Mumsnetters who support trans women, please comment here

[LiberaceTrumpet]

Mumsnetters who are gender critical - please please do not comment here, this is not a discussion thread, I just want to see if there are other people here who share my views.

I believe feminism is nothing if not intersectional.

I feel really alone on mumsnet. Every time I come on and want to get advice about something or just waste five minutes there's always another trans thread. Maybe this website is not the place for me?

@GentlemanJackie

Despite my username I am not a TW. I support TW’s wishes to live in peace and freedom but I do not support their right to occupy women’s spaces. I do try and see both sides of this but I’ve never heard any gender non- critical POV that makes any sense. Crucially no one I have met or read has been able to answer the question ‘what makes you feel like a woman/ man’ in a way that doesn’t either refer to gender stereotypes (therefore meaningless) or biology (which makes perfect sense)

Yes I have found this. If being a ‘woman’ or ‘man’ isn’t linked to biology then what is the definition of woman or man. When people “identify as a woman” what is it about woman that they feel matches who they are?

I have found some people very reluctant to answer that question. Though I understand that what being a woman means will vary across people and cultures….there must be some shared understanding of the word otherwise it’s just meaningless isn’t it?!

It irritates me that people assume things about you because you believe in certain spaces being sex segregated.

I’m left wing
I’m a vocal anti racism campaigner
I’m not straight

Yet people assume everyone with that view is a right wing racist.

Tranwomen tell us they are women, that they feel like women and think like women yet male aggression and violence seems to be a surprise to them. They seem to think this is because they Trans. Women know it is because they (and we) are "not men". We learn it at a very young age and biology aside that is why the experience of a TW is not the same as that of a woman.

The blind privilege in @CatherinedeBourgh’s claim that people have “the right to choose who they are” staggers me.

No, we don’t and can’t choose “who we are.” Many aspects of people are dealt to them whether they like it or not. Age, sex, race, disability, sexuality. I may “choose” to be a wealthy and able-bodied young man but the fact is I’m a older woman with many health, financial and mobility problems I can’t identify out of.

Girls born in cultures with FGM can’t identify out of it. Women forced to sleep in menstrual huts can’t identify out of it. People with profound disabilities can’t choose to identify out of them. We are who we’re born, and then do the best we can within those parameters.

No one has the right to define how others see them, and no one can change material reality to suit themselves. The sooner everyone embraces that, the happier we’ll be.

The thing about equality is that it's not just a pretty word that sounds nice and feels nice, it actually does have to include everyone. Not just your mates

Yes, it has to include women, for example.

And equality does not mean treating everyone the same. Its about understanding the differences between different groups of people and how they experience the world differently because of this. Its about hard conversations about the competing needs of different groups because of those differences. Developing Equality Policy means gathering data on the discrimination and disadvantage that different groups experience to help inform policy decision making.

This includes womens' experiences. Time and time again we have found that the experiences of women, data about how women experience the world, are not been taken into account when developing policy in this area. This goes against the principles on which Equality Impact Assessments were based, which recognised the need to have detailed consideration of all groups before making decisions.

You are right, Equality is not a nice word just for your mates. It involves facts, data, evidence - it involves having difficult conversations and debates. It involves exactly what Stonewall et al have refused to do with their 'no debate' positions and name calling.

Let's take 20 seconds to sit and imagine a world in which men weren't violent. Or, they were violent at exactly the same level as women.

Would we be having these conversations?
How much room in our hospitals, refuges and mental healthcare providers would be freed up, not to mention the drop in crime? Would we need so many sex-segregated spaces?

This is the underlying problem.

@Siblingquandary

You're trying to police what and where people can post on a public forum?

Good luck with that.

Yup.

[quote LiberaceTrumpet]**@somethinghastogive46* and @SionnachRua* thank you. It's good to know I'm not alone. I don't really know what to do - it feels wrong to keep coming here sometimes and contributing to mumsnet's profits through seeing their ads. To me it feels like a really different place than it used to be because of all this. Perhaps I should leave, but then that gives the impression that all "British mums" feel this way, when I suspect (hope) it's just a vocal minority.

I wish someone would set up a British parenting forum that takes a trans-inclusive stance, to be honest. The way that people here spend hours coming up with theories and conspiracies and banding together in them doesn't sit right with me. It reminds me of the way incels talk online, weirdly.[/quote]
Then maybe you need to set up a site, and moderate all the posts, pressing the big red button when people don't agree with your very limited viewpoint. Be prepared to get RSI though.

@NeedNewKnees

The blind privilege in *@CatherinedeBourgh*’s claim that people have “the right to choose who they are” staggers me.

No, we don’t and can’t choose “who we are.” Many aspects of people are dealt to them whether they like it or not. Age, sex, race, disability, sexuality. I may “choose” to be a wealthy and able-bodied young man but the fact is I’m a older woman with many health, financial and mobility problems I can’t identify out of.

Girls born in cultures with FGM can’t identify out of it. Women forced to sleep in menstrual huts can’t identify out of it. People with profound disabilities can’t choose to identify out of them. We are who we’re born, and then do the best we can within those parameters.

No one has the right to define how others see them, and no one can change material reality to suit themselves. The sooner everyone embraces that, the happier we’ll be.

This.

And in a similar vein, it really isn’t at all kind or supportive to straight out lie to impressionable, and often very vulnerable, children and young people, that they can literally ‘be’ anything they want to be. That’s patently untrue and potentially extremely damaging psychologically as well as physically.

I realise that last paragraph may not have made sense - it was in reference to what the person said and not really anything to do with the equality/equity message.

Had I been a natal woman I don't believe that would have been the case.

I really would be wary of drawing conclusions when you don't know this.

'Gender critical = bigot' from the earlier poster seems to have really upset all those with an obstinate attachment to their prejudice. I'm going to carry on championing for equality with those lovely kind young people.

@oneliner
So do you think I was a man yesterday? I wore "men's" clothes and did "men's things" so was I a man?

@Oneliner

'Gender critical = bigot' from the earlier poster seems to have really upset all those with an obstinate attachment to their prejudice. I'm going to carry on championing for equality with those lovely kind young people.

"If you challenge my lies about you it proves they hit a nerve, and if you don't challenge them it proves I'm right. Once I have decided to lie about you, I can use whatever you do to prove my lies are true."

Totalitarianism 101 in action right there.

Yet lies are still lies, and gender critical views are not bigotry no matter how much you repeat that lie.

'Gender critical = bigot' from the earlier poster seems to have really upset all those with an obstinate attachment to their prejudice. Oh dear! As Blibbyblobby said, there it is, a persistenet lie. When you see totalitarian tosh like this you can only smile and think "Ah bless!"

@Oneliner

'Gender critical = bigot' from the earlier poster seems to have really upset all those with an obstinate attachment to their prejudice. I'm going to carry on championing for equality with those lovely kind young people.

That's probably your best bet, young people are more easily manipulated.

@Oneliner

'Gender critical = bigot' from the earlier poster seems to have really upset all those with an obstinate attachment to their prejudice. I'm going to carry on championing for equality with those lovely kind young people.

And yet it's a protected belief, so quite obviously not bigotry. You're disingenuous and a liar. And the law isn't on your side.

Threatening and threatened seems to sum up this thread, unfortunately. To all those kind people who believe in equality for all, know you're not alone and there are many more people who value you than fear you.

@oneliner
Again do you think I was a man yesterday?
No threat, no abuse just no "no debate". Please could you answer the very simple question.

@Oneliner

Threatening and threatened seems to sum up this thread, unfortunately. To all those kind people who believe in equality for all, know you're not alone and there are many more people who value you than fear you.

Thank you for support of the many women who are being threatened for standing up for equality and the right to say sex has a material impact on our lives so sex matters.

@Oneliner

'Gender critical = bigot' from the earlier poster seems to have really upset all those with an obstinate attachment to their prejudice. I'm going to carry on championing for equality with those lovely kind young people.

What, you think it's fine to call people 'bigots'? That's a really odd way of approaching a discussion.

If you insult people, malign and impugn them, and ascribe unpleasant motives where none exist, it's quite likely those people are going to get a bit annoyed with you. Fairly understable, I'd say.

'championing for equality' - sounds fab. What does it actually mean? Equality of what, for whom?

@Oneliner

Threatening and threatened seems to sum up this thread, unfortunately. To all those kind people who believe in equality for all, know you're not alone and there are many more people who value you than fear you.

Quite right. I am so glad you are with us.

What does "equality for all" mean, exactly, and in practice?

Bigotry is prejudice and it's not ok. I really don't mind what you were yesterday, today or tomorrow dig out so long as you are respectful to everyone regardless of gender or sex. We can all get along, it doesn't have to be a fight.

@Oneliner

'Gender critical = bigot' from the earlier poster seems to have really upset all those with an obstinate attachment to their prejudice. I'm going to carry on championing for equality with those lovely kind young people.

Still not engaging with anything that is actually said Oneliner. Still delivering slurs.

Please do continue though. Because the more you do it, the more the readers understand exactly the dynamics being endorsed. You are like a live demonstration on this thread.

And again, maybe you need to reconsider what you think 'bigot' means and who has an obstinate attachment to their prejudice. In your case, I think it is against females who don't agree with you in the way that you have resorted immediately to name calling and hateful slurs.

Maybe it is because you realise you have been a great example of exactly what you are calling others on this thread. ...