A New Feminist

This blog post might help you understand how things have changed, OP:

ommadusk.tumblr.com/post/96367035207/who-are-the-trans-community

As a person who hung out a lot on the London gay scene during the 80s and early 90s, I found the same. Two distinct populations have now merged into one population (whilst also adding anyone with blue hair or whatever non-binary actually means).

The population of people like your friend (and a friend of mine) is very small. The population added in - the cross dressers - is much, much bigger. That is why you are now seeing a lot of women objecting. Nobody wants a bunch of boundary-disrespecting, disordered males colonising their spaces. The odd transsexual every once in a while? No big deal.

Chartreuseveil

You can divide transwomen into two cohorts. Homosexual transsexuals (HSTS) and autogynephiles.

Your friend sounds like the first cohort. Attracted to men, probably transitioned quite young, fairly effeminate, likely to have had surgery, and probably passes quite well.

What we would call old school transsexuals.

The second cohort are men with AGP. Or a transvestite fetish, in old money.

They are officially included under the trans umbrella, according to Stonewalls own website.

They are generally late transitioning, after decades of secret cross dressing, attracted to women, will often have feminising surgery, but, crucially, keep their penis.

It would appear, that they are often successful in IT (almost all the husbands on that thread are), or a macho profession like the military, and have often been married and fathered children.

The compulsion takes the form of being aroused at the thought of themselves as a woman. It's a strong compulsion, often progressive and fuelled by porn.

Their dating pool is almost non-existent. They rarely date each other, for instance. Because they're not gay.

They're only attracted to women, but straight women don't cut the mustard, because straight women don't sleep with 'women'. It doesn't validate their identity, for arousal purposes.

So the only cohort left is lesbians.

It means they get to sleep with women, but have their validation as a woman provided at the same time.

Lesbians are relentlessly persecuted and targeted for sex.

See cotton ceiling.

Here is a thread about a group of powerful middle-aged men who have AGP, calling lesbians hostile and campaigning to make them available for sex.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3181703-TIM-rights-to-sex-with-lesbians

Here is another thread, about all the acronyms that can drive you crazy and a breakdown of terms, if you're not familiar with them.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

The more people who understand the layers to this, the better. Simply saying transwomen are men, sometimes seems to people like a knee-jerk, unnecessary reaction.

So it's useful to explain how we get to that statement, which feels unkind at first, but entirely understandable when you see quite how and why it's been arrived at.

I know my friend cannot relate to the current trans movement

Is your friend speaking out? Why not?

Chartreuseveil

I'm sure you're right. We have several of them posting on this board. And they say exactly the same.

They don't support self ID, they just want to get on with it. They know they are men, they don't take massive issue with women over that. But as much as they would like their preferred pronouns (and generally get them). They also think men beating women in sport is ridiculous, as is going to female prisons, and taking women's posts in public office.

They are not interested in taking women's 'rights'. Or redefining the meaning of the word sex, lesbian, and woman.

And I, and almost every other woman here, totally understands the difference between them and these new Johnny Come Latelys.

The reference to sealioning ALunerExplorer is the habit people have of asking questions for which they have already been provided the answers.

It's a sort of time wasting/derailing tactic.

You've been on these boards frequently and know full well that all the women on here understand autogynephilia.

Many of them, only too well, since they are married to men who have it.

But, since you bring it up and for the benefit of the OP, and any lurkers, I will provide a link to a thread set up specifically for and by such women.

Why don't you go on there and tell them it's made up bollocks theory by Ray Blanchard?

Although, I would hope, that even you, wouldn't be quite so cruel.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3101834-trans-widows-escape-committee

You friend's life story has been hijacked by a variety of unpleasant people for political purposes. I think that all old school transsexuals who object to what's being done in their name should speak out now, before it's too late.

And yes, most people recognize the boundaries set by others and are willing to respect those boundaries. People who do not are inherently a danger to others.

We must recognise the sociopathic nature of this behaviour. People without empathy will take us to their limits without us knowing we are going there.

What's most relevant and alarming about the above statistic is that nowhere near half of male prisoners in general are sex offenders (I think it's about 13%), so you have to ask yourself why the percentage is so high among trans women in prison.

I believe that the answer is "autogynephilia", which continues to exist no matter how much Lunar tries to deny it.

Otherwise i pretty much agree with sid

Are there very many transwomen in prison?
There are at least 125 transgender prisoners, mostly trans women. Around half are sex offenders. This is a tiny amount compared to the number of male sex offenders (I think there is around 3800) but a significant number if they were moved into women's prison (around 130 female sex offenders in prison)

So yes, small numbers but will cause a problem if they are moved to the female estate by increasing the number of sex offenders there, that female prisons are not set up to deal with. That's before you even get into the potential ethics of mixing penises and vaginas in prison, inmates getting pregnant or even sexually assaulted.

I think the problem op is that you and see the potential withdrawal of rights from our friends.

Datun, if I understand her, challenges this by asking us to remember all the women whose human rights are fragile/vulnerable. She says there is a limit on how far you can reconcile those rights with those of trans women.

Trans activism in its current form is removing the ability of old school transsexuals to fly under the radar, which does not benefit them at all. Which is why some of them object to what's being said and done in their name.

barrack had a long insightful post and you picked up on PMT?

I am a feminist sympathetic to your point of view OP.

It is complicated

Chart I agree with you. Real genuine trans people are going to suffer as a result of the few.

But alunerexplorer you cannot change sex no matter how much you know about history. To be male or female is not a made up condition or complex.

Datun you'll have to forgive me but I have no idea what the reference to seal lions is all about.

I don't need a history lesson about the GRA: about Goodwin & I v United Kingdom (2002), which led to it, or Corbett v Corbett (1970). My historical lens is a little wider than that.

In 1919, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was founded and headed by Magnus Hirshfield. Aside from providing free medical and therapeutic help of various kinds, it also advocated for proper sex education, women's emancipation, contraception, gay rights and so on. It also built a body of research into, and established the standard of care and treatment for, trans men and women, advocating transition and affirmation directly as a result of that research.

That famous picture of Nazi's burning books? (I hope it's uploaded properly). That was the raid on the clinic in 1933 by Hitler's Brownshirts: all of their books and all their research (not just into trans healthcare, but also research into better health care for gay men and lesbian women) was destroyed.

So much knowledge about all of this, lost, gone, literally up in smoke. And bodies got added to that toll.

Now on the subject of Ray Blanchard and his... I'm honestly not sure that I have a polite word for him and that pile of stinking putrid nonsense 'autogynephilia' which should be dropped back down the hell mouth from where it came. There were things that briefly appeared in the 1980's (Betamax for example) which quickly proved to be entirely unfit for purpose. Unlike Betamax, Blanchard's theory still get's hefted around like a ghetto blaster on the shoulder - another fad of the '80's which died out when everyone discovered ear phones were much less hassle.

Scientists in this century however are - like Hirsfield in the previous century - not only discovering how complex both sex AND gender are (and that actually both have biological underpinnings), but that attempting to label people with made-up psychiatric conditions is (unsurprisingly) entirely counter productive. For reference off the top of my head for that I'll point you to the Endocrine Society.

I need to read and investigate with regard to trans prisoners (I prefer not to make a point until I've done so). Until then, I will say this - rape/dv/ipv etc are acts of patriarchal violence reproduced mostly by men, but by others in some cases (ipv/dv in LGBT relationships occurs in approximately 25% of them, more or less).

It is always a choice and anyone who makes that choice has to own it.

And it would need you to explain why sex offenders account for half of all transwomen in prison.

Are there very many transwomen in prison?

I think you'll find that some feminists reject post-op transsexuals in women's spaces in any circumstances, some will make an exception for the ones who pass and who aren't obnoxious behaviorally, some are fine with actual transsexuals but object to the Bergdorf's (the problem with which being that technically Paris Lees is a post-op transsexual, and Lees is as sexist as it gets and actively harmful to women when he presents his views as being a woman's views, so "is a transsexual" isn't actually as useful a distinction as you might think), and some are fully on board the self-ID train. I suspect that the latter group is much smaller than you would think of you were looking only at the media, Twitter, etc.

Alunerexplorer how old are you? I am not that old and until recently transgender people were as rare as hens teeth and caused no issues as far as I know at all. But you know that.