To think Mumsnet is OBSESSED

[AccidentalKylie]

I used to read Mumsnet because it was a lot of clever, funny women talking about stuff I was interested in, but it's become a one issue forum. It's exhausting.

*I think most women can envisage the possibility that some men might id as women to get into a female changing room, etc. This may happen - accepted. However, as I said on a thread yesterday, the type of man who would do that is a risk anyway, regardless of what he identifies as. Self-id and hanging out in women's spaces will make him very conspicuous and easier to identify.

There will not be a sudden exodus of men into women's spaces. Why would there be? There are enough opportunities elsewhere that allow predators to harass women under the radar. No paedophile or rapist wants to draw attention to himself by acting out if the ordinary.*

You may very well be right, and I suspect your appraisal will prove to be accurate in the fullness of time, but I also believe someone will abuse the opportunity, and isn't one abuse too many?
There is also the profound issue of fundamental rights for women too, regardless of what may or may not ensue. To redefine your sex, seemingly at will, is arguably the first footsteps of abandoning the notion of sex completely, whilst real women still have to deal with the reality of physically stronger, and partly natural male patterns of aggression that are all too often manifested in violence. Identifying as a woman doesn't remove those traits, especially when it's a purely an abstract declaration of being female.

A wolf may want to be a sheep. It may be a less aggressive wolf than most, even a passive one. It may even pass for a convincing sheep. But would any sheep feel safe knowing that? How can they know anything other than there could be wolf of any temperament amongst them?

I stopped dating a bloke at uni because he wore loafers with no socks and short sleeved shirts. Fucking despicable ginglymus-phobe.

As the mother of a trans adult child, I find most threads bigoted and closed minded. My child is not a rapist.

Nobody can tell anyone they "must" consider dating anyone Do you have sex with someone because your social circle or "social pressure" tell you to? What madness is that! I wouldn't want to have sex with probably 95% of men. If someone told me to "widen your dating pool - manphobe!" I would laugh and tell them to do one - as would anyone else! It's nobody's business who anyone else is attracted to, or not. There is no way, at any age, I would date someone I wasn't attracted to - why would I do that? Why would anyone? The law can't legislate for physical attraction and never will.

Nosquirrels - I tried to ask about that a few weeks after the Spartacus threads (which ran into 1000s of posts) and there was a petition a few weeks later about gender. Hardly any posters signed and I think the whole petition had less than 1000 votes. I asked what we could actually do practically and no ideas were forthcoming because it was all so very complicated and secret.

For too long numerous MNetters have gone round and round about biology and facts and what it means to be a woman and this person can never be a woman and 'feeling like a woman' or 'living as a woman 'is meaningless etc.

It's years too late. The GRA has been in force since 2004 so any person identifying as a different gender, over 18, with a diagnosis of GD and living as their preferred gender for 2 years and intending to do so for the rest of their lives can apply for a GRC and be issued with a new birth certificate, passport etc. No hormones or surgery required.

There are lots of reasons why people may not be approved for elective surgery even if they want it; BMI, hypertension etc so not just as simple as what is often suggested, trans people not being invested enough to have invasive and complicated surgery.

So we have already had for many years transwomen often with male genitalia being legally recognised as women. Legally counted as women, their medical records reflect that, employers have to treat them as their preferred gender. It doesn't matter at all in terms of that whether some people deem them women or not.

That ship has sailed......

Supposedly what a lot of MNetters are opposed to is self - ID. Which I oppose. But a lot of threads on MN go beyond opposing self ID and seem to oppose the very idea of being transgender. Which I don't agree with. And it's years too late. And many people see that as transphobic.

As the mother of a trans adult child, I find most threads bigoted and closed minded. My child is not a rapist
Neither am I, nor are the majority of men, but protecting women is about guarding against those that are, and those could potentially be (i.e all males). I wouldn't let a stranger into my home on his promise that he isn't a threat. I have no way to know. Why would a woman let a man into her space on a similar promise?

It's not a criticism of your child, it's a response to the threat that some men pose, no matter what gender they want to be.

As the mother of a trans adult child, I find most threads bigoted and closed minded. My child is not a rapist

I'm sure your child isn't. Most men aren't. But the issue is about opening up the door to those people who are predictors and having no right to challenge them for being in female safe spaces. Most of us here are supportive of the trans community. But people also need to listen to the concerns around self ID. Otherwise it's going to drive a wedge between women and transwomen, that certainly won't do the trans community any good. I don't want that. Nor does anyone. But we do need debate about how to keep women and girls safe. Its not really a lot to ask is it.

PerfectlySymmetricalButtocks

No one is saying your child is rapist, we are talking about predatory men who may take advantage of the law change.

maggie It's because hardly any feminists noticed, because transwomen didn't affect us at that time:

for many years we had a quiet, unspoken "gentlemanly" arrangement, that the then miniscule number of transwomen got on with their lives like the rest of us.
Those who wanted to enter women's loos or join women's demonstrations made the greatest possible effort not to look like men;
they didn't deliberately get in the face of women or try to take over the joint.

So why should most feminists have been concerned by a relatively harmless bunch and such a tiny number of them ?
We were sympathetic, if anything.

BUT - That all changed with this recent wave of TRA activism, which is space invaders on steroids:
The key factor is the characteristic male aggression being turned against all criticism from feminists
The beatings at demonstrations, the online threats of murder, torture and rape.
The attempted erasure of the biological definition of women.

Those weren't typical behaviours of the far fewer transwomen that there used to be.
But trans has become a lifestyle thing for a certain type of man who reacts violently to dissent from women - but rarely from other men.

Too many TRA activists now who have obvious contempt for women, who make no effort to "pass" and who aggressively assert the right to flaunt a naked penis in a previously safe women's space.

Too many who cheer on transwomen deliberately injuring women in contact sports.
In all sport now, the ridiculous spectacle of previously mediocre / middle-aged athletes who, because of their male biology, are able to beat the very best women.

It just seems some Western countries that have decided to turn back the clock on this hmm

Yes! It's infuriating isn't it?

Women are literally being told to shut up and let male bodied people share their women-only spaces - "because".

Those spaces we (actually, our (great?) grandmothers) fought for, for privacy, dignity, safety - we're being told we don't need them at all. Just let anyone in

We didn't before have this rush of convicted rapists wanting to self ID as women, to get into women's prisons
Men who want to get into domestic refuges, hospital wards

all the areas that previously seemed safe, because the tiny number of transwomen who might have quietly sneaked in did their best to look non-threatening, not to look like men

OK let's talk about this then, why have numbers of trans individuals trebled over the last 10 years? What do we think is going on here? What conclusions can we drawer about changes in society that are making this such a volatile situation that is getting more dangerous by the minute?

Nobody can tell anyone they "must" consider dating anyone confused Do you have sex with someone because your social circle or "social pressure" tell you to? What madness is that! I wouldn't want to have sex with probably 95% of men. If someone told me to "widen your dating pool - manphobe!" I would laugh and tell them to do one - as would anyone else! It's nobody's business who anyone else is attracted to, or not. There is no way, at any age, I would date someone I wasn't attracted to - why would I do that? Why would anyone? The law can't legislate for physical attraction and never will.

I think having your entire social circle and job threatened could be very persuasive to some women, especially younger women or those with children.
Of course most of us would say “sod off”, most of us would also say “sod off” to a dickhead bloke in our spaces however many women aren’t the same as you and I. Many are vulnerable, many are not confident, many are scared.
Males have had a say over the sex lives of women going back thousands of years, we are conditioned to it.
Why you think everyone is the same as you is beyond me.

My late mother was born just after WW1, so grew up in the 1920s and 1930s, some time after the suffragettes
She took advantage of the increased possibilities to travel safely and independently, to go to Uni.

She marvelled at how her life was different from those of her mum (born in the1870s) and her aunts, her much elder sisters
They were still excited and upbeat about the opportunities opened up for women, for her, the baby of the family.

Sadly, I see some opportunities closing down now for women; some hard-won rights taken away.
I didn't see this happening
I feel that I've been complacent & lazy, that I let down the previous generations of brave women who fought for what I so casually took for granted

Going back to the original post, the trans posts on the feminism board keep making it onto the active threads board is because so many people are reading and commenting.

If it were truly boring and overdone for most of us then those threads would never bubble to the top.

Do you often confuse your personal beliefs with objective reality?

@MaggieTheCat1 You have posted a number of comments that have been said on some threads, however you have not included the context at all. Most of those posts are aimed at certain people because of the things they have said or done first.

Go back and read those threads and see exactly what those posters are responding to, and then you can present both sides of the issue fairly. Just taking one side's comments without the other sides is just shoddy reporting and does not fairly represent the truth of the discussion.

I remember reading of another TIMs mother who randomly claimed people (especially the bigots on mn) thought her adult child was a rapist recently.

I wonder whether you are her, or whether there's more than one...?

I feel that I've been complacent & lazy, that I let down the previous generations of brave women who fought for what I so casually took for granted

I feel the same.

Took the hard won rights for granted. Not interested in feminism in the 90's - I did call myself a feminist - but it was all ladette culture, girl power, - we were all equal now, right?

To see this threat to women's rights, on women's own biological classification - well, it would have been unthinkable to me in my 20's.

It's unthinkable now actually - I can't actually believe this is happening.

perfectly I don't think your adult child is a rapist.

I do think your transwoman son is a man not a woman and is therefore ineligible for women only things like women's sports, all women short lists, woman of the year awards, smear tests, cervical cancer, period pain, unwanted pregnancy, women only scholarships etc.

I know lots of men who I am 99% sure aren't rapists

I still wouldn't want to let them into women only spaces - women's toilets, communal changing rooms, hospital wards, prison.
Not because I think they would rape
but because some of the other men , who would also have to be let in, would rape

Those men, however decent, would make some women feel nervous or embarrassed in those previously safe spaces
… or no, actually they wouldn't, because being decent men, they wouldn't try to gain entry there
because men have plenty of space of their own - most of the world is theirs.

pinkcandy84 😉🤣

maybe just people trying to find out about trans it's the new thing people need to get use to