Why are so many women ok with males taking their spaces?

Sorry for the typos in my last post.

This is why GC women speak of Peak Trans. Suddenly, a light goes on and you see, you really see, for the first time.

It's far beyond holding a contrary opinion. Opinions can change. Facts never do. Yet, according to TRAs they have.

Why is it that all over the world, since time began, humans have divided themselves into two groups, without question.
Male and female.
And suddenly (for many of us it is sudden, though apparently the change has been slowly creeping in over years, decades even!) a certain minority, mostly of educated white people living in the West and not having any serious practical problems to deal with such as drought, famine, war, earthquakes etc, decide it was all nonsense to begin with, that there are no two groups of people, that male and female are all in the head???

Think about that for a moment. All in the head. No facts, no science. Just ideas, feelings. More important than what we can see with the naked eye: men and women, very different anatomies, very different biological roles. But that's just an opinion.

If then your Magic Eye doesn't open, then I despair. (I despair anyway, but still...)

I think there are many feminist issues which probably warrant more focus

Difficult to address any of them if you can’t define ‘woman’, and academics are being attacked (literally) simply for trying to have a philosophical discussion about the meaning of words.

I think it’s important to discuss the pros and cons of unisex and single sex spaces, and I agree that they can sometimes unnecessarily exclude, (after all they have excluded women for centuries) but we can’t even begin to have that debate if we aren’t allowed to say that a space that contains males and females is unisex.

Personally I’m fairly laid back about toilets, but I will never accept that a word that I need to describe a simple medical fact describes my identity. Why would anyone?

I can’t tell if you are being serious. Do you really not see how patronizing that sounds? And meaningless? You could say that about literally ANY difference of opinion

Of course it sounds patronising. But in this case it's more than a "difference of opinion". This is fundamental. It's about facts, science, not jut opinions.

Read the facts. Listen, truly listen, to the science. Take the Are You a Terf? test, also by AngryBird.

angrybirdroar.wordpress.com/2018/11/14/are-you-a-terf/

I'm inclined to agree with LassOfFyvie that the trans issue isn't something you really encounter day to day in the real world. I think there are many feminist issues which probably warrant more focus, even if on paper self ID sounds like a big threat.

@Lamaha — I can’t tell if you are being serious. Do you really not see how patronizing that sounds? And meaningless? You could say that about literally ANY difference of opinion. “If you think and learn and wait patiently you will suddenly realise that a hard Brexit is the right option/you should stay in this marriage/Jesus died for your sins/all mums should SAH. And on and on.

The thing is, I fully understand why GC folks feel as they do, and I acknowledge that there are some problematic issues that need further consideration with regard to things like women’s sports. I see the magic eye shape. I just don’t feel that it should be hung on my wall. I may be pushing this metaphor too far... Perhaps if you made an effort to see my magic eye poster you would agree with me. (See how that works?)

This is a blog post be someone calling herself Angry Bird which, I think, explains the subject question very well. She compares the phenomenon of "not seeing" to those Magic Eye posters back in the day: and how her own eyes were opened to what was going on. It's a blind spot.

angrybirdroar.wordpress.com/2018/10/?fbclid=IwAR1xs1FBc-txanWo01G0K-Gc-AoAXbCgCrWg-fzzlqMKK4A_5qP-OoIWheo

You have to stare at the image in a certain way and an image will ‘miraculously’ appear before you. The first time I came across these was at a market and my partner saw them immediately. I stood there for ages to no avail, so we bought a poster and took it home for me to practice on. I looked at that picture for months until suddenly, one glorious day, The Statue of Liberty appeared in front of me. She was so clear and I couldn’t understand why I didn’t see her all along.

That’s how I feel about trans activism. As someone who was always very active in fighting for gay rights, I was initially horrified that there were people ‘hating’ on the trans community. I spent many a happy night dancing with the transsexuals, back in the day, and couldn’t work out what was going on.

But as you can read in my first blog (Watching the Terfs) I stood back and I observed. Because my instinct was that a group of left-leaning women, who I know fought the same battles as me, do not suddenly become a mob of snarling bigots overnight.

It's a blind spot that could unfortunately deliver a big win to Trump. The left really needs to open its eyes.

OccasionalKite

LassOfFyvie, I am glad and happy that you have done alright for yourself! Well done you! You must be very clever!

What are you on about? I posted that in real life I have come across only a tiny number of trans women. What on earth has being very clever got to do with that?

twicemummy1

@LassOfFyviethe question wasn't "why don't you like radfems?"
The question was "why do women prioritize men over women?"

Indeed the question was not " why don't you like rad fems?" And that was not what I posted about. I posted why radical feminist arguments don't convince me. That is entirely different from saying "I don't like radical feminists".

LassOfFyvie, I am glad and happy that you have done alright for yourself! Well done you! You must be very clever!

"why do women prioritize men over women?".

'Cos we're trained to. Female socialisation, innit ? Be nice, love. They don't like it when we're fucking angry.

@LassOfFyvie the question wasn't "why don't you like radfems?"
The question was "why do women prioritize men over women?".

@LassOfFyvie you're right this is not an exclusively radical feminist space , but the general gist of the politics here leans toward radical feminism. It was radical feminist Janice Raymond who developed the theory that transactivism was dangerous to women and inherently misogynistic, for example. at the time of her publication She never envisioned the dystopian horror of transing children. She never thought they'd take it that far, but they have.
Quite a lot of mumsnetters agree with Janice Raymond's politics, to the extent I personally regard this place as a (rare) safe space for radfems to hang out

I think some of the younger women (although not exclusively the young) have it in their heads that feminism can take its foot off the accelerator for a while and that in order for continued progress, feminism needs to be seen as reasonable and socially acceptable. A softer approach. An approach that men won't feel threatened by.

Then you have the social pressure elements, of course.

twicemummy
@LassOfFyvieAre you messing? "Special exclusion from criticism"
Radical feminists arereviledfor holding the views we do. But all of our theories stand up to scrutiny

You stated it was "a bit weird trying to tell radical feminists they are wrong". Why is that a "bit weird" (not that I was even doing so) unless you think radical feminism should not be subject to scrutiny?

This forum is not an exclusive radical feminist forum. The premise of this thread was to ask why other women are not fully onside with you. I answered it.

@Caucho yes we are indeed less comfortable with being accused of transphobia because hidden behind the accusation of "TERF!" Or "transphobe!" is the threat of male violence. And trans women are very vocal online about wanting to "fuck up some TERFS" or " kill all TERFS".
These are very overt death threats from men towards women who disagree with them.

Rightly or wrongly, Women do take online death threats from men seriously, which is why I'm guessing women want to distance themselves from radical feminism

I’d say it’s because they’re brainwashed and worried about being accused of being nasty and prejudiced. It’s already being likened to gay rights and activism; unsurprisingly as is under the LGBT umbrella and Stonewall are a key player.

I also do think it’s a ‘women’ thing and trying not to be sexist, women ‘in general’, not all (I hate why I have to even write a disclaimer about something I don’t think is particularly controversial), are known as the nicer and fairer sex and less willing to offend. It’s mainly women who get labelled transphobes due to a combination of mysogny but also because they are less comfortable being accused. I’m seriously not bothered to be called that as man. These people are loons so why should I care? I’d just laugh

@LassOfFyvie Are you messing? "Special exclusion from criticism"
Radical feminists are reviled for holding the views we do. But all of our theories stand up to scrutiny.
Whereas trans ideology is off bounds for criticism. It simply shuts down debate and tries to get gender critical feminists ( TERFS) driven off the internet. We are seeing some some very sinister stuff being related to trans ideology , specifically the transing of children finally being reported in the Times. But radfems have been trying to shine a light on it for decades. It is the trans lobby that is above scrutiny, not radical feminism. It's a patriarchal reversal to say otherwise

I didn't tell you ("you" being radical feminists) that you were wrong. I gave you my opinion - but even if I had said you were wrong, what special exclusion from criticism should radical feminism get from any other philosophy?

In any case the premise of the thread is why is your message not getting across ? (albeit couched in more loaded terms). It's a "bit weird" then to criticise me for replying to the question.

I would also say it's a bit weird trying to tell radical feminists we're wrong. The whole world tells us we're wrong. Mainstream newspapers call us hateful bigot TERFS who should die in a fire. We get no platformed, ignored, sacked from jobs and even physically attacked just for our political views. Radfems have thought through our politics very very carefully. We are very used to mainstream people's opinions because those opinions are literally everywhere and dominate the media.

@LassOfFyvie I don't think radfems really care about getting people to see their point of view. We can't anyway. Most people accidentally fall into radical feminism when searching for answers and when your eyes have been opened there's no going back.

In fact the interesting thing is that trans activists are accidentally creating a radical feminist army. Women go along with the trans ideology until they peak trans over something ridiculous that was said ( periods are transphobic , for example), or they get called a TERF for pointing out some biological fact. So they wonder "what is a TERF?" So they do a bit of online research, wondering who these TERFS are, and find radical feminism and they think fuck me these people are talking sense. That's literally how radical feminists are made. We just keep ourselves to ourselves and have little chats between ourselves and people seek us out

ops I meant 'a man's woman' not the reverse

I was the small, plain, flat-chested girl, with hands like 'a road-digging navvy' (my dad's words to me as a teen) - I've been a tomboy, a 'woman's man' a 'handmaiden' (before I had heard of the term or had any understanding of it) and a lost soul. Once you've seen through the eyes of feminism, led by brave souls showing the way, there's no turning back, but their voices are so easily drowned out by the patriarchy and the supports of it that many people just cannot see that view point at all.

Bertrand, I'm not going to trawl though them but my recollection is that the tone was very sneery and dismissive of White largely because of the way she looks (ultra- feminine, long hair, hair flicking) and that White is right- wing.

White has often said that she is anti-feminist- but she is anti-social justice warrior in general. For her feminism is simply part of social justice snowflakery.

On the appearance issue, well yes, no-one could deny White looks ultra- feminine and hair flicky- but a quick look at any YouTube style or beauty channel will find plenty of natal women exactly like her, so why attack White on that point?

On the political aspect - we are now in a position that out- spoken, right wing, libertarians are the ones standing up for free speech.

Summary, I didn't find Berns made substantive points beyond her obvious dislike of White.

“Way back in the dawn of this I took agin to Magdalen Berns because of various response videos she made about Blaire White.”

Could you say more?

We can't get rid of the anti-trans idea because it's the basis of all their arguments. To them we aren't being pro-women because TWAW. Women's rights are trans' rights blah blah blah.