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.

Yet, here you are.

I am sympathetic to people who have gender dysphoria, and I am sympathetic to how difficult it must be finding relationships etc. But part of that difficulty is because a lie has been sold: that if you are a man who transitions to being a woman then people who find women attractive (hetero men and lesbian women) will find you attractive in the same way as a biological woman; that you can actually change sex and have the same dating opportunities as everyone else. Human attraction doesn't work like that - you like what you like, it's nothing to do with prejudice. Of course there will be some women who are perfectly fine with dating a transwoman, either because they just don't care, or because that is part of what they are attracted to. And that is great.

But the nature of sexuality itself means that a heterosexual man is unlikely to want to be in a sexual relationship with someone with a penis, or even someone who use to have and use a penis. It's not transphobia and is not comparable to homophobia - gay people never demanded (and it does very much feel like a 'demand') that anyone specific should find them attractive.

No one should ever feel like the have to find someone attractive or want to have sex with them.

Quite a few transwomen have spoken/written about it, and it's always in the context of blaming everyone else for not wanting sexual relations with them, like the world owes it to them. Like other people are uptight weirdos because they might not want to have sex with them.

The whole relationships thing blows open the fallacy of the trans agenda. It is based on a lie.

ellen totally agree with everything you’ve said

Well put, Ellen.

@TerfsUp. Yes that's right. Here I am. Mostly because the title didn't mention the issue but also because I agree with the OP. I am afraid you don't get to control where people take part in this forum or what their opinions are.

Quite a few transwomen have spoken/written about it, and it's always in the context of blaming everyone else for not wanting sexual relations with them, like the world owes it to them. Like other people are uptight weirdos because they might not want to have sex with them

Typical MRA line then!

Some of that stuff has a thought police element to it. eg when TRAs like Riley say that of course no one has to sleep with someone they don’t want to sleep with...but if you are a lesbian who doesn’t want to sleep with trans women, you should examine your motivations and your privilege.

Fuck that. No one has to justify their choice of sexual partner, nor examine why they have made those choices.

I am not very attracted to men who don’t have body hair. I don’t need to explain that to anyone, nor do I need to ‘examine my reasons’ or ‘open my mind’ or apologise to hairless men for not finding them attractive.

So if that makes me smooth-man-phobic, I’ll take that. I wish no harm to them but I just don’t want to sleep with them. And I can’t see them as hairy just because they say they are hairy when the physical evidence is that they are not.

So if Iam allowed to reject potential partners on something as superficial and shallow as body hair (which I’m assuming I am), then of course the same applies to genital preferences!

I can't see myself having a romantic relationship with a transman who has done nothing to transition other than to say "Gee. I feel like a man". For all intents and purposes that person is female and I am heterosexual, not gay.

I wouldn't have a relationship with a trans person, it just wouldn't occur to me. I am very unlikely to ever be in that situation but I can't see it ever happening.

I feel pity for most of them as we are always being told how vulnerable and damaged they are. I don't tend to fancy people I pity.

Yes very romantic to choose to become involved with someone who might be inclined to suicide..... 😕

Having a relationship with a transperson physically repulses me"..Plus similar comments on that line...transphobia

It's ok to be physically repulsed by anyone, that isn't transphobia! I'm a lesbian, having a relationship with a man would physically repulsive, is that man phobia?
Of course it isn't and you wouldn't dream of saying so in any other context than this.

Thing is, even if every lesbian in the country suddenly went "fuck it, I am tired of being badgered to death, OK, I will bow down to your rapey bullying, abandon most of my sexual boundaries, and have wild, wild lesbian sex with transwomen" it wouldn't be enough. It's never enough.

I am reminded of Avery Edison, the transwoman who first came to fame when they went to Canada without bothering to get the proper visas. (I thought this was a very good illustration of the kind of entitlement that comes naturally to Edison - who the fuck goes abroad and imagines they will get in without the right paperwork?) Anyway, Edison was briefly held in a male prison, and there was an international outcry from Edison's friends about this terrible injustice, because Edison is a woman, allegedly. (Remember, this is in Canada, the TRA's friend, and Edison was put in a Canadian holding centre, hardly Rikers Island.)

So, some time after that, Edison also wrote a blog about going to a lesbian bar and picking up a bisexual woman for a one-night stand. This woman knew Edison was trans and she didn't have a problem with that. They spent a night together. Was the blog Edison wrote about this a celebration of that night? No! It was a long, self-pitying whine about how, while this woman was happy to enjoy all kinds of sex with Edison, she refused penis-in-vagina sex. And that made Edison sad, because Edison's penis is not a woman's penis, it's totally different, and it was terribly transphobic of the woman not to recognise that.

It's never enough. Women are slammed for having any boundaries at all.

Edison's penis is not a woman's penis, it's totally different

ffs, Edison's penis is not a man's penis, it;s totally different!

Is that the same person who wrote how uncomfortable it is to have sex with bisexual woman? Because they could never be sure whether that woman was attracted to them as a man or a woman and therefore, despite the sex, they felt invalidated.

That's the core of this I think. If we are telling children it's OK, you can change sex that isn't true.

They will only ever be pretending for the rest of their lives.

They have very much lessened their chances of having a normal life. They will probably be sterile so won't be able to have their own children.

And they will be on medication for life. Check out how healthy those East German women athletes who were made to take T to enhance their sporting prowess in the 70s and 80s are now. Clue - they have a mass of different health problems caused by the drugs they were given.

So not a healthy movement in any way before you look at chopping bits of perfectly healthy bodies off.

Dunno, Datun, but I wouldn't be surprised.

@NFATR

I wrote this:

It's not transphobia - just an excuse for lots of comments of their views on the trans community

Having a relationship with a transperson physically repulses me

And you wrote

Having a relationship with a transperson physically repulses me"..Plus similar comments on that line...transphobia

I am confused as you seem to be attributing your quote to me when I quite clearly said that it's NOT transphobia.

You seem to have taken what I said, missed a few key words out, put the word 'transphobia' in .

But just to be clear.

It's not transphobic to say you don't want to sleep with a trans person. Of course it isn't.

If you want, you could quote that and then miss out the word 'not' to completely mislead people.

I feel pity for most of them as we are always being told how vulnerable and damaged they are. I don't tend to fancy people I pity

Don't feel pity. Many of us have been able to cure the dysphoria we feel and to live the lives we want to.

Datun
Feminists have historically and traditionally endorsed, supported and sponsored minorities. It's what they do.

AnxiousPeg
As others have just pointed out, we didn't fire the first shots in this war.

Are you both ignoring (or oblivous to) the criticism and vitriol from some feminists as far back as the 70s for male to female transsexuals?

ArcheryAnnie, I remember reading that.

Quite apart from the more serious stuff that trans issues raise, the etiquette is a minefield. Edison wanted PIV sex with a woman because it would help Edison to validate their ladypenis. Meanwhile, plenty of other trans women would not want anyone to mention their penis because it would be triggering to their dysphoria.

How the fuck is anyone meant to know how to behave if they end up in the sack with a trans person.

Sex when is the purpose of sex to validate the other person's identity?

Are you both ignoring (or oblivous to) the criticism and vitriol from some feminists as far back as the 70s for male to female transsexuals?

I might well be. But transsexuals aren't what I would call minority. They're a subsection of men.

Men with gender dysphoria.

It's never been a part of feminism to centre men.

Argh. That should be "since when" not "sex when".

@yetanothertranswoman

"Don't feel pity. Many of us have been able to cure the dysphoria we feel and to live the lives we want to."

I am very pleased to hear this. I feel the authors of the articles linked to are doing a huge disservice to trans people. That most recent one projects trans women as a man's fantasy women, demure (needing to be led to the bedroom) but an 'animal' in bed and 'forbidden'. It's all very 'too hard to love up to'. I think ordinary trans women should be writing more about ordinary stuff because some of the spokes people for the trans movement are massively shooting ordinary trans people in both feet.