Dealing with inflammatory posts re Trans on MN

The statement from the Women’s Equality Party is all about treating people with respect and dignity embracing intersectionality positively and collaborative politics the exact opposite of inflammatory posts. WEP is all about protecting women and girls and being inclusive

CharlieParley - I identify with your post so, so much.

This is men taking feminism away from women. Telling us we're doing it wrong, as usual.

I don't know why we're surprised really. There have been a few sparkles of hope in the last century, but even a cursory glance at Twitter tells me that there are a fair few men that would like us to go back in time. Twitter is becoming a gathering of men delighting in abusing and silencing women.

CharlieParley

I too have valid reasons to not include males in my feminism.
Long story short - I bloody know what they're like!

Statement by the Womens Equality Party which is well worth a read www.womensequality.org.uk/april_12

Thanks, Sue, but there is a full thread with a good discussion about this already. Perhaps you could post your thoughts there so that we could keep this one on topic.

I ask you again - what do you think is the best way to respond to inflammatory posts in this forum? That's what we're trying to discuss on this thread.

Sue, do you have any thoughts of your own or are you just here to post links that we've likely already seen?

Statement by the Womens Equality Party which is well worth a read
www.womensequality.org.uk/april_12

pombear I hear you. That made perfect sense. Also do this myself, reading deeply into the subject, researching, listening to both sides, then drawing my own conclusions.

I may simply have experienced too much crap thanks to my sex to be able to centre men in my feminism - even those who identify as women.

Physical assault. Sexual assault. Harrassment. Intimidation. Coercion. Secondary Infertility. Pregnancy complications. Pregnancy loss. Birth trauma. PND. Incontinence. Prolapse. Such heavy bleeding that you prefer to stay at home when I menstruate.

Give up your career and PhD. Devote 14 years of your life to bringing up kids, dutifully moving cities, even countries, each time DH gets a new job.

The loneliness, the stress, the loss in self-esteem when you parent without a support network while your DH travels for work. When your male peers pass you by while you clean up vomit or tell your aggressive kid not to hit you for the 100th time or try not to explode when someone's dog bites your kid and their kid tells the dog to actually kill your kid afterwards.

Or when you finally, finally find a way to work and you realise all you've achieved is to add to your workload, coz your DH is going to keep on working all hours as he's now at the height of his career. No matter what he may have promised before.

And now you're getting old. And oddly more confident in yourself and shit, you've only got this one body, so isn't it time you accepted it and learned to love yourself, just as you are.

And you've seen all this crap the other women you know have gone through. Far far far worse than yours.

Then these woke genderqueer kids come along, demanding I centre them, then these middle-aged crossdressers come along, demanding I centre them, and I ask myself FOR WHAT? What possible fucking reason could I have to centre a man in my feminism?

@Mouthtrousersafrocknowandthen were you personally at a training where people were lied to that sex would replaced by gender? Where you women were made to feel they had privilege. Confessions of (privilege' reminds me of what Mao did in the cultural revolution.

Can you complain anonymously?

I think newspapers should print up this shit and tell people what is going on. I don't go to work to be lied to!

Can anyone link to the Tara stuff or pm me?

Thanks.

@uniquehornsonly brilliant answer to explain why AGP does exist in some men and not in women.

It's good not to feed the seagulls but also to remember that people are lurking and it's important for them not to get some ludicrous idea that women are turned on by the idea that they are women!

Yes I agree @merrymouse males are not females ever. So the broad Stonewall 'umbrella' of people who are trans is confusing and unhelpful for transsexuals, I think. But either way the group is males and females who do not cease to be make or female because they get under the trans umbrella.

As a mature women I am appalled at what we are doing to young women.

In essence the argument comes down to replacing terms that refer to material reality with terms that refer to individuals beliefs.
History shows that we have mandated belief by codifying it into law before now. It never ended well for the citizens.

Privileged. A big section on privilege. Women dutifully speaking up saying they recognised they are privileged.

@CisPinkHoodie

The diversity and inclusion trainer got very confused and flustered when asked for clarification on sex and gender.

The response was it's all going to change soon to gender, the law is changing to gender.

It was a room full of young women early in their careers. All being told their biology is irrelevant.

Most grammar police have discovered the hard way that any internet comment criticizing a typo or error in grammar will invariably contain an typo or error in grammar.

And, as seen in my last post, my spelling is crap, which is why I rarely post here, as the grammar police used to be more scary than the gender police!

The phrasing is interesting, isn't it? Not to be aware that a transwoman may have a different experience of the trauma, or have an additional need in relation to the trauma that needs to be understood and met, but that it will be more than a woman will feel. The core beliefs underpinning that subconscious way of putting it are pretty clear.

No evidence given. I'm sure it is a difficult experience, different from a female one, but no doubt difficult.

But getting back on track to my initial post. It was to highlight that Sue's arguments for why many of us are apparently 'hysterical' about imagined scenarios focuses on those undergoing medical or surgical treatment. Sue only refers to a historical definition of a 'transexual' experience. And suggests that many of us are whipping up hypothetical circumstances.

Sue referred us to Tara as an expert earlier in this thread.

When I researched Tara, as an expert given by Sue, I found that Tara includes those who cross dress for sexual desire as part of the transgender umbrella.

Whilst I acknowldedge that many people have diverse sexual desires, centreing policy-making that affects women's rights to include these people concerns me greatly.

I am a 'civilian'. I have been here for many years. I shamefully have been silent on so many feminist and women's rights. I am starting to find my voice. Thanks to people like Sue. And Tara.

Yes, thank you, flowers, that is the news item I saw.

Oh, that and probably one of Tara's last statements, which suggests that a transwoman who has to have her (surgically added breast) removed after cancer may experience more trauma than a female

...

(Deep calming breaths)

Narcissism is a hell of a drug.

one of Tara's last statements, which suggests that a transwoman who has to have her (surgically added breast) removed after cancer may experience more trauma than a female.

Wow. Was any research or evidence offered for this? How large was the sample and how did they measure the trauma?

I have heard that a lot from males over the years, pombear. That is why it is listed as the:
11th rule of misogyny: whatever women suffer from, it is worse when it happens to men.

Yikes, worrying I've killed the thread.

TL:DR on my post above - I appreciate the varied viewpoints that other people bring to the threads, as they make it less of an echo chamber.

The varied viewpoints make me do more research to ensure I'm not being informed by an echo chamber. Even when they seem to be derailing a thread by posting stuff that's nothing to do with the theme of the thread

I did more research. It made me go 'huh'? even more! Hopefully I addressed my 'huh?'in a non-inflammatory post.

Walking through treacle right now!

Sue, I just wanted to say thank you for your input into this thread. I tend to do my own research off the back of everyone's input into threads like these (because I don't want to rush to assumptions, want to research the whole issue, make my own decisions, just as I'm sure you do too).

From what I understand, your focus seems to be on people who take medication/have surgery to become what they would deem to be 'the other binary'. What we used to know as 'transexual'? It sounds like a difficult and long road for them, and I, as well as a lot of people who post on these threads I think, have a lot of empathy for them.

I think you may be slightly out of date in your assumptions that this is the extent of 'transgender'. You kindly linked earlier on in the thread to an article co-written by Tara Hewitt, who seems to be very influential in advising on trans issues.

As part of my research after your name-checking of Tara, I watched a film of Tara lecturing a group of healthcare professionals about trans people and cancer.

Tara explained the definition of trans. Tara included "two types of cross dressers, one who 'fetishistically cross dress' so they 'dress up in a very over-stereotypical way to get a sexual desire of that clothing of an opposite gender, generally men in women's clothing".

Tara then jokes about the fact that they don't know many women who'd get a sexual kick out of dressing in men's boxers.

Tara tells the room "We're all very diverse with diverse sexual appetites as wel'. It's challenging when people make judgements about people - as long as people are happy"

Tara also included 'drag kings and drag queens who dress up for entertainment' as part of the definition of transgender. I was also slightly confused about this, as if you're doing this compartmentally for entertainment, how does this affect you when you go for medical treatment?. If I dress up as Elsa to entertain at children's parties, will that affect my medical treatment when I have cancer?

I'm confused as to how any legislation that protects sex-based requirements and needs can include such a wide spectrum of people, from those who are surgically altering their body, have gender dysphoria, to those who, by Tara's own statement,fetishistically dress up for sexual desire, to those who do drag for entertainment'.

I think that may explain why, after 20 minutes of the lecture, noone in the room had questions. As healthcare professionals, they were all probably a bit baffled!

(Oh, that and probably one of Tara's last statements, which suggests that a transwoman who has to have her (surgically added breast) removed after cancer may experience more trauma than a female. . I had to breate deeply after that statement!) #WTGLWGH

thebewilderness do you mean <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/11/nhs-launches-sexual-abuse-probe-amid-fears-dangers-mixed-sex/amp/#ampshare=www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/11/nhs-launches-sexual-abuse-probe-amid-fears-dangers-mixed-sex/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this article ?

Charlie, I think surgery is probably the only really definitive way to reduce testosterone levels to well within the normal female range.

Which is why it really should be essential before even considering someone for participation in competitive sport.

I think it used to be but now isn't.