To find media discussion about trans issues far overstated compared to the actual seriousness of the issue?

[BarmyBrunhilde]

Full disclosure, I happily accept most trans people I've met as their transitioned gender which I know puts me at odds with most people on MN. But as a feminist and a lefty, even if one views trans women as men which I don't, in terms of political priorities it ranks so list on my list of concerns. I assume that applies to most people too (trans people included!).

What someone has listed on their birth certificate has no impact on my life, and surely minimal impact on most women's lives? Imo we should be focusing on cost of living crisis, housing, properly funding women's services including rape crisis services, funding childcare, sorting out the health service and bloody schools! Gender recognition comes way below those for me (even though I'm broadly supportive with some checks in place).

I know gender criticals won't agree with me, and maybe some trans people who feel very strongly, but I do feel there's a silent majority of us who just aren't that fussed?

That's pretty much exactly what almost all posters on FWR - your "echo chamber" - also think. That this seems to be a surprise to you suggest to me that although you think you have been reading what people are saying, you have not in fact understood it at all. You've come in with preconceptions of what gender critical and other sex matters women think and only picked up on posts that (you can interpret to) prove those preconceptions.

A wise man once described a certain type of mind as being like a steel ball. Nothing got in or out. The other voices they thought they heard were just their own voice bouncing around and echoing back inside. It's a salutary image and one I take as a warning to make sure I listen, really listen and when I disagree with someone to make sure I understand not only why I think what I do, but why they think what they do.

That's the thing though.

It's not a 'lie' to them. These terms are deliberately provocative.

I obviously dont agree with a lot of the stories and experiences posted here, obviously. I'm a human being.

But talk of lies and delusion, while popular in here, does not progress the wider issue

You said earlier that you don't think transwomen are women but you certainly don't think they're men.

It seems to me that you're meaning women(sex) here, but also men(gender).

Which is why definitions matter. Maybe that's not how you are using these words in the context of your post, but without clarity re: definitions it's how I read it.

Other way round.

I understand what people are saying. People just dismiss me because they dont agree with my surface views, even though many of our central are the same.

The madness of it is that it completely erases trans people too, if they are recorded as the opposite sex then there is no data to be used to help provide a case in issues that disproportionally affect trans people.

going back quite a way because i think this is an important point for trans people. And it is that if we only record "sex" (either biological or legal) then there aren't any trans identifiying folk. They basically erase themselves if we don't collect data on sex and gender. I think that's a useful set of data to connect because we can then target resources where they are needed.

If death certificates are to only record legal gender, are we soon to see women dying of prostrate cancer? will this mean that prostrate cancer screening resources will be targeted at women? Will men be dying of cervical or ovarian cancer? will screening resources now be targeted at men? That would be an insane and criminal waste of scarce resources.

Again, its not down to me to define words. I dont believe it's down to any one individual to say what something is, and there lies the problem.

I don't think it is down to you as an individual to define a word but I am assuming that you have a different definition of women to adult human female which is why you believe that people who centre males can be feminists.

I think it is imperative that words are defined when laws are being changed based on a concept of 'gender'.

But talk of lies and delusion, while popular in here, does not progress the wider issue

Refusal to define key concepts, such as what 'gender' even is makes progressing the 'wider issue' impossible.

How can we discuss and progress something which is not defined. Without basic terms being agreed in a discussion how can a sensible discussion take place?

The sex argument is redundant and unhelpful. We all know they are a biological man and believe it or not the vast majority of trans people are aware of that too.

I do however respect their right to be called a trandwomen. This thread has been relatively respectful in that regard but it's not the case everywhere, I see 'men in dresses' daily.

I do think we need to make a clear distinction between your 'average' trans person and your nutters on Twitter.

The issue is they are dehumanised, as opposite to a discussion earlier. They're perverts in prison, they're lying to get in where they want, they are demanding a b and c. And if theh are lucky enough to avoid that, they are delusional, or if they're younger they are being brainwashed, have mental issues or need psychological help

No one seems willing to accept that there are people in this world that want to mind their own business while living as the opposite gender. And that discussion cant happen because I guarantee you at least one person will ask me to define gender, and round we go again. People are utterly unwilling to accept anything without interrogation and just as I dont have to define it, they dont either.

Yes. I advocate for women and girls. That is what I see as one of my responsibilities.

No exceptions by the way @findmybalance If YOU are a woman, then I'm fighting for you. If you're a transman, I'm fighting for you. If you're a transwoman, then, in my eyes, you're man; you can fight your own battle.

Who are these people who centre males?

At the risk of sounding like the woman off mean girls with the cake, I'd like to see a world where we can all fight together, against the nutters.

The ones who are not feminists.

Anyone who puts an undefined notion of 'gender' above the rights of women is centring males.

Because they mean something different to every single person and people are unwilling to accept that.

No, they're centring nutters acting in the name of trans.

No one seems willing to accept that there are people in this world that want to mind their own business while living as the opposite gender

Now this is complete rubbish. Everyone accepts this.

What we are objecting to is when women's sex based spaces and rights are removed in their entirety because of an undefined notion of 'trans' and 'gender identity'. Male bodies don't belong in women's spaces.

So if you accept that this happens why do you put 'trans' above women?

Isn't it easier to retain single sex spaces so 'nutters' can't harm women in the name of 'trans?'

Oh wow!

Fantasising about driving a car at speed into a group of ‘terfs’ and “exploding them like bin bags full of baked beans” and smiling SNP MSPs having their pictures taken next to signs that say “Decapitate Terfs” and “I eat Terfs..” (the rest is obscured).

How very progressive and entirely convincing that we should allow these people into female only spaces. How very dehumanising to women.

Easy, sex matters. Single sex spaces.

Everyone can wear what they want and have sex with who they want so long as the person is a consenting adult.

Pretty sure that this is what someone else has advocated for!

The issue is, that if someone was to assume that your use of women/men in that sentence meant gender then you're a terrible transphobe denying a transwoman's identity of her gender.

If it were assumed that you meant sex in both instances (in the same sentence), then you appear to be suggesting that transwomen are intersex in some way which we know is no more likely to be true than in the general population (ie highly unlikely).

Can't you see that it's unhelpful not to have definitions of your terms to avoid misunderstanding?

How can you speak about anything if you have no idea what the definitions of the words you are using is?

You know what a man is and you know what a woman is. We all do.

This weird 'Oh gosh I have no idea what words even mean' is so demeaning don't you think?

And yet we still don't know how a many that says words suddenly becomes a woman. Utterly baffling.

That's just not true.

If someone want to choose their 'gender', I have no wish to prevent them from doing that. I don't think many people on here have. Crack on. To a certain extent, we're all dong that. I shave my head and go to football. But tomorrow, I pay pop on a frock and one of my many wigs. What am I? A woman. Today. Tomorrow. In perpetuity!

But sex is binary. And single sex spaces need to remain single SEX. And that seems to render GRCs redundant? What purpose do they serve? You can't change sex!

To quote another seasoned poster, it's not about you.

Well, you replied to me so shrug.

But my point about your use of "attack" was not because I took it to be about me, but a general observation.

If I say I don't believe transwomen are men, I don't have to then answer 6 questions on the construction of gender while posters take my answer apart.

You don't have to do, no. But if you join a thread about a legal change in the definition of women and men, that further diminishes women's already eroding right to define and self organise and demand rights in their basis of their sex, claim you want to engage and debate but others will not and then not only refuse to define the basic terms on which any debate must rest, but accuse those who expect that clarity of attacking you, you have forfeited any credibility for your position.

And those people are just as within their rights to comment and engage without being interviewed with the air of a televised political debate.

To comment and engage, yes. To have their poor, unsubstantiated or none existent arguments treated with equal credibility as those of people who have spend time really engaging, digging out information, reading and talking to many sides (not both, there are more than two) to understand the various positions and what unpins them, to be allowed to make poorly evidenced or illogical arguments but be spared a challenge in return because it's not fair to expect people who don't know as much to make a strong case? No.

You may have your beliefs. You may not have a free pass expecting others to accept your beliefs as an adequate reason to unname and disempower female people's moral right to exist as a social and political fact.

please present an example of “after the way that trans people are spoken about every day on here.”

Because yesterday a poster on another thread claimed ‘transphobia was a problem’ on MN. When pressed, they admitted that MN deleted the posts that were transphobic.

And minimising the effect as ‘just insults’ is a well used tactic too. As I said in the first post about it, I have witnessed posters then go on to dismiss violence against women and girls because it was just ‘the GCs’. We see protesters scream ‘Fascist’ at babies. We see the intimidating protest tactics being dismissed as ‘democracy’ in action and those ‘GCs’ shouldn’t be allowed to voice their thoughts.

That is the effect of using this language.

But do please continue to dismiss it.

I've read that twice and I still have no idea what you're trying to say. My meaning is clear unless you are attempting to trip me up.

Now that's ironic given that you don't want women to have boundaries re their physical safety!