@AlltheRs I am a massive, massive proponent of fact checking. Not just from one source, either. I first fact checked the claim that half of transwomen prisoners were sex offenders, and stumbled on an article in the Independent that said that was absolute lies. At the time, I was reassured that any concerns were transphobic, and went back to sleep for a few months. That article is still up, but has a paragraph at the bottom stating that it was not lies, but in fact has been confirmed by the Ministry of Justice. I've since learned that the organisation who uncovered those facts, Fair Play For Women, successfully sued for defamation. But people still read the start of the article, not the correction at the bottom, and cite it on Mumsnet as transphobia.
Facts can't be anything but neutral. They are all that matters, really.
A lot of this is about feelings, of course. And while feelings matter, they must never be allowed to shove inconvenient facts aside.... and all sides should be considered. Again, I think Karen Ingala Smith, author of the Femicide Census Mumsnet have linked as a pinned post right now, is so important here. She's a huge figure in the women's aid sector and has written very movingly on why single sex provision is so important. I encourage anyone to read it. Because, in the words of J K Rowling, this is not a drill.
@MorganKitten I sympathise with the desire to be kind and inclusive. I share it. But just as trans people should be the ones to explain and discuss their lived experience, so too should women. Saying that someone born and raised as male can understand girlhood and a woman's biology, and how it feels to be a girl and woman in this world, is fundamentally really sexist. I've seen people say that it is transphobic to say women should be heard on all this, because transwomen are women and so women's voices are heard and there is no need to have a biological female involved in any consultation. They were completely serious, and this person is apparently quite senior in the Labour Party.
Sex matters, as the facts demonstrate. Gender should not be a straitjacket and we should support anyone in being who they feel they truly are, but biological sex is determinant of so much in this world. Denying that denies women any hope of safety, equality and participation. Absolutely, trans people must not be discriminated against. But recognising biological reality is not discrimination, and it is essential for women. Without that, we lose access to sports, representation, and safe spaces. And if you change the definition of women to a gender identity, and not a biological sex, women are effectively erased in law as a sex class. So cannot campaign as a group for their own interests.
Those things should not be negotiable in a civilised society. Yet their removal is, presently, formal Labour policy, Lib Dem policy, and under discussion as Conservative policy. Which is why we so badly need organisations such as FiLiA , Women's Place UK , and Fair Play For Women.
I'm so grateful to those organisations, and to the amazing women on Mumsnet (who held the line while women like me found their constant banging away irritating, as we sat back and assumed all had to be well, because nobody would allow women's rights to be, essentially, erased by quietly removing the very definition of what a woman was). I was, and will always be, a supporter of protecting anyone, from any group, from abuse, discrimination and harm. I'm just not sure how we have reached a point in history where women were excluded from that, and a slur invented to describe women, feminist or otherwise, who argued that we should not be.