What does your network think about trans people?

[deeter]

Immediate family think it's all a bit silly, trans people should be treated well but you cannot change sex. Women's spaces should be protected etc.

But interestingly all of my university friends think trans women are women (did go to a London uni with well to do sorts).

I'm 31 btw.

I'm not GC, and even I think that sex offenders should be a special case and that TW sex offenders shouldn't be in women's prisons.

The tide is definitely turning. The next generation are unlikely to be morebigoted than ours.

Standing up for women's rights a d safety is not bigotry.

Again you know that.

And yet you keep going with all this obfuscation. Why?

I don’t know what makes a woman. There isn’t a checklist 🤯

But how does that logic stand up?

I'm genuinely curious. If you think 'TW' are somehow actually women and should be treated as such, why would that change if they're sex offenders? How does that affect their status as 'women' in your eyes?

'You can’t reduce an entire group of people to the actions of a few. I work in the mental health profession and there are a greater number of men who sexually exploit vulnerable female patients than women who commit similar crimes. We don’t ban men entirely from the profession because of this. Will some male therapists go on to abuse their patients? Yes, 100%. Same as some male teachers will go on to rape their students. Male police officers will do the same. More men commit violent crimes than women, there’s no getting around that. Are all future female victims collateral damage? I don’t believe so, no. It’s a sad fact that these incidents will happen, but the solution is not to ban whole groups of people from certain spaces or professions.'

So you work in the mental health profession, but you don't know about safeguarding?

Good to know. I apologise. I read is section from your post on page 24 as being someone who really should have knowledge about safeguarding and how it directly impacts your profession.

My comments about safeguarding are untouched by you not having any knowledge about safeguarding however.

Are transwomen only recognised as men when they become convicted sex offenders?

People in my circle do not believe people can change their biological sex. Some people think that it's understandable that a very small minority of people will feel they are the opposite gender to their biological sex. Some people think that it is nonsense and that these people must be suffering from MH issues. Some people in my circle have no issue with transvestites, and some people do have issue with transvestites. I didn't say cross-dressing because I don't know anyone who objects to a woman wearing male clothing.

So you work in the mental health profession, but you don't know about safeguarding?

This does seem a risk, especially if the job involves working with children

I also have to say that in these ‘debates’ on Mumsnet, there is so much name-calling and vitriol directed at me. I’ve been called every variation of stupid that there is. The tone of the responses are so embarrassing. I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people who disagree with me not to resort to name calling and mud slinging.

I don’t think even trans people really believe they are women. If they did they wouldn’t need validation. They wouldn’t get upset if someone ‘misgendered them’, they wouldn’t need to dress like a fantasy idea of a woman and just wore jeans and jumper. They would be quite happy to date and have transwomens clubs because they are all women after all. If someone needs to keep telling you are something, especially strangers, you aren’t it.

We had a friend who had a boss who had full reassignment surgery in the early 90s, dressed mostly like they had before, didn’t give a shit what names/pronouns people used. Was totally comfortable in their own skin. How many trans people now are like that.

Honestly don’t understand your point.

Twas ever thus. I ignore them (the men) when they opine on this. They know diddly.

Such as frothing / screaming and bigot?

That’s not great debate

Just about sums up the problem...

Honestly don’t understand your point.

That's been evident for a while.

Not to mention calling everyone transphobes.

Pretty obvious who's doing the most name calling here 🫠

as it seems very hard for some posters figure out what a woman is and how they’re different ti a men, some helpful anatomical information

There is definitely some exasperation and frustration at your general evasiveness and inability to answer some fairly basic questions. But name calling and vitriol? Nah.

I'm newish to the party and so far I've learned there are two definitions of woman.
One being that a woman is a person who is born and will live and die a woman because of the body they have. This doesnt mean they necessarily dress, behave or live in any particular way. It's simply a statement of their biological category.
Another is that we don't really know what a woman is as it's nothing to do with your body, it's a kind of subjective feeling that there is no explanation for, no available criteria against which to define it and is basically just a label there for the taking for anyone who wants it, and that provides a passport for men to go into women's toilets and compete against them in women's sports.
As open minded as I try to be, one of these makes a great deal more sense to me than the other. So, other than blind faith, how might I avoid being labelled transphobic?

"The Rose West example I knew was a bit silly but my point still stands. If you are going to point to particular members of a group as proof of that group’s inherent dangerousness, I’m going to point to infamous female criminals who have committed atrocities to evidence the (in my mind) extremely straightforward and simple point that an entire group cannot effectively be punished for the actions of a particular member."

Again, you are showing you simply do not understand the very basic principles of safeguarding decisions. Including those which supported the need for female toilets in the very first place.

You not understanding safeguarding doesn't change the way the protocols have been developed and it doesn't change the material reality of what they do and how they should be applied.

Because in situations we cannot judge which male people are likely to be the sex offenders, we exclude ALL males. So, what you declare is extremely straightforward and simple, is actually false.

Excluding 'homosexual males' from a male toilet is illegitimate discrimination because it has been shown that homosexual male people don't have a greater propensity to commit sex crime or to harm other male people than all male people. They don't seem to have a lower propensity either. So, therefore that would be an illegitimate negative discrimination.

Excluding a women who was not white from a female toilet is an illegitimate discrimination because those women do not have a different risk profile either.

Excluding a MALE person from a female toilet is a legitimate discrimination that has been made by society because of the high risk of ALL males to harm the female people using the toilet or changing room or women's refuge or prison. That is the reason there are female single sex spaces in the first place.

"Blocking trans women from female spaces is using faulty logic (as shown above) to maintain an ideology (‘trans women are really men’)."

It is important to use accurate language when discussing this so that your own ideological belief doesn't blur the obvious logic. Male people. You acknowledge that those male people do not change sex. What you have not been able to provide, despite being asked multiple times is for the evidence of those male people having a lower propensity of committing sex crime than the rest of the male population in the UK.

"I don’t agree with your logic and I don’t agree with your ideology."

Have you been able to disprove my logic? No? You not agreeing doesn't mean that my logic is weak and doesn't change the material facts that I keep pointing out.

Those people declaring that the earth is flat do not change the fact that the earth is not flat.

My point is that you don't understand safeguarding at all. You don't understand, and when the principles of assessing risk is explained to you repeatedly, you keep stating your beliefs which are contradictory to strong safeguarding principles.

Another is that we don't really know what a woman is as it's nothing to do with your body, it's a kind of subjective feeling that there is no explanation for, no available criteria against which to define it and is basically just a label there for the taking for anyone who wants it, and that provides a passport for men to go into women's toilets and compete against them in women's sports.

V good summary 😉

So,

a load of transphobic people tell me,
the vitriol expressed on Mumsnet,
I only realised last year that Mumsnet is an absolute hotbed of transphobic beliefs. Other organisations have cut ties with this site because of how hateful the views expressed by the majority of its users are, with no attempt at moderation.
Many people in the real world consider Mumsnet to be a transphobic online space.
screaming and frothing at the mouth

is not 'name calling and mud slinging'?

Can you please clarify how we are to characterise these statements then?

So, do you work directly in contact with young people? Or do you see them being 'vocal' while not working in direct contact or having any contact at all with those young people?

Do you interact with these young people? Or do you merely observe them without contact?

And do you then have any contact with teenagers outside of your work? Why would you discount the opinions of many people posting on Mumsnet who have teenagers and are actively engaged with teenagers on a daily basis who are also telling you that the 'tide is not turning' quite as you keep stating? That you seem to be behind the information curve.

It is is rather curious that we have arrived a point in time that some people feel confident to reject a clear globally accepted definition that is underpinned by centuries of scientific, peer reviewed observable facts for some nebulas, ill defined, rejected by the scientific community, feelings based definition that they would rather use as the basis for legislation, healthcare provision and the setting out of women's rights.