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.....

What is funny? Women trying to prevent ore women being attacked by violent men?

Women saying categorically that trans women are men?

Women who won't accept that a quick 'lol' makes anything alright?

What? I don't understand what the 'lols' are for!

But you cannot give away my rights, even if you want to chuck yours away.

If the government, institutions, schools, colleges have all sucked Satan's lady cock, that is their choice. But at the very least they need to show us the RISK ASSESSMENTS that they are ALL duty bound to have done before they change the arrangements that women and girls are entitled to by virtue of the Equality Act.

If you want to argue for less privacy and security for women and girls, show us your workings. Show us how a male who transitions is less of a threat than one that doesn't.

Surely that is not too much to ask?

Best post all day.

Women are the adult humans who are female. That’s all we are. No special essence, no need to like or dislike certain things. Infinitely varied human beings who share ONE common denominating factor, that of belonging to the sex that can produce ova and bear offspring, whether we actually do that or not, whether our reproductive system is functioning or not.

You may be slow of reading but you're definitely not slow of thinking, BearingUpNicely.

I nearly cut n pasted your whole post.

The only thing that differentiates us from men is our biology. And biology is not bigotry.

Did you understand the sentence above the one you are agreeing with? I find that quite a wierd 'lol'

I did, yes.
Sorry you found my lol weird, but it gets dragged back to this level of conversation.
It was all sensible and actual discussion between people mid thread.

Before the YYs, the do keep up! and got it yet?
There's no point engaging at a discussion level at all on here. Which is why people don't usually in t'other place.

I am not trying to diminish tour journey, just explain where I was coming from and I've done that now. I also said I haven't witnessed any 'othering'.
The post ^thread said 'have' that was thanks to my android friend!

I certainly have experienced it.

I think Ereshkigal that people should abide by the law.

You are kidding me? You asked if businesses should be able to refuse to wax male genitalia. I answered with the above and you then quote me and reply

So rape in marriage pre 1991 was fine? Or is the law sometimes wrong? Or are there sometimes loopholes which allow for bad things to happen?

That has no relevance to either the question you asked nor my answer. Ridiculous. You must be desperate to resort to such tactics.

That has no relevance to either the question you asked nor my answer. Ridiculous. You must be desperate to resort to such tactics.

Yes it does have relevance. As you appear to think "the law" is the sole arbiter of right and wrong. Laws change. Laws can be wrong.

I can understand why people get frustrated at having to define what a woman is so much.

But circular definitions tend to lead us in circles.

If the word 'woman' is not defined by biology and sex, then it must have some other meaning.

The offered new meaning is that it's a feeling of womanhood. But not all women have this feeling. And some men do.

So either I, and many other people-previously-known-as-women, either are not women anymore, or this definition is not fit for purpose.

So we either go back to needing a definition, or we decide that it's ok that the word woman now has no meaning and therefore women's rights don't exist and all the feminists can go home.

And so it continues.

That has no relevance to either the question you asked nor my answer. Ridiculous.

I know that's what my lols are for, NOT violence towards women, of course not - it is just utterly bizarre!

That has no relevance to either the question you asked nor my answer. Ridiculous. You must be desperate to resort to such tactics

I think it must be to tie you up in knots and get you confused so you back away to a corner or start questioning your womanhood again lol until you bend and see the light

Ace post, pancaketosser!

R0wantrees thank you for posting. The atrocities being inflicted now on young children are shocking.

Just to be given time, without pressure to express and work through adolescence.
Did you see the sudden drop off at age 18 on the bar chart

I am not trying to diminish tour journey, just explain where I was coming from and I've done that now. I also said I haven't witnessed any 'othering'.

Yeah, you didn't say that.

You gave an example of a disabled person and then basically told me to embrace it like he has. That is patronising and it doesn't matter what your circumstances are.

That would only be relevant if you acknowledged my experience and then shared yours as a contrast. Even then one doesn't cancel out the other.

My experience is individual to me and is my truth. Great if yours or anyone else's is different but you still don't get to tell me "how to do it".

11th October 2018 Spectator, 'The cautionary tale of Karen White, the transgender rapist'
by James Kirkup:
(extract)
"Karen White is a rapist and child abuser who has committed several acts of sexual violence against vulnerable people. One of the women Karen White raped was pregnant. Karen White is now going to spend a long time in jail. (continues)

"One of the feminist groups that raised such concerns is Fair Play for Women. These are the people who really sounded the alarm about transgender offenders in the women’s prison estate, with a report last autumn that was later borne out in official figures released by the MoJ. As the group’s warnings over prisons are being so horribly vindicated by the Karen White case, I hope that people in authority will pay more attention to FPFW’s most recent work, which is about domestic violence refuges and shelters.

That report makes two points that deserve much more attention in political conversation about gender, law and domestic violence. The first is that a lot of women who run and use shelters feel they can’t talk freely about this issue, for the familiar reasons that they will be accused of transphobia, lose their jobs and lose funding for the services they provide for vulnerable women.

The second, and more fundamental, point is that the people who run shelters and refuges believe that laws proposed to make life easier for transgender people will also have the effect of making it easier for abusive men to abuse women.

The report, based on the accounts of domestic violence workers and volunteers, makes abundantly clear the fact that the sort of men who wish to hurt, rape and kill women will take every opportunity to do. One shelter manager with 37 years’ experience told FPFW researchers:

“With self-ID policies we will effectively be giving the keys to women’s refuges to abusive men. If that happens, beyond a shadow of a doubt, women will die. Never ever underestimate the potential for abusive men to track down, find and torture their victim.”

Perhaps you think that’s hyperbolic or excessively dramatic. If so, consider again the case of Karen White.

In 2016, the Prison Service put in place a policy that was intended to make life easier for transwomen in custody. That policy meant Karen White, a rapist and child abuser, was able to gain access to vulnerable women and sexually assault them. In the words of the prosecution in White’s latest trial, White is a “predator” who sought to “use a transgender persona to put herself in contact with vulnerable persons she can then abuse.”

Those words were spoken in a trial that ended in Karen White being given a life sentence and the judge telling White: “You are a predator and highly manipulative and in my view you are a danger.”

The Karen White case came about even after MPs had been given clear warnings by several experts that dangerous and manipulative predators like Karen White would try to exploit gender laws and rules in order to abuse women. They failed to act on those warnings and properly scrutinise the rules involved in the Karen White case.

Now, that Fair Play for Women report about domestic violence shelters gives MPs and other people in power another chance to do better. They have been given a clear warning by the professionals who spend their every waking moment dealing with the harm done by abusive men and trying to protect women from abusive men, that such men will try to exploit laws on gender change to find, abuse and kill women.

What will it take to persuade them to listen to that warning this time?"
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/10/the-cautionary-tale-of-karen-white-the-transgender-rapist/

Fairplay For Women:
fairplayforwomen.com/

Do you honestly think anyone outside MN would look at this thread and think "wow Verbeena made some excellent points"? It's not exactly my finest work either. I am not trying to silence your truth. I don't care what you think.

My experience is individual to me and is my truth. Great if yours or anyone else's is different but you still don't get to tell me "how to do it"

Exactly, and you don't get to tell others that their experiences of being a woman are invalid and they are only ever their biology.

Just for the record my first post on this thread was 8.51 yesterday morning. Not "at the end".

R0wantrees

I don't think anyone here agrees with self ID. As far as I recall we have all said on this thread and others that it absolutely should not be introduced.

You do YY and this's at the beginning and then near the end engage more lengthily to mock.
Why are you dodging the question upthread? Why is it OK to have a problem with all transwomen but not all of other groups?

What are the criteria you think there should be for access to women's spaces, Weetabix?

Was that a cross post as you've dodged AGAIN with another question?

Ereshkigal

I answered that ages ago

Why is it OK to have a problem with all transwomen but not all of other groups?

Putting words in my mouth. I've never said that.

You absolutely HAVE said that, you KNOW you have. Not this thread admittedly, but you HAVE said that.

I answered that ages ago

What's the material difference between the person you personally think should have access and any other male? An evidenced view please.