To ask for someone to actually explain how trans women are women???

[Lilyyulelog]

I genuinely would love a satisfactory explanation, one which gets to the point. Since becoming aware of the 'trans debate' I've yet to see one that makes any sense at all.

Or is it just that whether or not they are isn't actually the real issue? But surely it is...

You are a woman, not only that but the kind of woman I'd enjoy spending an hour with over a cup of coffee. Sometimes I'm ashamed and this is one of them

Feeling ashamed is a bit over the top isn't it Blue? Surely it's not that uncomfortable to see women speak honestly!

You are sounding quite hysterical. Did you thank anybody else for contributing to this thread, or just Amy?

Thank you for posting Liz.

Of course. Lesbian people just happened to pop into your head when a question was asked about female people sharing rooms with male ones. Just totally random. Not lesbophobic and equating a lesbian with a male at all.

As I have explained, people not wanting their children to share a room with my daughter popped into my head. Did you read the part where my I said my daughter is a lesbian? She certainly doesn't think I am "lesbophobic" and neither does her girlfriend or gay friends. I think they might know a bit better than you. Think what you like though - I somehow doubt that I would care about your opinion if I knew you in RL and I certainly don't care when you are a stranger on the internet.

Amy, I was going to advise you to bow out of this thread, as you'll be damned if you and damned if you don't

I think our regular trans posters would disagree with that tbh. The likes of @PidgeonPodge @OrderMeACurry and @TransHobbit . There are a fair few more but their names do not come to mind.. harv with some numbers IIRC, along with parents of transkids. All of whom do not seem to feel that way at all. Most of whom actually post regularly in the feminism section..you mnow that part of MN thats apparently really transphobic?

Yes there have been disagreements and differences in opinion on various issues, as there would be with any members, but I don't think they have ever felt the way you seem to think trans posters would be treat? I may be wrong, but I would imagine they would have posted something about their discomfort at some stage, had they felt victimized or as if anything they posted would be wrong.

I believe we also have the excellent @MirandaYardley on here too. Who puts up with scathing attacks day in day out as a transsexual person who disagrees with self-ID and such. Attacked regularly by transactivists, not by feminists. These transactivists claim to be fighting for people like Miranda, except, transsexual people can see how this whole thing is detrrimental to womens rights too, along with how it is negatively affecting their own lives, and will not benefit them in the slightest.

mirandayardley.com/en/what-autogynephilia-is-and-what-is-it-not-a-brief-note/

Mirandas blog. Detailing the problems with trans ideology. From a transsexual persons POV. Very interesting is anyone is new to the topic. And for those not new to the topic too, tbh

Maybe I am wrong..I can accept that. Just, on near every thread about this kind of thing there is someone popping along to say 'but what about lesbians' and equating them with men, basically. 'If you wouldn't be happy with a pre-op transwoman in your changing room, what about if there was a lesbian there' and such Its almost a given that this will happen. Same as when discussing male people committing near all sexual assault, there is always someone coming along to say that lesbians are a huge danger to women too.

If I read you wrong I do apologize. Not that you will care about an apology anyway..but still. Its just really tedious that it happens constantly, and as someone with a lesbian sister it does really get to me when people do that. Maybe that was a knee jerk reaction.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3146166-Transactivism-and-the-lesbian-community

A thread about the rampant lesbophobia in the transmovement also.

Might go someway to explaining why people do not react well at all when it seems others are trying to say lesbians are just like men. Especially on trans threads. What lesbians are going through with all of this is heartbreaking, truly.

@amycollins if you're still following this -

You write very eloquently about what's wrong with the current proposals to change the GRA. Have you responded to the Scottish consultation? It closes this Thursday. Have you written to your MP? Are you getting together with other trans people opposed to the changes to organise and campaign?

We seem to be getting a lot of trans posters coming to MN to tell us they personally disagree with the proposals and to ask that we not lump all trans people in together. I can't see much action though. Are you expecting women to do it all for you?

I keep reading 'we just want a quiet life'. Well yeah, so do women.

It's time for trans people opposed to self-ID to start organising and opposing it. As super-oppressed as you believe yourselves to be, your voices carry so much more weight than ours in this debate.

There is a lot that I disagree with in your posts but you seem up for respectful debate so I hope you come back. Debate seems a bit of a luxury we can't afford right now though, we need to stop the self-ID juggernaut and then allow time and space for the debate to happen.

Excellent post Pencils

Earlier on in the thread someone suggested that sex-based exemptions were not under threat. This is not true.

Both self-ID and removal of sex-based exemptions are proposed (publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmwomeq/390/390.pdf#page81 - bottom of pg 81):

22. We recommend that the Equality Act be amended so that the occupational requirements provision and / or the single-sex / separate services provision shall not apply in relation to discrimination against a person whose acquired gender has been recognised under the Gender Recognition Act 2004. (Paragraph 132)

See also sports in paragraph proposing similar.

I'm a newbie here - apologies if I've posted this in the wrong place.
I read in one of the dailies that trans folk were causing a stir here on Mumsnet – and I thought I’d better see what this is all about. I’ve not been here before so I come here without any baggage. I’m not a trans activist on the barricades with a loudhailer, I don’t go on “Pride” demos and the last thing I want to do is to upset women by “invading” their spaces. I don’t believe in “typical” transwomen – I think we’re all as different from each other as real women are from each other. What I can tell you is what I’m like – how I come to find myself in the grip of the compulsion that must remain unspoken.
Firstly some biographical details: I’m a heterosexual married man (retired) with a wife whom I love dearly. I’m over 6ft tall and well built. I doubt that anyone has ever looked at me and thought he looks a bit “light on his loafers”. So far, so good. My problem is that as far back as I can remember I’ve always wished I was a girl.
One of my first memories was playing with my best friend, a girl who lived a few doors away from me. I would have been around 4 years old. Then at Junior school, when I'd've been about 7 yrs old. I was in a mixed class and after lunch, we all had to line up outside the classroom to wait for our teacher to let us in. I remember hearing the sound of her shoes as she approached and as she walked past, I can still see her swirling mid calf pleated skirt.. as I wished with all my 7 year old heart that I was her..
Where did that come from? At 7, I wasn't 'sexualised'.. so there wasn't a sexual dimension to my wish. I was sexually innocent.
I also remember that after mid-morning playtime, we had to line up outside to return to the classroom – with the boys in one line, and the girls in another. Even at that tender age, I always wished I was in the other line.
Those memories have stayed with me all my life.
How have I dealt with it? It's not easy.. I told my 'ex' about my enduring feelings of femininity - and it destroyed the marriage. She couldn't cope with it at all - and why should she have been able to? She married a man. I didn't have the self-knowledge I have now.. and I honestly (mistakenly) thought that with marriage that these feelings would go away.
I'm afraid that my view of all this is that I've been dealt an impossible hand to play.
I re-married (the love of my life) and I was determined to try and keep it to myself. It took me years to understand it and even longer to accept it. My view is that I think it's very hard for a wife to accept and allow it to be part of the marriage – and in any case, I’m not sure I’d want that. Ask any man how he'd feel if his wife/girlfriend suddenly confessed that she wanted to wear Y fronts, take hormones and live as a male.
I disposed of all my female wardrobe about 10 years ago and it’s the only way I’ve found that enables me to control my longing to express my femininity.
Yes, there are supposedly women out ‘there’ who are accepting - but I think they’re very much in the minority. I think my gender identity issues could call into question a woman's own feelings of femininity - and I could imagine that the first question a woman would ask herself would be - "Is it me? Am I to blame".
The subject is too complex to discuss here in a few lines - and I would recommend to those going through hell to ask themselves what is really the most important thing in their lives. Once you know what that is, you can start rebuilding. For me, my wife is the best thing that ever happened to me. There are those here that will say - yes, but you're living a lie. OK, perhaps I am - but isn’t that better than the alternative?
Yes, I could clear my conscience by telling her – but what would that achieve? It would simply be me transferring my problem to her. There‘s no easy answer to this. Yes, I know that surgery is available but the raw material must be present. Silk purses and sows ears spring to mind. Also surgery isn’t an end in itself – it should be the means to an end. What would be the point of going through all that to end up looking like a bloke who’s had the surgery? If I was ever to go down that road (which I’m not). I’d only consider it if I thought I could pass successfully as a woman and re-integrate myself back in society – which I don’t think I could. In any event, my wife comes first. I don’t believe that surgery can make a man into a woman. Maybe it eases the mind of the transwoman – I can imagine that it’s better to be an imperfect woman (or something resembling a woman) than an imperfect man.
I once had a lady friend (platonic) who knew about me and it’s difficult to describe the sheer relief of being able to talk ‘woman-to-woman’. Interactions in the male world are so different.

We're all different - there's no single 'one size fits all' solution. No day passes without me dreaming.. but for me, retaining my wife’s love is the most important thing in my life – by a mile.

Sorry for such a long post..

Following this with interest, while i dont worry about being attacked in the lafies, it does raise questionsre young girls, more to me when atransgender woman joined our womens group re learning to deal with difficult relationships, although superficially female she had not had the same growing up experience as us, we made her welcome but she could not identify with the difficulties we discussed and shared, often about partners orfriends behaviours and how to emotionally detatch from being affected, and make changes to out lives related to how we i teracted with partners and friends. Eventually she drifted away, Womens socialisation all their lives to be more muted and put things kindly, not make waves etc affected Us all, the trans lady seemed unaware if a lot if the emotional nuance attached to being female and how it has held us back, others teansitioning i know seem equally unaware of this the main aspect of female inner life

My transitioning friend a married man in his 60 s expresses similar views as the previous post about clothing and wanting to dress differently, in more womanly clothes, admires shoes and coats etc, not tarty ones, more marks and spencers style, no reason jot to wear these if he likes, but in order to feel comfortable doung so he is risking his lfe with very invasive and dangerous to him a heart condition sufferer
Cosmetic changes, and the operations all funded by the NHS , He seens to have little gradp on the psychology side of things though, saying, a woman is gentle and would never commit murder, i am like that, therefore i myst really be a woman, and similar syllogisms. he was a confident person jst retired from top of his career, used to commanding women at work, now reduced to tears and self pity as his wife finds all tjis us not what she signed up for when marrying him and having children, and has split the house and bevome depressed and anxioys herself

I remember as a child wanting to be. Tomboy and have the best of both worlds, i did, wearing shorts or trousers withboy scout stylebelts with penknives on etc to climb trees andsail our noat by myself etc, then skirts and beads and scarves to play my tambourine and be a gypsy danser.. etc, this range does not seem socially sanctioned for boys, and if not gay must difficult to find roles to model themselves on, physically modifying to look like women is a hard path, and thinking us still different from mist womens thinking and emotions even then, asafer solution would be for society to drop its prehistoric notions if gender stereotyping and accept men in skirts who love things like embroidery without macho ridicule, after all its not as if chauvinst macho men often do dangerous thngs these days, many are in offices, hospitals etc , driving, or working eg in shops and factories, same as women