AIBU to feel a rage at how my voice is silenced and mocked? (trans thread)

[DonkeyHotei]

The trans threads on here pop up every day. The overwhelming response from the Mumsnet Massive is that, in denying trans rights as human rights, they are standing up for the rights of women and girls not to be abused by predators. And in virtually any other thread apart from those dealing with the complexities of a transgender identity, yes they are.... I'm really proud of the vehemence of the battle-hardened feminist warriors in taking a stance for the rights of women and girls. But when it comes to transgender issues, this site seems to stand in a world apart, because there is a hardcore contingent on here gleefully counting every one of the more moderate but less well informed folk they rally to their cause. But you ARE on the fringes if you go with this. You ARE denying the arguments that extremely well-informed people from FEMINIST ORGANISATIONS have considered long and hard: In Scotland, the reality is that feminist organisations support self-ID for a number of complex reasons. A statement from Engender, which included Close the Gap, Equate Scotland, Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid, Women 50:50 and Zero Tolerance, made that clear. You will ask me questions that are so infinitely complex that I'd be doing philosophical argument an injustice by trying to answer in a soundbite (I'll be asked, "What constitutes a women?"; I'll be told that I'm a traitor to the safety of women and girls. I am one and I have daughters.. Can i go for Bingo with this? First person who tells me I'm a scumbag and my view is invalid and damaging to the very people I am trying to protect: i.e., women, scores a bingo hit. I could bore on with the statistics of suicide and self-harm among the trans community, or I could get personal and tell you how it feels to lose a mother to the choice of taking one's own life. Horrific....I'd love to talk about it. You may bring out Karen and her foul predatory behaviour. And it's hard to come back from that one except to say she is a vile predator and I don't judge women by her benchmark. Include. Include. They are not "lady-dicks", they deserve not to be dead-named, Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria has no scientific basis...or if it does, please tell me? Include, include. You ARE on the wrong side of history on this one. I'm just a small person but thankfully I do have the weight of the better informed behind me.

Do you feel trans people are also trying to erase male identity and reduce manhood to a feeling in a transman’s mind?

When transmen get the attention and prominence transwomen do, when men in their millions are loudly proclaiming 'transmen are my brothers' and when transmen get to lead the movement and have their voices heard over all, that may be a consideration. As it is, the movement is all and only about one group.

It's almost as if TRAs realise that if they start going after men, they'll get absolutely nowhere.

I stopped reading at “Karen and her foul predatory behaviour”.

He is a man. He is a rapist.
He is not a she.

I'm with you @DonkeyHotei, and I'm also with my fellow feminists, including those at the Fawcett Society; the UK's leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women's rights.

I'm not in the slightest bit bothered that other feminists might have different opinions to my own - I should hope that they do! But it does piss me off rather to be told that despite this, other self-identified feminists would label my informed and educated position "misogynistic" and anti-woman. In the process slandering the position of some of the most informed feminists in the country as man-pleasing, illogical or just plain old "hard of thinking".

I find the arrogance of that, when indeed it does happen, to be startling. And the condescension and infantilisation of other women even more so.

It is profoundly totalitarian to expect people to not only tow the party line but to look ecstatic about it or else

My local leisure centre has a big room (and side room for team change). Everyone gets changed in front of each other. It's the only place to swim for miles. If someone with a penis self id'd his way in there, it would be totally obvious, and all uncomfortable woman or girls could do, is not go. This doesn't seem fair, and would soon affect the places reputation and profits, so it could end up being shut down as a determined perv ruined it for everyone. And I could see a little girl telling her dad "there was a woman in there naked, but she had a willy", and there being a fight...

Tbh, I think shop changing rooms will get it a lot worse than toilets. Currently men can be asked to sit outside, but now any random weirdo can be naked in the cubicle, doing all sorts if he so pleases (hard to prove too). My sis works in retail and has found semen a few times in changing rooms/on clothes, can only imagine that will get a lot worse with self ID.

*sorry to clarify our local pool seems to be a popular spot for seperated dads to spend time with kids, so a lot of girls 7+ in the womens changing room, with no adult. Some 10+ there with just friends, no adult supervision at all except staff, who would be legally obligated to let the man sitting there stark naked, stay there. If he has an errection, but isn't touching himself, then what..?

I am afraid I imagine the inevitable: But why were you there? You knew there were people with penises there.

And there is one more space for women to avoid so they don't either get accused of bigotry or blamed for their own assaults. I wish it weren't so but unfortunately the world always looks for ways to blame women and it isn't changing any time soon.

I'm with you @DonkeyHotei, and I'm also with my fellow feminists, including those at the <a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=bfa3ae68-abee-478d-b59b-71572881b5a0" target="_blank">Fawcett Societyy^; the UK's leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women's rights.

I'm afraid I think the Fawcett society, like so many organisations set up to address the structural inequality of WOMEN, have rather lost their way.

Feminism: the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.

How can you have women's rights if anyone can be a woman. How can you have equality of the sexes if sex is legally uncoupled from biology?

You said that the Karen White incident occurred because the systems in place failed. What women are concerned about is the dismantling of such systems. I do not understand how anyone can be a feminist and not have concerns about this.

OP - I reserve the right to discuss an issue that directly affects me.

There are no 'complex' arguments here.

My biology makes me a woman. We share chromosomes, anatomy and due to our physical make-up are more physically vulnerable than biological males. Men can and do take advantage of this. We need our specific medical provisions and safe spaces because of this.

if a male-bodied person makes me feel threatened or uncomfortable in a safe space I want the right to query their presence there.

How can you have equality of the sexes if sex is legally uncoupled from biology?

Something something pomo, it will all be fine. Stunning and brave.

if a male-bodied person makes me feel threatened or uncomfortable in a safe space I want the right to query their presence there.

This. Male people need to respect female space.

I'm afraid I think the Fawcett society, like so many organisations set up to address the structural inequality of WOMEN, have rather lost their way.

"People in this country have had enough of experts". Anti-intellectualism at its best.

The problem for me is that the ‘trans’ label is now so wide, I actually don’t know what it means. I totally understand that someone may feel they are in the wrong body and want to change that body (although I do feel that even that is complex and may in at least some cases arise because of deeply entrenched stereotyping in our society).

However, once we get to the situation where someone can get a birth certificate saying they are female, purely because they SAY that they FEEL LIKE A WOMAN, then I just feel at a loss. I can’t understand that someone can be born male, keep a male body, maybe make very little effort to “look” female, but be allowed into women only spaces.

I know that if I am changing in a communal area, look up and see a man next to me, mans body, genitals, I would feel extremely uncomfortable. Depending on circumstances, depending on whether I had been sexually assaulted or raped, or whether aid been subject to domestic violence, I might feel threatened, frightened. I might feel I could never go back. I might, if I belonged to a particular religion or culture feel I could never go back to that gym, that girl guide holiday etc.

Am I transphobic to feel that way?

Am I committing a hate crime if I voice my concerns?

That is the sad thing. I have always supported minorities, always deplored racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. The shame here, is that women are being put in a position where if they are sensible enough to think this thing through, they rightly say, ‘hang on a minute’. But they’re not being allowed to voice concern.

So, OP, please, no blanket statements of ‘trans women are women’, or ‘trans women deserve equal rights’ or ‘I do not support transphobia’ , Just tell me, when I’m in that changing room and I feel scared. Am I being unreasonable? Am I being transphobic?

An attendant said she was powerless to remove him as he identified as a woman.

She can remove him/her for filming someone in a changing room

What a pointless thread. It’s just a statement intended to insult and provoke.

OP & others should know, these so-called ‘informed feminists’ from ‘leading feminist organisations’ often also support buying and selling of women’s bodies.

I have never considered any of these mainstream feminist organisations as representative of myself or any of the feminists I know. I also have my own mind and don’t follow an idea just because popular liberal feminists organisations support it.

She can remove him/her for filming someone in a changing room

Again, we have to wait till a female is violated before we can object.

*RatUnholyRolyPoly

I'm afraid I think the Fawcett society, like so many organisations set up to address the structural inequality of WOMEN, have rather lost their way.

"People in this country have had enough of experts". Anti-intellectualism at its best*

What a weird response. If we don’t support the Fawcett Society it’s ‘anti-intellectualism’. Wow. Now I’ve heard it all 🙄

My daughter was in TopShop Leeds in August and a man started filming using his phone. An attendant said she was powerless to remove him as he identified as a woman. Self ID means men cannot be removed from women's spaces.

South Korea's spy cam porn epidemic

I think self-Id would just make this even quicker and more wide spread to come here.

I image the attendant didn't want to get involved - as it could easily blow back on them if guy took to Twitter like Top shop one. I think they blame the attendant there.

penny that's not what I'm saying, but way to extrapolate. I'm saying if your counter to their position is "they've lost their way", rather than actually engaging with any of their statements, that's pretty anti-intellectual don't you think?

Perhaps in the context it was indeed far too vague, but me and Eresh go waaaay back, so it was more a comment between the two of us than one that was intended to be taken so generally.

No, I don’t. I think the TWAW position has been debated to death on MN and elsewhere so there is no need to engage with statements that align with what we have already engaged with. It is absolute nonsense to state that observing they’ve ‘lost their way’ is ‘anti-intellectual’.