Dealing with inflammatory posts re Trans on MN

the hysteria

Women should be hysterical at what's happening, but unfortunately it's under the radar for most.

Quite the Freudian slip there Sue. Unless I misunderstood you?

Let's take? Take what? Or was that talk? Since that's what women are trying to do, but keep having their 'irrational fears' rationalised away and that concerns and feelings are hysterical.

I don't see a whole lot of respect towards women in that. It's not in the slightest bit reassuring, in fact quite the opposite. 'Let's Take' is unfortunately a very apt way for how it feels.

'Woman' is still a protected characteristic, as it should be.

There is no 'hysteria', there are women refusing to consent to their erasure.

Are you aware that any transitioning person after about three months on hormones is either infertile in the case of a trans man or with testosterone blockers a trans woman is chemically castrated.

If they are under the NHS they then need to wait at least two years before gender reassignment surgery. This is where the two year wait comes from to get a gender recognition certificate.

The NHS in line with worldwide best practice is reducing the time living in the gender they will live in for the rest of their life before eligibility for GRS to one year.

The consultation has not happened but my best guess is self-declaration with a one year wait supported by a professional person confirming the person has lived in role to be the most likely outcome of a change to the GRA.

Much of the hysteria has nothing to do with the reality of what happens day to day but rather is based on fears, maybe understandably, wiped up
using theoretical extreme examples.

It really isn’t hard for solutions to be reached that respect the rights of women and trans folk.

As the saying goes “let’s take.”

Certainly, but I think that's a harder point to make with the general public, whereas people with AGP self-IDing into women's spaces is a very easy one that most people have no difficulty grasping the implications of. And useful in getting the issue onto their radar.

No, it sounds like most people recognizing that neither are women but one group is far more of a threat to our safety than the other.

I agree. It leads into uncomfortable conversations about offending. "Civilians" who aren't involved in these discussions at all can see immediately that rapists don't belong in women's prisons and that safeguarding (DBS procedures, etc) shouldn't be compromised given the history of abuse scandals in this country.

They can only make sense of this issue if they understand that a) dysphoria is not any kind of increased risk factor for offending, b) the presence of any paraphilia, including cross-dressing, is an increased risk factor for offending, c) the trans umbrella population includes both.

The distinction is vitally important if people are to properly understand the implications of self-ID, but it is a very uncomfortable conversation to have.

Or that neither group are actually women, and that our polite acceptance of calling those with dysphoria women, and enshrinement of that in law, has opened the door to all sorts of other people who don't extend us the same courtesy.

No, it sounds like most people recognizing that neither are women but one group is far more of a threat to our safety than the other.

I think it would make a huge difference to public opinion if it was more widely known that the majority of male people currently claiming trans status are more likely to be AGP than to be dysphoric gay men who've been feminine their whole lives.

That just sounds confused though, because it implies that dysphoric gay men who have been feminine their whole lives are actually women, but the thing that stops you being a woman is having a fetish.

AngryAttackKittens

Seconded. It's what made every single person I've spoken to about this sit up and take notice. They all thought self-id was for post-op transwomen (of either type, straight, bi or gay). It's the penis that swings it (eurgh, sorry...)

I think it would make a huge difference to public opinion if it was more widely known that the majority of male people currently claiming trans status are more likely to be AGP than to be dysphoric gay men who've been feminine their whole lives. Certainly plenty of people have turned up here saying that realizing that is what changed their minds about the whole issue.

But does it matter why somebody says they are a woman? I'm not making a value judgement about somebody's humanity when I say that we need words to recognise people with male and female reproductive systems.

Clearly some people on Twitter and YouTube are indulging a fetish, but their existence or non-existence doesn't change my feelings about being able to gather data on women or have single sex spaces.

Same as bewilderness, I don't believe women are agp - I was just trying to out logic how nonsense the idea was

Also AGP is at root a kind of transformation fantasy. If you're already a woman you can't transform into one. Like, we don't say that a man who wants bigger muscles and works out/takes steroids has autoandrophilia.

I think it’s totally relevant because we are told that trans women are women and that’s why we should let them in our spaces.
When we KNOW that for some men it’s a fetish we are being told we are bigots, but we have eyes and we can see. Men used to be open about this, cross dressers, transvestites they haven’t gone away and we are being asked to open our boundaries and let all of them into our spaces on their say so.

There's rather a big difference in that women are actually women, self objectifying or not. And males fantasising about themselves as a woman are not.

Genuine question - How relevant is AGP to the discussion anyway?

Women having AGP is complete bullshit, I think a lot of women do get turned on at the thought of themselves being sexy but I think a lot of that comes down to the Male gaze.
Women in society are an object to be looked at and fucked so it’s no surprise that women sometimes experience their sexuality through the image of themselves as a sexual object rather than a full being experiencing sex.

This is not the same as AGP AT ALL
And It’s fucking insulting and stupid to claim it is.

Do people not read feminist books anymore?

Well, I mean, why else do people choose the clothes they choose if not because they're arousing?

I think you are probably right, AAK. I was just trying to puzzle out why it would even cross ones mind.

"Lots of women have AGP" is just "lots of women rape/murder/whatever other crime that men commit with greater frequency with women that's currently being discussed" for a very specific subset of males. It's whataboutery, basically, an attempt to stop the behavior and its implications from being discussed.