Is this for real?

[nellieellie]

I’m not really twitter savvy. But is this actually the twitter page for the Scottish Gov? mobile.twitter.com/scotgov/with_replies
It’s the bit at the top “transphobes” that has shocked me.

Can’t see what your talking about?

Yes it really is true.

I can't believe they've done that! Who was responsible for it, do you think?

Why are they turning this into people disliking trans people?

Yes it's true but I'm not sure why you are shocked, this ideology is coming from a very high place.

The fantastic thing is, as someone pointed out on another thread, a phobia is by definition an irrational fear or hatred. So they are saying that their dislike of transphobes is not based on reason. Of course, what they meant to say is that they have a hatred of your phobia. Still, they haven't defined transphobia here, so they may mean people who are violent or abusive towards transmen and transwomen, rather than people who have an opinion. We live in hope.

No, it’s not about disliking trans people. To choose this as a header given how the word “transphobic” is now routinely used to silence any debate on the proposed legal changes, routinely used against anyone, though mostly women, who have concerns about safe spaces, routinely used to no platform speakers who may disagree, for example, that a woman can have a penis. I don’t know it just seems a bit scary.

I do not consider myself transphobic but I would almost certainly be regarded as such according to the TRA agenda. Just because I do not see why ideology should trump reality, and because I don’t want to get changed in my gym next to someone with a male body.

It also gets to me a bit, because of all the issues to highlight about our society today, why pick this? There is such a narcissism about the TRA agenda. Trans rights are more important than those of women, if we don’t use correct pronouns for the non binary people we are being awful etc etc. This feeds into that.

I’d be right with this slogan if it had happened a few years back but the political context now. People losing their jobs because they question whether trans women are women, academics being hounded, or research funding stopped, women being knocked over, meetings being cancelled. I don’t know, in THAT context, this slogan does bother me, yes.

KingLouie, yes, that a good point about the word phobia.

There's already an AIBU thread about this: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3435960-To-be-angry-and-feel-the-Scottish-Gov-s-Twitter-header-is-an-attack-on-women

Should have added that what qualifies as transphobia has made the label meaningless.

Lesbians who refuse dick are transphobic, FFS. Saying that TW are not female is transphobic. It's become a nonsense.

I've always thought it would be in the best interests of the trans community if accusations of transphobia were directed at the men who actually attack them, rather than (as is currently the case) at GC women protecting women's rights. However given that it appears transwomen in Scotland (and in the whole of the UK) are at significantly lower risk of murder than women I'm not sure how much actual violence is directed at transwomen as compared to that directed at women.

The worst thing about this is that the poster campaign has 5 different versions (Dear Bigots / Disabilists / Homophobes / Racists / Transphobes) but they pick transgender for their header.

It's even more worse when you look up the hate crime stats and see that there were only 49 hate crimes link to transgender identity, so low it didn't even get covered in the summary of the report (racism = 3,249, sexual orientation = 1,112, religion = 642, and disability = 284).

So they choose transgender as their header on their twitter even though hate crimes towards transgender people are a non-issue in Scotland.

It is connected to this. The Scottish Government is consulting on whether hate crimes should be extended.

consult.gov.scot/hate-crime/consultation-on-scottish-hate-crime-legislation/

AFAIK the header was put in place around about the time the GRA consultation responses were published.

Well it basically translates as dear people raising concerns about safeguarding, women's human rights and SNPs behaviour in all this, we're scared of you raising concerns.

And so you damn well should be, SNP.

Priceless, to see one mindless cult adopting wholesale the ideology of another one!
The only good thing is that the SNP grassroots are apparently having none of this nonsense - so now with luck the SNP will be consumed with infighting, and give us all a breather from trying to a) break up the U.K. and b) impose male bodied trans people on female spaces.

Stupid question, but do they have any other header? Like rotating with racism, religious hatred, homophobic hatred, etc? Because of all the legally defined categories of hate crime, transphobic hate crime is by far and away the rarest.

It hasn't rotated as far as I can see.

Biology is transphobic
Reality is transphobic
Saying women don’t have penises is transphobic
Research into gender dysphoria is transphobic

The word has lost its meaning. But here’s an interesting excercise- If you susbstitue ‘witch’ instead, and re read all the sentences

The reason they think we are transphobic is they actually believe that being trans makes you the opposite sex. They have fallen so far into it that it doesn't matter that the transwomen has male anatomy, when they called themselves "she" they actually believe they turned into a woman and therefore are no greater risk to women in our spaces than other women.

The reason we don't get why they think we are transphobic is that we aren't operating out of their belief system and therefore cannot recreate it in ourselves

It's like the westboro baptist church- we can't understand how you could possibly hold such homophobic beliefs. They can't understand why we would not hold such homophobic beliefs - after all they think their belief system is the CORRECT one

The reason they think we are transphobic is they actually believe that being trans makes you the opposite sex. They have fallen so far into it that it doesn't matter that the transwomen has male anatomy, when they called themselves "she" they actually believe they turned into a woman and therefore are no greater risk to women in our spaces than other women.

It isn't transphobic to say that trans women arent women. Biologically its a fact that can never be changed. It is no less accurate than me telling you Im actually a hedgehog :-).

A transsexual person can be gender female but biologically will always remain male. Surgery is an adaptation to the male body to allow it to socially resemble that of a woman but it doesn't make that person biologically a woman.

In terms of risk though I do think it is important to differentiate between transsexual and others who identify as simply "transgender".
A transsexual person is medically assessed and diagnosed with gender dysphoria and transitioning through hormones and likely surgery. Such a person IMO does not represent a significant risk and transsexual people want to get on with their life quietly and peacefully. A transsexual person will be the first to tell you the TW are not women!

A transgender person (ie under that umbrella but not transsexual) I accept does pose a potential risk. Typically they are not medically assessed, not medicated through hormones and in some cases sexually motivated to "transition".