To just hand over my women's meetup group to a trans member?

[Mallorie]

I run a women-in-[industry] meetup group (it's a traditionally male-dominated industry, but don't want to get more specific than that as this is outing enough as it is). I didn't found the group but took over organisation duties when the founder (a good friend) moved abroad.

It's not closed to men - men have been speakers before, and a handful of men will usually attend to support friends/colleagues or just because the speaker or topic is interesting. However, the point of the group is to offer education and networking opportunities for women in our industry, and to encourage women in adjacent industries or in the early stages of choosing a career to consider joining our industry.

The group has grown by leaps and bounds over the last couple of years so I asked for a volunteer to help me with planning and running the meetups and specifically to help start an annual mini-conference. I see now that my mistake was asking in a public forum rather than approaching a few people personally, because a transgender woman we'll call Alex immediately and rather forcefully volunteered - basically they were like "YES I've got this! I've been waiting for this opportunity, I've got so many great ideas, when can we start?" No one else really volunteered and I didn't feel like I had any choice but to let Alex help. Alex is only recently transitioned and I have known them as a tall, big (rather obnoxious blowhard) male for a few years , Alex looks exactly the same but now wears earrings and patterned blouses. Anyway.

Alex's 'help' started with a bullet-pointed list of all the changes in language we needed to make on the group website and any/all tweets, emails, agendas, and presentations to include all 'self-identifying women and non-binary people', a list of rules for attendees and speakers about inclusive language, and a list of themes for upcoming meetups based around dealing with transgender issues in the workplace. The dates and details of the conference haven't even been discussed yet, but Alex has already written a sort of manifesto about how it's a conference for all self-identifying women and non-binary people. The actual industry education and discussions around the actual work that we do in the industry seems not just secondary now, but completely forgotten - Alex's eyes glaze over when I mention anything concrete, for example the details of an expert in a specific technology who has volunteered to speak at the next meetup.

Alex and a younger contingent of the meetup group are super excited about all of this and have taken over the conversation on social media. No one is saying anything against the new regime, and I don't feel like I can without opening a can of worms that could damage my career - something I can't afford to deal with. So I'm thinking about just handing over the reins to Alex and focusing on my own career.

It breaks my heart because I've made so many good friends in the group, and it has genuinely helped support and improve the working lives of lots of actual women, but the women who I suspect feel the same as me about this new direction are silent - probably like me, they're afraid of the repercussions of speaking out.

I wish I'd never asked for help, and that I'd pushed back with Alex from the start, but I feel like it's too late now.

[Tinycitrus]

Do you know what defined me as a woman?

The day I was kneeling stocking shelves and a male colleague stood next to me put his hands on his hips and said; “while you’re down there love...”

Or when I was pregnant with my first child and my male boss told me I could either come back full time or not at all. And if I wanted to work 9-5 work,in a bank.

I work in a very male dominated area and I look at the single woman in the senior management team and wonder what it took to get there. And I know the answer. She doesn’t have children and she has worked twice as hard as the men to prove herself.

wanting to please people. Ironing 35 shirts on a Sunday night. Steeling myself before I go into a meeting to face a group of men.

Hating myself for laughing at their ‘jokes.’ Being thought of as ‘difficult’ for asserting myself.
Trying to raise my daughters to believe they can be just as good as the boys.

Hot flushes and weight gain as menopause takes hold. ‘Disappearing’ from society as s faded older woman.

This is being a woman to me. And I’m sure you understand how irritating it is when confronted with someone who seems to think it’s about wearing makeup heels and dresses and some sort of ‘feeling’

Sorry - I’ve nothing against trans women but I’ve already accommodated so many people in my life due to my sex. The hours I have spent feeding my babies, getting them to sleep, washing, fighting through my career...honestly.

That’s womanhood. And no one gets a fucking medal. Enjoy it.

[FirstShinyRobe]

You can't just identify away your biology! Shrugging off gender expectations is magnificent and all power to your elbow, but ignoring biology is nonsensical.

OP, can you have a meeting with Alex to identify any overlapping areas of focus? Or any areas where Alex may have insight, such as how women might be held back/out of your industry by men, given Alex has been on the inside previously, as it were. Surely Alex would rather help women, rather than divert focus away from them in a group specifically set up for them.

[DickTERFin]

Alex is probably not deviously scheming to take your precious group away from you. SHE is probably just excited about getting the chance to attempt to educate people (for all the good it does concerning delightful people such as yourself, OP) about a cause that is clearly a very personal one and one she feels incredibly strongly about.

Except that it is often a hostile takeover. A group called the Red Tent have had to pull out of a conference that they have been part of for a long time because they wouldn't rewrite their literature to take out all reference to female biology, even though their main objective is to assist women with issues deeply connected to female biology. And they are not an exclusive group. They do hold events for other demographics such as transpeople and men, but this is not good enough. Female must be erased to be acceptable. "Inclusive" language is the thin edge of a very thick wedge.

[Ereshkigal]

Trans women are women.

No, they are not. Really.

[HairyBallTheorem]

Olive out of interest, what makes you non-binary, rather than just pissed off at society for constantly telling you your interests and personality should fit into a narrow range of pink or blue boxes? (Which is pretty much the experience of all of us, from the very first moment as a child when an adult says "you can't throw/play football/like blue/do maths/want to grow up to be an engineer/ etc ad infinitum, or possibly ad nauseam, or more likely both", or expresses surprise that a woman who likes football could also like dressmaking, or who does science for a living could also be a good baker, or... etc. etc. Or occasionally have days when we think "I quite fancy getting dressed up" or days where we think "I can't be arsed" or days where we think "fuck society for expecting me to wear these fucking crippling heels to a business meeting so I can 'look smart'")

[Ereshkigal]

In fact is womanhood even definable? It’s a state of being, a state of identity.

No, it isn't. Meaningless claptrap.

[starrysights]

If you can't define a certain category (any category!), then how do you know that any given object belongs to that category?

You've literally contradicted yourself, Olive. You can't say a person is a woman if you say yourself you can't define what 'woman' is.

No trans activist ever can! Funny that...

[missymayhemsmum]

You should do Alex the courtesy of treating her as a real woman, OP.

Talk over her, suggest she makes the tea and ignore her suggestions. If she demurs remind her that she put down her male privilege when she donned her pretty blouse and self defined as female. You asked for help. Help is doing the things you ask her to do. The way you ask her to do them.

[MakeMisogynyAHateCrime]

I have heard of over a dozen genuine take overs of groups like this by the trans lobby. Never once in those instances have they come into the group and listened to what the other participants had to say or asked how they could be supported. It’s immediately their turn to be supported by a group. It’s a very interesting dynamic and all the more interesting that it is repeated in the same fashion in each case I have heard of.

I’m a new member of a disability awareness group. I have been to three meetings, I have yet to tell them my disability is harder to live with, more difficult for them to understand or tried to stage a hostile takeover.
I listen, I learn and I appreciate.

[OliveBranch3]

Have fun angry ranting. What more can I say you’ll shoot anything down. If I were to say women are brilliant you’d tell me I’m actually saying women don’t suffer, if I were to say ‘stop calling me a special snowflake’ for literally any reason you’d say ‘classic snowflake behaviour, look at them clawing for all the attention they can get’.

You’re set in your ways. And I’m tired of having slurs yelled at me and being beaten up for it or being told xyz about what I believe or what I am.

For Christ’s sake this isn’t even a thread about trans issues. May someone open your hearts one day. Hopefully because you will have been treated better as women by the assholes in society, hopefully even before. But I’m out for today. Yell special snowflake at my back all you like, be as petty as you want, I’m tired of being kind and having it thrown back in my face.

[Ereshkigal]

For Christ’s sake this isn’t even a thread about trans issues.

I think it rather is, actually.

[Ereshkigal]

The problem is, Olive, that you don't actually have an argument, do you? Just bluster, sanctimony and hyperbole.

[toconclude]

WHY oh why is mumsnet SO repellently transphobic?

[FirstShinyRobe]

toconclude can you come up with any areas that might be overlapping with the group as it stands? The OP can be thinking of them in advance of her next meeting with Alex.

[Ereshkigal]

It's not transphobic. It's just not lying down to be walked all over.

[Wakeuptortoise]

Just book a series of lectures about coping with pmt and early menopause in the workplace and watch him run for the hill.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

So transwomen are women right? Exactly the same, except they had a lifetime wrestling with their identity before they realised they were women?

In which case I identify as an AFAB transwoman. Any reason I can't?

[juneau]

Transactivism is just another way for men to dominate women. I don't see lots of transmen being vocal in the way that transwomen are. And why would that be, I wonder? Oh, could it be that transwomen are men?

[DodoPatrol]

'Transwomen are the men who have suffered night and day wishing and praying that they could be “normal” feeling unbearably uncomfortable in their own skin' is, I think, the definition that the various decent transwomen on here seem to be using.

There are some truly lovely transwomen on here, Olive (well, they certainly come across that way anyway -- possibly they all go home to eat kittens), and all of them seem to be saying quite clearly that although they are male, they need to identify as transwomen for their own comfort. TransHobbit, who is female and identifies as a transman, says much the same in reverse. I half-understand what they are getting at, I respect their need, and enjoy hearing their point of view.

Plus, @PidgeonPodge has just come up with a splendiferous acronym for the Alexes of this world on another thread. Shall I give her a shout?

[PidgeonPodge]

WHY oh why is mumsnet SO repellently transphobic?

I'm a transwoman an have so far encountered absolute ZERO transphobia on mumsnet.

I have on the other hand encountered a number of different virtue vultures who scream 'transphobia' and not much else at any thread with the word 'trans' in it, who refuse to actually engage in any real debate and refuse to listen to anyone (including me, because apparently I'm too much of an old school transsexual - you know, the kind who understands reality)

[PidgeonPodge]

I'll just leave this here Dodo

Men Against Liberty and Equality

[MakeMisogynyAHateCrime]

MALE
That is terrific.

[FizzyGreenWater]

PidgeonPodge please stick around. We need more of your sort on here.

[incorruptibledream]

I used to think MN was transphobic. After months of reading I have realised it isn't, however as a whole it does come across as taking a very narrow view of trans issues. It's repetitive obsession with asking posters to define 'woman' and defy biology make many users appear terrified of trans issues.

It also seems sad that despite the positive influence MN has on protecting women's rights that a large proportion of your responses are simply to 'walk away' from the group Alex has joined. 'Feign a dying relative' even. So is that the deal? Talk talk talk but if any real world person accuses you of transphobia just dive back under the rock.

Although I support a lot of what has been said I am still glad the real world does not reflect MN women.