Talked with trans-ally dd this evening.

From one GNC autistic to another, I am so blooming glad I’m not growing up now. I would have followed the “rules”. I wasn’t just GNC, I had short hair, played with the boys, refused to wear dresses, loved all the “male” stuff. I was never going to marry or have children, I hated pink with a passion.

With hindsight I knew I didn’t fit in with the other girls, so rejected everything girly. I heard the message that pink was girly, so I hated pink.

If I had heard that all the things I liked meant that by the rules I was a boy, then I would have become a boy. I am sure of it.

The truth is that autistic people don’t take in these social messages about gender automatically. It’s a great freedom we have. We don’t automatically conform, so more of us are “visibly” GNC.

But here’s the thing, I started talking to other women, and none of them had this internal feeling of being a woman. Not one. My mum lived in jeans and never wore makeup. She was very much a woman.

Being feminine (girly) or masculine (boy-ey) is just personality.

Trans people don’t conform - and that’s a great thing. Except that it also creates the rule that not-confirming equals being the opposite sex. You can’t be a masculine girl or a feminine boy anymore. You have to be trans.

I hated my female body as a teen. I’m autistic! Of course I did! Female bodies come with constant change and I hate change.

As an adult I actually love being a woman. Not feminine, I’ll never be that, but being a woman and what that biology means.

I am also scared of men in certain spaces. I had an abusive relationship that I could only escape because I knew what I was going to was women only. I have always respected pronouns, but my PTSD and fear doesn’t. It is terrified of men and that means anyone born male including trans women. I needed safe spaces or I wouldn’t be here. Those spaces had to be biological women only. They had to be for my PTSD and my fear.

I guess the question is, for people like me, is it okay for me to have a space that is just biological women? Is it okay for trans women to have spaces that are just for them to discuss issues that only affect them, or to feel safe?

If you can understand that trans people might need their own spaces, can you understand that women might too?

Why is it wrong to say that biological sex is real? Being trans is absolutely fine! Completely fine! I don’t know why it’s seen as something to deny, a label to get rid of. Trans women don’t need to be women to be accepted. We don’t have to take from women to give to trans. We can create new spaces.

What you can’t do is give away my spaces. Because then you are taking away my freedom. I need female only spaces. I need to only ever be touched by female health professionals (ha! Touch is hard enough, but I’d never see a doctor if I couldn’t ask for a woman). I need to be able to only have a female rape counsellor. I need to be able to ask for someone with the same biology as me, because she has the same experiences as me, and I need that.

Please don’t let people take my autonomy away. My right to say no. My right to be safe.

Because that would have left me in a relationship with my abuser, and I would not be here anymore.

That’s my message to your daughter. It’s so hard. I have so much empathy, but I am not a bigot, I am an autistic woman who needs things to be logical and clear. I want everyone to be safe, but that includes me. I need to be safe too.

Helen Saxby explains why TWAW is a mantra used to close down debate:

The phrase ‘transwomen are women’ is naively understood to be simply a courtesy to a male trans person, a sign of allyship. If you don’t join in, because you stick to the definition of women which is biologically correct, you are nailing your colours to the mast and this is risky. There is a huge amount of abuse directed at women who refuse to do as they are told, and this fact demonstrates that the use of ‘transwomen are women’ is not as benign as it first seems. If you wish to be ‘nice’ to someone, that is your free choice, but if you are punished for NOT being ‘nice’ then it is no free choice at all and it begins to look more like bullying and coercion.

‘Transwomen are women’ as a slogan is nothing to do with being nice. It is a political mantra: it does not define its terms and it is used to shut down all dissent.

notthenewsinbriefs.wordpress.com/2018/07/17/turning-the-tide/

It's everywhere among teenage girls, especially. All the social media aimed at them is absolutely saturated with it.

If anyone here is surprised how pervasively trans ideology has been absorbed into teen culture, they need to start paying attention, especially if you have a GNC child. Ime being scientific or logical is irrelevant.

My daughter is 15 too Jelly and GNC. To the poster surprised she's even heard about this stuff; two of my kid's female friends call themselves trans. The first lesson this year in their "personal/health-education/social" whatever it's called on sex+relationships had the teacher writing pan-sexual & sexual on the board and being told that society hasn't evolved enough to let everyone use the toilet of their choice. I'm surprised if anyone hasn't come across it!
I'm sorry she was upset Jelly. This area is so easy to portray as just being nice and not excluding anyone. I always point out that this ideology is regressive and actually reinforces gender stereotypes. The sex aspect and threat is difficult to put across to someone that age. I was aware sadly when I was young, my daughter isn't really and of course I hope she never is. I agree with posters saying that as she grows up she'll likely be able to see your point of view more, which is only saying that rights need to be balanced and weighed with care.

Oh and DD friend is traumatised because their dad killed themselves, not because of their identify issues.

Its hard. Especially when all they get online is the cultist bs people like reanamiated spout.

DD1 is very scientific so she's been sensible about this for ever. Her best friend is trans and she respects their pronouns etc. She loves and supports them but crucially has been discouraging them from taking blockers and hopefully hormones in the near future. I'm hoping that this poor (traumatised) kid will realise it's fine to be gender non conforming at some point, at least they'll get to adult when they make the final decision. I worry about them at uni though. Really do.

DD2 is steeped in the alternative scene but even she's seeing through the brainwashing. There's some obnoxious (bullying) kids in her class that flip flop gender and use it to gain attention. They've peaked her I think. It's funny how trans activists, even little ones, can peak people.

It's odd because it's like the whole debate in microcosm. Some child that might well be trans (although i think more non binary ) and one who just wants to be "centred" e.g. look at me and do what I say.

I'm autistic and feel for her (and you). I'm part of a few groups, and so many of us struggled with puberty in ways that others didn't. We all had issues with being typical girls and mostly thought we were men in the wrong bodies.

We also religiously believed things like zealots, and once we thought we were right, god help anyone who tried to contradict us.

Sadly the only thing that will help is her growing up and getting through all the confusion and difficulty and getting to the place where there's stability again around her.

You can be anything you want except a biological woman

Typical guilt inducing rhetoric from Reanimated. Reported.

A lot of the language used can be confusing. We may think we are inclusive of transpeople, but I think they view our desire to keep single sex spaces like toilets, changing rooms and refuges single sex quite differently. I think this is what OP meant.

I have issues with the way erasure is used by both sides. No-one is going to be erased. Transpeople aren't going anywhere and neither are we. The main thing I can see is at risk of erasure is the biological concept of woman and the rights that flow from that.

I think that some use of language in this debate is clumsy, which is to be expected to some extent. We're humans, we make mistakes from time to time. But some language used is careless and some exaggerates, which I don't think is helpful. Measured, logical responses are more likely to win people over.

Assist? Should say assault

What I always say to people is this is not actually about trans people. It’s about violent and abusive men. Violent and abusive men:

• should not be allowed to harass or assist other people in the toilets regardless of appearance or clothing
• should not be allowed to pretend to be trans in order to abuse women or child

Am I for trans rights? Of course! Do I think that means anyone can say they are trans and therefore access women / children? No!

I also worry that if transwomen become part of the category of women, then the struggles unique to being trans are erased. Same for transmen. I want to live in a world where everyone can be proud of their lives, their bodies, their journey - not one in which people are desperately worried about ‘passing’ to the point where they feel the need to erase parts of their identity and self.

I do worry about the erasure of women too but people don’t ‘get’ that as much so I don’t lead with it.

I guess it depends what GNC means for her but I genuinely cannot think of any scenario in which my beliefs would oppress her.

I am concerned that trans identifying people are being sold a lie. I think it's genuinely cruel to state that they can change sex when they physically can't and that the only people who deny this wish to hate them/remove them from the earth/deny that they exist. Your poor compassionate dd. It's not the men who are unpleasant to trans identified people in real life who ever care about other's feelings in this way.

You really told her she shouldn’t be inclusive of people who are different?

The latest story in the times could be very useful.
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0eba70ea-c1da-11e8-a932-84839f5183a4

Girl guides will encourage tom boys to leave while trans girls will be included. This looks like you are grouping people based on their 'gender' not actual sex. Ask her, as a GNC woman does she think she is not really a woman or would be more suited to hanging out with the boys? Remind her that this has the effect of isolating lesbians (as most people with questions re their gender are bi/gay) from other women. That sounds homophobic and cruel to me. I think this is where we are going, its where the logic is leading us.

OP, these two bits of your post seem to be giving out a message which is at odds to how I view the situation.

Plus she's GNC and sees that as something she has in common with transpeople, rather than having her femaleness in common with women.

She's swallowed all the "you can be anything you want" and the "we should be inclusive of people who are different ", and now we telling her that that's wrong.

I agree that she has the GNC in common with transpeople, and I also think that you can be anything you want, and that we should be inclusive. I don't think any of that is wrong at all.

The problem with the gender ideologists is that being GNC or being anything you want and being inclusive all becomes about changing sex and everyone having to go along with the pretence that a transgender person really has changed sex.

My response is that a GNC woman is still a woman. Being anything you want and being inclusive is about accepting people as they are, with one single limitation - that you can't change sex.

In some ways it's them who are not inclusive. The push in schools for children to think about their 'gender identity' is part of this problem. It implies that certain traits and personalities and preferences somehow align with one sex or the other, and if you have a gender identity which doesn't align, then you must be trans and need to have your body modified to match. It's the modern version of changing your personality to fit your body. It is equally regressive and is the opposite of acceptance and inclusion.

Reanimated your post is abhorrent

I empathise so, so much. My youngest dd is 16, gnc, has autistic traits and is a trans ally, and sometimes describes herself as gender fluid.

We don’t really talk much about the current debates, as she prefers not to hear my views. But I think she and her friends alike are completely unaware of the proposed changes to the gra, and the implications. I think, that for them, it is more simply a matter of whether we are for or against trans people.
Does your daughter realise that the proposed chnages, and what we are so strongly disagreeing with, is letting anyone whatsoever label themselves trans and/or a woman?
For my daughter, I think what might get her to see my view, would be to explain that these changes will not help people with gender dysphoria, who can already get a grc.
I also think it could help to point out, that TRAs don’t actually give a damn about dysphoric adolescents, it’s all about the cross-dressers and autogynephiles.
Though like I said, I haven’t actually gotten as far as having an open conversation with my daughter about it, so you are way ahead of me there.

I never hear anything about such issues except on here, am surprised your daughter does. Most of us go through our daily lives without it.
Poor kid, it must be confusing for her. I wouldn't be keen on her SM tendencies though.

This whole thing is especially hard on autistic kids because they're so literal and nuance is hard for them. Keep your chin up, OP - it may take her a while to work through all of this but she'll get there eventually.

And agree with Foldy - taking potshots at mums reaching out about trouble with their kids is about as un-Mumsnetty as it gets. There is absolutely nothing in that post to indicate that OP doesn't love her child.

That unnecessary, Reanimated. Reported.

We are heading for a future when women don't have the right to single sex spaces and provisions, though. Which will inevitably (and already has) lead to public life becoming more risky for some (most) women. And I believe it is likely to lead to a backslide on women's representation in positions of power.

We're not going backwards in a straight line, obviously (e.g. I don't think there's any reason to worry about marital rape being made legal again), and on many issues I believe women's rights do actually continue to progress. But women obviously stand to lose out if it comes to pass that we no longer exist as a legal class.

she's GNC and sees that as something she has in common with transpeople, rather than having her femaleness in common with women

This is so sad.

We're all GNC in ways. I wish I was MORE GNC, quite honestly. In many ways I wish I DIDN'T have the responsibilities of mothering and nurturing and all the female socialisation shit around domesticity and wifework and ALL THAT STUFF. My life would be easier.

I feel desperately for your DD. Everyone wants people to be nice to people. That's a young, female, human perspective. It's just a bit naive, is all. But idealism isn't always a terrible thing.

I also feel for you. You sound awesome.