Hello, I'm a TRA - ask me anything

[AlphaTransWoman]

Good evening,

I'm a transgender rights advocate. I say "advocate" rather than "activist" because I believe in constructive debate and consensus building rather than the hostile, shouty kind of activism that gets us nowhere.

I am here because I am genuinely interested in seeing if there is some kind of compromise that can be reached between pro trans and gender critical views. Obviously this is difficult because we may disagree about something pretty fundamental. I feel passionately that trans women are women (at least in the psychological and social sense), so there's an obvious divide if you do not.

The question is, can we find ways to co-exist and find an acceptable way forward on some of the difficult issues that arise around trans acceptance? So I'm happy to have a go answering anything you care to ask in good faith. Who knows, we might even make some progress.

Again. Because you really aren't acknowledging it.

Let. Go. Of. The. Gender. Stereotypes.

You. Are. Not. Listening.

But to go back to an earlier post. Why not ask your sister to tell you about bullying at her school (and listen to the reply)

Such a shame that OP didn’t address this, and went back to single-sex spaces, because a lack of acceptance for non-stereotypical childhood behaviours seems to be at the root of so many mtf trans experiences

Yup

you lot are much nicer than me

OP is a fantasist (‘women with penises’ 🤣) and, how shall we put this….not a deep thinker

he wants to spend his life pretending to be something he isn’t. You’re not going to be able to reason with him

OPs argument:

Men with gender have female personalities, therefore are are women and female. If no private space options are available, these men should use womens spaces.

Also,

Men with gender can be violent so trans only spaces are too dangerous. If no private space options are available, these men should use womens spaces.

I think people should be protected from those who seek to commit such crimes.

As we can't tell who privately seeks what, we look at common risk factors. Being male is a relatively strong risk factor for committing such crimes. Not all men, obviously, but there is a stronger correlation than the ones you advocate for organising society around.

So as you personally think linking sex to observed behaviour is a good way of assuming what someone will be like, you can't object to using biology as a "quick and dirty" proxy for risk of violence.

OP. I think you need to go back to therapy to a therapist who hasn't swallowed the gender cool-aid, who can help you examine where you got all these incorrect gender stereotypes from, challenge them, and help you come to terms with your own personality, but firmly place it within the 'man' spectrum.

It does sound like this might stem from negative childhood experiences with bullying etc which have made you believe male = bad, female = soft and kind. Understandably soft and kind is more appealing! But those are nothing more than incorrect stereotypes, and male/female is not a choice we get to make, it's something we're born with.

Men are not all bad, or even mostly bad. Women are not all soft and kind. My daughter goes to a co-ed school and has been relentlessly bullied, including physically. Exclusively by girls. Her perception is that boys are the nice ones.

I hope you learn to accept yourself as you are, OP.

It does sound like this might stem from negative childhood experiences with bullying etc which have made you believe male = bad, female = soft and kind.

That doesn't explain why he thinks it would be dangerous to be in prisons with other men with gender. Surely if they are women, they would be kind, too and not a danger to him?

The OP does not think men are bad, females are kind.

I think OP might have had a change of heart re prisons/hospital wards. Early in the thread, OP’s position was def support third spaces, but eyes appear to have been opened re the behaviour of some transwomen. I think this kind of recognition is to be encouraged tbh, not criticised. Yes obv OP then needs to join the dots….
I do wonder whether this is actually an important argument against 3rd spaces. Really, behaviour in men’s spaces is for men to deal with. Women seem to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting atm

I have read all your posts, @AlphaTransWoman and I am unable to get past the one where you claim that a rapist can be a woman. In this case the nomenclature absolutely DOES matter because rape - forcible penetration with a penis - is a solely MALE crime, and I object in the strongest possible fashion to rape becoming a female crime.

And frankly I don't care whether rapists serve their sentences segregation or general population, as long as it is in the male prison estate.

I do not believe that the trans rights movement is a good actor. By seeking to redefine a woman as anyone who says they are one, they will reduce the safety, privacy and dignity of girls and women. It is already happening.

As I have said earlier, trans rights ideology is based on very old-fashioned stereotypes which many women find toxic and restrictive, and which have been used to oppress women for centuries, and, in my opinion, anyone who espouses it is complicit in taking women's rights back to the 1950s.

@AlphaTransWoman I'm glad you're staying on here and continuing to engage.

However what @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius is saying is what I feel, and I know my friends feel, having discussed it with them. You don't seem to be engaging in the most fundamental of our objections which is: society's stereotypes of what a women is, and therefore what you want to be, is what we're fighting against every day.

It's interesting that the trans movement (and by that, I mainly mean the male activists) who are formed of people like the OP who uses these outdated and offensive stereotypes of women to defend their definition of woman, are exhibiting the age-old male invasion techniques - 'I want, therefore I will take'. Effectively - FU, women.

I think people should be protected from those who seek to commit such crimes.

So you agree with us that those female only spaces which have been identified as places where women are vulnerable, in a state of undress, in an isolated situation, etc. should be kept free of male bodies. Great.

Naturally, as a person with a male body, you will stop using those places yourself. Unless you are a great big hypocrite who actually does not think women should be protected?

I've been thinking all day about what you have been saying. Actually, agonising might be the better term. And I think I've made a wrong turn and got to somewhere I don't want to be. The idea of a woman committing that particular crime is nonsensical and repellent.

But where does that leave me? If some male born people have no right to be regarded as "women", can any of us?

As you rightly point out, anyone can lie about having a "female gender identity". I think I do because I have a strong affinity for women (as I perceive them to be), only really feel comfortable in women's clothing and want to be regarded and treated as a woman by society. This isn't just a whim; it's been tormenting me for my entire life making it impossible for me to be happy as a man.

But you can't see what's in my soul. I could be lying just like a male criminal who wants to get into a softer prison. I can't prove who I really am, so nobody has to believe that I'm really a woman inside.

Another point I want to make is that I'm not an incel/MRA type who is resentful about the way society treats women. There are very good reasons for these measures and the last thing I want to do is take away the additional support women get.

I do feel sad that simply being born with a penis makes me a kind of second class citizen, because I don't feel I have done anything to earn it. I felt that way ever since my parents wouldn't let me wear a dress to that wedding.

So I'm lost. I know I'm the bad guy for many of you, but trust me it's no fun being me.

Males as second class citizens?

Give me a break.

"The way society treats women" is not with additional support! FFS. And men are not second class citizens because they aren't women. You're utterly mired in stereotyped rigid thinking about men and women.

But where does that leave me? If some male born people have no right to be regarded as "women", can any of us?

no. Because you are men

It leaves you exactly where you were, a transwoman, that being a man who likes to believe he is womanly.

If one of my patients identifies as a tree, we don't amputate their limbs we treat the delusions.

Why is:

Delusion about tree = not acceptable

Delusion about gender = erasure of female only spaces?

As an ex prison nurse absof*inglutely NOT.

If you commit the offence with a penis, you need to stay in the prison designed to manage the risk that arises from you having a penis!

If a transgender woman in a male prison requests full segregation to avoid becoming the victim of sexual abuse and violence from men, should their request be granted? If not, why not?

@AlphaTransWoman

Being as 99% of sexual offences and 96% of violent offences are carried out by biological men, absolutely not. And given them fact than many "transwomen" prisoners "transition" after being convicted of sexual offences, it makes sense to house them with other male sex offenders. They can wear bras all they want, they are still male sex offenders.

But, humouring you, the simple answer is levels of violence in female prisons are generally so low there is no segregation to send them to.

You'd be a male with a penis, wearing prison garb. Why would anyone need to know you consider yourself a woman? No pretty dresses in the nick.
You'd be a male amongst other males, no more at risk than any of them.

You think it's OK to treat a woman like that?