Holy crap I've approached friends about GRA and now I'm crapping myself a bit!

If they come back favourably I'll send them the link to the GRA consultation .. I just nearly broke my keyboard by bashing the keys so vehemently when I filled it in . I've bookmarked the Times article about Pips to share on FB tomorrow as I have already spammed my FB friends with many many dog photos today

Thankyou for the push needed to do something (very small) about this OP

FekkoTheLawyer
I've just ordered this one for days when I'm undercover
I'm still waiting for it to arrive so can't give any feedback about sizing or quality.

www.amazon.co.uk/Crazy-Dog-Tshirts-Nevertheless-Persisted/dp/B06VVPPDBX/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=nevertheless+she+persisted+t+shirt&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1538669470&sr=8-1

GooseDownCreek - might it be worth looking at these videos that are linked off this page?

fairplayforwomen.com

GooseDown
Am amused by your friends disapproval - what's so terrible about MN?
Your point 2 - even that won't be required. As long as a person is innately a woman, that it potentially all that self ID might require. No dress, no nothing. They could have a beard and wear a suit.
The biggest worry for me are the men, trans or otherwise, for whom this will be a open door to get access to women and children, in previously protected spaces. And to question that could potentially be called a hate crime.
The line that this affects no one who isn't trans is deeply disingenuous. It really could.

I'm meeting some friends tomorrow who I'm certain won't have a clue about the GRA. We live in a sleepy backwater stuck in 1950. They know I use MN and don't approve.
I'd like to raise it but feel I need a little checklist of points to make or prompts to remember.
How are these?

1. Transwomen are not transexuals in the majority of cases. It is Not the Same Thing!
2. The GRA would allow any man to say he is a women even if he has no intention of doing anything other than wearing women's clothing.
3. The entire school rugby team could self ID as girls and the school would have to let them share the girls' changing rooms.
4. Male athletes can take part in women's sports if they self ID. Very soon most women's titles will be won by males.

I've done my response. There were sections I didn't feel qualified to answer which I left blank. Just making people aware as it can seem quite daunting.

I've only encouraged my mum and spoken to one or two mums in person. I don't usually shy away from 'being political' but I do find it sensitive and I also don't want to come across as a crazy lady who wants all trans sent off to Alcatraz.

I know what you mean OP. As and a PP said it feels like another Brexit in a way!

Thankfully my mum thinks it's all a load of bollocks.

But then she did give birth to eight children. Her eldest was given a ration book.

I have casually brought the issue up in conversation with two or three friends. They hadn't heard of the consultation but are on board now. I also know a couple of woke, anti-MMR, Corbyn-worshippers who will, I am almost certain, think I am a bigot, but I don't know if I can face discussing it with them just yet. Having tried to discuss scientific fact regarding vaccines etc with them I doubt I would get very far anyway.

No one I know has fallen out with me on this. In fact I've made and met more friends in life. Good people I can trust.

I've just sent the sport consultation to 2 friends who are also representatives of a sports club I'm in. I also bit the bullet and said what my position was (transgender people to be welcomed in sport but male-born people not to be able to compete in women's category) .. but nervous about what they will think but pleased you have all spurred me on to out myself even a tiny tiny bit.

And I think I've just developed my response to this consultation.
I also want one of the t shirts that defines the word woman.

I've had favourable responses from 3 female friends and one male has been liking my posts. No negative responses or unfriendings...yet.

I do struggle to see how they plan to maintain women only spaces with the argument that anyone who says they're a woman is a woman, end of argument

Exactly! Sometimes, I think they come up with this nonsense to exhaust our cognitive functions and make us waste brain cycles on attempting to find the irrational in the wholly irrational.

Thank you Arran fan. I do struggle to see how they plan to maintain women only spaces with the argument that anyone who says they're a woman is a woman, end of argument. On what basis are men (used in the traditional sense of the word) able to be excluded then? Only if they agree they're men?

you dont really hear of many f2m fakers do you

Strangely, I can think of at least two court cases where women who identified as trans men have been prosecuted for claiming to be men. It's almost as if the law doesn't really believe that 'Trans Men Are Men' and have always been men, despite being 'Assigned Female At Birth', isn't it? So why the discrepancy? Is it related to the fact that many/most of the over aggressive, bullying, no-platforming TRAs were 'Assigned' male at birth?

Have you had any responses OP? I spoke to some older family friends this week about it and had peak trans-d them within five minutes of telling them about:

• Karen White
• Posie's billboard
• This: twitter.com/richardhp/status/1046732069181816833

Women know the nature of men.

It would appear that men know neither men nor women.

Or deny it when it suits them.

I asked my sister what she thought about it all. Still her response was this:

"I am not bothered about men actively transitioning to women being allowed into women’s spaces. But I would be concerned that it would be taken advantage of by some men who are doing it for other reasons, mainly sexual or to intimidate. I would also be concerned that it could encourage paedophiles to use a women’s bathroom under the pretence of being a woman as more female bathrooms have children in. I do not think that men should be allowed into a women’s refuge as I think that it could negatively impact the women who have gone there as a safe space away from a man. Whether there should be a similar type of provision for men who identify as women and need a secure environment - I don’t know enough about it to know if this would be something needed."

So much for echo-chambers, poisoning of minds, rampant transphobic gangs making stuff up etc. My sister had never heard of any of this stuff and still give this as her uninfluenced, reasoned opinion.

TwllBach - lots of threads with guidance or links to it. E.g.,

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3381951-how-long-does-it-take-to-complete-the-gra-consultation?pg=1

Please can someone link to the consultation mentioned in the OP?

This has been coming a long time - I taught in a very conservative, my way or the high way, primary school a million years ago and there was a child that finished one school year with one pronoun and started the next with another.

I'm a bit like your mum, Lysistrataknowsherstuff, in that I'm only just realising how much the Patriarchy still affects women's lives.

I've been handing out the odd leaflet (and my mum even took a few to put in her local area), but I live in an area where no one seems to have heard of it, and thinks it's so ridiculous that it can't be true or they don't care bc they don't think it will affect them.

I'm working up the courage to go out on the street and hand then out, but that's quite daunting.

I went out in my t shirt with some leaflets the other day, but didn't get much interest. I was hoping the t shirt would spark some questions so that I could show them the leaflet and tell them what's going on, but it didn't work that way.

Any ideas on how to approach it better are much appreciated.