Radical feminism/ trans community

[vegpatch]

AIBU to ask someone to explain feminist views on trans people please? I would really appreciate a variety of stances, preferably in a non-confrontational thread as I don't feel I have a proper understanding of it all and would like to. Thank you

Penny you can used mixes changing rooms if you like. I don’t want them for my 12 yo dd. Also my 78 yo dad doesn’t want them. But you sound like you love them so knock yourself out.

@WonkoTheSane42

Absolutely this. I and I'm sure lots of other people just hide all the feminist board topics and any threads about trans topics that appear on AIBU (I'll be hiding this one shortly!). They always descend into one anti-trans point of view with lots of tumbler style statements without anything to back it up. This means that only this one point of view gets heard on MN.

I didn't find the discussion informative - no link to interesting papers or research, just a lot of hot air

You cant move for links on FWR

"Transphobia" as a term is now absolutely meaningless. It literally means ANYTHING. Anything at all. A bit like the term "woman".

This is what feminists are angry about. We're angry about being accused of something that nobody can properly define. We're angry that a perfectly efficient descriptor has been co-opted and apended by the useless (and offensive) "cis".

It's not about hating trans people. By and large we sympathise with anyone who is affected by the strictures of gender. It's the erosion of women's hard-won rights we take exception to.

My view is this. (Although I don't really consider myself radical anything).

I am very accepting and tolerant of people as individuals. I think everyone should be able to wear what they like, wear make up if they want to, do whatever hobbies and activites make them happy, within the law of course. Live and let live, peace and love. If you're a male who wants to grow your hair long, paint your nails and call yourself Sapphire then crack on. As long as you're happy.

BUT. I don't accept that things like lipstick and a dress automatically mean you're a woman. I don't believe that humans can "change sex". Transwomen and Transmen should of course be protected from abuse and discrimination in the same way as anyone else. That doesn't mean you have to accept a transgirl in your daughter's netball team though or be OK with someone who says they're female on some days and male on others.

Your're born male or female and can't change that. Ever. Whatever you choose to do to your body.

I am an ordinary every day feminist, I have no idea whether my views are ‘radical’.

I am not remotely anti trans. I will fight for trans people to present as they wish, free from abuse, prejudice and discrimination.

However I will also defend women’s rights and women only spaces. I believe that woman is a sex based definition and that women have a right for their biology to be the basis of their identity.

Its weird that some posters seem to be encouraging the OP to look at the board themselves and make their own mind up

And other posters are telling the OP not to look at the board and accept what they are being told by said posters

Weird...

So you don’t actually know what you’re talking about. Fair enough.

I absolutely agree with her. I hung around for quite a while then realised the feminist board was an echo chamber for a particular point of view. No interesting, rational debate. It's attitudes like yours who bully anyone who doesn't agree with you off the board and leaves it with a single one sided view point. If you enjoy the feminist board I'm sure that's what you're after.

Anyway OP, there's lots here and increasingly more in the mainstream media.

You cant move for links on FWR

Yes but she specified interesting research. Not articles written with only one point of view, written by people with no scientific background.

Yup, I agree with hotpotlawyer.

I'm angry about losing single sex hospital wards, psychiatric wards, sports, toilets, prisons, domestic violence shelters and Rape Crisis.

You can google for cases of male predators who have abused mixed sex facilities in each of those cases. Start with Karen White who self ID's as a woman and repeatedly raped a woman while on a womens psychiatric ward.

The Government has admitted that when they said we would get single sex hospital wards, they actually meant single gender and mixed sex.
The agenda is a juggernaut and the law is being broken; for example, some schools have switched to mixed sex toilets despite the fact that legally they have to provide single sex toilets for children over 8.

@ALLMYSmellySocks You are being disingenuous claiming there is no research.

Look at what happened to James Caspian when he tried to research detransition;

University 'turned down politically incorrect transgender research'
This article is more than 1 year old
James Caspian says Bath Spa University approved but then rejected his proposed research into gender reassignment reversal
www.theguardian.com/education/2017/sep/25/bath-spa-university-transgender-gender-reassignment-reversal-research

I would agree to an extent in that some of the tactics used, at least in the name of feminism, if not by feminists per-se has been overtly transphobic and demonstrated a desire to effectivelt deny trans womens' very right to existence. To that extent, I suspect, a number of people who have always been overtly transphobic and bigoted have appropriated the current GRA debate to their own ends. This, of course, mirrors the way in which whole swathes of other bigots have appropriated the Brexit debate for their own ends. This has led to fa;se and exaggerated claims being made which have then been used to foment unjustified fear - the parallels and co-incidence with the Brexit debate are indeed striking!
As a trans woman I freely admit that there may be rare circumstances where it might be appropriate for me to be excluded from a women-only space - and as you pointed out the Equalities Act, which is not being changed supports this. I have a GRC, but until the 2004 Act allowed me to obtain that all aspects of my life and where and when I went were based entirely upon self-id. As you say, the proposed changes to the GRA, which will I'm sure still have safe guards, are effectively very minor indeed and whilst making life easier for many trans people will have scarecly any effect at all on the lives of cis women (or men for that matter).

I would agree to an extent in that some of the tactics used, at least in the name of feminism, if not by feminists per-se has been overtly transphobic and demonstrated a desire to effectivelt deny trans womens' very right to existence.

Got any examples of that?

As a trans woman I freely admit that there may be rare circumstances where it might be appropriate for me to be excluded from a women-only space

When and where?

I think this is a really good place to put this actually OP, because I think many mumsnetters are a bit wary of the feminist board- unfairly, maybe, but the balance of opinion is very heavily weighted in one direction.
I am a bit undecided about the whole thing tbh.

As I see it-
There are trans people who want to live their lives and identify as the sex they feel they are/relate with. These people are often victims of bullying and violence. They want to be able to use spaces designed for the exclusive use of the sex they identify as, like public toilets. I get this- must be jarring and a bit scary for someone who feels and lives as a woman to have to go into a bloke's toilet. There's a really high suicide rate wrt trans people.

BUT

If we allow everyone to identify their own sex, what is to stop perverts using this to access women-only spaces? What's to stop a massive bloke saying "I'm a woman" and accessing a women's changing room, toilet, or even refuge?

ALSO

if we say, well OK, only trans people who live like women, dress like women, act like women can access these spaces, that is a statement that women live, dress and act in a certain way. Which is bollocks.

Of course no one would object to trans people having houses - what an odd statement to consider necessary.

Oh, so you've not heard about trans people being discriminated against when it comes to getting access to housing if they are trans, or jobs because they are trans etc. ?

I would have thought that if someone was concerned about transphobia, those would be the baseline issues to look at. What other things would be necessary to cover in legislation if not discrimination in housing and employment?

My feminism is rooted in freeing women worldwide from oppression.

The oppression of women worldwide is based on their biology.

It is, therefore, very important that I can continue to define “woman” as an exclusive sex class so that I can continue to fight oppression and defend the rights females have.

If, by law, I have to include men in my definition then it all falls apart. I can no longer exclude men from the definition of woman so I can no longer talk about freeing women from oppression based upon their female biology.

The term “woman” becomes nonsense because it can also mean man.

That is not acceptable to me and I won’t do it.

A small number of trans rights activists have created this situation. There does not need to be a tension between women’s rights and trans people’s rights; by insisting that any man who decided he is woman literally is a woman, TRAs have created a conflict of interests.

I choose to continue to defend the rights of trans identifying people to be safe sand free from discrimination. I also choose to defend the sex based exclusive definition of woman and to fight the oppression that comes with that.

It doesn't feel like that to me at all. It's an accurate label. Please don't imagine you speak for all women. You don't.

Ah, so that’s why you think the feminist boards are full of bile and lack of empathy then. Got it. You’re one of those who thinks using actual science as the basis of your argument, is in fact “hate”.

If trans people are discriminated against wrt jobs and housing then you need to be campaigning for the discrimination laws to be tightened.

As an employer it is against the law for me to discriminate against someone for being trans, just as it is illegal to discriminate against a women (who by the way are a huge part of the population and regularly face discrimination). If that is happening then trans people are perfectly within their rights to go to a tribunal. I'm not sure what is different about trans discrimination in employment than any other marginalised group

There's a really high suicide rate wrt trans people.

No there isn’t, this has been debunked. Let me see if I can find the info.

This is also very worthwhile reading:
janeclarejones.com/2018/11/13/the-annals-of-the-terf-wars/

PS. made a bet with myself that there would be the usual virtue signalling cry of "I hid the FWR boards" and not halfway down the page....BINGO!

This to start with...

4thwavenow.com/2015/08/03/the-41-trans-suicide-rate-a-tale-of-flawed-data-and-lazy-journalists/

Stop peddling dangerous myths about suicide in the trans community