Wanting to discuss trans people with non gender critical folks

Not always the case. The two very definite trans allies I know are both women.

Yes, someone close to me is a trans ally, and the main difference between their thinking and mine is what group of people we have most sympathy for. Unfortunately, once you've decided you have more sympathy for trans people, the removal of women's rights tends to follow. So I can say why it's not OK to treat trans-identified men as women, mostly because of the bad effects on women, and the sympathy for trans people kicks in and my concerns don't matter so much.

So we largely agree on the theoretical definitions, but can't reach any mutual understanding on the practicalities.

The reason they dont stand up for women is because they are men.

There are a few, but they have generally been on the receiving end of a tremendous amount of abuse.

Some also advocate for inclusion for certain men (usually including themselves) and exclusion of others.

I stand very strongly against any bio man being in these spaces because they house vulnerable women or women in a position of temporary vulnerability (eg with no or few clothes on) And also because there have been far too many instances of manipulative men blatantly abusing the trans self-ID rights, to gain access to these places.

What baffles me is why no trans women are vociferously up in arms that this happens. No transwomen are clamouring on social media in support of safe spaces for bio women, no trans women seem publically able to compute that there is a danger here, nor will stand, as fellow women, against the abuse of their rights in order to protect the people they say they are. This genuinely baffles me. If there are groups of transwomen - not lone outliers - who do publically suppport the protection of bio women I'd love to know about them.

What does that have to do with my post? I don’t expect you to let people mock your son, obviously.

lets be real here, I don’t know my partner isn’t a predator. He’s never put a foot wrong but he’s still a man, I don’t know. My sons who’ve been raised with feminist views from both parents, may grow up to be abusers, because they’re going to be men. Just because I hope they’re not or have no proof they are, doesn’t mean they’re not. But I won’t be trying to in anyway talk about them in a way that merits them being mocked and treated badly just in case they’re abusers.

Nobody on MN thinks that

How do you know he wasn’t a predator? Same as any man. You do not.

Well said @AnonyMumAuDHD. It would be great if the drive by scolders took the time to read and think about what you’ve explained here.

I think for me, this is why I am angry and unreceptive to listening to the TQI+ movement: because I know that TM’s by and large are distressed, vulnerable and often autistic women who need compassion, support, therapy and protection. I also know that a small number of TW are young vulnerable men with similar profiles. None of them are getting the neutral person centred, ideology free care and therapy they need to help them come to terms with their bodies, puberty and their place in the world because the movement has been hijacked by the AGP variety of men, the cross dressers motivated by deviated sexual fetish and an underlying psychiatric illness and ingrained almost sociopathic dislike of women.

These men had to hide their fetishes in their homes, or in the bushes in their dirty macs, when I was growing up, were chased out of pubs and women’s toilets because, as a society, it was very very clear that their deviancy was not okay and was not acceptable in public.

Society safeguarded and protected women and children from these men, understood the danger they presented so that women and children could shout ‘help’ without being regarded a ‘bigot’.

And whilst ‘we’ tolerated (sadly, often from a position of pity, rather than understanding) the group of gender distressed individuals, the autistic or burgeoning homosexual/bisexual young people grappling with their sexuality because they merely presented as gender non-confirming - it was clear which group was which and society organised itself around that understanding.

NOW, because they are grouped together, because the vocal, misogynistic and sexually aberrant group have become subsumed within the LGB movement, they have eroded the rights, compassion, clinical and social support for those people. They have, effectively, thrown a grenade into the therapeutic treatment pathways that were once available to them.

I cannot explain how angry I am that there are young women who have been allowed to self-harm to the extent of removing their breasts because of this group of men, that there are survivors of DV who cannot go about their lives with the assurance of access to single sex spaces and social support if such spaces are violated - all because we are now considered unkind bigots if we don’t foreground these deviant men’s needs in all policy decisions and the way we organise ourselves as a society.

Some evidence suggests that transwomen are in fact one of the safest demographics in the UK. More transwomen are perpetrators of homicide than are victims.

I see your point about male on male violence not being a woman problem and it isn’t our problem to solve. When TW say they’re vulnerable from men using men’s bathrooms then that is not our problem to solve.
But I can understand that but still care about it. I don’t want to see anybody hurt.
I haven’t encountered abuse or threats for my beliefs of women and children first always, it’s my hard line. And I’ve defended women’s rights and stances, I just think that I can’t not care about violence against anyone, even if it’s not my problem to care, I still do. I wonder here if the fundamental difference in my feelings is when I am thinking of TW I’m not thinking about someone such as Sarah Jane Barker but instead my lovely friend who does lots for charity work and volunteers at the local kennels. Maybe if my only encounter with TW had been negative I wouldn’t muster the fuck give about their wellbeing but I do and I can’t change that.
My first ever experience with a cross dressing man was a neighbour of ours, he wore his mothers dresses to the shop and ran errands for the elderly people on the street and refused to take money from them. He was known as “simple” back then, or “strange and harmless” but just kind. He wasn’t a TW, just a bloke in a dress. I think about him and I’d hate him to have been targeted in any way. Maybe if my first experience with cross dressing had been a predator such as poor wee arabellas experience I’d not worry.

@ShutupLwren i hope you dont think that you are being piled upon, but you do bring a point up about some collective vulnerability. That personally i don’t buy.

there is a world of difference between gender none conformity, and the issue of transwomen, who mostly feed in to various female stereotypes types.

Agree. Some drag queens are deliberately trolling women. Some just don't realise how crass and insensitive it is.

Blackface is done with the intention of causing great distress to black people

I don't think that's true. Blackface was done to amuse, with profound indifference to the distress it caused to black people. I think drag is exactly the same - done to amuse and entertain some people who are wilfully indifferent to the offence it causes to others.

Blackface says "we don't care about propagating harmful stereotypes if it gets a laugh and applause." Drag does too.

Are these men victims of male violence?

Where’s the evidence for that?

And if men are at risk from other men, in men’s spaces, what’s that got to do with women?

Why aren’t we tackling this issue with male on male violence? Why are women part of this conversation?

I just said something about people who are bullies pretending to be victims in order to bully, but i did use the word about erm fe———h

which probably was my error

Oh no!! What did you do!?

Bugger I got deleted not happened to me for a while

Worship meeeeee!!! But don’t look at me!!

Well, sure. Not many men remove their penis. The Eunuch maker etc are a very niche interest group.

YOUR HIGHNESSES!!

Plot twist… I am Betty/Cleopatra.

I think "minority" is in danger of becoming one of those magic words, like " inclusive", that are supposed to shut down any criticism and critical thinking.

The lazy equation is minority = vulnerable and oppressed. But:

Women are not a minority, they are half the population. But I would bet good money that, since the world began, of all the people who have suffered oppression simply for being born who they are, women are the most numerous.

And who are not numerous? Not only small groups living on the margins, but also elites. Royalty and gentry, not commoners. Masters, not servants. Billionaire bosses, not workers.

For a tiny, "oppressed and marginalised" minority, transactivists have made astonishing inroads into official policy and legal powers in many countries. They've had the ear of governments. Stonewall and related organisations have become practically establishment, and have been listened to in preference to the law. Women's needs for privacy and safety, for fairness in sport, and even their need for a word for themselves, have been overlooked altogether or dismissed as unimportant.

In the UK, there has been enough sanity left in the law for women ( at great personal cost for those who did it) to mount a challenge, but some other countries have lost that already.

So the notion that women are " punching down" on a helpless " minority" is rather dubious, to say the least.