Questions from a liberal feminist to the rad fems

"Were very distressed at the thought of male puberty, how would you help them".

Not through hormone treatment or gender reassignment surgery, that's for sure. A stalling of his own puberty or a fake female puberty that would leave him sterile, wouldn't make life any easier? Would he even be able to have sex when he became an adult? Receive anal maybe? A three year old who boy who likes feminine stuff is just that. I would be hugging my child, and telling him how amazing he is, just as he is , as always. I would say anyone that called him a women was being narrow minded, under the pretence of being liberal. He has a penis, he's a boy. He'll like what he likes because he's him. Not because of what's between his legs, (dating and female sexual harrasment aside, that's a whole other discussion, that's many years ahead thankfully).

However, when I am constantly told either that they are women or even that they are transwomen (which even though it does not assert that they are women, it denies that they are men) and when my voice is constantly shut down and I am censored on the grounds that I am beyond the bounds of civilised debate, or am bigoted or am engaging in hate speech, then my willingness to show any understanding pretty much evaporates.

YY.

Just want to say cistersofterfy I’m loving your punnage

Shouldn't people who've changed genders be open and proud about their identity? If they hide it away and want to be private about it, it doesn't help everyone understand and become more tolerant of transgender people.

Are you saying the current Gender Recognition Act should be repealed?

Yes, now that we have same sex marriage there is no reason to falsify birth certificates.

...except to uphold an individual's right to a private life, as protected under the European Court of Human Rights.

So yeah, no reason at all

I think people forget this about the GRA, that it isn't just about marriage. You need a birth certificate on file when you're employed, you need it for all sorts of innocuous things but that's the main one. If you've had a gender reassignment, that is in no way relevant to your stacking shelves in Tesco or working the till in Primark.

You should be able to keep that deeply personal - often medical - information to yourself.

At least that's what the ECHR seems to think. And in this climate of very real intolerance and prejudice shown towards trans people I can imagine most of us would agree.

I think the "sex work is work" cool girl Vs "prostitution is abusive/paid rape" divide is more indicative of the difference between libfems and radfems than trans issues are.

Though you'd never hear a radfem call A woman "cis" would you?

I'm sure there are lib fems out there who believe the statement "trans women ARE women" is utter bollocks.

There must be libfems out there who KNOW Jenner was a man when he won those Olympic medals and a dress, a manicure, some lippy and a lot of "because I Say so" doesn't actually change that fact.

I feel like my identify is being erased in the current debate. I was a girl who wanted to be a boy because it turned out I was same-sex attracted, gender non-conforming AND autistic (triple whammy). Grew up to be happily a woman with no particular need for a gender identity.

It's as if people like me don't exist to hear some TRAs speak.

Newsflash: we're not all the same.

Are you saying the current Gender Recognition Act should be repealed?

Yes, now that we have same sex marriage there is no reason to falsify birth certificates.

If so, are you suggesting withdrawing hormones from those who have already transitioned?

No. Hormones are a form of body morphication on the extreme end. I don't think people should be legally prevented from getting tattoos or piercings either

Do you think a fully transitioned trans woman with a GRC to ‘prove’ she is a woman (eg Nadia from Big Brother) should use the men’s loos and be in a male prison/care home/hostel?

Yes, unless there are mixed-sex or gender-neutral facilities where they will be more comfortable.

Do you think TRAs who say things on Twitter like ‘suck my ladydick’ and 'enjoy your erasure' are representative of transgender people as a whole?

No. There is no knowing who they are, they could be MRAs or even Cambridge Analytica style mouthpieces.

Do you feel transgender people threaten your safety and well-being as a woman? If so what personal experiences (not what you have read on Mumsnet / Twitter / Reddit) have made you reach this conclusion?

I think male people are a potential threat to my safety - however they identity - i don't feel threatened by females even if they identify as trans.

Do you think current exceptions in the Equality Act (eg it is legal to exclude trans women from competitive spots and certain job roles such as rape crisis counselling) are sufficient to protect women?

No, I think the GRA needs to be repealed.

If your male child repeatedly told you they were female from the age of three, wore dresses, played with girls etc and were very distressed at the thought of male puberty, how would you help them?

I would introduce them to images of Boy George, David Bowie, etc so they understand it is okay for boys to be gender non-conforming and I would explain that most people find puberty odd and distressing.

But you really meant radicalisation.
Ha!

Medicalisation not radicalisation

Are you saying the current Gender Recognition Act should be repealed?
I don't know enough about it to know what function it serves, so don't know or really care unless it's repealed to be replaced with self id

If so, are you suggesting withdrawing hormones from those who have already transitioned? prescription of hormones has nothing to do with the GRA. It is a medical thing. It should stay as now. I'd like to stop people being able to buy hormones on the internet though.

Do you think a fully transitioned trans woman with a GRC to ‘prove’ she is a woman (eg Nadia from Big Brother) should use the men’s loos and be in a male prison / care home / hostel? I think it's a courtesy to let males use women's spaces. Loos are a red herring. Prisons etcshould be on a case by case basis and any trans woman who is assessed as a threat to women should stay with males.

Do you think TRAs who say things on Twitter like ‘suck my ladydick’ and 'enjoy your erasure' are representative of transgender people as a whole? I think there is a difference between trans politics and trans people. TRAs are as representative of trans people as MRAs are of men. However TRAs seem unusually influential for people with such repugnant views. Stefonknee Wolscht for example advised the canadian government.

Do you feel transgender people threaten your safety and well-being as a woman? If so what personal experiences (not what you have read on Mumsnet / Twitter / Reddit) have made you reach this conclusion? No. I think self ID threatens women as it provides a loophole that predatory men can use to increase their access to vulnerable women. It is frustrating that this is always reflected as "you are saying trans women are a threat" when most people are saying men pretending to be trans are a threat.

Do you think current exceptions in the Equality Act (eg it is legal to exclude trans women from competitive spots and certain job roles such as rape crisis counselling) are sufficient to protect women?(www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-discrimination
Yes but they aren't being applied correctly.

If your male child repeatedly told you they were female from the age of three, wore dresses, played with girls etc and were very distressed at the thought of male puberty, how would you help them?
I'd let them play with what they wanted, dress how they wanted and use whatever name they liked. I wouldn't call them a girl. No radicalisation until they were no longer legally under my care. There is no way I would let my child have treatment to remove healthy body parts or become infertile. Thats not good parenting.

Are you saying the current Gender Recognition Act should be repealed?

No, you can't yank something like that away from people, that wouldn't be fair. I think it was a bad law though, it would have been much better to protect gender non-conformity as a whole.

Do you think a fully transitioned trans woman with a GRC to ‘prove’ she is a woman (eg Nadia from Big Brother) should use the men’s loos and be in a male prison / care home / hostel?

I don't support a blanket policy either way. I'd like to be able to challenge the presence of a man in the women's changing room at the gym.

Do you think TRAs who say things on Twitter like ‘suck my ladydick’ and 'enjoy your erasure' are representative of transgender people as a whole?

The people who said these things are both prominent members of the trans community, not your common-o-garden ''i want to kill and rape terfs'' TRA.

Do you feel transgender people threaten your safety and well-being as a woman? If so what personal experiences (not what you have read on Mumsnet / Twitter / Reddit) have made you reach this conclusion?

The ideology behind current transgender policy is very problematic for women. They're not the first group of people to promote innate gender and lady brain. If you go back and read ancient Greek philosophers they were all about that sort of thing, men and women having completely distinct natures. These beliefs about gender harm women, they've been used to deny us full equality and participation in all public areas of life.

If our government promotes and supports the view that women have different brains, different natures to men - what would the implications of that be for women as a whole?

Do you think current exceptions in the Equality Act (eg it is legal to exclude trans women from competitive spots and certain job roles such as rape crisis counselling) are sufficient to protect women?

No because the exemptions aren't being used and there is much ignorance about them.

If your male child repeatedly told you they were female from the age of three, wore dresses, played with girls etc and were very distressed at the thought of male puberty, how would you help them?

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a woman, a black woman. She told me that her daughter insists she's white. The girl attends a small village school and all the other children are white. She's the only black child. She wants to look like her friends and she thinks that if she insists she's white then she'll eventually become white. How should her mother and father help her?

@crispbuttyfan When LibDem politician Sarah Brown was ousted from a councillorship, she told someone to "suck my formaldyhyde pickled balls".

Liberal feminism and radical feminism aren't split because of trans ideology, it's one area where there is often disagreement but the two approaches to feminism have other differences. It annoys me irrationally that they are always framed as opposites based on the trans agenda.

@daimbars I think this libfem/radfem split is a load of BS - when did that come about? I recently hit #peaktrans after trying so hard to be accommodating. I finally realised that all the TRA people I spoke to online were so hostile. The moment I asked any awkward questions (like why blame radical feminists for the violence inflicted on trans-women by men) I received such an angry response. Meanwhile the so-called 'terfs' would respond with politeness and facts to my questions, usually had quite a sense of humor too. It was in fact #PeakPatriarchy because I realised although I thought I was a feminist I didn't trust women. I was deferring to men (think Owen Jones, Novaro Media, L Madigan) rather than listen to women - often older, gender non-conforming women. Take a look at the threads there just isn't the hate. There's frustration,, there's fear - there's logic and humour. But hate? No.

99% of the population don't believe women have penis'. If you 'read' as a man people are polite and use preferred pronouns but they're just being nice - they don't really believe men can become women. That's not bigotry that's reality. The emperor has no clothes....

Do you remember the scene in the film Beaches where Bette Midler Says "Enough about me, what do you think about me"?

That is what all these JAQ off threads are beginning to remind me of.

Stop conflating sex and gender

I'm not DJLippy. Are you an actual DJ?

I meant sex as in sexed body and gender as in 'sexed presentation'. Or signal as SomeDyke would say. And/ or sexed presentation as in gender understood by most people. 99% of the population are not total gender abolitionists.

@daimbars If you want to learn more might I suggest some useful threads? I've learnt so much from these, they're full of really interesting information and conversations.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3175252-A-trans-resource-thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3241510-Cotton-ceiling

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3199030-What-do-you-say-when-people-say-that-Canada-Denmark-Ireland-Argentina-and-Malta-all-have-much-easier-ways-of-getting-a-GRC-and-there-appears-to-be-no-issue

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3234504-What-made-you-a-feminist

@SupermatchGame

I don't have to validate your belief in Buddism with the use of your preferred pronouns. That is enforcing YOUR beliefs onto ME. That's wrong. How can we be a tolerant, multi-cultural society when we only accept one belief system about gender. One which 99% of all other cultures in society don't really believe in? You can loose your job over things like this. That's not inclusive that's fascist.

OP - what answers did you think rad fems would give to your list of questions? Why did you think that rad fems might, for instance, advocate withdrawing hormone treatment from people already receiving it? I'm genuinely confused, unless you think that rad fems are all just nasty, bigotted, bitter women who don't want anyone to be happy

But peoples beliefs about sex/gender are just that, beliefs. Which of course they can believe what they like. The issue comes when the world has to reshape to fit their beliefs.

There is more evidence for gender dysphoria and it's treatment than there is for Buddhism. And I say that as a dabbler in Buddhist philosophy.