To wonder if I’m just old and possibly on the wrong side of history

[bambambini]

I do wonder if we are possibly seeing the start of a huge shift in society and how people are generally perceived. Many of our young seem to want the future to be different from what we've always had - man/woman, male/female - the binary i guess.

Maybe the future will be where everyone is non binary, where all divisions as we inderstand them are broken down. So you won’t be able to tell for sure what sex anyone is, what body parts they have etc.

I’m critical of the current identity politics debate but that doesn’t mean to say I’m right. Maybe I’m struggling with getting my head around it and accepting it because I’m much older and grew up in different times.

We’ve already seen a huge change in social norms with women getting the vote, the break down of racial segregation, legalisation of homosexuality etc. Maybe identity politics is the natural progression.

That's exactly the response I got on the MN feminist board when they couldn't form a reasoned argument for their bigotry

But you're the poster who hasn't posted a reasoned argument

You’re the one who can’t form a reasoned argument, love.

if you don't define 'woman' as 'adult human female', what is your definition of 'woman'? To succeed, it must be non-circular and not rely on gender stereotypes.

Oddly enough, I got to write a definition of 'woman' once, there was a bit of guff but the bare bones of it was someone who felt themselves to be a woman and lived full time as a woman.

No men turned up but we had great trouble getting the photocopier fixed.

D'ya know I wish I had the luxury of getting bored, I really do. If the law changes then women lose the rights their grandmothers won for them. Women and girls matter, their rights to privacy and dignity matter.

But you're the poster who hasn't posted a reasoned argument

Then why is your cabal feeling so threatened that they have to misgender me?

we had great trouble getting the photocopier fixed.

Should have looked in the manual...i always found that helped when fixing the photocopier

Its quite often a paper jam

Did you check the tray?

Or is that another lie? Like the 'i had a shower' and 'there is nothing but trans threads on the feminist chat board'

Why did you have trouble getting the photocopier fixed?

Oh Silently, are you really a lesbian?

D'ya know I wish I had the luxury of getting bored, I really do. If the law changes then women lose the rights their grandmothers won for them. Women and girls matter, their rights to privacy and dignity matter.

Hoe does someone else being called a woman compromise your dignity?

If it's transphobic to suggest that mental illness is connected to being transgender, then of course the clinics will be closed. This has been campaigned for - the removal of gender identity disorder from iCD and that the only clinical care offered is hormonal then surgical. Which is 'affirmative' not 'corrective'

Happy to dig out refs for you in the morning

Silently - as Pps have said it's not just about transwomen. I have no problem with transgender people, and am happy for them to whatever is necessary to stay safe, happy and free from discrimination or harassment.
The point about refuges, prisons, sports etc is that cis males can now enter those spaces, simply by declaring themselves women - and we are already seeing it happen.
Former cis-male rapists or murderers are now trans-women, so get transferred to women's prisons. An athlete who had lived their whole life as a male quite happily until age started to affect their performance becomes a trans-woman, and is suddenly back to winning silver medals due to their natural advantages.
And hypothetically - a woman escapes a violent abusive relationship with a cis-male and accesses a safe space. Ex partner declares them self a trans-woman and can now gain access - why wouldnt they? What could stop them?

FWIW I do think some of the arguments used (although not in this thread) lean on transphobia, and it bothers me. But it would be completely disingenuous to pretend there isn't a valid reason for the concerns being aired.

silently, I haven't RTFT but I don't know if you have had it pointed out to you:

Those murder stats come from South Africa where there is a high murder rate for everybody, and also sadly a very high murder rate for transwomen owing mainly to a thriving prostitution industry of transwomen which is associated with cultural prejudices against gay men and stigma surrounding male/male sex.

But what transactivists have done is taken those figures and extrapolated them (falsely) to the entire world creating wildly inaccurate figures which are easily debunked. It's deliberate misinformation.

How do you define "feeling themselves to be a woman" and "living full time as a woman"?

How do you define lesbian silently?

Oh Silently, are you really a lesbian?

Gosh, sexuality stereotypes along with gender ones.

To answer honestly, I think so but I've been married a long time, so I don't get as many opportunities to check as I did.

That's exactly the response I got on the MN feminist board

Glad to see I'm not the only one who has seen through your nonsense.

did the photocopier not work because it didn’t self identify as a woman and therefore felt excluded?

In all seriousness, I really do think any sort of resistance is futile. I don’t personally think trans people have it in for women but some of their aims are congruent with those of some other v dodgy misogynistic groups and thus likely to be exploited for that very reason

I don't think it has anything to with age, my dad was almost 80 when he died, never having had a racist, homophobic or transphobic thought in his life but most people are conservative and a small proportion of people need another group to hate. The former will get used to the world changing, the latter will move on to another minority while amusingly denying that they ever hated those they hate now.

But i’ve always been pretty tolerant, left leaning type - not anti race or anti gay and was very supportive of trans rights till fairly recenty. So why do i have a problem with the current extreme trans activists who want to break all the current norms in regards to sex and sexuality accepted by society.

Anyway, this thread is more about what society in the future will look like and i doubt there will be much room or acceptance of old school transfolk/transexuals.

So, Silently, take some really simple things.

Are you happy for women's officer positions to be taken up by men?
Are you happy for women's sporting events to be won by men?
Are you happy for elderly vulnerable women who have asked for female carers to be forced to accept care from men?
Are you happy for women's rape support groups to have to include men?
Are you happy for "lesbian of the year awards" to go to men?
Are you happy for crime statistics to include men in with their "women's" figures?
Are you happy for men to take up scholarships and board spaces currently held for women?

By "men" I obviously mean male-bodied people who have simply declared they are women.

Because that is what is happening at the moment, and any woman objecting is called a TERF.

Are you happy about that?

Silently, you wrote: "I find it difficult to imagine a parent who would encourage their child to be trans, I'm not saying it couldn't happen but it would be vanishingly rare, the chances of that rare parent being coupled up with a group of incompetent medical professionals (it takes a team to diagnose) makes me fairly sure that very few, if any mistakes would happen."

Have you done any research on the rates of regret in transitioning? I've read they're quite high. I quickly Googled (as you could have done to back up your "fairly sure" stance) and the first thing I found was this:

www.newsweek.com/transgender-women-transgender-men-sex-change-sex-reassignment-surgery-676777

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gender-reversal-surgery-demand-rise-assignment-men-women-trans-a7980416.html

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/feb/03/experience-i-regret-transitioning

There is a very good reason why it's not allowed before puberty.

How do you define "feeling themselves to be a woman....

I didn't, I didn't have to, I wrote and published a policy and didn't have any problems. Men would occasionally turn up but they would be fairly obvious and asked to leave. One trans woman turned up, she seemed perfectly nice and fitted in fine but she didn't come back, she probably found something more exciting to do.

Silently, lesbians are female homosexuals. Facts are neutral, neither good, nor bad, they just are. Women are adult human females, lesbians are women who fancy their own sex.

Hoe does someone else being called a woman compromise your dignity Of all the crimes committed women cause very few so they deserve to retain their safe areas. Religious women who cannot undress in front of males deserve to retain this right, Young girls competing in sport deserve to compete with their own sex.

Why would you take away the rights of women and girls? Look at #MeToo,, please.

There is a fundamental contradiction between the view that we are all non-binary versus the trans ideology that liking things associated with the other sex means you actually are the other sex and 'born in the wrong body' (eg girl who rejects feminine clothes/toys literally is a boy). They can't both be right.

I am much more in sympathy with the non-binary view. Sex IS binary but gender is bollocks anyway and the 'everyone is non-binary' view is a good way of challenging gender stereotypes. I really hope that there is growing acceptance of that idea and a move away from the frankly appalling and homophobic belief that non-gender conforming children should be put on lifelong medication, sterilised and castrated.

no one on the feminist board has any experience of real demonstration or political discord

Really? You're fully aware of the lived experience of each and every poster are you?

Just as with your insistence that frequently addressed topics actually receive no attention on the Feminist board, I'm afraid that's any credibility you might have had gone straight out of the window

A shame, really, as I was hoping to learn something from your posts, but sadly that's not possible when even reality is turned on its head at will

Funnily enough I have never "felt like a woman" I'm just me and also a woman.. How does one live "as a full time woman"
Do you really think being a man or a woman is a feeling in someone's head silently ?

Not everyone feels the same granny. Which was exactly my point when someone stated that something was unanimous, it wasn't unanimous as I didn't feel the same.