To be sick and tired of women's concerns being silenced?

[MerchantofVenice]

Obviously I wouldn't dream of doing a TAAT.

But is anyone else as furious as I am that every time people try to raise legitimate concerns about the legislation about self-identity and transgender people, the whole discussion is shut down?

There's this undertone of 'Oh, you can't say that!!!' when people state scientific facts.

And at the same time, there's this myth that 'MN is one of the only places you can actually discuss the transgender debate openly.' Like fuck it is.

Your average person on the street isn't intimately acquainted with the madness of the debate and will have no qualms about stating facts. You see it on the comments after those nonsense news articles ("Man gives birth"). When you explain the situation to novices (as I did to my husband) they are gobsmacked. They had no idea that it was somehow a hate crime to be literate in biology.

And that's part of the problem; this hushing up colludes with the idea that people are saying something controversial. The debate stays secret and the tide of common sense never comes.

So sick of it.

I was looking at a thread the other day

And that was deleted with no explanation given

And it seemed relatively tame by these sort of threads standards

Wouldve been nice to know why

First bra thread deleted at the request of OP as it contained the area she lived.

Second thread for TAAT.

Third thread fot TAAT ( 1 poster mentioned the deleted thread out of 25 posts and poof gone)

Fourth thread TAAT.

Thanks cosmic

I didnt get the deletion message

There was a 2nd, 3rd and 4th????

Really? Technically a boy who is a day past his 16th birthday who has sex with his girlfriend who is three days younger is a sex offender

Without coercion or exploitation, they are never going to be sent to prison for it. And if there were those things, they are a sex offender.

ceto Unless you know precisely what the offences concerned are, you really cannot generalise like that.
Well I can say that sex offenders as a group will go to extraordinary lengths to gain access to victims, I have worked with them in a professional capacity, in prisons and the community and I have seen what they can and will do. I don't think any professional in that setting would disagree. Prisons are massively underfunded at the moment and dealing with these issues with best practice is nigh on impossible. The women in the women's estate would be very unsafe if these male sex offenders gain access, the women in prison are often very vulnerable.

It would still technically be an offence wouldn't it? Maybe they would decide it is 'not in the public interests' to take the matter further, but still technically a sexual offence and illegal in principle?

And utterly irrelevant therefore to the case of these 11 sex offenders IN PRISON.

Have a little think, Ceto and JAPAB, about why you're equivocating about sexual violence to make an argument why it isn't a big deal that 11 sex offenders want to become women, coincidentally at the time when they're likely to be able to apply to be moved to a women's prison? I know it's all jolly fun baiting feminists, but go on. Explore those thoughts.

Rufus - it was deleted because the OP asked for it to be. It is apparently allowed to be discussed as a subject as long as it isn't a TAAT.

I am genuinely horrified that 11 men from a sex offenders wing are seeking GR. I seem to remember this was a massive concern of the British Association of Gender Specialists too (or similar - professional body anyway).

However you spin it, it isn't good. Either they're making it up, which is terrifying; or they really are transwomen, which absolutely kills the 'oh transwomen mean women no harm whatsoever' argument.

I'd be interested in dolce and cat's perspectives on that fact. Or have they run away in the usual tiresome way since Curry turned up?

Thank you jiggly

It would seem there has been a retreat Jiggly, yes.

Bit behind the thread there! I will see if I can find the ref which was in response to the private members bill

Oh, I have found the quote (it's from the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists):
"... the ever-increasing tide of referrals of patients in prison serving long or indeterminate sentences for serious sexual offences. These vastly outnumber the number of prisoners incarcerated for more ordinary, non-sexual, offences. It has been rather naïvely suggested that nobody would seek to pretend transsexual status in prison if this were not actually the case. There are, to those of us who actually interview the prisoners, in fact very many reasons why people might pretend this. These vary from the opportunity to have trips out of prison through to a desire for a transfer to the female estate (to the same prison as a co-defendant) through to the idea that a parole board will perceive somebody who is female as being less dangerous through to a [false] belief that hormone treatment will actually render one less dangerous through to wanting a special or protected status within the prison system and even (in one very well evidenced case that a highly concerned Prison Governor brought particularly to my attention) a plethora of prison intelligence information suggesting that the driving force was a desire to make subsequent sexual offending very much easier, females being generally perceived as low risk in this regard. I am sure that the Governor concerned would be happy to talk about this."

• my bolding

Here's the link for anyone who thinks I'm just a horrid TERF making things up: data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/transgender-equality/written/19532.pdf

That is a very interesting link, Jiggly, ya big mean TERF.

No risk at all to women: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rapist-jessica-winfield-martin-ponting-transgender-transition-womens-prison-moved-hmp-bronzefield-a7640706.html

I know you are not making things up jiggly it is very concerning.

The committee completely ignored that evidence. I found that incredibly dismissive. Such an agenda.

The parliamentary committee responded to objections, by saying and I quote 'they had come from women purporting to be feminists'.

All those pesky male prison officials, must be feminists to a man?

I know Ereshkigal. I wonder if it would be worth sending it to MPs again now?

I have no idea how anyone can approve such moves
Or how anyone can believe that stating you are a woman means it is so
It's barking
It saddens me that it will not be legal for groups of bio women to meet
I heard an interesting talk on radio 4 by a professional who worked with trans women. They stated that bar one they all acted just like men. I see this all the time. TW are heading up feminist groups. Can you imagine the outcry if a woman got a post heading up a TW group?
TW are only women when it suits

Good idea. It has weight.

They are deliberately getting into every slightly womany Facebook group (including sewing groups, baby groups etc) in my experience, for validation I guess but then they proceed to create a lot of drama and constantly kick off about transphobia. It's been very effective in silencing women.

TW are only women when it suits

YY. And if they were actually women, they wouldn't be indulged so much or get given everything they demand.

Wow at that quote Jiggly thanks for sharing.

I find it astounding that the legal status of marriage and who enters into it (opposite sex or same sex does not matter, still a marriage) is being compared to transwomen and natal females all being women. They are not comparable. Marriage is not a born biological state, it is a legal and social institution. It is an erroneous comparison.

I am wondering if the comparison would be more like a marriage and a sham marriage, where the people who have agreed to marry as a formality and don't actually know each other are standing in court and saying their marriage is as valid as any other.

But even then, the issue at stake is not the meaning of marriage - sham marriages are prosecuted usually for immigration or fraud reasons, not because they erode the meaning of marriage.

So the comparison trivialises the issues women face here.