There are genuine transgender people - but they are quiet.

Whenever a conversation starts, people react to the 'trigger phrases' TSNTG uses, it gets heated and people like TSnTG jump ship. They feel attacked, which feeds the mythology that MN is full of unreasonable trans hating bigots. Yep! And we, women, often feel obliged to apologise for that. Except here, where many have decided that we won't as we are not at fault, not to blame, not being nasty. Simply not apologising for A N Others feelings.

It is a cycle of unreasonableness. If you read my posts, and those of many others, you will see many women acknowledge that they are being unreasonable, they simply won't take a step towards TWAW.

But if you look for a TW saying the same thing you probably won't find m/any at all. Mirand Yardley et al are few and far between. Most TWs who post here try to explain why they are different, should be accpeted. They feel threatened when women won't agree. Some threat!

I too was an educator, but I won't treat TW as damaged children (That probably sounds like a sneer, it isn't intended as such) they can stand on their own 2 feet and debate back.

My previous post was a bit nit picky, I just wanted to be sure I had addressed all of your pooitns, wasn't trying to nit pick!

Talking of socialisation... I had to remove 3 "sorrys" from that!

Come on, we can't scream about the stupidity of TRAs saying 'no debate' and then do the same in reverse. There is a debate here - we've been asking and pushing for one. TSNTG was/is offering a debate from a far more reasoned starting point than the TRAs - shouting them down for not echoing our views is poor strategy.

Sorry for being long winded. I'm working this out on the hoof. Don't apologisew! I spoted very simialr ly a while ago. Some very nice (lud, robust, determined) posters discussed it with me for as long as I wanted to engage. It was quite a disturbing process but easier because of the input I had.

That's the bit that took me longest! I know post surgery trans individuals, have just been to the wedding of 2 good friends, one a transman the other a straight woman. I wouldn't dream of treating him as anything other than 'him'.

But my tranny mate, who I have known since we were in our teens? He can fuck off with his pretty frock if he tried to come into the ladies loo! Not that he would as he is most definitely a man in a frock, out and out tranny for decades, he acknowledges his fetish for what it is, always has!

The cognitive dissonance is really hard to deal with! I KNOW the people in my life, LGBTQ whatever. That's why I was an ally for so long. It is also why my change of heart has been so fucking difficult, and that's before the high profile stories came out .

Once that genie is out of the bottle....

I (possibly because I'm socialised as a woman?) hate conflict and contradictions and people having entrenched opinions. I disengage from the more 'robust' discussions, where people analyse each other's every word and metaphorically speaking push and shove to get their point across. I don't like telling people they are wrong (or being told I'm wrong). I prefer to offer a different way of looking at things and let people come to their own conclusions. I'm an educator, mainly having worked with traumatised children. When emotions are intense, when people feel threatened (whether the threat is real or imagined), they cannot use higher reasoning.

Sorry for being long winded. I'm working this out on the hoof.

I want to talk to people like TSnTG. Whenever a conversation starts, people react to the 'trigger phrases' TSNTG uses, it gets heated and people like TSnTG jump ship. They feel attacked, which feeds the mythology that MN is full of unreasonable trans hating bigots.

It feels as though we're trapped in a cycle of unreasonableness. TSnTG came on this thread because OP was wondering where the 'quiet transexuals' are. If they had posted their own thread, as some foolhardy souls have, they'd be accused of 'me me me, oh look a man has entered the room to tell us how to do it'. Very hard line to tread, I think.

And some people genuinely can’t have trans medical/surgical interventions due to other non-related health conditions. No one should have to risk their life to access a toilet.

Much better to divide on biological sex, as determined at conception, and then provide additional 3rd, entirely private, single user facilities for when nudity/partial nudity is unavoidable, for the people who aren’t comfortable using the facilities provided for their birth sex. This provides for non-binary types too, whereas simply allowing trans people to use the opposite facilities does not.

And even if there is agreed accommodation for a post surgical transwoman colleague, what happens then when 'George in accounts' shows up as Georgina in a dress, as part of his APG validation and wants to access that female space too? How does management refuse when the precident has already been set?

But I think we are missing opportunities to educate each other. To me it feels as though that education can only possibly have one outcome, that TWAW. All else is unfair and not nice. We are always being asked to consider the feelings of transwomen, but never have the feelings of women put first and foremost.

Even the best intentioned, most pleasant of TW, as many posters here have been, end up introducing their emotions as a reason for woemen to have pause. They also say things like "I use women's spaces but only with their agreement" and then refuse to listen when posters like myself try to exlain why that might not be the whole truth. If we cannot express that then where is the discussion?

I can understand not wanting to engage with someone, resenting the need to explain the obvious or sweeten the pill. I DO wish to engage, but I don't have anything to sweeten the pill with.

That's fine. Go and talk to someone else. So you are shutting me up?

Haranguing someone who will then stop engaging shuts down the debate and feeds into the mythology. So I must shut up so someone else can continue to speak unchecked... feeding what mythology?

This is a thread that should be read by everyone. All is being played out here for anyone who cares to use their critical faculties to see.

Unfortunately it's the case that we cannot take anything at face value. We need to do more than scratch the surface. And how interesting that when we do that, when we ask for clarification and a greater understanding, when we say - 'hang on, I disagree with that for this reason' - we are made to feel we have done something wrong and should
be ashamed of ourselves for being mean and unwelcoming.

All is not as it seems - if it were, we would be able to have full
and robust discussions.

I refuse to not see how we are being set up in threads such as this. And I am grateful to those who expose this for what it is.

I agree curious. But I think we are missing opportunities to educate each other. I can understand not wanting to engage with someone, resenting the need to explain the obvious or sweeten the pill. That's fine. Go and talk to someone else. Haranguing someone who will then stop engaging shuts down the debate and feeds into the mythology.

Ah, I see. It's too damn hard to change the alpha males, so we'll bully the more aquiescent females instead. I get it now.

TimeLady because in the scenario being talked about a women's space had been created... and was being eradicated.

No gym will kick out the alpha males, they are their best customers, their best secondary spenders (where all gyms make the majority of their profit).

It would have been. But the "ta da!" in the "actually thay have been asked" was quite clear. As others have said, many women faced with being asked would have quietly demurred and maybe simply not returned!

A year ago that would have been how I reacted. Now I would have looked around and thought about the reasons the women in the room wanted a female only session... muslim women, jewish women, women with mastectomies, other medical issues, women who don't feel comfortable in exercise clothes with men around, with PTSD, women who just want exercise in a female space, not to have to put up with the male gaze... and I would say "No! I don't want to share this female space with a man"

The crux of this is why have I changed so much?

The answer is TRA actions and the inability of "real transgender" people to accept that they too are men and I no longer wish to acquiesce or pretend!

It would have been great to have a conversation with TSnTG about how their use of a female gym was not as straightforward as they thought.

What is the issue with using a mixed gym? If the 'alpha males' are being boorish, surely that is the issue that should be dealt with? Start a campaign to chuck the bullies out; you'd probably get a great deal of support from female members. Create a safe mixed space.

plattercake you beat me to it re the intersex CAH for males! CAH makes male babies more physically masculine. Nothing whatsoever to do with feeling like a woman.

Re OP, this was a relevent recent thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3506594-Transsexuals-leaving-the-Stonewall-umbrella?pg=3

I want to use that posh gym down the road but I can’t afford it and it makes me very distressed. If they’d just make an exception for me I’m sure nobody would mind, Everyone else pays, so it’s not like they’d go bankrupt, and it’s not like anyone else would even know I don’t pay just by looking at me, unlike the women at OP’s gym who clearly know a male when they see and hear one.

Yeah, gyms aren't closed groups where you can just consult those present and move on. Some transsexuals want to use women's gyms. Not long ago someone said on another thread that they just want to use the loos. And women are supposed to accept a case-by-case solution, which basically means saying yes when asked.
Can someone explain why the discomfort of some males trumps the discomfort of women who don't want to share women's spaces with male bodies?
Is gender dysphoria more important than trauma from sexual violence, for instance - why is it women who need to "get over it"?

To clarify, the OP actually said that their body was "essentially male" which I took to mean they are male, XY, but that they have gender dysphoria and wish to 'live as a woman' and have had transsexual surgeries.

If it turns out that they OP is actually XX but was masculinalised by their medical condition but is now wanting to live as a woman, then I apologise for misunderstanding, and of course it turns the thread on its head.

And it would go to show why we all need to stick to using the right words and definitions for male and female, and XX and XY.

I was just wondering how many female users of OP’s women only gym may have stopped going when they saw a male bodied person there, or how many women haven’t joined because the gym is not actually single sex?

It’s not a loaded question though. It’s a valid and important one. Women’s spaces are for women and girls - human females - not for people who think they have some inner feminine essence that makes them an honorary woman. You’re claiming to be an ally and then dodging an important issue clearly showing you’re someone who wants to be treated as special.

Whilst we separate into transsexual and transgender we continue to cede space to people who aren’t born female. There is no difference between the different kind of trans - this is a manipulative appeal to female socialisation and it stinks.

I totally agree with this. And that asking women in the presence of others is not fair, and even that they may not want to be disapproved of by the gym staff, so it is a coercive question from the very start.

People with MH conditions (gender dysphoria being one) are people and people can exhibit all kinds of personality traits and characteristics, depending on or exacerbated by their condition and the severity, so why wouldn't some people with gender dysphoria be generally 'nice' people - unless they are males specifically using women's single sex spaces, then to me that makes them not so nice.

Its hard to have a discussion with a male who defends their use women's spaces and a lot of women think that it wrong.

Also, I read about CAH that the OP says they have, as I am trying to learn about these DSDs as they are often brought into the trans debate now, and I am slightly confused. CAH is a hormone condition but it can lead to an over production of androgens (male sex hormones eg testosterone) and so may be an intersex condition in females as androgens may lead to ambiguous genitals, but I can see nothing of how this would be an intersex condition for a male, or how it may be said to be feminising or something which I had understood to be the OP's point.

rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/congenital-adrenal-hyperplasia/

www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/congenital-adrenal-hyperplasia/symptoms-causes/syc-20355205

I do hope the OP won't feel attacked by my confusion. I was just doing my due diligence before asking the OP if they would elaborate on about how they felt their condition affected their being trans. Am happy to read the science.

Something that's really pissed me off is the way all this toxic shit has caused so much upset and distress within previously close communities when there's been absolutely no need for it.

Discussion and debate is one of the great gifts of good relationships. Hearing the stories and life experiences of the people around us is deeply enriching. My friends and family include gay, straight, (genuine) trans and some weird single people. We learn from each other and pass the potatoes and do the dishes and get the ice cream out.

Anyone who shouts "transphobic', "bigot", "die in a fire" towards anyone who doesn't parrot the TRA mantra and refuses to have an actual live conversation that doesn't descend into a toddler tantrum is a massive knob with a tiny brain.

Id love to join a women's only gym but none can confirm that their women's only gym is indeed women only. So I stay home.

Yes I do feel that people say they were attacked when they mean disagreed with or someone was rude.