AIBU to think that this has gone way too far?

I want to be able to make a distinction between transwomen who see themselves as 'trans', those who simply hope to 'pass' and muddle along in life, and transwomen who violently invade female spaces & lives. I can't do this because my language is restricted by law as well as social policing.

Garlic - I could have written your post. I have lots of queer/genderqueer friends and have always been in favour of people having the freedom to challenge the gender binary. But somehow it seems to have stopped being about disrupting restrictive stereotypes (something which ought to free everybody) and more about ditching everything but the stereotypes, including ditching important stuff with political implications, like sexual dimorphism.

And that doesn't make anyone more free. It makes everyone less free, including a lot of people who have been fighting against those restrictive stereotypes for a long time and are suddenly being told that the political straitjacket they have grown up with isn't based in physiological differences, because those differences mean nothing. And furthermore, those oppressive stereotypes are not in fact stereotypes or oppressive but are in fact an 'identity' that we have chosen for ourselves, and the fact that others' ascription of them to us coincides with our physiology is in fact a 'privilege'

And yes yes yes - I feel like Maryz and GarlicBake. Very sad that it has come to this.

Lagoona, I would have answered pretty much the same as Maryz before this started kicking off. I come from the gender-fluid/gender-bending 1970s, have counted many permanent transwomen among my friends and even more neither/both/sometimes gendered people. I still am friends with one of the latter and - vaguely - some transwomen.

I don't care very much about gender. I'm a gender-critical feminist. Until recently, my gender-fluid friendships brought me joy & hope.

But everything about what's happening now is anti-feminist and anti-female: the replacement of biological sex with gender, the denial of human dimorphism and especially of 'woman' as a physiological reality; the meaning of 'woman' being replaced with a concept that means 'not a real man'; the frighteningly rapid erasure of women's rights & privileges in favour of transwomen's and the overwhelming, increasingly obvious hatred of women from those quarters.

I'm worried and upset that young people who feel like experimenting with gender, don't much feel like fitting into a gender stereotype, or feel like fitting one that's normally stereotyped with a different body - now feel they must declare themselves trans or agendered. Who made them believe they have the wrong body? I think it's cruel.

I want to be able to make a distinction between transwomen who see themselves as 'trans', those who simply hope to 'pass' and muddle along in life, and transwomen who violently invade female spaces & lives. I can't do this because my language is restricted by law as well as social policing.

There are gender-critical trans feminists. Thank god for them.

There are a couple of girls at DD's school who now identify as boys (I believe). Well they have changed their names. I think I will ask DD her views.

I've just had an argument (started off as a conversation!) with my 13 and 17 year old daughters about this hypothetically happening at their school - apparently I am mean and horrible to think that a boy-identifying-as-a-girl could have their own changing room, rather than getting changed in the girls' changing room. They've both stormed off and left me. They wouldn't have any problem with it, and they don't think anyone should. I asked whether they thought a girl-identifying-as-a-boy would be perfectly safe getting changed in the boys' changing room, but they didn't seem to want to discuss it that way round!

They honestly both seem to think that the transgirl's wants trump everyone else's. I'm glad they're so accepting, and so fucking opinionated, but it makes me rather sad that they're prepared to throw their (biologically) female classmates' wants and needs under the bus.

It's like a whole new sub species.

A worrying one.

Wtf is a 'male lesbian'?

I'm interested to know if anyone who thinks this is a bad idea, previously supported trans women being treated as women, in women's spaces etc?

That article is horrific. How can anybody want to see somebody get beaten up so badly? It's disgusting.

I despair at how much more work needs doing for feminism and women's rights.

I couldn't read it.

Seriously, I am beginning to think that I inhabit my own little universe.

shamelesslyunladylike.tumblr.com/post/97837364323/fallon-fox-why-hormones-dont-make-a-woman

Ive just been reading the above, about various mtt taking part in women's sports, and doing very well, surprisingly , much better than they could have done as men. It must be so demoralising for the women who have to compete against them

The sports issue makes me really cross. My dd plays football on a girls team. They are good and have a lot of fun. Very very few of them are happy playing with the boys. The boys won't pass to them, the boys get it priority, they dont want to change with them..

But that's why there is no compromise over this. We are supposed to accept TW as women just like us. I never will

The world has gone seriously fucking crazy.

Fallon Fox gets to batter women as a TG fighter whilst people cheer them on. Disgusting

but that means providing 4 facilities doesn't it. b,g, identifies as b and identifies as g. how will this work with adults?

when this was on the news here they said wd be providing more than the trad b&g facilities.

awkwardsquad I have never read a more bonkers idea regarding sport in my life! just had to comment on this point. do you not know already how few women take part in sports and the impact that this is having on heart disease and obesity in woman? the impact that this is also having on the children of woman who didn't take part in sport and therefore don't encourage their children to be as active as they need to be?

it is absolutely essential that we keep separate mens and womens teams. if we don't the bigger, stronger men will always dominate and even the bigger stronger woman who are able to compete will feel in such a minority that they will stop.

can you really see the awkward shy 12 year old with bits that wobble and all the lack of self confidence pitching up to the under 13's football with all the lads that already hang out together in school and feeling that she belongs. you can argue that this isn't right but it is what it is.

Men and women are different. they are. I completely agree with lagoonablu.