Bette Midler, Macy Gray hit back on inclusive phrasing: Why it's deemed transphobic

[Floyd R. Turbo]

The Supreme Court's overturn of Roe v. Wade has ignited heavier discussions around women's bodies, but they affect a wider range of people than just cisgender women. 

Bette Midler voiced her displeasure with language that includes all people who can get pregnant rather than simplifying the definition to women. 

Her comments fall in line with that of Macy Gray and J.K. Rowling, who have been accused of being transphobic by suggesting women other than cisgender do not belong to the same classification.

While Midler, Gray and Rowling have all voiced support for the women's rights movement, it has not been intersectional.



bettemidler
@BetteMidler
WOMEN OF THE WORLD! We are being stripped of our rights over our bodies, our lives and even of our name! They don’t call us “women” anymore; they call us “birthing people” or “menstruators”, and even “people with vaginas”! Don’t let them erase you! Every human on earth owes you!
8:28 am · 4 Jul 2022·Twitter for iPhone


https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2022/07/05/bette-midler-macy-gray-jk-rowling-terf-transphobic/7810533001/

[BlackSkimmer]

1. Perhaps you should include her quote.

I saw that yesterday.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

2. Thanks!

[Sympthsical]

3. Do we still have to be notified every time she tweets now?

This is very conundrumy.

[Celerity]

42. conundrumy, lol, (and ironically look at the 2nd result on Google)

and it from six years ago, showing that what is slightly older is now current again

[Sympthsical]

45. That is fantastic

Although I think I prefer the manga.

Oh oh, I went into the comment section of that article. It requires a porcelain umbrella.

(Completely unrelated. But every time I see AFAB, I keep wondering what Patsy said to draw everyone's ire. I mean, it sounds like something she would do).

[Lunabell]

4. Terf

Shame on her

[maxsolomon]

7. She's not a radical feminist, though.

she's just a run-of-the-mill everyday feminist.

Don't you have to be an RF before you can be a TERF?

[Dr. Strange]

10. Everyday feminist...so a TEEF?

[maxsolomon]

12. TEF works.

I think this is stemming from the Sunday NYT Op-Ed about this topic:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/03/opinion/the-far-right-and-far-left-agree-on-one-thing-women-dont-count.html

[Iris]

24. I had the same thought.

[hlthe2b]

43. That article should be in the OP. No matter how you come down on it, it is an important discussion.

The issues need to be fleshed out in the respectful discussion, not diminished to a "us against them" Twitter outrage focusing on celebrities.

[Lunabell]

13. So, giving trans people respect is radical?

I just think it's human kindness and respect for individuals. Nothing radical about dignity for all.

[maxsolomon]

46. That's not what TERF means.

A TERF is a Radical Feminist whose Feminism excludes Trans People.

I'm not enough of a Feminism expert to know who is radical and who is not, but Midler doesn't strike me as particularly unwilling to respect Trans People.

[OneGrassRoot]

5. Reading through the twitter thread yesterday...

was very educational for me. I really appreciated people who took the time to try to educate Bette and others (and I will include myself as someone who hasn't educated myself enough about the various aspects of this issue) which were interspersed throughout.

I also wasn't aware of her previous problematic tweets, like a few years ago when she tweeted that "women are the n-word of the world." She did apologize for that after it blew up.

I hope she'll really listen and process the education provided, and then apologize. I doubt many people will ever beat Lizzo in the quickly-and-sincerely-educable department though. She redid a whole song overnight because of language she didn't realize was ableist and thus offensive. Huge props to her.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/lizzo-changes-lyric-in-new-song-grrrls-after-ableism-criticism

[delisen]

6. Get rid of generic man, male, and guy it's easy if you try

Imagine all the people acknowledging everyone’s personhood, everyone’s equal worth.

Patriarchy views me as of little worth except for my reproductive organs. Google ad remind me of this daily. I think many people fear going against patriarchy. Easier to dump on the less powerful, the objectified, the refined.

My view of humanity includes everyone equally. I also do not favor erasure of womenkind. Matriarchy did not take away away my human rights because I have never lived in a matriarchal society. It is a patriarchy, and it’s quisling apologists that have stripped me of my human rights.

The term woman is a beautiful term and it beings with it a cultural heritage that must not be erased from the face of our earth. If you think this is hyperbollic, check out what industrialized patriarchy has done to decimate the viability of male sperm. Runaway patriarchy kills everything eventually, bodies, rights, speech, communication, air and, water, earth.

From here on out try using the term people because that includes us all and excludes no one. Because when patriarchy crushes us, the other, it will kill everything. We must survive.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

8. Bette, you have some 'splaining to do...

Because of her track record, along with the fact that I really can't say with 100% certainty what she is trying to say, I don't know what to think of Bette's tweet. Is she trying lash out at the forced birthers and just not phrasing it well? Is she trying to go full Rose McGowan and lashing out at the trans community? I really can't tell. I have read this tweet about 40 times, and I don't know how to react to "being stripped... and even of our name!" Is that a slap in the face for us wanting our identity respected? Is that you calling out the right for trying to reduce you to a vagina and a womb? I don't know. It can go either way. There were definitely some loaded statements there, but... What was her intent and who were her targets?

So... I guess we're waiting, Bette.

As for you Macy Gray... There is no grey area, no uncertainty, no "Would you care to clarify that?" That was flat-out hateful, bigoted and transphobic. She absolutely put herself in JacKass Rowling territory with that hateful rant. She has left no doubt whatsoever... She is bigoted. She is a TERF. And she's downright hateful.

If her goal was upset us and turn us against her: Mission accomplished. I just purged the music I had of hers from my collection. Her shit won't be played over my headphones again anytime soon.

Fuck your bigotry and privilege, Macy. I have no respect for TERFs like you.

[Hekate]

9. Dear Bette: I am a woman. Once I birthed -- I no longer do. Once I menstruated -- I no longer do.

Last edited Wed Jul 6, 2022, 01:44 AM - Edit history (1)

I still have all my bits and pieces, but that is conditional on cancer.

And ain’t I a woman?

My mother died without her womb and breasts and even a lot of her vagina.

And ain’t she a woman?

I think Bette gets that.

People can do intersectionality all they want, and I applaud their efforts to demand their place in this world.

But like Bette Midler, I am woman, and like Helen Reddy, hear me roar. Respect that.

So fuck this particular fight where we all need to be taught a new vocabulary for this brave new world and get called nasty names if we can’t keep up. Put me on ignore, all of you who cannot respect me, as I am and as I have fought to be for over 70 years.

Hekate

[betsuni]

14. +1

[Raine]

15. +2 nt

[haele]

18. Pointing out that the military uses the phrase "people who can be pregnant" because...

Trans men who have not yet gotten a hysterectomy can get pregnant. Hormone therapy does not always keep trans men from becoming pregnant.
There are also non-Binary gender/intersex persons (who used to be called hermaphrodites) can also become pregnant because they have genitalia from both genders.
Edited - the DoD has recognized this for nearly a decade. Things happened during Gulf War Ii that really brought gender issues out to the open.

It's not "erasing" women. It's including those who are an the margins in terms of gender. You're still allowed to say you're a woman...
It's difficult to grasp unless you know an intersex person; I have a second cousin who had their penis cut off because their parents figured it would be easier to make them a girl instead of a child with both sex genitals. In 1963.

Was Danielle really a boy or a girl? I don't know, they don't know, but they were miserable, even after finding someone who would marry them and they had a boy. And got divorced from their husband soon after.

On second edit -
https://www.babymed.com/pregnancy/hermaphrodite-can-they-get-pregnant#

They came out to me because of something my mother said at a family reunion six years back. We still talk.

Haele

[hlthe2b]

44. why is "women and others who can become pregnant" not inclusive?

or "women and other people who can become pregnant?" It seems the sensitivity is the refusal to use the word "woman" at all in these discussions, not the need to be more inclusive. Just respectfully asking. I have my lead shield up, however, if that is necessary

[WhiskeyGrinder]

26. .

So fuck this particular fight where we all need to be taught a new vocabulary

What does this mean?

[BannonsLiver]

48. +1

This is why we lose. Pointless fights over pointless tweets. Meanwhile, the Republicans keep working and organizing like the sadistic little beavers they are. But hey, at least Bette is sorted out.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. Then she added Islamophobia later today. Fuck that garbage.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

49. Who did? Bette?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

51. Yes.

[Pisces]

16. Bette Midler is a strong democrat! If she is standing up for womens rights and it isn't in the most

Politically correct way possible should we burn her at the stake??? What are we doing fighting with old democrats that trip up on things??? This seems like a circular firing squad. Can there be no room for grace or learning curve??? This is right out of a Republican handbook to make us fight with ourselves. We know she is a true blue democrat. I’m not sure if we are accomplishing what we think we are with these purity tests of older democrats. There are real hatemongers out there. We need to worry about them. The true enemy doesn’t lie within it is the Republican Party and their Supreme Court appointments!

[Jose Garcia]

19. What is the age cut-off for "older Democrats?"

[Pisces]

30. A goog guesstimate would be 40 and older

[Celerity]

40. In the first two Millennial birth years (1981/82, so now, before year's end 2022, those born then

will be 40 or 41 years old) 7.3 million people were born in the US.

Are we now going to start calling a couple million (or so) of those 1981/82- born Millennials 'old' Democrats?

No snark intended btw.

[meadowlander]

20. You can point out that someone is wrong without burning them at the stake.

Pointing out that they are wrong and asking them to do better is not a "purity test". And that's all that I see going one here. What's the alternative? Sending trans and non-binary people to the back of the bus?

You can stand up for women's rights without excluding trans women. It's actually pretty easy.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

27. If she's not standing up for trans women, then she's not standing up for all women's rights.

[Hekate]

35. It is very much a circular firing squad

[David__77]

17. Her choice to group anti-choice and those using certain trans inclusion language together is notable

She has a criticism of the language others choose to use, claiming that it is an erasure. She was not responding to a criticism of the language she chooses to use.

[Beaverhausen]

21. Exactly

There is a big misunderstanding here. No one should question the Divine Miss M’s love and support for the LGBTQ community.

[Hekate]

36. Thank you

[Takket]

22. who is the "they" she is referring to???

The article doesn't mention that. Does she see this language and assume it is some right wing attempt to erase "women" and try to reduce them to nothing more than vessels to carry a man's baby? Does she not understand those terms are meant to bring trans women into the circle with cisgender women?

I think Midler deserves the benefit of the doubt and a chance to learn and clarify. She is a loyal and staunch liberal and it seems incredibly unfair to label her as transphobic when it could just be she made a poor choice of words, or used words in a context she just didn't understand.

I'd like to hear what she has to say before we banish her to the Wizarding world of JK Rowling (who has made her transphobia QUITE loud and clear. Fuck her).

[Takket]

23. FYI.......... her message

Link to tweet

?s=20&t=Ic6qJ0dVvhMO8NqBKlS28g

[Pisces]

25. I hope this is enough for everyone

[Hekate]

37. It probably will not be.

Last edited Wed Jul 6, 2022, 02:16 AM - Edit history (1)

You were right about the circular firing squad aspect.

[Celerity]

41. I highly doubt it, as look at the article Midler praised. The article is already enraging many.

Important:

I am posting a small section of this New York Times article (the one that was just posted in the Midler tweet above) for educational/discussion reasons ONLY. I am NOT, I repeat NOT, endorsing the views held by the author.


The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/03/opinion/the-far-right-and-far-left-agree-on-one-thing-women-dont-count.html

snip

Far more bewildering has been the fringe left jumping in with its own perhaps unintentionally but effectively misogynist agenda. There was a time when campus groups and activist organizations advocated strenuously on behalf of women. Women’s rights were human rights and something to fight for. Though the Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified, legal scholars and advocacy groups spent years working to otherwise establish women as a protected class.

But today, a number of academics, uber-progressives, transgender activists, civil liberties organizations and medical organizations are working toward an opposite end: to deny women their humanity, reducing them to a mix of body parts and gender stereotypes. As reported by my colleague Michael Powell, even the word “women” has become verboten. Previously a commonly understood term for half the world’s population, the word had a specific meaning tied to genetics, biology, history, politics and culture. No longer. In its place are unwieldy terms like “pregnant people,” “menstruators” and “bodies with vaginas.”

Planned Parenthood, once a stalwart defender of women’s rights, omits the word “women” from its home page. NARAL Pro-Choice America has used “birthing people” in lieu of “women.” The American Civil Liberties Union, a longtime defender of women’s rights, last month tweeted its outrage over the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to several groups: “Black, Indigenous and other people of color, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, immigrants, young people.”

It left out those threatened most of all: women. Talk about a bitter way to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX. The noble intent behind omitting the word “women” is to make room for the relatively tiny number of transgender men and people identifying as nonbinary who retain aspects of female biological function and can conceive, give birth or breastfeed. But despite a spirit of inclusion, the result has been to shove women to the side.

snip

[WhiskeyGrinder]

28. This is a shitty article by a misogynist TERF, so....

[WhiskeyGrinder]

29. One side says "trans women are women." The other one makes laws about what people can and can't

do with their bodies. They're not the same.

[Pisces]

31. Exactly. We need to focus on the other side! Not our own

People who aren’t up on the most politically correct terminology.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

32. It's important to do both. Being a good ally means listening to the people you want to stand up for.

I don't want my allies getting inspired by a TERFy op-ed.

[Pisces]

33. I think it's more important to know who the real enemy is.

We cannot be in lock step on all issues. If someone steps in it by mistake we can not cancel them. There has to be room for a learning curve. This intrafighting is just what Republicans want. We need to focus all Emerson defeating them.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

34. I am very sure that everyone here knows who the real enemy is. The issue is when people we think

are friends use the language of the enemy and get mad when they're called on it.

[Withywindle]

39. The panic about "erasure of women" is more violent towards trans men

The assumption that everyone capable of getting pregnant MUST be a woman basically writes trans men out of existence.

Of course trans women are women, but some TERFS lost their shit even harder when you say trans men are men, and some of them need abortion and pregnancy care.

[AntivaxHunters]

52. Wellp.....

Link to tweet

?s=20&t=bDqlrpw2RdK5UCW1Jjuodw

[Withywindle]

38. It's transphobic because not all people who have uteruses and are at risk are women

It's simple as that. Trans men are at high risk of "corrective rape" and being treated horribly when they seek out medical care. Many or most trans men can get pregnant. Some want to, and should be supported in that. Some do not want to, and should receive non-judgmental, respectful care (that names and genders them properly), just like cis women should.

I'm a cis woman, and I do not feel in any way dehumanized or erased by phrasing like "pregnant people."

Even when I could get pregnant, before menopause, it would actually have been nice to have the person-first phrasing. I never experienced womanhood as being tied to my baby-making organs (which I never used for that purpose, by choice).

But I want straightforward, safe, non-judgmental care for everyone who can get pregnant. Some of those people are trans men and nonbinary people. I want them all treated kindly and respected for who they really are.

[Deep State Witch]

47. You Would Think That Someone Who Started Out

Singing to drag queens would be a little more sympathetic to trans people.

[Johnny2X2X]

50. This is why we lose

I get being considerate, but attacking people for using language like mother and women is comically counterproductive.

Jesus, they're turning half the population's bodies over to state control and our side wants to chastise people for saying mother. Is it any wonder how we've gotten into this dire situation?