The words that have been pulled over your eyes

I don't know that this is a great argument against the "mystical bollocks" though. Because whilst all of the stuff you mention is applicable to most women and girls, is largely specific to women and girls, and is the reason we need feminism and protections in law, it's not actually what makes us women. That's purely just our female bodies. My body is me. Your body is you. What makes me a woman is literally just having a female body. This fact is twisted and oversimplified by TRA into "you're obsessed with genitals" but actually, yes - womanhood (or girlhood) is simply having a female body. Being female is about our bodies. Which is not to say that women are only valuable because of their body parts, to preempt another strawman that gets thrown up by TRAs.

You obviously did not read or understand my post. I understand very clearly that TM do not pose a threat to men in men’s sport. I don’t need you to help me understand this, I already know this.

IIRC a school shooting in the US was by a TM. Proof, if needed, that it’s really not a good idea to fill a disturbed young teenager up with testosterone.

I too have noticed that there are numerous pundits on social media who are now saying that they will no longer use the term transwoman now, not even with the space. Academics, authors and a large number of women’s rights campaigners. I stopped using the term years ago when I realised that if I used it, my posts were not as accurate or precise as I wanted. I do use it rarely now, often if I have to make a particular point.

They have their personal reasons but usually it revolves around the fact that they acknowledge that any mention of the word woman in relation to a male person causes confusion in the message. Some of those have complained about ‘ultras’ in the past too, I believe. Yet there they are now hardening their own language. Particularly after the NHS Fife case.

I agree that we need to use accurate language. We still seem to be deleted for saying someone is a man sometimes. So I stick with ‘male people’ because I got tired of having to retype out deleted posts. But there is a benefit to using male people and female people too. Because I find myself not having to type out ‘women, girls and women with transgender identities’ to ensure people understand I also include all female people. Cumbersome, you betcha.

However, there is nothing quite like seeing the difference while some people are still up for playing linguistic games like “yes, I see we agree that women should be in female single sex toilets and not ‘men’. Transwomen are not ‘men’.” Whereas, persisting in saying all male people need to be excluded above the age of a child needing care is clear and stops the fuckwittery.

And what is also becoming apparent is that there are those who are still trying desperately to remain ‘kind’ and what they consider ‘moderate’. And those who then describe why they are moderate are usually those who personally will arbitrate who is and who isn’t ‘trans’ using their own personal criteria. Which is actually the opposite of kind when you see it posted.

It is also usually not moderate either. It will either be what feminists have been campaigning for more than a decade for. Or it still allows male people into female single sex spaces based on that person’s personally developed criteria that ignores the needs of female people and centres a special group of male people.

I am so sorry for what you’ve been through, @Circumferences .

@Datun , I must remember not to have hot drinks when reading here. The foxes in the woods comment had me accidentally snort Earl Grey up my nose. I pictured it illustrated by Axel Scheffler, Gruffalo style.

I have noticed one of @FlirtsWithRhinos word-creep. We used to be very careful when using the term ‘transwomen’ to keep it as the one word, never ‘trans women’, because that made the trans bit look like an adjective referring to a set of women. Whereas ‘transwoman’ has as much to do with being a woman as ‘transplant’ has to do with being an aspidistra.

But lately I’ve seen that inoffensive-seeming space between the parts of the word crop up more and more. And it pisses me off.

As has been said by wiser souls than me, The Word Woman Is Taken.

Never sure if things are loading , so this is my back up. Apologies.

@NoKnittingAllowed

I am not sure if you have half an hour to spare, but this might be the answer to some of the things that appear to be puzzling you. I do apologise for the video being over five years old, clearly if it was more recent there would be a few better known men included, quite a few rapists, a few people with a strange taste in tight pink leggings, a few people who hit sixty year old women, a few people who have managed to pull the wool over naive political parties, a few thousand abusers who think a woman who uses her name and wealth to support other women is fair game for threats of violence. But it is what it is and , like an iceberg bearing down on us, is probably only the visible tip .

So let’s put this into perspective.

in the red corner we have:

obsessed with genitalia

in the blue corner we have :

women’s safe spaces for reasons of womens safety against stronger human beings, but also for reasons of social or religious requirements ,the after effects of previous trauma ,the need for dignity and privacy applying to girls and women of all ages . Also in the blue corner is the language women use about themselves including the names we choose to use for our body parts, which makes important issues like our general health, our gynaecological history, our experiences of pregnancy etc clear and unambiguous to us and to health care professionals. Included here are the words we use to describe ourselves as adult human females, our pronouns etc and our rejection of the derisory names used about us like menstrutaters. The blue corner is getting a bit crowded now, but we still need to make room for males muscling in on women only shortlists for jobs and women only prizes in the arts, male athletes stealing womens sponsorship, training opportunities, medals, records and future earnings, male athletes in womens sports injuring female athletes ……… and in the remains of the blue corner are the rest of the incursions and intrusions and lies that transwomen have used in their attempt to claim that being a woman is actually mostly about their feelings, their dignity, their wish to live an authentic life.

So it is not really about genitals at all - apart from the ones used as weapons and threats and for men the residual effects of male puberty - especially since most transwomen, and transmen, balk at the final “transition”. What needs to be addressed is the question is how can an authentic life be lived when it is built on deceit, lies, threats, manipulation, spite and entitlement.

I very rarely post this fact on Mumsnet but there's no shame in it.

I used to work as a prostitute (in a flat). Started when I was 17. This is early nineties so a long time ago now. Anyway.

I had a regular AGP as a client. He'd bring knickers and pay me to compliment him in them.
He'd try pushing me into anal, deep throat, sex without a condom, you name it. It was all about pushing boundaries. The other working girls in the flat had similar stories (different blokes).

It wasn't unusual actually that cross dressing men were in fact far less respectful than "the common man". The "common" men usually paid for a regular girlfriend experience.

When I first heard "TWAW" some time in the early 2000's I just laughed. How stupid. I'd actually been paid by them for sex, just like all the other blokes.

So for anyone to flippantly brush aside my experiences as "not being enough" they can go f themselves.

Don't forget that some of the foxes might be really sad and also vegan, so if hens don't welcome those into their coop, they are bigoted hens.

Trans men in men's sports are at a severe physical disadvantage. To be kicked out of a men's team, they'd have to qualify to be on it first, and that's very rarely going to be the case, if at all.

It does feel that way, doesn’t it.

Because apparently the fence is there to keep them out so that issue is all sorted according to noknitting.

Well, I think we have finally put to bed the idea that the hens should really be concerned about the foxes in the woods, and not the ones feverishly digging their way under the coop.

Yes it's most intriguing. I can't imagine why they love talking about genitalia so much. It's almost as if...

Because they are a group of men who are insistent that they must enter women’s single sex spaces, that gives women the impression that they are more likely to be a risk to women than men who don’t try to be around us when we’re undressed and vulnerable, and we know that there are women who have been attacked and raped by this group of men who would not have been hurt if society hadn’t decided that the magic words ‘I identify as a woman’ suddenly removed all risk. Some women could have been ok if they hadn’t been let in, that why we have to keep objecting, we can’t save every woman but we have to at least do what we can to save the ones we can.

You can't fathom and your bothered. Fair enough.

Your stance indicates capacity for imagination though. Imagination to the point of wishful thinking, in fact.

We're not bothered by trans people. Live and let live, say I.

TRAs though, seem to be inordinately bothered by the existence of women's sex-based rights (mostly consisting, for boring physiological reasons, of the right to sometimes exclude men).

They're bothered enough to picket a women's meeting centred on FGM, and commit literal violence.

They're bothered enough to set off the fire alarm in a library because a women's group was having a meeting to set up an NHS women's health survey.

They're bothered enough to withhold funding from services with women-only provision (even when it's additional to trans-inclusive provision, not instead of it).

They're bothered enough to call the police about not being allowed into a private home hosting a rape survivors group.

They're bothered enough to cancel the Labour Party National Women's Conference, because heaven forfend the women should be allowed to meet without letting men in.

Why are you so bothered by women having rights? It's creepy AF.

I think a fair number of transwomen have lived a full life as a man, got married, had children etc, before announcing they had been a woman all along.
How would you tell those ones apart from ‘ordinary men’ or are you only a transwoman when you put a dress and makeup on? Were they not really women until then? Even though they ‘knew inside’ they were. Is there some way of easily telling a closeted transwoman who is a married father from a man who is a married father? How would you know which one is a man on the inside, and which one is a saintly woman on the inside?

Translation: I can't be arsed to do some research so I'll throw the words 'creepy as fuck' about in a verbal weaponised attack (see OP subject matter about the weaponisation of words) to try and silence people who talk about this.

This is an example of the OPs point in real time.

I would like to thank StMarie4me for their valuable contribution to the thread in helping to highlight the subject.

I think it is appropriate to add to this thread a reminder of who are the male people that we women are being told that we should no longer be discussing. The male people who are still using female single sex spaces despite clarification that they should not be by law.

Here is the “vulnerable tiny minority” making threats that women should be afraid of them.

https://x.com/gerrykeogh_/status/1926622168000983489?s=46

Here is another male person standing with a police officer in a photo frame with a sign that also says women should be afraid. And that police officer is supporting that sentiment.

https://x.com/gerrykeogh_/status/1926652333565358394?s=46

But apparently, female people should stop discussing this group of male people. And they apparently are no where near as harmful as the ‘average man” and are different somehow to the ‘average man”.

Firstly, because a female person who has specifically chosen to compete in male sports events should be doing so knowing it is them that is at risk of injury and harm. Those female people are not placing male people at risk of injury because those female people do not have a competitive or a physical advantage in sports over the male people they compete in.

Secondly, because based on pure numbers, because of that risk and because of the fact they are also likely to be uncompetitive in the male category, the presence of female people in male sports categories is very rare. Plus female people with transgender identities that do not take testosterone, compete in female sports. Even at Olympic level.

If you also don’t understand the difference in dynamic between a person who is part of the oppressor class, who has benefited from the oppression of female people collectively for millennia, identifying into the oppressed class vs the opposite then I am not sure how to help you understand the group dynamics.

Plus, if a female person is competitive in a male sports category, comparing like for like, then it is also understood that female person is an exceptional athlete compared to the male people she is competing with. Because that female person has greater skill or talent to overcome male physical advantages.

We discuss daily ‘what is a man’ though. Perhaps you just don’t read posts closely enough. So many of us discuss who is a man on this board every single day.

What is the difference between a TW and an average man?

This.

I would actually rather have to share these spaces with the average man than with a man who claims to identify as a woman.

Thinking on this, I find it remarkable that someone would be arbitrarily designating who is and isn’t a male with transgender identity based on whether that person has abused or assaulted you (a general you). I am sorry to hear about @NoKnittingAllowed ‘s trauma. However, this definition is meaningless. Absolutely meaningless.

Because that category of male people, transgender male people, according to that definition now includes all the lovely male people in the world who have not abused or assaulted anyone.

If you, general you not this poster personally, make statements that the difference between two groups of male people is their offending rate based on a purely idealised, completely misinformed and factually incorrect belief that male people with transgender identities don’t assault or abuse people, you really are not making any convincing argument at all. You (still general you) are showing yourself as someone who simply wishes to shame others who have the knowledge that you lack.

But in repeatedly posting to shame others, you (still general) have simply shown that you are doing so from a position of zealous ignorance. Ignoring what conviction rates have shown and indeed what a very quick trip to social media platforms show to be false.

This really has been a type of post that supports Flirt’s OP though.

Yup 100% agree.