Embarrassed to ask but...

And that's without even getting started on gay and lesbian erasure, or the fact that transgender politics by its very nature upholds the existence of rigid sex stereotype roles, which are harmful for both women and men ...

OP to answer your question directly I think the issue is not purely about whether someone has had an op or not.

In a world where the odds are stacked against women (and have only improved for western women vanishingly recently in historical terms), I think it does matter if people who are male and are raised with male socialisation appropriate really hard-won resources and spaces that women managed to carve out for ourselves, and attempt to speak on our behalf. It changes the way we use our spaces and the way we talk to each other - the dynamics of female groups and female discussions inevitably change when someone male turns up. It makes it harder for us to organise politically in our own interests and to take pleasure in being in the company of other women.

It doesn't really matter if someone has the op or not or what their motivation is for transitioning - I'm interested in the end result, which on current trend will end up as anything but feminist.

Nobody would ask or expect race campaigners or ethnic minority groups to centre white people's feelings and hand over hard-won resource and space to them. But people do feel free to ask that of women with respect to transwomen. Which illustrates the point that we haven't come as far on attitudes to women as we think.

What troubles me most about this, and where I think we should be concentrating our fight against it, is the effect on children who do not conform to rigid gender stereotypes being encouraged to think of themselves as transgender. Documents like this one are being used by schools:
www.allsortsyouth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Trans-Inclusion-Schools-Toolkit.pdf
Schools are being encouraged to promote the idea of 'gender identity' and whether or not this matches the child's biological sex. They talk about children who 'want to transition' as though it's some sort of lifestyle choice, rather than a lifetime of hormone treatment and major surgery.

I've just written to my MP on this issue for the first time. She sent a long response the last time I wrote and posts a lot of pictures of her meeting various local women's groups, so I hope I won't get fobbed off all called a bigot.

I included in there how reluctant I've been to speak out on my worries as I've been scared of the backlash that women who speak out face. I hope this will make her see that there are lots of women feeling silenced and intimidated here.

I'm a teacher and worry that I'm risking my job if I say that a vagina is a female body part to the wrong person. How ridiculous is that that we have got to this stage? I then decided that I would be ashamed of myself if I didn't speak out before the identity bill goes through.

Self identification means that people who were born men can access resources which have set aside specifically for women (often to to redress inequality): jobs, scholarships, grants, places in a refuge.
Self identification means that people who were born men can expect to compete against women in sport despite having huge physical advantages.
Self identification means that people who were born men can expect to receive awards in the female category, even if they have previously received them in the male category.

These are already happening under current systems of gender recognition, but self identification will presumably remove any need even for evidence of inner malaise.

It is the apparent censorship and the shutting down of any debate that worries me, along with lack of checks and balances with the self-identification issue.

I am very much a live and let live person, but I do not like the underhandedness of the current proposals.

There used to be a talk of 'pre-op' and 'post-op' transsexual.

Now that has been abandoned as apparently it's much too intrusive to ask if that person in the changing room with your daughter has a penis or not.

Hence the trans community itself has rejected the question itself as out-of-order.

So basically it's irrelevant. By the trans' community own claims.

Also note that only a very small % of transwomen have had the op. It's a pretty shitty thing from what I understand, the 'vagina' has to be dilated regularly or it will heal up.

So

(a) they always still have a penis
(b) even if they don't, the trans community won't allow you to ask, transgender is (according to them) self-declarative.

So you must assume that ALL transwomen have a 'seven-inch surprise'

I'm trying to write to my MP about it, without coming across as over reacting to a numerically insignificant situation, or as a bigot.

I've become aware of this:
Self identification means that people who were born men can access resources which have set aside specifically for women (often to to redress inequality): jobs, scholarships, grants, places in a refuge.
Self identification means that people who were born men can expect to compete against women in sport despite having huge physical advantages.
Self identification means that people who were born men can expect to receive awards in the female category, even if they have previously received them in the male category.

Every time this happens, a woman misses out.

Self identification makes it harder for women to keep themselves safe in refuges, hospitals etc.
Self identification means the word woman apparently no longer applies to someone like me.

Current trans politics means finding medical help for your gender dysphoria child is hard, unless you accept the current treatment route which risks physical mutilation and drug induced sterilisation.

If I try to talk about any of the above, I risk being called bigoted and accused of hate crime.

There is a lot more very emotive stuff, but what I have said is enough for me, to be honest.

MissSlighCarp's provided an excellent summary. I couldn't do better. If you're confused, OP, please ask questions.

Don't forget we can obtain instant equality in Parliament if just under half the current MPs suddenly decide that they are, for the purposes of gender equality, women.

The argument is whether or not it is permitted to voice the opinion that people who were born male, and who may or may not still have male appearance and genitalia, are not women in exactly the same way that you or I are women.

If the self-identification law goes ahead, the answer to the question above will be No. If a person with a beard and penis decides he 'identifies as a woman', whatever that may mean, then it will be unlawful to treat him as anything else.

So if feel awkward and embarrassed about having him lying next to you in a hospital ward, if you don't want him carrying out your smear test because you're a rape survivor and you prefer a female nurse, if you don't want to share a cell with him in prison or share a room with him in a women's domestic violence shelter because you're already traumatised from years of male violence, if you don't want him performing personal care for your learning-disabled teenage daughter or your frail elderly mother, then tough shit, you're a bigot and you need to get over yourself.

Apparently this is progress.

What is the prevailing view with regard to trans people in current feminist discourse?

In my opinion, no, it is not just about bepenised people. Although for me, I reached peak trans when I realised that transgender was not just a prissier term for transexual (old gimmer). I had assumed transwomen actually wanted to be women, and found the bearded bepenised lesbians made me question that somewhat.

I am also disquieted about the effect on children and teenagers being encouraged to consider themselves trans if they are vaguely non gender-conforming or hesitant about their sexuality (which would be most of them) and encouraged to go down the route of hormones and surgery which may not actually be appropriate for them, and could lead to them being sterile or having cancer later in life.

It's all one big shitstorm.