Interesting article in The Times law section, written by Clare Fielding, a trans woman.

Kindness and respect is I think all most of us want.

Some forget that it's a two way street and if you hurt people enough they would be stupid to carry on giving and not receiving. Think it's standard game theory. Play nice once, if the other party does not play nice, stop playing nice.it can be hard to get back from that position, particularly if it's only some people that want to.

I would not naturally challenge anyone, In any potentially threatening situation I would just withdraw. However, women should not have to just quietly withdraw. We deserve equality of opportunity

When women are banned from a parenting website, for having the audacity of recognising a man as a man-something has gone badly wrong and safeguarding will fail.

Absolutely.

Hello all, I know the piece (it was not an article by me, but an interview I was asked to give) is now very much yesterday’s fish n chip paper, but I was seriously chuffed when a friend mentioned that the piece had given rise to a chat on mumsnet.

This is just to say I read the above comments and found them interesting. I can confirm I do not use mens’ loos (for those who raised the question). I have never been challenged in using female facilities, unlike I regret to say some of my gay natal female friends who have been challenged on occasion in such spaces because they look different or don’t fit the standard female template whatever that means. And that leads me into my plea to be kind, in response to the person who was evidently irritated by my comment in the interview. I meant no offence by what I said. I am not a trans campaigner but it seems to me that if we abandon kindness and continue to label or dehumanise those who disagree with us then we abandon civilised discourse, and history shows that is a dangerous place to go. This isn’t just (or, frankly, mainly) regarding this ‘trans’ debate, it runs across all of the issues that we face as a society which to my mind are so much more pressing and urgent, like poverty and climate change and I wasn’t addressing one side or another, but all people involved in this debate on all sides. So, with the greatest respect let us not f**k kindness, let’s try and do it more. Anyway, genuine thanks for taking interest in the piece and for the discussion. Have a great Christmas everybody. Clare.

I can't believe you're all commenting before we've checked with jj whether Claire is the right kind of trans woman or not. Is there a Twitter poll?

Many thanks @Barracker My female socialisation was creeping back in..

Mine creeps in in real life. It's interesting to read Fielding's last comment on the thread.

Not a single one of the many comments I have received from friends, colleagues and business contacts directly and on other media have been anything other than completely supportive and positive. This, in contrast to some of the unpleasant latest comments below,

Could that be because it would be considered incredibly rude to point out to a man who says he's a woman that you don't believe so? Especially at work?

Yes, Barracker. Yep, yes.

It's unbearable Aesopfable to be censored from saying the things that are essential to say.

We're allowed to say women are adult human females, and men are adult human males.
But banned from saying this adult human male is a man.
We're allowed to say female is the sex class that makes eggs, and male is the sex class that makes sperm, but we're banned from saying this spermmaker cannot therefore be referred to as a "trans-eggmaker".

You are allowed to say 2+2 always equals 4, bit you must not challenge any man who says it equals 5 or you will be punished.

All pushback is maintained on a philosophical, USELESS level if real life application of those truths is forbidden.

No man becomes a woman.
That alone entitles me to dispute and deny any and every man's claim to be a woman, not just at a philosophical level, but to his arrogant male face which gets to speak obvious, cruel untruths about MY SEX more freely than I may speak the truth.

Absolutely Barracker. My post on this thread was censored for saying transwomen are not men and the word ‘transwomen’ is wrong as it suggests they are a subset of women when they are not.

I wonder if this post will be censored too?

And my Barracker Reset is complete

Many thanks @Barracker My female socialisation was creeping back in... I was trying to see this from all sides, to be understanding nice! I must have taken my eye off it somewhen!

Quote: “Everybody from radical feminist to extreme trans campaigners need to chill the f out and accept that we all exist and we are all valid. We are all brothers and sisters. Let’s be nice to each other.”

I literally have no idea what "we are all valid" means.

Quite clearly men who say they are women exist. I've met quite a few.

They are not women though.

I will not "chill the f out" about the fact I can no longer trust judges, news reports, the police or anyone else about what type of person they are talking about when they use the word "woman".

Anything other than a person observed female at birth is a damaging lie.

Words have meanings and I don't understand how so many people think it's kind to pretend men can become women.

The reason we have the current situation is that certain sexist male docs in the middle of the 20th century couldn’t conceive of feminine men thriving in society. So, they told their male patients with gender dysphoria that they’d better pretend to be women. Of course they wouldn’t ask women! How ridiculous.

Now asking men to express themselves however they want and use whatever mode of address they like, but to please leave women and their spaces alone looks like “rolling back rights” to people like Claire. And from her perspective it is! But it’s not women to blame - it’s the sexists who decided this is a great idea in the first place.

Everything Barracker said. Everything. That should be an article somewhere. Particularly:
I won't have some men insist they are much more reasonable than the other men because they only corrupt and appropriate the words for my sex in their own special way.

And therefore feel that I should accept this perceived 'compromise' because they are being 'reasonable' and a bit politer while damaging and appropriating my sex for their personal, male benefit.

I'm not grateful for the crumbs of my own rights offered me by men after they've first feasted on whatever they felt entitled to.

That nails precisely why this article made me so angry.

To repeat Melrose's excellent point: I think it is important that Claire will only see things from Claire's own point of view, no matter how empathetic

Very true. It's also sadly important to remember that the media always promotes, values and far more frequently presents the voices and opinions of male people in this matter, and in a far more respectful and protected way than in the far lesser time permitted for female people's voices. The hierarchy of who is perceived as most important and right, who is most entitled to talk about women and tell them who they are, what they must do and what they may be allowed to have, is powerfully messaged by this fact alone.

Women's language, spaces, right to define themselves, even their legal rights are fully perceived as something within the gift of males to bestow or adapt or withhold as they feel best. And that this is morally right and good.

And this makes me so angry I want to spit, because the hypocrisy of all the 'biological sex is a social construct' and 'sex isn't binary' and 'it's more complicated' is solely used when it advantages males to overcome boundaries to do what they would like to do. It's absolutely rooted in and constantly acts on a fixed belief that sex is binary, it is hierarchical, and being born with female biology makes you a second class citizen with lesser rights and powers, and this is as it should be .

If you're going to be a male supremacist at least be honest with yourself about it.

I ❤️Barracker

Fielding is happy to be called a woman or a trans woman apparently.

I don't care what makes Fielding happy. Those words describe my sex and not Fielding's sex. Those words are not Fielding's to misappropriate.

The word woman is not an identity for anyone of Fielding's sex, ever, no matter what prefix or modifier is plonked in front of it. Unless that modifier is "Not".
And I won't chill the f*ck out.

I won't have some men insist they are much more reasonable than the other men because they only corrupt and appropriate the words for my sex in their own special way.

I'm not grateful for the crumbs of my own rights offered me by men after they've first feasted on whatever they felt entitled to.

I'm at my absolute limit with censorship right now, in the UK, in 2020 when I'm unable to state the truth that a man is a man without being banned at best, or arrested at worst. When judges are admonishing the victims of violence from men who think they're entitled to identify as women; suggesting they asked for it, deserved it, provoked it with the truth.

I'm genuinely frightened because the ONLY way to reverse out of this horrible dystopia is for people to not only allow the truth to be spoken without censorship, but to DEFEND every person brave enough to risk their freedoms by stating the truth.
It's not enough to be able to mumble "men don't become women" if I'm forbidden from saying "this man is a man". I have to be able to speak of the reality in front of my nose, not restrict myself to generalisms and philosophical abstract statements.
What good is limiting me to making a general statement if I still can't name what confronts me in my face?

We have to stop distancing ourselves from people who have the courage to say what we know is taboo.
We have to stop colouring the people who dare to do this as "cruel".
This is how we've criminalised the truth. We've gone along with painting it as mean, as nasty, as unnecessary. We said we wanted nothing to do with it.
So it's gone, because we said we didn't need it.

I can't say what I want to on this platform even though it's true, and even though I've never felt that it's as desperately important as it is now. If I do, these words will evaporate along with my permission to write any further words on this forum.

No man becomes a woman. Ever.
No man should use the words for our sex for himself.
No man should tell us he isn't a man, we may not call him a man, we should be punished for knowing or saying he is a man.
Any man who makes a woman's life harder, who demands she treat him with privileges that men should not have, who demand she make concessions about her own rights for him, is a danger to women's rights. To women.

The worst thing is not that a man gets called a man.

The worst thing by far is to prevent women from saying that.

accept that we all exist and we are all valid.

It's just that pretty word collection again - sounds good, doesn't mean anything.

The most telling comment from Claire was to claim that they didn't know what TWAW means. Obviously plenty of people don't, but if Claire really doesn't know then they haven't been paying attention to the "two side shouting at each other"*. If this is correct then they're badly placed to tell people involved in this issue how they should be conducting themselves.

Quote: “Everybody from radical feminist to extreme trans campaigners need to chill the f** out and accept that we all exist and we are all valid. We are all brothers and sisters. Let’s be nice to each other.”

I think it is important that Claire will only see things from Claire's own point of view, no matter how empathetic. It is to be expected really. It is not something you can blame any one for but it is something that needs to be taken into account when listening to what someone is saying.

I think some people especially in the media, seem to think that transwomen hold some magic key or are some mystical bridge between a male life and a female life, or even have the answers to the effects of their transitioning on others, but they have their own experiences.

Once again the posters on this board are perceptive and so good at throwing perspective..

Jo March was great again (and Briz). I got deleted a couple of times for stating a fact (very gently and respectfully I might add)

Clare making the statement 'as a woman' is not correct. In order to become a transwoman, Clare had to have been male to start with.

but hey ho.

*I find it reasonable to call him him because... friend?!?!?!

How two-faced and hypicritical of me!*

Hardly!

a) You're talking about a friend with whom you have a mutually trusting and respectful relationship, built upon years of shared experiences.

b) You're talking about another female, who is not a threat to your safety or your sex-specific needs and rights, or to any other female's.

c) We are not robots. You have freedom of conscience, freedom of choice. Sometimes what fits one situation does not fit another.

Yes, also note the equating of radical feminists with extreme TRAs. As any quick survey of Twitter will show you these are not two comparable sides, with both being equally unreasonable. All women are asking is to retain their rights and spaces.

It's hardly an extreme position to want to uphold the Equality Act.

And in the extreme TRA camp, there is prison abolition, scrapping the Equality Act, handing out puberty blockers to any child who asks, insisting lesbians learn to accept penises, death and rape threats, etc, etc.

I think that people who tell women to 'Chill the fuck out' and that both sides have extremes probably don't believe that women's needs are important enough to listen to women about.

While reading that Clare understands the difference in lived experience is heartening. The understanding why those lived experiences require needs that may conflict with Clare's own wishes was not clear though. Sadly, the message of 'chill the fuck out' is too close to 'shut the fuck up' in its tone for me to be confident that there will be that level of understanding in the future.

And that she really hasn't understood women's problems with males in female spaces

Just to mention too: this is a very charitable interpretation, women do tend to hang on to the reasonable hope that if they just explained enough the other person would turn out to be equally reasonable and change their behaviour.

I doubt Claire has paid that much attention to women's issues regarding single sex spaces, because Claire does not consider them of importance to Claire. Claire's interests are in what Claire wants from the spaces and the people within them. And thus you see Claire's belief that Claire for some reason is of greater importance, and has some innate right to dictate which females may have and use spaces and on what terms and what they may or may not mind about, and what of their issues may be considered relevant and attended to. And it is not a right that Claire believes any female people share in.

It is not that Claire doesn't understand.