Mumsnet Says They Are Trans Friendly; What do you think?

It is strange though, I rarely use pronouns on MN or any social media. It is simply not the way I write emails either. I do find this fuss over pronouns to be irrelevant in my life at all really.

For reference: I am nonbinary trans and use xe/xem pronouns. I understand they can be difficult to use or to remember to be used for some people. If you don’t want to use my pronouns, then please use my username: Nightinghawk, or NH as shorthand.

D'you know what? Like most people with real lives to lead, I don't care what your pronouns are.

What I do care about is you trying to dictate what I write. No. Never.

Constraining yourself into gender conforming boxes is taking feminism back half a century.

You got the diagrams right, BubbleGum, they're a bugger to do in text so

Bow down to your chemistry knowledge

I now down to your chemistry knowledge, I was considering bringing peppermint/ spearmint into it, and considering if we should be smelling people, and that's about were my (half remembered) knowledge ended.

(And I think 'aromatic' was a typo?)

Sorry, I got a bit carried away and over technical there, it bothers me in the same way people get infuriated by misusing of apostrophes.

Chemistry pedant... for those of you who didn't do a couple of degrees in chemistry

Cis and trans are configurational isomers, not mirror images (that's chirality, 'handedness'). And they're chemically (not merely optically) different - they can have different boiling points and different properties. An obvious everyday case is in saturated fats, one form is now known to be worse for you than the other. They're simply different and not generally interconvertible. All the same bits, but in different places, so no analogy with biology at all really.

The story I read was that some people thought it was amusing that 'trans' sounded as though it was a nod to 'transgender', and to make the gag (such as it was) work, non-transgender people had to be tagged as 'cis'. Cis isn't the prefix of anything to do with women, as far as I know; it's only 'trans-genderism' that gets a name-check in the trans/cis dichotomy? There's a surprise.

@bethanybiskits

I think that “straight” is useful as it helps people to express their sexuality. If we accept that all individuals have a sexuality (or are asexual) then straight is simply a sub-category or class of sexuality.

Humans are one of two sexes with a tiny minority of individuals who are either male or female but who are a disorder of sexual differentiation.

Cis is not a subcategory of either sex. “Trans” refers to those who believe in the concept of gender identity and believe that their own gender identity does not match their sex. That’s fine. It’s fine for individuals who believe in the concept of gender identity and believe that their own gender identity matches their sex to accept being called “cis” but everyone who is not “trans” is “cis” as in order to be called “cis” surely one must agree with the concept of gender identity.

Eg I’m an adult human female. I’ve got long hair and today I wore a dress. How do you know if I’m a) Cis woman who believes in gender identity and feels that her gender identity matches my sex b) a trans man who does not want to change their presentation, c) non-binary/other gender or d) a woman who does not believe in the concept of gender identity and therefore would not feel comfortable using the term “cis”?

Dam my spacing messed up, I'll try again

Cl H
\ / trans
C=C
/

H Cl

Cl Cl
\ /
C=C cis
/

H H

For people who didn't do a-level chemistry;

Cl H Cl Cl
\ / \ /
C = C C = C
/ \ /

H Cl H H

These are both atomic structures of dichloroethene, the one on the left is trans (makes the same shape as the trans pennine express) and the one on the right is cis. They are both chemically the same, but optically different

Then contrast that with a woman and a TW, they are chemically different (hormones and chromosomes), but TW endeavor to look 'optically' the same.

If they had any logic, or went trying to make things intentionally confusing (both doubtful) then what we call TW and men should logically be cis/trans opersits as they have the same cell chemistry but different presentation (optical appearance).

Meanwhile, I'm working on an update of the novel, called 'My New Transgender Life; Hello Mrs.Chips'.

This gets raised alot,

I object less to straight/gay because it doesn't try to make anyone a subset of a group (except human) and because I don't reject the concept of sexual orientation but I do reject the concept of gender and don't have a gender identity. Cis is "when a person's gender identity corresponds to their sex as assigned at birth." and it was made up in the 1990's by a German sexologist. Well I don't have one, so you are creating one for me, and then saying it aligns with my sex. That is an assumption you are making about me.

Women and trans women, men and trans men does the job admirably.

Also we are told how we must refer to people and how we must not refer to trans people, but when we ask for the same consideration it is ignored and we are called hateful. This is double standards.

Sexuality is not a spectrum it's an attraction/orientation towards others It doesn't go:
very gay, a bit gay, barely gay, neither gay nor straight, barely straight, a bit straight, very straight.

You have an erotic or emotional target (a love interest) Sometimes it is directed to one sex, sometimes another, sometimes both, sometimes at objects instead of people, sometimes at people with specific qualities, sometimes inwards.

Some people need that person to be very physically stereotypical of the target sex, some people aren't that bothered.

I tend not to refer to myself by my sexuality, since it isn't an identity. If I had to describe sexuality, I would say I am female and in a very LTR with a the father of my children, I have not had very much experience of anything else (not from want of trying back in the day I assure you).
I would describe myself as pansexual /sapiosexual if I were on the prowl. I would not reject someone as a partner on the basis of being transexual. I would accept them on their individual merits and looks (and smell). However I could never be attracted to someone with an inflexible or irrational belief system.

Hopefully I wouldn't be expected to describe my sexuality and pattern of attraction in my email signature at work. It would be a bit intrusive and I would find gay/straight/bi a bit reductive.

They're just massively outweighed by the TRAs who utterly undermine their cause.

Perhaps the trans community should do something about it. Stop the TRAs and MRAs derailing things.

For reference: I am nonbinary trans and use xe/xem pronouns. I understand they can be difficult to use or to remember to be used for some people. If you don’t want to use my pronouns, then please use my username: Nightinghawk, or NH as shorthand

I think you’ll find on MB, people refer to other posts either by the name of who’s written it ie @Nightinghawk or by OP, as in Original Poster. Pronouns are not necessary. For some, it’s not obvious what their sex is from their user name.

@Nightinghawk,

Ignoring the “spoons” which actually I found really interesting when you clarified, thanks, the rest of your replies are like a word soup.

To progress any type of debate or discussion it is key that the participants understand the language that is being used. With that in mind how would you define “woman” and “man”? Following that can you explain how it is possible for a human to be both “woman, man and other” at the same time and, in this context, what does “other” mean to you?

Thanks.

Good point. Maybe they do.

The issue here is that some people believe that standing up for the rights of females to single sex protections in certain circumstances automatically means they are campaigning agains trans rights, that is incorrect. Some people hold the belief that people can change sex. I’d argue that far more believe the opposite, as it’s never actually been done. To state this is seen by others as hateful. But why is it? I don’t think it’s hateful for someone to tell me they believe they are now the opposite sex to that which they were born. I just don’t agree with them. No one can compel me to accept an ideology that I just don’t believe in. That isn’t hateful nor does it mean I want anyone to disappear.
As for phrases such as “lived experience”, that’s such a daft phrase. Any experience a person has is exactly that, because we don’t have experiences when we’re dead!
OP, I’ve seen very little of this campaigning against the rights trans people already have of which you claim. What I have seen is an uprising from feminists who are fighting to retain the sex based rights that we fought long and hard for in my lifetime. Gender ideology is just that. An ideology.

Cis and Trans are terms used in Chemistry, denoting mirror image molecules. Not anything to do with human mammalian biology.

How do you know they don't do this?

That's what I was thinking. This OP is just one person. Not representative of all posters on mn.