Transgender stuff - only on Mumsnet - am I weird?!

[obliviousperson]

The only time I ever read or heard about transgender stuff is on Mumsnet.

I live in London, I travel a lot. As far as I know I know no one who has changed gender. I have never had a transgender issue that has affected me. Not in changing rooms or swimming pools or anywhere.

It is a bigger deal on this website than in my real life. No one I know has had any issues.

Is it hype? I don't understand!!!!

Although now I am amusing myself imagining Germaine Greer as the sparky’s assistant on DIY SOS or doing punditry on MOTD...

Well perhaps mumsnet just opens up a wide breadth of experience and just because it's not something you have personally experienced doesn't meant people on mumsnet are lying or being over the top about it .

I know of one transgender person , male to female , friend of a friend situation. They are from what I have seen and know of, a decent kind person and I am genuinely pleased they can now live happily and be free to be who they feel they are . I'm not anti trans. however I see the issues with self ID and the potential abuse of it and it infuriates me that once again women's opinions or worries count for fuck all.

other than the use of the odd public loo or potential hospital visit I can think of virtually no situations were the "self ID" of male to female would affect me in a public space , doesn't mean I can't rage on behalf of the women it will affect

I’m in rural Gloucestershire. In my dds school there are 7 Fttm and 3 mttf, and that's just in year 9.

I live in a small city downunder. I know two transgender people here, and there is debate going on here about transgender people in sport. I've talked about it with people of all walks of life.

*NoSqurirels" No, think low budget, very popular, real life type crap programmes!

PositivelyPERF You see, I have absoluteness no idea what you are talking about. You obviously have an agenda and think I am attacking you but you talk in passive aggressive riddles and I truly do not know what you mean. I have no agenda. There are people out here that do not know what you ae talking about.

Gosh op you and your dh do lead a sheltered life don’t you then.

I think you need to educate yourselves especially if your young children are dds?

Start with NoSquirrels posts and then maybe google and read a bit wider then you obviously are now.

Maybe share with NewYearNewMe while you at it.

I think MN now has the reputation of allowing trans discussion relatively freely so attracts others of a similar mind, skewing the conversation bent.

That more or less no one else allows the discussion, make of that what you will.

I think it’s interesting that discussions on the subject are often overrun by the same posters time after time in what appears an orchestrated way might lead one to wonder if there are agendas being pushed.....

Our area is a mix of posh students, professionals & aging hippies. Gender fluid/transgender is a thing amongst the students. I'm not really sure what they are as they tend to keep very masculine features like hair style, bulked figure but wear skirts & heels.

there are people out here who do not know what you are talking about

Who?? Where?? In my RL I know 2 trans teens and 1 gender fluid. Do you really not know any teenagers???

But keep posting and telling us all it’s still not happening so we can all yawn and move on quicker

Ohmydayslove But we don't, that's the thing. We do premieres, we do the charity functions, we do the fundraisers... In our lives it is not a big thing.

she was creaming over a male celeb who was there and I marked her as a hypocrite from that moment on lol!

What a disgusting thing to say. Are feminists not allowed to fancy men? Should they all be celibate?

By the way women never use the term creaming just so you know for future posting.

It’s a foul expression generally used by young mysogynistic men. You are not fit to wipe Her boots op. Grow up

Yes right out as seriously can’t be bothered to report or engage.

Big fat yawn

I don't think you live a sheltered life but you're bound to come across it through DC school

I'm sorry some posters are doubting you but we get a lot of trolls on this subject

I Live and work in London

Two old school transsexual contacts but not discussed this with them

My work has given us training which has made us nervous of,um, everything

The majority of our bathrooms have been changed to unisex - they are just stalls with communal sinks. There's constantly women going to the one set of women only that's left so always a bit of a queue

The disabled bathrooms are very busy in the first and last hours of the day because anyone who cycles in to work or needs to get changed for any reason doesn't have anywhere else they can do it

There have been complaints to HR as staff who can only use the disabled bathroom are left waiting for far too long

All diversity tracking type stuff has ditched bio sex questions and replaced it with gender questions

That's just my one experience but there are issues with sports, medical care, prisons, domestic abuse refuges

The agenda thing - it's not orchestrated, it's that lots of people are bothered about the word woman meaning something. And that for all the "we're all equal now" rhetoric, some people think that's not true. And that until it is, sex based provision is necessary. It's not complicated, or sinister. In fact, sinister is the very antithesis of Feminism. Unless you're not into the whole equality shebang.

Wisdens Yes, I think that is it. It certainly isn't a slice of life as we know it.

This weekend we were at a function that was in every major paper. No transgender stuff was mentioned (and I know because I went line by line thorough every paper looking for stuff about people I know lol!) and none of the (usual) celebs mentioned anything at all.

Caitlin aside, I wouldn't have known there was any issue.

OP why woukd it be mentioned at that particular event?

There are people out here that do not know what you ae talking about.

I’m frankly boggling at the idea that someone in reality TV knows NO gender questioning people. None. Or has never had diversity training. Or been to a premiere or fundraiser where a trans person hasn’t presented an award/won an award/been nominated by a charity etc.

I am so intrigued though. What reality TV genre would be so unaffected? I bet even Homes Under the Hammer must have the odd LL who identifies with a different gender. Gardeners Workd? Nope, that’s as inclusive as they come. And not “crap” TV so clearly not.

I don’t watch enough TV to know.

Btw wasn’t Germaine fantastic talking to Kirsty about gender self ID. What a woman. A real feminist and role model with a sense of humour and realism we desperately need now when men seem to be eroding all our hard earned freedoms by putting on frocks and heels.

I find the whole business both worrying and tiresome. And I have had various trans friends throughout my adult life (so from the late 80s). I've got at least half a dozen trans friends now (including a couple of non-binary-identifying. TBH I think that is a little bit silly and attention-seeking, but as they are otherwise lovely people, I'm prepared to put up with it in the same way as I put up with lovely people being eg practising members of a religion, or sports bores.)

Yet I have seen so much horrible, spiteful, misinformed or dishonest, scaremongering, self-righteous, obsessive behaviour from various individuals on either side of the debate that I try to keep out of it.

Yes, there are still conversations to be had and things to be considered with regard to how gender is experienced, performed and controlled. The idea of a gender binary has always been about reinforcing male dominance over women, which is something some people on the 'trans rights now!' side seem to forget or not know.
There's nothing wrong with cross-dressing because it turns you on, either. Or with having more than one 'identity' (I am really, really used to people who have more than one 'self' and are entirely rational about it - people who are performers and have a stage persona, authors who have an 'author persona', people who spend their weekends being historical peasants, or wandering faeries... or just dressing in fetish wear and being a fantasy made flesh.)

My concerns are rather more about things like: women's sport (even though I don't like sport much myself). It's going to need to be re-thought, and the rules are going to have to change. And my other concern is the possibility of corporations, having got a ticking-off for their gender pay gap, suddenly announcing that 30% of the men-in-suits who make up the Board actually 'identify as female' so no gender pay gap, nothing to see, nothing that needs to change.

OP - are you a woman?

WomaninGreen Why not? It seems prevalent, everyday, on Mumsnet and this was an annual event, one of the biggest that the industry hosts.

none of the (usual) celebs mentioned anything at all
Well people don’t just randomly mention it for no reason, so they?
Not quite sure of your point?