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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

How to respond to this...

27 replies

Motheroffeminists · 28/04/2019 22:01

..."I believe, after some thought, that transwomen are women and transmen are men. I don't think you can change sex, it's just that gender identity doesn't always match with biological sex for all people. In addition to this, I believe in equality for all oppressed groups, and I don't think you further the rights of one group by undermining the rights of another. Men kill, rape and abuse women every day and don't need to ID as women in order to access women's safe spaces. Karen White was a failure of the prison service to segregate a sex offender from other inmates in that prison. The trans debate involves some horrible discussions around the issues and these seem to be based on women worrying that self ID will lead to more violence against women. As I said before, men don't need self ID to access women's safe spaces and commit crimes, they'll do it anyway."

I'm at a loss as to how to respond to this. I had asked someone their opinion on trans issues and women's rights. The bit that had me HmmConfused was about furthering the rights of one group by undermining another unless they meant that trans rights should not trump women's rights although I interpreted it the opposite way. Their thoughts seem confused and contradictory and to follow popular opinion rather than be based on critical thought. There was something about what it feels like to be a man or a woman too but as this board has shown repeatedly, no one can answer that. As a woman, I just feel like me. I've never been anyone else so I can't possibly know what it's like to be someone else whether that's another woman or a man.

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9toenails · 30/04/2019 09:44

Yes, DpWm. I know you are joking, of course.

But ' To say there's no such thing as gender identity is literal violence '.

... Again, my response is, 'No it is not. To say there is no such thing as gender identity is not even metaphorical violence. It is no sort of violence at all.'

As for the 'torrent of abuse and hyperbole' you mention. I avoid that by not being twitterate or book-faced, whatsapped or ... well, you get the picture.

Nevertheless, sauce/goose/gander: such abuse and hyperbole is no sort of violence either.

Yes, if there are practical and moral (even legal) consequences of foolishness and nonsense such as promulgated by 'gender identity' people, such consequences do need to be dealt with. Online abuse? My response is the same as I had long ago when, in the early days of the internet, it seemed for a while that email was going to be choked by foolishness and nonsense such as ads for dick enlargement pills and so on. We sort of dealt with that, then. Can we deal with contemporary abuse and hyperbole similarly? I hope so.

DpWm · 29/04/2019 20:02

To say there's no such thing as gender identity is literal violence. You are denying transpeople their existence who are now all killing themselves because of you, this makes you a Nazi. The fire that you should die in is this way --->
Just saying.

Who, in the public sphere, can actually be bothered with the inevitable torrent of abuse and hyperbole.

9toenails · 29/04/2019 10:07

Responses to moral and practical issues raised by cognitive mistakes have their place, of course they do. But my own response to stuff like this usually focuses on the original mistake(s).

In this case, for example: 'There is no such thing as gender identity. So talk of it 'matching' or not with biological sex is, quite literally, meaningless.'

Sometimes, ime, people find it difficult to swallow the fact that they can be talking complete nonsense without knowing it. But with goodwill all round, they can learn to understand.

If goodwill is lacking, of course the dialogue goes nowhere. Even if that is the case, though, my response remains the same: 'I'm sorry, but what you are saying makes no sense.'

I think it important such a response be given more often. People too often get away with talking nonsense, in many areas of discourse. It is obviously a bad thing.

sackrifice · 29/04/2019 09:53

I believe, after some thought, that transwomen are women and transmen are men.

What was that thought process, bearing in mind 'I don't think you can change sex'?

NeurotrashWarrior · 29/04/2019 09:39

And safeguarding.

NeurotrashWarrior · 29/04/2019 09:38

And the children of course.

NeurotrashWarrior · 29/04/2019 09:38

Oh yes and where does she fall on the fact that many /most TW haven't removed their penis, and nor do they want to - and to be fair, I understand that.

Women do not have penises. Abused women cannot be around penises.

Futher to my TM comment, a significant number of females have gender dysphoria and transition to male due to sexual assaults and abuse.

It's always about the TW.

Focus on the women.

NeurotrashWarrior · 29/04/2019 09:35

Also, as ever, where are the TM? When you consider the sex based needs of TM, you start to realise why it's absolutely not TWAW.

Though I would say a number of people in the GC community have pointed out to me that TM also can look so male that they are also potentially visually intimidating to women. And yet can be raped and abused as a female. It's extremely complex and the blanket mantra ignores so much that's hiding beneath the surface.

NeurotrashWarrior · 29/04/2019 09:31

It's not that TW are 'dangerous because they're male' by any means. Obviously NAMALT nor NATWALT. It's that women need and have a right to safe spaces based on the actions of a numerically significant number of males in our society.

NeurotrashWarrior · 29/04/2019 09:28

Not recognising that tw are male means you do not recognise that abused women can have serious ptsd around any males. It is furthering their abuse to gaslight them and everyone around them into believing that twaw and therefore 'equal' rights from a point of view of access to a safe space for females.

Trans people's 'rights' are uniquely different when it comes to medical health care.

'Trans' actually means much more complications for a variety of reasons and they can be discriminated against within medical settings by not recognising the trans part.

BertrandRussell · 29/04/2019 09:25

Please can you ask on my behalf what the thought process that led her to believe that transwomen are women was? I am desperate to understand this, and nobody can explain.

AlwaysTawnyOwl · 29/04/2019 09:23

www.thestar.com/news/canada/2019/04/26/trans-woman-objects-to-contract-requiring-her-to-act-female-to-stay-in-bc-womens-prison.html

This s a great story of what happens when you take TWAW to its logical conclusion:-

AlwaysTawnyOwl · 29/04/2019 09:13

Read Laura Bates for the everyday hassle that women put up with most of it never reported and nothing would happen if it was. A recent study of everyone coming forward for a GRC in Oxfordshire over a 5 year period found that 2 of the 39 men were rejected on the grounds they were paedophiles who wished to facilitate access to children by appearing as women. A system with no checks like self I’d will be targeted by such people.

FlippinFumin · 29/04/2019 07:53

The analogy I find most helpful is, if I offer you a sweet from a packet of 100, and 10 of them are poisonous, would you take a sweet? No, and same with men in women's spaces. With all the self ID bullshit and men who look exactly like men saying they are women, who can we trust? Who are we safe with? Best bet? Don't take a sweet and don't have men in women's spaces.

DpWm · 29/04/2019 07:40

Ah, someone in a public role, that makes more sense, they're only saying it to keep their job, as we all know how dangerous it is particularly for women, to go against the TRA line.
I feel quite sorry for her. No one genuinely believes that shit.

Redshoeblueshoe · 29/04/2019 00:47

Public role
Sounds like my fucking MP
A woman who got her job by being on an AWSL
She now has no issues with AWSL being all TW

TheInebriati · 29/04/2019 00:42

If she is in a public role she has a duty to understand the law, even if she doesn't agree with it. Services and spaces are segregated by biological sex, not gender identity. Removing women only spaces should not be a goal for any woman or something to be proud of.

OldCrone · 29/04/2019 00:38

Ask her what she means by this:
gender identity doesn't always match with biological sex for all people.

What is gender identity, and in what ways is it expected that it might 'match with biological sex'?

Motheroffeminists · 28/04/2019 23:06

Sadly this was a woman in a public role who I asked to give me her opinion. She hasn't actually thought much about it despite knowing how relevant the topic is to her role. She claimed to be pro women at which point I wished her well and gave up.

OP posts:
SignMeUp · 28/04/2019 22:52

I believe in equality for all oppressed groups, and I don't think you further the rights of one group by undermining the rights of another.

Yes, That is why sex needs to remain a protected class. Adding gender identity removes the legal category of female.

I'm finding it less and less helpful to start the conversation with horrendous instances of crimes and TRA nastiness. We all know the miniscule number of trans people pales in comparison to regular men who would abuse these" rights".

Agree with everything angryprion says

We really need to agree on an objective definition of gender identity
before any meaningful discussion or policy making can proceed.

ILoveMaxiBondi · 28/04/2019 22:42

men don't need self ID to access women's safe spaces and commit crimes, they'll do it anyway.

So Karen White would have had access to vulnerable female prisoners while they slept, showered, used the bathroom if he had identified as a male? Hardly.

Erythronium · 28/04/2019 22:41

Men kill, rape and abuse women every day and don't need to ID as women in order to access women's safe spaces.

Men will do it anyway so lets give them even more opportunities and even more potential victims! Make it really easy for them, instead of putting up boundaries and protections against their criminal behaviour.

Are you going to bother responding? It seems a bit pointless given this person appears not to want to think.

AnyOldPrion · 28/04/2019 22:39

Also, back to the very simple. If we can legally separate people using biological sex, which is easily observed and verifiable in the vast majority of cases, then why swap to something as undefinable as “gender identity” which requires a reliance upon a person’s truthfulness and can easily be lied about.

If a group of men (most of whom retain their genitalia) are demanding that women’s rights are extended to them, isn’t it up to those men to prove there will be no increased harm to women?

If not, why not?

And if they’re so unsafe (statistical evidence required for U.K. transitioners) then why don’t they do as women and disabled people, and campaign for suitable spaces to fit their needs, rather than demanding access to womens’.

ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving · 28/04/2019 22:39

Tbh though an easier way to peak him might be to send him on Twitter to talk to some TRAs. He might think that he's an ally but lets see how far his "I don't think humans can change sex but..." ideas get him. I give it 5 minutes before the "DIAF cis scum" comments start pouring in.

FFSFFSFFS · 28/04/2019 22:36

Gender identity is a stereotype.

"Men kill, rape and abuse women every day" because of biology - not because of gender."

Men who have a "gender identify" of being a woman are just as likely to kill, rape and abuse a woman as any other man.

Self id makes it significantly easier for any predatory man to kill, rape and abuse a woman.

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