Are mumsneters TERFs

[ChedderGorgeous]

I started a thread on the new taskmaster line up here. This greatly angered a taskmaster fb group who screenshot the conversation and agreed all mumsnetters were TERFs. AIBU to suggest this isn't the general perception of others when you have mentioned mumsnet ? Ps. I still haven't heard of John Robins !

We do not yet understand the aetiology of gender variant development, current science and scientific technologies have not taken us that far. That does not mean that gender is “not real” or a “personal belief” etc.

That also applies to belief in god, runes etc. Your theories are just theories. Occam's razor suggests there are other reasons for people to identify as the opposite sex than a mysterious inner gender essence which can be in the wrong sex body.

"gender identity will develop as predicted by biological sex" - what on earth does this mean?

Again, just because biological sex is complex does not mean it is not binary. No human or mammal has ever changed sex, nor been something other than male or female. Not even the very rare individuals with complex DSDs. Biological sex is also not at all "dynamic". Not even slightly.

Not at all. Have a look at any trans thread. There are plenty of netters piping up who seem hellbent on forcing women and girls to share private spaces with men with penises and to corrupt children.

Genuine question - why does it matter so much for trans women to be called women. Why can’t it just be women, trans women, trans men and men?

I can accept that a man who has surgery can turn himself into a trans woman.

Validation.

Because women are a group who have been sociologically discriminated against based on our sex and still are to this day. You can’t identify into something that doesn’t belong to you on a mere feeling and be surprised there is pushback. As others have said, on what bases can you determine yourself a woman when born male if not based on male ideals of femalehood which are in themselves the very misogyny we have been fighting for millennia?

Also, I understand the needs for women only spaces. I just don’t understand why this fight against what in reality is a very small percentage of people (men trying to use the current trans stuff to get into positions to abuse women), has become the dominating conversation within feminism in recent years.

The reality is that issues like:

• forced marriage
• rape convictions at all time low
• domestic abuse

Are effecting so many more women day to day so why the complete focus on trans?

Identity can be real in any way at all. The accusation of transphobia is used when people say 'identify how you like but this space is for biological women and thats a biology, not identity, issue'. As an identity it's valid but as a reality, its not.

I get all of that but I’m saying why can’t ‘trans woman’ just be a category in itself. Where we all know what it is. A man who is attempting to live his life as a woman - using their own individual toilet cubicles and changing places not the women’s

Yes, I have no problem that people's identities are real, for them. "Valid" is far too vague for me to understand what is being asked for here. What is a "valid" identity? Valid as in logically consistent and supported by fact? Or the more amorphous modern meaning of being worthwhile, important, significant?

Lots of big words being used to justify males getting access to women's single sex spaces.

Most males understand why women need to have single sex spaces to fully participate in society.

I consider any male who thinks that they have the right to be in such spaces to be abusive. We can't test if he has any differences in sex development (highly unlikely anyway), so all we have is his 'belief' that he has the right to be seen as a woman. If he gave a shit about the safety and dignity of women he wouldn't be trying to be in our spaces anyway.

Years ago I had more sympathy. Now arguments like the ones on here give me the rage. Just how many women have to be harmed by trans women in what should be single sex spaces for women to actually matter or for these males to care enough about women to seek their own spaces (third spaces)?

The answer is never enough because all that matters to these males is that THEY get what they want.

And there on people on here arguing that we are meanies for not putting the males first.

Men are trying to steal the spaces which women have. Female sports are obliterated, there is no rape support for women who don't want to risk men being in their groups, women's healthcare communication is being muddied in a way which will increase deaths, we have no women only shortlists and women have been raped by men who the NHS have welcomed onto their wards and denying people aingle sex care and women are being locked in prison cells with men. The percentage of men trying to force people to pretend they're women is growing. The ideology of a man is a woman if he says so is misogynistic and enables all the other horrors to women you mention whilst also obscuring the data which allows us to see this.

If it's accepted that men can become women just by saying so, then the word 'woman' becomes meaningless. That's pretty major considering what women have fought for, for years.

So this 'tiny minority' of men (and women) are undoing years and years of hard fought for rights. By getting to enter spaces not meant for them endangers and affects safety and dignity. I'd consider that quite a big issue.

And why is it only in Mumsnet that people can only care about and fight for one issue at a time. It's possible to care about all the others issues posted, and the erasure of women, at the same time.

The Trans bigots won't accept that. To even suggest this is world class Terfing.

Because for a lot of trans women this isn't enough.

They don't care which women are harmed so long as they get the validation of being in spaces reserved for women.

I just don’t understand why this fight against what in reality is a very small percentage of people (men trying to use the current trans stuff to get into positions to abuse women), has become the dominating conversation within feminism in recent years.

How can you fight for any kinds of women's rights if the word 'women' must now also include men?

Rape convictions (to use one of your examples) are an absolute disgrace. It is also an absolute disgrace that women are being denied non male spaces in counselling sessions and refuges. Or that men who do get convicted for sexual crimes could be placed in women's prisons.

I think it's just dawning on a lot of women how little society cares about them. Particularly what they might have understood as 'right thinking' society.

Tandora · Yesterday 20:43

Unfortunately one of the worst things about mumsnet is the grotesquely ignorant display of transphobia that overwhelmingly dominates the feminism board, and often seeps into other areas of the chat boards as well.

Could you paste some links and quotes to show some of these pieces of ignorant transphobia for us?

Those things aren't choices advocated for by elected UK politicians and institutions - limiting single sex spaces and sports is.
No UK politician is pushing for forced marriage, lower rape conviction rates or to increase domestic abuse, they might not prioritise them, fund them highly enough or go the right way about addressing them, but that's a very different situation. In the gender debate there is fierce disagreement on WHAT a fair outcome is, in your examples the debate is more about HOW can a universally accepted better outcome be achieved.

I just don’t understand why this fight against what in reality is a very small percentage of people (men trying to use the current trans stuff to get into positions to abuse women), has become the dominating conversation within feminism in recent year

Respectfully I don't think you've understood what the 'fight' is against. It's the literal redefinition of 'woman' and 'man' (and 'boy' and 'girl') to mean 'person of either sex with some kind of identity/feelings/personality/preferences'.
That affects 100% of people.

You need to recognise sex - not dishonestly say that it does not exist - to fight sexism.

If there's anything else you don't understand I am happy to help - and that's not meant in an arsey way. People still, years later, seem to think this is about 'people that want to look like the opposite sex'.

Gametes and genitalia don't really have anything to do with the claim, that is being pushed through law and policy everywhere, that being a man or being a woman is a matter of how you feel inside, and physical sex is irrelevant.

If you're thinking 'but if biology is nothing to do with being a woman then why are people pushing for surgery to mimic the opposite sex body', then you have discovered just one of the glaring contradictions of gender ideology you are supposed to believe without question.

If you're thinking 'but if biology is nothing to do with being a woman then why are people pushing for surgery to mimic the opposite sex body', then you have discovered just one of the glaring contradictions of gender ideology you are supposed to believe without question.

An excellent point that I've never seen answers to.

There is a lot of space between “nothing to do with” and “absolutely determined by (no exceptions).

The problem is black and white thinking. Let’s make room for the middle ground.

What's the "middle ground" then?

But what is your "middle ground". How can a male person be female, if it is not about biology?