Women's rights general conversations - Thread 3

Britinme· Today 08:38
I can’t imagine how terrifying that was for her.

And to think he will surely have gone on to do more of that when he got similar good opportunities.

A lot more men than we think would pounce if they thought they could get away with it imo.

... and many young boys too.

I want to ask a question and it's one I've been cautioned about before, so I'm asking knowing that I might be asked to stop. Willing to learn on this matter.

It's about trans demographics, and I think it's important for many reasons. What I'd like to know is how the population segments by needs, which should lead to a better understanding of the segments (assuming they truly exist and can be reliably identified statistically).

I've not been able to find anything, though I think it obvious from the literature that transwomen are not a heterogeneous grouping. There are, or seem to be, younger (I think) men and boys with significant dysphoria or dysmorphia, whose mental health distress means that transitioning is a valid treatment. There are also older (I think) men who don't have a diagnosable mental health problem (the former category has) who want to present as women for sexual reasons. I'm not sure what other segments there might be or to what extent the categories overlap or develop.

The reason for caution here is that it would be tendentious to start with good-trans and bad-trans. Is that important? How does it help to not know? I can't figure this.

But I do believe that the BeKiiiind advocacy of some women might rest on a belief that a man's paraphilia doesn't play a part in their desire to be in women's spaces. I'd like to know in any case. Any ideas, anyone? Sources, papers?

Sadly most women have a man wanking in public story.

Yes. I always feel I escaped lightly in the scary men/sexual abuse stakes, but when I think back there are flashers and intruders and creeps, and sheer luck has been my only saviour in some of those experiences.

It is. Sadly most women have a man wanking in public story. ☹

Britinme · Today 08:38

I'm just lost for words.

bignosebignose · Yesterday 18:50

I actually put "be kind" in my reply - asking whether this person was confident that e.g. a primary school age girl, in the circumstances we were discussing, would have the confidence to challenge a situation which made her feel uncomfortable or would just feel obliged to "be kind" if that's what she was being taught/ socialised to do. There was a bit of backtracking.

Bloody Hell, it's just everywhere, isn't it? I've posted a Mail link on the Drag Queen thread, regarding the school in the Isle of Man, it's not just the drag queen, there's worse.

There are at least 5 stories there today, regarding DQSH and school stuff. I think that the wider public is becoming enlightened on the subject and not before time. With this degeneracy and the Pink Legging Rapist, the Genderwoo time may well be moving to its twilight hours, I think.

How horrific @Britinme , your poor daughter.

These stories are so common. Also these things can, unfortunately, happen on a bus. When we were in our twenties my friend and I had a man sit behind us touching our hair and fondling himself.

As it was the nightbus the choice was - move, stick it out or get off and face a 40 minute wait or more in the small hours for another bus.

We moved downstairs. We didn't tell anyone because who would we tell? In hindsight the driver? But I think we have remember how much of a potential threat any man is when you are a woman, especially a young woman, out at night.

Following her court win, Cooper thanked the trans women who came before her.

“Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall riots

Johnson was a gay man who cross-dressed and the Stonewall riots were about police persecution of gay people. History is being re-written

Urgh - your poor daughter even if it was a long time ago.

In other news, this, pinched from another thread, is infuriating.

www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/transgender-athlete-wins-discrimination-case-usa-powerlifting-rcna72879

You're probably right!
😁😁😁

I doubt it would have happened on a bus!

That's horrible, Britinme. I've always preferred public transport to avoid being alone with potentially dubious taxi drivers. I've never worried about train or bus drivers, but obviously they can be just as bad if you end up alone with them.

Bloody Nora! That's horrible.

"Anyway, on that thread, most MNers (because we're all evil middle-aged bigot hags who have seen it all before) were pretty clear that what a girl should do is firmly get up and move to the front of the bus near the driver. "

When my daughter was sixteen, she had to come home on the Tube. We lived at the end of the tube line and at that time of day it was often fairly empty. She often sat in the front carriage so as to have a shorter walk to get out of the station, and then she walked across a park to get home.

One day she came home in some distress and when I asked what the matter was she said the driver of the train had left the cab and come into the (otherwise empty) carriage and exposed himself to her, clearly masturbating. I immediately rang the police and a policewoman came over and took a statement from her. We later heard that the driver had been fired but there was no court case, I guess because there were no other witnesses and perhaps to spare my daughter from being involved in a trial.

I'm reminded of Billy Connelly's Drunk on the Bus routine, which was funny. But this isn't. Sitting next to a women on an empty/nearly empty bus is a threat. What sort of man would do that?

Oh, pretty much any.

I'm an 'evil middle aged bigot hag' and I still haven't managed to completely avoid the random men who sit opposite in an otherwise empty tube carriage, or who walk along a relatively quiet train platform just as the train pulls in, so they can get on at the same door as me. I do move, just to see if they'll follow. Some do.

Unless are at least on chatting terms with someone, sitting next to them on a sparsely occupied bus contravenes the inbuilt British horror of physical proximity to another human and should provoke immediate suspicion of the sitter 😉

I subscribed to the Vagina Museum's newsletters and was interested in giving support but very quickly the newsletters became full of absolute gender bollocks and I unsubscribed and wanted nothing more to do with them. It's a Vagina Museum, FFS. If that can't be about women then what on earth is the f-ing point!

Anyway, I see they are currently homeless, long may that remain the case because they are worth fuck all to women and girls who don't need to be gaslit into thinking that men have vaginas too.

Yes, absolutely. I think being kind is great if mutual but when it's dampening yourself and your instincts down to appease someone else, it's very dangerous.

'Be kind' is one of those things where I know that I've missed years of patient Mumsnet unpacking, but it reminds me of all the young women down the years who have been molested and assaulted because they were taught to 'be polite' and 'be respectful'. Respect and politeness and kindness are all good things, but awful traps for the unwary.

BeeeeeeeeeKinds?

In my latest toe in the water over the Woo being fed to my kids in school, I had a brief email exchange with someone in local education this week who replied to one of my emails with something like "luckily we find kids do tend to treat each other with kindness".

I actually put "be kind" in my reply - asking whether this person was confident that e.g. a primary school age girl, in the circumstances we were discussing, would have the confidence to challenge a situation which made her feel uncomfortable or would just feel obliged to "be kind" if that's what she was being taught/ socialised to do. There was a bit of backtracking.

I was just thinking the same thing, reading these last few posts - although in my head I had settled on male/ female. The petition that is going around to ask for confirmation that the EA means biological male / female when referring to "sex" is part of this. But it could easily be a wider government instruction to the NHS, civil services, education department, LAs, etc.

So Gender Woo carries on being what it is, for now, but the line in the sand to allow clarity is that when a piece of health messaging (or any official thing) specifically means and relates to biology, Male and Female mean what they mean.

If some online dictionary comes up with weird/ circular definitions, it doesn't matter - the UK Government means biological Male and biological Female.