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.

I've just read that first article linked. None of those links actually address what the OP is asking or get to the root of anything I want to know or am willing to be educated about, but anyway...

So this - by providing some dedicated gender neutral spaces within sports centres and other facilities - I can totally get on board with, but not at the expense of women's sex segregated spaces.

If there were women's changing rooms for women, men's changing rooms for men, and then gender neutral changing rooms for trans people - yes, I fully support that.

But from what I can make out, and I'll happily be corrected, that's not what a lot of trans people (explicitly trans women) want. They don't want their own space away from males who identify as Male, they want to be accepted into and use women's spaces.

I don't read it as goady at all OP. I think you've nailed it too.

Using language like "if you have a cervix you need a smear test" - which many seem to push as trans inclusive - is quite dangerous IMO. Many people are not exactly aware of their biology or the correct names for body parts, especially when it comes to genitalia and reproductive organs. I have known a fair few women who had no idea what specific part a smear test was looking at and would therefore not recognise "if you have a cervix" as applying to them.

This thread might help, it’s a few years old but it sums things up

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

Also this blog, which for me was my lightbulb moment: janeclarejones.com/2018/11/13/the-annals-of-the-terf-wars/

@Flippetydip

Try these:

medium.com/verve-up/transracial-is-not-the-new-transgender-why-race-and-gender-are-not-synonymous-b2c688ef0fae

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/12/comparison-transgender-people-rachel-dolezal

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/slate.com/human-interest/2015/06/rachel-dolezal-caitlyn-jenner-how-transgender-is-different-from-transracial.amp

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58dd5f83e4b0fa4c09598748?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVmdWxsZXN0LmNvbS8yMDE4LzAyLzA2L3RyYW5zLWlzaC10cmFuc3JhY2lhbC1kb2VzbnQtZXhpc3Qv&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMF0XwDQI07OkE1ib1JDIJvc91-c84EPrM20dtDpD8_FyMceu5WUxQ2ksf8WM9IezjkdWA2E6gm-e0dtBDjWoUJklZpYf9Pp0cmyeYh960XrRsfxB6FGPwiGP7mo5Mo5Ytv5AwAx8zx0ME9CJ_xZM37nmf5h4Wub-HJpkda2FVbD

I really recommend reading up on Kenny Ethan Jones for insight into what it’s like to menstruate as a man.

Kenny does not 'menstruate as a man'. Kenny menstruates as a woman who feels more comfortable adhering to the stereotypes of what it is to be 'male', but has also had their healthy breasts cut off and will be on a lifelong medicalised pathway.

Kenny has been quiet on the JK Rowling thing since Daniel Radcliffe completely forgot to mention transmen, despite JK's comments being about menstruation, which only transmen (as opposed to transwomen which DR did mention) do. I wonder if Kenny will come to realise that women can never actually identify into manhood, because, however woke and progressive and inclusive people claim to be, ultimately everyone knows exactly who are the men and who are the women.

I really recommend reading up on Kenny Ethan Jones for insight into what it’s like to menstruate as a man

If I were to identify as a Somalian, would you find my insights into being Somalian interesting? Rachel Dolezal was surely perceived as a woman of colour by many people she met.

There is no biological marker of being black. It's not binary. Sex is binary. Yet we are supposed to believe that someone's experience of role playing they are something they are not is valid in one case but not others?

Transracialism exists - there are cases of Chinese babies being raised as Malay Muslims. Genetically Malay Muslims are very close to Chinese. If you were ethnically Malay and married a Chinese man and raised your children in China, then they would simply be Chinese.

But I don't see how that works with male and female. Race is mostly cultural, whereas sex is written in every cell of our body

it has a very strong anti-trans rights slant

No, MN has a very strong pro-women slant. One of e most feminist places on the internet.

If supporting and centring women and girls' legal rights in the UK is "anti-trans" then there is an issue with the understanding of trans rights.

Supporting and centring women & girls is not transphobic.

@zscaler

Mumsnet is a bad place to find genuine responses to these queries OP - it has a very strong anti-trans rights slant. If you’re just being goady you won’t care about that, but if you’re being genuine and want to read a range of sources from both sides of the debate (which means hearing from trans people as well as from people like JKR) then you would be better off googling and looking for articles and reports from reputable sources.

Let’s take that back a step.

Feminism is born of the inequality of women vis a vis man in a patriarchal society. It is pro woman. All good.

Along came a bunch of very vocal TRAs telling us we are womaning wrongly. TRAs pitched themselves against women because women refused to acquiesce. Not the other way round.

They call us terfs, threaten to rape and murder us.Yet we are anti trans??

No, I’m not anti trans and don’t you dare think you can speak for me. This is the entire problem. People telling me what I should think and silencing me through threats of violence. TRAs are anti woman.

Mumsnet is not anti trans. The majority of the posters are pro trans but not to the detriment of marginalised, abused and ridiculed women. We are not “cis”. We are not a subset of woman. We are women.

@Ninkanink

Thank you!

I will never identify as a CIS, a word made by MEN which is actually a slur. Honestly boils my blood!!!

I don't understand why so many non females WANT to be female. I'm coming back as a man in my next life! Imagine how nice it would be not to be subject to all the patriarchal bull shit. No periods! Christ- I have bleeding and cramping once a month for 36 years! 36 fucking years! Apart from the break I had when I was gestating other people in my womb and then feeding them from my breasts.

No. Mumsnet has a strong stance against the erosion of women’s and girls’ rights and protections and against the erosion of biological fact and material reality. This is an agenda that we are absolutely right to push back against.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with trans rights, which is a separate issue altogether.

This. And the recognition that eroding women's rights under the guise of trans rights is simply a new take on male privilege which now extends to redefining what a woman is.

Well for one, not all woman menstruate.

Indeed, I am one of them. I also also not a uterus-owner as that was removed 4 years ago.

Not all women menstruate.

But all people who menstruate are by default women.

Men do not menstruate. Ever.

No, I’m not anti trans and don’t you dare think you can speak for me. This is the entire problem. People telling me what I should think and silencing me through threats of violence. TRAs are anti woman

I would love for you to point out exactly where I claimed to speak for you, or silenced you with threats of violence.

Bigearrings
If they actually got it, I mean really understood and had to live the life of a woman, they wouldn’t want to.

I didn’t say you threatened me. However you defined me, spoke for me. I don’t have to go very far to find someone, who speaks as you have, who would gladly threaten me.

@zscaler

there is also a lot of pro-trans people on here as well. I was hoping that they are going to come and answer my questions in a reasoned manner or that someone will come and point me to reasoned articles.

We’re massively outnumbered. I tend not to argue about trans rights here because I know it won’t get me anywhere, and because there are so many anti-trans posters that it isn’t possible to keep up with all of the responses (and then you get accused of cherry picking and not responding to everyone by the people you don’t address).

If you’re genuine, here are some links I would read. These are all from a pro-trans perspective. You may want to read anti-trans sources if you’re looking for both sides, but I personally won’t share links which I think are harmful and / or dehumanising.

theconversation.com/half-of-transgender-and-non-binary-people-hide-their-identity-at-work-in-fear-of-discrimination-heres-how-you-can-help-115523

www.crosslandsolicitors.com/site/hr-hub/transgender-discrimination-in-UK-workplaces

www.stonewall.org.uk/lgbt-britain-trans-report

theconversation.com/a-trans-review-of-2017-the-year-of-transgender-moral-panic-89272

Those are some links to get started on, and many contain further links if you want to read in more deeply.

None of this justifies asking women to budge over and shut up.

Transwomen don't have 2 X chromosomes for a start....

They talk about discrimination towards transpeople, which is obviously wrong on every level. I get that but they don't answer the "I am what I am because I say I am" or "I can't be black if I'm white but I can be a woman if I'm a man" questions. And that is really what I want to understand.

As far as I understand it, the reason for “I am what I say I am” is because (some) transwomen feel very upset if you say they are transwomen rather than women. According to them, saying this equates to denying trans rights, trans hate, trans phobia etc. Even though it has nothing to do with their rights and how they are treated, and is simply about what they are called.

So, we all have to say they are actually women and accept that if they say they are a woman, that makes them a woman. We need to completely redefine the meaning of woman, rather than upset them by using a different, more accurate term.

This is also why the term cis has been invented, Because once “woman” means “anyone who says they are a woman”, we need a new term for women who are biologically woman. Preferably a slightly insulting one.

However you defined me, spoke for me.

Where? Point out exactly where.

"She's wrong to say 'women' menstruate because trans woman don't and trans men do"

SweetPetrichor See? this is why it needs talking about. Even you got it wrong. Humans (and nearly all animals) come in two sexes. One has a womb and one doesn't. We call them male and female or men and women, boys and girls.

We men simply don't menstruate no matter what we happen to be wearing or how we are feeling.

If you find this confusing wait until you encounter transracial and trans-abled people.

If you identify as being black not only must people say you are black they must recognise the generations of oppression you have suffered. I doubt you think that is reasonable, but it is equally as valid.

I wonder if Kenny will come to realise that women can never actually identify into manhood, because, however woke and progressive and inclusive people claim to be, ultimately everyone knows exactly who are the men and who are the women

Well, certainly the 2004 GRA (the law which allows the "legal fiction" of changed sex) and the House of Lords know the difference: a transman cannot inherit an aristocratic title or estate under the rules of male primogeniture.

Transmen are men unless they are offspring of dukes etc; transwomen are women unless they stand to inherit the title of Duke, Earl etc.

No, MN has a very strong pro-women slant. One of e most feminist places on the internet.

Yeah it's just not the fun kind. It's not the kind where we pose under pink neon signs saying 'well behaved women don't make history' because that is just like so empowering. It's not the kind where we talk about 'smashing the patriarchy' whilst simultaneously bending over backwards to ensure that we are 'inclusive' of males in our spaces. It's not the kind where we loudly shout about 'women's rights' without being able to actually define what a woman is.

And that is why people hate Mumsnet.

please note that I am not saying I agree with this explanation:

why it's ok for men to appropriate women, but racial appropriation is so awful (which it is)

has been explained to me that gender is a social construct and therefore, to a degree, imaginary (made up). Ethnicity, and more specifically skin colour, is not a social construct. So people can present as which ever gender they like but cannot change sex or race.

I realise that sex and gender have been conflated within the trans-rights arguments and the accompanying proposed legislation (inappropriately in my view).