Your opinion on the TERF/self-ID debate

[wishingonastar95]

I'd really love to hear some opinions/arguments for and against in this debate.

Outside of MN, it seems that 'TERFs' are seen as discriminatory and generally 'in the wrong'. For example JK Rowling being so heavily criticised by the general public and condemned by the Harry Potter actors.

However on MN it seems that it's common for people to agree with the 'TERF' viewpoint, and feel quite strongly about this. I've seen lots of comments saying that they could never vote Labour based on their stance on this one issue.

I'm genuinely confused by the debate and undecided on my own opinion, so interested to hear others' viewpoints.

‘Terf’ is an offensive term which leads me to believe that your post is not genuinely neutral. Saying that the general public condemn JK Rowling is particularly hilarious, I’ve never met anyone in real life who is anything other than supportive of Joanne’s stance on this. She’s a heroine who speaks for the majority of women, as the ballot box will eventually show, when women find themselves having to vote Tory despite the embarrassing disaster that is Boris Johnson and his Cabinet.

If you genuinely want to understand what’s happening, read the Transgender Trend website eg this www.transgendertrend.com/teenager-says-theyre-transgender/ or the book Trans by Helen Joyce, or at least bother to read the relevant Mumsnet board. Read women’s Place and Sex Matters and Safe Schools Alliance websites. Watch the news, and observe the women being sent death threats and hounded from their jobs for speaking the truth about female biology. Read about the female rape victims who can’t use rape crisis centres because there are men there (one of whom tweeted about how the rape centre gave him an erection), and notice how many ‘transwomen’ have a history of violence against women. Notice the obsession of male trans-activists with children, particularly teenage girls, and how those girls are shepherded by sexist middle-aged male transvestites with mental health issues, down a pathway of drugs and self-harm that leads to infertility. Notice how derogatory terms are used by trans-activists for women - they call us ‘bleeders’ and ‘front hole havers’ and ‘terf’ and ‘cis’ and then become hyper-aggressive if we don’t want to refer to them by their chosen pronouns. We have no right to name ourselves, it seems.

And then maybe attempt to have a think.

CatSpeakForDummies
The middle classes pushing all the "you can pee next to me," narrative are not the ones suffering from the sharp end of female oppression.
However, if I was in the US, where a lot of the Twitter comments are taken in a US context, I'd feel differently. They don't have adequate provision for people around gender identity and the campaign is different. They see anything not fully supportive as right wing.

Healthcare in the US is a commercial profit driven enterprise. I know older US people who will need to fund themselves through old age who rejected the idea of publically funded healtcare. The TRA campaign to remove gender dysphoria as a recognised medical condition is a campaign to remove it from all and any medical insurance cover. The NHS will fund some proceedures which would otherwise be classified as cosmetic as will private health insurance. But if GD was removed the Tavi and other clinics would have to close as the NHS will not fund "lifestyle choices" or non medical occurrences.

The US also have crappy piecemeal employment and womens rights protections. In the US a judge ruled that a woman was lawfully bullied from her job for asking for provision to pump breastmilk (that should read human milk) because "males also lactate". Add in the legal position that men get pregnant and US women have no protection from indirect sex discrimination. People with penis will end up (remain) in positions of authorty people with uterus end up in support positions; with no legal protections as sexual reproduction is not gender based and nobody but a biologist could be expected to recognise the sex of individual employees.

The sport issue in the US is pitting TRA against the working class to upper middle class parent who is dependant on sport scholarships and academic scholarships to help fund their girls (and boys) education. People who have very good lifestyles and the abilty to save still focus their childrens school and sport activities around qualifying for scholarships.
(The rich who could fully fund were willing to use bribes to gain access to the Right College.)

Nobody is calling the transgender female swimmer transphobic for choosing to compete in the womens composition. I suspect that a swimmer racing female times would not rank highly in the mens races and if preforming is an element of funding the swimmer risks not being able to afford the full cost of an expensive college.
People are twisting their logic into knots to justify why a male is not at an advantage swimming in the women's races while arguing that the female would be as a disadvantaged swimming in the men's.

My feeling is that most women start from a place of being kind but have a red line somewhere, be it changing rooms, carers for vulnerable relatives, hospital wards, prisons or double mastectomies for 15 year old girls.
And wherever your red line is, that means all your being kind is null and void and you're an exclusionary bigot whose job could be at threat.

'Outside of MN, it seems that 'TERFs' are seen as discriminatory and generally 'in the wrong'

Maybe on Twitter and in university societies but ask most people 'can a man literally be a woman even when he still has a penis' and they'll laugh at you for even asking.

If sport became non gender segregated, fewer females would participate. We have volumes of data to support this.

When girls look around and see females that they do not identify with and do not understand and instead are presented with a narrative which says if they are more GI Joe than Barbie, then they are trans, if they do not feel comfortable in their emerging female body, that that be fixed by binding, top surgery and puberty blockers, if they do not like how women are treated by men, they can disguise their female nature. If they are male but wish to experience what it is to be female, they can identify into female spaces and coerce everyone in that space to accept them or risk being themselves excluded from that space if they prefer not to affirm this fiction.

This narrative is more harmful to women and girls than it could ever be to men. Women are told that they are wrong to fear this but their fears are not explored or recognised. We have had millenia of our feelings being ignored... and this latest narrative reinforces our oppression.

I spent my teen years and twenties believing that we had reframed gender stereotypes and we could have it all and then my thirties and forties seeing the realities as men progressed while women stalled, despite railing against it, finding myself in the company of other educated women, achieving less than their potential, putting the needs of others before themselves, being asked to organise the Christmas party, being chosen after less highly performing men, fighting for space in the gym, seeing the ingrained structural inequalities in the lives of our daughters. This is not because women don't try hard enough, are not good enough or because they choose not to, it is because our society is structurally unequal. Fighting for equality for women from a privileged position of being white and middle class does not make my fight less valid. When the arguments for inclusion are built on the arguments for sexual equality, reformulated and presented back to me as arguments for trans inclusion and painting me as a bigot.. I struggle... I really do... but until women have equal share of power and money in the world, we should not give ground. We can encourage acceptance of other people's right to present as they wish but should never accept the redefinition of what a woman is. It is the fact that we are women, that we are oppressed, taking away that definition will not remove our oppression. Fighting to keep the definition is not synonymous with fighting to retain our oppression. It will not liberate us, it will further oppress us.

I know I am preaching to the choir.. the OP could have read these opinions 100 times over on this site ..... but obviously remains unconvinced.

Yes, people proudly state the views of their own filter bubbles as the correct position shared by most people as if their circle of friends and acquaintances are the be all and end all.

Most people are not radical feminists. However most people do not believe males are women without the "sex change" operation as most people have quite an outdated view of it and don't see it in the same way as either trans activists or gender critical feminists.

@EveSix

IKeepSeeingIt, you wrote that’s easily solved with another cubical for trans/non binary people. Those cubicles would not be used. Trans activists call for validation; this means unswerving acknowledgement that TWAW and as such use single sex spaces. Third spaces are definitely not part of the plan. It would also put biological females identifying as males (transmen) in a position of having to use the same toilets as biological males.

I’m surprised you think that. That’s not been my experience with trans/ non binary friends. Most of them agree with me on the issue as well. A lot of them just want to live in peace with us and recognise that there’s an issue. I think the internet can make it seem as though every trans person is like that, but the sensible ones are just trying to live in real life. I was more thinking it would be a single gender neutral toilet so no sharing was involved. I can see the logistics of that would be complicated though.

This tells me all I need to know about men dressed as women using women’s toilets-

www.instagram.com/reel/Cbay4j7Foz2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Maybe on Twitter and in university societies but ask most people 'can a man literally be a woman even when he still has a penis' and they'll laugh at you for even asking.

This is exactly what me and DH said this morning. Word for word. We both work at universities and have to keep our views to ourselves.

People can identify as any gender they like and I will fully respect and support that.

However, I believe strongly in the difference between gender identity and sex and want to protect womens sex based rights and I hate how some people/groups want to erase women.

In the long run this is only going to harm the trans community because the debate has become so polarised so if you disagree with any aspect of trans ideology you're a TERF. Therefore people in the street will have little sympathy with the trans community because.
It's fucking ridiculous

'I think both the trans rights activists and the GC feminists go a bit too far. For most people it’s more nuanced. I think most people believe sex is real and important but I do think trans people are othered and seen as a threat on Mumsnet which I find hard to see. '

When you start to go down the rabbit hole you see a lot of disturbing stuff like the tweets on www.terfisaslur.com and you realise that actually some of these activists on Twitter are a threat, they're really disturbed individuals who say awful violent misogynistic things.

Try the Staniland question, op: do you think it's ok for a fully intact adult male (however they present themselves) to get changed in a room with your teenage daughter present?

Are you ok with a male bodied person providing intimate care for your disabled teenage female neighbour. Or your infirm grandmother.

ikeep how would you know who should be using that single gender neutral toilet though? If a man in the ladies says he's a woman, how are you going to prove he should be in your single cubicle?

I don't think there are any 'TERFS' here.
Most include and would advocate for transmen. All females are included in Feminism.
So they aren't actually excluding trans people, just males. And that is male entitlement and that is part of the problem. Its a slur and inaccurate

A screenshot for anyone who doesn't want to click the link. Fancy being alone in a bathroom/prison/refuge with any of these people? What about your daughters? Thought not.

@Birdy474

Terf clearly means just a sane, logical person.

Tired of explaining reality to fuckwits.

Are you ok with a woman being raped in hospital and then not believed for a year because the hospital insisted that only females were on the ward so it couldn't happen. One of those "females" was the rapist - a man who exploited Be Kind/believe someone when they tell you who they are - to access a vulnerable woman and rape her.
A year of not being believed.

@PastMyBestBeforeDate

ikeep how would you know who should be using that single gender neutral toilet though? If a man in the ladies says he's a woman, how are you going to prove he should be in your single cubicle?

Sorry maybe I didn’t explain it well? I meant similar to a disabled toilet, completely separated from both male/female toilets. The idea is that anyone can use it really as it’s completely private and just a single room.

I meant similar to a disabled toilet, completely separated from both male/female toilets. The idea is that anyone can use it really as it’s completely private and just a single room.

That wasn't the question though - what criteria would you say meant someone should use that toilet instead of the women's?

My opinion is it's totally out of hand. I respect the choice of trans people to dress how they like and act in a feminine/masculine manner without abuse or ridicule. But this is entirely separate from the scientific reality of biological sex. And when policies are made to suit trans ideology, it is WOMEN who stand to lose out.

Trans women are not women, and it offends ME that anyone thinks males have a right to female spaces / categories. To me this version of trans activism is the definition of male privilege (much as I dislike such terms!).

I listened to Rishi Sunak squirming when asked by Julia HB to describe what a woman is. It was embarrassing. The trans lobby has got a Tory chancellor so scared to offend, they would rather sound like a moron who can't answer a straight question.

We (rightly) didn't all rush to validate Rachel Dolezal, I am yet to hear any compelling argument why this is any different.

@PrelateChuckles

I meant similar to a disabled toilet, completely separated from both male/female toilets. The idea is that anyone can use it really as it’s completely private and just a single room.

That wasn't the question though - what criteria would you say meant someone should use that toilet instead of the women's?

Ah sorry I didn’t understand that first time! Anyone who feels comfortable to use a single gender neutral toilet should. That’s why it’s a single room. So that anyone can use it without fear or judgment.

Does the criteria for a single room toilet matter to you? I see it in the same light as a bathroom in a family home in a way. Everyone uses it because it’s a single room with a lock on.

As a point of comparison, it takes years and cost thousands to change nationality. Wish I could have self-ID'd my way out of Brexit

@SmellyOldOwls

A screenshot for anyone who doesn't want to click the link. Fancy being alone in a bathroom/prison/refuge with any of these people? What about your daughters? Thought not.

Gender ideology has been fantastic for misogynistic men to play out their misogyny in public and get to look woke and progressive and the same time.

It's sick.

Anyone who feels comfortable to use a single gender neutral toilet should. That’s why it’s a single room. So that anyone can use it without fear or judgment.

So a clearly male person using the women's spaces - your idea doesn't affect that at all, does it? Again, we have nothing to say "sorry, this isn't your space".

To be clear, we could have "neutral" third spaces for anyone who doesn't care who's in there with them, and two single-sex spaces for those that do, which should be used by people of that sex only, but open to any gender identity.

That's what we are asking for, but the trans rights activists say it's not enough.