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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be shocked that Mn has been branded a “hotbed of transphobia”

999 replies

Badmoonsarising · 07/12/2018 14:20

BY Vice msgazine no less!

broadly.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/a3mn9k/mumsnet-uk-mom-forum-terf-transphobia-feminism

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
sackrifice · 08/12/2018 12:05

Women who have been oppressed as a class since the dawn of time, [by men] - who when told by their oppressors 'I am not one of you' and who don't believe it - are not now the oppressors of the men.

Not in any way, shape or form.

VerbeenaBeeks · 08/12/2018 12:07

Women who have been oppressed as a class since the dawn of time, [by men

Not all women feel oppressed and that they're a victim.

sackrifice · 08/12/2018 12:07

On the surface it is mainly just concerns about self ID, but running underneath there is a lot that do not accept any transwomen as ever being women at all and have said as much on the threads.

I'll say it again just in case you are not getting it - people cannot change sex.

It is impossible.

It isn't under the surface, it is the basis of human existence on earth.

sackrifice · 08/12/2018 12:11

Not all women feel oppressed and that they're a victim.

This is about women as a class, not about personal feelings.

SpiderJoe · 08/12/2018 12:11

How the hell did we get to a point where stating a fact I.e that human beings cannot change their sex is considered controversial or even wrong?

GrabEmByThePatriarchy · 08/12/2018 12:15

There are women who don't as individuals feel they're oppressed, and some of them aren't too wrong. It's possible to have enough other advantages and luck that you don't really feel many effects of sex based oppression. However, this makes not two shits of difference to the fact that women as a class have been and continue to be oppressed. By males. And again, no analysis that ignores this will ever be worth anything.

rightreckoner · 08/12/2018 12:16

But so what? Why does it matter to you whether a trans woman "passes"? Or has a neo vagina that you don't consider as good as the real thing? So what?

So truth. So not playing into delusional thinking. So not encouraging dysphoric children to think they can become something they are not. So allowing women to say that men are not women. So not gaslighting women with the idea that someone who has had surgery can become them. So being honest with men who want to undergo surgery about what their castration will achieve. So remembering that woman and man have biological meaning and that biology cannot be altered however much you wish it.

The truth does hurt. But it’s better than peddling lies.

Calvinsmam · 08/12/2018 12:20

On the surface it is mainly just concerns about self ID, but running underneath there is a lot that do not accept any transwomen as ever being women at all and have said as much on the threads.

Eerrrr yeah.

They aren’t.

In what way are they women?

Hardly anyone believes trans women are literal women.

VerbeenaBeeks · 08/12/2018 12:21

How the hell did we get to a point where stating a fact I.e that human beings cannot change their sex is considered controversial or even wrong?

No, it's not that, it's the fact that some on here paint all transwomen as people to be wary of and whip up fear that they're trying to take over

VerbeenaBeeks · 08/12/2018 12:23

It isn't under the surface, it is the basis of human existence on earth

Must be being obtuse as I never denied biology was a real thing.
Easy to see how you jumped to that conclusion though.

sackrifice · 08/12/2018 12:25

No, it's not that, it's the fact that some on here paint all transwomen as people to be wary of and whip up fear that they're trying to take over

Transwomen are of the sex class men.

Who as a class are inherently a risk to women.

Calvinsmam · 08/12/2018 12:26

it's the fact that some on here paint all transwomen as people to be wary of and whip up fear that they're trying to take over

No.
We are saying that when they widened the trans umberalla to include men who find dressing as women arousing it allowed a certain subset of men with fetishes to use their new found trans status to go unchallenged.

And it’s not about individual trans women, but if we accept self id then there will be a take over. Once any man can be a woman all legal sex based protections of women dissolve, how can you sue your employer for unfair dismissal because you got pregnant if men get pregnant too?

If we can’t actually name sexism does it disappear?

SpiderJoe · 08/12/2018 12:26

It very much is about that. You said yourself that some do not accept that transwomen are women, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen people state on here and elsewhere online that transwomen are women when that is obviously a lie. So what's the problem with women refusing to acknowledge a blatant falsehood?

Also, yes women as a class have very good cause to be wary of men as a class and transwomen belong to that group(men).

Hohocabbage · 08/12/2018 12:30

IF transwomen insist that they are part of the class of women (which many do not, but TRAs certainly do) then they are indeed trying to take over what it means to be a woman.
Once someone has told me that women aren’t oppressed I realise there isn’t much point arguing as we are starting from such different positions.

merrymouse · 08/12/2018 12:30

do not accept any transwomen as ever being women at all

I think female is a biological term and therefore excludes transwomen. I accept that somebody can be legally female without being biologically female, but think it is still important to distinguish between the two (which the 2004 law does in some cases).

I think the concept of living as female is meaningless, but accept that in an imperfect world the 2004 legislation can make life easier for people who suffer from gender dysphoria. I also believe that unnecessary sex segregation can make life harder for some people, but that doesn’t mean that all segregation is unnecessary.

I don’t think it’s important to accept people as male or female, I think it’s important to accept them as fellow human beings. For me male or female is a simple non judgemental description of biology. I believe that Katie Hopkins is female but that doesn’t denote acceptance or approval. It’s just a statement of fact.

VerbeenaBeeks · 08/12/2018 12:34

Never said I accepted free for all self ID, I've said all along I don't think that's a good idea as too open to misuse.
Having a problem with all transwomen though, which a lot have said they do, I don't think is ever OK.

SpiderJoe · 08/12/2018 12:35

So why should women accept transwomen are women if you believe that biology is real and know that people cannot change their sex?

merrymouse · 08/12/2018 12:37

Not all women feel oppressed and that they're a victim.

Feelings don’t really come into it. I can only take part fully in a society where I can control my fertility and where the rule of law prevents me from being dominated by men. Arguably I live in such a society, but equalities legislation was introduced in the U.K. during my lifetime and there are plenty of places where it doesn’t exist.

Even in the ‘liberal’ west Swiss women had to wait till the seventies to get the vote and women’s ability to control fertility is under threat in the US.

You can only prevent oppression when you recognise it’s roots.

Hohocabbage · 08/12/2018 12:37

Thinking someone isn’t a woman isn’t “having a problem” with them. Transwomen are in a vulnerable group and need support. But they aren’t women and they cannot take support away from women who are also a vulnerable group.

Datun · 08/12/2018 12:38

That Wrexham thread is very useful, I hope people click on it and read it.

These discussions often just go round in circles, because actually pinpointing true transphobia, is something that people are unable to do. But they still get this 'feeling'.

The problem being, trans-ideology has no basis in fact, just in being nice. Hence all the 'yes we know they aren't really women, but why are you being so mean' posts.

The inevitable comparison to a fat person, does rely on acknowledging that the person is actually fat.

Three transwomen have now commented on this thread. And it's notable that despite them disagreeing there is significant transphobia, non trans posters disagree.

The group of transwomen who wrote to the times have said

We are concerned that women are being dehumanised as “TERFs” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) in order for abusive males to unleash misogynistic rhetoric and violent abuse with impunity.

'Abusive males' are flocking to the trans movement, using transsexuals as human shields and leveraging their dysphoria as a means of abusing women. Both in real life and online.

So when women point out that men can't change sex, that a neo vagina isn't a vagina, that there is no such thing as psychologically female, etc, they are directly addressing the fact that gender dysphoria has been hijacked by an ideology. Not being nasty to someone with a problem.

No true transsexual sticks it to women by claiming there is no such thing as sex and that they are actually, real women.

Meanwhile the vagina monologues has been shut down, vagina cupcakes are deemed offensive, women are told not to discuss their biology on women's marches, pussyhats are transphobic, etc etc.

None of the transsexuals writing to the newspapers in a bid to stop abusive males, are saying these things.

I would like to think that the reason there is a disconnect between seeing actual transphobia, and people perceiving a 'feeling', is because they are making the mistake of thinking we are talking about men with a disassociative condition that they cannot help, when we are not.

If you listen to men with gender dysphoria, their stories are often similar. And they are completely different to those men who are the partners of the women on the transwidows thread.

Men with gender dysphoria will often have been effeminate, and that effeminacy would have been disparaged. Man up, you're a poof, don't act like a girl, etc. They cond the banter and laddishness of toxic masculinity abhorrent. The sexism, the 'cor look at the tits on that'. And the expectation that men don't cry, men don't do that, etc.

It's really not difficult to see how a more sensitive soul will associate them being male with that behaviour and find a huge disconnect. The last people to disagree with this is feminists.

Which is why gender (the banter, the laddishness), is something feminists want to get rid of.

Fixing the problem by saying those sensitive/feminine people must be women, is back to front. Reinforcing the fact that banter and laddishness is, indeed inevitable male behaviour.

So early I understand why you want to change the narrative about women being victims and men being perpetrators. That's a feminist outlook. But deciding that one must change sex in order to conform to gender, doesn't do that. It does the opposite.

And changing the narrative doesn't stop the behaviour. Addressing sexism does that.

Calvinsmam · 08/12/2018 12:39

Having a problem with all transwomen though, which a lot have said they do, I don't think is ever OK.

Where has anyone said they have a problem with all trans people?
We just don’t think they’re biologically female.

sackrifice · 08/12/2018 12:40

Having a problem with all transwomen though, which a lot have said they do, I don't think is ever OK.

I don't have a 'problem' with any transwoman.

I still regard them as being of the same sex class that oppresses women. I take everyone as I find them until they demonstrate otherwise. The behaviour so often really does demonstrate their male privilege and attitude.

Many men and transwomen do not behave like that, but they tend to recognise it in other men and transwomen and when they call it out - they get branded and harassed, although not to the extent of any women doing the same.

[Which proves that TRAs don't think that transwomen are women, otherwise they would also get the same horrific level of abuse that women get.]

StepAwayFromGoogle · 08/12/2018 12:42

Men are not dangerous! Some men are dangerous: violent, abusive, women-hating men. Same as Muslims are not dangerous. Radicalized, extreme Muslims are dangerous. It's really, really important to make that distinction.

VerbeenaBeeks · 08/12/2018 12:44

Where has anyone said they have a problem with all trans people?

Seriously? I can assure you they have.

Bowlofbabelfish · 08/12/2018 12:45

The problem is that everything that isn't validation is transphobic in some people’s eyes. Reality is transphobic

If I was to say for example:

Women dont have penises.
Humans can’t change sex.

That would be deemed transphobic.

But nobody actually believes humans can change sex, and women most definitely don’t have penises.

That’s very strange isn’t it? A stance nonone actually believes but pressing forbrhebkaw to be changed as if they do? When that law would directly harm women and open up aomeserious safeguarding loopholes for children. For something nobody actually believes.

I find that astonishing.