White, middle aged men telling us to be kind...

Because somewhere money is involved, someone has a financial interest in forcing this

… because women don’t need his/men’s permission to say no. In fact, women are allowed to say no to him personally even if he feels upset about it.

women are even allowed to say no to him in an upsetting way without engaging in a discussion over it. The answer is no.

I particularly enjoyed (not really) his faux "I'm still thinking but this is a concern but I'm sure we can come up with a solution" response to someone asking about men in women's sport

Can we, aye? Let us know when you're finished having a think and have published your brainfarts findings

The Dunning-Kruger Effect, ladies and gentlemen. There exists no issue so thorny that it cannot be solved by a middle aged man of average intelligence

"Women have very little idea of how much men hate them"

A lot of ostensibly "respectable" people can be very spiteful and passive-aggressive, deliberately starting controversial viewpoints or "concern trolling" issues so they can insult and wind up people without directly doing it.

It's a way of social dominance and aggressive without being aggressive as they know that's not socially acceptable nowadays.

(Starting conversations about their "concern" for Channel boat crossings as soon as there's a non-white person in earshot. That kind of thing).

Pretending to play the innocent and "who, me?" when the other person gets wound up.

It's all getting attention and taking up women's energy on their low value selves.

This guy can get women wound up and giving him attention and be all "calm down, dear" (whilst staying within the law) so that's why he's doing this.

Why even point out the "white" part? How does that make a difference to your premise in particular? That seemed strange to me, and even stranger that you would discuss sex with your BIL. I'm close to my BILs, but not that close.

In the event this actually happened, can you ask your BIL how he would feel if a transman used his bathroom at work? Would he be okay with that?

I doubt if you live in a predominantly non white country that you find white middle aged men being privileged - they would be a minority.
I'm fed up with white people constantly putting themselves down. Other racial groups don't and they are quite right to be proud of their heritage. All racial groups have done and still are doing bad things, but that's a human thing it's not particular to white people. I am very proud of my white Celtic heritage.

I agree with you. Too many posts - almost certainly from white people trying to look cool - generally slagging off people for being white. The OPs post makes being male, middle aged and white sound like a bad thing. I find it difficult to believe it's a real post as I know vast numbers of middle aged men, none of whom believe that TWAW or believe in all the #bekind nonsense

Yep, I had this with my brother. I got the just 'be kind' bollocks.

He sent me the photos of the women who claim to be men. As if that would make any difference. And then I sent him the photos of the men who claim they are women.

I'm afraid he got a rather angry rant from me that he didn't have the first fucking clue about us women having to keep ourselves safe when he didn't even have to think about it. His daughter, our Mum, me, his wife and his MIL didn't even feature on his radar until it was clearly pointed out to him. I love him to bits but I am still very cross with him that he needed this to be explained. He gets it now but he should have got it much sooner.

If your BiL thinks it's wrong to 'penalise all for the mistakes of the few' could ask him his views on safeguarding? I wouldn't use 'penalise' for choice (is it a penalty?) but we safety check all adults working with vulnerable people. Most of those people will absolutely have their heart in the right place, only have good intentions etc. But - there are some, a few, who don't.

Does BiL think this is the correct approach? When I, as a middle aged woman teaching a group of men, had to have a DBS - should I have kicked up a fuss? (I didn't, of course).

Missing the point somewhat!

Absolutely this.

This issue is just a no risk way (to himself) of signalling what a liberal right on chap he is, without having anything affect him personally or having to think too deeply

I think you've just summed up most of the men who support this.

Would you be so offended if it was a young black lesbian, or a jew or an islamist

Yes I would. Why wouldn't I be? People don't get a pass on offensive behaviour just because they have a protected characteristic.

I don’t blame you OP. This would really grind my gears too.

I hate with an unusually passionate hate (I don't usually operate in extremes) the hashtag #BEKIND.

I think kindness is a valuable and powerful thing, capable of calming and curing pain and conflict. It has a powerful role in social interaction. I believe in it, I practise it, I wish more people did ....hang on, I'm about to segue into 'I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony'😏

Pulling back from self-parody...the use of #bekind to silence women defending our rights has corrupted the word 'kind'. Unforgivable.

I suggest a counter-hashtag: #BEREAL.

He can lead a campaign on WHY trans identifying males might not feel 'comfortable' in male spaces!!!!!! Maybe then he'll realise a teeny tiny bit more of why girls and women are fearful of predatory, intimidating behaviour.

But does he not understand we actually do penalise ALL men because of the actions of the few? Has he ever wondered why no men are allowed in women's single sex spaces? It's not because they are all predators but because some are, so why can't he see the same is true of men who now claim to be women? Some of those will statistically be predators.

And if I had a 9 year old daughter I wouldn't be letting him off so easily.

You may have to lay out to him exactly what his words are allowing to happen under the be kind guise.

I would be making much of the fact that obviously he isn't very bright if he can't understand how dangerous letting grown men with cocks (and boys who are old enough to be able to assault and rape younger girls) into spaces with little girls in a state of undress is.

My reply to imbecilic men like this is :

SOME men are predators and will abuse women and girls so ALL men are kept out of women's spaces to protect us.

SOME Trans identifying males are predators and will abuse women and girls so ALL Trans identifying males should be kept out of our spaces to protect us.

Why do people STILL not see this ???

They seem to think that there are magic force fields in women's spaces that keep the "bad men" out.

Until there are.... keep TF out as we are not collateral damage to men and boys hurty feelz!!!

This with fucking bells on.

People like this are either dodgy AF or very privileged to never have been affected by sexual assault and lacking the capacity to empathise with those that have. Neither category is worth knowing IMO.

I do have "be kind" friends mind you, but they all hold deeply TERFy opinions without realising it. They will "get it" eventually (and it's usually TRAs that push them there). It's rare to come across fully paid up idealogues in the wild.

So the foolproof way to avoid a sexual assault is not to look at the offender’s genitals? Alright then.

No wonder men don’t think this is a big deal. Turns out you can choose to avoid it very easily!

(And as if you need to look at genitals, but that’s a separate point.)

"Does it really impact you if someone wearing a dress who is a biological man uses the change room? Why can't you just be kind to the poor soul?"

Why doesn’t he be kind to the poor soul and get changed with them?

Men who are are keen to offer up women’s stuff should focus on their own sex class and welcome trans women and be kind

Has anyone ever tried the questioning approach? Why do we segregate at all?

I’d love to see someone explain the point of segregating by gender.