to start a thread about trans panic because there have only been seventy six already

[GustyParson]

Trans people want to steal your rights! And stroke your cat. They want to colonise your child's reading books, infiltrate your favourite prisons, appropriate the gold medals you would otherwise win for your peerless skills on the pummel horse, take the best seats on the Tube, demand that midwives talk exclusively about pregnant fathers, haunt your preferred changing rooms, run rampant through the Brownie Guides, go unchallenged in every echelon of the WI, burn all your favourite pronouns in an industrial furnace, benefit from all your oppression, demand your pet dog be addressed as Mx, frolic carelessly across the flower bed you've only just planted for God's sake, insist that there are more than two genders, require to be recognised as the gender 'combine harvester' one day and the gender 'quail' the next, piss on the toilet you wanted to reserve for your friends, and call you Cis which is like totally cruel because it sounds like sissy.

Alternatively, trans people are people, they are not trying to hurt you, most of you have never met one, none of you need to feel threatened by them, and there really isn't a need to start fifteen threads a week fretting that they're going to steal your last Bourbon Cream, appropriate or destroy feminism, or change your baby's name from Thomas to Pixie. Seriously, calm down.

Then why open them

Because sometimes there is stuff in there that is misleading and it's useful to get other points of view.

But I'll bite, where am I in your feminism @NotCarylChurchill? Am I to be disbelieved, dismissed as hysterical because my experience doesn't fit your narrative?

Well said, OP.

Caryl I'm not sure why it is ok that my identity as a woman is being eroded. I have been a woman for 47 years and have a set of experiences in common with other women. My biology says I am a woman. My DNA says I am a woman. I'm not sure why someone who has been a man for 47 years can say he is a woman now and expect me to agree. In what way is he a woman? Women agree to redefine 'woman' to include someone who is not a woman?

How interesting that so many gender-critical posts have been deleted for being "not on" or "goady" and this OP is allowed to stand (MNHQ has deleted at least one comment, so clearly they've been here and thought the original post was neither "goady" nor "not on").

Because sometimes there is stuff in there that is misleading and it's useful to get other points of view.

Most posters just yell bigot

Those are the people i am refering to

Short posts cos my machine is playing up

Its about to go through a window

What's with the switcheroo to GLBT Not ?

@NotCarylChurchill, that's what I said, except we are both wrong. Cross dressing is now Trans.

You think I am attacking you and not centering my argument about Trans, please reread my posts, that's not what is happening here at all.

You mention your sexuality, what are your thoughts on the "cotton ceiling"?

Do you worry, as I do, that the trans agenda being taught as doctrine is bad for gay and lesbian people, that this is a version of gay conversion therapy, brains born in the wrong body, to change the person not the society's expectations of what is acceptable.

I have total respect for transpeople and am alarmed by some of the "bloke in a dress" type comments on here, but the way you are so utterly sarcastic and dismissive of the concerns people have is reprehensible

Absolutely agree.

An OP carefully designed to stir up even more trouble, rather than sensible debate.

I think it's quite astonishing that you are able to pick and choose which words you find offensive, sissy cross dressing isn't a fringe thing, it is fairly standard transvestism.
How come you get to rubbish people who find CIS offensive, but SISSY is no-go for you?

Historically CIS is used to determine a subset, so a ciswoman is a subset of women, hence why people find it offensive.

Do all conversations about women now have to be centred around trans?

You see, I am a woman and I have lots in common with other women (biology, sexism, fear of male violence). I want to be able to discuss those things with other women, without being told that the discussion needs to be centred round transwomen, who in all honesty, though I wish them well and believe they should be able to get on with their lives, I don't believe I have much in common with.

The fact that some transactivists are trying to stop women talking about women's issues does kind of suggest the interests of the two groups are not identical.

NotCaryl - You just basically told NotWhat to not talk about her direct lived experience in terms that are accurate and relevant to the discussion because your ignorance about a subject you purport to be an expert about means you get hurty feels!

Seriously?!

And we know trans and cross dressing are not the same. It's kind of the point.

Oh, I just remembered where I remember @NotCarylChurchill from, I saw you on a thread where you were absolutely horrible to a woman who was talking about suicide and her mental health, you really put the boot in, calling her a drama queen etc. The OP was called something like "missingthevillage".

I now understand what's happening here.

Well in this age of self determination, cross dressing IS trans, according to my DH and Eddie Izzard. Grayson Perry and I feel differently, who is right?

Guess it's time to break out the (new! updated!) Big List of Trans Talking Points again. Thanks all who helped me compile it.

1. Anti-trans arguments run along two lines, the metaphysical and the practical. One of the most common anti-trans arguments is that by acknowledging transwomen as women we are fundamentally redefining the very concept and definition of women, and therefore threatening, inherently, what it means to be a woman. I completely understand this, but I think in practice it really won't happen. Toxic masculinity is so ingrained in our society which is fundamentally predicated on patriarchy, for a man to "self identify" as being female is to do something extremely radical involving a complete rejection of the patriarchy. Within patriarchal society transwomen are seen as "lower" (much, much lower) than biological women, due to rejecting masculinity. We are simply not going to develop a culture where men on masse start identifying as women while still retaining male privilege. It would go against the very foundations of partriarchy. Please recognise that our 21st Western understanding of sex/gender as being two distinct boxes is not universal: many cultures throughout the world and throughout history have believed there to be more than two sexes.

2. There appears to be the belief that transwomen are given special rights and are held in such high esteem by the world/society that normal rules and laws do not apply to them. This is simply not reality. In reality most transwomen live with an extreme level of abuse and discrimination - why would they. The world in which anyone can simply play the 'trans card' and have the world bow down to them simply does not exist.

3. Transwomen suffer high levels of abuse and discrimination. The number one cause of death for transwomen is murder. The majority of transwomen work as prostitutes to pay for their gender reassignment. They put themselves in a position of being at permanent risk of abuse. Ask yourselves: why would anyone do that if not genuinely compelled to? And how much privilege in practical terms do you think these individuals enjoy?

4. Current trans debate is based on a society's obsession with rigid gender norms (which hurt women) and old-fashioned and dangerous beliefs about gender (see the David Peter Reimer case). Obviously a four-year-old who loves pink and dolls is not "trans" but the insane labelling of young children as trans for not conforming to gender stereotypes is not a reflection on actual trans people and it is not anti-trans to point out how insane and abusive it is. It is only through questioning and encouraging debate around gender that we can move past this (which is actually a very old fashioned view of gender -

5. Research shows that transwomen suffer the same level of misogyny after they transition as biological women, even from people who knew them as men. As an intersexed transwoman I know said on the London stage recently, "I truly believe there is a war on women, and before I thought this was a woman's world."

6. Transphobia is often rooted in traditional misogyny. Most of the transphobia in the world comes from men, not from women. Stop doing misogynistic men's work for them, because they have an agenda to pit women against each other. We see their tactics to pit biological women against each other in all kinds of different ways every day, hardly a surprise they're now trying to pit ciswomen against transwomen.

7. There are different categories of trans* people and personally I believe this is problematic. An adult woman who rejects female pronouns in order to identify as genderless due to a rejection of the misogynistic bullshit being a woman in a patriarchy involves, who has no problem with her biological womanhood, is not comparable to someone who has felt since early childhood they were born into the wrong body. We do not yet have the language or the laws to accommodate discussions about this - the only way we'll get there is through reasoned debate

8. There are people who are born intersexed or with various medical conditions meaning their biological sex is not clear-cut, and their needs should not be overlooked in the current trans hysteria. In the past I've raised this point on threads here and been told it was irrelevant - sorry, but it's not irrelevant. Posters have explicitly stated that anyone who ever had a penis even if they do not have a penis now should be barred from female toilets. A statement like that affects intersexed individuals; you can't pretend it doesn't or not think about how their rights are going to be accommodated.

1. On the practical side: one common argument is women being forced to accept doctors who were born male. Well, in an ideal world everyone would be able to choose the medical professional right for them. In practise, the NHS is so underfunded, you're lucky to be able to choose anything about your doctor at all. I've had to have (cis) male gynacologists examine and operate on me simply because there were no female ones available in my area period. If someone has PTSD due to being a rape survivor or similar, that is a recognised disability and they are legally entitled to a certain level of accommodation. I have PTSD due to sexual abuse and my medical team are very accommodating of my triggers. And PTSD triggers are rarely straightforward. A person with PTSD is just as likely to be triggered by "anyone wearing a green sweater" than by "being in the presence of a male." In terms of physical safety: no one becomes a gynacologist purely because they want to see vaginas for sexual kicks. If a sexual predator did choose to become a doctor to get access to vulnerable women, they would just go ahead and do that - as a man. Male doctors have extremely easy access to women already. A cismale doctor would have easier access to female patients than a transwoman doctor would. Socially, culturally, women are far more likely to accept orders from and be silenced by a man than by another woman. Women are more likely to make complaints about female doctors than male. There is absolutely no reason for a male sexual predator to transition (or pretend to transition) in order to gain access to women. The chance you will ever encounter or be forced to be examined by a transwomen doctor is incredibly tiny, and no one can legally compel you to be examined by a doctor you do not feel comfortable with. I fired my last doctor simply because I thought she was too judgemental.

10. The idea that men "need" to become transwomen in order to access female spaces is naive. Men don't need to do a damn thing to access female spaces. For the most part they just barge right in. Why would a man put himself in an extremely vulnerable position, give up all his male privilege and male power, put himself at constant high risk of attack and discrimination, and face the complete rejection of his gender and patriarchal society, just to do something he can already do just fine from his existing position of power and privilege? I understand the argument that permitting transwomen blurs the idea of women being allowed to control our own spaces, but I don't agree this is the case. Transwomen might not be accepted as women but they are certainly not accepted as men by patriarchal society. (On that note: jezebel.com/anti-trans-group-forced-to-apologize-for-using-sexual-a-1793299099) The one exception to this is prison, the one environment where a man is not able to use his male privilege to barge into female spaces. For this reason I support separate wings for trans prisoners, and would only allow transwomen to be in womens prisons if they have already physically transitioned and not at all in the case of convicted rapists.

11. The world is not full of men who live as men and present as men, who clearly look 100% masculine, who use "nah mate I identify as female" in order to gain access to a public toilet so they can rape everyone inside. This fear-mongering and scapegoating and creating bogeymen to a Trumpian level. If a man wanted to get into a ladies loo in order to commit a sex crime, he'd just walk straight in. Anyone using a public toilet to commit any kind of offence is breaking the law and will be subject to arrest and prosection - being trans does not make you immune to this.

12. There is no law or proposed law anywhere making it a crime to refuse to have sex with a transwomen, refuse to be examined by a transwoman, call the police on a transwoman commiting an offence. Lesbians are not being "forced" to have sex with transwomen -- we do not live in a world where women can be ordered to volunteer to have sex with anyone they don't want to have sex with. So a couple of men are whining on the Internet because they feel entitled to sex with women who don't want to sleep with them. Men are constantly whining because they feel entitled to sex. And that's a big problem, certainly, but it's a problem because it's part of rape culture and toxic masculinity. Transwomen (if they are genuine transwomen and not men pretending) who say such things are still enmeshed in the entitlement of toxic masculinity, and need more therapy to learn what being a woman involves. This has somehow been translated into, "we're one step away from lesbians being forced by law to sleep with transwomen!" Well, no: there is no law that can legally compel you to have sex with someone.

13. "TRAs" do not represent the views of all trans people, in fact much of the time the are diametrically opposed to the views held by the average trans person. For example, every single trans person I know (which numbers dozens) keenly supported the women's marches, and everything I've seen and been told suggests that the vast majority of transwomen did support the marches wholeheartedly. Yet a couple of TRAs went to the press complaining and suddenly it's "transpeople think women's marches are transphobic." Most transpeople support separate bathrooms and many are actively fighting for them, yet going by MN and the media you'd think all transwomen are trying to force their way into women's bathrooms. Point is: don't generalise, don't assume all transpeople think the same, and don't believe everything you read in the media.

14. Some TRAs are NOT trans but men exploiting the trans community for their own agenda. If you live as a man, present in a stereotypically male way, want to keep and use your penis and the only trans issue you campaign for is the 'right' to have sex with lesbians, you are not trans. And yes of course this is very worrying and means the proposed legislation could potentially be used to abuse women, but BY MEN. Let's be clear about this. The legislation is bad because it could enable men who are pretending to be trans to hurt women. Not because transwomen are all mentally ill rapists. Men pretending to be trans are not transwomen!

15. It is possible some of this trans-outrage is being faked intentionally. There is are underground groups of MRAs who actively pretend to be women's rights activists on Twitter and plan campaigns in order to "debunk and destabilise feminism." And when I say actively plan, I mean it. You may remember that a few years ago media outlets around the world reported that a feminist organisation were campaigning to ban Father's Day. Well that was a stunt - the "feminist organisation" was a fake, set up by this MRA group (who set up and maintained dozens and dozens of fake Twitter profiles pretending to be women) intentionally to make feminists look crazy and man-hating. I personally strongly suspect that they are secretly behind some of the more extreme "trans activists outraged over blah blah" headlines.

16. Some anti-trans actions actively hurt biological women, for example proposed legislation that would allow forced genital checks. Trans hysteria hurts biological women who do not conform to gender stereotypes by putting them at heightened risk of attack and being accused of being men. (In previous threads some MN posters claimed all women should have to carry "proof of gender" ID cards which would need to be shown to be allowed to use a public bathroom - how does that not hurt and oppress women? If this was law, what would happen if a woman forgot her ID card? Would she be forced to pee or change a tampon by the side of a road, which would put her at risk of attack?)

17. Current trans debate marginalises and oppresses transmen (biological women who have transitioned to or identify as men). Even on MN transmen are almost never mentioned and when they are they are dismissed, mis-gendered and told to use women's loos when they don't want to. Two examples: There are transmen fighting for access to male spaces. One transmale teen took a case against their school to the US Supremere Court. Ask yourselves why we rarely hear about that, but we constantly hear about transwome in women's loos? Second, the "pregnant women" thing (which I personally thought was nuts) was about accommodating transmen who retain the ability to get pregnant. Not transwomen. Actual biological women. Do you feel comfortable forcing a biological woman to identify as "woman" if they do not want to?

18. Some transwomen are abusive or just plain assholes, because they are people, not because they are trans. Would you make a sweeping statement about black people if you had an abusive black ex? I know more people who have been told "if you don't sleep with me you're racist" by non-white men than "if you don't sleep with me you're transphobic" and I wouldn't use that to make a generalisation about black men, and I'm sure no one else would either.

19. If you have strong feelings on this matter, I urge you to go out and meet actual transwomen face to face. Not the "TRAs" - real, ordinary transwomen who have had gender reassignment or are waiting for it, who live as women. I think that's the least you can do if you're campaigning to remove someone's rights, don't you?

TabascoToastie for clarification, is disagreeing that "transwomen are women" transphobic and hateful? And therefore not allowed as a valid position to hold?

Hello @tobascotoastie, lovely long comment, agree with a lot of it.

Apart from the last bit, where you prescribe going out and meeting more trans people, to cure me. Here is the thing, you are massively reducing my experience to fit into and with your experience. My DH doesn't represent all Trans, how could he? But my experience is valid, as is his version of Trans in this argument.

There are a subset of trans where dressing is a sexually motivated action, and their behaviour towards women, their interpretation of what a woman is, is both abusive and reductive.

I would argue that cross dressing shouldn't be under the same umbrella term as a physical condition such as intersex, or a gender dysmorphia. Until we understand that these are different things, we can't talk about Trans as a singular term.

17. why do you think that we don't have to argue about transmen co-opting men's spaces? Why isn't this a thing?

Because women don't get to demand access to men's "spaces", be it equal pay etc, regardless of how we identify!

Toastie I haven't read past 1 on your list but I'm afraid that point seems to bare little relation to reality. How does Danelle Muscato telling women who don't think he's a woman to "suck my dick" fit into your point? How about all the threats of violence online towards women who don't believe transwomen are women? How about all the meetings and events being shut down by bullying tactics because they are not "centering transwomen"? None of these examples are people giving up their male power, are they?

And who is campaigning to remove Trans rights? Never heard of that, I thought we were just wanting to protect our own rights? Or is is that our rights are not as important, we should step aside. Why is it that you think that? Rights aren't a cake to be portioned up, there is plenty more, no one (women) needs to be subjugated in favour of someone else (Trans women).

TabascoToastie

Thankyou very much for that post. It contains loads of information that I will be able to digest and consider.

I particular liked this comment:
"We do not yet have the language or the laws to accommodate discussions about this - the only way we'll get there is through reasoned debate"

18. Experience Bias, you "know" more people, so it must be true.

I know more lesbians being bullied for their sexuality including female genitalia, rather than self determined gender, than I do people being called racist. So who is right? We both "know" people, right?