I'm trans, may I ask you a favour? Its about trans phobia.

[PeanutButterSquash]

I've been trans for more than half of my life and was one of the first in my part of the UK to get a GRC (over ten years ago!).
I have unfortunately experienced transphobic attacks (from physical attacks that hospitalized me to career damaging bullying and lower level bullying too) many times in my life though I admit it gets less and less year on year.
Trans phobia can take many many forms and doesn't yet have a defined legal position (something I think should change).
Here are a few things that aren't trans phobic.

Being respectfully gender critical
Disagreeing with self ID.
Disagreeing with self ID'ing men in women's spaces (and vice versa).
Disagreeing with transwomen competing in female only sports (due to biological disadvantage) are a few things that I note are called transphobic here.
Respectful debate isn't transphobic. Disagreement isn't transphobic.
I think calling "transphobia" over any sign of disagreement, debate or gender critical beliefs is actually more harmful to me and people like me.
will anyone take trans phobia seriously if this is all it takes to be called a transphobe?

Aibu to ask that you do that favour for me, and stop shouting transphobia (on or offline) at gender critical feminists?

Thank you. Feel free to respond and as ever you can disagree with me.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Op you are so right 💐

Lol Rufus

I do agree with you, although perhaps I'm a little more understanding of the name-calling. That's not to say I like it, god no! But I think sometimes people are simply reactionary and emotive - on both sides of the debate.

I mean there's a real sense on both sides that people are fighting for their rights, their safety and to protect the vulnerable. That's on both sides. That doesn't make name-calling okay of course, so perfectly valid post from peanut IMO, but at the same time I do understand the occasional infraction. Occasional being the operative word. Because you and other posters are no doubt right that constantly and unthinkingly defaulting to shouting "transphobe!" or "misogynist!" does serve the purpose of shutting down debate.

That is transphobic or what you have said is/can be considered transphobic - is debating

It is debating IF the other person provides relevant points to rebut the initial argument. Otherwise it descends into "No, I'm not" "yes, you are".

Someone above has hit at the crux of the problem.

How is it not transphobic to disagree with a trans person's right to self identify their gender?

It's just not.

Some people think that gender is innate. Ok you can believe that. I don't, but that's not the same as invalidating you as a person.

Not believing in gender identity is not transphobic, just like not believing that there is no true god but Allah makes one Islamophobic.

You don't have to believe the same thing as somebody to respect them as a person.

My Muslim and Christian friends don't mind that I don't believe in God. But TRAs and libfem allies go batshit when I say I don't believe in gender identity as innate.

People struggle to separate out discussion on a topic from the people affected by the topic. I have colleagues who work on trying to reduce childhood obesity - they do not hate children who are overweight, they are not fat shaming - they are looking at the problem at a society level but people hear it at a personal level in which it isn't meant. If anything they care more about the pain and difficulties associated with being obese than the people ranting that the cancer research advert is fat shaming. This is a general problem people have when a bigger issue affects them, it isn't just trans people.

"How is it not transphobic to disagree with a trans person's right to self identify their gender?"

I don't think being anti-self ID is any different than thinking people shouldn't use disabled parking spaces in an self-decided way. That isn't disablist - it is the opposite, it is protecting the rights and needs of disabled people to allow them a more equivalent life. Saying a system is ripe for exploitation isn't phobic against people who might like and benefit from that system. I have been ill enough in the past to need a BB, it would have been nice not to list all the ways I was broken and needed one - I really can see that, I found the process heartbreaking - but it was necessary to protect these spaces and benefits, I understand that is bigger than me - does that make sense?

A more rigid process helps keep the protections that someone female needs, protections that people with a GRC currently benefit from as well. A badly conceived self-ID process chips away at this, it will make women more wary of transwomen as a group if they know some men are exploiting the system. I definitely feel differently about women's prisons (I used to think OITNB vulnerable-trans way) since the likes of Ian Huntly and violent sex offenders like Gary/Marie Dean jumped on the bandwagon. That only harms everyone, doesn't it? Why have a system that lets bastards take the piss and ruin it for everyone?

Thank you.

Well said splash

Great analogies and commentary @LetsSplashMummy!

LetsSplashMummy Well said. The blue badge analogy explains it perfectly. I’d never thought of it like that before and even to me, someone who already dislikes the idea of self ID, it’s made it a lot clearer and I understand it better now.

I think that is a good explanation, Splash.

If a system is set up that any CF can exploit, then they will. A lot of people do not read rules and follow them nicely. If they want to do something, they just suck it and see - so if nothing happens to stop them, they will just do something, because they can. Others are quite capable of reading and following rules, but dedicate their life to finding ways round them and taking them apart for the hell of it. There doesn't have to be any good reason for it.
This prevents access for people who it was meant to help.

With the self-id thing, there is very little to stop anyone saying they are who they want to be anyway, as it is mostly done in a social way. So taking what little legal protection there is away undermines everyone's confidence in how social settings work, so in the end they just avoid the issue and stay home.

This is what happened to a women's hostel in LA. There was a men's hostel, but the women's was newer. So after self ID came in, there were men hanging around the outside, and men in the hostel and the workers could do nothing about it. There were no women. They had vanished.

not all those who oppose self-ID are transphobes... but all transphobes oppose self-ID.

Hmm I don't know. Transactivists are in many ways, more transphobic (and homophobic) than anyone else I have came across. And they are almost all for self-ID.

TBH, I don't think the transphobes who beat people up are that up to speed with the legislation and proposed changes. It probably does not lie within their general interests.

It is debating IF the other person provides relevant points to rebut the initial argument. Otherwise it descends into "No, I'm not" "yes, you are".

Yeah, I would say 'you are transphobic' is pointless. However I would say 'I consider this part of/all of your opinion transphobic and these are the reasons why I think that' is debating. Its a fine line though, at times. Just popping into a thread though to yell 'you are all bigots even though I have not read the thread and I will not be back' is clearly just goady and inflammatory and pointless. I will never understand how people who claim to not have even read the thread can come to the conclusion that posts in it are transphobic

Haven't read the full thread but just want'd to say what a great OP. I agree with everything you said.

Things that have recently been described as transphobic

• public transport
• doctors taking medical histories
• hats
• women existing
• FGM
• #metoo
• women self identifying as men

That’s off the top of my head.

I agree with OP - the ridiculous hyperbole means that many people (including myself) have been switched off from being trans allies. These trans rights activists and social justice warriors are doing transsexuals a huge disservice.

Thank you for this post.

I agree that by shouting ‘transphobic’ at every debate and different opinion actually devalues what the word actually means. This is harmful for everyone.

I was called a TERF for repeating a suggestion that if Self ID became a thing then we should campaign for our fought for spaces to be segregated, not by male or female, but by penis and vulva/vagina (whether born with or acquired)

Hmm I don't know. Transactivists are in many ways, more transphobic (and homophobic) than anyone else I have came across. And they are almost all for self-ID.

I agree with this. To me, it seems as though trans activists are appropriating the experiences of people like OP for their own ends. All the stats and data they use to justify the importance of gender, and it's superiority to sex, are based on research including only people with diagnosed with gender dysphoria, like OP, and they spuriously apply them to everyone who doesn't conform with societal gender norms. It's shocking. It really is. How the establishment has been suckered by this is beyond me.

How is it not transphobic to disagree with a trans person's right to self identify their gender?

I don't think anyone would have a problem with people self-identifying their gender if people didn't keep confusing/conflating gender with sex.