Genuine question - is it mostly biological women who have reservations about the trans movement?

Men have no skin in this game of women's rights. What men think about biological men who think they're women in women's single-sex spaces is irrelevant.

Or should be, put unfortunately there's this little thing called patriarchy (rule of the father) which means that women aren't considered fully human.

In my experience gay men, working class men and dads with daughters are the ones that are most vocal about the gender ideology nonsense.

I think the left-leaning bit is interesting that someone mentioned above. The traditional working class leftie types think ‘it’s a load of bollocks’ (quote from someone I know). There’s lots of farm workers round here that know a lot more about nature than your average city champagne socialist.

Polls have have repeatedly shown women, left leaning individuals and the highly educated are the most fervent supporters of gender ideology. Yes, lesbian feminists were the first to mount a concerted fightback but they were a minority. https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1670897316193275904?s=20

I think most heterosexual men are dismissive of trans activism - even if only secretly. They don't think transwomen are women; they know transwomen aren't women.The heterosexual and gay men who support the notion are only doing so out of tribal identity - and some of them out of thinly disguised misogyny.

I’m (male) firmly GC, as is my ex-wife. My DP rolls her eyes but disagrees strongly with men competing in sport, so is halfway there.

It came up, briefly, in the pub one night and three of the four male friends I was with were broadly GC and the other was “disappointed you hold those views.” I outlined my position, he didn’t really have one other than the ‘be kind’ corporate module BS… so it’s not been brought up again.

My sons, both in their mid-twenties, think GI is a load of nonsense. The elder one was telling me only last night that all his friends think the same. He was asking me 'who actually believes all this nonsense'? I couldn't tell him. It's beyond me!

I'm not particularly threatened physically by transgender people but it has shaken me considerably morally, mentally, spiritually and politically. I'm coming up to menopause, my teenage sons have shot past me in height, speed and strength due to puberty and I'm a lifelong leftwing liberal.

But I saw 6' 4" Lia Thomas win and it felt like the same old, same old sexism - women losing out to men again. Biology is real and it matters. Boundaries are set where they are for a reason and I think they need to be retained.

My husband agrees with me but he is way more uncomfortable with trans people. For me, it's not personal, it's just a legal, population control issue.

I don't go along with any argument that says radical surgery makes this less of an issue, for 2 reasons.

1. It doesn't make someone the opposite sex.

2. I don't think there should be any perceived advantages or pressure to have surgery of this type. It's barbaric and rarely as successful as it is sold to them or the person hopes.

But most importantly, it often leads to life long medical issues that will always need treating. Lifelong incontinence, sexual disfunction and infertility are hardly what anyone should encouraged to pursue.

In person, I have never had a discussion with anyone of either sex who believes TWAW. It doesn’t come up much in conversation except with mum friends who have only just realised this is a Thing after an email from their DDs school about little Henry being known as something else and being the only pupil to used the disabled loo and suddenly being quietly warned by one of their mum group not to say anything about it in the class whatsapp

Gay men I’ve talked about it with, believe that it’s homophobic as they believe gay teens are transitioning instead of accepting they’re gay.

Straight men - depends if they’re arseholes or not. It’s a great way to punch down, to mock people with gender dysphoria (trans women, more than trans men), and just because they say what they’ve read in right wing media doesn’t mean they support women’s rights, they’re just bigots. Nice men are just bemused and think you’re stating the obvious.

100% of everyone thinks males in women’s sport is bananas.

I do have the odd friend on social media with she/her on her profile and no men with he/him. And I like these people so not bringing it up in case I break it.

My husband shares my gc views. He may or may not have been influenced by my own views. Couldn't possibly comment.

Both me, and the other men I know are in disbelief about this and not only worried about our sons, but also daughters.

This is senseless body mutilation by children far too young to make any informed decision. Both boys AND girls.

LOL

This is unfair. Men also think some aspects are ridiculous and unfair too (like trans in women's sports etc.).

I have a few male friends like that .

In reality they simply don't care, it does not impact them in any way, they cannot be bothered being bothered. In short - selfish.

But - the way they would tell it is I am not modern, am conservative (I am far from it) and old age is telling on me.

Middle class yes.Well meaning? Not so sure.

i will say this is something i've never considered till this moment. especially re shelters

I think it's anyone who has a working brain that has reservations about this nonsense.

Go back just five years and the average person thought that transwomen had all or were going to remove their penises. Also very prevalent at the time was the belief in the "wrong brain" idea. That latter somewhat subsided but still cropping up.

This has been one of the biggest psyops on a population I have ever seen. It's absolutely been stage managed by some powerful individuals and interests. Nothing happens this quickly and this universally without it being engineered. Growing porn addiction laid a lot of the ground work for this, but there's more.

I think this is very well summed up. Added to the deliberate obfuscation with the use of 'transwoman' and 'transman', knowing full-well that a great many people assume 'TW' is used to refer to a biological female identifying as a man and 'TM' for a bio male identifying as a woman.

Even amongst those who do know which way around the terminology is used, most people still also assume that trans people have had surgery to remove/change their genitals and cosmetically appear more like an approximation of the opposite sex.

That said, even if a TW has had his genitals completely removed, he is still a mutilated man and in no way a woman - any more than a woman who has had a hysterectomy has become a man or somehow 'less of a woman'. Suggesting that the only thing that makes a man is the presence of a penis, and that removing that penis turns him into a woman, is scientifically (and obviously) ridiculous and highly offensive to both sexes.

Same with sports: there's the diversion that the TW activists use to try to insist that taking hormones for a time makes them effectively equal to women and thus that it is fair for them to compete in the women's events. This is so easily shown to be nonsense when you see that it doesn't ever happen the other way around: that a TM who has taken copious amounts of testosterone will ever win a men's event against actual men. Why don't we then say that old men over a certain age can compete in women's events, as it might be perceivably more 'fair' in matching ability (assuming that the women are 'standard' sports/athletics ages)? Of course, we don't dream of doing this because an old man is still a man and - as the Ronseal name suggests - women's events are for women only.

As for the original question, I don't think as many men as women appreciate the dangers to women and girls in leaving the current 'you must accept my belief as your fact' narrative unchallenged - naturally; but an awful lot do, and their numbers are growing. It's an unpopular thing to say on MN, but as well as the vast numbers of terrible men out there, there are also a lot of inherently decent ones - who do love and care about their wives, girlfriends, mums, sisters, female friends and women in general. As PP said, although those who stand to gain from trans ideology are mostly men, the vast majority of men have nothing to gain from it at all - and whilst a lot don't speak up and rock the boat, a lot will do just that. I think it's very unwise and unfair to brush them away as one homogenous group, along with the activists, and spurn the male 'allies' (to use the activists' own word) who are firmly on the side of fairness and common sense.

From a safety and safeguarding perspective, maybe. But from a sexuality point of view, there are plenty of lesbians who won’t date or have sex even with TW who’ve gone the whole hog. Sex is a bodily and intimate interaction, and male bodies and female bodies feel very different, no matter what modifications male bodies have had. Unsurprisingly, my ‘old-school’ TW friends get this and are equally horrified by the new TRAs. But they are shouted down or ignored too.

Someone made the point upthread about the male gaze. I take that point very strongly if someone is walking into the women's spaces with penis still attached. But surely if there has been a surgical operation then it's not such an issue, in that there will be a difference of hormone?

No, it is not all about hormones. Less testosterone, if that is what you are thinking, does not make a man unlearn his male upbringing entirely.

He still knows shit from his 'penis years'. He remembers how he (if he is agp, or his friends, if he is gay) used to talk and think about girls and women. He KNOWS. So his male gaze is a knowing gaze <shudder>

My brother has had the 'surgical operation'. Despite his going all in I do not want him in women's spaces.

A few college age boys were having a spontaneous party and announced it on social media.....Three trans women showed up and were escorted out because the guys said they wanted "real women". I think men have a vested interest In knowing that the women they are dating are "real women".

I don't think it's just that men are quieter because they have no skin in the game.

The received wisdom now is that people are not supposed to comment about areas where they don't have "lived experience." It's all about groups defining their own needs and such.

And while many men might be willing to step up if asked to advocate for justice for women, the fact is that on this topic, many many women support gender ideology.

So if you are a man who thinks it's stupid, but you aren't trans and obviously aren't a woman, you are going to think your best option is to keep your mouth shut. It appears to be a disagreement, and quite a toxic one, among women. And most men are going to stay out of that unless they have a good reason to make a fuss, or they enjoy making a fuss.

This is more or less exactly what I was going to say. In my, admittedly limited experience more women are worried about the trans movement, specifically the effects on women's rights and also on vulnerable young women potentially undergoing irreversible physical changes, but more men are genuinely transphobic. If I ever hear someone making actual derogatory comments about trans people then it is almost always a man. Same with homophobia and other prejudices actually. I think men tend to be less tolerant generally. Or at least they are more open about their intolerances.
But I think the specific issues around transgenderism and wider gender ideology pose a far greater threat to women's rights than to men so it's not really surprising that it is primarily women who are speaking out. I would say that the majority of the men that I know don't really care or have much of an opinion on the subject to be honest - they don't see it as anything to do with them or not a big issue.Some find it kind of amusing in fact and don't grasp the seriousness at all. Most of the men I know who do get it have had their eyes opened by the sports issues and then looked at things more carefully. My teenage son is openly GC and has lost friends over it, though many of his peers say they privately agree but are scared to admit their views publicly. Hopefully they will find their voices though. I do feel attitudes are changing amongst the young people I know.

Many years ago there seemed to be a vanishingly small number of people with gender dysmorphia, and in my (admittedly limited) experience it felt like there was a general acceptance of those who wished to use women’s spaces, and often real sympathy for their situation (they were all pursuing surgical and hormonal transition).

Then came the shitshow of the TRA men’s rights movement, with their hatred of women and their weaponised fucking rainbow umbrella which basically welcomes all comers under the banner of ‘trans inclusion’. Under the Be Kind regime there’s no such thing as a transvestite - any bloke with full tackle who puts on a bit of lipstick must now be applauded for embracing his beautiful butterfly self, and have the freedom to go wherever the hell he chooses because he’s now quite clearly A Woman.

Handing over our public safe spaces to men who cross dress as a compulsive sexual fetish, allowing men with beards and penises to be tried as women for sexual crimes against children, allowing random men to sit unchallenged in women’s rape survivor groups and to actually take charge of rape crisis centres (looking at you, Scotland), allowing fully intact men to compete with and beat female athletes, jailing violent rapists in the women’s prison estate - all a direct result of the war on women’s rights by a minority of hate-filled, furious men.

In answer to your question, no, I don’t think it’s largely women who disagree with all this. I think it affects everyone - including men, including the LGB communities who are often negatively affected, and including genuine gender dysmorphic trans people, whose desire to live a life of acceptance is definitely not served by the kick-down-the-door-and-punch-your-way-in tactics of these misogynistic bullies.

Unfortunately their campaign of thought control and peddling gender as a right and a lifestyle choice has been extremely effective in spreading political and social fear, and here we are. A world in which my 15 yr old daughter defiantly screamed at me, ‘who are you to say a lesbian can’t have a penis?’. Welp …

So yeah, it’s mainly women standing up now. It’s mainly women drawing a line. It’s mainly women fighting back. It’s mainly women making our voices heard, and being intimidated and shouted down and threatened. And I guess it’s mainly older women, because it must be utterly fucking terrifying for younger ones to stand against the prevailing Be Kind groupthink of their generations.

Because I think we all suddenly realised that - despite the detrimental effects on the whole of society - if we don’t do it then no fucker else is going to.

That makes sense to me, OldGardinia.

"I wouldn't mind so much if someone had had lower half removal/reconstruction surgery, but if they are as born then no, I don't think women-only spaces are for them."

A personal opinion but I don't think that should bother anybody less when you think how messed up someone has to be to voluntarily cut off their own sexual organs. That's disturbed as Hell.

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar
"Surely there really are some people who are genuinely born into the wrong body though?"

Firstly, great username. Secondly, respectfully I don't really see how someone can be born into the wrong body. Unless you believe strongly in gender stereotypes and that a man like traditionally feminine things somehow makes him a woman, or a young girl who is interested in cars makes her a boy (I pick that example because it's a real case of somebody's 11 year old coming home from school and announcing she "has a boy brain" because of it), then really what makes somebody's brain 'wrong' for their body? Male and female brains aren't particularly different. They develop slightly differently on average but that's because of the environment they are in. For example male brains tend to be slightly larger because male skulls are large. And the brain grows to fit (really!). And they're washed in different quantities of hormones which can affect behaviour and different development of some areas. But these are only general tendencies and if a "trans" person is of a particular sex then their brain has been subjected to the hormones of that sex.

Really there's never been evidence for the wrong brain theory. If there were then you'd be able to test someone to see if they were "trans" or not! But the idea sounds good. It's exactly the sort of pop-sci notion that spreads like wildfire. Nobody has ever explained why some hypothetical tiny physical differences in the brain should determine one's sex whilst a whopping great physical difference like your genitalia should not.

Anyway, you're very far from alone in this being new information to you. The messaging on this was everywhere and counter voices were dismissed as bigots and seldom got coverage except in order to shoot us down.

The idea itself is incredibly appealing to young people who aren't very happy and are dealing with that transition where you go from thinking you're the centre of the universe as a child to realising you are not as you grow up. When I was a teenager I found a book in the school library talking about male vs. female brain. Scientifically disproven now but it was a popular idea. I for a little while thought that I had a brain that was what today would be called non-binary? Why did I think that? Because it made me feel special. If the trans movement had been around back then there's a very chance I'd have been sucked into it. Thank God it wasn't (mostly) and I had a chance to grow out of that idea.

"Hmm. I was thinking that was true then thought that some traits are considered more male than female - eg < dryly> aggression. Sure there are some aggressive females but on the whole the male of the species is more aggressive, and not quite as good at social communication, than the female."

That's a good example of what I'm talking about. A transwoman on male levels of testosterone becomes much more aggressive. A man who through a disorder has depressed testosterone levels, is typically less aggressive. It's a simplification to say that's all it is but it's not the brain being male or female (seriously, even experts wouldn't be able to tell one from the other reliably without DNA testing) but rather then environment it's contained in. Wash it in testosterone, it's going to rev up.

So one could say that a particular brain was more associated with female traits, but then the most important thing would be if the boy - felt- he was female instead of having more-than-usual traits associated with females.

Which brings it back to gender stereotypes as I talked about. Why does he "feel" female? How would he even know what "feeling female" means? Is there actually such a thing as "feeling female" anyway? What he actually means is he doesn't feel he fits male stereotypes and thinks female ones would suit him better.

And this is why trans correlates with autism. An autistic kid will struggle with social interaction. They will feel they don't fit in. They will feel they don't understand other people's behaviour and it doesn't match their own. Along comes the trans movement and says "oh, there's a reason you don't fit in - you're trans. Actually it's because you're special and in the wrong life". But it gets better - not only does it tell you it's not your fault, not only does it celebrate your difficulty in fitting in and provide you a community and posters on the school walls and instantly make you immune to bullying (because schools will crucify a kid if something gets called transphobic). No, not only all of that, but it gives you a manual on how you should behave based on gender stereotypes of the sex you think you are. Everybody knows what "girly" means, so now you know how to behave. Get your nails painted, talk about dresses, etc. You're being girly and you're less socially lost now. Just act like the stereotype of the other sex you have in your head.

"So that would be gender dysphoria."

Maybe. That's more usually, imo, adolescent girls feeling uncomfortable with their body, often uncomfortable with their sexual development or the sudden interest of boys. Sometimes the body image disorder manifests as anorexia. Now it seems like cultural factors are causing the same condition to manifest as gender dysphoria (both anorexia and trans correlate with autism and, imo, with abuse). But just because an anorexic believes she is overweight, it doesn't mean that she is.

Anyway, don't worry about "skating on thin ice". If someone bites your head off for asking a question, that's their problem. I can't imagine anyone here will. :)