to NOT think women's rights are being attacked?

[MissPrimaryCrafts]

Wanted to namechange in case this turns into a bloodbath but new users not being accepted so we'll see how it goes!

I realise this could be a bit provocative but I'm not looking for an argument, I just genuinely am finding it hard to understand the other side of this so would genuinely like a polite dicussion so I can understand better. Apologies in advance if it sparks natiness in replies

The issue being transphobia and womens rights...I've seen a lot of talk in threads recently about how 'anyone standing up for women is apparantly and transphobe and TERF' and that women are losing their rights and I just don't see how.

I assume the main issue is with allowing trans women into female only spaces, and people feeling like it's no longer really a 'female only' space as men could just say they're a woman and be allowed in?

I understand this as being a problem...but only to an extent. Firstly I feel like I wonder how much more access this would actually give men? Like honestly, if a man is going to go a commit a crime against a woman, is seeing a 'women only' sign on a changing room door really going to stop him? Is he really going to pretend to identify as a woman to enter the space, or is he just going to enter the space? Does allowing trans women really change things?

Also, if that IS your issue with allowing trans people into female only spaces, then your issue isn't with trans women, it's with men. If you're worried about men entering the space by 'pretending' to be trans, then the potential problems are because of men, not because of trans women. So surely there are better ways to address our issues with men committing crimes than to make sure trans women are excluded from certain spaces? Aren't there other ways we as a society can address the prevalence of crimes against women?

Of course - this is all if you 'believe' that being trans is a real thing, I'm aware many people don't think it's real and I think that's a separate issue. But if you think trans people do 'exist'/it is a real thing, but you want to bar them from female only spaces, I just wonder why? What do you think of the above?

Sorry this is an essay!

OP started a goady thread then promptly left. Why?? Come back OP and at least reply to posts who disagree with you. You started a thread to discuss right?

“ I use TERF as a unisex term for anti-trans bigots. No need for a "male equivalent" when the original does the job. If you happen to identify as female and feel offended by this term, that's on you.”

The “F” in TERF stands for feminist: it’s not unisex. Feminism is about women and women’s rights.

It is women who are the targets of abuse.

Women who are so hugely disproportionately abused as “bigots”, and the entire enterprise of feminism and women’s right slurred in the time-honoured fashion of misogynistic men.

And because it is happening now, we have evidence that males who identify as trans are committing criminal acts from indecent exposure to rape in women's bathrooms

That’s what I was going to say, as well.

There’s been a lot of compassion for many transwomen on this thread, and rightly so as there’s an appreciation that both TW and women are at risk of male violence.

But - there are also transwomen who are disturbingly violent, and very overtly so. Those responses to JKR had a recurring theme of “choke on my lady dick” and there were those angry young TW posing with their baseball bats. Not to mention those recordings uploaded to women of TW masturbating in women’s changing rooms with some recordings of people actually getting off on their proximity to women and girls.

So - not only do women have to worry about non-trans men posing as trans to access to women unclothed there’s also the “choke on my lady dick” type I’d rather not have my 3 daughters around either.

With this whole thing-

In general across all the social media, press coverage, various orgs (lots!), radio interviews etc etc etc

I think that all women listening/ reading etc.

Really need to remember what most of us have plenty of direct experience of. Even from boys when we were girls... I'd forgotten those things!

Anyway.
A massive amount of male people really enjoy upsetting/ angering/ embarrassing etc women/ girls. In a huge variety of ways.

From playing 'devils advocate' over things that are really sensitive when talking to women they know and apparently like/ love,
To saying obscene things to us on the street even when we're schoolchildren,
To intimidating us/ asserting their dominance in a massive range of situations
To assault and rape

Everyone who has experienced this. As a girl that feeling of impotent rage that would make you cry while aboy laughed. Who has had obscenities directed at them, a judgement whether you are fuckable or not, and how they would do it.
To the blatent predatory staring, following, pestering.
And all the worse stuff.

Remember all this is a gift to men like that.

Because they get to say penis/ cock and talk about breasts, balls etc to women for 'good' reason. Also bring up and invite sexual assault experiences and then are allowed to dismiss them.
To call women all sorts of names and threaten them.
And etc etc.

So just bear that in mind. It makes things come into focus a bit.

@BaronMunchausen

“ I use TERF as a unisex term for anti-trans bigots. No need for a "male equivalent" when the original does the job. If you happen to identify as female and feel offended by this term, that's on you.”

The “F” in TERF stands for feminist: it’s not unisex. Feminism is about women and women’s rights.

It is women who are the targets of abuse.

Women who are so hugely disproportionately abused as “bigots”, and the entire enterprise of feminism and women’s right slurred in the time-honoured fashion of misogynistic men.

Also, we’re not trans exclusionary feminists, we’re male exclusionary feminists. I include trans men in my feminism because they share the same biological vulnerabilities as I do. They will share many experiences that are intrinsically linked to sharing the same sex.

• recordings uploaded to Twitter - not women!

The last time I pulled up a twat for attempting to shut down a woman by calling her a Karen, he obviously responded with, "I would call men Karen too, you're sexist for thinking it's a female term!"

Nobody is fooled by this. Nobody believes it. You may terrify some women into silence by misogynistic insults like Karen and terf, but they see, as does everyone, that it is wholly sexist and misogynistic. You wouldn't use it if it weren't because the entire point is to intimidate and silence women. To claim it's unisex alongside the agenda that accompanies it is beyond laughable.

You fool nobody and we all see you. Don't think we don't.

@BaronMunchausen

“ I use TERF as a unisex term for anti-trans bigots. No need for a "male equivalent" when the original does the job. If you happen to identify as female and feel offended by this term, that's on you.”

The “F” in TERF stands for feminist: it’s not unisex. Feminism is about women and women’s rights.

It is women who are the targets of abuse.

Women who are so hugely disproportionately abused as “bigots”, and the entire enterprise of feminism and women’s right slurred in the time-honoured fashion of misogynistic men.

I love the idea that UK women who argue that we need female spaces.

Are all being funded by USA right wing Christian orgs (??!!)

And that therefore the people in the USA orgs who are super religious and bigoted are also radical feminists

Point 2 to bear in mind.

There's no logical sense to any of this.

It's just contradiction to things which aren't true, to things which defy any kind of common sense, to demonisation of those who disagree, and on top of that it's very USA based with arguments being applied to other countries where they don't work, and a frankly dodgy idea when challenged about how this works globally (something that doesn't appear to have even occurred to most).

DrSbaitso

Don't forget 'white feminism' which has been applied plenty to black women...

twitter.com/maryfernandez/status/1109270814463975424?s=21

Like this pleasant transwoman, with the “die cis scum” tattoo and the baseball bat. Why should my 9 year old daughter have to be exposed to this kind of shit?

@NiceGerbil

DrSbaitso

Don't forget 'white feminism' which has been applied plenty to black women...

I would use it to describe a Martian! So you're the racist! Hahaha! Hahahahaaaaaaa!

The problem is, once you've convinced yourself that men are women, and that it's actually RADICAL FEMINISM to state that they're not, there's really not much else utterly contradictory, nonsensical bullshit you couldn't also try to pass. I used a misogynistic term but you're sexist for pulling it up! Mice are teapots!

Thing is most of them don't believe it at all.

Not really.

When they say 'Twaw' what most mean is that they have adopted a new definition of the word woman. Which is. Only refers to a social role. Never had anything to do with sex. Etc

Then if they really want to antagonise they give it that Simone de Beauvoir quote...

@nolongersurprised

twitter.com/maryfernandez/status/1109270814463975424?s=21

Like this pleasant transwoman, with the “die cis scum” tattoo and the baseball bat. Why should my 9 year old daughter have to be exposed to this kind of shit?

Shit did you see the kid with the knife saying 'fetch me a TERF' under it?

All you have to do to be a 'TERF' is sympathise with women who can't be vulnerable around male bodied people.

It's an affront to feminism to describe eg violent right wing men as radical Feminists. So that's another good reason to keep doing it!

(for them).

@drsbaito there is apparently a male version of the Karen term - Ken, so the person who claimed that the term Karen is unisex is talking nonsense.

Aside from that, despite the original use of Karen being used to call out racist behaviour, it's morphed into a term used against generally middle aged women who simply disagree with something someone else has said. As you said, it's an intimidation tactic.

The world is changing and the decisions of the future will be made by the generations that have direct experience and knowledge of the people that are often maligned on Mumsnet.

The anti-trans sentiment here comes from people who have little first hand experience of friendship etc with trans, non-binary etc identifying people. It's the typical ingroup-outgroup division and hostility that stems from lack of close contact.

As younger generations who have
grown up in a different environment and have had more direct contact and understanding come through I would expect to see greater awareness, empathy and decision-making that is inclusive.

@Anotheruser02

One in five women have been then victim of sexual assault or rape, if they are alone in a space confronted with someone who looks masculine, has the physique of a man, towers over them like a man and sounds like a man, then he doesn't actually need to assault her himself to do damage to her. Trauma is real, why the fuck should 20% of all women give up socialising or going to the gym or swimming because they know they can't use the facilities when they get there in case someone encroaches on that space who makes them freeze with panic, all in the name of validating a mans feelings of femininity.

It's sad when women are so happy to give away women's safeguarding because they don't feel that they need it. No one is all women, no one owns those rights and can give them away, if you don't need them I'm happy for you, but other women do. Women's rights are for all of the female sex to feel safe, feeling safe is as important as being safe.

Men dressed as women wanting to work in refuges is so counterproductive to the recovery of the service users, I cannot comprehend why anyone who isn't a total narcissist would even want to do that. I would love to work in domestic abuse, it's something I have been looking into but if there was something about me that I couldn't change that would be damaging to an already abused woman or child then I would not want to do that. If the most helpful thing I could do was stay away then that is exactly what I would want to do.

👏👏👏👏👏

The anti-trans sentiment here comes from people who have little first hand experience of friendship etc with trans, non-binary etc identifying people. It's the typical ingroup-outgroup division and hostility that stems from lack of close contact.

I'm actually younger than Jameela Jamil, and have known (and cared about) people who identify as non-binary for over 15 years.

However, unfortunately for you, I am simultaneously old enough to remember the days when it was deemed important to be inclusive of people of faith, including the ones who had religions that meant they could not bare skin in front of the opposite sex. Back when being inclusive meant a workplace boasting about having a meditation room available for prayers and contemplation.

If Muslim schoolgirls don't have somewhere they can wash their hands for prayer, it's not inclusive. If Muslim work colleagues don't have somewhere to momentarily remove or adjust hijab, it's not inclusive.

If my local swimming pool doesn't provide female only sessions, it's not inclusive.

It is discrimination against people who follow minority faiths, and it also constitutes indirect racial discrimination.

And that's before we've got on to prisons. We have a responsibility to prevent female prisoners being subjected to rape by fellow inmates, do we not?

@suggestionsplease1 you do know that it's nonsense that the people on Mumsnet don't know or have any direct contact with people who are trans, right? There are parents of teenagers who are questioning their gender identify or transitioning here, there are people who have family members, or colleagues, or friends who are transgender. Like Stonewall, you are repeating what you wish to be true, not what is true.

Advocating for women's single sex spaces and rights isn't transphobic.

extract

As a woman of faith – whose God, may I please remind everyone, IS genderless, I have zero problems with anyone who is anything ‘other’ than me.

If you’re a man who wants to step out of the socially constructed He-Man box that is ‘man’ to make a home in the socially constructed box of ‘woman’, then go for it.

But please, please, please, don’t do so to invade a space that women are still fighting so hard for.

Create your own space – a third space – a fifth space – a seventh space – one which caters to your own unique experiences and needs too – because you will have plenty of both that we as women won’t understand or share in too.

Or better yet, take space from the men – they have lots!

And please don’t pretend that my own experiences of transforming from girl to woman – and all the millions of tiny hurts and pains and prejudices and pushbacks all women have suffered as a result of being a girl, then woman, can be shared by you either.

Whether it’s toilets or changing rooms, specialist services or a refuge, school toilets or prison cells or hospital wards, it’s vital women’s uniqueness, lives and wants be as respected as you want your uniqueness, lives and wants to be respected.

As someone working with women fleeing domestic violence and war, human trafficking rings, childhood sexual abuse and a million and one other experiences of male-inflicted violence in between, our under-funded, drastically reducing, single-sex spaces are literally our last vestiges of safety.

For women who have been punched, beaten, raped, and broken at every possible level you can conceive, to be forced to accept former men as part of their healing process, will, to put it bluntly, lead to further trauma, or worse still, a distrust and turning away from the very services they believed might help them.

And I have to ask our policy makers, our parliament, and organisations like Stonewall and basically any human being with a shred of humanity:really?

Do these women’s needs and the needs of the young boys and girls they bring with them, really matter so little to you?

Aren’t they just as important as those wanting to be granted access to our worlds? And not only access – but special rules and allowances too?

As I look around in today’s world, I see more and more bewildered women and girls feeling confused, alienated and afraid.

Women like myself and my Sikh or Hindu or Jewish friends who need single-space places to safely unveil, wash up and reconfigure ourselves; or women who are breastfeeding and lactating and needing a space to let it all hang out; or women going through the menopause or chemotherapy who need safe spaces to just be looked after, or young girls on their first ever periods or sprouting breasts who need space for support and reassurance.

Or every woman ever, who needs a safe space like this to come and meet and talk about our fears and battles, and hopefully create better policies and movements for our future women.

Even the smallest annihilation of the basic right to be a woman in the presence of other women can have dire impacts on our health and state of mind.

A case in point: three weeks ago, I took a dear friend to lunch.

All was going well, we were having a beautiful time, and halfway through the meal, she left to go to the restaurant bathroom.

The woman that came back, was not the same one who left the luncheon table: for instead of the carefree, happy being I knew, came back a pale, quiet and slightly shaken version.

It transpired the restaurant had a gender ‘neutral’ bathroom, and as she had made her way down, a very innocent man had walked out of the toilets, banging into her.

Nothing of any significance to anyone watching – not until I tell you that this friend of two decades, had been raped in her university dorm room at the age of twenty, and feared all contact with men – no matter how nice, kind, friendly, non-threatening or ‘effeminate’ they might seem.

Continues: womansplaceuk.org/2019/10/01/the-sheer-audacity-of-our-existence/

@suggestionsplease1

The world is changing and the decisions of the future will be made by the generations that have direct experience and knowledge of the people that are often maligned on Mumsnet.

The anti-trans sentiment here comes from people who have little first hand experience of friendship etc with trans, non-binary etc identifying people. It's the typical ingroup-outgroup division and hostility that stems from lack of close contact.

As younger generations who have
grown up in a different environment and have had more direct contact and understanding come through I would expect to see greater awareness, empathy and decision-making that is inclusive.

You've read all that and that's your response?

Women and girls all over the world have FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE of just how many creepy dodgy weirdy blokes are out there.

And what the ability - only available recently- to use/enter/ be treated as female in any and all situations. With no difficulty and that no one is supposed to even let on they've noticed. Will mean for that very large amount of men.

And how the also very large number of men who to a greater or lesser extent enjoy women and girls 'being taken down a peg or 2'.

There are more or less 4 billion women and girls in the world. Experiencing / being subjected to an enormously varied amount of harms which vary in type and severity all over the world.

These harms pretty much all/ all. Flow from our being the half of the humans who are assumed to have the ability to bear children. And the role in society that we are expected to confirm to because of that.

@suggestionsplease1

The world is changing and the decisions of the future will be made by the generations that have direct experience and knowledge of the people that are often maligned on Mumsnet.

The anti-trans sentiment here comes from people who have little first hand experience of friendship etc with trans, non-binary etc identifying people. It's the typical ingroup-outgroup division and hostility that stems from lack of close contact.

As younger generations who have
grown up in a different environment and have had more direct contact and understanding come through I would expect to see greater awareness, empathy and decision-making that is inclusive.

Theres no anti-trans here. Just pro-women. So if pro-women means anti-trans to you, then pro-trans must mean anti-women by your logic. And by anti-trans here, we are clearly talking about trans identified males.

And talking about experience, young and old, us women know the shit that knocks us down. Have done since time began. And its fuck all to do with touching base with gender non conforming people! Its about sex. And the oppression we face because of our sex. And the protections we need BECAUSE of our sex.

Women are just that. Adult human females. Men, trans identified or otherwise, aren't a part of our group. Never will be. Inclusive is just the new term for 'be kind' for your lot.

Fuck that. Make the men inclusive of their gender non-conforming peers.

Suggestions s few questions I'd like to hear your thoughts on.

If it's important to listen to people's experiences and issues, why are those of so many women and girls not of worth?

If it's about exposure, how much groups are listened to. Then why is the group that is half the human race and well I mean who doesn't know some women? All that exposure. Why are our words in so many situations seen as not reliable. Or motivated by things that we are not being honest about?
Why are we not considered reliable witnesses to our own lives and experiences?

What for you is the difference between your point about visibility/ exposure etc leading to understanding and compassion? Because women and girls don't seem to get much understanding and compassion all over the world and through as much history as we know, pretty much.

'experience and knowledge of the people that are often maligned on Mumsnet.'

You mean men? In the context of sex offences?

I'm sure we all know loads of men. I'm not sure how getting to know trans people.. (my DDs entire friendship group have trans identities!) will do anything to change views about men as a group?