Why are women so complacent re. trans nonsense?

I find it endlessly interesting how men hit the awww bless mummy instincts, and there's value in signalling loveliness about them, whether status or feeling nice. But women who aren't friends or equals are just..... fodder. No interest in what happens to them, there's no value or purpose in caring.

What often staggers me most is that these are most often values by people who identify as being socialist in views.

Re: prisons, the argument appears to be 'it's not women like me so who gives a fuck?'

Women in prison are vulnerable -

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57103702.amp

The Scottish Government have recently deemed that there's an 'acceptable level of risk' to subject them to in order to validate the feelings of violent male offenders. Tiffany Scott being one particularly terrifying example (among many), and who was approved for transfer to the female prison estate before the Isla Bryson case hit public knowledge.

I've heard the second point re prisons almost verbatim from one of my closest friends, really took me by surprise and I think back to it often. She's an incredibly intelligent woman and I wish I'd challenged her on it more at the time - it was a group conversation and my partner picked up on something else she said (about gender being 'assigned' at birth), so the prison point kind of slipped by in the conversation and it didn't feel right to pull her up on it later... I often ponder over how I could peak her without scaring her away 😅

As to how a woman can come to think like that - she is a high flyer at work, in the defence sector, formally a science PhD. Very male dominated industries and she hasn't always felt well -received or respected by male colleagues, so I think she believes there's some parallel in the 'fight' for acceptance and that she should stand with trans people because they too aren't accepted and it's the right or kind thing to do. She has a lot of far left friends too and despite being v scientific does hold what they say in high regard and tends to believe what they say without looking into it any further. Although she does have that same level of respect for me so maybe I should be a little more confident in broaching the subject again and challenging her a bit!

For the ones saying that it's too polarised and there should be a middle ground, what would that look like to you?
We've suggested third spaces many times and it's never accepted. What else is there?

You can't let the good ones in and keep the bad ones out, so surely it makes more sense to keep all males out?

I imagine after the next election, where I'd be amazed if Labour don't win, that this issue may well start to become even more problematic, people aren't going to be able to keep looking the other way and hope someone else fixes it.

So on the off chance that we either won't be able to tell if a trans person should be on our spaces or not. Or, if it's obvious they shouldn't and we don't feel confident challenging.

It's deception then isn't it? Biological males barging in and knowing in most cases no one will do anything about it.

All the while knowing there will be women who will find this distressing including abuse and rape survivors. This is not something a good human being does.

Be kind? Show me it works both ways and I may entertain the idea.

Fair enough.

I haven't discussed any viewpoints around gender on this thread. I've explained a reason why women might appear to be complacent and discribed my experience on here.

You are here discussing all this with various people with various viewpoints. I don't see any screaming.

@ArabellaScott I agree with you that it's good that GC people have place where they can talk openly. I just don't think you can complain that not women agree if you scream handmaiden at them for asking questions.

The use of the term trans nonsense in the title of this thread isn't exactly signalling to women who have concerns but also sympathy for people struggling with their sex / gender identity that their opinions are welcome.

But why assume people here are trying to convince people of things?

I don't really care what others think or believe. I don't care about 'winning people'. Think what you think, make up your own mind.

Evidence, reasoned argument, critical thinking. That's what we need to deal in. Not manipulation and persuasion. In fact, I'd say the latter is what's tended to get us into this mess.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

is a good place to start for ppl looking to understand a bit more

I think it's hard because we get a LOT of bad faith posters on here. So yes, sometimes discussion can be brisk or emotive.

That said, what I really value here is a space where we can discuss openly, robustly, with evidence and in good faith.

I've not found it 'unwelcoming' even way back when I was dipping my toe in. Fucking terrifying, yes, on occasion. Mentioning no names. 😁

i mean it’s the same with politics. You are never going to win people to your side if you attack and make them feel stupid.

It feels like two rival religions, each believing itself to be The One Truth.

Agree

Absolutely.

Why is is women are judged for being unkind but people trying to take our sports places are not judged?

if you can't be sympathetic to that because you are only concerned with girls/women, then that is a problem when we try to work these things out.

//

That's pretty much how feminism works.

If biological men DEMAND to cheat compete against women and seemingly don't give a shit about the impact of this then it's not the problem of those women to figure out the alternative option for those biological males.

Perhaps instead of trying to take our sporting opportunities they should focus energies on an alternative.

But men don't need single sex spaces in the way women do. I'm sure they would prefer them but that's another matter. Men aren't at risk from harm by having trans men in their single sex spaces, in fact the trans men remain the ones at risk of harm.

“It's quite difficult to engage with this if both sides are full of ideologues who will only have a sensible conversation with you if parrot back their views to them”

precisely this

There was a really interesting thread earlier that got zapped because discussions ALWAYS become hostile and there’s so much verbal gaslighting and people twisting everything you say to start arguments.

and then we wonder why women are complacent and don’t want to come over here to talk and learn?

it’s not a welcoming space at all. There is a lot of snide.

I don't think its just complacency. I attempted to engage on this forum to learn more about the issie. I was called a TRA (which I'm most definitely not) and a handmaiden for asking questions daring to disagree with some things someone said. One poster even took it upon herself to follow me into different parts of mumsnet demanding answers.

I was also looking at other more pro trans spaces and was called a bigot and a TERF.

It's quite difficult to engage with this if both sides are full of ideologues who will only have a sensible conversation with you if parrot back their views to them

Not a gotcha - just annoying that there seems to be an argument that people can make sweeping statements for an argument as an apparent fix all.

plenty of women who have suffered sexual assault would not be comfortable sharing a space with a trans man.

(I mean the common theme is always … men cause the problems in every scenerio).

not pretending to have the answers either because I genuinely don’t have it. But I know it’s not as simple as forcing people to use the toilet that matches their biological sex.

Klcak · Today 15:47

Sports for example - OK biological males should not be competing in female sports. Also a fact is that many transpeople love sports. When radical posters discuss sports, their line is: no males (fine) and then when asked about potential opportunities/categories for transpeople - the answer is "not my/our problem".

Hmm.

I have a problem, why haven't YOU fixed it? It's all your fault!

Also, the existence of some male looking women isn't going to make me welcome a group of mostly entirely male looking men into female spaces. It's a weird argument.

But to address the question in this thread, remember how many women were openly and adamantly against women's suffrage at the time? Virginia Woolf's mother was one of those, and there were organisations by women explicitly working against women getting the vote. And I saw a quote from the 1930s where a female writer noted how young women of that era were trying to very clearly express their separation from and disagreement with those horrid suffragettes of the previous generation.

So women have always split into these kinds of camps, for reasons which I believe are quite complicated. They range from full internalisation of the misogyny in their era and societies (there are religious groups and religions which explicitly tell women that their choice is hell after death if they refuse the yoke during their lifetimes), the awareness that women don't have power in their societies and that to go against the powerful is risky and dangerous, especially if the attempt fails, and fear of losing the rights/safety they have personally carved into the existing system.

Then there are all the reasons discussed in this thread, including wanting to side with the underdog (however incorrectly that might be defined), not being personally affected, fearing social ostracism from a culture which still subconsciously privileges male desires, and, most of all, not actually being aware of what is happening.

I have met so many women who don't understand what 'trans rights' actually mean today, including the fact that the female sex class is to be made invisible and ignored.