To wonder if no one on Mumsnet believes that trans women are women?

[StolenCookie]

I’ve been lurking on the site for months, enjoying AIBU and laughing at some of the posts.

But yesterday I commented on a topic regarding the language around trans women, and the views expressed were very extreme.

Is there anyone at all on Mumsnet who, like me, did not realise how anti-trans this site is? Does anyone believe, unreservedly, that trans women are women?

YABU - trans women are not women.
YANBU - I support trans rights

JK Rowling is an advocate for the rights and safety of women and girls. The only way of perceiving that as "anti-trans" is if you believe that there is conflict between the rights of trans people and the rights of women - a position that TRAs are very vocal about disclaiming (usually with the slogan "rights are not pie").

The lopsidedness of the language used by TRAs/trans allies about this issue is so telling:

• Women on MN disagreeing with or questioning TRAs and offering their own (usuallly articulate and well-informed) opinions = ANTI-TRANS HATRED!! HOW DARE YOU NOT BELIEVE THEIR LIVED EXPERIENCE!!

• Women such as JKR explaining how their own traumatic experiences have informed their perspective on women's rights and women's safety = meh, over-reaction, your feelings are "misplaced" and your lived experience is invalid.

I watched your video from the timestamp. The person in the video links JKR's stance on protect women's sex-based rights to her experiences at the hands of male abuser, then trots out the standard racism trope by saying this is analogous to a person who has been mugged by a black teenager starting to campaign for more militant policing of black neighbourhoods.

This is a false equivalence. The correct analogy is with someone who has been mugged who then wants to safeguard their own neighbourhood more carefully.

Imwithyouu:

What you see as "anti trans hatred" I see as "pro women".

WHY is it wrong too want to keep women's spaces for women?
Why is it wrong to not want to see a penis in a changing room or swimming pool/sauna/spa?
What is there to gain, and what in in it for women, to share these spaces with biological males?
Why can't the MALE estate move up to make room for these males in their own spaces? Why must it be up to women to solve male violence and intolerance?

What rights do trans people want that they don't already have?
Aren't women who HAVE been traumatised entitled to expect that their spaces remain single sexed?
Do you know that the sex offender rate remains the same in the trans community?
Why is it wrong to want to keep women and girls safe from harm?

I don't see any of that being addressed.

The poll results must be a mistake surely. This is.... I'm so shocked by the comments here honestly. Who actually is bothered that much by what someone has in their pants? What am I going to discover next, people here don't agree with gay marriage? This is wild. And for the record, no you can't invalidate someone trans and then claim you still support them.

And for the record, no you can't invalidate someone trans and then claim you still support them

Do you think humans can change sex?

The vast majority of people are concerned about what other people "have in their pants" in situations where they will be sharing the contents of their pants, one way or another. We can see that with how little people want mixed (family excepted) hospital wards, changing rooms, sleeping accommodation, toilets and showers that don't provide individual privacy.

It's not only about what is in their pants but also how their hormones have impacted them throughout their lives. This covers the sporting aspect but also how the tendency for men to subjugate women physically and sexually seems to be much more closely linked to sex than self identified gender.

A lack of concern for "what's in someone's pants" is also of interest to anyone who is only attracted to a single sex, whether they are gay or straight, so plenty of supporters of gay marriage and quite a lot of trans folks, too.

CelestiaNoctis, no-one is "invalidating" trans people. The only "wild" thing here is your hyperbole.

People who consider themselves trans have as much right to a happy and peaceful existence as every other person. But there are circumstances where, in the interests of safety, privacy, dignity or fairness, a woman's sex-based needs must take precedence over a transwomen's wish to have their subjective feelings of gender acknowledged as material reality.

Your post is nothing more than a massive, politely worded ad hominem against JKR.

It doesn't engage with JKR's arguments at all, and I suspect the video doesn't either.

I think a lot of people need to relearn why ad hominems result in poor debate.

What TRAs need to understand is that the are a lot of people like me, ie instinctively sympathetic to trans rights, who are becoming very alarmed that those rights are being advanced, not through rational debate but through Trumpesque hit jobs against any critics.

Your voting options are pointless - but I’m sure you knew that when you posted this thread.

Trans women are trans women - and the trans community quite rightly should be able to live their lives without harm. I support the trans community receiving support to live their life as trans.

But TWAW - they will never be women, they will never experience the physical, emotional and psychological experience of being a woman. They should not be competing in womens sports. They should not be in female prisons. They should not be allowed into rape crisis groups for women raped by men. They should not be taking awards in business.

They should absolutely have all of the above catered for - for them as TW.

Interesting that you’re only focussed on TW. Do you not care about TM?

Yes trans women are women.

But there are times when we as a society have to recognise that trans women are different in certain respects to other females and therefore need to treat them differently. Proportionate response. E.g. keeping sports fair; not having intact male sex offenders in women’s prisons; asking for female for intimate healthcare provision.

@Tandora:

Final point - if you live in the world as a woman, and are recognised by others as a woman - you definitely do have a gender identity

What you say here necessitates the view that gender is assigned by society at large. That contradicts the claim that a person's gender is a matter if how that person self-identifies. In fact, doesn't it imply that trans women are not women if the society they live in does not recognise them as women? That would bea very strange result.

If you don't accept that, you must logically accept that a person who self-identifies as having no gender identity does in fact have no gender identity.

Well done for remaining polite in a heated debate btw.

trans women are different in certain respects to other females

TW are not female. All the examples of proportionate responses you list are appropriate precisely because TW are male.

What do male TW have in common with females in order for both groups to belong together in the category "women"?

I don't think 50% of the population should have all the language around themselves be changed in order for a tiny percentage of trans people to not be 'triggered'. I'm all for trans rights but when you start referring to women as womb carriers something has got out of whack.

No I’m saying women who can’t get pregnant are women. Whether you can get pregnant or not in no way defines what sex you are.

But it does.
Someone with a male body can never get pregnant as they aren't born and can't develop the biological tools.

Woman can get pregnant and only have have them biological development to allow pregnancy if possible.

So, your utterly predictable retort aside - your point clearly makes no sense.

Is anyone who has treatment for cancer mentally unwell?

What about a mole removed?

You said anyone who undergoes medical treatment is mentally unwell.

Explain how that isn’t nonsense?

The poster actually said you don't go to a dr and get your body ticketed with if you're healthy. They said mentally unwell in respect of changing a perfectly healthy body from its sex alignment.

So your c section next week is because you can't give birth naturally as something isn't as it would usually be. The same reason I had mine and the same reason I'm having surgery next week - because something doesn't work.

You don't remove limbs or appendix or gallbladder etc just because.

*Tandora
*
Do you have a link to evidence if all these men and woman born without xx or xy chromosomes.

Because your claim millions aren't must mean at some point a study of all people born happened and a scientific paper (that is peer reviewed) pointing out that these have nothing to do with sex or sexual organs.

Not believing trans woman are not woman doesn't make someone transphobic.

Or are all the trans woman who also don't believe they are biological woman also transphobes?

You do realise the biggest issue trans woman have with their mental health is that they know biologically they aren't woman and hate their bodies?

Perhaps instead of this faux shock and empty statement you could do some research?

Although you're struggling to understand simple posts here so it may be beyond your ability?

I understand your position OP - on this subject MN is something of an echo chamber where dissenting views really aren’t tolerated.

it makes me very sad - I remember in the late 1980s when homophobia was rife but dressed up as concern for children and ‘straight’ women, in that we couldn’t possibly be asked to share a changing room with a lesbian because what if she attacked us? Or attacked our children? And much of the ‘moral panic’ language used on MN surrounding trans issues is very very similar. I feel that, in 20 years time, MN will come out looking rather bad for the views held.

However, as your vote and the 20+ pages of comments show, MN isn’t the place to try to have a constructive discussion on the subject. Just know that you aren’t alone in your opinion!

*Over 700 (!!) votes and over 80% saying trans women are not women.

Mumsnet really is as anti-trans as I worried it was.*

You don't get to stomp all over women's rights, spaces try and change how we define ourselves and then whine about women protecting and pushing back on that, trying to frame us as the problem.

You are anti women and you are sexist, go worry about that.

I’d like to ask a different question please.

What is wrong with saying transwomen are transwomen? Is there something wrong with being a transwoman? That in itself sounds transphobic to me.

I believe trans people should be free to live however they choose, and I support trans rights, but however much anyone tries to dictate otherwise, they aren't biological women. You're voting isn't really appropriate OP as many on here would vote both.

trans women are different in certain respects to other females

You don't need the other in there. TW aren't females.

The definition of woman is an adult human female. Being a female DOES depend on your biology.

I hate the whole 'some women can't get pregnant either but they are still women' shite too. Yes of course. No one is saying ALL women get pregnant, ALL women have periods. We are saying ONLY women can do those things. That isn't the same as saying all of them can or do.

The thing that annoys me is that people say it's not just about stereotypes but then go on to explain gender identity as being basically just that. I have no problem with a man deciding he wants to live by women's societal stereotypical gender norms i.e. dressing in women's clothes, shaving their legs, wearing make up or whatever else. But that does not make you a woman, it doesn't mean you should then get to compete in our sports or use our loos or be sent to our prisons and yes, removing your genitals to add a fake vagina doesn't change anything either.

I do genuinely have sympathy for anyone who feels like they were born in the wrong body but to me that is a MH condition. You cannot actually change into a female just because you want to. You will always be a male human no matter what you do to yourself. Me being sympathetic doesn't mean I need to play along with make believe.

Exactly. If I went to the doctor hell bent on them removing my leg because I felt I'd been born with the wrong one I'm fairly sure they'd be looking at my MH.

Trans ideology, and the statement “transwomen are women” is incredibly homophobic. If transwomen are women, then a transwoman who is attracted to women is a lesbian; this is Stonewall’s official position on that matter. Stonewall no longer believes in same SEX attraction, and instead calls it same gender attraction.

So when, in the 80s or 90s you used to see men wearing “joke” t shirts saying “I’m a lesbian in a man’s body” with the homophobic belief they could “turn” a lesbian and coerce her into sex with him, just remember that is now Stonewall’s official position, as a direct result of unequivocally believing TWAW.

So where’s your concern for lesbians now? While they’re being actively told that excluding males from their dating pool is transphobic, where a barrister argued in court that a workshop called “overcoming the Cotton Ceiling” was not trying to coerce, but merely persuade? When Nancy Kelley, CEO of Stonewall calls such views prejudice akin to Nazis?

If you believe TWAW, you are homophobic.

So twaw... But only in some circumstances.... Riiiight

See, I'm fine with trans women identifying as women in a general social sense. It makes no difference to me. However, I couldn't choose YANBU in the poll because I don't support all of the trans rights that the group desire. The biggest issue I have, as someone quite invested in sport, is trans women competing against biological women. No amount of treatment will make it fair. A person that has gone through a male puberty will always have higher bone density, larger lungs, a bigger frame etc. I don't agree that we should just include trans women to spare their feelings and prioritise their needs above biological women. The biological women that have trained for so long to compete at national and international levels deserve the right to fair competition. It is sad that it isn't physically possible for trans women to fairly compete against biological women of course, I don't want to see their dreams crushed either. I just believe that trans women interested in a career in sport should choose between pursuing that career as a man and transitioning. It is the only fair option. Alternatively, they could set up their own unique category and I would be supportive of that.