Have things gone too far?

I've been thinking about the question about a male seed person showering in a communal area with girls. And pp talking about a penis as a weapon. But then nudity in itself isn't actually a threat. But do we need to regulate on the balance of probability and what if? So I'm not sure on my answer.

An interesting thought Okbuss. Remember that indecent exposure is an offence. Some male people like exposing their genitals to women and young girls (it’s happened to me at least twice). How do we determine which naked men will get a kick out of exposing themselves in a communal changing room full of teenage girls? (Btw I am not accusing all TW of being predators, I believe that most aren’t - but we have huge evidence to show that some are)

The overwhelming majority of sexual assaults (inc rape, voyeurism, flashing, indecent assault, upskirting, assault by penetration, incitement of sexual activity in a child under 13 etc etc) are carried out by people of the male sex (approx 95%).

Given that no threshold for ‘transition’ is required in the proposal to allow male people to choose to use the female single sex facilities, how do you think that we will ‘weed out’ the predatory males? Some TW choose ‘not to transition their appearance’ (eg Danielle Muscato) so appear fully male. What possible reason could they have for using women’s facilities? There are people that identify as a woman on a part time basis, yet claim a right to use the ladies toilets - why would they do this?

To those who say ‘well, predators could walk in anyway - a door isn’t going to stop them’. Well yes, that does happen, but currently we have a long held social contract that NO MALES can enter the ladies facilities so we can make the safe assumption that any male in the ladies shouldn’t be there and appropriate action can be taken.

The proposal is that now, any male person can, by the act of walking into the ladies toilets, is declaring themselves to be a woman and has every right to be there (self id).

So in a shopping centre, the staff member that sees a young girl go into the ladies on their own who is then followed by a man has now been instructed to ignore that. If they don’t ignore that and challenge the man they run the risk of being accused of transphobia and losing their job. (This has happened irl).
Do you think that sounds safe for that little girl? (A similar situation occurs a Morrison’s- search Katie Dolotowski to see how badly wrong this can end up - a 10 yo girl was sexually assaulted at knifepoint in the look ashes because an 18 yo convicted sex offender was allowed to go into the ladies by the social worker escorting Katie because Katie identified as female.

Certain people who are keen in this type of undermining of safeguarding claim ‘well it was only one incident’ and ‘there’s always going to be bad things happening’ but the point is that normally society would be trying to prevent that sort of horrific and entirely preventable attack on a little girl.

Instead, the Scottish government are putting laws in place to make further attacks easier

Do you think that sounds right?

Who benefits here?

Why can’t TW use the facilities of their sex? What evidence is there that they are in any more danger than any other vulnerable male group?

Breakfast is the best time to eat cake - all that sugar hitting an empty stomach, Mmm.

Thank you Rufus. Is that a cupcake?

Tis indeed, I thought I’d hedge my bets 😀

OP, I'm sorry that earlier in the thread you felt people were being awful. I'd ask you to bear in mind that many of the women - and some men - responding to your post have been tirelessly trying to push back on some of the worst excesses of this gender ideology for years. They're constantly under attack, here and on Twitter and other spaces for trying to get women's voices heard.

There are certain members of this community who come on to every thread where women are asking for information on the GC position and just take up all the space with endless questions and arguments that have been answered a thousand times, often with incontrovertible evidence that they then go on to ignore. It's hard not to draw the conclusion in the end that they do it purely to disrupt.

So sometimes we can come across as quite forthright, but I hope you'll make allowances for all the reasons given above. These are good people fighting an unequal fight against one of the mostly deeply misogynistic movements in history.

I'm not sure that's all that some of the GC crowd want, I think some of the crowd want trans people gone - not murdered in ours beds gone - but just pushed back into the margins and stigmatised much like we have been historically. I'm not even saying that's most people, but they are there, and certainly those who some in the GC movement have chosen to align with want that. In fact some of them probably would quite like us to be murdered in our beds.

@jj1968 I have never come across a GC person who thinks or feels like this. Never. This is pure projection, because you feel your beliefs are being attacked and you don't like it. It also conveniently ignores all the threats of violence and annihilation coming from your 'side'. The constant 'kill all terfs' rhetoric, effigies of hung women in Spanish squares, pictures of people in blooded T-shirts wielding knives and baseball bats saying they're going terf-hunting. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

jj I kind of like the positivity, but on the other hand I can't share it.

In no particular order...

It's an open secret, I think we know, about the treatment of gay men in Iran. Highest rate of SRS in the world and they're not all consenting. Far from it.

I know you have concerns that feminists are working with the worst kind of religious bigot, but it kind of looks like the trans rights movement did, from over here.

It's always been stark raving obvious that just as in Iran, a certain kind of family in the West was going to find it easier to think that God had accidentally put a pink soul in a boy's body than accept that their son wasn't stereotypically masculine and/or was gay. I mean. Come on. I wasn't born yesterday. I cannot understand why they think this, but I also believe evolution should be taught in schools, so no meeting of minds between me and them is likely.

Until a few years ago, I also thought it was stark raving obvious that such parents would be bounced right out of a children's GID clinic. (In retrospect, perhaps my confidence about that shows that I was born the day before yesterday.)

Evidence since presented has made me feel much less certain that such families are bounced out of clinics, and I can't understand why so many people have reacted to the same evidence by shouting abuse.

So it makes me feel a bit bemused when it's said on twitter etc that GC feminists are involved with the religious right, by the same people who also shout abuse at people raising safeguarding concerns about children's GID clinics. I think, "but, but you're ignoring concerns that parents with significant religiously-motivated homophobia are pushing their children to transition! You're in bed with the homophobic religious right!"

Hyperbole over 'what the GC crowd want' doesn't help here, nor does denying women's lived experiences of being treated badly by TRAs. Empathy towards women and humour does, though. Things to be nurtured.

I'm not sure that's all that some of the GC crowd want, I think some of the crowd want trans people gone - not murdered in ours beds gone - but just pushed back into the margins and stigmatised much like we have been historically. I'm not even saying that's most people, but they are there, and certainly those who some in the GC movement have chosen to align with want that. In fact some of them probably would quite like us to be murdered in our beds.

I have no issue with the people pottering around our local town or living locally to me and joining the pub quiz etc (I have no idea how they identify because I haven't asked but their clothes suggest that they identify as women in some capacity and most had a wife and children that they no longer live with - I know three personally). All absolutely fine, live and let live - I say hello to them when we pass on the street (everyone says hello to everyone around here)

Those nearest to me also know that they were born male and use the appropriate facilities. Again, super job, everyone's happy. As many men have said, they have no issue with someone either female or presenting as female in the men's facilities.

I sat up and took note when I realised that single sex spaces and facilities for women were being undermined and removed, our very definitions and our protections against discrimination were being eroded.

That is my line and my boundary and that is why I am doing everything I can to prevent the safeguarding for women and children being removed.

I don't know why you keep trying to suggest violence and murderous thoughts from women against trans people jj - I don't know a single woman who would ever have considered that even for a second.

That is not how the vast majority of women's minds work, although there are exceptions to everything and I have seen a woman wishing an early death on the peers in the House of Lords but she is on your side - not GC .

Obviously trans people feckin' exist. Jaysus.

Well, there's an appropriate line. I've literally just come here from twitter, where the Oreo cookie company have announced tonight that Trans people exist.

Is there anyone who thinks they don't? I'd appreciate it more if Oreo could devote this same energy to asserting the existence of dinosaur fossils or indeed evolution itself. That would be useful.

Where do you draw the line between playing with gender boxes and puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, mutilating surgery? For children in particular?

Is it good that more young people are happy to play with gender boxes and be 'queer'?

I think it's exciting, I don't think it's perfect but the next step forward, and I was really referring to sexuality rather than gender and thinking of the poll released yesterday that showed 16% of Gen Z's identifying as LGBT - and most of that was LGB: news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx

Anyway, I'm really fucking knackered now. I don't know if this has been a positive exchange or not. I suspect that neither of us has moved in essentials, but at least there were jokes.

Off to bed too, maybe jokes are progress, appreciating you taking the time to answer.

Please tell your shouty allies this, then. Tell them that threatening women with rape for querying all this (and don't say it doesn't happen, I came off Twitter precisely because I couldn't cope with it anymore) is not helping women to consider that you as a trans person aren't a threat. Because I may well believe that you're not, but a lot of my sisters think you are because of what your allies are actually saying and doing. They are the issue here. I have never, ever supported violence against anyone, and I've seen horribly nasty things said to trans people, most especially in recent times - as a response to your allies loudly pushing aside at safeguarding. We warned on this board that it would happen. We said that if you push against Joe public with the extreme threats and the kinky weird shit involving kids and you smash up girls sports and you insist that their mums can't have a female nurse wash them etc. then the really bigoted people are going to have a bloody field day.
You can dismiss the loons as fringe extremists or you can openly denounce them. I'm not big on Blaire White, but Blaire has at least done that. You seem to have often just dismissed them. It's much harder to do when they send you threats directly.

I cannot help it if my fellow women have now said 'Nah, fuck it, drawbridge up'. If you want that to change, then telling women they are being unreasonable to want to keep the baseball bat people out seems unlikely to succeed. Take on the baseball bat people. Stop saying 'nothing to see here'. Then a conversation may be productive.

You think I'm enjoying it? The management of the international trans conspiracy put me on mumsnet duty for a year after I got demoted for misgendering a furry. I was supposed to be spiking Covid vaccines with estrogen by now.

That was really, really funny JJ More please.

@7Days

I'm not sure that's all that some of the GC crowd want, I think some of the crowd want trans people gone - not murdered in ours beds gone - but just pushed back into the margins and stigmatised much like we have been historically. I'm not even saying that's most people, but they are there, and certainly those who some in the GC movement have chosen to align with want that. In fact some of them probably would quite like us to be murdered in our beds.

I think the friction is how to we organise society pragmatically in a way that ensures safety and equality and this means acknowledging all social forces at play honestly, including gender which whether we like it or not plays a large part in shaping our lives. And one particular point of friction is there is a very different perception of what has been happening - trans people really have been using spaces inline with their gender for a long time and are now frightened because that is under threat.

To a lot of trans people this feels very unfair, it's come out of the blue pretty much and it's not really something anyone seemed to have that much of a problem with until a few years ago. Yet it's often presented as trans people demanding access and that this will be an awful and dangerous thing whereas from the trans perspective that access has been there a long time and all the terrible and dangerous things haven't happened. So now loads of people are scared of us who weren't before and the Tories and right wing press have decided to declare us the first victims of their culture war.

We are a tiny percentage of the population with a bunch of shouty allies who often do more harm than good. Yes there is good and bad in our community but the bad are continually overstated to the point a lot of our detracters can probably name more trans criminals off the top of their head than trans professors or politicians. And that's not a nice position to be in because it wasn't actually a barrel of laughs being trans before this started. People are scared, a lot of stuff, like worrying about statistics being out by a fraction of a percentage point feels petty. A lot of the rhetoric that is defended, like some of Posie's stuff is pretty chilling. This feels like an attack and yet we are being accused of being the attacker. And perhaps it feels like that on the other side too, but our fear, and they way we feel and perceive this is just as sincere as the way you do.

That was for bunting i should probably have said that...

💐🧁

Obviously trans people feckin' exist. Jaysus. And tbh, the issue isn't actually trans people, it's specific individuals who are leveraging these issues and give no shits at all for trans or LGB people. And yes, a raging homophobe will not stop to check if the man presenting in feminine dress is a feminine gay man, or a TW, before he beats the shit out of him. Because that's how homophobia works, it doesn't care about your 'gender identity' it just thinks you're not manning or womanning properly and must be punished.

And yes, it's mostly daft youngsters on social media pushing the extremities, and I wouldn't fucking care if that was all it was because they'll get bored just like I got bored of Quantum Leap and Five Star. But some people who do not have good intent have spied an opportunity to gain some power at the expense of others, and that does matter. It doesn't mean that there's a big conspiracy, and I've always said never blame a conspiracy when incompetence, laziness and short sightedness explains everything.

Is it good that more young people are happy to play with gender boxes and be 'queer'? I think that could be unpacked and queried, tbh. If I thought that kids were genuinely challenging gender, then yes, it would be good, but I'm mostly seeing some girls come out as lesbian on the way to trans because the social cache is in the myriad trans identities, not in the prosaic woman who is oriented to other women sexuality. And also because there's a weird blindspot that seems to have forgotten the things we were saying 20 years ago about girls can be what they want and look like they want, and gender identity ideas are pissing all over those concepts. I've lost count now of the times I've been assumed to be trans because some people are so narrow minded by this all that they can't conceive a woman would have a mostly shaved head and wear clothes from the blokes section and still be a woman, which is honestly so blinkered and yes, bigoted that I still shake my head a little at it.

And yes, I get incredibly fucked off with this idea that lesbians can just shrug off the men that seek them out. I'm glad you don't do it, and if a woman who claimed to be a lesbian sought you out, then no, I wouldn't think she was a lesbian, but at the same time, she sought you out, so that's her business. But I dealt with conversion therapy, a long marriage and an abusive mother who hated my sexuality, not to mention a society which assumes straight, and I was in a deep, self hating closet for decades. The idea that after all that, lesbian women should have to deal with men claiming a lesbian identity trying to coerce them and just shrug it off just betrays zero understanding of social and power dynamics, and basic consent too.

Identify as queer if you want. I'm not Graham Linehan, I'm not actual a fan of Linehan excrpt in his actual comedy work, so if you want to have a pissing contest with it's your affair. My concern will always be women, and I've never been all that convinced men can understand this properly. Just don't call me queer, ever. When it's been used with a punch, it never gets to reclaimed status.

Anyway, I'm really fucking knackered now. I don't know if this has been a positive exchange or not. I suspect that neither of us has moved in essentials, but at least there were jokes.

And I think the trans perspective has a right to be heard in a high profile debate on the world's largest parenting website.

Why? On a website geared towards Women I can understand the point of discussing these issues but why do you believe that the 'trans perspective' has a right to be heard? It's heard all over twitter and tiktok and facebook and youtube and reddit etc etc. Plus terrestrial media esp the BBC. There's no shortage at all of the 'trans perspective'

Also, many of the above sites seem to have no compunction in shutting down the gender critical perspective at any opportunity, with no outcry from trans activists about a 'right to be heard'.

The horrific abuse of corrective rape to which lesbians were and are subjected in this world explains the disgust that many lesbians

feel when members of the male sex appropriate their identity.
It is a great shame that members of another marginalised group should show such disregard and disrespect towards same sex attracted females

To all women on here and ❤️*@Datun* @BuntingEllacott @334bu

Thank you. Thank you for being here.

@BuntingEllacott sorry above was in response to your post, I forgot to tag you in.

I don't think LGB issues are exactly the same as T ones, it's more that most T's are LGB, or perceived as such by society - to different degrees and in different ways but they are. And to the the most rampant homophobes, and they are on the rise again, we're all degenerate freaks.

I wish a lot of the angry young queer and trans kids on twitter would shut up sometimes but they ain't going to. I think a large part of the hostility in this debate is down to social media, and in particular a generational clash over how people express themselves. And I guess that applies here as well to some degree (not the generational thing). It is easy to lose empathy, or get angry, or talk past each other and this is an issue which triggers all kinds of things often including our own very deep trauma.

But equally I'm quite excited about what's happening with young people. The number of them now identifying as LGBTQ, or acknowledging same sex attraction in themselves, or supporting LGBTQ people, and I'm using the acronym in its entirity deliberately. I rather suspect it's more complex but if straight kids are identifying as queer because it's cool that's astonishing given how straight kids when I was growing up would of done anything possible not to be associated with gays. I think it's exciting, things were never going to stay fixed in stone and we may be finally approaching a world that actually resembles the diversity and many complexities of authentic human sexuality.

But I don't want lesbians to feel coerced into any kind of relationship or sexual experience they don't want and I recognise that that was the experience of a lot of lesbians of my generation and older and understand it must be enraging to see some of the stuff young queer kids come out with. Equally though trans people exist and have to navigate this world somehow and I suppose where I do come into conflict is that I feel a lot of problems are overstated to suit an agenda which tends to portray trans people as predatory, or dangerous or as having some deeper agenda.

As I said before, I didn't mean to end up in lesbian searches on okcupid - and this was a time when I was on hormones and presenting as female all the time. It was just how the site worked and I was always completely upfront. Sometimes a lesbian would message me and I'd say I was trans and she'd say sorry not into that, and I'd say that's cool and it was all fine. Sometimes she'd say she didn't mind and had usually seen it on my profile anyway - maybe you think that means she's not a real lesbian but she clearly doesn't think that. That's my experience of the discussion on this thread out in the wild. People just muddle along with a bit of common sense and decent behaviour despite having different ideas about things, and yet sometimes it's presented like there's a war out there.

I'm bi incidentally although I identify as queer just to annoy Graham Lineham.