To think political discussion does belong on Mumsnet

[HermioneWeasley]

At the protest for the Scottish gender reform bill last night. We silly women are only permitted to talk about prams and weaning don’t you know?

"keep Mumsnetters' anti-trans beliefs out of political policymaking".

Would that be 'don't permit women's voices to have a say in policy about themselves?'

There really are those who'd quite like to take the vote back off women. Especially the inconvenient ones. With inconvenient lived experiences who won't nicely shut up about inconvenient facts and do political penis portions.

It's also the mum bit. You've had kids, so we view you as past being fuckable, so STFU. That's what the message also conveys.

And within that is what's at the heart of this - rampant misogyny. You're there for fucking, not talking.

"keep Mumsnetters' anti-trans beliefs out of political policymaking".

Heaven forbid allowing any common sense to be part of policymaking. Pesky women sticking our beaks in and having a say on major decisions that affect our rights and our safety.

And from other aspects of this movement: you have a vagina = mummy.

Mummy has no life or existence except revolving entirely around baby. And when baby feels thwarted by her, baby screams and hits and kicks. Still expecting unconditional love, approval and servicing.

I remember a very wise TQ+ MNetter years back (it was all still fields around here) who used to say wryly that a lot of this was a visceral response to women of 'mummy doesn't love us' on encountering boundaries.

The males who take ‘women’s officer’ positions in any organisation, but particularly universities and political parties are achieving the outcome of removing female votes, aren’t they.

This move to allow males to be considered female because they feel like women to then take roles that were created to give Women representation to fight negative sexist discrimination is effectively putting male people back into policy influencing and making roles for female people.

It is directly reducing the opportunities for the needs of women and girls to be carefully considered where needed.

Let’s face it. Labour already has been shown to disregard that need. They had a board that was supposed to be sex balanced but had 75% males because it included two males who had declared they were women.

Labour has said they would support a board supposedly set up to be balanced by equal representation of the two sexes as balanced even in all the female places were filled with males.

There are too many young males with political aspirations who take up or have taken up university ‘women’s officer’ roles. When you read about them, some transitioned only months before. How is this representing the needs of the female half of the population? At all?

Equal representation is just another aspect of this huge issue.

Hence when people complain that thread after thread on the feminist board is about prioritising sex over gender when sex matters, it really says that maybe that person doesn’t see the wider picture yet or they do and they don’t care about it or feel they cannot change it so wish to park it so they can ignore it.

There are too many young males with political aspirations who take up or have taken up university ‘women’s officer’ roles. When you read about them, some transitioned only months before. How is this representing the needs of the female half of the population? At all?

This.

Women’s voices are already being lost from the political arena - several women in politics campaigns have platformed male born trans people to speak for women despite having no understanding or experience of the barriers we face purely because of our sex.

As you mention there are numerous ‘Womens Officer positions taken by people born male, the Jo Cox Foundation also aimed at getting women into politics has funded several male born trans people on their development courses. Green Party Women was taken over by a male born trans person who then locked the social media accounts so women could not object.

It is all starting to sound a bit Victorian. We are now no longer viewed as a legal sex in our own right, separate to males, our public voices are being silenced and male people are speaking for us.

I’m sad for our daughters.

Stupid placard - doesn't show any understanding of what is 'political'. Public policy affects all our lives from the minute we wake up to the minute we go to bed. What we feed our kids, how we get to work, if we work, our children's nurseries and schools, treatment of our disabled children, how we operate in the world is we are black, experience of giving birth in the UK, what our housing is like, whether we can heat our housing etc etc etc. What are we allowed to discuss if we have to stay clear of politics? Obviously misogyny . . . . as so often flares up in this debate.

Helleofabore · Today 06:57
Thank you for those articles.

@FOJN who is this person?

Alex Drummond. Please google that male person and find the video about how they ‘broaden the bandwidth for women’. Because they fix their car and then shower and slip into some womanly attire. Or was it ‘girly’ attire?

Anyway, something many women do. I was doing just that very thing at 15 years old.

And then Google Magdalen Berns and Alex Drummond for women’s pushback.

Here Orange. This is the Magdalen video.

"Widening the bandwidth of womanhood". Or something:

Alex Drummond goes to schools (or did) to talk about ‘being a lesbian’ amongst other things.

Thanks @Helleofabore and @ResisterRex

Another article well worth reading

This one from Jo Bartosch.

thecritic.co.uk/a-libel-against-women/

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/22/britain-becoming-sick-trans-debate-facts-can-cure/

Britain is becoming sick over the trans debate. Only facts can cure it

NICK TIMOTHY
22 Jan 2023

Imagine the outrage if, after the discovery that yet another rapist had been found amid the ranks of the Metropolitan Police, the Commissioner had told women to calm down. “The vast majority of officers,” he might have told protesters, “are likely to be safe.”

This seems like a good comparison actually.

But there are some good points brought up.

It is not difficult to see the risks. Already, a Scottish judge has ruled that “the meaning of sex for the purposes of the [Equality] Act … is not limited to biological or birth sex, but includes those in possession of a GRC...stating their acquired gender, and thus their sex”.

In other words, trans women with a certificate must always be treated as women: allowed into single-sex spaces, such as changing rooms, prisons and schools; permitted to provide intimate care to female health patients; sanctioned to participate in women-only domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centres. With no meaningful safeguards stopping men acquiring the necessary certificates, and with them the right to enter women-only spaces, the scope for abuse is clear.

To deny this – or to minimise the danger, as Lord Falconer did – is to deny reality itself. Men are overwhelmingly more likely than women to commit violent and sexual crimes, and we know abusers often deliberately seek positions of authority and trust to allow them to commit crimes against women and children. There are already cases of violent male offenders held in female prisons and rapists who identify as women in court. Activists threatening feminists with violence and pro-trans MPs intimidating female MPs in Parliament make their critics’ case for them.

and finally this, a condition that is hard to discuss on this forum because it so often gets deleted. And so many allies wish to deny it, when it is so blatantly obvious. The sexual fetish side of the argument.

It is how nobody stops to ask how many such men are moved to act in these ways through their own sexual desire. Autogynephilia, the feeling of sexual arousal some men feel as they pretend to be women, is according to some researchers behind many or even most cases of gender dysphoria among those born as men. It is legitimate to ask whether non-consenting women ought to be participants in such sexual fantasies.

The involvement of non-consenting, even oblivious that it is happening in a public space, adults and children in some male’s sexual fetish has been a topic on AiBU recently. One about two males walking around IKEA in their ‘pup play’ gimp masks and wearing tails that may or may not be ‘butt plugs’ and may or may not have been ‘lead’ around. One about a older male who purchased school uniforms (lying and saying they were for his grand daughter) and following children to school, on the bus as well, and standing in front of the school wearing the schools girl’s uniform. (Four different schools).

It seems some posters on MN are very ok with males including non-consenting women and children in those male people’s sexual fetish. Because those women and children didn’t know. So that is ok. Tell the children that the males are harmless and just having a joke, was mentioned again and again.

There are male’s who admit that being perceived and treated like a women is an erotic thrill for them. But many trans activists and allies need this fact to be ignored.

Well, this ex-chief of staff for Theresa May, the PM who opened the UK Government consultant on gender certificate reforms in her term, has been able to say the following. I wonder when he will be ‘deleted’ because he said the words out loud.

“It is how nobody stops to ask how many such men are moved to act in these ways through their own sexual desire. Autogynephilia, the feeling of sexual arousal some men feel as they pretend to be women, is according to some researchers behind many or even most cases of gender dysphoria among those born as men. It is legitimate to ask whether non-consenting women ought to be participants in such sexual fantasies.”

Excellent. So good to see the emphasis changing to explain clearly how the GRR bill proposed will be harmful to women and children. Now the facts are being laid out they can no longer be ignored and minimised. Under the current GRA laws we already have case after case of men abusing and manipulating the laws. It's not farfetched to predict that by making it as simple as paying £5 and filling in an online form that much higher numbers will follow. The TRAs wouldn't even debate these genuine concerns and instead threatened violence and shaming to the brave voices who spoke out.

YANBU

Western countries are supposed to be enlightened about women's right. So putting a RAPIST in a women's prison is supposed to be progressive?!?!?? What mad world is this?

Imagine if your daughter got caught up in a drug addiction. Imagine your kind but mentally ill aunt has committed check fraud again. What if your sister fought back against her abusive husband and he died? All these scenarios could land some woman you love in a prison where she would have NO ESCAPE from a rapist. The Geneva Convention says males shouldn't be in women's jails.

*The Geneva Convention says males shouldn't be held with women prisoners. Why is it different for women's jails?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11667731/Transgender-rapist-accused-attacking-women-transitioning-vulnerable-court-hears.html

Who was it that said women should focus on “children, kitchen, and church”?

Oh yes. Hitler. That was a slogan of the Nazi party.

Trans activists should ask themselves why they seem to be following Hitler’s policies.

If men wouldn't rape women, maybe I could focus on my knitting.

Here's another rape by a 'woman' on the other side of the pond. Women of UK, don't be like Americans.

reduxx.info/trans-identified-male-accused-in-jailhouse-rape-of-female-cellmate/

What is there to say when there are no words to describe the outrage when this rape of this poor woman has effectively been officially sanctioned!

Could the prison be sued I wonder?

Well most posters on here aren’t anti trans- they’re pro women. Most of the aggressive anti women movement really don’t like women having voices and constantly try to deny women a voice by labelling them bigots like it’s a magic word to shut them up.

Then suddenly womens fears and warnings are realised, the whole thing crumbles and politicians resign

It is always interesting to see when 'vulnerable women should not be expected to risk and tolerate rape from males' is framed as being 'anti trans'.

Is willingness to subject vulnerable women to rape a necessary part of supporting trans people? Seriously?