evidence of racially motivated malice. Nevertheless, while such
episodes mark a departure from restraint, Sheehan-Dean explains that
they are not evidence of Rebeldom abandoning its desire for a just
war. From the Confederate perspective, because emancipation and black
enlistment were unjust, they were under no obligation to wage just
war against USCT soldiers. In addition to bloodshed on the
battlefield, emancipation increased suffering in prisoner-of-war
camps. Confederates refused to recognize USCT soldiers as legitimate
combatants and thus denied them prisoner-of-war status. Prisoner
exchange systems consequently broke down, leading to overcrowding,
disease, squalor, and death for captured combatants.

While emancipation proved a catalyst for violence, the emancipated
themselves 

Re: [Marxism] Open Letter In Support Of Trans Labour Members

[John Edmundson via Marxism]

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One of the problems with the way this debate is framed is the determination
to claim that anyone who is gender-critical is transphobic, in the same way
that anyone opposed to Israel is deemed to be antisemitic. An example from
one of the links in MM's post follows. Quoting a "Women's Place UK"
speaker, the article proceeds:

*"And there are predatory men who will use any means to gain … access  to
women’s spaces when they are vulnerable* -yes, she means trans women"

Actually, the insertion "yes, she means trans women" is pure editorialising
slotted in as fact. The speaker is discussing the possibility of self
declared MtF women entering women's spaces. Right now, no one checks
anyone's ID when they enter a changing room. But with self ID, the taboo to
men simply walking into women's changing facilities is massively lowered.
And evidence suggests that male violence against women and male violence in
general is significantly higher that that perpetrated by women. Even
getting gender reassignment surgery does not change this fact:

*“[R]egarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk
for crime compared to female controls (aHR6.6; 95% CI4.1-10.88
)
but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5-1.2).  This indicates that
they retained a male pattern regarding criminality.  The same was true for
violent crime.”*

*“ Criminal activity, particularly violent crime, is much more common among
men than women in the general population….Crime after sex reassignment,
however, has not previously been studied.  In this study, male-to-female
individuals had a higher risk for criminal convictions compared to female
controls but not to male controls. This suggests that the sex reassignment
procedure neither increased nor decreased the rate of criminal offending in
male-to-females.”
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885
*

Ironically, only by accepting that "trans women are women" does the
statement become transphobic. Because if trans women are women, then trans
women are six times more violent than "cis" women. But if trans women are
men, they are no more violent than other men, so the concern is with any
men, not trans. Which is, of course, what most gender critical people have
always maintained.

So concern about trans women having unfettered access to women's spaces is
patently *not* about transphobia, but about male violence - exactly the
reason such female only spaces were established in the first place. If we
one day get to a point where male violence against women as a phenomenon is
a thing of the past, the issue of who uses what spaces will be
substantively different. But as long as the evidence suggests that all
male-born, *regardless of their gender identity*, are statistically more
likely to present a risk to women, I believe women have the right to retain
those spaces. If women-only spaces are no longer valid now, when male
violence against women is still high, how were they ever valid before. It
is not up to male born people to decide they have the right to those
spaces, regardless of how sincerely they identify as women. And I would
have thought that those male born who genuinely identify as women would get
that. Some, of course, like Miranda Yardley, do get it and want no part in
these campaigns.

Bottom line - what are men being asked to compromise on? Nothing.
What are women being told to compromise on? Hard won gains that women and
socialists fought for decades to achieve. Are women (particularly lesbians)
really the oppressor group they are portrayed as? I don't think so.

The reality is, we need specialist facilities to cater to the needs of
trans people rather than taking spaces from women. Trans wings in prisons,
trans shelters, unisex *as well as* sex segregated toilet and changing
facilities etc, rather than requiring women and girls to relinquish their
spaces (changing rooms etc) to people with penises.

On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 11:33 AM MM via Marxism 
wrote:

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>
> Text:
>
> We are members of the Labour Party expressing solidarity with trans people
> in the face of hate from the media and by anti-trans groups in the 

[Marxism] Open Letter In Support Of Trans Labour Members

[MM via Marxism]

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Text:

We are members of the Labour Party expressing solidarity with trans people in 
the face of hate from the media and by anti-trans groups in the UK. We 
recognise that the UK has recently experienced a week  of coordinated 
pernicious attacks on trans people, including the launching of the execrable 
LGB Alliance and a motion passed at Hornsey & Wood Green General Meeting in 
support of Womans Place UK. The failure of the Labour Party on this issue is a 
deep wound to the principles of equality the Party is supposed to stand for.

Let us be under no illusions. The motion passed at Hornsey & Wood Green 
supports a transphobic organisation:

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/04/25/university-of-oxford-protest-transgender-feminism-womans-place/

https://clareflourish.wordpress.com/2018/04/30/womans-place-uk-transphobic/

https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2019/10/23/trans-exclusionary-group-womans-place-uk-set-to-hold-a-panel-in-oxford/

Failure of the General Secretary's office to rule the motion out of order in 
the first place is hard to comprehend but to still have failed to intervene to 
rule it out now that it has received some publicity and is going to Tottenham 
CLP is unconscionable. Our confidence in the Labour Party's commitment to 
protect trans members is shaken. Action must be taken.


Link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfb0_wA_hDX-iq5scn-L2OqrnwkfpklSptSQFJFovRJMizcQw/viewform
 

More than 500 signatures so far.
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[Marxism] My Search For Revolution & How we brought down an abusive leader - Troubador Book Publishing

[MM via Marxism]

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"In October 1985, Gerry Healy was expelled from the Workers Revolutionary Party 
(WRP) on charges of sexual abuse and violence. His defenders included leading 
Party members Vanessa and Corin Redgrave and sympathiser Ken Livingstone. Clare 
Cowen was one of five Party members who secretly laid plans to challenge Healy. 
Now, in a tell-all book, she sets the record straight.

"Cowen joined the Trotskyist Young Socialists and Socialist Labour League, 
later to become the WRP, as a student in Bristol in the heady days of the late 
1960s. It was exhilarating; she felt in tune with major class struggles and 
believed her actions were making a difference. But by the early 1980s she began 
to question Healy’s autocratic control of the Party’s policies, members and 
finances.

"The 1984-85 miners’ strike raised troubling questions among the members about 
Party policies. On 1st July 1985, Healy’s secretary went into hiding, leaving a 
letter exposing his decades-long sexual abuse of Young Socialists and women 
Party members. The work of the five conspirators was beginning to bring about 
his downfall."


https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/history-politics-society/my-search-for-revolution/
 


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[Marxism] ‘Chicano Communists and the Struggle for Social Justice’: A welcome new book | Tony Pecinovsky | People's World

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/chicano-communists-and-the-struggle-for-social-justice-a-welcome-new-book/


Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Degrowth and the Green New Deal

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://secure-web.cisco.com/1Y2bRyh7abLzjhfIEzKfPczPuOSpc2xF0zVYo6wrTkrDeXJqbYncmk4e7eOngQ8TzgFh7WqB_1JEwPF8q2ElSrxt_Dw6_espgnJGkQT_5UVr8VD_ViC9JfstH2AUYHljAmvjnnLFWC8CvX1yrFO-yaZCX5T1TVOUo-doPD1yoSeRt3inLgTzdYu5K8X7dnve7wBAuz_QVAnxsjeA_qKxE5GlSK_27dsbAg_3UeMoShp1BnCcaZg3Ndbz_ZIkB7BN1GCFPeRkLImPifeH8Gyi8uJrRGtClLJGKfyfAGD3Vxt78AHU9wt_mWqO09xj82QeXhZd5Z0IXAoq7sXUYBUR6jaIc5zam5M2oINZK1E5Tx9Bpa2PlpM0KWrTaI9s901Cn/https%3A%2F%2Ftheecologist.org%2F2019%2Foct%2F28%2Fdegrowth-and-green-new-deal

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[Marxism] Auteur missteps: The Wild Pear Tree; Everybody Knows | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://louisproyect.org/2019/10/28/auteur-missteps-the-wild-pear-tree-everybody-knows/
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Re: [Marxism] New Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Alliance founded in London

[andrew coates via Marxism]

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Many of us have been deeply affected by the bullying of people we greatly 
admire,

(2017: UK transgender rights row intensifies as book fair is cancelled
 This article is more than 1 year old

Accusations of ‘transphobia’ have led to bitter divisions within Labour and the 
Women’s Equality party, feminist and anarchist movements

"The rows “are going on within all sorts of social movements”, said Helen 
Steel, the veteran social justice campaigner known for her role in taking on 
McDonald’s in the 1997 “McLibel” case.

Steel, who is among those caught up in the book fair controversy, said that 
until now, discussion had “taken place in a bubble that has agreed with 
itself”. She added: “Now that those ideas are actually going to be translated 
into law, other people are becoming aware of those proposals and say, ‘hang on 
– can we have time to consider the implications properly and let women have a 
say in how our lives may be affected by these changes?’”

She said she had been left traumatised by 
her experience at the book fair, claiming she was surrounded by a “baying mob” 
after intervening to stop the bullying of two women who had been distributing 
leaflets about the GRA.

I have been aware that women have been bullied on this issue for a long time 
now but, until it happened to me, I was not aware of the extent of the bullying 
and am shocked by it,” Steel said. “I have been an environmental and social 
justice campaigner for most of my life. In all that time, I have never 
experienced such a toxic environment.”

Opponents of Steel and the other feminists assert that to have allowed the 
distribution of the leaflets was to create an environment in which transphobia 
was encouraged, discriminating against a group of people who already experience 
high rates of suicide, poverty and persecution."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/26/transgender-anarchist-book-fair-transphobia-row



Andrew Coates
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[Marxism] Jenny Marx on Ireland

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Jenny Marx (1870) on landlords, repression and ‘agrarian outrages’
in Ireland
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/jenny-marx-1870-on-landlords-repression-and-agrarian-outrages-in-ireland/
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[Marxism] Marx, Engels on the Fenians and the British working class - some letters

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2018/08/16/marx-engels-on-the-fenians-and-the-british-working-class-some-letters/
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