Are we the baddies?

That last bit is really well said!

If you go to the extremes of anything you can find yourself in the wrong.

This reminds me of the 80s when there was a lot of anti-gay feeling, in part because of the HIV / Aids fear and campaigns.

At that time, some people would say 'being a gay male is wrong, because you're not built for it' - they were referring to anal sex and how it must be wrong, because the anus is not a reproductive organ. It was ignorant, and assumed all gay sex was anal.
However, what gay people didn't do was try to argue that their arse WAS a vagina, or that it was reproductive.

They went through hell, but eventually managed to persuade most people that they were indeed normal people who just happened to enjoy all the things hetero people did, just with the same sex.

In the same way, most people are happy to understand transpeople (as best they can) and to accommodate their needs to engage with others as their chosen gender. If they want to view their penis as feminine and a clitoris, so be it, but to try and swear black is white is a different matter. This is what people object to.

Being female has a distinct scientific test. It can be measured. It's biological.
If, and IF one day, it can be proven that transpeople all share a biological identifier in common with women, but not men, then they might have an argument for saying that being female isn't just about genitalia.

Yes, there are rare conditions that can create intersex, just as there are for people born blind, or without limbs, but those are exceptions that prove the rule.

I have nothing but disdain for how illustrating these issues is deemed 'transphobic'. That argument is being used to try and present people as intrinsically wrong / ignorant / fearful / prejudiced.

I have yet to come across a single poster on MN who (to me) has appeared to be transphobic. They've just been pro-science, pro-women, and pro-solution for how to give transpeople the same level of safety that biological women need, just not in the same space, as that compromises the safety of biological women.

I've never met a gay guy who thought me homophobic because I didn't want sex with him.
I've never met a lesbian I considered heterophobic because I'm heterosexual.
Why am I frequently hearing transpeople tell others they are transphobic for the same choices?

I was picturing that exact picture when I saw "operation human shield" on my TIO

Only read first page but I agree with the poster who said TRAs made it about sides

cf the calls for 'allies'

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3228481-Cis-allies-being-asked-to-provide-protection

Orange is also black.

#howdareyouarguewithmeyoubigot

Only read first page but I agree with the poster who said TRAs made it about sides.

This should never have become a conflict of different sides. It is blatantly obvious that there is a debate to be had and it should have been able to have taken place in a mutually respectful and reasonable manner.

Unfortunately the 'no debate' rhetoric from TRAs and associated aggressive hostility have not made that possible.

there are no baddies and goodies. Its so complicated and should be a discussion but I think people on the extremes of both 'sides' dont want there to be any discussion they just want whatever they say to be taken as fact.
I certainly see some stuff from 'Terfs' which makes me cringe as much as some of the stuff I see from certain trans activists... but most feminists who are anti self ID have some very valid concerns which are not 'transphobic' but about protecting the rights of people with female reproductive systems... who are oppressed because of their biology not because of how they identify. And I know lots of transpeople who are just trying to get on with their lives in peace who think these trans activists who equate the trans womans experience to the biologically female experience totally and want to use the word woman as they see fit, are utterly mad....

Does it count as Big Brother if they identify as Big Sister

At this point if any of us said "I like ice cream" that would probably be used as proof that we're evil.

Er, that's not why I'm cranky, but thanks for your concern.

If Rufus is reading this, I would message you but I don't think you'd want to hear it. Either way, I don't think I can tell when you're taking the piss out of people. I thought I'd seen you do it to people I cared about on here, and I thought you were doing it to me. I was surprised, and I am - as noted - more touchy than usual. I would be more than happy to think I was wrong.

Sorry for laying into you.

I can see why AngryBird isn't happy. I wouldn't want TRAs claiming to speak for me either, and transsexuals who've managed to build decent lives for themselves have a lot to lose if the TRA bollocks provokes a backlash (which if you look at comments on say the Daily Mail or any site mostly frequented by blokes seems to be exactly what's brewing).

Not to worry Rat, I'm sure that if you cross your fingers and repeat "the general public agrees with me" enough times it will become true (or at least you'll succeed in drowning out that inner voice of doubt that appears to be leading you to lash out at lovely people who've done nothing to deserve it, like Rufus).

Denying what AAK? Almost every pro-trans poster who's ever been on here has been anti-self-ID, even the (totally, actively non GC) transwomen. These folks definitely don't agree with you, and yet suddenly they're "gender critical" and "on your side"?

Don't think so, do you?

Worth reading this statement by AngryBird, founder of Trans Oxford:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1017444210591567872.html

She has previously condemned the 'bulling and intimidation' by TRAs.

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3305051-Have-any-of-you-seen-the-thread-by-AngryBird-on-Twitter

I have asked myself this many times, whether my stance really is 'bigoted'. I have had a few wobbles, but then I look at my daughters, and consider the ramifications of self ID, I consider the stuff I have seen on the terfisaslur site, on twitter, in the news, friends I know who have been subjected to voyeurism and worse and think, No, I am fucking right.

Stages of grief - Rat appears to currently be in "denial".

Given that over 80% of the general population is gender critical I would guess that the MN numbers would be much higher.

Just because you keep repeating it doesn't make it true.

Not being pro self-ID is a far cry from what passes for "gender critical" on here.

It is not prejudice to not want men to rape women and girls, to attack women and girls, to expose themselves to women and girls or even to just impose themselves onto women and girls.

Women and girls are allowed female spaces.

Women and girls should be allowed to have time away from men, to talk about things that men cannot comprehend and to have privacy within spaces to deal with their own bodies in the way they see fit.

"And for many nazi's they just did what they needed to do to keep themselves and their families safe. Which they might see as the lesser of two evils."

That's a truly offensive thing to say. Yeah, sorry that nazis killed off children, but they thought it was a good thing to do. Yeuch.