Aren't transpeople still a tiny minority?

Well what rights is your child (well he’s in his mid twenties?) not currently got?

Where have I said they have the right to do what they want regardless of legislation? My whole series of posts is making it clear I am not in favour of this. In any case it's not illegal to be trans.

@Diverze I expect you have read this. I'll post it anyway, because it seems very pertinent to your situation:

https://x.com/prof_curiosity1/status/2046106359247077884

It may feel real to them.

But it hasn't got any objective, verifiable evidence behind it. It's a metaphysical belief about the self.

Thays fine, people are free to believe what they want about themselves, but that's of no consequence to anyone else.

Just as a person might believe they have a soul. No one else is under any obligation to pretend they believe that too. It's a belief that feels real to some but is rejected by others.

@Diverze I will never be in agreement with you on this. Your child's rights are in conflict with my child's rights
so you believe that your child should have the right to do what they want regardless of legislation?
that the theology of trans is equivalent to factual biology?
if your child is for example type O+ blood, but wants to identify as type AB- and they require a transfusion, will you ignore the science and go with their belief because they are equally important? Even though this would create a life threatening immuno response?
they KNOW they should be AB- despite what biology says?

@Diverze The thing about religions is that they are very hard to disprove.
Your son might feel that he is a woman but it is easy to disprove that with GCSE biology.
I can accept he feels something isn't right for him, but it's as PP (Flirts?) said earlier - he needs to rename whatever it is he is feeling.

I do actually think that one day we are all going to have to have a serious conversation about and with people with autism. Their needs, their vulnerabilities and how far society is prepared to adjust to them. Another thread, another day maybe.

It's not about upsetting them, it's about fracturing relationships.

You have a clear view of the truth, that men are men and women are women. You don't believe in the "essence of gender" that makes trans people believe they are different in the way they experience sex and gender.

Neither of us can step inside the reality of the other party.

It's a bit like you being an absolutist atheist and me being a true believing Christian. You would say it's obvious that there's not a magic grandpa in the sky looking over us all. But others strongly believe that you are wrong in that belief even though logic and science would suggest that evidence for a God is nonexistent.

I am frustrated that you cannot see that I am trying to walk a path here between women's rights and trans people's truly held beliefs. Whether I believe it or not is immaterial. I could describe my child as a Christian even though I am an atheist. I don't go around telling them there's obviously no God, I don't disrespect that, but I do say we aren't all praying around the table. You are free to go to church with other Christians, but you cannot go into a secular space and require them all to worship with you.

I will never be in agreement with you on this. Your child's rights are in conflict with my child's rights. I perceived that and am trying to find a way that my child can be happy and not inveigle into spaces and places they are not wanted. You are just sat over there saying over and over that there is no God and my child should not be allowed to be a Christian.

The point that many people miss is that it's real to trans people. They aren't pretending to feel like their gender and body don't match. They aren't making it up. It's to them just as real an experience as you saying there's no such thing. To them it is truth.

I’m confused. So is that a no to him being affirmed if he chose to identify as a six year old? Why? What is the difference between claiming to be an age you’re not and claiming to be a woman when you’re not?

Did it? That’s rather creative of them.

It might just be me, @Diverze, but you are being a bit vague and indirect about what it is you want. You want us to stop calling out the fetishists? No, we won't. You want us to stop calling out the HSTS who appropriate our name and use our services? No, we won't. You want us to be nicer to the vulnerable autistic youth caught up in a social contagion? Surely, surely you are aware that many of us are spending significant amounts of time and money, while losing friends and keeping quiet at work, in order to remove this contagion from schools and to stop the human rights level of abuse that calls itself 'gender affirming care'. Is that not enough for you?

Actually, I think what you are asking is that if we had an opinion about a close family member's personal life that would upset them, would we tell them? I think you're saying that we should pause to tell the truth to save their feelings.

What you are doing is trying to make women here feel responsible for upsetting your son because your son finds reality upsetting.

I'm sorry if that's the case, but no.

You and your son need to face reality because I will not sacrifice my daughter's rights for the sake of a fundamental truth that your son finds upsetting.

1. Do you equally berate Stonewall et al for their moral panic and "hysteria" about the dangers to trans people which are also not borne out by stats, or is it just women wanting to maintain our legal, political and social existence you deem not important enough?
2. Perhaps no one you know cares. Plenty of people I know care and are doing something about it.
3. I, like many women on here, am a left wing feminist. That you apparently (a) assume anyone who stands up for the reality and rights of female people must be "right wing", and (b) think if something is being said by the "right wing" then this de facto is reason enough to dismiss it out of hand with no further thought tells me my assessment of you was fair.

That sounds like you see and agree how they are all ridiculous…
so why is agreeing that someone is the sex they are not, good?

The first three are opinions, not material facts. So completely irrelevant to the point in hand.

The fourth - I don't understand. Yes, age is a spectrum as it literally changes all the time. But no, you can't change the age you are at any given moment. What is your point?

It is a simple situation - humans can't change sex. Just because you have chosen to lie about this doesn't mean it isn't simple or true.

@BunnyBunbunbun

This is my question too! Strange that a large group of autistic people are all trans and in just one area alone, is it not?
The mere fact that a lot of autistic people can be very easily influenced and the fact that their wants are often facilitated, rather than properly discussed, usually in order to prevent meltdowns, screams enabling to me.

And anyone who wants to change their gender (not sex!) usually have those feelings all their lives, not suddenly at the age of 17. But then those people are the ones that say they've always felt they were born in the wrong body. Not because it's a fad, or it's trendy or all their friends are doing it. It's a genuine thing.
I personally know 3 people who have had full surgery because they were never comfortable in their birth assigned gender. They don't parade it round, like some sort of "Look at me! Look how different I'm being, I've decided to be a 'woman'". Many have struggled with their feelings since they were small and the majority of them have contemplated suicide, before having the courage to change. And the 3 M-T-F transsexuals I know, just get on with it. They don't scream and shout that they're transsexual, they don't demand rule changes. They quietly live their lives how they felt they should always have done. (I don't know their toilet habits, just to add, I'm assuming they use female facilities, because in effect, they don't have male genitalia any more).
But I feel what we are seeing these days is nothing more than a fad, a kink, or a fetish.
And the people who facilitate this kind of nonsense are to blame.
All it's doing is stirring up controversy and damaging womens rights. I feel women are now just basically being parodied and undermined.
.

I would like people to say "look, we appreciate that most trans women are just trying to live their lives, but it's important to acknowledge that ordinary women have rights that clash and we cannot validate trans people simply by allowing access to female spaces and awards. It should never have been on the table and the lobbying didn't consider the needs or rights of natal women. There are women who will then be excluded, including some religious women, those who have a history of trauma, and so on. So it doesn't work for us.
We can also see it doesn't work for you to be forced into a male toilet or a male hospital ward when you are sick and vulnerable.
Let's work together on solutions that enable privacy and dignity for ALL".

Don't you see the irony of saying that on a feminist forum? Giving women a script and expected us to find solutions to make adult men happy?

Men have the solution to their problem, stop imagining they aren't men, and use the correct toilet and hospital ward. There's really nothing different or special about them. They are just men.

Expecting women to treat a subset of men as if they aren't is madness.

Im sorry for what you are going through. I do appreciate families have to do so much to avoid alienating their children. But its not women problem, we can't all pretend that a self selected group of men aren't men.

Wow, yes that passed me by. Transpeople-only swimming sessions provided, but no women-only swimming sessions allowed anywhere.

Let's remind ourselves what a normal man with a trans identity posts on Reddit. Authoritarian and controlling.

Yeah, the irony that women are having to literally fight through the courts to have a women-only Hampstead Pond wasn't lost on me either...

If you thought your son and daughter in law were overindulging your grandchild and turning him into a spoiled brat, would you tell them in those terms? If not, why not?

If your daughter was with a bloke you thought was a waste of skin, would you make sure she knew your thoughts and feelings about him precisely? If not, why not?

If your talentless son wanted to be an actor would you tell him straight out there's no way he's talented enough or handsome enough? If not, why not?

If school was teaching vulnerable autistic children that age is a spectrum and some of us don't identify as our birth age, and if you don't definitely feel like a ten year old you might be trans age, would that change things for you in terms of how simplistically you see this situation? If not, why not?

I'm not sure anyone's been "mocking" trans-identified men with the phrase "stunning and brave" in this thread, but that term is more about being ironic than being derisive. Ironic towards the huge force coercing us all to praise transwomen and to believe that they are being brave for claiming to be women. Online, so many handmaidens comment "stunning and brave!" at any man demanding to be treated as a woman. The truth is, as they have male physiques, wearing women's clothes doesn't always work for them, so stunning isn't quite the right word (feelling stunned at what one is seeing is more like it), while attempting to destroy women's rights is hardly brave.

If there is any "mocking" it's of the huge social pressure to call trans-identified men "stunning and brave".

And it still hasn’t been made clear who these reasonable transpeople are who are going to enthusiastically agree, on behalf of all of them, to use unisex spaces & respect women’s rights so we can all stop fighting & get on.

Edited to add that I mean the ones who apparently have sufficient power to actually make it happen.

Talking in hyperbole all of the time doesn't add to the discussion.

You've made so many false statements and assumptions, BbjghiIfewh to excuse men who want to use the women's changing room in Marks and Spencer.

Even if we increase public spending by 1000%, these men will still be trying to get into the women's changing rooms.

I do find it ironic that the poster who wants us to see trans people as individuals not just a TRA stereotype is nevertheless quite happy to lump all the women on FWR into one group with one voice, totally missing that all the things she claims we should be saying have been said here, often, already.

Who exactly is stereotyping and closed-minded in this conversation again?