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 don't normally contribute to trans threads as it's a recipe for being shouted down, told I'm wrong, told that there's no transphobia in a thread full of transphobic posts, and generally being silenced.

All those things just add up to "people disagree with me and tell me so and I don't like it!" Unless you can point to an incident where you were actually silenced by gender critical posters? Failing to have the courage of your own convictions doesn't really count.

I hit peaktrans a while ago but appear to be coming back from the peak the way I went up rather than the "other side".

I don't think I will ever revert back to my old views (which were inchoate at best just prior to becoming outraged) but... I don't think the current battle lines are helpful for anybody and, honestly, the way the GenderCrit side appears to be developing is deeply troubling to me. I stopped knocking around the FWR section because anything non-trans related didn't get a look in and threads that were not trans related got hijacked.

One part of me understands that, some of the rhetoric used by TRA's seems to want to erase the concept of female. If we cannot name ourselves as women then how can we do anything else? In that respect I understand why some people see this as the front line.

That said as a working class woman this issue never comes up in the real world. My female friends, colleagues and relatives are victims of DV, need access to abortion, are suffering from archaic benefit reforms and are being directly hit by public sector cuts (that disproportionately effect women). They neither know, care or are affected by self ID and the whole thing is looking more and more like middle class hand wringing albeit with a more militant tone.

It's like a race to the bottom on both sides and I am done with it.

so what the hell does it matter arguing the toss over their womanhood anyway?

First of all, ‘womanhood’ and ‘manhood’ aren’t useful concepts . We are humans and our humanity comes from our brains, not reproductive organs over which we have no control.

Being born with a womb or a penis does not confer status or membership of a club and it isn’t evidence of a particular set of virtues.

If we lose the word ‘woman’ as a simple neutral biological definition, we are telling people that there is something wrong with them if they don’t fit in with some abstract idea of what a woman should be. We are accepting and endorsing all the cultural baggage attached to the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’.

Meanwhile we are refusing to accept all the unavoidable consequences of being male or female.

When I was a teenager Thatcher introduced section 28. My children are teenagers and the woman currently regarded as the most popular and successful conservative and potential leader of the party has just announced that she and her wife are expecting their first child and it is an uncontroversial good news story.

Attitudes change.

However, she cannot avoid the reality of being a politician and having a baby while she is an MP. She needs laws to protect her from discrimination and a parliamentary structure that accommodates pregnancy and the post partum period.

In a world where millions don’t have access to basic medical care, and without any likelihood of a time lord like mutation that would allow us to regenerate, we are stuck with the bodies we have. We can make cosmetic alterations, but we can’t enable women to produce sperm or men to produce eggs. Maybe that will be possible in the future but we aren’t there yet.

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

One of the reasons AWS were developed was to address the aspect of socialisation which stops women being as successful in arenas such as politics - namely. It pushing oneself forward, getting heard, clambering over others to win.

It starts early - girls, as a class, participate in mixed classes less than boys, for example.

By allowing trans identifying males to access these shortlists, we allow people who have grown up without these barriers to shortcut to the front. Ahead of women, who are disadvantaged by the way society is set up.

And it’s not just shortlists actually. I can’t remember the last time I saw any list of women doing A Thing where there wasn’t a trans id man on the list.

I think there is a very, very damaging message for women when that happens.

I dont think gender is based on genitalia tbh. You can have some very butch women and some very feminine males.

I rekin some of the women who are anti trans are also anti pink clothes for littke girls and the general pinkification of girl culture.

Having said that i think creating safe trans spaces is essential ...away from both genders....for the safety of everyone including trans people who may be abused.

Ereshkigal
I hold gender critical views and support trans rights (believer in a balancing of rights, not the erosion of women's).

On one thread I expressed a view that maybe the 'always angry / call a trans womanby their male name' stuff probably puts people off debate, especially people who don't venture into feminism. By the time I'd bowed out (because it was clear the thread was only going to go one way), I'd been told i'm not a feminist because to be a feminist you have to be angry, had bitchy comments made about my job and been told that I just be wrong because look at all these posters on Feminism who say you are.

I've then noticed, on other threads where other posters have raised different views you see similar sarcastic pile ons and snide comments like ooh I guess we should all make sure we play nicely girls. Don't want to make the boys cry. Anyone says that sort of thing is unhelpful then becomes the 'tone police'.

There are some really good debates. There are some that are more about creating an echo chamber where participants can congratulate each other for holding the 'correct' view.

I mean if Jane can be publicly exposed -against her wishes - by some grubby tabloid as having transitioned 20 years ago, simply for fallen on hard times and swiped a tin of beans from Tesco... That's not okay

I think it would be better to work towards a place where it is completely accepted to be trans. So that no one would bat an eyelid if Jane is trans or not and so the grubby tabloid simply wouldn’t be interested. It seems very sad that trans people with a GRC are almost encouraged to hide their journey.

Rather than having a GRC system which decides who is trans enough and then perpetuates gender stereotypes, I think the law should protect gender non conforming people of all stripes and we carry on separating the areas where there is a biological, or social need by sex.

I agree with jelly.

malificent7 You highlight my point exactly you can be any gender but you can’t be any sex

As you said you get butch females and feminine males but the key is the male and female part

Anyone says that sort of thing is unhelpful then becomes the 'tone police'.

On that thread you were acting as the tone police. But I'm not going over it again. People disagree about stuff. That's ok.

and we carry on separating the areas where there is a biological, or social need by sex.

It also sometimes makes sense to share a service e.g. bikes use bus lanes, but you have to do that because a makes sense, not by arguing that a bike is a bus.

If you disagree with people on a thread you either engage or ignore. I really don’t get this “people disagreed with me so I left/I was hounded off/I decided I wasn’t a feminist any more” stuff. There are discourteous dicks on both sides. And thoughtful thinking people. Ignore one lot and talk to the other.

I think I really struggle, because to me gender is unequivocally harmful, both to me and my sons. Obviously it wold also be harmful to my daughters if I had any.

The gendered expectations of boys cause a great deal of unhappiness, creating a false ideal of manliness that no-one could ever successfully emulate.

Trans ideology accepts and celebrates gender, and therefore can only ever be socially regressive and damaging I believe.

I agree that Jane stealing the tin of beans should be protected from tabloid prurience. But there are already rapes recorded as being committed by women. That has to be wrong-and misleading.

I don't really understand enough of the science to know whether the testosterone level cap will sort out the problem of transwomen competing in elite sport. But I do know that school, for example, the records held by girls in most sports are lower than the records held by boys. No testosterone testing these. Just the potential for natal girls to be pushed aside by transgirls. And there have already been issues in some sports with transwomen injuring natal women. It's a much broader problem than the IOC.

I don't really understand enough of the science to know whether the testosterone level cap will sort out the problem of transwomen competing in elite sport

It won't, because it won't make the advantages gained from their testosterone while growing up disappear. They have heavier bones, better muscles, bigger lungs, stronger heart etc. etc. etc. That doesn't disappear with a level cap. That's why mediocre males can beat top females.

"I don't really understand enough of the science to know whether the testosterone level cap will sort out the problem of transwomen competing in elite sport"

The thing with sport is that each sporting association is going to do what's best (i.e. most profitable) for the game. Don't think its going to affected by self-ID since sports already clearly have an exemption from sex discrimination legislation.

Maybe doesn't make sense to have segregated darts competitions, or snooker or chess or ultra-running but don't know what the weightlifting guys were thinking.

I disagree that the purpose of AWS is to dismantle the patriarchy. If that is the ultimate outcome I would be delighted. But the immediate purpose is to redress the balance of generations of discrimination.

I am still very uneasy about the intimate care issue. Obviously, anyone should be able to refuse any caregiver. But if you have a reasonable expectation that the care giver will be a particular sex- for example, if you are a woman in a rape crisis centre-it seems an additional burden for you to have to actively refuse a male bodied person at a time of crisis. And pretty crap for the male bodied person trying to do their job too.

yes, MillicentF, I think we could make everyone's lives a lot easier in the long run by doing away with the wishy-washy 'sometimes people are like this, sometimes they're like that' ways of categorising individuals.

What's the point?

There are males and females and a tiny number of intersex people who've made a whole hearted plea to be kept out of this mess. In the limited number of occasions when it's important to be able to distinguish between males and females, why don't we just use the easily observable reproductive set up?

And as for who is the best person to decide what rights a group need, I don't think I agree/understand. If someone told me that they were fighting for the rights of their own or another group, my first question would be what rights are we talking about? As far as I am aware, transpeople have the same rights as anyone else has. As they should. They have the right under the law not to be discriminated against. i remain unconvinced that the right to self identification is autonatically a good thing. I don't know what the alternative is-and this is really why I am asking for a definition of woman and man which does not rely on stereotypes. It would be so much easier all round if there were pink brains and blue brains. Although that would hand misogynists a massive bundle of ammunition........

I haven't read the full thread but the point OP is that the discussion itself is under attack by certain trans rights activists. By simply raising legitimate concerns a screaming mob starts screaming TERF or transphobe.

It is important that we live in a culture of enquiry and critical thinking. We have to be free to challenge people who make statements that don't make logical sense.

I could debate the points you've raised Millicent - I have in the past and no doubt I will again in the future - but wouldn't that would be moving away from our original intent?

The problem is that being a trans inclusive feminist means that you have, at the very least, skated over some serious issues.

Could we perhaps agree that one can in fact be a trans inclusive feminist whilst having a fair grip on the situation and having put a decent amount of pretty well reasoned thought into it? (Even if we don't agree.)

I bloody well hope so

Rat- I was just musing, not expecting you to reply. But I have to say, I think you have skated a bit, although less than many others. And I an very grateful that to have answered my points so comprehensively.

I think you have skated over the definition of women, what happens in sport at non elite level, what rights transpeople are currently missing, and how vulnerable women can guarantee not to be given intimate care by a non male bodied person. We disagree fundamentally on the purpose of AWS, but that is nor specifically about trans ideology. And I am still not clear ( because my question was not clear) whether you think a transeoman committing a sex crime with her penis should be reported as a man or a woman. I am very grateful for your replies, and you have given me a lot to think about,

I was only teasing really!

But this one;

what happens in sport at non elite level

I definitely haven't skated over that - I've covered sport with a fine toothed comb on these boards! I didn't cover it in the previous thread I linked because I had already covered it, but I believe I linked to that previous thread in there - if you're interested :)

But cheers, it's been a fun exercise for me! I only defended that one point because sport is my total specialist subject (and lifelong passion!), so I couldn't let it go :)