Yes, it is another trans thread - attempted murderer Lauren Jeska

Bit I am still a bit troubled by referring to him as 'she' me to, I use they.

We can be welcoming but sometimes the response to trans posters is almost fawning yes it is. I switch off when that starts. If a transwomen wants to come along and say, "fair enough, I'm male, it's my issue and I can see that this is causing women a problem, what can I do" I'll engage, but they always always want to put their point of view, try to get us on side. It's always about them, just sometimes more subtly than others.

Miranda certainly sounds like a feminist is what I was saying. Can a male be a feminist? I don't know. A feminist ally certainly.

I think the transitioning legally is the area that causes problems, it just blurs the distinction between biological sex and gender when they are totally different things.

I don't think transgender and feminism are natural enemies. I think in many ways transgender people have the same aims as feminism - to break down the gender myth. The problem was that until fairly recently breaking gender taboos wasn't accepted and the only way to live without persecution was to be diagnosed with a mental illness and have a gender reassignment. And the legacy of that is what causes all the problems we have today.

I think this man - yes he calls himself a man while wearing a dress and make up- is a wonderful example of how to rock gender non conformity without being ashamed and hiding your past: twitter.com/streetvoiceuk?lang=en whilst standing up for the feminist cause (I don't know if that makes him a feminist or feminist ally).

"to admit that she's male"

I find the mental gymnastics required to even say such a sentence extremely brainhurty.

How often do we thank each other for our veiws or opinions?
Yeah exactly this.
We can be welcoming but sometimes the response to trans posters is almost fawning. I think it's because we all know it's not easy and want to be sympathetic but it is interesting because female posters don't get that and men certainly don't even the very thoughtful ones. We just all chat. Which is as it should be.

It's interesting that I felt a sense of relief at this "admit that she's male".... Bit I am still a bit troubled by referring to him as 'she'. It seems to be a bit too much to ask of strangers to play along with that kind of charade.

Miranda yardley would be the first to admit that she's male, which ironically makes it easier for me to accept her as a woman, because she's not aggressively insisting that people accept that or be raped. I don't know her or anything, only online.

Jelly can a biological male be a feminist? Hasn't that been half of what a landed is in this mess in the first place? Left wing males thinking they can define what feminism is and what it should do.

I don't know if Yardley self defines as feminist, I imagine supporting of feminist agenda would be likely.

The publicness of this forum means that I have to accept the silencing presence of transgender males but they equally have to accept that they might read stuff that is unpleasant for them.

YY. That's a big part of the problem, this idea that they should be protected from reading anything they don't like, but we should have to say things we don't like and our feelings don't matter or are even considered.

The whole concept of "misgendering" is a gaslighty headfuck

Because what it really means is accepting that gender is an individual thing that exists in a vacuum when feminists know that gender is the foundations of the social order we call patriarchy. "Misgendering" is an ideological term. I accept neither that ideology nor its language

Exactly, nailed it.

I think that language is quite important. In Indonesia you have 'wanita' (woman), 'pria' (man) and 'waria' (wanita-pria or woman-man).

And while 'masculine' woman exist they would probably just be called 'lesbi'.

What ever happened to 'ladyboy'?

Oh, and as we don't do it enough; thank you all for your interesting, informative and often very funny points of view. I've spent far too long on these threads recently!

I find it really interesting to hear other people's perspectives and believe we should treat people as a person first of all (as that's what feminism is fighting for isn't it?).

Yardley certainly sounds like a feminist to me (from her last post):

It seems folly to me for any progressive, liberationist or liberal to seek to legislate to protect gender identity when we could achieve a fairer, more tolerant and compassionate society by protecting gender non-conformity and do away with all the boxes. This would strike at the heart of so many structural problems and likely give both sides in this debate much of what they want.

This has to be the only way forward. "Protecting gender non-conformity and do away with all the boxes." This is what feminism wants too.

I believe the way trans people are treated currently is because of historical patriarchy. Rather than gender non conforming being treated as natural (that wouldn't keep women in their place would it?), it was treated as a disorder and a people were given 'treatment' and a piece of paper to put them in a box that fitted their 'correct' gender and law changed to allow them to hide their past as though it were a dirty secret.

This has continued until today as the path a non gender conforming person should take and as more people are interested in not conforming to their gender stereotype straight jacket it has all become a bit ridiculous with gender and sex being conflated.

I believe the gender reassignment law should be scrapped altogether and more protection given for the gender non conforming instead.

Gender is, after all, a spectrum so why would there be a need to transition? Or to hide your past? Surely you just are wherever you are on the spectrum. It has absolutely nothing to do with biological sex.

If I refer to transwomen as 'he' though, am I not more likely to defer to them because of my well trained female deference? I would think referring to transwomen who speak respectfully to us as 'she' would be less likely to lead me into accidental deference.

I am interested in what transwomen say about their experience of being a transwoman. Obviously They can't talk about being a woman, but that doesn't mean their opinions on this messy situation, on how to respect both trans women and women, aren't of interest.

I better not type here in that case as I typo he/she all the time. If that mind controls people or get things deleted that doesn't make sense to be but frick alll I can do to control my dis abilities

odd

If we misgender on here MNHQ will delete

That was my only point...i dont want to be deleted and i struggle to word some of my posts

Takes me fucking ages

Its actually fairly rare for me to use he and she on these threads as i dont want to get it wrong

I understand your argument, i believe you are correct

Its probably just easier for me not to post i do lurk a lot

The whole concept of "misgendering" is a gaslighty headfuck.

Because what it really means is accepting that gender is an individual thing that exists in a vacuum when feminists know that gender is the foundations of the social order we call patriarchy. "Misgendering" is an ideological term. I accept neither that ideology nor its language. And language is a very powerful mind controller. Language is thought.

I trip over my words easily, I often say him instead of her etc. Maybe it's just asd thing. My kids referring to their dad as missy or her etc & me as Mr mummy or him & they don't seem to being growing out of it as they get older. They might I guess & maybe that makes it not relevant but if I still sometime do it at this age with no where near the level of difficulty my kids have....

The pronouns don't change me being female & their dad being male. If someone prefered being termed by a nick name or choosing a'femsle' name I don't think that'd stop recognising that they are bio male. Names should be either (they are in our house) so we are pretry relaxed about any sex role steretypes in general. May be that changes perception of this, unsure. But male female remain facts. Those are fixed & I don't see those changing by differing pronouns. But I do tend to see things from different perspectives due to asd etc

Rufus I understand the thing about misgendering. But as women if we call that man a woman it suggests that we're the same and we're not. So someone is being misgendered because we're not both women. What should give? Easy. Women should stop calling themselves women.

We're being so careful not to misgender the men that we're actually misgendering ourselves. We're now non trans women or cis women. And women are actually referring to themselves as cis woman so as to not offend eg "As a cis women my experience is,,,,". It seriously needs to stop.

I call transwomen 'she' because I call a friend's transgender son 'he', as they have requested - so it seems only fair.

I might have to rethink that.

I would love to have a proper talk with their teenager, but I can't see that going too well, can you?

Posted to soon, if a transperson isn't happy being termed m/f then I think it should be up to them to campaign for a different terms. Obviously we can object re female/woman but otherwise let them figure out their own shit. Same goes for the whole toilet stuff maintain f for f & fight that boundare imo & let them campaign forkremakesenajes or a new toilet/changing solution that would work for. It's not our problem to take on &;fix & doing so is just another form of letting them into our spaces, we another reason ring to solve a problem that's not ours to pacify rather than fighting our ground. And that's just to 'female' a thing to be doing in this fight, like pacifying an abuser so as not to be the target.

Yardley has a blog, v good reading. & upuntil stepping back recently has been arguing our case very well on Twitter, transwoman I guess although no idea the terms Yardley uses, but argue female spaces should be female, acknowledges male privilage etc great blogs, easy to find & read

It's not just a matter of principle that I won't use female pronouns for MTTs.

I won't do it because I refuse trans ideology and pronouns are a much more important part of that than we sometimes might think. Firstly they are the (relatively) thin end of the wedge. Secondly they mean me allowing myself to be gaslighted into using misogynistic language. Thirdly that language is a key and forceful (and insidious) tool in the advancement of an ideology that is anti-woman. Anti-me.

With regards to MTT posters on MN - like all women I'm socialized to put boys and men first. Feminism is really important to me in deprogramming that social conditioning and female dominated spaces like this one are part of that. I will be civil to men on here but I won't change what I'm saying because they are around. Nice, probably well meaning men silence women by their mere presence because we tend to police our tone and language as a reflex to knowing they are there; sometimes we do it to be polite, to be kind sometimes we do it to keep safe. But it is always about putting men, their desires, their demands, their entitled selves first.

I'm sick of it. And it doesn't get me, my daughters, my sisters anywhere. So I won't do it. (Although I do anyway because the conditioning is so hard to escape.)

Any transgender male who takes the hump because I won't call him "her" isn't someone I want in my life. MN is a public forum and anyone can read anything on here that pains them - the rules we are all equal under are ; report it if it is out of order and or step away from a thread if it is too personal for you. The publicness of this forum means that I have to accept the silencing presence of transgender males but they equally have to accept that they might read stuff that is unpleasant for them.

I think it's that and also that they are men. It makes me feel exactly the same as when I'm talking to unpleasant men and having to politely listen while they say sexist shit and take over conversations. Nod and smile. Be polite.

How often do we thank each other for our veiws or opinions? It happens rarely on here yet I keep seeing women profusely thanking these men for their views on what it means to be a woman. More nodding and smiling. Thank you thank you thank you. How many of us are really interested in listening to a man talk about what it means to be a woman? I'm not.

This wouldn't happen on a men's forum. No such listening or validating or thanking would occur.

I don't know anything about Yardley.

OK datun I thought you meant generally/on here

WobblyLegs5

I understand and agree. I was only using those three labels in terms of what legislation might look like. ie to separate transwomen from women, whilst accepting that they are uncomfortable with the word man.

Quentin

I think it's useful to welcome transpeople. Partly because this is a fairly well mannered place and you can ask some questions. But also because if they are dodgy, it will be revealed quite quickly.

I'm happy to chat to people as it gives me a better understanding. But if, as I believe, this ideology attracts misogyny, I'm equally happy to expose it should it be there.

I think that's it Quentin.