Reflections on Trans Arguments

@LostInCatsFur
If it helps you understand this forum a little better here's some background.

The GC people on this board generally:

Understand the difference between people who are trans, and TRAs ( trans rights activists ) who may or not be trans. To be vehemently against the methods and behaviour of TRAs is not the same as to be against trans people. While I can't speak for the @TooSquaretobehip I suspect if you asked them what they meant by "being pro-trans = anti-women" and to elaborate that. you woul;d get some variation of they don't object to the existence ot trans people, but there are places where the rights of some trans people, especially males wanting access to female single sex spaces, results in a conflict with female single sex spaces rights.

This board gets a HUGE number of TRAs coming to stick it to the TERFs. We get a variation of, posts telling GC people off for being evil human beings, sly bad faith threads that seem to start off seemingly in good faith but a few posts down the line it become obvious it was a bad faith attempt at a set up. There's a few other variations, but we get a lot of it over and over and over and over. Common themes are starting a thread in bad faith, personal insults, gish galloping, a really condescening attitude like this thread OP, and refusing to answer any counter points, again like this thread OP. This thread OP is actually a really good example of a few different common bad faith aspects. Although a collective running a single account is a new one. While I'm sorry to hear you've been upset by relies here, some of your replies did seem to have a bit of attitude, and the CG peeps here all think "ohh god here we go again" when it feels like another new name has turned up with attitude. We've seen it a million times before. Apologies if we've got it wrong. But we're not all that bad. VERY rarely someone turns up representing a trans position in good faith, and that's when this board shines it's very best. The GC crowd here enjoy a good faith respectful debate far more than fighting the never ending TRA trolls.. If you really want to discuss aspects of your situation I think you'll find you get a good response if you make a new thread. You might even find some resources that help you. The women here love providing resources to other women.

Which brings me to my last point. How about an example of that? Here's a thread by a young female to male trans person, who came here to find out what we were really like, and got a very respectful reception despite the attempts by some bad faith actors to derail it.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5326486-thank-you-from-a-trans-lurker?page=1

What do you wish to discuss? I'm certainly keen to hear good arguments. There's a good chance I'll agree with you on almost everything up to the point where sex doesn't matter any more or where women don't need legal or social recognition.

i see.

So reasonable discussion is now grinding someone down?

Well done.

There are a lot of pretty harsh views posted on these boards so I can't think that my little comments would bother anyone.

As you seem to view any post which states facts as harsh, it's hard to see how women can be, to your mind, 'kind' enough unless we agree to ignore and not talk about the very obvious issues with self id etc (on the sex and gender board specifically. Heaven forfend).

You came onto a board you know nothing about, made very rude posts about the posters on here (bizarrely after reading the frankly unhinged OP), had a wee cry when called out about your wrong assumption and are now trying to row back.

And if you are fighting against the right for women to retain their legal rights to single sex services, spaces and sporting categories, then I'm afraid that you anti women.

Standard bingo responses

narrow view of gender - thats nonsense. Gender critical women are critical of gender stereotypes. The only way to be a woman is to grow from a juvenile human female unto an adult one. Othef than that do what you like, wear docket boots or heels or trainers, a dress, a boiler suit, a bow tie or a ball dress, have long hair or short hair or no hair, wear make up or not. It is TRA who have a narrow view of gender equating female stereotypes around dress and presentation with living as a woman which is frankly insulting

trans rights being curtailed - im sure you can tell us which legal rights have been removed as opposed to TRA being told to stop appropriating legal rights that were never theirs in the first place

If by trans rights you mean the right to wear what you want, call yourself what you want, be seen professionally and socially for your own qualities not sexist steroetypes and enjoy what you want as long as it's legal and you aren't forcing others into particpating, I'm right there with you.

However if by trans "rights" you mean the extra rights TRAs promote, the right to lie to others about your sex because you believe your personal inner projection of yourself as the opposite sex is more "real" than anything they might care about your actual sex for, to falsify legal documentation in service of that, to require others to perform as if the lie were truth up to and including deceiving others whether or not they believe it, and even though they may find it offensive and demeaning to act as if it had merit, then I'm sorry, but yes I do think those rights should be eliminated, because those "rights" are at heart all about forcing other people to submit to the trans person's idea of gender and what is or is not part of being a man or woman regardless of how other people may see themselves.

And that IMO is ugly, morally bankrupt, and unbecoming of anyone who wants to consider themselves a reasonable human being.

Yes that would be an equally pointless conversation. But you are again making assumptions about what someone might wish to discuss with you. Yawn.

Have you heard the expression "the truth will out"?

In my view, pretending that you believe that a girl is a boy might appear kind, but it is actually one of the cruellest most dangerous things you can do. You cannot suppress the truth forever, and they would have been better off to have been told "no" the first second they said it.

I'm going to step away from this. Thank you for the support from some posters, and understanding from some others

What is it to "attack an identity"?

In my opinion it can only mean of of two things -

(1) Along the lines of "you are not British!". "Well, my parents and gransparents were all born in Britain, and so was I, and I have a British passport and live in England. You can deny my identity all you want, but I identify as British and I am British!" This form of attack is meaningless, water off a duck's back.

(2) Along the lines of "you are not black, you have white skin - your parents were clearly caucasian!" "Well, my parents and gransparents were all white, but I identify as black so I am black". This form of attack might hurt, because if the white person with a black racial identity is deluded then the denial hurts, and if they know they're not black and are pretending it angers them because they want to be able to dictate theirr aspirational / dishonest identity to others..

I think men and women who claim to be trans do and should have exactly the same rights as men and women who don't claim to be trans, not least the right not to be experimented on by medical professionals with questionable ethics.

Here, here. Although I do think that, as I think LostInCatsFur has already alluded to, it's sometimes better to step away from social media and forums like this from time to time. The keyboard warriors are disproportionately loud, and it can get to you.

LostInCatsFur, if I might remind you of a line from Atwood's 'Handmaid's Tale':

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

Who is arguing for trans rights to be curtailed?

What rights are you talking about?

The logic is partly as I explained.

If you are fully supportive of trans rights, this includes the extreme transgender activists demands that mean that single sex provisions for female people are effectively removed or ineffective in protecting female people. Including removing the unique words we need to describe ourselves. That being, woman, girl , female etc.

So therefore, if you fully support these things you should expect to be called anti-woman in return for declaring women campaigning and discussing retaining single sex provisions as ‘anti-trans’.

Hi LostinCatsFut and child. I hope you and your child find the help you need to navigate. It's so hard especially with the increasingly nasty atmosphere in the UK from some I think folks on here really don't see how negative and vicious they come across, or perhaps they just don't care. As you said it's (hopefully) a few keyboard warriors, and hopefully the calmer voices are just not expressed here. Not all women view trans feelings and folks in the same way.

But nobody here has said any of that? We don’t think transpeople should have extra rights, like the right to single spaces that aren’t theirs, but other than that, they have the same rights as everyone and none of us want to take those away.

Yep. For me five stages

(1) Unthinking "TWAW, be kind"
(2) "I have a few questions, I better do a bit of research and thinking"
(3) "TWANW, TWAM, because if TWAW then no man or woman has sex or sexual orientation based rights"
(4) "But I will continue to educate myself"
(5) "What the hell!?!??!! This is so much worse than I thought. Not only is it true that TWAM, just about every single aspect of the whole ideology is terrible or worse."

I agree with you. I don't have a trans daughter, but my daughter does have trans-identifying friends and the amount of negativity they are facing has escalated massively since the SC judgement.

That isn't the same thing as me saying the SC was wrong, but the very, very real fact is that many people have a very narrow view of gender and are prepared to aggressively assert that view when they falsely feel it is under threat. The SC judgement has only been seen by many as legitimizing their attack on the identities of some of the trans community.

I think what LostInCatsFur is further worried about is that an online space that's supposed to be a haven for open and free discussion is infected by a sizeable number of people who are fanatically obsessed with the idea that trans rights should be curtailed - and maybe eliminated altogether.
It's a legitimate fear. Such behaviour is ugly, morally bankrupt, and unbecoming of anyone who wants to consider themselves a reasonable human being.

I see. Thank you for answering.

When you read these so called negative views about trans people, do you understand that posters are generally referring to male people
with transgender identities who demand access to female single sex provisions? And who too often use female people with transgender identities as political leverage?

Or have you read the posts and wrongly assumed that they refer to female people with transgender identities when they might not?

Do you think that female people, your daughter included, should be able to expect their single sex provisions (spaces, services, sports, and opportunities) are kept single sex? Because the majority of the posters on this board do support that.

Or have you not read the threads closely and missed this?

And do you understand this thread was started in bad faith? This is a bad faith thread! The links in the opening post are either out of date or hopelessly biased and ideological and don’t represent reality and established fact?

Perhaps not specifically having a trans child but being called pro-trans presumably because my daughter is a trans identifying female

I have a daughter and it’s really hard and upsetting that there are people out there advocating for her to lose her single sex provision.

The majority of posters on here just want males to stay out of female spaces. That’s all. Not anti trans at all. If it was, there would be more posts about Transmen.

But discussing whether men can magically change into women is up for discussion because somehow that is possible?

right

Is it genuinely my position? Yes. I understand the various positions Genderists are coming from, some of which I actually agree with.

However none of the Genderist beliefs when you look at them clearly in any way justify undoing the social or legal recognition that female humans exist, that we have a history of oppression, marginalisation and abuse because of our bodies and because of the narratives society constructs around our bodies, that because of this we have different challenges to male people, and that sometimes it is appropriate to have single sex language, protections and opportunities to mitigate these challenges and allow us the same opportunity to to live socially and financially empowered lives that men have.

I believe it is not an act of hate to say these things, nor to differentiate ourselves, our experiences and our needs from those of men who believe they are women, nor to speak of our experiences as women, experiences based in our embodiment as female rather than male.

I find Genderists assume the people who disagree with them simply haven't given the topic much thought, assume that "Gender Critical" means "transGender Critical" and we are still stuck in the same old sexist ideas of what men and women can think, wear and do, as opposed "Gender Critical", critical of the social constructs of gender regardless of whether they are being performed in a "cisgender" or "transgender" way. Hence the meme.

What out of that do you disagree with?

I do think that it can be tricky to read the posts dispassionately - everyone brings their own context...

but the 'anti-trans' feeling you mention is not anti-trans - there are many examples on here of real compassionate understanding about how tough it must be to have body dysmorphia, or to be a parent of someone sucked into the trans world... there are some really positive discussions with some genuine trans people exploring some of the thinking / psychology / feelings etc.

but none of that negates the need to:

• correct the pendulum which has swung hugely in the direction of believing the impossible - that you can change sex
• making sure that arguments and discussions are based on truth / reality / the law
• condemn the vitriolic, aggressive, abusive language and actions of a small minority of (mainly) 'trans-women' who believe they can bully others into submission
• to support those who are oppressed by this movement (women generally, but also in fact those who have been sucked in as victims - esp. children and very often autistic girls etc.)
• to support with legal action those who have been wronged for standing up for truth and women etc.
• and so on...

There seems to be a common misunderstanding that to be compassionate there must be compromise - no

There can be compassion and empathy without compromising one iota the core truths based on biology / reality & the law.

This is not aimed at you - it is aimed at pushing back against the small minority who have used the trans ideology to dominate and oppress women - it is about restoring justice. In doing that, yes - huge amounts of sympathy for those caught up in it - but that sympathy will never mean that the core truths will be compromised. You are born a boy or girl and you stay that way - truth / biology / law / etc. Zero compromise.

She's a biological female

Why do you think the climate is how it is?