What would they say to the kids?

At this point i give in. I hope I gave the OP some insight from personal experience and now I think I'll step back out of mumsnet.

I've noted from lurking on here that a lot of people are arguing from a position of almost zero knowledge of trans issues or without knowing even the basics of transitional process or legality but it looks like some people are happiest that way.

love and peas.

I have wondered about how people very much switched on to trans ideology as it currently is on twitter etc explain this to their children. I told my kids the difference between boys and girls was willies and vaginas and that they could play with whatever toys they wanted when they came home from nursery talking about ‘boys’ toys’ and ‘girls’ toys’. I’ve emphasised that girls can like dinosaurs, cars, football, Spider-Man and boys can play with dolls, kitchens etc. I think it’s so important to fight against gender stereotypes as they are so bombarded with them at such a young age.

I did notice a vocal supporter of trans rights that I know who was very scathing about TERFs did have a baby daughter and has clearly not succumbed to the notion that ‘assigning’ a sex go babies is ‘violent and coercive’ at least. I don’t know how she may reconcile her attitude to bringing up a daughter with her position on trans issues. I would like to know how she will talk about sex and gender to her young child when explaining the difference. She’s always been a very passionate feminist (obviously liberal rather than radical) so I’m sure she won’t tell her daughter that little girls wear pink dresses and play with dollies or else they’re a boy but then how can she tell her that boys and girls can do all the same things if she believes in pink/blue brain aka innate gender identity?

So queen you do not believe women should have the right to female only spaces?

And if you feel uncomfortable about that penis being waved about you will not be able to complain as you could be discriminating against that woman because she has a penis. At best you might be asked to change somewhere else until you learn to behave better.

There are plenty of men who claim all sorts of things in order to access women and girls. What is interesting is that they are often denounced as 'not real trans' after the fact so I'm not sure how women on the ground are meant to know the difference. There's also no way of analysing data as it is unclear which crimes are being recorded as male or which as female.

soapboxqueen

it has always been the case that the Equaity Act protects anyone transitoning or who is thinking of transitioning (ie they've told someone officially) - so for two years that means effectively men, with their penises with no hormone or surgical amendments accessing female spaces.

But nobody has been hurt. (happy to have you come back with lots of instances of women being assulated in female changing rooms by trans women).

Most people transitioning (or planning to transition) who are in this position are well aware of how they look, and are as reticent to share space with you are you are with them...becuase it's awkward, its embarrassing the only thing that gets them in there is their legal entitlement and the fact that it's massively more preferable than going into the mens.

Self ID works in many countries, it's worked so well in Eire that they are going to extend it to include non-binary people...again... no instances of harm.

Pro- trans as I am...I've no wish to have some posturing male teen queen waving his cock at me in a womens changing room. It would be an annoyance and I'd be complaining straight away about their behaviour not their gender identification....same as I'd be complaining if some woman was sticking her breasts in my face.

But again... these things don't tend to happen. mostly they are scare stories spread by those who are actually transphobic. The same way many people are turned against muslims because their worries about difference and immigration are blown out of proportion and are turned into hate fodder...it's how radicalisation works..

QueenNooka

I find it very interesting that in your last post when you used the gay analogy you switched from partner/husband to child.

Can you not see that someone's child coming out as gay is one thing, but that if their husband came out as gay that's a much harder thing to accept, with completely different connotations (I would be devestated if my husband came out as gay - and I have zero problem with gay people).

I don't think women needing catharsis after finding out their husband/partner is trans means they "just don't like" trans people, more likely that finding out your partner is not who they said they were is always going to be shocking.

What is woman?

Interesting nooka
Did you have an inkling your partner was trans before they declared it or was it a surprise?

If the 'other side' want to tell me I'm homophobic, misogynistic or racist they need to come up with a reason for their accusation.

I claim TRAs are homophobic because they have issues with same sex attracted people saying they are same sex attracted. Since by their logic a woman with a penis is a woman and therefore lesbians should be equally as attracted to them. Same sex attraction cannot exist if a person's sex doesn't exist.

I claim TRAs are misogynistic because their claims make woman an idea in a man's head (Twas ever thus) or a series of stereotypes that harm women. Womanhood is not a costume.

I claim racism because they often use statements like 'transwomen are women in the same way black women are'. No black women are not a type of woman, they are women. They are not similar to males in any way.

why were they venemous? as I said - it was a form of catharthis for them i think.
Maybe also..if I find out my child is gay I'd just say...ok..lets carry on with life.
But someone who is already homophobic might lash out at their child, throw them out of the house and go onto social media and pour out that cathartic venom becuase they are angry and feel cheated of having a 'normal' child...whatever.
I suppose when I found out my partner was trans it was difficult, it was challenging but I wanted to get to a point of acceptance becuase i didn't hate the concept. Whereas some people just don't like trans people and aren't interested in understanding or coming to a point of acceptance.

queen I think the difference is that most people thought that a transwoman was somebody who had full surgery, was more than likely gay, was part of a tiny, tiny community and was therefore not a threat. Most businesses took an approach that meant penises would be excluded and obvious men would be removed. At very least, women could complain.

We find that most do not have surgery to remove their penis, many are attracted to females so I would be unsure what the material difference would be for your average woman when risk assessing any given situation.

Many businesses and organisations have decided to get 'ahead of the law' by changing to either self ID or making spaces unisex without consultation with women. Many not even making the changes public. Such as the girl guides deciding that trans girls should be treated as girls, would be allowed to share sleeping spaces with girls (though boys would not be allowed to do this) and parents cannot be informed.

Self ID within itself will become redundant as most business will just ignore who uses what facilities thereby making any sex segregation impossible. Any woman who fears a male person is in a female space will not be able to ask for help for fear of committing a hate crime. Businesses will be unable to act for fear of discrimination law suits.

What is the point of single sex wards in hospitals if they are for anybody?

How do single sex services or those requiring a same sex carer or those wanting a same sex hcp for intimate examinations etc etc etc work if sex doesn't mean anything? How do we protect those things?

soapboxqueen
I think we're pretty much in agreeance (which is always nice).

We are at a point in a process of acceptance, similar to the one gay people went through, and people are pushing boundaries and then theres a push back and then we settle on a new level of acceptance - that's how these processes tend to work.

The general direction though is towards acceptance of trans people. We've gone too far for anything majorly retrograde to happen.

The next step is to accept non binary people and I don't have a problem with that...

both 'sides' seem to be flinging words like misogynist, racist, homophobic about becuase noone ever gains ground by pointing their finger at the reasonable people in the middle ground. Polarised discussions always need extremists to justify their existence.

Forget the people with baseball bats (in the US, on social media) and look at the many decent trans organisations who have been working hard for decades in real life, in parliament and in communities with trans individuals.

As I said before gender is complicated from the outside looking in AND from the inside, not everyone understands where they are at, most trans people are trying to work through really complex stuff as well as live their daily lives and if someone is at a point in their life where they feel they would be best served by coming into the same changing room as me... as long as they come in and get changed and don't give anyone grief... then why not?

Thank you QueenNooka for your thoughtful reply....

And - not directed to you - but generally this is what I think is the problem now:
That's why however a trans person presents they should be given the benefit of the doubt as long as they are just going along and getting on with just being them and leading the life they have to lead that isn't hurting anyone else.

As far as Im aware, no one wants to make transpeople's lives more difficult - but It is the real concern on here that the TRAs are actively wanting to hurt GC people and threaten to do so, frequently as well as impacting on the rights of women and children- as well as being clear they are not up for a discussion about something so very significant..... Few would want

Re the heterosexual men - this is how I see the cross-dressers who live their lives as men (with wives and families) and then want to be "lesbians" when it suits them... and the variations upon that. But this thread is NOT about that and I don't wish to derail, just to explain.

I'm not going to mince my words: you are basically an apologist for transgenderism, which harms women. You may dress it up with pained expressions of good intention and #whycanteveryonebenice, but basically that's what is going on here.

My children are all well grown by now. The question did not really arise with them, athough questions about sex-based stereotypes (what some of us still think of as 'gender') did. I am happy enough with how that worked out with my own children, at least, whether through mine and my partner's efforts at answering questions or not.

The question of changing sex and so on has arisen with more than one of my grandchildren, however, and as well as being faced with this directly, I have had discussions with my children and their partners about how to deal with it.

I have to say I disagree wholeheartedly with much of what QueenNooka has to say. It seems to me important that we tell our children the truth. As I have written on another thread recently in similar vein, this is more important than Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.

The truth? People cannot change sex. If you are born a boy, you will grow to be a man. If you are born a girl, you will grow to be a woman. No matter how much my grandson wants to be a 'mummy' when he grows up, he cannot. And so on.

Children often want things they cannot have, for one reason or another. It is our duty to let them know this, always in an age and developmentally appropriate manner, of course.

But what of people like QueenNooka's ex, who 'just know that they don't match their genitalia, as she says'? Equally easy peasy, but opposite to what QueenNooka suggests: such people are mistaken in thinking they are women even though they have willies ... and it would be kinder to not challenge them about that. Just as we would not tell a one-legged man who insisted he had two legs that he was wrong; it would be unkind.

There would also be opportunity (again, appropriately age and developmentally appropriately) to explain how we probably should not believe someone who tells us he or she 'just knows' something, if that person cannot explain how he or she came by that knowledge.

Lots of people think they know something-or-other, but if they are unable to explain how they know it, we have no reason to believe what they say. So we should be at best sceptical in such cases. That is a good lesson for children to learn in general, not just regarding sexual characterisation.

Of course, if the justification for claimed knowledge has already been debunked (for example see 'sex-based stereotypes' above), so much the more sceptical we should be - and so should we teach our children.

Oh I see.
Why do you think the wives were venomous? What would your take on it be?

nuffaluff

what made it scary for me was the amount of venom. i wanted to understand what was happening to and in my family whereas many partners there didn't seem interested in understanding anything - they just wanted to lash out.

For some people that catharthis was what they needed..but it made it the wrong place for me. So I left.

loveyouradvice - I hope this works - theoretically my answers are within your post in italics :$

• if they were sportive, do you believe they should compete against natal women

they certainly weren't sporty and nor am I - it's not an area I know much about but I understand sporting bodies have been pondering the situation long and hard, not just becuase of trans sports people but becuase of steroid use. And i expect in the long term we'll end up with what we have at primary school sports days which are mixed gender races based on time earlier time heats..but that's just me winging an answer for you

• if they committed a crime, is it a crime committed by a woman or a man?

if they have started (or are thinking about starting) transition then legally they are a woman as with any other situation in life that's the legal position as far as i know.

• if they needed a refuge or prison or hospital, would you expect them to be housed with natal women, even if some of these with a history of abuse are frightened of male bodies

again as far as I know all these things are treated on a case by case basis and if you can get past the tabloid scare stories that are often based on quotes from random people in exchange for money then they ARE dealt with effectively and sensitively. I'll refer you to the Man Friday stunt the other week where they booked rooms in a male YHA dorm. Man friday turn up and don't look like men but say they are and are sensibly put into a private room. That's how things happen in the real world - organisations have processes in place so everyone can access the service they want.

There are others... and I would be interested in your reflections on any of them.

I am confused - in a way I wasn't before - that now the TRAs are so active, about where to draw the boundaries to protect the rights of women and children ... while not jeopardising those of transsexuals.

I was a long way past needing to be involved in trans politics but over the last couple of years for some reason the level of anti trans narrative has been ramped up in the press at a point where they 'had' started to get quite good at reporting this stuff.
That was bad enough and then much started to be made of the changes to the GRA (which are intended as small administrative changes) - somehow it became this massive thing about womens spaces whereas the right for trans women to go into womens spaces has been law for years . Lots of people suddenly starting to complain about something thats long established and where there havn't been any problems in this country.
I, personally, think a lot of the problems are conflating what is happening here and what is happening in the US and there are some very nasty neo-con alliances like Hands Across the Aisle (or something like that) that are edging into our political space and thats not healthy at all.
As i said above we tend to manage trans rights and womens rights pretty well in this country as a rule but extremists ON BOTH SIDES are making that difficult

I feel very angry about the heterosexual men who are commandeering the transgender space, without allowing any discussion of how this would impact on women....

I don't know what you mean here. I don't know of any instances where heterosexual men are commandeering trans spaces

And I - like many others on here - feel an enormous compassion for people like your ex-partner who have transitioned in a meaningful way, and have grappled with so many issues during their journey

thankyou - whilst they were grappling with their more acceptable version of gender journey they were on several occassions threatened by violence (twice in front of our child) because from the position of being a bystander it's impossible to know if someone is the 'right sort' of trans person or not. That's why however a trans person presents they should be given the benefit of the doubt as long as they are just going along and getting on with just being them and leading the life they have to lead that isn't hurting anyone else.

When a trans woman says they are a woman... shit..when I say i am a woman all I mean is that my place in society and in law is 'as a woman' and it's 'as a woman' that I expect to be treated becuase that's my pigeon hole and thats my comfort zone.

Really? Maybe that explains the whole shebang! I hate how societies treat women 90% of the time and for 90% of human history. Being pigeonholed annoys me and constricts me. I am a women because my sex is female. Feminine is a whole different ball of wax. Doesn't mean I want to be or am a man.

I have no idea what it feels like to be a woman or a girl.

I do wish someone would let me in on the secret.

As to what a woman is devoid of the biology.... it's how we lead our every day lives

But I really don't understand how I live my life as a women, other than I use female loos, etc. Lots of things I do tend more towards the masculine than the feminine. Pretty much everything I associate with being identified as female by other people is negative- harassment, being patronised, feeling afraid walking home at night, etc. I'd be much more comfortable if I was viewed by other people as a man.

If, as a child, I'd been asked whether I felt like a girl I would have definitely said no. I strongly identified with boys because they got to do the fun stuff and didn't have to wear stupid dresses.

But none of that means that I'm not actually a women, it means that girls and women actually get a bit of a shit deal.

So I really struggle to understand the rhetoric around trans identification.

I think we all make peace with various issues up to a point while others continue into more detail. I was at a similar understanding to you from a theory basis (obviously without the real life experience of having someone close to be transition) until a few years ago. Most of it I would have put down to just differences between folk until the very real chance of legal changes made the whole thing vastly more important.

I do not think I (or any other woman) lives as a woman. I do not shop as a woman or eat as a woman. I just am a female human and the word for that is woman. There should be no different treatment or expectations or barriers because I am a woman unless they are as a result of my sexed body.

There should be nothing stopping gender non-conforming people from going about their daily lives. Though in honesty I don't know anyone who is totally gender conforming.

The more I read the more I am convinced that the current trans agenda is regressive not progressive, misogynist, homophobic and often racist. That has a different set of values from those with actual disphoria who need treatment (eg surgery) to feel more at ease and I wouldn't class them any different to the transabled or transracial.

queennooka
What made the wives’group scary?

They come from a position of coherence and truth. This may be why they are alien to you.