Please help me understand the transgender issue

[Flippetydip]

I fully admit that I don't understand this issue fully at all. I consider myself fairly liberal but I do not feel that this is fair. It seems to be the Emperor's new clothes. The fact that the comments towards JKR on Twitter are so full of vitriol does not persuade me towards the thinking of those shouting them.

So my questions:

Emma Watson saying on Twitter
"Transwomen are who they say they are"
If I say I am a size 8, intellectually brilliant woman, does that make me so? (Currently size 12, edging towards a 14 and intellectually fairly mediocre).

What is the difference between appropriation of sex and appropriation of race?
If I say I am black and I'm not, why is that so horrific, and yet if I am a man and say I'm a woman, that is OK?

Why is JKR wrong to say that women menstruate? Surely that is just biological fact.

@Frozenfan2019 people commit suicide for any number of reasons: having harmed someone else and being unable to live with the consequences; being depressed; as a consequence of abuse; going bankrupt; being blackmailed etc etc. We can't eliminate free speech just because some people might not be able to cope with biology.

I think it's a left wing society with too much time on their hands trying to overturn western democracies particularly right wing ones.
Split society and weaken it. Largely run from the US.

All the however cells in my body have 2 X chromosomes whilst men have an X Y as well and nothing will ever change that - or at least so far.
How anyone can say that is not true when it is accepted and proved as true beats me.
Societally anyone can be whatever gender they want. But why settle for that when misogyny rules and women's rights can be disadvantaged and destroyed.

People haven't looked at my response. I was referring to the poster who compared the emperor's New clothes to the situation. It is offensive in my opinion to trivialise something which is so important to some people.

There are keywords that are used to shut debate down. It’s so much easier to scream bigot at someone than discuss a topic that’s fundamentally flawed.

If anyone wants to read an analysis of the statistics around transgender suicide I suggest this: fairplayforwomen.com/suicide/

What would some of you do if your son came to you and wanted to be a woman? Would you tell him to get back in his box?

What is a son dobbyssoc?

@Castus plainly obvious in the context t however your child with an XY chromosomes

dobbyssoc I can’t speak for others but I would personally tell my son (and yes I have one aged 3) that he could dress however he wanted, call himself whatever he wanted and love whoever he wanted (within legal reason), but that he could never “be a woman”.

Zscaler, iv looked at some of your links, iv seen story’s of trans people being abused, being fired ect.
One on the links talks about the trans offenders. The article says words to the effect of, “trans women is guilty of crime, this is used as proof trans women are men, trans women detransitions, so was therefor not true trans, therefore you can’t use that as an example of trans women committing crime.”

What I and many others want to know is, how do we tell the difference between true trans and the other kind.

Other links on this thread say “ you are what you say you are”.
So that must mean all trans are true trans.

Please I would really like your take on this.

What would some of you do if your son came to you and wanted to be a woman? Would you tell him to get back in his box?

I'd tell him I loved him regardless of how he chooses to identify, tell him
If he wanted to go to uni wearing a dress and using 'she' pronouns that was fine and maybe give him some tips on what to say to less than supportive people. I'd also make him aware that he is still biologically male, and that he shouldn't be using spaces reserved for biological females because the impact on them as a whole could be far greater than the impact in him having to manage with no access to female space.

[quote zscaler]@Mummyoflittledragon well perhaps if you’re struggling for time and unable to concentrate, you would be better off holding fire and saying nothing to me, rather than making accusations and criticising me for statements I’ve never made?[/quote]
Your statements were loud and clear. You said this place has a very strong anti-trans rights slant. Not a great deal different from stating this place is transphobic. I used one word, which you didn’t use but which this implied and you are frothing. Is there a froth emoji?? 🙄

@Castus but that he could never “be a woman”.

Then you would loose your child. Plain and simple.

I'd really like to hear from people on this thread who hold these views and have with worked to support transgender women or has experience with their own child in this respect.

dobbysoc there are a lot of people like that on this board. Indeed many of them find this board because they have a child who starts claiming to be transgender

@titchy or maybe you would try to support your child and help them navigate through a massive body/ mind schism, maybe you would sit with them at a psychiatrist appointment when they are being sectioned for a suicide attempt by hanging because they can’t bear the body they were born with

Maybe you would just hope and pray they could live a life where they felt at home in their body and self and thrive and not hate themselves for feeling this way

Then you would loose your child. Plain and simple. What a bizarre thing to presume

@Littlemeadow123

Please take your questions elsehwere OP. Read non-bias sources from both sides of the argument. Mumsnet is the dictionary definition of transphobic.

Please take your questions elsehwere OP

TBF, you may as well as sometimes people flat out refuse to answer questions or sometimes even ignore them completely. Unfortunately it seems some people aren't here for discussion and just want to shout at us.

Whatever happened to be kind, eh?

Aha!

Your child with an XY chromosomes

Why does it matter that my child has XY chromosomes? What does it signify? How does a person having XY chromosomes differ from people who don't?

plainly obvious in the context
Not one bit obvious.

When you say son it could be, a range of situations according to trans ideology, for example a female child who has pervasively transitioned to present as a boy and who now wants to transition back to present as a woman.

Who can know?

Words matter. Signifiers matter. If we can't agree what words any signifiers mean, they loose all their useful meanings.

It's a very grey area! I just wish all parties would step back and try to consider other people's views.

The way I see it:
If you want to wear women's clothing, wear it
If you want to wear men's clothing, wear it
If you want to wear makeup, wear it
If you want to take hormones (if you are over 16), do it
If you want surgery to alter your body (over 18), that's your choice
But
If I (Cis woman) want to be in a space with only cis women eg changing rooms at swimming pools, that's my choice and companies offering such facilities should have a gender neutral space for not only trans but families where a dad takes his daughters swimming for instance.
Cis Women only refuges should exist but equally there needs to be facilities for trans/gender neutral and cis men, domestic violence affects everyone.

I have good friends and family who are trans, they have a right to live how they like but I also have rights too so understanding, balance and we all live in harmony.... yes I'm a dreamer but i have more important things to worry about than peoples choice of identification, let them, doesn't harm me.

Your statements were loud and clear. You said this place has a very strong anti-trans rights slant. Not a great deal different from stating this place is transphobic. I used one word, which you didn’t use but which this implied and you are frothing. Is there a froth emoji?

The problem I have with this is that you accused me of speaking for you, defining you, and being close to the kind of person you could imagine threatening you. None of those accusations were remotely true. You’ve backtracked from that position now and seem to simply be objecting to the fact that I consider mumsnet transphobic. You don’t have to agree with that opinion but I am, nonetheless, entitled to hold and express it.

One day this abhorrent transphobia will be as socially unacceptable as homophobia is today .

@Castus no one else would have read what I said in the terms of being accepting of a trans woman and go oh but what do you mean.
You are wanting to start an argument because I and many others on this thread do not agree with your point of view.
Throughout the thread when people have spoken of sons they have said people born with an XY chromosome therefore in the challenge of clarity that is how I will explain what I mean.

If your son (who you regard as born with an XY chromosome) came to you and said that they wished to be a woman what would you do?

Then you would loose your child.Plain and simple
Why would you assume that? I think one of the most important elements of parenting is to be entirely truthful with our children, in order to ground them in reality. How could they trust us otherwise?

Then you would loose your child. Plain and simple.

Well yes, this is very much a possibility in a society where children are being taught that it is possible to actually change sex. Where grown adults like Rachel McKinnon are telling children to forsake their families and join the 'glitter family', or grown adults like Munroe Bergdorf encourage 12 year old kids to privately message them. Where charities like Stonewall and Mermaids encourage secrecy between teachers and children who may be questioning their gender. Where parents who don't want their children to cut off their healthy functioning breasts or penises, who don't want their children to be made permanently infertile whilst still a teenager, who don't want their children to be put on a lifelong irreversible medical pathway, are portrayed as evil bigoted people who don't love their children.

Oh yes, it's very much a possibility.

@Frozenfan2019

It's all a bit emperor's New clothes

People commit suicide because of gender dysphoria so I can see why they would consider comments like that transphoboc.

That’s really awful and yet there will be a proportion of those, who will continue to kill themselves even if they transition. Some due to transitioning before they understood the implication of their actions. Others because transitioning wasn’t the answer. Talking about suicide risk, however awful, isn’t some kind of “be kind” trump card to wave in women’s faces. None of us on this thread are denying trans people need care and empathy. What they do not need is our spaces.

What about addressing the number of women murdered by men? Or women murdered by transwomen? Transwomen, being male bodied, with the same physiology as men and continue to offend at the same rate as men.

Why should we budge over? And how exactly do women transition out of being murdered? Or mutilated? Or do these women matter less because their biology and so called identity (not many they profess to having one) align.