just got my comment deleted on the Guardian website

that's bollocks' [real lack of debating skills with that one]

I'm not interested in debating lies. I think people get caught up in the details of the lies instead of addressing the actual lying. Which is what liars want.

Anyway HoldBack - I am totally serious. Putting all knee-jerk judgement/distaste about the kind of threads that currently draw more discussion on MN to one side, why do you think it is such a big issue in Feminism Chat?

Think about the wider context.
Currently people are being no-platformed and hounded if they say a word against transgenderism. MN is one of the few places people can speak freely.
Right now, in this time, TRAs are trying to change laws, which can 1) harm and sterilise children, 2) impinge on women's rights - so this issue is highly pertinent right now.
There are a lot of people who are sick of being silenced and forced to go along with blatant lies in the name of political correctness or be ousted from their feminist groups, face employment tribunals, etc. It is brainwashing and creating a climate of fear.

In this wider context, can you see why it might be the case that this topic is popular here?

Firstly not addressing the OP, then telling us what to talk about, saying we are patronising and hysterical women who 'speak to people like shit', and all in just two posts?

Are you trying to break some sort of derailing record? 😂

There are times in a debate when you have to put finer feelings aside, and call a bollocks a bollocks. It's as simple as that.

there were no italics in 'should' and 'serious thought on your part' in my post - if that's what you are referring to

And the one time someone disagrees with the trans hysterics they are patronised or spoken to like a piece of shit (eg 'stop fucking lying to us' 'that's bollocks' [real lack of debating skills with that one], 'grass' are just a few from this thread.)

Hysteria? Hysterical? What a stupid claim. It's something typically said to women by men to shut them up.

But if we sit back and allow the definition of "woman" to become eroded to the extent that we can no longer talk about issues pertaining to natal women (FGM, breast cancer, birth, etc.) all the other problems become purely academic.

I did start several posts about those issues under my old username (whuch was mycat). Funnily enough they didnt get much response which was a shame and taught me that i'm clearly not a mumsnet feminist. Oh and the italics in 'should' and 'serious thought on your part' demonstrate my point about patronising comments. It doesnt matter what anyone who is not hostile to trans writes it will always be met with responses like these. Anyway am out now so cant reply further (before any flouncing accusations appear)

But genuinley, all the trans hate here is doing no one any good. You'll all end up with high blood pressure, or spontaneously combusting.

Why aren't the majority of threads here about.......

Interesting question. And deserves some serious thought on your part.

But the way you ask resembles that thing where any feminist stand on any particular issue that any feminist takes at any time will inevitably be met with one or more people happily wading in to tell them they should be focusing on different issues instead. Why do you think people do that HoldBackTheRain?

I look forward to contributing on the threads you start about all of the problems we should be talking about, holdback

Making facts up doesn't make great reading either. As a radical feminist, I think the erasure of women means we can't talk about any of that other stuff.

Violence is a massive problem as is poverty, housing, the pay gap and female circumcision. But you cannot talk about any of that stuff in most lib fen spaces because someone will pipe up with 'yeah, but it's even worse for transwomen'. Every. Single. Time.

Vanilla is right - it's the attitudes of posters that make the feminist board a place to avoid, unortunately.

Anyone that cries out that there's no transphobia on MN should just have a look at feminist chat. Nearly every single thread started is about transgender, and from the onset it's hostile. Posters are hysterical about trans people when there are serious issues that affect all women - the biggest I can think of are violence, and poverty and austerity (87% of austerity cuts hit women and 80% of women are mothers. That's something to be up in arms about, not gender neutral toilets). Why aren't the majority of threads here about the women that are relying on foodbanks to feed their kids or women seeking asylum who are destitute and being disbelieved by the home office who send them back to countries where they have been raped and seen family members killed in front of them? Southern trains getting rid of guards on trains, putting people's safety at risk? Underground stations cutting ticket offices and staff - how many women (and men) feel as safe as they did a few years ago travelling alone?

And the one time someone disagrees with the trans hysterics they are patronised or spoken to like a piece of shit (eg 'stop fucking lying to us' 'that's bollocks' [real lack of debating skills with that one], 'grass' are just a few from this thread.)

That's probably why these threads are full of people that agree with each other and clap each other on the back for their 'excellent' posts. Whenever someone (in this case Vanilla) has a different view on transgender they are pounced on aggressively, belittled and patronised and then accused of flouncing when they've had enough of banging their head against a brick wall. I'm sure you all think you're great. What you write and how you write it does not make great reading.

LumelaMme, on the plus side, only 3 people have upticked that comment, whilst 80 people have upticked the response to it - "Stupidest statement on this topic so far -- against stiff competition."

Just looked at the Guardian thread and stumbled across this comment right at the top:
'Women who cannot accept transwomen as real women, are not real women.'
OH FUCK OFF!!!!

Sorry. Needed to get that off my chest.

I think it may well be, Olenna. It's partly how it slipped under my radar. All those forms asking for your gender - 'tick male or female'. I accepted the term gender, even though I knew male and female were not genders but sexes. I metaphorically shrugged my shoulders at their prissiness. But I didn't question it.

Is our collective prudishness at saying / seeing / hearing the word "sex" to blame for the ease with which we have moved from transexual to transgender?

Even if there was unequivocal proof that there are two different types of brain (and I'll never believe there would be) it still wouldn't make any difference.

Our sexed bodies are what dictates our experience.

Yours too, Datun

Great post, WhereyouLeftIt

GardenGeek

I think the party line over the race versus sex analogy is the reiteration of pink brain/blue brain.

Someone blacking up has obviously been born white. And at no point in their lives could they have experienced the world as anything other than being white.

That transactivists will have it that they have a pink brain. And therefore viewed the world through female eyes since they were born.

They sidestep the fact that no one else saw them as female tho. And therefore they were treated like the males they are.

I've seen them say that because they were really women internally, they didn't notice any male privilege, but only observed the misogyny reserved for women and somehow absorbed it themselves...

And then the argument gets spectacularly derailed with cries of but it was horrible being misgendered from birth, you don't know how difficult it is been, blah blah blah.

Talking

I see what you are saying now. And yes I totally agree. Plugging way will have its results in the end.

"I do wonder if in order to debate with those types we have to keep stressing over and over again that effectively we're on the same side as them. We share the same ideals."
I think you have a point. Also - I think the people who argue we are bigots are ill-informed; I think they see the word 'transgender' and can't actually imagine that that now means more that people with gender dysphoria.

I know I didn't reach peak trans until I realised that transgender wasn't just a prissier word that actually meant 'transexual'. Until then, I was just fine with the extremely small number of people crippled by this condition to be accommodated. Believing that they would have had extensive psychiatric help and counselling and that gender reassignment surgery had been the last resort, because by god that's some brutal surgery to subject yourself to! Such naivety. Then I slowly realised that it was something completely different - the people I had sympathy for were just a small subset being used as a human shield by those with AGP. And the narcs with their gender-fluid bollocks. And the frankly dangerous inevitable outcomes of those encouraging the transing of children . Mumsnet guided me to peak trans, through solid information and people discussing it logically.

I do share the ideals. I want everyone to be safe and fulfilled and happy. I do NOT want my ideals to be corrupted into doing the wrong thing, as I believe the handmaiden-type's ideals have been.

There's an old (lengthy) joke, can't remember if it was Billy Connolly or Dave Allan. Concerns a man whose atheism is the bane of his family's priest's life, can't persuade him to repent and believe. Lots of intervention, blah blah blah nothing 'works'. End up being taken to Rome to discuss it with the Pope. Punchline - a cardinal peeking through the door, seeing the Pope with his head in his hands, saying shakily 'But William, I am a Catholic ...'.

We need to be William.

Anyway, in practical terms it's divide and conquer for me. I will continue to point out that 'transgender' is becoming meaningless as it encompasses an ever-widening list of frankly trivial self-serving barely-non-gender-conforming bollocks. Gender fluid my arse. That the gender dysphoric should not be used by the AGPs as a human shield, and that the AGP agenda should be looked at for what it is. That children should not be sterilised and mutilated and frankly fucked over. That MtT athletes are just doping cheats using a loophole. And that fawning over AGPs/narcissists/child-abusers/cheats is definitely not upholding their ideals.

Isn't "post judice" an actual legal term, ChocChoc? Meaning exactly what you said I think! Good point anyway!

TalkingintheDark

Oh, I'm sorry! I misunderstood.

Will get my glasses on and re-read.