The men are they, The women are we.

Guest post by k8 monsta

Editor’s Note: Horton is a Women’s Holiday Centre set up in England in 1979. It offers low-price holiday accommodation, in a friendly and supportive environment, for women and children who were otherwise restricted by their circumstances. It was made possible by donations from women and many hours of women’s volunteer time. Thousands of women, children and groups have used the house and it has become a well-established and well-used resource for women in the north of England and beyond. The House has been sustained successfully since then through a combination of income from visitors, donations and fundraising, and many hard working volunteers.

As a women’s holiday centre, Horton’s policy says “we are able only to welcome women born women and living as women.” So it is unsurprising that it has attracted the attention of those who support “trans women” i.e. men, who want to be able to go there. A petition has been created which states “We are 65 women who have either visited or would potentially like to visit the Women’s Holiday Centre, and who feel strongly that you should change your Gender Identity policy.”

This has sparked much discussion on Horton’s Facebook group. This post is based on a comment by woman about her views about Horton and the need for truly women-only space.

Here we have a woman saying that these men are “more of a woman than me”…

I’m thinking of the Brit guy, the bloke who was a boxing promoter for twenty years… He was a father to several kids, a husband, obviously a son and quite possibly a brother…

Trying to get my head around this geezer being “more of a woman than me”….

Are we plumbing new depths of masochistic self abnegation here?

Is this altruism raised to a new power of lunacy?



Am thinking parallels: Is that silly Rachel Dolezal “more of an African American” than Audre Lorde?

Are the Syrian immigrants “more Scottish” than Scottish natives?

Is someone what they claim to be, more so than those who are?

Because of their desire?

Their strong desire…

In the case of skills-based identity, obviously not: Wanting to be a plumber or a violinist simply does not make it so.

The argument against claiming false heritage also seems to have won the day: We do not accept that a Caucasian woman is of African heritage, despite her pleas and remonstrations.

She is white. Even though she passed for Black for many years, and lived “as a black woman,” supposedly.

So what is it to “be a woman”? There is no defining characteristic of being a woman. To be a woman is to be nothing. To be defined only in terms of men. To be made up, made over, made nothing of.

To be caricatured as by Dame Edna or Lily Savage, or Mrs Brown of the boys fame. Several famous actors, mainstream films… Lots of comedy showing how easy it is for men to impersonate women, us…

And we are all very polite about not pointing out how hopelessly bad they are at it. How big and male they are.

Now we have these men with their willies claiming to be lesbians and accusing women loving women of being oppressive when we won’t let them fuck us.

Are we going to be polite with them too? Polite and sympathetic: there there, fragile male ego… Of course you can fuck us.

Is that what it is to be a woman?

Fuckable.

Well you third wave liberal fools can follow this cult if you want, but you are seriously missing key important understandings about what it is to be a woman alone in this mans world.

To be a woman starts with being a girl. A girl who senses or encounters directly, the threat and abuse of male power. One in four of us is raped.

Before we are adult.

I can think of many, many friends and lovers… Sobbing as they shared their truths with me.

To be a woman is to be a daughter, to have that relationship, that storm, that cauldron who is our mother….

To hate and fear and love her who gave us life, and to have no songs, no art, no religion, no drama, no literature, no representation of that.

Anywhere.

To be a woman loving woman….

Is to respect and recognise when and where you can share space with other women, intimate trusting and passionate space.

And to guard it savagely, knowing that it holds the seed of everything creative and alive and worthwhile.

There are two kinds of people in this world we live in.

One or the other a person must be;

The men are they,

The women are we.