Anti trans debate

I see from the OP's other thread's opening post that the OP is pregnant with a child already.

It's the point at which many women find they are on the slow descent into second-class citizenship.

Indeed,@Beedleneedle is frustrated by her husband's assumption that she will take on certain childcare jobs which he could do just as easily.

So maybe feminism is looking a bit more relevant?

And, of course, this board is dominated by the issue of women's rights being eroded by gender ideology. So I can easily see why she might be asking why.

@Beedleneedle I hope you come back.

Not anti, just pro women.

I’m guessing you haven’t got a secondary school age kid? If you had you would’ve likely witnessed the utter shitshow of disruption that gender identity ideology is causing in that age group and in class rooms.

(Gender identity ideology is not an overlap with people who have transitioned, lots of long term transitioners believe they are of their birth sex but have a mental health condition, rather than having been born with a gendered soul)

They are.

I was using "people rejecting sexist stereotypes" as a term to encompass both people who identify as trans and also people who don't but might be "read" as such eg butch lesbian women.

"Gender transition" is protected already. People can wear what they want and use facilities and services as trans-identifying people with no problems.

The existing legislation does all it needs to.

The "issue" which I believe ought to be clarified more strongly is that a man who is choosing not to conform to sexist stereotypes to the extent of preferring to wear dresses and makeup and long hair etc has every right to do so and should not be discriminated against but the comparator to establish discrimination is whether they are being treated less favourably than a man who is conforming to stereotypes by wearing traditionally "male" clothing. The comparator is not that they must be treated exactly as a woman would be because women have protections and rights to have spaces and opportunities that are not allowed to be infiltrated by males.

Thanks. I stopped reading because there was a bit too much focus on the salary. I'll go back to it

@Beedleneedle I have teens. Once has id’d as trans since she was 12 - the moment her periods started. We’ve had 6 years of hell, self harming and MH issues. All because the trans movement told her that because she was ASD/ADHD, found it hard to socialise with her peers (girls especially), find the ickiness of periods hard to cope with (ASD-related OCD); is fearful of change (ASD), fearful of the way women seem vulnerable in society (pds started in the mids of #metoo, Weinstein case and Trump grab-’em-by-the-p*ssy tapes) that OF COURSE she was born in the wrong body and is trans.

She’s not. Until this she wasn’t even gender non-conforming. However 70% (I kid you not) of her female peers also identified as queer/trans (trans, pan, ace, demi, gender-fluid depending on the weather [again I seriously kid you not on the last one]). It was not until she failed to make it through 6th form twice and then watched all her peers go to uni that she woke up.

She is undergoing therapy for anxiety and now has medication for ADHD, is two years behind but still hoping to get to university - and very, very angry that this trans stuff derailed her. Most of her peers have dropped the trans stuff and moved on to a different ‘cause’, but they’ve been left largely unimpacted. She, however, was vulnerable, desperate to fit in, sensitive and fragile.

If you have kids, or work in HR (like my SIL and Sister) it is bloody everywhere. My youngest has several ‘trans’ friends, too, who he tried to humour and remain respectful of. However he’s got a boarding place at a state 6th from sept (on the grounds of being both a young carer of a sibling with MH needs and also having ASD/anxiety himself), chosing to attend a college with non trans/GC friends to get away from the whole drama. It’s devastated our family.

I know you may feel it only impacts a few - and knowing a tiny number of actual transsexuals now for whom I have the deepest respect and compassion for their journeys - I feel this movement is disproportionately powerful and insidious. And that is before we get to the impact on women’s sports, sex-specific healthcare and safe spaces.

Hope this highlights why some of us seem a bit rabid about it.

Yes so much this!!! It’s individualism dialled up to the max. The ONLY thing that matters are their wants & demands. Everyone else is unimportant

Struggling to link on the app (probably my incompetence) but basically it’s around childcare when you’re both high earners

I echo what other have said. Being pro women’s rights does not mean being anti trans.
And mumsnet is one of the very few places where issues of sex/gender can be discussed - so there are indeed a lot of conversations about it here.
See the recent Rachel Meade case for an idea of what can happen when professionals express concerns about self-id. People are afraid to discus these issues openly.
https://www.colekhan.co.uk/news/uvzuy6kcrtb5lwg59pxbs44tqbeuj2

Bunbury always thinks of Vaclav Havel's Power of the Powerless when discussing, "Why should I care, it doesn't affect me."

The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: "Workers of the world, unite!" Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given more than a moment's thought to how such a unification might occur and what it would mean?

I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions. That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life "in harmony with society," as they say.

Obviously the greengrocer is indifferent to the semantic content of the slogan on exhibit; he does not put the slogan in his window from any personal desire to acquaint the public with the ideal it expresses. This, of course, does not mean that his action has no motive or significance at all, or that the slogan communicates nothing to anyone. The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message. Verbally, it might be expressed this way: "I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace." This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above, to the greengrocer's superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers. The slogan's real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer's existence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?

Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan "I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient;' he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth.

https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23

Do you realise that ‘why should I care about things that don’t affect me directly such that I’m aware anyway?’ stance is the absolute epitome of the narrowly focused individualism that tends to underpin all trans activism.

It’s all about the (trans) individual: their feelings, their wants, their ‘lived experience’. The idea that there might be a bigger picture than just the individual and their own view of themselves just whooshes straight past.

What do you mean by you don’t support trans rights, by the way, OP?

It does impact me as I see it via the school teaching on gender ideology

Why is it important even though it doesn’t affect me personally?

Because one day it MIGHT affect me when I find a male-bodied person in the changing room with me or in a hospital ward or, God forbid, a prison cell. It MIGHT affect my family if a child in it decides they want to change gender and they end up in a clinic that pushes puberty blockers. It MIGHT affect those around me who compete and find themselves pushed out of wins or placings by men.

But I’m also not someone who thinks “I’m alright Jack, so fuck those who aren’t”.

THAT’S why.

So you arrive at the job interview, the man interviewing you illegally asks if you plan to have children and you answer yes (because this is a bit of chit chat on the walk to the interview room rather than a formal question). You don't get the job and are gutted - it was the perfect role for you and you felt the interview went well. You remember the 'chat' about children and start to wonder if you have been discriminated against. As this was an internal promotion to a different department you are able to find out who got the job and it is Georgia, until last year Georgia was George - they are less qualified than you and have less experience so now you really think that your mentioning that you plan to have children soon has absolutely cost you the job. You start proceedings for sex discrimination but get nowhere because Georgia 'is a woman' but you know Georgia won't ever take maternity leave so does the hiring manager (who so casualty dropped families into the conversation). Because Georgia is now classes as a woman you can't claim sex discrimination. If woman means a woman or a man there can't be sex discrimination or sex based rights. It matters because if we can't define women we can't protect women.

Yes. Remember Jameela Jamil claiming women were lying when we raised Karen White? Outright flatly refused to believe it was true.

Because it is literally incredible that a rapist would be put in a women's prison. But its happened. More than once.

Do you have a link?

I find this thread deeply ironic considering the thread OP had posted AIBU which is basically all about assumptions around gender roles and how annoying they are

@Beedleneedle You're right, Gender Theory is just theoretical whereas violence and sex discrimination against women and girls is a reality that many of us have experienced and continue to experience. Why are you surprised that we continue try to protect women?

Gaaarrrrrrr early morning waking and I fell for it hook like and sinker 🙄 why do I reply to these posts when it’s clear that the OP does not want to really listen (living in hope OP comes back and shoots me down).

Have they got some nice screenshots I wonder?

OP I'm not "anti-trans" and neither are a lot of people on this board, but I do want any discussion on the issues around this to be grounded in evidence and respect longstanding principles of safeguarding. There are serious issues at play here with real life consequences. I'd love to be "live and let live", but that's not the world we exist in and there must be scrutiny in education, health, sport etc.

I don't think that's unreasonable or transphobic.

Will try to remember 😁

OP, what if you were in Scotland and were a parent of a teenage girl who'd been very happily a girl up to the time their body started to change. They'd expressed no feelings of being the opposite sex at all (assuming they hadn't been told only boys can do xyz along the way) and you had concerns about the health and physical implications of breast binding.

Would you be ok to keep these worries to yourself and support your daughter in restricting her breasts and ribcage?

OP, I'm curious if you've thought very much about teenaged girls and breast binding? Have you thought about whether there are medical implications?... Whether the potential for experimenting with it not because you're unhappy being female but re a female girl that's unhappy with your changing body in a sexist society and you want to reduce your feelings of self consciousness around that?
Have you thought that potentially wearing an uncomfortable device that is designed to flatten your breasts will as a side effect constrict your ability to take good big deep lungfulls of air?
Have you thought about what the effects of being aware of this device on your body all day long might do on a psychological level and what the next conclusion about how a teenaged girl feels about their developing body might be?

lol Maybe give it a few weeks, and then try it, and see what happens?

So am I right that it started in AIBU? I assumed it had, as I didn’t notice it in FWR this morning, and the opening post has got that AIBU feel to it.