One user put it plainly that, unlike in the US and other parts of Europe, second wave feminism actually took hold and gained a moderate amout of political power in its heyday in the UK, and the culture started to reflect this. Unfortunately, that also helped to cement it too firmly in the cultural zeitgeist to the point that there was less of an urge to analyse third-wave feminism and beyond, by basically enshrining this overly dogmatic, biologically deterministic, and somewhat mystical ideal of "womanhood" into law in several generations of britons, and ciswomen in particular.
So when later feminist theory starts to contradict this, they get all up in arms and start crying wolf, co-opting the language of the oppressed to become oppressors themselves. The entire shitshow over restrooms, and changing rooms is framed as laws that hate women and children and want to make it easier for women to be assaulted, formal recognition of transwomen will mean that jailed women will be more subject to sexual assault, and so forth. Crucially, this lack of general adoption of later feminist theory, of course, gives rise to the usual spat of reactionary, carcerial feminism, manifesting in its usual forms as the liberalism we so love to hate; more women CEOs, more women imperialists, harsher carceral punishments for sex offenders (who would include transfolk in this category, of course), and stricter control of medication. As far as they're concerned, you can be gay or lesbian, and you can enjoy cross-dressing; those are your options, and if you don't like it, fuck you.
To top it off, transphobes have their own website for organizing their wretched ideology amongst themselves on mumsnet, which is basically strormfront for transphobes ostensibly playing the role of a parenting support forum. It's fucked.
This is interesting, but why did second wave feminism take hold in the UK and prevent the third wave from doing its thing? Why did the third wave have a relatively easier time in the USA?
This is just a personal theory, so take the requisite pinch of salt, but the UK did have a stronger Labour presence in the 20th century postwar, and was backed by the power of trade unions. The key difference in how it's worked thus far in the UK vs the US, is that in the UK, demands are set by trade unions, which are then fed directly to the party (or used to be before nu-Labour), which once in power can simply codify it into law. In the US, progressive laws are only made as a compromise after years and years of protesting, legal litigation, and callous, deliberate ignorance by the part of the ruling class who eventually might give in to pressure once the culture has overall normalized it too late. As for why it seemingly never progressed past second wave feminism, I cannot say. Complacency, or the lack of an effective union backing for demands after the Thatcher years destroyed what little remained of the SocialDemocratic Labour party of the 70s into the technocratic neoliberal monster it is today.
It's becuase they have acutal TERFs in the UK, like people who would otherwise be feminists and leftwing but are rabidly transphobic; real TERFs are basically non-existent in the US or Canada. So where as in the US transphobia is seen as exclusive to the right-wing and Christian fundamentalists, in the UK transphobia is non-partisan and appears in both left(ish) publications like The Guardian and the conservative press. This creates an environment where anti-trans sentiment is pervasive, as there is no concerted pushback from the libs and the left. It also dosen't help that older politicians and writers are more likely to be transphoic and they tend to be in power in both politics and the press.
For what it's worth, based on polling data, 50-60 percent of British people are generally supportive of trans-rights, with anti-trans opinion hovering around 30 percent. This is comparable to the US, although the US population seems to be more consistently pro-trans-rights.
Edit: and they have so many TERFs becuase Third Wave feminism never really took hold in the UK to challange some of the retrograde assumptions of Second Wave feminism, as Straight_Depth discusses.
Gender segmented private schools predominant among upper class. Extremely institutionally entrenched upper class. Anglo brain worms.
Victorian society is also where the idea of "gender-specific bathrooms" came from.
It isn't ? I live in France and ppl are really transphobic too, you probably hear about the british more
I think compared to the us ppl in europe are also much more attached to the gender binary. Like there was a recent poll where half of ppl in the us 30 and younger believe that gender is a spectrum. I'd be surprised if even a quarter of french or germans believed that
I blame the shit weather. Only the most stubborn, backwards and dreary willingly live in such crap weather while all of the fun people move to where it's pleasant and warm.
grey cold weather can be sorted with a hoodie, if it's too hot there's not a lot you can do other than run from AC unit to AC unit or just sit and sweat like a pig :stress:
I mean I have too but West Washington cold and sad and dark is much different than Alaska cold and sad and dark
The only thing greyer than their skies is their dirty river.
And their nasty fucking food, holy fuck I though American breakfasts were garbage, but British makes it look like it's an excellent Spanish breakfast in comparison.
Mumsnet is also basically a more absurd type of Facebook and its pretty popular
