Trans Understanding Help

Eh Mermaid have you heard or read much trans activist stuff? For a group of people who want to lead feminine lives and be accepted as feminine, some even claim to be more womanly than biological, you would be hard pushed to find a more aggressive, offensive, threatening bunch.

And on the issues of violence against transwomen it's not feminists, lesbians or any other kind of women that is killing them. You might want to take that issue up with men.

It depends what you count as "excluding" doesn't it?

I don't mean to be dismissive of women's feelings. I think all people should have a political voice and use it. Everyone should have a vote and a say. I just don't think that excluding and villifying people is justified especially if it's based on hearsay.

No one is ANGRY at TW as people; on an individual basis we're kind, supportive and understanding of those individuals and their struggles. We are however angry with arsehole TRAs who use the equality argument to defile women, and ironically MtT people in the process. We are angry that their arguments are being listened to and legislated for and that women are paying the price.

We will march beside you shouting for trans toilets and changing rooms - we know what oppression is and we support your opposition to it. But we will march against you demanding access to female toilets and changing rooms. Because THAT oppresses us.

Happy for trans people to have their own facilities, as I said on another thread.

I won't be angry at trans women for appropriating female identity and propping up a ridiculous gender binary if I can continue to have intimate safe spaces sex segregated on the grounds of biology. How's that for a compromise?

venusinscorpio I don't want to throw anybody under the bus. I'd just rather pick a fight with the people in power who have an influence on all of our lives than defenceless and powerless people just trying to survive.

But if Georgina wants access to rape crisis centres

All people who are victims of sexual assault should have access to sexual assault services.

Mermaid, you're very dismissive of the "consequences" of gender self determination. But as long as trans people's feelings about themselves are validated, that's ok. What about women's feelings? Who gives a fuck about them.

SirVixofVixHall I honestly don't understand why we need to fight each other at all. Why can't we all work together for what we want, which is equality. If there needs to be compromises, let's make them, on both sides. I am fully aware of how likely I am as a woman to be a victim of violence, but being angry at trans women, who also need help, is not going to make my position any better. Trans women aren't the enemy.

OP, how would your DH feel if a man walked into the ladies changing room at, say the swimming pool and saw you naked. He is allowed to do this because he is trans. If you complain, you will be asked to leave.

story in Seattle. Also quote from above:

Washington’s regulations even go so far to say that it is complaining women, not biological men, who should be asked to leave intimate facilities in cases of controversy over gender identity

You can't judge an entire community of people by the terrible behaviour of one individual.

The self-determination thing is complicated, and if that comes to be the way it goes I'm sure it will have consequences, that will need to be examined. But making trans women afraid and ashamed of themselves is not the way to achieve anything.

Just because science hasn't discovered the biological reason people feel like they've been born in the wrong body doesn't mean that it's not real. Science moves forward all the time. Society moves forward and changes all the time. It wasn't that long a go that people would have been horrified to share a public toilet with a black person.

Transwomen get "murdered on a daily basis"?!? I think you'll find that is women, not transwomen. I agree with titchy's post above. Men- choose whatever name you like, wear what you like, I really couldn't care less. But tell me you are a woman, and insist on using women-only facilities, taking women's places on sports teams, and bullying women who have very valid reasons for needing those places/teams, and I will fight you all the way.

And OP, however liberal your DH is, or thinks he is, he is not a woman, so women's rights and boundaries are not as relevant to him. I wonder if he'd like to go and tell a BME group how they should do anti-racism.

And personally I think most people don't post as they don't actually have a coherent argument why trans women are women.

Mermaid. Like equal protection for women under the law if they are victims of rape, assault, stalking etc. Protection against discrimination in the workplace. Being recognised as people and not objectified by men based on what we look like.

All of those things are very worthy goals. I want those things for women and trans people and men. Men already have those things. Women have those things in this country notionally but not in practice much of the time. Transwomen suffer discrimination but in a different way to women because they are not women. They are punished by the patriarchy for refusing to follow the prescriptions for their sex and identifying with the inferior sex.

Trans people need rights and protection but not at the cost of women. Allowing transwomen (men) into places/positions intended for women harms women. Not allowing women the language to name the oppression of our sex harms women.

I want trans people to be seen as equal. That does not mean treating them the same as women and that does not mean redefining woman or denying biological facts.

Mermaid. There is a big push from transactivists and lobbying groups to do away with the GRC and move towards self-determination as is already the case in other countries. Which will mean that literally any man can declare that they are a woman. Women won't be able to tell a man who's got his dick out in the ladies' changing room to get out, because no one can say he isn't trans. Those restrictions you mention would no longer apply. I despair of how ill-informed and ignorant some people are, and how prepared they are to throw women under the bus.

I think this video is a helpful overview (linked on several of the ongoing threads about the Ada Wells fallout and mentioned above).

I also think this article is helpful in articulating how a gender spectrum concept has some unintended consequences that are damaging for women.

The trend toward primacy of gender (what's in your head re how you identify with gender) over sex (biology) has MASSIVE implications for women's rights. It is not consequence free to allow people to self-determine whether they are male or female. Hence the problem with live and let live as an approach.

You currently need a gender recognition certificate that requires you to have lived as that gender' for two years (not sure I've ever 'lived as a gender' myself, but there you go).

Proposals to look at this act again, and make it possible to just rock up and declare oneself female, are what are worrying otherwise normal, kindly, sympathetic people. It's very well worth examining what there is to lose as well as gain from such changes.

I largeky share you husbands view, as long as it's reciprocated by the teams community.
Increasingly it seems that bigoted views within that community are coming to the fore.
The views of a person like Ada Wells are wholly unacceptable no matter how they identify.

Trans women should not be discriminated against because of men posing to be trans women. And it's those men that are the basis of many of the discriminatory posts on this issue above.

I was nervous about posting too, TheMagicToyshop. That's very good advice as well.

Yeah the Hockeydude, people seem to think you can just decide that you're trans on the day you get a prison sentence and insist you get put in with the women, when it doesn't work like that at all. You would need a Gender Recognition Certificate that would require you to have been diagnosed by a doctor and to have lived as that gender for two years. There seems to be so much fear based on simple misunderstanding, such a shame to be afraid for no reason.

As you are thinking about your position on this, I'd just like to suggest that you do a range of research outside of Mumsnet. There is quite a consensus on here to the extent that people who like me don't agree (and in fact find a lot of the statements disturbingly transphobic) tend to avoid posting. So don't use this forum as your one source of info.

I feel really sorry for people who have been born in the wrong body. It seems like there are two issues.

The first issue is the support/acceptance/transitioning for those who need that and most fair minded and decent people are in favour of that.

However the second issue is people who aren't actually trans, don't feel they're in the wrong body but do see the opportunity to commit crimes by saying they are trans. Which makes life even more difficult for trans people. There was a thread today linking to a story which started with the headline along the lines of beautician refuses to serve trans customer. But actually, the "customer" was a stalker who was using the beauty excuse to get into a room alone with the beauty therapist person being stalked.

I don't like some of the stuff I've read on mumsnet about trans women essentially making things worse for women. Your "average" trans woman is a person who needs support and acceptance (and wishes no harm to women's rights) and that is compromised by some men who decide to call themselves trans in order to get things that are for women, like the women's Olympic medals etc or get access to women that they would not otherwise have.