AIBU .... to open a transgender discussion thread for respectful debate !

[wrexhamtrans]

For the last couple of days I enjoyed a great discussion over transgender rights on a thread that has now closed. Despite over 1000 posts it was on the whole very respectful and insightful.

So let's have something new.... let's have a thread started by myself, a transsexual woman where we can have a healthy dialog. No TRA agenda, no erasure, no abuse or disrespect......

To kick things off I'd like to pick up on a comment made on a previous thread.
I fully accept many other women, who would previously allowed this [transgender women in women's spaces], now wouldn't because "we gave an inch and they stole a mile"

In the past there existed generally a happy coexistence between transsexual women and women.

Unfortunately the goalposts moved and we now have this broad umbrella of transgenderism which I will be the first to say is completely ridiculous. It is this new label that campaigns for cross dressers rights and acceptance of those who are sexual motivated. And of course self id is a dangerous and foolish idea.

Please remember there is still a quiet minority of transsexual women who do want to live their life in peace and who are as much against this as any woman. These TRAs do not represent me.

Being a woman for me is who I am. It's how society sees me because it cannot accept the way I am as permissible as a man. I am castrated and hormonally transitioned and awaiting surgery. I live every day as a woman and i am treated as one in many ways including misogyny, oppressed by male privilege, sexualisation....For some transition was the only way to have a life.

Those who cross dress and are sexual motivated are making a choice. Those with gender dysphoria are not.

There needs to be compromise on both sides, probably more so on the TRA side.
As transsexual I would like to have seen the following...

1. No self id. All those identifying as women to be psychologically evaluated and screened. Gender Dysphoria is no joke.
2. Any rights given to trans women go to dysphoric transsexual women who are in physical transition. No rights at all to other groups eg cross dressers....in other words is transsexual rights not transgender rights.
3. Access to some women's spaces permitted after X months of HRT and testosterone blocking therapy ie when Oestrogen and Testosterone levels are that of a natal female.

Unfortunately I think too much has been conceded already to revert.
I am fed up having my identity hijacked and turned into something it's not. I wouldn't wish gender dysphoria on my worst enemy. People with GD are damaged people who struggle considerably with gender identity and face daily abuse, ridicule and violence.

I absolutely do believe it is possible to born in the wrong body.....to have a brain chemistry of one gender and a body of another. Indeed we know of one generic condition called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome which does exactly that. The idea though that it's ok to mix this up with sexual fetishism is sooooo wrong.

Can you think of any other medical condition where it would be accepted for someone else to claim that condition because they like to pretend they have it ? If I applied to the Council for a Blue Badge because it turns me on to sometimes pretend I am disabled I would be told, rightly so, where to go. Why oh why would the Government capitulate that with gender dysphoria ? You were born in the wrong body, have significant mental health issues ? Yes, we will help you. You like to pretend you are a woman because it turns you on ? Of course, jump in there too.....

Honestly, I could have predicted it. One woman calling the OP sexist and using a swearword would be enough. I knew it.

It's not supposed to happen. There is supposed to be a consensus that 'bad transwomen' must be excluded, but good transwomen, always like the OP, should be included. Without any real explanation as to why - except they assert they are not predators. The bar is that bloody low.

Or if you listen to Tara Hudson, it's longevity that gets you inclusion. Debbie Hayton says it's surgery. Lily Madigan claims it's their brain. The OP wants it to be gender dysphoria. Whilst any number of transwomen don't want there to be any criteria at all, just barge in.

Its all kinds of wrong that a cohort of men are deciding amongst themselves what criteria to apply to themselves in order to get women to concede to male bodies in female spaces. And boy do they get pissed off if women say no, fuck off.

A ceverer woman than me said if you want to find out what men think of your consent, say no to them about something. And observe their reaction.

You see Darun the difference is between your last post and Barrakas response to my saying it felt like bullying.Its in tone I suppose but an aggressive debate feels bad if youre on the receiving end.
Not running away but gave do shopping and attend to a demanding teen.

...Have to go,dammed autocorrect.

seventhgonickname

Ah tone. It's not that common, is it, for women to turn around to a male bodied person, who is earnestly describing their position, and call them a sexist fuckwit.

Interesting though. Because the OP was being monumentally sexist, and using their male privilege to try and contain the conversation in the way they wanted it. They actually said they expected to have some respect for even posting.

Major fuckwittery.

And when their attempt to control the discourse failed, they flounced. I don't blame them precisely. I've never seen a transwoman post on here without inadvertently revealing things they would rather they hadn't. That's because the ideology is built on sexist stereotypes. You can't avoid it.

It's not supposed to happen. There is supposed to be a consensus that 'bad transwomen' must be excluded, but good transwomen, always like the OP, should be included. Without any real explanation as to why - except they assert they are not predators. The bar is that bloody low.

Precisely. And telling us that men are violent and predatory and a risk to them so they should be permitted access to womens spaces, not acknowledging that puts women at risk from the 'bad TW', just so long as they're okay eh? You couldn't make it up.

Quote from the OP males in our prisons..... In the absence of an alternative where else would you put me as a biological male, gender female with breasts ? Women want protected from men absolutely but so do transwomen! I have been target on many occasions as a sex object by men.

Also, it's not being "target on many occasions as a sex object by men" that is the issue for women.

One dead woman every three days. Every fucking three fucking days, some poor cow gets moroculised by some wanker with a bruised ego. Week in week out.

Boo hoo hoo that some prick fancies a fumble with a trans body. Boo hoo hoo that you get objectified - that's how men are. We die. In droves.

I'm cross now. Lost sympathy. Again.

The OP's tone is misleading. Their words belie their tone.

They say they respect women's boundaries.

Quite how I am not willing to respect women's boundaries I really don't get. I have never said that and it's certainly not the case.

But not in sport,

The best solution I can come up with, and it isn't ideal, is that to complete as a transwoman in womens sports you must have had testosterone and oestrogen levels to be that of a natal female for at least 6 months.

Doubling down when challenged

That is indeed true but then there are of course a wide range of natal female heights and builds as well. I dont think there will ever be an easy solution to this.

And not in prisons,

In the absence of an alternative where else would you put me as a biological male, gender female with breasts ?

Or changing rooms,

no males in our changing rooms ..... In the majority of cases I agree but in the absence of an alternative I do not have a problem with a transitioned person.

Smears get a qualified exemption,

No males providing intimate same sex services .... sort of. I think women should absolutely have a right to choose who provides these services and to refuse a trans Women. Bear in mind there are many male midwives and most gynaecologists are men.

But not in the legal definition,

categorically no clauses in law that allow males to claim legally that they are females?" I think there are certain and limited times when it should be allowed.

So the indignant assertion

Quite how I am not willing to respect women's boundaries I really don't get. I have never said that and it's certainly not the case.

...begins to look a little hollow.

Great the TRAs call people like me a TERF and the Feminists call me a panderer.

Less extreme views on both sides would be wonderful, more sensible discussions would be awesome. It is not about giving in or lying down to the patriarchy & sexism, or saying its ok to take away our hard fought rights. We are still fighting and I personally will never stop fighting for women's rights, to retain the ones we have and to stop the slide back to the stereotyping masochistic 1950s.

But Lockes law feels very apt here, we are all entitled to liberty, but ones rights should not cause pain or ill to others. That sits on both sides of the fence. The radical TRAs are wanting to take liberties from women, gays and pretty much everyone who doesn't agree with them .... the extremists on the other side want transsexuals not to have any liberties. It all feels like we are going so far backwards, and I don't know what the solution is. But I do know that the solution can not be to capitulate to any form of extreme views. And to at least try and unite to stop the removal of our rights, our liberties.

Calling names of those who don't believe in everything you shout - will not help, it will only further divide & do the work for those who seek to subjugate women.

Saying men who identify as women should not do smear tests, cavity searches on women, go to female prisons, become rape counsellors, beat women in sport, or get naked in the changing room meant for women, is not depriving them of their liberty!

I'm not debating my daughter's boundaries with any man, regardless of whether that gets me labelled a bully to him.

I'm not going to be respectful to any man who wants to negotiate her sex based rights away for his benefit, because he's nice/special/vulnerable/not like other men/has a ladypenis/had it removed/believes in gender/has a certificate/ won't hurt us/promises not to look/likes ballet/lives stereotypes/had implants/takes oestrogen.

There's no tone I can use that will convey accurately enough the fury I feel that entitled men and the grown women who validate them would callously swipe away my child's rights and safety.

So as a mother, if you're expecting me to be strike the right 'tone' in defending my daughter's rights you need to expect my tone to sound like a roar of any mother protecting her child. It will be loud and it will be unapologetic.

This poses the question then, of what it feels like to be a woman, nobody really knows, as it differs from one woman to the next. It is very difficult to put your finger on it, and to have a list of criteria because it reduces being a woman to a set of certain sterotypes. I am quite masculine dressed and have my hair short, I am constantly told by mum mum 'why can't you look like a woman', 'oh you look like a man'. I somehow don't think transwoman would like to look like me. As a natal woman, I feel like me, being a woman does not define my personality. If it did than I would like pink and all things girly. I would like to wear dresses and skirts, and not jeans or trousers, i would have my hair long, not short etc. Being a woman means different things to different women. If people like Wrexhamtrans wants to live how they want, it is up to them, and no business of mine, I will personally respect that.

I don't think people are having a problem with the way Wrexham wants to live. It's the rights that Wrexham want ceded to them on the basis of their personality.

And, for me, it's always very telling what happens when you say no.

wrexham on another thread, said they uses the disabled toilets, and does not like to encroach on women's spaces, and has respected that.

And when their attempt to control the discourse failed, they flounced.

This is what always, always, always, happens.

I know many of us who mostly post on FWR come across as brusque and it probably looks as though we come out swinging unnecessarily. But mostly it's because we've had the same conversations a million times.

I'm a nice transsexual so you should let me in.

Well, yes, but there are limits to that. Here are some of them.

FLOUNCE.

Here, for example, is WrexhamTrans complaining and throwing their weight around because a crowdfund for polling asking questions women wanted answering didn't ask the questions Wrexham thought should have been asked.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3404335-Poll-52-of-people-consider-a-person-who-was-born-male-and-has-male-genitalia-but-identifies-as-a-woman-to-be-a-man?pg=2

As soon as women pointed out that they wanted to discuss the polling they had paid for themselves and asked Wrexham to stop derailing the thread, this was the response:

Am I not allowed an opinion because I'm trans?

Same old, same old.

What a shame, OP was on the way to engaging in discussion. I do understand why people were angry, it might have been better to phrase it as an attack on their argument/position rather than calling OP names. Doubt they'd have stayed anyway though, they're too invested in gender identity to understand how their position comes across as misogynist.

Noone wants transsexuals not to have "liberties" by the way, you can have liberties without everyone believing you've changed sex.

Re pronouns I'd happily refer to a pantomime dame as "she" while in costume for example, they're playing a female role though they are still very definitely male and a man. If they started saying they should share a dressing room with the junior chorus girls though I would tend back to referring to them as "he" as their maleness is relevant to that discussion. I think this is part of what is happening with transgender discussions. Because we're discussing something where sex is very relevant, there's a massive dissonance to using incorrect sex pronouns.

I use disabled toilets but were I to use a female toilet would anyone really have an issue knowing I was diagnosed, on HRT, had breasts and therefore was vulnerable in a male environment and had been castrated ?

What she said on the other thread is above. Again with the men are dangerous but I'm not so would you really have an issue?

Absolutely agreed but just a little fascinating fact.... female hormones do change height by up to an inch !! Shoe size can also change.

I do wish people would consider the wider consequences of promoting or accepting a narrative that specific hormone levels can be used to assert being woman / female.

There are many women who have had hysterectomies due to medical neccesity at a younger age eg gyny cancer, severe endometriosis etc. They experience surgical menopause.

They are of course still women (adult human females) whether they take HRT (the R is significant and means replacement) or not.

For many such operations profoundly affect their sense of self, it may well impact their sexuality and can often mean they also often have to deal with the consequences of infertility

I have heard too many TRAs appropriate the experience of women who have had hysterectomies eg if they are women despite not having wombs, so transwomen without wombs are likewise women. Whilst some people nod along with this (Victoria Derbyshire, Cathy Newman for example). Its profoundly wrong and demonstrates a lack of empathy and respect as well as being poor logic.

I won't even attempt to relay the appropriation of women's vaginas post hysterectomy by a TRA poster on MN.

If people are accepting that a male becomes female due to their taking cross sex hormones, then please consider the implications this has for those women whose hormone levels for whatever reason are not those of a fertile, pre-menopausal woman. Their identity also matters.

She said it was on the whole a respectful debate but I think she meant it was just respectful to her

YY. It was not a particularly "respectful" debate on that thread. Shows up lack of perspective.

Indeed. It did have a lot of the 'well you're the kind of TW I'm happy to call a woman' type of posts so I'm not surprised she enjoyed that thread and not this one.

Well , it was refreshing to hear what other people think. It's interesting that plenty of posters think there must be a solution that doesn't involve surrendering hard-fought-for women's rights but that also doesn't endanger transexual women.

I'm frustrated by Stonewall's insistence on the "All-trans-together" umbrella which doesn't make for the best climate for debate. It obfuscates and blurs what needs to be a carefully considered future legal pathway.

We know what the regular GC posters think, and as this thread has (rather predictably) devolved into the usual posters posting the usual things I'll be hiding it.

But it was a thoughtful read.

Karen White is the case in point. Diagnosis, lives as, presents as, every reason for 'inclusive practice'. Obviously no one foresaw Karen repeatedly raping a woman on the psychiatric ward they were both on, or that while in prison awaiting trial for that offense, Karen would sexually assault four further women.

Jess Bradley, NUS officer, a leader in Action for Trans Health, has led national level training to many agencies as a transwoman, including the NHS, on developing trans inclusive policies and practice, and teaching that women neither need nor should want separate sex based spaces from transwomen as they are at no risk. Also currently suspended from post following some selfies posted of themselves flashing their penis in places like the bus stop, and for images on their social media of a Cbeebies child character being anally raped.

There is no possible way to separate those who may exploit access to women's spaces from those who won't. And that's even if the only objection any woman in the UK had to undressing in front of a male bodied person was the risk.

there must be a solution that doesn't involve surrendering hard-fought-for women's rights but that also doesn't endanger transexual women. Even the posters you don't like reading think must be possible if, and only if, Stonewall and the TRAs can be relegated to a less loud/acknowledged status.

Many of those posters are, as one of the has explained here, simply the most frustrated, further along the WTF journey and have begun posting without the muzzle of female socialisation.

If this whole stupidity continues for much longer I will most definitely be one of those posters. 18 months and counting since I became GC, I am getting more and more blunt/rude every day!

Jess Bradley, NUS officer, a leader in Action for Trans Health, has led national level training to many agencies as a transwoman, including the NHS, on developing trans inclusive policies and practice, and teaching that women neither need nor should want separate sex based spaces from transwomen as they are at no risk. Also currently suspended from post

suspended since July 1018, with still no comment/ outcome from NUS
threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3325623-Jess-Bradley-a-government-advisor-on-womens-rights-suspended-by-NUS-over-indecent-blog-Part-iii

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3320513-Jess-Bradley-first-transgender-student-officer-suspended-after-flashing-photos

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3321764-Jess-Bradley-suspended-Part-II

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3323623-Who-is-really-funding-Jess-Bradleys-defence

Who called you a bully Barracker?
When I compared tone it was you response to me I referred to.
No one is blaming you for feeling strongly about your daughter,Ihave a 15yr old daughter of my own who I discuss these issues with.
I don't roar but would defend your right to do so.
The trouble with roaring is that it drowns out those who are actually on the same side.
I express disappointment in the responses to the OP and all sorts of assumptions of what I believe or am are made.You can disagree without making me your next target.

OP thank you for this thread. I either agree with, or totally understand your perspective on, most of what you have said. Though I think some of the issues are very difficult to solve. Mostly that sharing women's spaces with trans women didn't use to be an issue until some criminals and chancers got wind of the opportunity, and it's now very hard to put that one back in the box or to say who is a "genuine" trans person.

I do think many people have been rather aggressive to the OP who had been very open and balanced in answering questions. Yes we should be free to disagree but to me it came across as aggressive from many. I get that people are genuinely and understandably worried but we need to work with people like the OP, not yell at them till they give up.