Soul man

@Wakame, the reason why the Newland case got so much press is because women committing sex crimes is so very rare.

@ratpolypoly, I did remark on transphobia: When a transwomen is perceived as trans (aka "doesn't pass") and is hence treated badly, they experience transphobia.

I can't think of any parallels whereby a lad identifies as something he isn't in order to win a prize or scholarship.

Ilay Dyagilev made it all the way to the final of Miss Virtual Kazakhstan before confessing that he wasn't actually a woman.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42961828

By that point he had already been crowned Miss Virtual Shymkent.

I can't think of any parallels whereby a lad identifies as something he isn't in order to win a prize or scholarship.

There was the guy who posed as a teen girl for several years to make money. Lots of men who pose as LEOs and fashion photographers to abuse women.
Men who pose online as lesbians on dating sites.
Those are just off the top of my head and since they do not include a prize or scholarship they will likely be dismissed.
The behavior shows up in the news fairly regularly.

Only on Mumsnet would a trans person go to all the trouble of being transgender and everything it entails in order to satisfy some dark ulterior motive.

It happens far more often than it is talked about on MN.
Thousands of men with sexual fetishes have taken refuge in transgender identities. Why people like you keep asking why they would go to all the trouble when it is no trouble at all is fairly obvious by now. Zombie lies never die.

Not sure I buy that Prawn.

daimbars
I realize that there has been an effort to make FWR the transgender page of MN but some women resist and will not comply.
There are thousands of films about the various and assorted ways white men cheat. They may not all be about transgenderism.

You're ignoring the fact that humiliation is a really big motivation for transition for some AGP men, Rat.

Yes bd67th, you're talking about the direct discrimination that both natal women and passing trans women experience. You're failing to remark upon the additional indirect discrimination and transphobia that a trans woman will experience. I'm not sure what your point was in retrospect, but it came across to me as a kind of "haha, serves you right" to trans women. Sorry if I've got that wrong.

People will always look for ways to take advantage for their own gain. It doesn't matter how they do it as long as the gain is made. I remember a couple of years ago in the press it was reported many inmates in prison changed religion because the food served to Jewish prisoners was deemed to be superior.

To 'claim' to have changed gender to elicit and advantage is not new. Drag acts did it for years. Performers often not good enough as men would dress as women, exaggerate their mannerisms and bingo, they were live at the Palladium. For men to now see changing gender as a way to humiliate women, get into women's spaces, abuse women is not too large a step and some will take that option. To deny this is likely to happen is naive in the extreme.

@ratrolypoly, I'm not talking about fear of being outed, I'm talking about finding out the hard way that being a woman under patriarchy sucks.

When a transwoman is perceived as female (aka "passes") and hence treated badly, they experience misogyny. When a transwomen is perceived as trans (aka "doesn't pass") and is hence treated badly, they experience transphobia. Sometimes, the misogyny is mistaken for transphobia because the transwoman in question didn't believe feminists when we said "women are treated like crap".

Rat if you have been through male puberty and therefore have all the multiple advantages against female runners that this provides then you are cheating if you compete against women in a single sex event.

It makes no difference whether or not you can get away with it because irresponsible sporting bodies have altered the rules. It's still cheating.

I think those policies will be reversed sooner rather than later. Too many sports fans will perceive the blatant injustice and get angry.

@daimbars bd67th Rachel Dolezal great example. Things didn't end too well for her did they.

The point is that she tried it. She tried pretending to be black and it worked for a while, she was high up in the NAACP for a while.

bd67th Rachel Dolezal great example. Things didn't end too well for her did they.

I didn't say that sporting advantage was the only reason for transition, rather that they're using their trans status to cheat.

To cheat means "to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage"; so either they're transitioning dishonestly in order to gain that advantage in sport... or they're not cheating. If they are trans and they participate in a sport under the rules of the governing body, that's not cheating. Even if you think it gives them an advantage. They are not the arbiters of what is fair, sport is.

Also the US has some nuts rules around highschool sport, but I don't think it's necessarily helpful to talk about trans people in the US when we're talking about trans people in the UK; or are we? I assumed we were because of the usual self-ID connections to this debate, and that being a UK legislative change.

Should they be read as female and treated as such by men after transistion, they mistake the misogyny they face for transphobia.

Undoubtedly trans people do face transphobia; you know, people having a visceral reaction to that which is different? Really prevalent through human history, very very common.

Even if people reacted to them entirely as women they would be aware and affected by the societal rejection of that which is "different" and "unnatural"; it's the kind of transphobia that would make a trans woman afraid of being outed in the first place!

So no, that fear of outing for fear of reprisals is not anybody mistaking misogyny for transphobia. Jeez, can't trans people even name their own inequity now?

Only on Mumsnet would a trans person go to all the trouble of being transgender and everything it entails in order to satisfy some dark ulterior motive.

Lots of people do lots of things for dark ulterior motives. And if trans status were self-ID, becoming trans would be a lot less 'trouble' for everyone; those with dysphoria, those who are gender non-conforming but really don't need additonal legal protections, and anyone with dark ulterior motives.

Daim, sounds you are pretty naive about the lengths men will go to to achieve a desired sexual end. Such as becoming a paediatrician, FFS. Or a black cab driver. Men with careers and families they will lose over it creating concealed film kits to obtain upskirt shots on escalators or film women using the loo. Men who spend months, even years, getting a parents to trust them so they can abuse the DC.

Men will do almost anything to obtain their desires. Hanging around for a while on sites where TIM confide makes it very clear that paraphilias are disturbingly often the root of their transition.

@Ratrolypoly How anyone would think our culture is one in which all of that would be totally worth it for the sake of being in league one in the women's rather than league 5 in the men's is a bit nuts to me. I can't see it myself.

A substantial number of men don't believe that they have privilege, and some even believe that women have privilege. To them, being female confers no disadvantage. Should they be read as female and treated as such by men after transistion, they mistake the misogyny they face for transphobia.

But the point is flowers you haven't. Why? Because you don't have gender dysphoria so why would you go to the trouble?

Only on Mumsnet would a trans person go to all the trouble of being transgender and everything it entails in order to satisfy some dark ulterior motive.

@Daimbars As Rat points out, it would be a really silly plan to identify as someone you are not in order to gain some kind of advantage.

Two words: Rachel Dolezal.

I didn't say that sporting advantage was the only reason for transition, rather that they're using their trans status to cheat. In America winning at sports can get you scholarships and $$$ too. And judging by the silhouettes of those two runners they are perfectly normal teenage boys: no hormones and no surgery. Maybe they're sincere, but they can change their minds as soon as it suits them. It's like it kids from wealthy families slumming it in a deprived area.

It annoys me when people co-opt the real agony of old school transsexuals and apply it to non-dysphoric TIM who remain entirely male physically. The explosion in trans numbers is partly driven by porn addled heterosexual men.

Do you know what? If I was single, or I thought DH really wouldn't care, I might just decide to identify as a bloke. Only if it didn't involve anything too intrusive, like surgery, mind. I think there was an article about two trans academics (one mtf and one ftm) I think, and their experiences. The ftm found they were taken much more seriously. I don't have gender dysphoria, but I could rationalise a decision to live as a man. I am sure many other people could too, for many and various reasons. Not all of them benign.

Transplants we could get into an argument about the entire concept of being transgender and men being 'allowed' to identify as women (as they have legally been able to for many years) but if you reject this concept then we're not going to get anywhere.

blackteas you would have to have a very dim view of trans women if you really think they are 'taking advantage of an opportunity'. I suppose you're not denying this.

How very sad really.