Enthusiastic Consent - I am .. confused.

[loopyapp]

So .. AIBU that the once previously highly held gold standard for consent between partners had to be enthusiastic and complete. Any hesitant or unsure thoughts = a grey area in which the other party should NOT ever step into??

I ask because (I am very new to all this so please be gentle if I've got this wrong) this sudden uprise in trans activists insisting that predominantly gay women (though men too apparently) should willingly sleep with transwomen and transmen regardless of what genitalia they have or where they are in their transition is confusing.

Are trans people really insisting that people have sex with them despite their lack of enthusiastic consent because its their right??

I must have this wrong.. surely.. we were banging the #metoo campaign drum not that long ago .. all up in arms about how both parties need to be fully able and willing to consent to engage in anything that could be considered sexual contact.. its how I've been raising my 4 boys .. its what I completely believe in .. that absolutely everyone is allowed to turn sex down at any point, even during, simply because they wish to without having to give a carefully drafted PC reason????

[Edited by MNHQ to remove poll]

Surely if TW are LITERALLY WOMEN as TRA say, then TW can sleep with each other anyway? Or men?
Why do lesbians need to be involved?

Also, is Owen Jones a transphobe for not sleeping with transmen?

@YouSetTheTone

Surely if TW are LITERALLY WOMEN as TRA say, then TW can sleep with each other anyway? Or men? Why do lesbians need to be involved?

Also, is Owen Jones a transphobe for not sleeping with transmen?

Jones has previously correctly declared it to be homophobic for people to suggest he should sleep with transmen.

Misogyny dictates he does not offer the same courtesy to lesbians.

People have tried to get him to say that it's homophobic, and he won't, though he claims he isn't suggesting lesbians should sleep with MTF trans people.

He hides in the same "anyone has the right to refuse consent for any reason" that they all do. But as pp said, he's been quick to suggest that any questions about whether he would have oral sex with an FTM trans person are homophobic "to a gay man". He must know that it's the same, but he's carefully evasive in the wording he chooses and tries to turn it into a DARVO if anyone pushes.

He hides in the same "anyone has the right to refuse consent for any reason" that they all do.

yes Eresh, the old, 'you can refuse anyone you wish, but you have to never say why'. It seems it is the telling why you don't wish to have sex with that person is the issue. And if that person persists and won't stop asking, you still have to make up something other than say 'because you are male', because rejection is very hurtful etc.

I am still rather confused why we have posters on this thread who continue to ignore the point that they themselves are joining in the coercion through their posts attempting to discredit the article.

Simply stating 'if this is happening even to a small number of lesbians, this is an issue and needs to be addressed to stop it in its tracks' is a very easy sentence to write.... and yet, we have these posters who are in effect denying it happens, and it is only a few lesbians so what does it matter, the feelings of the males are the most important and keeping the 'community' whole is worth silencing any lesbian who is harmed by this.

And these posters cannot see what they are perpetuating.... Almost seems like they cannot move past their own agenda of shaming women for having boundaries of any kind that are excluding special males.

@Chocolatewheatos

I am very pro-trans rights and I totally see why they feel the way they do. They want accepting as the gender they are and its shit to be rejected for something you didn't have control of and have changed. But no one is ever entitled to sex under any circumstances.

But people get rejected for all sorts of reasons - not tall enough, too fat, annoying personality etc. I'm sure it's shit for anyone who has been rejected, but a penis on a 'woman' is quite the dealbreaker for a lesbian I'd imagine. I wonder if transmen get so angry if gay men won't have sex with them?

I wonder if transmen get so angry if gay men won't have sex with them?

Some have. I have seen conversations on twitter and other forums where female transitioners discuss this. It becomes the 'moment' when many realise that they will never be accepted as a man and they understand that they are transmen and reconcile with that. You don't see that as much with transitioned males.

And if that person persists and won't stop asking, you still have to make up something other than say 'because you are male', because rejection is very hurtful etc.

Refusing women the right to name themselves as homosexual, telling them they must learn to let people penetrate them and can enjoy them if they try which plain rejects their sexual identity, their feelings, their sense of self and attractions, and suggesting that females should always consider male needs before their own?

That's not just hurtful, that's all kinds of oppressive, offensive, unkind and dehumanising.

Why I wonder must female people think of male people's feelings before their own, but apparently those male people (and their supporters) have no similar responsibility to be equally considerate and respectful of female people?

Other of course than the basic fixed consistent belief under all this: that females are a lower class of humans and subordinate to people born male. Entirely sex based thinking. Massive sexism.

@Helleofabore

I wonder if transmen get so angry if gay men won't have sex with them?

Some have. I have seen conversations on twitter and other forums where female transitioners discuss this. It becomes the 'moment' when many realise that they will never be accepted as a man and they understand that they are transmen and reconcile with that. You don't see that as much with transitioned males.

I don't know about transmen with men as the two transmen I have known were into women. But I have heard transwomen who are into men discuss encounters. It was very much about staying safe: in particular not leaving it until they go home with a guy to reveal that they are not female, as it can lead to violence. No mention of cotton ceilings or insisting men examine their societal conditioning.

@Artichokeleaves

And if that person persists and won't stop asking, you still have to make up something other than say 'because you are male', because rejection is very hurtful etc.

Refusing women the right to name themselves as homosexual, telling them they must learn to let people penetrate them and can enjoy them if they try which plain rejects their sexual identity, their feelings, their sense of self and attractions, and suggesting that females should always consider male needs before their own?

That's not just hurtful, that's all kinds of oppressive, offensive, unkind and dehumanising.

Why I wonder must female people think of male people's feelings before their own, but apparently those male people (and their supporters) have no similar responsibility to be equally considerate and respectful of female people?

Other of course than the basic fixed consistent belief under all this: that females are a lower class of humans and subordinate to people born male. Entirely sex based thinking. Massive sexism.

This

TatianaBis

It was very much about staying safe: in particular not leaving it until they go home with a guy to reveal that they are not female, as it can lead to violence.

See, this would be a huge worry too. However, it really is not helped by Stonewall's approach to ensuring trans people's privacy is prioritised over their sex partners.

www.stonewall.org.uk/system/files/a_vision_for_change.pdf

P 32. Includes their legislation and in it is this point.

“Judicial clarity of ‘sex by deception’ cases to define the legal position on what consistutes sex by deception based on gender, and to ensure trans people’s privacy is protected.”

When combined with the removal of ‘the spousal veto referred to in the previous point, they are basically very determined to give a group of people power over another person’s ability to consent.

I find this chilling enough without the coercive behaviour towards lesbians for sex.

So, no answer on how many women is ok to be harmed before people and lobby groups start to act to stop this behaviour and this abuse.

There is a rhetoric on other threads to that because one person mentioned in the BBC article about lesbians being coerced or raped by transitioned males is not ‘pure’ (ie. has written publicly words that are rather horrific to read), that the entire BBC article should be discredited.

I cannot believe that we are in 2021 and I am reading this about silencing women from talking about their rapes and sexual abuse!

How wonderfully progressive a time we live in !

They're desperate to silence these women from exposing the sexual assault, coercion and social shaming they were subjected to through whatever angle they can find. I think it's telling that it keeps changing. At the heart of it is the women's stories of male abuse and its enablers, and the quote from Nancy Kelley, who suggests people who are exclusively same sex attracted need to examine their "prejudices".

It's absolutely disgusting that TRAs are feeling sorry for the poor trans community and are giving no consideration to the women who have been impacted by this.

They are calling the BBC bigoted for publishing this article and saying it's transmisogynistic.

The women never ever count in this ideology. Abused women must be silenced because it's harmful to the Trans community. The very community that condones this behaviour in the first place from the top as evidenced by Nancy Kelley's statement.

Disgraceful.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

They're desperate to silence these women from exposing the sexual assault, coercion and social shaming they were subjected to through whatever angle they can find. I think it's telling that it keeps changing. At the heart of it is the women's stories of male abuse and its enablers, and the quote from Nancy Kelley, who suggests people who are exclusively same sex attracted need to examine their "prejudices".

YY. First of all they tried to pretend that now everyone thinks all transwomen are rapists, then that the victims of the assaults were 'biased' (ffs), then that the BBC was biased, and now trying to undermine the credibility not of the attacks, but of the person being attacked!

It's desperate, despicable stuff.

Yes, very interesting that to proponents of this political position is that the worst thing about a woman's rape experience is that it reflects badly on the public image of male people.

Very 'inclusive' and 'kind'. And very, very sexist, in a really quite surprisingly binary way, where 'gender' is a hierarchy used to see biologically female humans (and no one is confused about who they are or struggles to spot them) kept subordinate to the more important interests of the more important male humans. (And everyone can identify them too without any trouble.)

the worst thing about a woman's rape experience is that it reflects badly on the public image of male people.

.... well actually, on second thoughts that's not quite true, is it?

It's not the woman's experience or the fact she's been raped at all. There's zero interest, empathy, compassion or basic recognition of this. The problem is the woman talking about it .

You get the impression that these women should just shut up for the sake of those more important than themselves, who may in some way suffer some kind of negative impact for her drawing attention to a bad thing happening. The bad thing happening is fine in itself.

The ridiculous thing is that a strong message of 'we're horrified, this is awful, those poor women, this community absolutely rejects this kind of behaviour or lack of respect for women's homosexuality and boundaries' would have wholly averted this public relations disaster. It's baffling. Worse, it leads you to wonder if it's because no one from the large, powerful, public funded by taxpayers (half of which are female) lobby groups is horrified or feels that treating women in this way is wrong, and it would be very inconvenient to speak out against it.

@Artichokeleaves

Yes, very interesting that to proponents of this political position is that the worst thing about a woman's rape experience is that it reflects badly on the public image of male people.

Very 'inclusive' and 'kind'. And very, very sexist, in a really quite surprisingly binary way, where 'gender' is a hierarchy used to see biologically female humans (and no one is confused about who they are or struggles to spot them) kept subordinate to the more important interests of the more important male humans. (And everyone can identify them too without any trouble.)

It's not surprising at all, given that reproductive sex in humans is binary, everyone knows it, and everyone also seems to be well able to identify the males and the females when it suits them.

I think people are starting to get wise to what Stonewall has become. The DoH has dropped it and the BBC was considering dropping out of its diversity scheme, although I don't know if that decision has been made yet.

I think, overall, this particular branch of the lobby overestimated how far it had managed to penetrate the public consciousness to think black is white and up is down. They did well when they had everyone thinking that the objectors were just hateful bigots who had a problem with people living outside gender norms. Now people are starting to realise that we were objecting to things like men competing as women in the Olympics, or lesbians being coerced into penile sex, the tide is turning a bit.

@TalkingtoLangClegintheDark

Let me tell you about my takeaway from this thread, *@Ijustreallywantacat. What I’m seeing is that there is a cohort of posters - including but not limited to: you, @fallenwood, @toconclude, @DellaPorter, @VladmirsPoutine, @Viviennemary, @Miliao, @ABCeasyasdohrayme and @Lokdok* - who are choosing to deny/dismiss/minimise this particular form of sexual abuse of some of one group of female people by some of one group of male people - and it seems to me that you thereby implicitly condone and enable it.

Just as many people denied/dismissed/minimised the sexual abuses carried out by Savile, by some Roman Catholic priests, by some Muslim men who were part of grooming gangs in various English towns; and thereby implicitly condoned, and enabled those abuses to be much more widespread and continue for far longer, and affect more victims than would otherwise have been the case.

The victims of Savile, of RC priests, of the grooming gangs were all disbelieved, blamed, and vilified for “smearing” their abusers by those around them, including staff at children’s homes, members of the RC church, the police. Some grooming gang victims were themselves charged with “prostitution” offences and I believe one girl was even prosecuted for “harassment” of one of her abusers, seen as “racially aggravated”, before her situation was recognised as abuse.

What you are doing when you disbelieve, deny and dismiss is nothing new. Victim blaming has always been a thing. It is an easier course of action to take than recognising there is a genuine problem in a community you feel part of, or feel loyalty to, or feel protective of. It happens all the time in families where abuse of any kind happens too.

This is one of the ways abusers manage to keep on abusing, how they get away with it. The people around them don’t want to know, have a vested interest in not knowing. It’s not a problem if we don’t recognise it as a problem. It’s not a problem for us.

But it is a very real problem for a lot of lesbians currently. I have personally spoken to a young woman it happened to: a lesbian student who formerly went along with genderist “TWAW” ideology 100%, till she and several of her friends were all sexually assaulted by the same biologically male trans person in their LGBT group. The other testimonies I’ve come across have all been online or from friends of friends, because the lesbians I know are older and/or in long term relationships and so not likely to be targets of this themselves. But they know it’s happening too.

(And in fact I’ve never even spoken to one person who was a victim of Savile or one of the grooming gangs - but I don’t need to, to know those abuses happened. The evidence is there for those who are not deliberately looking away from it.)

It’s not even being denied by those who are fostering this culture. Twitter is awash with “trans rights activists” literally proclaiming it is transphobic for lesbians to be exclusively same-sex attracted. Nancy Kelley herself has equated same-sex sexual orientation with a “societal prejudice”!

The coercion is blatant and highly, highly visible and I’m struggling to find a parallel - all the other agencies that have told homosexual people they need to “rethink” their “prejudice” over the years have been coming from a deeply conservative/religious perspective. The truly shocking thing about this is that it’s coming from those who are supposedly “progressive” and on the side of gay people and gay rights. Supposedly.

If anyone else was telling lesbians their sexual orientation wasn’t completely valid and shouldn’t be respected just as it is, would you accept it? Would you accept it from a church, from a right wing government? If not, why do you accept it from Stonewall and other trans rights bodies/activists? Why is it “conversion therapy” if it comes from a fundamentalist church, but “trans inclusion” if it comes from Stonewall?

Even if it were only a “tiny minority” of biologically male trans people doing this, it would still need to be recognised and addressed. No number of victims of rape and abuse is an acceptable amount of collateral damage. But the fact is, we don’t have any reassurance at all that it’s only a tiny, tiny minority of biologically male trans people doing this, especially when Stonewall itself is supporting the mindset that justifies it.

Just as it’s a fallacy to say that it’s only a tiny minority of biologically male people in general who do or would sexually offend, given the chance. When men speak honestly, without fear of consequences, it turns out quite a few of them are happy to be predators after all. This thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4387825-Research-reveals-rapes-and-assaults-admitted-to-by-male-UK-students?msgid=112051215#112051215 makes sobering reading: the article linked to has a survey of male students in the UK, 11.4% of whom admitted to sexual offending. 11.4% is a significant minority, and obviously those numbers of offending males can catastrophically impact a much, much higher percentage of female victims, given they will usually offend as often as they can get away with.

There is no reason to think there would be any lower incidence of predators within the biologically male trans population than within the biologically male population in general. The MoJ found that of the 125 biologically male trans prisoners known to be in prison in England and Wales, 60 had been convicted of sex offences. Sixty. Close to half. Which is actually a much higher percentage than within the general male prison population (around 18-20%, I believe). fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-prisoners/

So the statistics that we have (and that women have had to fight very hard to have access to) show that being trans does not in any way lessen the likelihood of a biologically male person being a sex offender. And we know that male people in general are far more disposed to violent and sexual crime than female people. So it is not “transphobic” to extrapolate that there will be a significant minority of biologically male trans people who are sexual predators. Just as in the wider male population.

I am sure, Ijustreallywantacat that you think of yourself as a nice, decent, liberal-minded person who has a keen interest in social justice and protecting the most vulnerable in society. Just like me. The difference between us, I suppose, is who we perceive to be most vulnerable and at risk.

I doubt very much your trans friends are representative of the wider trans population that exists nowadays. I’m guessing they’re “old school”, dysphoric, trying to pass, sexually attracted to males, and possibly yes, quite vulnerable. But the “trans umbrella” has widened considerably in recent years, and includes many males who don’t have dysphoria at all, who were once called cross dressers or fetishists, who are very proud of their “female penis” and very much enjoy using it for sex with women. And some of whom use the protection that being a member of a “marginalised, vulnerable” subset of (male) people affords them to behave coercively and abusively towards some of those women (and girls) they want to have sex with. Or, more properly, the women and girls they want to abuse.

In that scenario, it’s the latter who are vulnerable and at risk, not the former. It’s the latter I care about. And I find it appalling that you don’t.

This is a particular form of abuse being carried out by some members of one cohort against some members of another cohort, and all of you saying it’s transphobic to bring it up, recognise or discuss it are enabling that abuse. That’s how it works. Abuse that isn’t named and can’t even be mentioned flourishes. Abusers thrive on denial.

This (enabling) presumably isn’t what you’re consciously intending to do, but it is nonetheless the result of what you’re doing. Abusive cultures need to be named in order to be tackled. You don’t want people to even name this. It’s shameful.

(If anyone feels I have misrepresented what you’re saying, please do come back and say that you unequivocally condemn all forms of abuse and you welcome any light being shone on abuses that have hitherto been covered up and not spoken of publicly, that you agree that patterns of abuse must be named and recognised in order to be effectively tackled and prevented in the future, no matter who the abusers. I would welcome that most heartily, and so would the women affected by this, I’m sure.)

Sorry but you clearly haven't read my posts. It is shocking that you would be translating what I have said, and others have said, as this. How dare you? The OP didn't say "some" in her first post and this was corrected. I have also said the way it was discussed on this thread was not ok, as there was so much disrespect - and gaslighting for that matter - from posters like you. I have said quite clearly more than once that this is a serious issue, not that it didn't happen. Shocking post.

[quote Ereshkigalangcleg]I had a quick look at research this morning and as I said, there has not been much scientific study (as opposed to comment) in the decades since your researcher

From Wikipedia

A 2015 survey of roughly 3,000 American trans womenn^ showed that at least 60% were attracted to women.

[[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_sexuality]][/quote]
I looked at bonafide published research, not from wikipedia - there is a difference, though to be fair I have not yet looked at the source which wiki used - though it is unlikely to be scientific research.

The research I quoted from ie published research said that there had not been much research - ie bonafide research not wiki. It also said that 68.5 percent in the published study wanted relationships with men. And the study also found that the fetish behaviour is mostly in the minority groups who were bi or attracted to women.

Sorry but you clearly haven't read my posts. It is shocking that you would be translating what I have said, and others have said, as this. How dare you? The OP didn't say "some" in her first post and this was corrected. I have also said the way it was discussed on this thread was not ok, as there was so much disrespect - and gaslighting for that matter - from posters like you. I have said quite clearly more than once that this is a serious issue, not that it didn't happen. Shocking post.

Well, doesn't this strike to the heart of the issue. You don't actually get to dictate how other people perceive you. None of us do. Not transwomen, not transmen and not you.

As Talking has so eloquently explained, that's how you've come across.

there was so much disrespect - and gaslighting for that matter - from posters like you.

How have you experienced gaslighting on this thread?

looked at bonafide published research, not from wikipedia - there is a difference, though to be fair I have not yet looked at the source which wiki used - though it is unlikely to be scientific research.

It's a published survey of 3000 trans people, linked from Wikipedia. Most trans data comes from surveys, so no need to turn your nose up. There is very little "bonafide published research" and what there is is not always methodologically sound. But you didn't specify only "bonafide published research", so that is the data which exists. If they found 68.5% wanted relationships with men, I imagine they have excluded a large cohort of people under the trans umbrella from their sample, because that is the profile of a homosexual transsexual, not the main group of male people under the trans umbrella who we all know exist.

Well, doesn't this strike to the heart of the issue. You don't actually get to dictate how other people perceive you. None of us do. Not transwomen, not transmen and not you.

Quite.