Anti trans debate

Many of us are not as lucky as you. Particularly those of us whose husbands decided to identify as trans.

Let's see...the creation of mixed sex toilets. I've had two worrying experiences in there with men. They're doing it for 'inclusion' but it means that aggressive men full of alcohol get to be on their own in a confined space with women.

I was giving a lift to a university gig to some young people and one of the young women commented that she'd just remembered about the mixed sex toilets there and felt really unsafe in them. So this spans all generations.

This is an unintended consequence of prioritising people who thinks gender feelings trump everything.

This not only affects me regularly but also disabled people as invariably the advice when I've told the bar what happened is to use the only disabled loo instead.

I wonder if someone posted in AIBU a thread entitled

Pro-women debate

with a text that said :

I’ve noticed on mumsnet there’s a strong feminist pro women stance. That’s fine in theory, but I’m surprised these topics affect so many people. In my day to day life I never experience any push/agenda! Where is this happening?

If it would also be moved pronto

Katie Dolatowski, 6ft 5, attacked a 10 year old girl in the women's toilets in a Scottish supermarket. Without the idea that any man who wants to thinks he's a woman can go into the women's toilets, this couldn't have happened.

Amy/Andrew Miller abducted a girl whilst dressed as a woman, then went on to rape her and imprison her. The judge said Miller dressing as / presenting as a woman contributed to the fact the child got into the car.

How many children need to be harmed before giving up women's rights and sex based safeguarding becomes important? There are multiple examples of women and children harmed much closer to home than literally anything happening in Gaza but plenty of people are passionate about that and no-one's saying they shouldn't care? Seems weird to suggest we shouldn't care about these child victims.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11995845/Trans-female-sex-offender-backed-Sturgeons-gender-reform-laws-held-male-jail-78-days.html

https://news.sky.com/story/andrew-miller-jailed-for-20-years-for-abducting-and-sexually-assaulting-girl-in-scottish-borders-12983829

I can't roll my eyes enough at this discussion constantly being put on the naughty step.

Where people don't see it and it enables idiots on Twitter and elsewhere to perpetuate the myth that MN is anti-trans. 😡

Many women have eeven been banned by Mumsnet for speaking the truth; or have been thrown off twitter or other social media for speaking openly. Some women have been arrested.

it's insane, isn't it, when you think about it.

Helen Joyce says the same, that people simply don't believe her. They think she's exaggerating.

IIRC the requirement for women to wear heels when men don't has been challenged - and won - more than once in court. As is the requirement to wear skirts, makeup and so on.

My point is: equality doesn't mean that there should be exactly the same uniforms. It means that where uniforms are required, especially where they perform a protective function, they should work on all bodies regardless of sex.

Companies that discriminate by saying "women are to wear 5" heels and pencil skirts" should be taken to the cleaners unless the actual job is about wearing those things (ie Model)

I think it was your framing of the issue as being 'anti trans' that has provoked such responses. Women have had to battle that accusation for years.

This is nothing to do with individuals, bur rather with a rampant ideology.

Regarding anger, yeah, I will admit I'm a bit angry. We've been warning that, for example, failing to take women's rights, safety and dignity into account would end up with violent men in women's prisons, only to be told it would never happen and it was "hatred" to suggest it would. It has happened. But now it's "hatred" to object. This is not the only instance where feminists have tried to warn about the implications of trans focused policies failing to consider the impacts on women and time and time again we've been abused or ignored and time and time again we've been right. So yeah, I'm angry. And I'll still be angry in a five year's time when the lunatics who are promoting this outrageous idiocy are trying to wash their hands of responsibility for the people whose lives they are ruining.

You may not yet have been impacted, but many people are now expected to use or display pronouns at work , for example; or have been disciplined at work for refusing to use them; or for suggesting that males remain male no matter how they identify. For feeling unconfortable when a male colleague now insists on using the women's facilities at work.

Others have children, or pupils, who have become caught up in the trans trend and are struggling to deal with it.

Some are simply offended by the idea that a woman is just an idea in someone's head and has no integrity or existence beyond that.

Many of us have encountered trans identifying or cross dressing men in our everyday life, and we know this is the case because they are obviously still male. some of us have had unpleasant, or worse, experieneces with men inserting themselves without consent, into women's private spaces.

Many women have eeven been banned by Mumsnet for speaking the truth; or have been thrown off twitter or other social media for speaking openly. Some women have been arrested.

Interesting. How would you feel if, in order to fulfil its ‘equality’ agenda to encourage more women into that type of role, they rejected you and chose a recently announced transwoman who they know will never get pregnant. He will count for their female diversity figures. You will struggle to sue for sex discrimination if the law regards him as female.

So this “started in the early hours, UK time” thread has been moved from AIBU to FWR, has it?

That is because for years, up until fairly recently, debate simply wasn't permitted on this topic anywhere else. That is why mumsnet has become such a focus and gathering place for those who do want to have such discussions.
It is thanks in large part to this board that the issue is now in the public realm and finally been voiced in parliament.

As I say, many people are fairly oblivious to political movements or patterns.....but some are very much tuned in to them. There can be no concerted political action without a prior exhange of ideas - which is why trans acticvist organisations have sought to silence such discussions and have sought to have women's ( & men's)voices suppressed.

I suggest we all have an agenda. By framing women's concerns about female integrity as being 'anti trans' reveals your agenda, I suggest.

Most people function in their everyday life fairly oblivious to deeper political forces; but just because people are unaware of them, it doesn't mean they don't exist, or exert influence over our lives and the on the direction of social-political travel.

By politics - I mean the realm of human ideas/ideological systems of thought and the pursuit of certain interests. Politics is also about how you manage these aforementioned forces and conflicts of interest.

@Beedleneedle

You may have encountered people on here being defensive, because when we defend women and girls against this incursion, it's called anti-trans by transactivists trying to stop us. It's not. It's about defending women and girls' rights and safety.

If you don't have children, you don't play sport, or use public toilets and changing rooms very much, then you may not have been affected by this.

But this is a parenting website, largely populated by women.

There won't be a parent here who either doesn't know a trans identifying child or teen, or who has one themself.

Thats how we know.

Puberty blockers are followed by cross sex hormones in 99% of cases. These drugs will leave a child sterile for life and unable to orgasm. (And there appears to be some new evidence that puberty blockers reduce IQ by as much as 10 points.)

That's why we're concerned.

In Scotland, they are proposing a law that will criminalise a parent for not allowing a child to do this.

And that's why we are fuming and frightened.

There is way more to it, obviously. Sport, prisons, rape refuges. The umpteen court cases involving women being fired purely for saying there are only two sexes.

The fear, the threats, the intimidation, the utter nonsense of denying that sex even exists.

And then teaching it all to little kids in school.

To the extent where the government has had to intervene to tell schools not to teach things that aren't based on scientific evidence, not to tell children they are the opposite sex because they don't follow sexist stereotypes, not to make them use mixed sex toilets and not to socially transition them without their parents knowledge, etc.

Two things I can absolutely promise you.

One, if you think any of this is exaggerated, it's actually only the tip of the iceberg. This is truly the biggest threat to women's rights since they started campaigning for them.

And two, it will affect you.

I would absolutely recommend Helen Joyce's book 'Trans'. It appears to be the definitive one. Get it on audiobook and listen to it in the car. She was the editor of the Economist, and has a PhD in maths. Her 'not yer typical feminist' cred is excellent 😃

And also...welcome.

Draw up a chair and uncork the wine, you're going to need it.

This is a feminist board.

Most posters are feminists.

Feminism means standing up for the rights of all women.

Women we don't like, women we've never met, women who do things we have no interest in, women in situations we will never (or hope we will never) experience.

All women.

My company recently revamped its pregnancy and maternity policy, and sent round a draft for comment. I don't have children, never wanted them, and am now old enough it's very unlikely to happen by accident. So the maternity policy doesn't affect me at all. I spent an hour carefully reading it and thinking about the implications, because I care about how other women are treated.

Similarly I care about the women who take part in amateur boxing and are now at hugely increased risk of injury and death because they will be fighting men. Even though I actively dislike boxing.

I've never committed an imprisonable offence (although as the post office cases show, that's not necessarily a protection against going to prison), but care about women in prison being used as props and accessories for men who want to 'learn to be women', whonare unable to shower in privacy, who are at greatly increased risk of rape and violent assault because they're locked up with men and can't raise complaints.

I've never needed to use a rape crisis centre, and hope I never will. But I care about the women who are being denied single sex staff to carry out medical examinations, and single sex therapy groups to help them recover.

I coild go on giving examples but if you only care about yourself and your own personal experience, you will probably never understand. I hope you are never in a position where you are forced to.

Should we be quiet and wait until it does affect you directly, then say something?

Your "theoretical" rights as a woman are being affected on a daily basis. Should you ever bump into this problem and it then directly affects you, how it is handled by the law will be determined by the case law of all the women who went before you. The result of each legal case in this area decides how society treats womens rights in the face of the challenges from Trans Rights Activists. The TRAs campaign for policies that are sometimes are in conflict with women's rights e.g. males in female sports, free speech, protected beliefs, single sex spaces.

Your entire "argument" that it doesn't affect you so why should others care seems disingenous. If you don't care, then how do you care enough to tell other people that they shouldn't care either? When I don't care about a topic, the people who do care about that topic never hear from me that I don't care because part of my not caring is not caring enough to even tell them. It feels, and I may be wrong, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, that there is a chance that your are trying to argue that mumsnetters shouldn't care, or are wrong to care.

Your assessment that there is a strong "feminist" stance is correct. Your assessment that there is a strong "anti trans" stance is incorrect. The discussion here is mainly about the conflict between rights demanded by Trans Activists and women's rights. Where there is no inherent conflict between those rights you'll find that MN is fine with trans people having those rights. Example the right to due process in law. No MNer has ever argued against this right for trans people because everyone should have it. There is no inherent conflict in both women and trans people being protected equally by law. But try and put a convicted multiple rapist in a women's prison and now there is a conflict because women don't want to be forced to be around convicted rapists who see them as prey.

There is a difference between trans right activists/activism and trans people. A person can be part of both groups, but it is possible to be part of one group but not the other. My feelings towards ( my definition of ) trans people is that they are vulnerable people in a difficult situation, and they should get all the support and sympathy they need to help them with their lives. My feelings towards trans rights activism is that for the most part it is nasty, wilfully ignorant, virtue signalling, agressive, misogynistic, homophobic, and violent stemming from the arrogance of people who are unwaveringly sure of their righteousness despite their ignorance of the wider picture and refusal to really think for themselves about how it all fits together and affects others.

My last point is that that believe it or not that MNers care about the predominantly young and proto gay people swept up in all of this. Women give birth to all humans. Women are the primary care givers to children. It is natural that women care for and about children and young adults, and what happens to them. To expect otherwise is to go against human nature. The medical pathway for transition has many irreversable downsides and risks. Where medical transition does not alleviate the distresses of a person who believed that transition was going to be the cure for their distresses, then we have a duty to all those that come after them to figure out how we can achieve a better result for their distresses. Science is about measuring results. If we can improve the lives of people who feel these distresses and give them happier futures then we should. But to do so requires that we monitor their results and adapt our treatments. Evolve the procedure to continually improve the results. A faith based approach where we stick our heads in the sand, pray, and ignore the results because we believe the current way is perfect is just as stupid now as it was hundreds of years ago when religion believed that the sun revolved around the earth, and it stems from exactly the same arrogance.

I'll be #95.

This isn't even about 'trans' people. I don't care how other people choose to identify or dress or what they care to call themselves.

I do care, as I have all my adult life, about women. I care about women's rights.

If you can't define sex, you can't combat sexism. If you can't define a woman, women's rights cannot exist.

I also care a lot about children, especially vulnerable children, who may be given bad advice based on contested ideology that may lead to them being sterilised or gaining lifelong health issues.

I also care about lesbians losing their culture and spaces and being coerced into accepting males.

I also care about predators using 'trans' as a cover - see Andrew Miller/Amy George. Or Karen White. Or David and Aimee Challenor.

I also care about the McCarthyite, Stasi like threats to freedom of speech and belief. That women have been harassed, discriminated, attacked, threatened and abused simply for raising these issues is a significant and troubling issue.

As for affecting me personally - yes, we have a local transwoman who is a fetishist and hard to avoid. I've encountered a transwoman masturbating in a ladies' toilet, when I was seventeen. Many children at our local schools are identifying as trans.

I'm not a social worker but I am angry about what Rachel Meade and two of her colleagues were put through. Does OP assume their political opinions will always be the 'acceptable' ones and being discriminated against only ever happens to someone else? Read the judgement (or the sections helpfully quoted by other posters) and think how you'd feel if you were on the end of that.

Employers can set different requirements for different genders and dismiss employees for not complying, and it can be unclear whether the courts would consider it legally discriminatory. E.g. consider situations where women have lost their jobs for refusing to wear high heels, or where people of both genders have been dismissed for wearing or not wearing makeup, or men losing their jobs for not having short hair, etc. Some people want laws to explicitly protect expression (e.g. so that it’s clear women can’t be required to wear high heels and makeup), the government want employers to be able to enforce different standards on their employees. It is a factor in gender issues I think, as my feeling is it can push people towards gender reassignment, as it’s not necessarily the case that a woman, who doesn’t think she should have to adhere to female stereotypes of expression, can simply choose not to and keep her job (or vice versa). https://www.clapham-collinge.co.uk/news/dress-codes-at-work-whats-acceptable-and-whats-not

Are you not worried if (its already happened) the ideology is imposed?

Do you not wonder how it might impact your life at some point?

Your going to say I'll never end up in a hospital ward with a TW? How do you know, what if you do? what about the women that are?
I'll never be in prison, how do you know, what if you do, what about the women that are.
I'll never play a sport at any level, how do you know, what if you do, what about the women that are?
I'll never be raped, how do you know, what if you are, what about the women that are?

Already hospitals allow TW in women only wards
Prisons allow TW in the female estate.
Sports although some are changing, allow and have allowed TW in.
Rape centres, well one is run by a TW who appears to really really like women reframing their trauma in front of him, then dismisses them, allow TW in.
Hostels formerly for women allow TW in who then expose themselves.

You quite sure you'll never again need a woman only space?
Can you guarantee that?
What about those women that cant?

I’m a nurse and the male and female uniforms are different even if the two staff members are on the same pay grade and in the same role.

Are you a man then? Because having a large swathe of women's rights being removed affects all women.

In uniformed professions aren't the male and female uniforms almost the same apart from being cut differently for male and female bodies?

but why would a woman want to wear the man's uniform? Full disclosure: as an ex-soldier i am well aware of the fact that uniforms for men don't always function properly when used by women. That is why equality isn't about everything being the same. It is about giving people the same opportunity (in my case: to be able to move while wearing kevlar, and not have my breasts squashed out to the sides rendering it partly innefective)