State your views on trans issue/self id issues *TITLE EDITED BY MNHQ

Fall back to the significance of the individual vs the group. Basic Classic English Liberalism! The state has no fucking business in dictating what words we use or who we choose to associate with.

If all else fails point to the gun I the room. It’s a simple rhetorical trick that works with people who haven’t really understood what’s at stake.

RedToothBrush

I think we are agreed that we have postmodern individualism which has combined with authoritarian policing of dissent. Which suits a lot of disparate interests, all of which have vested interests in undermining protections for children and women.

How do we begin to counter that?

I am a scientist (retired), I have always been GNC, a lifelong feminist who taught Women's studies in the 80's. I still managed to marry and have children because, you know, I didn't really hate men. Just patriarchy. Females are oppressed on the basis of our biology.

I think the push towards self ID is the biggest threat to women's safety in my lifetime.
I think ROGD is a social contagion as damaging to girls as Anorexia
I think children should be allowed to grow up expressing their individual personalities without these likes, desires, preferences being seen as gendered. Gender is a social construct.

I do wonder how it will all pan out. Because normally NPDs have a 'this town aint big enough for both of us' thing when they spot another one of their kind and seek to destroy them or move them on from their patch or they develop an all-consuming mad whirlwind 'romance' if you can call it that with them- but eventually they start getting scared of each-other, because they both know what the other can do, so they feel they need to get in first before they are themselves destroyed.

How much of the world will be razed to the ground before they turn against eachother?

It's less Kilimanjaro and more Himalayas - always another peak on the horizon.

It took some time for my DH to understand the issues and we had a few rows about it over the last couple of years. But when you hit that peak, there's no going back. Like most people, he keeps hitting peak again and again now.

Also, the class aspect of this can be useful for those whose partners are still stuck in the waffly "but I just want to be nice to people" headspace. A lot of TRAs bully working class people in service jobs. Usually those people are women, but there's class as well as sex stuff going on in those scenarios. If your partner is a lefty that's one possible angle that might work to get them to see why the behavior of TRAs is a problem.

Mine almost got punched by a very large TIM a while back for muttering about the TIM bullying women (a female cashier) under his breath. So even if I stayed out of it completely, TRAs are still a threat to him (and to all of us, they just usually prefer to pick on women because we're less likely to hit them back).

AAK
"DH doesn't quite get the "encourage people to show everyone who they are" aspect, and is worried that one of the nutcases will show up on our doorstep with a gun."

After showing DH the Julie Bindel video of the Bristol meeting where those cowardly fucks were preventing women from entering a oublic meeting, and the pics of the baseball bats etc at the San Fran Library 'exhibition', my DH would now welcome them coming for us. He is seething that these fuckers threaten women. And also concerned. I was recently at a private feminist meeting about this and he was very concerned about my safety. He has always had a thing about men who bully women. But he is totally shocked that women are being threatened by so called 'progressives'

Well this might sound bizarre as I had a friend who thought he was trans whom I supported throughout his experience he decided he wasn’t eventually but I saw how confused and conflicted he was. So I have sympathy for trans people.

However I do accept what women’s refuges and bathrooms are for, and why it’s imperative women feel safe in them, and I’m cautious about throwing them under the bus just to appease a bunch of people who may ultimately change their mind anyway.

My biggest problem is what people are proposing to do with children, as it seems inadvisable in the extreme to transition children willy nilly when there simply isn’t enough science to justify the position. I’m also particularly scathing about non-trans people who co-opt this struggle be right on and current. After all they won’t personally have to live the potential consequences.

Is that what you wanted or can I clarify further?

DH doesn't quite get the "encourage people to show everyone who they are" aspect, and is worried that one of the nutcases will show up on our doorstep with a gun.

You are not trying to reason with them. Nor should you try.

That's the point...

Hi MRA did you answer the OP on the thread because I would actually be interested in you "stating your position on trans/self-id issues" in a self-contained post?

"My DH keeps saying "these people are fucking nuts, why are you even trying to reason with them?" and he's not wrong."

My husband says exactly the same thing!

The level of toxic narcissism it must take to say such a thing just astounds me.

I honestly think that's why so many people who think TRAs are nutcases aren't engaging. Who wants to get into an argument with someone like that? Especially when the narcissistic rage that's then aimed right at you is really something to behold.

TRAs seem to assume that lack of direct engagement means agreement. I think it more often means that someone has spotted the seething hornets nest of personality disorders behind the Twitter account and decided that almost anything else they could do with their day would be more productive than poking it. My DH keeps saying "these people are fucking nuts, why are you even trying to reason with them?" and he's not wrong.

(I'm not trying to reason with them, I'm trying to give them enough rope to hang themselves with so anyone who's still on the fence can hopefully figure out what they're really dealing with.)

I quite agree there are more important things at stake.

If you'd stop me-railing that would help. Let's discuss the topic of the thread rather than how an MRA feels about being on a feminist forum and how defensive he's going to get over every single comment anyone else posts.

I only reference it to explain why I empathise with the position. You don’t need to like me for me to agree with you on this issue.

until you realize that they very literally don't think other people matter at all. Not women, not children, not anyone

It borders on a level of narcissism that can't even recognise other people exist, let alone matter. That horrible denunciation account that appeared the other day told me it was transphobic to oppose the dilution of DBS safeguarding procedures put in place after the Soham murders. The level of toxic narcissism it must take to say such a thing just astounds me.

Apols for the apostrophe

Why does the 'lesbian buddy' thing remind me of the 'my wife is Black' thing that MRA's used to say before all this TRA shit blew up?

Look I’m not going to piss on you and tell you it’s raining misogyny is alive and well, and I wish it wasn’t. Particularly in some circles I’ve run in in the past.

Believe it or not I have a lesbian buddy and I feel for this cotton ceiling rubbish. You can’t self-identify yourself past another’s consent. It would be like a rapist saying “I self identify as someone you’d agree to have sex with.” It. Just. Doesn’t. Work.

Of course not. Not only because of misogyny, but because the vast majority of prominent TRAs seem to have narcissistic personality disorder.

Someone will probably report this comment, but there's really no way to wrap your head around the sheer batshit insanity of some of the things TRAs are demanding until you realize that they very literally don't think other people matter at all. Not women, not children, not anyone. They can and will sacrifice every single one of us to serve their own needs if they're allowed to do so.

Interesting that you've commented a couple of times MRA that some men don't like women very much (and you even said some actively hate women) and no one's responded as women just go yeah, noticed that, and go on with what they're doing, not really bothered one way or the other.

Just thirty years ago some lesbians in my local LGB (as it was then) were living an actively separatist lifestyle and everyone just accepted that different people make different choices and took no further notice. Just in the last 48 hours on FWR here I've seen quoted or linked TRA/trans ideology condemnation of women 'excluding' men from their dating pool or sexual partners, and wanting to 'exclude' men from any part of their lives. Interesting that it's fine for a man to not like women as a species and avoid them, but absolutely not ok for a woman to not like men or expect to avoid them without criticism or challenge.

It's rather like it's essential that a man's right to strip off fully accepted where ever he likes and in front of whoever he likes is respected because his feelings matter - but the feelings of the women around him don't matter at all. In fact they're stupid for having the wrong ones. How do you reason that one away without admitting that women are not valued or important as men in this ideology?

And while I'm on the soap box because this stuff really gets up my nose, while so many posts on FWR mention the importance of anti discrimination laws for trans people, the effects of male violence on trans people as well as women which is not being addressed at all, the absolute right for everyone to be able to dress, name themselves and live any way they choose without fear of violence or discrimination - can anyone, anywhere, find me in amongst all the tweets of die in a fire/punch a terf any mention of recognition of women's needs or feelings, women's safety, any compassion or even basic awareness of why GC women are standing up and saying wait a minute?

Because I can't find it. Not one.

What a wonderful parent you are, and I wish your child every peace and happiness going forward.