'Heather' Herbert Charged Over Ann Widdecombe Comments

thanks for sharing. I hope more complaints will make them revisit this. I included the study I mentioned about the BBC consistently and deliberately misleading facts in their reporting.

I’m asking because I really don’t know what to think about trans people.

Trans people are quite varied, so there's not just the one thing to think about them.

Are they truly women trapped in men’s bodies

That only works if you believe in something like sexed souls. Otherwise, it makes no sense, as there's no opposite-sex essence that can be trapped in the body to begin with.

just men who like playing dress up?

Some of them, yes. Some are even outright sexual fetishists experiencing arousal when dressed as women. Other trans people are gay people looking to escape homophobia. Others are neurodivergent people, or sexual abuse victims, ill at ease with their bodies and promised peace if they transition. Some transmen are girls looking to escape male attention. And some trans people have something weird going on in their brain that creates a disconnect between the reality of their body and how they see it (for a comparison, think of anorexic girls who see themselves as genuinely fat even when they are objectively underweight, for example).

So yeah, a variety of cases.

Agree with a lot of this.

I'm at the point where I have no energy left to give this headspace. I'm not interested in how many angels are really dancing on the head of that pin, what is going on in a man's head when he's a total stranger really isn't interesting or important enough to take up my day.

Dress how you want, live how you want, a person's perceptions are entirely their business, consenting adults together crack on and have a lovely time and don't bore me with the details. The hard limits are other people's needs and rights. That means identity choices stop at the door of single sex provisions. And to not involve non consenting others in your sexual experiences. It's the boundary issues, behaviours and illtreating others that needs policing on an entirely inclusive and equal basis. How the person illtreating others identifies at the time isn't relevant information.

Edited for SPAG

Has he been released on bail?

AFAIK it’s Sparkles that set up the fundraiser, Herbert was saying he wants to do a video to thank the donors.

ETA: if he has bail conditions regarding use of electronic items or social media, then he’s been unwise to suggest in Sparkle’s video clip that people can contact him via his alt account on BlueHair.

. Are they truly women trapped in men’s bodies or just men who like playing dress up?

as life is not actually an episode of Doctor Who, what do you think?

“Are they truly women trapped in men’s bodies or just men who like playing dress up?”

How can any person be born in the wrong body? How would this even happen?

But then comes the lack of logic about what those people do then believe about themselves.

No male can ever experience life as a woman. They can only ever experience life as a male person who believes they are a woman.

Even when they 'act' like a woman, they are acting as they believe a 'woman' should act. Which is fucking misogynistic!

Even if they are treated 'as a woman' by some people, they are being treated as a 'male who presents as a woman and believes they are a woman'. Because their every reaction is based on that. Not on them being female in any way.

Even when they have extreme body modifications, it is to be their own concept of what a female looks like to them. It is not what a female is.

How can it be?

The only way a person can experience life as a woman, is to have a female body, formed around the production of large gametes, (regardless of if that body produces those gametes) even if it doesn't produce those and to navigate their life based on the decisions they and society makes that revolve around them having that body.

A male can conceptualise what it might be like to be a female, but that is all it ever is - their concept of being female.
They may do it because they don't feel they fit into how they conceptualise how a male person interacts with the world (ie. their own stereotypes around being male) or they do it because they want to be seen as a female (using their own stereotypes of how a female navigates life). It could be because that male person rejects being male based on their conceptualisation of what being male is, so feels that there is no other option but to describe what they believe about themselves as being ‘how a female person interacts with the world around them’, because the rejection of one means that they must be the other.

It really doesn't matter though. Their motivation is irrelevant to the outcome.

Which is that they will always be a male who believes they are something they are objectively not.

How can the material reality be any different? This is why someone's gender is only based on someone's philosophical belief. And philosophical beliefs are fine for people to hold, but not one person in the UK has to comply with another's philosophical belief.

The logic cannot be any different than that I am afraid.

Yes @Lins77 BUT you need to be able to justify it ie shared devices, items found in shared living areas, items people who are resident there and not under investigation have refused to identify or which they cannot prove belong to them.

I am willing to bet that none of the polycule would be happy to ID who owns which device IF they live together - and I don't know if they do. If they don't then it's likely a moot point.

It's amazing how many people have never seen entire laptops, computer towers, mobile phones, SD cards, Wi-Fi devices and more when their homes are searched by police.....

Can they legally do that, if the others haven't been arrested?

Not saying they shouldn't be arrested! I bet there are some "interesting" 😬 things on all their devices.

How's he posting if they've taken all his electronics? 🤔

This demonstrates that they need to take the rest of the polycule's to be sure they've got everything.

I think you're right that the public perception has often been of trans women as vulnerable, sensitive, feminine, probably gay men who deserve our support, rather than Big Dave from the betting shop who's suddenly calling himself a lesbian.

The coverage of Heather and co could come as a shock to many!

Interesting @SabrinaThwaite . He obviously doesn't realise those devices aren't coming back anytime soon.... Literally years are to be expected even if nothing is found.

Also, why can't he reset his password for the fundraiser if he can't remember it? I wonder whether he has bail conditions about use of technology....

I'm stating the obvious here, but the women of Mumsnet already know that a transwoman is more likely to commit murder than to be murdered. But thanks to the dishonesty of Stonewall and the BBC, there's still a public perception of these men as being fragile, harmless little flowers.

The good thing about Herbert, and his polycule, is that they are showing that actually a lot of the men who identify as women are at least as violent and sexist as any other men.

Some transwomen are very disturbed individuals who would clearly enjoy inflicting harm on women.

Not sure - the video was posted on Sparkles BlueHair with Herbert saying he’ll do a video to thank people for his kidney crowdfunder when he gets his electronic equipment back, so somebody still has a phone at least.

My view is that people should be able to express themselves however they want.

My view is fetishes should only be performed in private with consenting adult participants.

To me it sounds like something that can be sorted with a quick procedure.

"Don't suffer with polycules, Derek, the doctor could pop them out in 20 minutes nowadays"

My view is that people should be able to express themselves however they want. If a man wants to wear a skirt and call himself Barbara, that's fine. I don't believe it literally makes them women - they are still men and shouldn't be in women's sports and spaces.

I do believe that some (not that many) people experience a profound disconnect, for whatever reason, between their biological sex and who they feel themselves to be. Again, it doesn't make them literally the opposite sex, but I have sympathy for anyone experiencing mental distress. I'm not convinced this applies to all of the many people currently identifying as trans.

One thing I have noticed recently on social media more generally is people no longer play along with these men or stay silent. This man’s arrest has popped up on my FB feed under a few different mainstream posters (eg msm) of different political leanings over the last few days and garnered loads of replies stating he is a man. In the past there either wouldn’t really be any or they would have been deleted or hidden.

Excellent.

Do all four of them live together? If so there is a possibility that all devices were removed by police to confirm ownership.... But not necessarily what they'll have done. But it's certainly something I've done in the past.

I wonder if the police will use the counter terror angle to get the devices examined immediately rather than join the 1-3yr queue for examinations that plague other investigations..... 🤔

Those poor police officers 🤢

Herbert has confirmed on BlueHair that he’s had all of his electronic equipment seized by the police.

My own view is that I don’t know what the motivation is as I cannot see into their heads. I would just like them to obey the law and stay out of women’s spaces.

Should clarify I meant the word, not the concept 😬

Chinny reckon.

They are just men. Say what you see.