AIBU to state that no one thinks Self ID for Trans gender people should be passed as law.

[Shiklah]

Thank you for reading my thread.

I would appreciate respectful debate on this issue as I am utterly bewildered. Please do not attack me and call me a transphobic person. I am not. I work with vulnerable women and children, including victims of grooming gangs, in Calderdale. I live in a town very close to where Karen White lived and abused his victims which has made me research this topic.

I posted on MN yesterday asking for views on the media calling Karen White - a male rapist - she. I have researched and read continuously for the last 24 hours and am now utterly bewildered. It seems that the government, media and many trusted organisations are willing to pass over the rights of women and children to support the rights of men who may or may not be transgendered.

Transgendered people have dysphoria, this means that being a trans woman and being a rapist are exclusive - you cannot be one if you are the other. it makes no sense. It seems very clear that if self ID goes thru then any man which a personality disorder and fetish can ID as a woman and use this loop hole to gain access to hospitals, prisons, detention centres, children's homes, refuges and rape crisis centres. As women, we must protect those that are vulnerable, it cannot be right that to meet the needs of a maligned group (trans gender people) we sacrifice the rights of another?

We have a system that seems flawed - maybe it needs to change, maybe it needs review, I am not trans and would like to hear from those that are to advise on this, please help me understand........ but AIBU to state that self ID is unacceptable to women, children and truly transgendered people who will suffer if the likes of Karen White are considered to be 'women'?

Thanks for reading.

The dismissive calls of hysteria and echo chambers do irritate me - I really haven't found FWR an echo chamber, apart from when someone is trolling them and they all pile in to tell the twonk to fuck off.

The consistency of opinions and general consensus appears to me to be because we have read up on the topic across a broad range of documents and sources, and have come to the same conclusion.

IMO if you have a different opinion you would probably benefit from reading a little more and making fewer fatuous statements.

If a large number of seemingly rational people are in agreement (and can back up their argument), it's worth considering that they might be right.

I agree VforVienetta.

So many mums I talk to are massively worried about the implications of all this for their daughters.

They're not radical feminists or in an echo chamber. They are just mums and wives who live in the real world where biology is still a thing.

I think these people have spent so much time on video games and online that they think the real world is like that.

You can just change your sex like you can change your character in a video game.

The rest of the world knows that we are basically animals and our underlying biology is fundamental.

@chicken2015 Sorry to highjack but I find your thoughts on fear fascinating. Can I ask how old you are?
Does this excerpt from Nina Funnell's white board exercise really not resonate with you at all? It completely hit me when I first read it: so many ways in which women manage their own behaviour because of fear of men. And can I add that I'm over 50, and until I read this I honestly thought I had invented the key thing when a student back in the 80s. I really thought I was the only person who did this.

'Some years ago, I ran an exercise with young men and women. I asked the men to write on the whiteboard what they did every day to avoid being sexually harassed or assaulted.

Blank faces.

I then asked the women what they did every day to avoid being sexually harassed or assaulted.

Mad scribbling ensued.

“I cover my drinks at bars.”

“I sit in the backs of taxis”

“I walk the long way home because it’s better lit”

“I thread my keys between my fingers like Wolverine when walking through carparks”

“I sit with other women on trains”

“I try not to dress for attention”

And on and on it goes. Women are surprised to realise the extent to which they have internalised sexual threat as an omnipresent white noise in their life.'

Im 35, out of what u listed i wouldnt necessarily walk a long way home but i wouldn't go down a dark alley at night ,but i think that is separate to being concerned every single man that walk past me i i come in contact with, every day is somehow a threat to me. I dont believe thats a rational way of thinking and i dont believe i am a rare exception to the rule by thinking this.

No-one thinks that every man is a threat, but we are conditioned to protect ourselves from harm from men in a way that boys growing up never are.
That is one of the reasons that Transmen are so threatened: they become aware of male violence suddenly and without the lifelong training that women get. Even as children girls are collected from parties where the boys bike home etc. We have those thoughts all the time even if they aren't overt.

If I was walking out of the station at night and I was followed by a man all the way to my car who then walked past and on to his own car I'd be really tense and then feel really relieved. If a woman walked behind me out to her car I'd be much more likely to share a smile. That doesn't mean that I think all men are rapists. Just that I'm aware that I'm more likely to be at risk from a man than a woman.
Men just don't have this thought process. It's all about conditioning.

Male trans person: I don't want to use the mens because of male violence
Self ID supporter: Oh thats understandable, males are quite violent overall
Woman: I don't want males in womens spaces, because male violence
Self ID supporter: You fucking bigoted TERF. Men are perfectly safe and if they aren't and they attack you you can always call the police. Go die in a fire.

Superb! Thank you for putting it so beautifully!

I asked "so you are saying as a society women should automatically be wary around man? And that what is considered "normal"?
It was answered

Yesterday 23:20VforVienetta

Um, yes, that is literally how most women on the planet have to live

I am disagreeingand saying i do not belive that is how most of society's women feel , i was told im the exception to the rule. (I am a woman)

@Chicken2015 you can add me to feeling the same as you. (Woman also) I do totally get that some women are scared around men. I do. It's not like that for us all though.

Oh for goodness sake

Even i know they were referring to dodgy situations not walking down the high street in broad daylight

And i can be remarkably dense

(No one agree with that...I'm fragile)

Nobody said anything about just walking down the street in daylight?
Here's one example on the thread not in broad daylight.

If I was walking out of the station at night and I was followed by a man all the way to my car who then walked past and on to his own car I'd be really tense and then feel really relieved.

I wouldn't automatically be really tense, presumably chicken is saying so too.

Neither do i

But i can understand how a lot of women especially smaller than me might feel very uneasy in a dark night and where no one is around

Im usually so relaxed im virtually in a coma, but last Wednesday night a friend and i were walking home late at night and some bloke was staring at us and i really wasnt happy letting her walk the rest of the way by herself

Some deliberate misunderstanding here surely?
You asked if women were generally wary of men. IMO, yes. Women in general have to think of risks in a completely different way to men.
Do I sit at Parents Evening mortally afraid of the dads in the room? No, don't be absurd.
Am I cautious about situations where men could put me in a difficult position, or threaten me? Yes. It's a background awareness, like white noise. Ever present, even when it's patently unnecessary.
I have radar for creepy male behaviour, that has proved accurate too many times to ignore. Very few women have ever made me feel uncomfortable in that way.

I definitely wasn't being deliberately misunderstanding, thats why i seemed so shocked as i believed u meant all the time, maybe i didnt word it correctly to ask what i meant, and i apologise, i understand i will not change ur view and i hope one dqy transpeople can live there life without prejudiced

i hope one dqy transpeople can live there life without prejudiced but this has nothing to do with the need to protect women, children and those in vulnerable positions from men who want to identify as women to access these spaces.

Chicken your last comment implies that I am prejudiced against trans people, please explain why you think this?
If you don't, please could you use punctuation and paragraphs to separate your sentences so your meanings are clearer.

No it doesnt for them men, but unfortunately they r not being separated and they are being put into the same category as all transpersons and people r denying their whole existence which is not right for me which i have said a few times so instead of just repeating i will leave u guys too it

You're repeating because you have not yet made a coherent statement that made logical sense...

If ur prepared to deny a group of people rightfully exsist i would say that is being prejudiced, im not sure how it couldnt be that, if u r not the poster who says they r not "a thing" then i apologise i have mixed you up with someone else.

You have mixed me up with a PP.

Well im sorry for that, it only doesnt make sense to u , because i was directing it at another person who made that comment ,
By the way i struggle with grammer and spellings as im dyslexic anyways im leaving u guys too it , ive said what i feel

No it doesnt for them men, but unfortunately they r not being separated and they are being put into the same category as all transpersons and people r denying their whole existence

But this is the whole basis of the argument that they are not being separated because they can’t be separated.

No one is denying their existence. People are saying that there is no way to tell a genuine transperson who poses no threat from someone who is saying they ‘identify’ as a woman to gain access to vulnerable people.

Re: denying anyone’s existence (which I don’t), to quote from another thread:

‘The feeling that one has been born in the wrong body is real.

The fact that one has been born in the wrong body is not real.’

The fact that one has been born in the wrong body is not real.’

That's subject to opinion,though. As we're quoting other threads, it was also put across that maybe there's more out there that we're just not all properly aware of yet.
People can and do feel that their body and brain don't match up, that they feel female/male on the inside and the other way round outwardly.
That much is obvious because transmen and women do exist.

The feeling that one has been born in the wrong body is real.
The fact that one has been born in the wrong body is not real.’

That's stating one as a feeling and one on a fact but based on one opinion.

But Verbeena you say within your post that they feel their body doesn't match their inner identity. So yes - trans people exist due to feelings, but not due to biology (or rather our current understanding of it).
Biology is fact, so when I say that trans is a feeling not a fact, I don't mean to diminish someone's self identity, just to confirm that biology is observable facts.
Being trans is a feeling not biology, as there is no current way to 'prove' your inner identity.