To be baffled by and disappointed with the amount of transphobia on MN?

[ShutTheFuckUpBarbara]

I know I'll get flamed for voicing my opinion on this, but I don't care.

I just don't understand why there is so much hatred for trans people on here.

Yes, some trans activists are extremists and no I don't agree with them, but should all other trans people suffer because of them?

I get that there are issues that need to be addressed, as highlighted by recent items in the news and recent threads (which prison should trans people be sent to, can a MTW be a girl guide leader and various others). I don't have a solution for these, but I feel that as a society we should work together to make it work, rather than just spout hatred and insults.

It is especially disappointing as there are a lot of people in the trans community suffering mental health issues, often as the result of how they are being treated, and MN is usually a safe haven for people with MH issues.

I used to enjoy reading the Feminism chat (or most of it anyway), now almost every thread on there is transphobic

Most of us here are women, a lot of us are from ethnic minorities, or have a disability, a lot of us have been discriminated against, we know what it feels like so why do it to others??

Bev yes interesting questions are raised and I don't have the answer. Clearly there are issues of mental health which medical professionals are struggling to grapple with. So distilling it to male or female probably helps no one.

Telling an anorexic they really are thin is useless. So we need to look at wider issues personally and as a society.

Merrymouse "immutable biological differences" but I am not sure they are immutable. I think nature provides us with enough variants for it to be questionable.

It's like when they used to say homosexuality was against nature then scientists found those gay penguins that mate for life.

Nature isn't always as simple as people want it to be.

People aren't born with correct or incorrect genitals for their personalities. They are born with their own genitals and their own personalities.

Being a person with male genitals who likes to present as 'feminine' doesn't make their personality or their genitals 'wrong' but it doesn't make them female either. It's not feminists who are saying if you don't conform to the gender role of your body you have to change your body.

It's not the fault of women that the trans lobby are telling kids that they have to transition or die. It's not the fault of women that homophobic and transphobic men attack feminine presenting men. It's not the fault of women that prostituted MTT people are murdered by men. I'm at a bit of a loss to know wtf women are actually supposed to do apart from hand over all women's space to 'gender neutral', and then what? If trans women are vulnerable in men's toilets, how are they safer in women's toilets that are open to men?
Men on the other hand.....I'm not one so I don't know but are men getting lectured that men's toilets not actually being safe to use is unacceptable? Are they getting lectured about being accommodating to MTT people in changing rooms? Are straight men being told to open their dating pool to MTT people? Or is it a case of 'these people are now 'not men' so it is the problem of women 'not-men' to deal with them'.

I'm afraid that for the moment they are pretty immutable.

It is not possible to change sex.

You can take hormones and you can have surgery, but it isn't possible to be anything other than somebody who has had surgery to imitate the characteristics of a particular sex.

Obviously some people are born with intersex characteristics, but many would rather be accepted for who they are rather than being rejected for not clearly passing as one sex or the other. Being intersex has nothing to do with 'feeling' feminine or masculine. Feminine and masculine are just constructs grouping together various characteristics that have traditionally been associated with one sex or the other.

BitOf I don't think being an adult female is a simple biological fact for many

But that's what "woman" means, FGS! It's the very definition of the word.

You can't suddenly decide to hijack the word and use it to mean something else. And then not expect women to object!

If you want to spread the lie that there are pink brains and blue brains, then come up with new words and new concepts to describe them. (And ideally some actual hard science to back it up before you inflict the ideology on everyone else...) But you can't just cast aside a fact that is central to the existence of the human race, not to mention that is central to massive human rights abuses, and pretend it is meaningless.

I take it you're on board with white people blacking up and calling themsleves black? Certainly black people should get no say in the matter, according to your logic.

I can't quite believe the world has gone bonkers enough that people are getting called bigots for not including people with XY chromosomes and penises in the definition of "woman". This is insane.

The thing that gets me is the immediate rush of "I don't want transwomen to use the women's bathroom but I'm not transphobic!!1!!111" comments in this thread.

A - It's not about bathrooms
B - I'm old enough to remember when areas where women are vulnerable were segregated by sex, not by some vague feeling. We segregate by sex, not because of phobia, but of an entirely rational fear (in the case of toilets, changing rooms, prisons, shelters etc.) and because of under-representation/oppression (in the case of scholarships/prizes) and because sex bodied are different from each other (in the case of sports, maternity and reproductive rights).

midcentury toilets are not safe places and never have been. Toilets are places that hold secrets and have always been the places assaults take place. Changing laws will not change this. Private gender neutral toilets will help.

No one on these threads is apportioning blame. There are indeed difficult issues to address and discuss. Forcing people into camps or to take sides doesn't help.

BBCnews I don't agree with the idea of pink or blue brains I have never said that. Has anyone on the thread said that? I agree with no ideology.

However, I know enough about science to know about anomalies. Not everything is as simple as male or female so why pretend it is?

You think allowing men to self identify their way into women's toilets will have no impact on how women's safety?

Anyone who thinks there is going to be a wholesale stripping out of millions of stall style public toilets to be replaced with solid cubicles with safe access is dreaming. They'll do what is already happening - women is 'gender neutral' and men is 'men'.

Safe toilets, or the lack of them, is over and over again cited as a barrier to women taking part in public life across huge swathes of the world, but when we do it, it's progressive.

Merry I'm not disagreeing about changing sex. What I am saying is why do people have to choose. I think I am disagreeing with the trans lobby here

Does it matter? If some people don't fit 'naturally' into the male vs female box why should any of us?

Safe toilets are important. Private, enclosed, gender neutral toilets are the safest.

BitOfA "immutable biological differences" but I am not sure they are immutable. I think nature provides us with enough variants for it to be questionable.

Around 1% of people are intersex. How, exactly, does that cast doubt on the other 99% being female or male?

Does it matter? If some people don't fit 'naturally' into the male vs female box why should any of us?

Most of the time it really shouldn't matter.

However, sometimes it does, and when it does it matters because men and women are different biologically, e.g. because women menstruate and are generally smaller and weaker. It has nothing to do with feeling like a woman or feeling like a man.

You can argue the toss about whether women need separate toilets or whether they should compete separately in sport or whether they need separate prisons, but there is absolutely no reason to segregate anybody based on how they feel.

BBC Without researching I don't know. 1% is 1% more than none.

I do know there are many physiological and psychological issue that muddy the waters. I imagine there is a lot of hidden/repressed/ covered up misery out there that we don't know about. But when this is uncovered I want these people to be welcomed!

I am not arguing black or white I am saying there is a bit in the middle that is in sufficiently clear.

And when society says that 'gender' is more important than sex, the underlying assumption is that 'gender' expectations should conform with sex, and that is wrong and the thing that feminists have been fighting against for so long.

Merry and there we part company because I think that 'feelings' matter a lot. If people want to be separated - and it causes no harm - why not?

I fully appreciate the complexity of the caveat I have added.

Gender shackels women.

But then so does sex.

"If you are different physically, emotionally or mentally and you can not claim to be wholly and unequivocally boy or girl you are.......... What? Wrong? In limbo?"

You would need professional help. Psychological, I mean.

We don't "claim" to be one sex or another. We are what we are. I can think and ponder and claim all I want on this subject. I am still and will always be female. That will never change, even if I have a double mastectomy, cut my hair, take artificial hormones and grow a beard. I will never be male. I will always be female.

How I feel about it is as irrelevant to what I actually am as a wolf howling at the moon is... well... to the moon.

If people want to be separated - and it causes no harm - why not?

Please could you explain the point of segregating prisons based on how people feel.

I suppose you could have sports competitions based on how people feel - people who like dogs vs. people who like cats maybe? but I don't think you would get mass participation.

Bev I bow to your clearly superior knowledge

OK I'm thinking here...... The trans lobby want people to choose, pink or blue. Some feminists want us to choose male or female. In general I really, really don't care.

We need to deal with infrastructure issues (toilets, changing rooms) but philosophically wouldn't we be better if sex and gender were fluid?

You would need professional help. Psychological, I mean.

Nice discussion - then the insults start.

Thank you merry and Bev interesting points and I would address your further points but I feel the discussion is going to go downhill.

I have work tomorrow

Bitofacow, sex is not fluid. Feminists no more want people to choose to be male or female than they want people to choose whether to be a dog or a human.

I agree with you 100% OP.

Violent/criminal transactivists constitute a very small minority of trans women, but reading MN, you would think they were the norm.

Most gay men are not pedophiles. To imply that they are is homophobia.
Most Muslims are not terrorists. To imply that they are is Islamophobia.
Most transwomen are not rapists or extremists, nor are they remotely interested in telling other women how to live their lives. To imply that they are is transphobia.

But they are attempting to change law. Which puts them in a different category again.