To think you're not allowed to be a feminist on MN if you believe in trans rights?

[EyeRollChampion]

Seems like every post in the feminism category atm is so vehemently anti-trans rights and that anyone who disagrees with this standpoint is ganged up on and ridiculed.

Or 'aren't I brave posting the same viewpoint as the overwhelming majority? I will not be silenced! (Now tell me how amazing and inspirational I am)'

I will probably be told I'm not a good feminist for believing we should respect the gender people identify with. Identity is of no importance to equal rights or mental health, of course. And they're a minority so who cares? Because changing room horror.

I'll get flamed for this because apparently this is not a view you're allowed to hold on mumsnet, TRA (aka anyone who isn't against trans rights) are the enemy of all women and trying to deny free speech.

Tell me I'm not alone?

I still feel ill when I consider passing on that oppression to a different group!

How is accepting women's boundaries doing that exactly? Why don't you care what many women feel?

Changing rooms I think could be managed with security measures and cubicles.

Or we could carry on not letting men into women's changing rooms, and then we wouldn't need security measures and cubicles.

Shortlists and scholarships / rewards should be awarded on merit, surely.

Showing an incredible ignorance and lack of understanding of why all-women shortlists and affirmative action in general exists. Really, do some basic reading on the idea of meritocracy, privilege and discrimination.

Refuges is another tough one, however there needs to be measures in place that mean both women and trans women have access to safe spaces.

No, it's not 'tough' to say that men shouldn't be allowed into places specifically set up to keep women safe from men.

JFC.

It's not anti-Trans rights. It's anti Self-ID. If you don't know the difference that's not anybody else's fault.

You sound ridiculously pompous. & very shouty.

& as a black woman I'm not enamoured of your alt-right comparison. The alt-right do tend to sound like you tho. Full of bluster, not knowing what they're talking about., metaphorically stomping all over the place in jack boots in the face of measured explanations.

I can't even be bothered to write anymore

Sad to think this is going to go down as another "I was bullied off Mumsnet because they couldn't cope with my incredibly persuasive arguments, also they so mean" story.

I do see ceinwens points about some of the posts (including my last but one)

But OP 'seemed' to be ...everyone hates transpeople and doesn't want them to have any rights....and wasnt interacting with anyone who, in effect, agreed with her

I know MN is not a hive mind and it’s a vocal minority, but I’ve seen some shocking things, posters saying trans rights is the only important issue in feminism right now (so fuck you if you care about domestic violence or equal pay, and anyway threads on those will probably end up being about trans issues anyway), posters downplaying or denying violence against biological women bc it didn’t support an anti-trans agenda, and even advocating for things that would hurt and endanger biological women just as long it would hurt trans people too.

Tut.
I was going to engage but honestly that's just a pack of lies. You clearly don't spend that much time in FWR.

@koyaanisqatsi I agree with you op. I’m gender critical and deeply concerned about the consequences (to women) of the trans movement, and of the misogyny coming from the MRAs passing as TRAs. Yet my perception is that I am utterly unwelcome and treated with hostility on MN for not being adequately anti-trans and not having a problem with ordinary trans people living quietly.

Um, I think pretty much all of the regular posters I have seen (and me certainly) are of the same mind? We have all been living without issue alongside "ordinary trans people living quietly" for years, decades, generations.

What is being resisted now is the new concept that living as trans and getting on with your life isn't enough. The TRA groups are now violently and aggressively agitating for complete ownership and dominion of the label "woman" and everything it contains, means or describes.

There are legal, social, physical and emotional ramifications to that. Many women are not happy with that being accepted (socially and possibly legally) without any discussion or involvement in that change.

However, ANY dissent from that line (such as "well obviously there should be rules about who can work in rape centres" or "there should be cubicles" etc) is taken as transphobic and literal violence and hate. So your comment about being "deeply concerned about the consequences (to women)" puts you in the transphobe camp too.

We don't "hate" anyone. We just won't allow TRAs - not "ordinary trans people living quietly" - to take the cake we baked, all for themselves, and leave us without any. We think the solution is more cake being baked by everyone for everyone, so we all have cake.

We think the solution is more cake being baked by everyone for everyone, so we all have cake.

New MN FWR slogan right there!

I actually don’t understand what you mean.

Women are not trying to take away rights trans persons already have. If they have a GRC they are already able to access women’s spaces.

Women are saying that giving anyone the right to say they are the opposite sex effectively removes sex based protections. It is naive in the extreme to think that predators won’t take advantage.

Can you give me an example of how you would manage self ID appropriately when the whole reason people are opposed (or for it) is that there is no way to manage it?

Trans people are far more vulnerable and increasingly the targets of:-

Sexual assault
DV
Systemic bullying
Prejudice
Murder

This is worth picking up on from a few pages back.

This was my assumption too a couple of years ago. I think a lot of people believe your list

It isn't true. I don't doubt some trans people experience those things and that's abhorrent.

But come on. 6 transwomen have been murdered in the UK in the last decade, I believe. 2 women are killed every week. When you look at the figures regarding your list, this idea that trans people are more oppressed than women collapses. Trans women who are working in prostitution in South America have high murder rates and that's awful but that has no bearing on how safe trans women are in the UK.

Sexual assault? DV? The rates suffered by women are shocking.

I still believe society needs to work on being kinder to trans people in various regards but that the steos that are taken shouldn't be at the expense of the safety of women.

Yet my perception is that I am utterly unwelcome and treated with hostility on MN for not being adequately anti-trans and not having a problem with ordinary trans people living quietly

Then your perception is way off, because that is literally what every other poster says.

“for not being adequately anti-trans and not having a problem with ordinary trans people living quietly”

I have literally never read a single post saying that the,poster has a problem with ordinary trans people living quietly. Literally.

look at these trans people not supporting trans rights either!

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/04/standing-up-for-transsexual-rights

I wish some trans people would stop pretending they speak for ALL transpeople

OP you say that you don't feel like searching for a solution that works for everyone should be a crime, yet the only people actually doing so are gender critical feminists. TRA's will not entertain a discussion about finding a solution. No debate.
This is the difference here. You are free to come here and discuss with us your viewpoint and we may disagree with you, you may disagree with us. Yet you may leave the discussion with your life unchanged by our narrative.
We cannot discuss our viewpoint with TRA's. No debate. Questioned under caution for expressing a view. Physically blocked from entering a venue to discuss the issue amongst ourselves, by masked TRA's. Our lives are being changed by their narrative, legislation is being formed around it, schools are educating around it, female athletes are losing to it, female political candidates are losing to it. Real life real world consequences are eroding the hard won rights that give us the tools to overcome our biological disadvantage.

Feminists believe that we are oppressed via that biological disadvantage and that measures must be taken to achieve equality. Supporting the deconstruction of those measures to the benefit of born males is not feminism.

@ghostyslovesheets

I wish some women would stop thinking the speak for all of us. You're a vocal minority who enjoy the feeling of 'being under siege' or 'the enlightened ones'.

You're a vocal minority who enjoy the feeling of 'being under siege' or 'the enlightened ones'

Pretty much the definition of mumsnet feminism to be honest. Their podium finish in the oppression Olympics is under threat and by god they're not happy.

TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) are against transrights. But this is only one school of feminism amongst many. The great majority of feminists support transrights.

Just came to stand firmly alongside the last three comments.

Scott which ones are they against?

I agree with MapleSap1

I don't open trans threads most of the time.

But I did open and post on the one about Parkrun, and then the one about its deletion. Because I'm a Parkrunner, and there were certain misconceptions about the whole founding and ethics of Parkrun. And I posted (repeatedly) to point out the inaccuracies - there was persistent conflation of Parkrun with competitive sport, and lack of knowledge of how Parkrun actually works.

(DFYB - I'm volunteering today)

Brilliant post @DN4GeekinDerby . I read it over twice, it was excellent and an important contribution to the thread

I would have thought for someone who was apparently incredibly concerned with the feelings of the trans community that the OP would have read it carefully and taken it into consideration during a discussion that they opened up in their original post. However, as per usual in these particular threads, not even the slightest mention.

Can't people read? The posts on here aren't anti trans. I'm not going to rehash posts but please STOP with the knee jerk reaction of 'anti trans' as soon as someone wants to debate the topic of self ID.

FFS educate yourself

Scott which ones are they against?

Any special rights beyond the most basic of human rights. I don't know the exact details, but TERFs regard most gendered characteristics as a product of socialization. That is except for the most fundamental biological identity of man or women, which they regard as immutable. You can be a feminine man, or masculine women, but to try and switch to the opposite gender completely they regard as unacceptable and probably a sign of mental illness.

But TERFs are only a very small minority movement within feminism.

OP, your post demonstrates the propaganda being put out there about women who just want to make sure their rights are protected. Lies/misconceptions like this are why we are being demonised, beaten up and generally mistreated.

I passionately believe in a person's right to live their life however the hell they want to. I have trans friends. I have felt so sad for them at some of the abuse they get from (mostly) men.

I also feel despair at the inclusion of trans women on all women's shortlists and the insistence of trans rights activists that "trans women are women".

I believe that biology MEANS something. We are a sex class in our own right and we fought fucking hard for the sex based segregation we had; which is being changed to being based on gender.

I do not believe in gender; gender is a set of expectations, a straitjacket of attributes expected of "proper" men and women that most people fall outside of to some degree.

As a woman who has experienced rape and sexual abuse, I demand that we are listened to and not dismissed, as you have charmingly demonstrated, as being anti trans.

I will fight all day so that trans people can have safe spaces, just not at the expense of women.

That clear?

.I don't know the exact details,
Maybe you should come back after you've found our then?