If you're GC, what should trans people actually do?

When they say transportation now I just hear la-la-la-la-la-la.

Word is used so often its lost any impact.

Same for bigot/ nazi/ terf

You've put a sentence in quotes as if I actually said that, but I didn't did I? You've changed my words, removed the context and then put it in quotation marks.

You're proving my point about how important it is to read widely, apply critical thinking and use common sense.

Don't misrepresent what I said.

If you look up my posting history or just read through this thread you will see that I am gender critical, I have been very very clear that I do not agree with the statement that TWAW or that trans gendered people should have access to single sex spaces designated for women. I am strongly against medicalisation, surgery and affirmation only approach for children.

But that doesn't mean that every Trans Person or Ally is violent, or cruel, or deluded as some would seem to be suggesting, just like it doesn't mean that every feminist/gender critical person is an Angel just wanting to protect the kids and women.

I think the term "phobia" is used to silence to any opposition - disagreement with a view does not make you phobic it means you have a different point of view.

@FatAgainItsLettuceTime

I think that the fact that you are equating "being a bit transphobic" (allegedly) with violent behaviour toward people who do not agree with you as equivalent bad behaviour is quite telling, tbh. They are not the same

This. Totally.

Oh I totally agree. I was pointing out to the other poster that pronouns isn't woman treatment - whatever that was supposed to mean.

If we're going to start again and decouple whatever it is from the gender and sex muddle, maybe we need to take Jordan Peterson's advice (words I never expected to write) and say 'personality'.

I’m yet to be convinced that any trans/NB etc is not very mentally unwell.

The ones I’ve encountered have all clearly had serious mental health issues and affirming it certainly isn’t making things any better

👏

I won't be calling any man she or her under any circumstances,fuck that shit.

There is never a case where a TW should be treated as a Woman, except there is, I work in a large organisation, there are several TW, TM and NB people, on a day to day basis in normal working relationships it does no harm to anyone to refer to them by the name and pronouns they have chosen. Does that mean I think that TW belong in female prisons, changing rooms, hospital wards etc, no.

I think we need to stop doing this, not to reject trans people's sense of self, but because we need to go back to the start and start again with different words.

I'm happy to believe trans people (and indeed those who actively identify as cis) feel a genuine thing. I can understand how they may see something in the opposite sex, or in society's construction of the opposite sex, and feel they understand themselves better through that lens. But these are not the same things as being the opposite sex. So the two things.. the feeling and the sex, should not have the same name.

If the two things, the feeling and the sex, had different names, different pronouns, there would never have been any question about whether single sex provisions should be opened up based on gender. There's no reason behind it, no coherent argument. The demand exists only because the same name was used for two different concepts.

I can see how at the start, when it was transsexual (medically transitioning) people saying "I should have been the opposite sex", it seemed like the right thing to do. But the more we understand about trans people and the different ways they think about and embody their gender, the clearer it is that this is not some sort of mental shadowing of body sex, but a different thing altogether. IMO linking this feeling to sex has been a red herring. It's actually limiting our understanding.

"Gender" identity is, I think, more about finding a metaphor to express your inner sense of who you are and to ask people to understand that about you.

The cat genders and so on get short shrift but I think they may be the way forward. Not because anyone is really a cat, but because non-human neo gender identities could offer a social language of archetypes and metaphor to express self without mapping yourself onto other humans' real lives.

Yes, indeed, @DarkDayforMN

Many people struggle with this but we just waste time and energy if we look for a middle ground. There isn't one.

Going back to something pps have said earlier...
They think that they themselves are evidence of "male women" or "female men" or "being born in the wrong body" and because we recognise that as nonsense logically and in practice, we are denying that people like that can exist. That's the sense in which they say that we are denying their existence.

Also, isn't the expression 'preferred pronouns'? Surely this means that they aren't mandatory.

It is not as simple as that. Pronouns are a political statement, not a neutral one.

Their pronouns - pronouns do not belong to them, it is not a pick and choose menu ffs.

The problem with using female pronouns for men

If you want to see how pronouns can confuse meaning, try this sentence: "She can't use the Ladies loo, it's for women."

Except it leads to a place where female spaces, language and sports are being destroyed.

women have tried being kind. It doesn’t work. It means male rapists are in women’s prisons and males with penises are in our changing rooms and at lesbian dating events. No no no

So no, I don’t participate in a nonsense religion I don’t believe in. I’ll be polite but don’t expect me to believe a man is a woman. Not happening.

Calling people by chosen name and pronoun does not mean you are treating them as a man or woman... you're respecting their choices.

It doesn't mean anything to treat someone like a woman (and if it does it is either a medical setting, an intimate setting or you're just being sexist).

@DarkDayforMN

You'll note the use of the word 'generally' because while there are some hard and fast facts in the world, there is GENERALLY a chasm of grey in the middle.

• All GC people are transphobes, obviously not true, but some are.
• There is never a case where a TW should be treated as a Woman, except there is, I work in a large organisation, there are several TW, TM and NB people, on a day to day basis in normal working relationships it does no harm to anyone to refer to them by the name and pronouns they have chosen. Does that mean I think that TW belong in female prisons, changing rooms, hospital wards etc, no.

Even if you look at the Let Women Speak events, the press and personal accounts are usually very polarised, it's either a case of all TRAs were violent thugs or all GC crowd were transphobic monsters. Obviously that's not the case, basic common sense tells you that neither account is 100% accurate, there will be bad actors on both sides and a collection of more moderate people in between.

remember that there's always a middle and the truth generally lies somewhere in that middle.

I think this is absolutely false, fallacious and actually a very dangerous thing to believe. This way of thinking among third parties is how a lot of abusers get away with their behaviours. And in some ways the trans rights movement operates from
the same playbook.

Anyway, consider the following:

1. People can change sex
2. People can’t change sex

1. Humans come in more than two sexes.
2. Humans come in two sexes.

1. Transwomen are women
2. Transwomen are men.

The truth isn’t somewhere in the middle, is it?

I find Kathleen Stock is very clear and comprehensible. She's excellent on YouTube.

I have taught my teen to do this as well.

I have found myself reading media I never expected to read! Part of the reason I emphatically reject any person saying ‘feminists shouldn’t share x links’ or be interviewed on ‘y’ media. And I laugh long and loud at idiots who then use the ‘it is the daily mail/fox media’ because it is only people who cannot argue with the content that refuse to read the links resulting in showing all other readers just how narrow minded they really are.

Good advice @Helleofabore

I always tell my daughter (and husband) to remember the Who, what, why. Where, when and How's.

Critical thinking is important, read and listen to both sides, remember that there's always a middle and the truth generally lies somewhere in that middle.

Ama

All that many of us recommend is read, read, read and listen, listen, listen. There are no shortcuts.

As you do this, keep asking afresh, what is the truth? What is the whole truth? Is there a loophole that has been left open, and who benefits. And I mean, ultimately who benefits - not just the obvious people / group, who else?

Don’t let anyone else tell you what to think. But expect to be challenged. I find being challenged is great. It usually makes me go and find evidence and that helps me to understand more and adapt my thinking. I have been on here long enough that I know that I am not alone in doing this.