To wonder why it's so transphobic here?

[user1490186326]

Really what's the big deal if a transwoman uses the women's toilets or changing rooms - they are women after all!

Can you not possibly imagine how hard it must be to be born into the wrong body? Imagine the pain and distress that must cause?

I have a friend who is a transwoman and she is the kindest most gentle soul you could ever meet so hearing her being referred to as a bloke in a dress or that she has a perverted fetish is just heartbreaking.

Can't we just show a little bit of empathy for these people who have been through so much pain already?

So homosexuals would not say 'yes' to "Do you view yourself as being gay?"

Many are rather depressed, I think.

Joke aside, many homosexuals do not identify with gay or lesbian subculture, respectively. They are still attracted to who they are attracted to.
And many homosexuals are so deep in the closet they view themselves a straight. That does not change their sexual orientation.

I agree with this but isn't it worth considering whether in the absence of a society you would know whether you were male or female? Or would you just be a person with a penis or a person with a vulva?

In the absence of a society, some few people who have a vulva and internal testicles would mistakenly believe themselves to be female despite being male with regard to their reproductive organs.

Every other person with a vulva would quite correctly believe that she also has ovaries, and is therefore female.

Same for the bepenised, all would assume that they are male, and for most of them, that would be quite correct.

Because without society, gendernonsense would not exist, and having a vulva and the reproductive organs that in 99,9% of cases go with a vulva, is THE ONLY FUCKING THING THAT MAKES YOU FEMALE!

Men can be feminists without wearing frocks btw

Not sure we should welcome trans women as the saviours of women's rights - like we still need the (wo)menz to fight on our behalf

I suppose I just don't find any of this easy.

For example the idea that because men are more likely to be violent that all men should be removed from certain situations to protect women. I actually agree with this but there are racial groups that are more likely to be violent but I wouldn't think it was OK to tar all members of that race with the same brush. Genuinely I think I need to read some more on all this.

Breathe, vestal!

You posted this exact same op before. Why post it again?

whether they feel able to describe themselves as such or not

but the able to aspect must come right down society or community, mustn't it.

Men can be feminists without wearing frocks btw

Yeah, doesn't really make a difference. Though I grow more and more suspicious of men who disguise as women and claim that they are feminists, because in many cases, they consider it "feminism" to cenre males, and do no actual feminism that benefits women at all.

I actually agree with this but there are racial groups that are more likely to be violent but I wouldn't think it was OK to tar all members of that race with the same brush.

Which races would that be?
Can you link to studies that remove the factors of poverty, etc.?

sanscomic not getting your point really.
Perhaps if you used the actual technical words instead of 'gay' it might help -
Homosexual - sexually attracted to members of one's own sex
Hetrosexual - sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex.
Nothing to do with society or identifying thoughts or anything like that.

There are figures on the ONS website. Black men commit crime at a higher rate than white men.

Why would I want to remove the factors of poverty etc? I thought we were talking about the actual likelihood of someone in a particular group being violent.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/479990/infographic.pdf

I think there is a bit of transphobia on MN, but mainly the issue is that mainstream liberal culture is at odds with gender critical viewpoints (even those with a sound scientific basis), and hasn't really examined the consequences of the attitudes to gender held by some Trans activists.

This is an excerpt from a piece written by a detransitioning (former) transman about the misogyny in trans Tumblr culture (where a lot of the more extreme views emerge from):

I subscribed to an incredibly misogynistic set of beliefs for years. “DFAB privilege” was a common phrase in our community – “designated female at birth privilege.” It was accepted fact that being born female gave you a lifelong advantage over a male who transitioned. This included men who used transition only to mean using different pronouns on Tumblr and having an anime girl as their avatar. We believed that, as “dfabs,” we needed to shut up about our petty problems. We could never have it as hard as any “dmab women or non-binary people.” Everyone in the trans community agreed that it was our responsibility to uplift “dmab voices.” None of this seemed outrageous or strange to me; it felt pretty intuitive. Growing up under male domination is a grooming process that leaves many girls and women extremely vulnerable to manipulation.

Yes, you read that right. Females are privileged and males are oppressed, even when both are trans-identified.

The way in which some Trans activists try to shut down and demonise women for making even simple factual statements (e.g. women are socialised as female and transwomen, while living as boys/men, are socialised as male), is also troubling.

I have huge concerns about self-identification and the erosion of women's rights. Working in MH I also have fucking massive concerns about gender clinics failing to appropriately assess people and putting people forward for hormone treatment/surgery without that.

'Trans' threads on MN are often entirely appropriate and helpful for people who don't really understand or know about what is happening every day.

But it's not true to say that there aren't transphobic threads. The 'I'm not transphobic, I'm not scared of/hate trans people' attitude is simplifying transphobia in a way that the posters wouldn't suggest if talking about homophobia/misogyny/xenophobia/racism.

You can be racist and not fear/hate people of other races. But you are racist if you attribute certain traits to an entire group of people or form an opinion/judgement of an entire group of people based on the behaviour of some members of that group or just see/highlight certain negative aspects referring to that group.

I love that MN is an area where things can be debated and discussed; particularly in regards to trans 'issues' - it is rare for a site to do this despite the complaints of some posters.

But if MN was full of threads saying 'look at this Afro-Carribean/Muslim/Polish person who did this' or 'yes it's another Polish thread but...' then people would quite correctly think there was some discrimination going on.

noeffingidea

Simply that I see trans and homosexuality (surely the word 'gay' didn't confuse you!) as something in your mind linked to gender and sex and therefore they have similarities.

Discriminating against homosexuals is illegal and rightly so. Fear of them is unfounded. That's despite the high levels of violence in lesbian relationships.

Fear of transwomen is unfounded. Fear of 'regular' men is unfounded. The vast, vast majority of transwomen aren't in it to get on the women's Olympic wrestling team, nor to 'other' women or get into a refuge.

Why would I want to remove the factors of poverty etc? I thought we were talking about the actual likelihood of someone in a particular group being violent.

Because if you want to make rules for all members of a race you have to control for such factors.

I would rather be alone in a room with Barack Obama than with Donald Trump, and I would even more prefer to be alone in a room with Michelle Obama.

You might find statistics that say that black men commit more crimes than white men, but if poor people in general commit more crimes, and it just so happens that more black people are poor, and if black men are shot by the police for looking suspicious and white men get away with rape, then those statistics are not very trustworthy.

Men as the oppressor class have to admit they are more likely to be criminal than women because the evidence is so overwhelming they cannot deny it.

White people as the oppressor class manage to make it look like black people are more likely to be criminal.

Those two things are not the same.

*There are figures on the ONS website. Black men commit crime at a higher rate than white men.

Why would I want to remove the factors of poverty etc? I thought we were talking about the actual likelihood of someone in a particular group being violent.*

That's kind of like saying that women are paid less than men because they 'choose' to have babies.

You're right, of course, OP.

Sans, your suggestion that Trans identity is in the mind would have you lumped in with all the other transphobes and TERFs in some circles - it's all down to the pink and blue brains really .

I'm 99.9% convinced you are on a wind up OP as it's hard to believe that someone could just stumble in, ignore the multitudes of intelligent and articulate discussions threads on the subject and then start YET ANOTHER thread with the same unsubstantiated initial premise, but in the faint hope that your "Educate me" is serious, try this video as a start:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E6Ab0K9AaY

(i.e. physical differences)

sanscomic I'm not confused in the slightest.
And neither are you, obviously. Have a nice day .
See, I can do passive aggressive BS just as well as you.

Afro-Carribean people are statistically be more likely to be charged and convicted of crimes in countries where they are a minority.

Same as they are statistically more likely to be sectioned under the MH act and referred to secure units rather than open acute units in countries where they are a minority.

There is nothing inherent in Afro-Carribean DNA which makes members more likely to commit crimes or suffer from MH problems.

OP, I agree that it must be hard to want to present in a way that society deems 'wrong'. I truly believe that anyone should be able to present how they wish without discrimination and fully support people who wish to do this.

The area of the issue where I become torn is where I, and other women are bing told that our biology is meaningless. It's not. It matters. Biology is the whole reason that women were given a different label to men to start with, the reason women were considered too stupid to vote until not so long ago, the reason that babies are still being killed today in some parts of the world and still being denied an education.

Biology matters. And should still be important in the areas where biology causes a difference - health and sports for a start. There are still places that should be segregated by sex not gender no matter whose feelings are hurt and language needs to be able to describe people of different biology clearly.

This has not been an easy conclusion for me to come to as my default is to live and let live. I have thought and researched way too much a lot about this recently as I have felt so conflicted.

I'm not transphobia. I don't fear transpeople.

I do, however, have a lot of questions about why biological actual women have to suffer in order to accommodate the whims and needs of men who have decided to become woman. And why their needs trump ours, when we've spent hundreds of years carving out societal space for ourselves and dying for the cause.

That's not a phobia. It's a genuine question and debate that deserves to be had.

Transphobia isn't the literal fear of transpeople!

FFS people, get smart.
This is obviously the new tactic. We didn't start crying when we were called terfs or transphobic, and Mumsnet don't allow blatant threats and insults, so lets troll the fuck out of them instead and hope they show themselves up. I've seen this happen on other forums.
Don't fall for it.