Exasperated and worried.

However it should be borne in mind that those with a GRC are protected by the Equalities Act (gender reassignment is a protected characteristic) and if we want it to sex-based protection it should also protection gender reassignment based protection. That is a world away from self ID in my view.

You should see some of the people that GRC have been awarded to. I agree that gender reassignment protection from discrimination should remain in the EA, but I think it should be entirely separate from sex in every way. And that "legal gender" should be unhooked from "sex" as well.

@FloralTeacup this is the problem with social media, it doesn't reflect real life.

I am surrounded by a lot of “woke” types on SM, so their views are skewing my overall outlook

That's why so many people were utterly surprised and taken aback by the last ejection result. If you live your life online / through social media especially with others who share the same views or virtue signalling or scared to disagree in any way or form then this is what you get. People thinking that "most" people think that way when their collective actions speak otherwise.

You're not in the minority. We're not a society of ridiculous anime avatars / keyboard warriors like the ilk who laid into JKR. A lot of large corporations/businesses/charities/government departments are being rainbow washed into thinking they are being "inclusive, kind, whatever" and it's anything but, most sensible people can see through that once they scratch the surface. The truth will out.

However it should be borne in mind that those with a GRC are protected by the Equalities Act (gender reassignment is a protected characteristic) and if we want it contain to sex-based protection it should also contain gender reassignment based protection. That is a world away from self ID in my view.

Sorry this paragraph was a mess in my post above. Wish we could edit

I don't think we are in the minority. That's not been my experience, although I'm mid-30s and have come a LONG way in my views and experience over the past few years. Mid-20s I had some seriously questionable ideas about the world.

Self ID is downright dangerous and I think most people thinking through the consequences would not be in favour. Many horribly misogynistic men (and institutions) are using trans rights as a protective umbrella under which they can do and say anything to erode the rights, protections, freedoms and dignity of women - the very thing transwomen claim they want to be.

However it should be borne in mind that those with a GRC are protected by the Equalities Act (gender reassignment is a protected characteristic) and if we want it to sex-based protection it should also protection gender reassignment based protection. That is a world away from self ID in my view.

'Inclusivity' has been highjacked to mean 'inclusive to men identifying in any way' and does not appear to advance women, BAME, disabled or any other group that may benefit from 'inclusive' policies, funding and education.

Fear not OP. I've had some dark, dark moments this summer over everything. It's worrying and upsetting and depressing, especially now I have children to raise in this strange and scary world. But you're not alone. You just need to look around and you'll find us

Which means your daughter could be allocated a bedroom with an intact male and be accused of transphobia if she has the confidence to ask to be moved.

As someone who has shared mixed sex flats at uni / mixed sex accommodation youth hostels etc, and read all the nonsense that is happening - what you describe still stands out as absolutely appalling.

Are there many shared rooms still left?

This was transcribed by Mumfun for another thread, but it fits here, I think:

ANDREW DOYLE Yes you will have seen JK Rowling in the press a number of times over the past few months surrounding this issue. The latest development is that she has returned an award that she was given last year, this was the Ripple of Hope honour by the Robert F Kennedy Foundation emmm and what has happened is that the President of that foundation, Kerry Kennedy who is the daughter of Robert Kennedy has said that JK Rowling is effectively transphobic , that she has expressed views that diminish the identity of transpeople. This is an absolutely shameful accusation . I have to say that I have never seen anyone more misrepresented generally speaking than JK Rowling over the past couple of months, and if anyone is actually interested in what she generally believes, they can read JK Rowling’s very sensitive and compassionate blog post that she published a couple of months and she outlined her concerns. And what she is saying is that she is concerned about women’s rights. She is worried that single sex spaces can be compromised if someone can simply identify as a woman, and all of this is coming out of her experience as a victim of domestic abuse and she believes that biological sex is a reality. These are all legitimate positions to hold , not only that, they are the positions of most people in the country, but what is happening is a very small group..
INTERRUPTED BY INTERVIEWER
INTERVIEWER: To be fair Andrew, to be fair she has really upset a lot of transgender people in this country, who feel absolutely undermined by what she has said
ANDREW DOYLE I actually disagree with that. A lot of the support that has come out for Rowling has come from transpeople themselves and they don’t like the fact that transpeople are being smeared by this small group of very aggressive activists who, I’m afraid to say, have expressed extreme misogyny towards JK Rowling. I’ve seen a lot of the abuse that’s being going on . A lot of it does come from a place of misogyny , and as Blaire White, the American trans writer has pointed out, transpeople are sick of it and they don’t like these attacks that are going on, particularly the misogynistic abuse. And I think JK Rowling has been extremely courageous , standing up for her principles, refusing to be bullied, refusing to be silenced and I think we should all take a leaf out of that book, and I don’t like the fact that she has been misrepresented and I think it’s unfair

@nachthexe , hopefully the sunlight will come soon.

I have spent lockdown making DD11 fully gender critical. She won’t bat an eyelid at what people wear, but has seen many charts of teenage boys competing with Olympic women. She is well aware of the impact of male puberty.

She also does not think that any girl should be forced to see a penis regardless of how the owner of the penis identifies (we started with the example “If daddy felt like a woman tomorrow, do you think it would be ok for him to shower with you and your friends?”).

My DD would be nice and smiley to you and call me immediately to discuss how this could be resolved in a non-hostile way. Hopefully there are a lot of girls like her out there !!

I agree, not a lot about this is making me laugh.

Try keeping your job as well as your self respect, when required to put pronouns in your email.

Thinking women are being shat upon from a great height.

It’s an odd thing to welcome a global pandemic because it removes the possibility of shared sex bedrooms. But here we are.

Well, it doesn’t make me laugh. I live it. And I have to allocate student housing in shared bedrooms on the basis of gender, not sex. Which means your daughter could be allocated a bedroom with an intact male and be accused of transphobia if she has the confidence to ask to be moved.
Funny it ain’t.

I think one of the unintended side benefits of World Rugby's recent stance is that it's bringing the issue much more into mainstream thinking. When I first looked into this and started talking about it, both DH and I had the sort of, "well, look, if a man is so desperate to be a woman that he cuts off his penis, then frankly, I think we can be supportive" attitude. Then you start looking around and you realise that the vast bulk of transwomen do nothing of the sort. And half the time they don't even bother to present as women even some of the time. And suddenly you're sitting there thinking, "WTAF?"

And then the issue with women's rugby comes along and every person who has ever played or watched rugby sits back and is like, "Well obviously a male body is going to annilate women on the field. Doh" and wham, we see things starting to actually go into the general society's consciousness.

Needless to say, DH and I are cheering World Rugby on all the way! I mean, DS is 9 - admittedly, he's big boned, tall etc - and he can already almost beat me up if he gives it a real go. I have to tell him to be careful when we're playing sometimes. And a lot of the men like DH who played rugby have spent their lives fully understanding they're bigger and stronger than the women in their lives and they need to be considerate as a result.

I know how you feel. It might feel like you're in the minority but I really don't think you are. There are some people who haven't really properly engaged with the issue. They might see the likes of Paris Lees on a Pantene advert and think 'Good on 'em' - they look like a good looking woman on the screen and they look like they'd be a laugh. Or see Munroe Bergdorf and think 'how glamorous' what's everyone getting their knickers in a twist for.

When I first became aware of this issue (but obviously not really 'aware') I thought back to all the times I'd crowded round the mirror of the ladies in a club with gay male friends and no-one batted an eye-lid (or if they did I didn't notice because I was too wrapped up in my own world) I couldn't get exercised over the toilet issue.

But then I grew up and had experiences and had kids and needed to lean on other women for support and began to value the spaces I used for support that were entirely female. I then began to notice how all of a sudden there was a resurgence of this restrictive 'gender' nonsense that seemed to be going backwards in terms of how 'male' and 'females' were expected to behave. On the surface it seemed to say 'be who you want to be' but scratch that surface and you were confronted with painfully archaic stereotypes.

And then i became aware of the piss-takers. And then I became aware of how I couldn't talk freely about the piss-takers. And that I couldn't talk freely on a forum like Mumsnet (although I am still grateful that I can come here and vent even though they've had to tow the line to a degree and police our speech for fear of being shut down)

I have days when I could and have cried. I have days when I worry about my teenage daughter and how she might be treated for having views that don't precisely chime with some of her friends who are keen to express their gender rigidity, sorry, 'fluidity'. To declare yourself straight, lesbian or even bisexual is deemed to be prudish and exclusionary amongst some her friends (who are 12/13).

There are days when I want to give up. To give in. And I step away from MN for a few days. But there's always some outrageous, utter piss-take that drives me back and persuades me to keep on supporting the cause of supporting women. It's my daughter who will bear the brunt of any negative changes and I can't have that on my conscience.

Sorry if that hasn't exactly made you feel any less worried or exasperated

Once COVID is over and sports are back to full steam, start paying attention to women's and especially teen girls' sports. Pay attention to the dads who watch their daughters lose competitions to male bodies. Most people aren't paying attention to TRAs unless they are directly impacted by regressive rules or policies. I personally hope that all trans people live happy, healthy and safe lives and truly hope they can feel accepted in^ society but not at the expense of women and girls.^ I particularly care about the female NB and trans men who seem left out of a lot of this conversation. And I care a lot about regressive stereotypes being fed to girl teenagers (especially lesbian teenagers)- I want desperately for young women who don't fit a heteronormative stereotype to feel they can be themselves without harming their bodies. Most people care about girls harming themselves but aren't connecting the dots to TRA.

I obviously object more to an intact male claiming to be a woman and coming into female spaces. But none of them are women. None. On any level. I don’t feel any need to dissemble about this fact.

[quote Thelnebriati]Of course we aren't in the minority. Human society has been built around the reality of there being 2 biological sexes since the dawn of history. It still matters today because the reality of life for one sex is very different to the reality experienced by the other.

Society hasn't manged to deal with some very basic issues such as domestic violence (which costs the UK over £60 billion a year), or maternal death rates being worse for black women. Northern Ireland allowed self ID before abortion, and still does not have a dedicated mother and baby unit for women who have post partum psychosis.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53006855[/quote]

NI doesn't have Self ID.

We are only in the minority because we know what’s going on and most don’t. That’s why they work so hard with abuse and threats to shut us up - heaven forbid people actually hear what’s going on and make up their own minds.

You only have to read the thread on AIBU about the Proud Trust - people are initially cautious, think it must be a storm in a tea cup, nobody is really using taxpayers money to encourage girls into anal sex. Initially a few comments of ‘prude’ etc and then with more sunlight comes horror and then anger.

It’s why I always post on these issues on AIBU if it comes up. People don’t know. They need to know.

I don't think we're a minority of the population, FloralTeacup. We may seem like it because most people think transgenderism is the modern version of gay rights, seeking fair play for a oppressed minority who pose no threat to anyone.

This myth has been very successfully peddled by transgenderist organisations such as Stonewall.

Most people think it involves a small number of men who genuinely believe they were born in the wrong body, and are desperate enough to have their male genitals removed.

When you point out that the vast majority of transwomen keep their male genitals, and that transwomen commit sexual offences at the same rate as non-trans men, people tend to change their view.

People don't generally agree with self-identification, which isn't yet legal, but many organisations behave as if it is. Self-ID would give every man access to every women's single-sex facility, such as toilets and changing rooms.

People who want to look 'woke' at all costs, especially on social media, will insist that transwomen are women. But most others, when they realise this isn't a helpless and oppressed minority, tend to support women's rights to privacy and safety.

Of course we aren't in the minority. Human society has been built around the reality of there being 2 biological sexes since the dawn of history. It still matters today because the reality of life for one sex is very different to the reality experienced by the other.

Society hasn't manged to deal with some very basic issues such as domestic violence (which costs the UK over £60 billion a year), or maternal death rates being worse for black women. Northern Ireland allowed self ID before abortion, and still does not have a dedicated mother and baby unit for women who have post partum psychosis.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53006855

I think most people feel sympathy for trans people and want them to be happy.

I also think most people don’t realise how much some people on Twitter hate women and want to use this sympathy to abuse us.

I’m not sure what most people think of as a trans person is the same as the most vocal supporters of trans rights.