My daughter was assaulted tonight - why I'm against self ID

Barracker, sorry if you feel I'd withheld permission in some way,

Sorry, judge my phrasing was clumsy. I didn't mean that.
It's more, whether you were aware or not, as the parent in this thread, you hold the power to allow or disallow everyone else to call your son, your son. With your permission, we can. Without, you can ensure we are deleted or banned. It isn't that you asked for that power. It's that the talk guidelines grant that power to any individual who calls themselves trans, or their proxy.

It's the principle I resent, not you.

But to the point, without being able to call a spade a spade, lots of us feel we, and the truth, are hostage to a very strange power to compel or ban speech.

So you don't refer to your child as male or female? What pronouns do you use when talking about them?

OP if you don't think transwomen are women and you don't lie, why are you calling your son a woman?

The problem with your approach redtoothbrush is that you are wanting to fix a deep seated societal problem that is not, in its entirety, about the trans movement, although it definitely highlights it I agree, by pegging it at transgenderisms door.

Transgendism is being used as a trojan horse to INCREASE this though.

It's not laying the blame at trans people. Indeed I'm of the opinion that many are themselves the victim of the ideology themselves. Precisely because of a failure to challenge what gender stereotypes are.

You HAVE to spell it out in its most basic level in order to start to crack the nut. That doesn't solve the problem throughout society, but acknowledging what the problem IS, is a massive step forward and really isn't that hard.

Yeah red. I know a family whose youngest son decided he was a girl

The mum put up some sort of poster in family home to celebrate it
Youngest daughter pulled it down

She felt that he was now special just for deciding to be a woman
She never got a poster on wall just for being a girl
She was so pissed by that

One of the biggest harms I've felt has been the removal of power to talk honestly about how things have affected me. That's why I refer to being held an emotional hostage.

Within a family this can be a particularly strong force, which suppresses the feelings and emotions of others who have to defer to the status of the 'most oppressed' or 'special statused one'.

The inability of time and space to be able to challenge this can be suffocating and crushing.

The affirmation only path and no debate are all about power and control.

Thus I think it crucial for there to be robust challenges which can be uncomfortable and awkward because without it feelings get bottled up and frustrations build even more. To the point where communication becomes completely impossible due to pure and total alienation.

Debate is crucial to preventing echo chambers. It is good and healthy to hear things we don't like and disagree with. It helps us think rather than just regurgitate and repeat.

I think the term abuse has almost lost all meaning in this debate because people get offended at reality being pointed out. Indeed given the amount of DARVO that is dished out its all the more important we do debate rather than just accept 'abuse' at face value without question.

Abuse is NOT merely challenging someone's opinions and views. It's frankly dangerous to suggest it is. That's totalitarianism and thought policing.

Thanks red and barracker

Great posts from both of you

Very clear to me. And helping me see stuff I didn’t know or understand

So,saying thanks

I totally get your point, Barracker. However due to the Talk Guidelines none of us can be as direct as we might like.

Oh I know!

Where an individual grants special 'permission' to speak the truth the talk guidelines have no power. Like D Hayton permitting male pronouns means that no more posts should be deleted for calling him he.
On a thread like this, we almost need the OPs permission to be able to refer to her child as he is, lest we break those guidelines. And thankfully, she has confirmed that she herself doesn't believe him to be transgender, which confers freedom to the rest of us (per guidelines) to be allowed to freely refer to him as such.

Talk guidelines have conferred upon certain individuals special status in granting or withholding permission for others to state facts truthfully.

I don't really judge those posting within those restrictions. I do resent other people withholding their permission for me to speak the truth though!

Sadly faire this is why people who have their own views rarely stick around. I am trying very hard to engage and respond honestly and openly but the response to that is, as always, abusive.

It's not abusive. It's challenging and difficult, yes. But not abusive. You're doing ok.

How are third spaces going to solve the problem?

It still isn't addressing the problem.

And all that does is say 'disabled people you need to budge up now...'

It still allows the sexism inherent here to be legitimised and doesn't tackle the gender stereotypes which are driving the issue.

Not to mention the opposition from TRAs to the idea of third spaces anyway.

Once again its following the narrative that effeminate men have something that they should be ashamed of and shouldnt be regarded as men of equal value and status within our society. It just rewards toxic masculinity ultimately.

It's really a continuation of homophobia via other means which then become entrenched in our society.

It always comes back to male violence and male power. Trying to ignore the root of this and pretend that's not it, let's those in power off the hook to address it in our society across the board.

It might seem like it's a conversation about toilets but actually it's a conversation about power of men over those they perceive to be weak and how they can control them in one way or another.

This conversation is ALWAYS about social power dynamics when you break it down.

JudgeFlounce, I'm getting the impression from your posts that your trans-ID child is older? I can certainly see how navigating those dynamics with older child is challenging. My daughter was 13 initially and therefore it was more straightforward, but if your child is, say, a much older teen or early twenties, then I can certainly see the difficulty. I know of a mum of a girl who ID'd as a boy, and she is currently completely estranged from both daughters over the issue.

I'm saying this because while I understand Red's perspective here, and I broadly agree, I know that I am really quite lucky that my children have engaged and that my daughter seems to be moving past her trans ID troubles, so that puts me in a position of privilege (It worked for me! etc) and I don't want to do that because I genuinely have empathy with families for whom firm GC beliefs have not stopped estrangement.

I don't know what I'm saying except perhaps the splinters in my arse from fence sitting hurt!!

I don't want men in women's rest rooms. I know how abuse can and does happen. I just wouldn't think a boy dressed up as a girl and using the men's room would be something a mother would want either, so wondered if that pushed the OP to either side.

The problem then needs to be shouted loud and clear that it's men who are violent not women who are literally violent and we need to talk about the need to protect feminine men rather than framing the whole debate as someone being a transwoman.

Its just fine to be a feminine presenting man. It's not find to go through the whole charade of paradodying a woman, putting on a fake voice, potential body mutilation and all the other sexist crap that goes with it.

But. We. Are. Not. Having. This. Conversation.

Instead it's all about blaming women for not sucking it up and telling women they have to be endangered to 'be nice' to all the 'lovely transwomen' (you know the ones who don't give a shit about how this might trigger a traumatic reaction or enable abuse of women by men and 'not so nice transwomen').

This is why the language really matters. It changes the entire narrative and who has to deal with the problem.

'Transwomen' as a word shifts the issue to being something women have to deal with and address not men. It's slight of hand to shift social responsibility and abdicate any responsibility for men to do anything about sexist behaviour or sexual violence. It's almost a 'I just don't want to see the issue' response from male power circles.

It's not a case of "being nice" or "being direct" or telling "home truths" it's about being adults and talking to each other.

You are surely aware the TRAs refuse to discuss any of the issues we explore here? Mumsnet is monitored obsessively because they would like nothing more than to silence us - and all dissenting voices - completely.

Before this TRA explosion transsexuals used women's loos on a sort of honour system. There were very few of them and they were keen to fit in. That's all gone now, thanks to the TRAs who I suspect are largely a product of the avalanches of porn the internet has made available.

If we cant even talk to each other on a forum where we largely agree how on earth are we going to talk to the people on the other side of the fence?

I think - at least for me - it's your lack of transparency that's the main problem on this thread. Does your son who identifies as a woman use women's loos or not? If you're not prepared to answer that you'll encounter pushback.

You have every right not to answer but in view of your OP it's absolutely key information. If you're opposed to Self ID but support your child who hasn't got a GRC using women only spaces then you do in fact support Self ID.