...or is there a lot of internalised misogyny on MN today?

[wheresmymojo]

I feel like I've stepped into a parallel universe this evening where MN has been taken over by MRAs...

• Serena, the brand new mother, looks shit in her wedding dress

• Women are shit at holding discussions

• If as a woman you have any concerns at all about people with fully in fact penises accessing women's spaces just because they said 10 seconds before they are a woman you must be transphobic

There are more going on this evening...but seriously?

Am I being oversensitive or is it a bit woman hatey on here today?

You see, I don't understand why I have to say "Yes, I believe that "saying makes it so" --anyone who thinks they are a woman is one" before we can have the discussion and find ways to live together. I don't actually think that. But I know a lot of other people do think that, and we have to discuss all sorts of issues it brings up so that life can work. I am not going to misgender or abuse anyone. But I do want to know what it means for sport, for example. And what it means for lesbian women. And whether just self declaring means that a person is automatically entitled to any provisions made to address under representation of women in particular areas. And what it means for crime statistics, And DBS checks. And health provision. To name but a few.

Nobody can force me to believe that a person with a fully functioning male body is actually a woman. But I can accept that i will have to live with the fact that others do. So how do we go about making that possible?

'This idea that women ought to automatically agree with other women is wrong'.
Yes, I agree. I've never said otherwise.

""BertrandRussell - apologies. I was mistaking you for someone else I'd quoted earlier. So you don't think there's a link between trans people and mental illness?"

I don't know. I don't believe in men's brains and women's brains, and I do believe we live in an absurdly gendered society. I don't know why some gender non conforming people decide that they belong to the opposite gender, rather than just remaining non conforming members of the sex they were born into. I am deeply concerned about the idea of transing children, and I do have concerns about the vested interests behind all this. But what I think really doesn't matter while we consider practical issues.