Contact your MP about the Gender Recongnition Act

[Babieseverywhere]

If you are concerned with the proposed changes to the law, which allow boys/men into every area, space and club currently allocated as girl/women only read on.

Otherwise close the thread.

"What can we do ?"

Write to your MP

Follow up with a visit to the same MP

Tell them that woman's rights are being elimitated in order to virtual signal to the trans population. That these new rules will make things difficult for the original transsexuals and woman. Whilst literally opening the door to female only spaces to sexual offenders.

Take copies of leaflets that they need to read.

Including the Sage leaflet mentioned below, full of all the basic facts.

The Transgendertrend web address with its alternative school based reports on supporting gender non confirming children without throwing girls under the bus.

Tell your MP that many of the original transsexuals are concerned too. Miranda Yardley being a highly recognized example in this category, who is supportive of women's rights and a Mumsnetter.

Search the Mumsnet Feminist section for other links. The damage to girls's safety in schools, woman's rape centres, woman's prisions, women's sports, women's grants, etc.

It is a never ending list of problems but they all start with the potential amendments to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) that are being debated by government over the next few months.

Tell your MP to OPPOSE the changes to the Gender Recognition Act

@archeryannie that’s a really clear explanation, thank you!

I suppose then it comes down to a fundamental disagreement re what constitutes gender, and whether sex dictates behaviour.

For example, I’m not a follower of essentialist feminism where my gender = my biology. I actually feel that’s kind of a trap. So it follows that I must also believe that whatever we mean by ‘a man’ as opposed to ‘being male’ does not simply = penis. I have known women with the right sex organs but a defect in some of their chromosomes which mean that they lack some parts of what is considered to mean ‘woman’. You wouldn’t ever know, but biologically they are not quite female. Except of course, they are a woman. I feel that to insist that we can use sex organs to predict identity and behaviour of half the population is a risky strategy!

However, if that is what you believe then I can see why this might be disquieting. I still think that placing identity in the body makes a dangerous link between biology and behaviour. So yes, men are the majority perpetrators of violence. It’s not having a penis that makes a person violent. Just as having a womb does not make me irrational or hysterical.

It’s a philosophical disagreement with real world implications. I don’t think that the approach suggested here, and the general transphobia expressed on mn, is the way forward however.

@batshite ‘I am classed as transgender now’.

Umm no, no you’re not. And I really challenge you to find examples of someone being defined by others as transgender because they don’t like pink. They might self identify. That’s different.

Haidees

I am so sorry about the schools disregard to your daughter and her friends right to safety and privacy.

I hope someone told your school that under law in the equality act, girls/women have the right separate facilities and even a person with a gender certificate can be legally excluded.

In your situation, the boy in question at your school won't even have an certificate as he is too young !

I really hope sense prevails in your case. Or maybe all the girls can get their money back from the school, at the very least.

Haidees Glad you are also going to talk to your MP. Maybe they could help you with your school situation too ? It would be worth a try !

Funny how none of you have anything to say about the trans woman who is already living in a women’s refuge and got attacked while she was using the bathroom of the gender she was assigned at birth. Just because she has a dick she deserved that did she?

Thats awful. I know a gay man who was attacked in the mens loos. Should the womens be open to him too?

Noone deserves to be attacked, whether they have a dick or not. But it is a fact that most violence, and nearly all sexual violence, is committed by people with dicks. I genuinely do not see how letting people with dicks into areas for people with vaginas, helps anyone. Even the original transperson who was attacked..given the same men who attacked her would be able to follow her into the womens and attack her there?

Solution is clearly to make the mens safer. Not to move the problem into both.

Umm no, no you’re not. And I really challenge you to find examples of someone being defined by others as transgender because they don’t like pink. They might self identify. That’s different.

I am indeed classed as transgender. As I do not have a 'gender identity' at all, which makes me a-gender (or gender-queer), which is trans.

“When trans people identify as women they encounter a huge amount of hostility and aggression--as is evidenced by this, and other Mumsnet threads. Yes, there might be a few who are doing so in order to gain access to women which they otherwise wouldn't have. But the majority are not. The majority are genuine trans women, and the cost to them is high.

This is about a minority bullying folk to bend to their every whim. They have found a voice and support and demand that everyone falls in line with their demands. As most are men - Women are taking the brunt of it. The input from transactivists in this twitter thread on women’s experience of sexual assault shows how little regard they have for women and their experiences.

mobile.twitter.com/JenAshleyWright/status/928740631035437057

Does anyone have a list of the trans suicides in this country? Because it certainly isn’t 41%.

I have tried to find actual trans suicide stats in the UK. With no success.

In any event, I don’t see how suicide statistics can be used as an argument.

However many there are, and of course even one is appalling, how can that be used as any kind of argument to create a law that will negatively affect 30 million people?

This forum is rife with nasty transphobia dressed up as faux feminism/women's rights. If people treated people from an ethnic minority or gay people with the same bile reserved for trans individuals there'd be uproar. If you're reading this and you're trans and affected by this bigoted shite, I support you and stand with you. As a cis woman (google it before anyone starts with the pretend bemusement and 'what is cis!?') I fully support your right to use the bathroom and changing room aligned with your identity and would much rather pee next to you than any of the nasty bigots on this thread. It's vile how it's dressed up as 'protecting women'. Utterly vile. I can see why people flounce from this site when posts like this are made. You should be ashamed.

“because women are just constantly told to shut up and stop being hysterical and overreacting.”

I really can’t believe why you would think that.

As a woman who is trans not cis I want born males out of born females single sex spaces.

Wear what the hell you like, call yourself anything you like that's fine but it doesn't change biology.

As a cis woman (google it before anyone starts with the pretend bemusement and 'what is cis!?') I fully support your right to use the bathroom and changing room aligned with your identity and would much rather pee next to you than any of the nasty bigots on this thread.

Do you agree that sex segregation is needed in certain areas of life?

If not fair enough

If you do think sex segregation is needed, then how do we segregate, if not on sex?

LemonShark have you ever actually read any of those threads?

I suspect not as you're missing something - the objection to the Gender Recognition Act is a rejection of the ideology of transactivists (who are not all trans themselves) - not of transfolk.

It's a rejection of the way this debate is shut down - you're doing it yourself, you're calling people bigots instead of trying to understand what the issues are.

In fact there are some transgender people who are also against this propsed law - see Miranda Yardley for example.

I started off very much supportive of trans rights, as I hadn't thought about it in much detail. Because I'm not a bigot and support the rights of people to live as they chose if it's not harming others.

I changed my mind on supporting the current ideology behind trans rights after readin gthreads here. The supposed "bigots" have well reasoned arguments, they have good points. I'm yet to see one person supporting the TRAs give any argument other than "you're all bigots" without actually justifying it in any way.

The way this bill is being brought in, is not about letting trans people live in peace without harming others. The way the bill is being brought in will harm women and girls. If you don't understand how, please ask instead of throwing insults.

reetgood

@batshite ‘I am classed as transgender now’.

Umm no, no you’re not. And I really challenge you to find examples of someone being defined by others as transgender because they don’t like pink. They might self identify. That’s different.

But reetgood, can’t you see how that argument collapses instantly?

If there is no subjective criteria to being transgender, it actually relies on something that is unidentifiable, unverifiable and, of course, not everyone will have it. By which I mean not everyone will have a gender identity. Whether Trans or something else.

So how on earth can it be innate or constitute any kind of material reality?

Most people don’t have it. Some people have it but it changes. Some people have it and claim it’s innate and immutable.

It clearly isn’t.

And why, would we suddenly change the criteria of using biological sex to make a distinction between two sets of humans, and switch to something that is unmeasurable, unidentifiable, unverifiable, not everyone has it, and those that do can change it whenever they like!

98% of sex offenders are men and their victims are overwhelmingly female. A new law is proposing to allow any man who demands it unfettered access to intimate female only spaces and in 2017 this is progressive and any woman who raises concerns about this is a nasty bigot. People are campaigning for the right of a man who dresses up as sexuslised version of a 15 year old girl and his mate who calls little girls deviants to be allowed to access changing rooms used predominantly by teenage girls and in 2017 this is progressive and anyone who raises concerns is a transphobe. Fucking hell.

booboo someone may have pointed this out but the problem for transwomen being beaten up is because the men who do the beating up are not convicted.
Do you think that in cases of domestic abuse the women should be moved out, the men let off?
That is not the answer.

Lemon, please look through my post upthread at 12:01 as to why the trans agenda is different from other valid civil rights agendas like race and disability rights. Fair enough for trans people to identify as a group in their own right and campaign for rights on that basis... I fully support that. When you have one privileged group (natal males) identifying into a disadvantaged group (women), that impinges on the small crumbs of rights and adjustments that group has.

For example STEM scholarships with the aim of balancing up representation of women in science careers, being given to "anyone who identifies as a woman". Makes a real mockery of why women are disadvantaged in the first place. It is perceptions of ability based on biology, not any propensity towards pink dresses, sparkly cupcakes and glittery eyeliner.

And please do not call women on this board "cis". It is a made up term appropriated from isomeric chemistry and applied to sociological concepts. I do not identify as the feminine gender. I am a full human being who happens to have a female reproductive system. I am not cis. Cis affirms social gender and gender expectations, which keep women subjugated. I reject gender expectations, so cis is meaningless.

You should be ashamed

I'm not even vaguely ashamed of wanting to protect women's safety. And I'm bemused as to why anyone would think that dignity and safety for women is something that I should be ashamed of.

LemonShark - read the thread PROPERLY before spouting off about transphobia. We all know what assume does...

If any of you are emailing your MP, why not include a link to one of the discussion threads on here, make it easy for them to read up on the issue. So many people on here put forward rational and compelling arguments against the proposed bill that you never know, some might just actually be swayed.

I doubt you’ll be seeing lemonshark again. But if you do, it will be to accuse you of transphobia they won’t be able to provide an example of.

If they are still engaged, their final argument will be that you’re just being mean.

Lemonshark, did you read OrderMeACurry's post on page 2?

I've written several times to Mike Kane Labour MP and my mum has written several times to Graham Brady Tory MP. Mike did respond at first with some party line blah which I have seen elsewhere and did not respond to any of my specific points. I wrote pointing this out and there has been silence. Graham Brady just hasn't bothered to reply to my mum at all.

We both emailed several times and wrote paper letters as well.

I'm not even vaguely ashamed of wanting to protect women's safety. And I'm bemused as to why anyone would think that dignity and safety for women is something that I should be ashamed of.

Me neither. I don't know why people bother to come out with this crap. If I didn't feel it was entirely right to challenge this, I wouldn't be doing it.