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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

#IStandWithJKRowling

230 replies

Dances · 10/06/2020 18:49

Appears not to be trending on Twitter, despite the huge number of tweets in response to J K Rowling's tweet.

AIBU to think that Twitter is a bunch of fiddling, dishonest cheats?

OP posts:
DressesWithPocketsRockMyWorld · 10/06/2020 21:56

That work says so many things that I think but havent been able to express.

Italianmoma1983 · 10/06/2020 21:56

I agree with Jk Rowling - trans women are not women ! I wish them all the best living as trans women but they will never be women.

ShebaShimmyShake · 10/06/2020 21:56

It was trending briefly earlier this evening. I refreshed and it had gone.

Andthenthenewone · 10/06/2020 21:57

Not all vaginas belong to women, and not all women have vaginas.
Thanks for this piece of wisdom and intellect. How could I have not known this?
Can I please ask where to get these vaginas from?

Cailleach1 · 10/06/2020 21:58

Just pondering on saying you were ' born in the wrong body' and identify as being something other than you are. If you (in your own head) imagine you are something other, that has no limits really. All it requires is a desire to be someone/something else, contrary to the reality of what you are. That is not problematic in and of itself but if you start to infringe upon others then it is a John Stuart Mill's 'other regarding action'.

No woman wants to be limited by the conditions and treatment most women experience in the world. Judging by the view of a selection of tweets that JKR has received, it is more of the same. Referring to your schlong and violent imaginary is not usually such a part of female identity. Are the people who sent those the ones who say they identify as women?

OceanOrchid · 10/06/2020 21:59

Well, at least I'm educated enough to know that vaginas are female reproductive organs

Tbf, in England you only need to be educated to year 7 (at most) to know that.

Disclaimer: I’m sure other countries teach this too, but I don’t know enough about those to comment,

Andthenthenewone · 10/06/2020 21:59

I have completely stopped buying anything, even a hairpin, from M&S and other places that have endorsed this rotten situation openly and have put women and girls in danger. Now The Body Shop is on that list too. Hmm

sauvignonblancplz · 10/06/2020 22:03

@amijustparanoidorjuststoned

I think you need to educate yourself.
Transgender extremism states that there should be no identification through sex .. ergo sex shouldn’t exist.
That kind of extremism completely Demi is he’s womans’ rights.
By saying that a lesbian is transphobic because she doesn’t want to be penetrated by a male who identifies as a female is horrible and robbing that person to be attracted to a person of the same sex.
Trans gender people are are screaming and steam rolling the conversation .
It’s not as simple as someone being born in the wrong body, it’s the fact that by diminishing the title of woman you are stripping away at her safe places.

A woman leaves the home and seeks refuge in a woman’s shelter , a man with no hormone therapy can seek shelter in the same place by stating he identifies as a woman. The law protects him, what about the woman?

sauvignonblancplz · 10/06/2020 22:04

*my screen is broke - sorry for the typos

PorpentiaScamander · 10/06/2020 22:05

@MoaningMinniee

I've just been blocked and deleted from a women's group that I've been a member of for over six years, because I said it might be better to wait a couple of years before starting irreversible medical procedures on a four year old male bodied child who currently quite likes wearing pink. The 'every trans is a wonderful good person no matter what and anyone who disagrees is obviously an evil TERF' brigade are still out there stifling debate.
That's frankly terrifying! When DS2 was 4 his favourite colour was pink. He would often be running around the house in one of my old tops as a 'dress' and his pink bunny slipper socks. He took a pink ballerina doll to bed every night. I could have decided he wanted to be a girl and pushed to transition him. Or I could have assumed it was a phase or his personality and let him get on with it.

I now have a wonderful 13 year old DS who remembers his pink phase fondly. He has beautifuk long hair and regularly gets called a transgender bitch. Luckily he has the confidence to shrug it off.

My (female) best friends wife identifies as gender fluid (I think). I've been asked to use the pronouns they/them which I find clunky but am doing so out of love and respect for my bff and the person she has chosen to spend her life with. They may ask to not be referred to as female, but still attends smear tests as biologically they are female.

I have no issue with people living the life they want. But I do have issues with the erosion of female only places/being referred to 'a person who menstruates' etc.

#istandwithjkrowling

PorpentiaScamander · 10/06/2020 22:06

@Andthenthenewone

Not all vaginas belong to women, and not all women have vaginas. Thanks for this piece of wisdom and intellect. How could I have not known this? Can I please ask where to get these vaginas from?
I think lovehoney sell them Grin
CheerfuIPotato · 10/06/2020 22:07

@TinyPigeon I won’t tell you to fuck off but the door is that way 🖕 🖕

Eminybob · 10/06/2020 22:08

I’m not quite ready to come out as GC yet, but today I passive-aggressively posted a recommendation and a link to JKR’s Ickabog website on Facebook.

DS and I have been enjoying it enormously, long before this all kicked off, so I just wanted to let all my mum friend know about it Wink

Andthenthenewone · 10/06/2020 22:10

PorpentiaScamander
Grin

peoplearepeople · 10/06/2020 22:13

They are talking about this on LBC at some point in the next hour or so.
I'm not holding out for a decent discussion though. Tom Swarbrick often struggles with topics like this. I hope he's at least read exactly what Jk Rowling said in her essay.

Miriel · 10/06/2020 22:15

I stand with her.

As far as I know, the 'wrong body' thing started as figurative language. People suffering from dysphoria described it as feeling like they had been born in the wrong body, as a way to explain to others what they were going through.

How it became about people literally being born in the wrong bodies I don't know. There's a strange unexamined dualism there - as someone said on the last page, what is it that's in the wrong body? The soul? Lots of people don't believe in those, and you can't demand that they do.

Blackdoggotmytonguestill · 10/06/2020 22:17

I am really weirded out by the alleged women on this thread who are so smugly and instantly keen to disagree with a thoughtful and nuanced essay by a sexual abuse survivor, that lays out why traumatized women need single sex spaces.
I’m a bit baffled. So keen to jump on here and display their abject hatred for female victims of male violence. We get it. You don’t give a fuck.
It must be very odd to be so absolutely fucking oblivious. But thank you, for showing us who you are. So keen to spit on a woman at her most vulnerable. Slow hand clap.

SoberCurious · 10/06/2020 22:20

@TinyPigeon BiscuitBiscuitBiscuitBiscuit

Flapjak · 10/06/2020 22:28

If a small percentage of people are born in the wrong body....that must mean that 99% of baby girls have female gendered brains and 99% of baby boys have male gendered brains that match their biological sex. Is there a wealth of scientific research out there that has found it can differentiate sexed brains at birth?

maudspellbody · 10/06/2020 22:33

I have seen someone on twitter calling it all lies and dismissing it on the basis that she is reducing it all to toilets again - and by doing so insinuating that trans women are all secret abusers.

Now obviously, that is missing the mark by 1000 miles, but also... would I like to be alone in a confined space where I am vulnerable and doing something personal surrounded by this (rather small sample) lot of charmers?

No thanks.

#IStandWithJKRowling
Wtfdidwedo · 10/06/2020 22:41

How do people who don't think sex exist understand that certain medical conditions affect members of specific sexes. I've not seen my husband's invite to a smear lately anyway, nor has my doctor needed to check my prostate! I wonder if they hope one day that women (you know, the ones who menstruate) will attend scans in pregnancy and not be told what reproductive organs their child has.

FactsAreNotMean · 10/06/2020 22:43

The concept of being born in the wrong body is pretty close to religious - you have to believe that there is some essence that makes you which is independent of your body and which is somehow paired up with your physical being.

Except that's not true. It isn't possible, or at least no possible mechanism has been identified by which it is feasible.

Are there some people who feel, for whatever reason, that they shouldn't have the body they have? Undoubtedly so and for some of them it causes immense distress which they believe will be alleviated by transition - whether social, hormonal or surgical. Sometimes they find peace through transition but many do not. But the fact that changing how you look, dress, identify makes some people more content does not mean they have the wrong body. It does not mean that they are literally the opposite sex. It doesn't mean that they are a man with a vagina or a woman with a penis.

And those individuals who feel that dysphoria are only a subset of the group which now fall under the very large trans umbrella now. It's considered by many to be transphobic to assume or expect dysphoria.

There is a push here to entirely rewrite law, and language, based on recognition of a semi religious belief. If the demand was that you should be able to access and attend school based on how old you feel rather than your actual age, that would be dismissed immediately. 25 year old adult male wants to play rugby with the under 15s? No, we'd say that was dangeroys wouldn't we?

Yet access to single sex spaces is being demanded on the basis of a very similar premise.

Blackdoggotmytonguestill · 10/06/2020 22:43

It’s back to Maya Angelou, really. If someone shows you who they really are, believe them.
No-one spewing vitriol is covering themselves in anything but irrefutable evidence.
Sunlight sunlight sunlight.
Flood in and show up the violent male abusers for who they really are.

TheGreatWave · 10/06/2020 22:47

AmI can you please explain how you managed to get to the point of deciding that I am "so against trans rights?"

That is a fairly significant accusation and I would like to see your evidence for it.

I have posted 3 times, first was stating that if you refused to be seen by someone who identified as a woman this could be seen as transphobic (I disagree because everyone has a right to refuse treatment) second was in reply to you saying that a girl who decided she was a boy would go on to have surgery and pointed out that not everyone has surgery and lastly confirming I knew the difference between sex and gender. So from there please tell me how you reached your conclusion?

nicelyneurotic · 10/06/2020 22:51

I'm with JK Rowling. I hate how aggressive and bullying discussion gets. I'm scared to join in the debate and I'm scared of biological men being in women's safe spaces.