to disagree with gender ideology/pronouns

[changednameforthiss]

Genuinely don't understand why this is a controversial statement, but somehow we're so far removed from truth and reality, and saying there are no more than 2 genders is enough to get you fired from your job and cancelled forever.

I believe in man and woman as science dictates, and that's it. Why is that hateful? I am not hating PEOPLE for stating this, because I simultaneously believe in the idea that any adult should 100% have the ability and right to freely express themselves in ways that feel congruent with their inner. I also believe people can medically transition to appear as a woman/male if they deal with actual gender dysphoria i.e. genuinely loathe of the sex they were born it; and I believe people have the right to perceive themselves as a woman/man . However, that does not make you the opposite sex. This is a perception, i.e. it is subjective...

So if someone does not want to refer to someone as their preferred pronouns, it is rude at best, but it's certainly not criminal as many people try to make it now. Personally, I will call you by your preferred pronouns because I think it's just good manners, but I honestly don't think it's the truth and I don't think anyone is what their biology (thus hormones) would reject. But we are allowing this to happen and the topic of gender ideology is impacting and in some cases damaging our children who have to deal with adult topics they are wayyyyyy too young to comprehend, as well as women's safety by opening doors for biological men into women's spaces that should not be opened. This is a big problem!

Why is this so controversial? Can we not respect everyone and their right to self-expression and femininity/masculinity across sexes without changing our vocabulary to affirm people's self-perceptions as well as rejecting biology?

If you think I'm hateful, I beg of you please explain why because I'm not getting this and it's driving me insane.

Again.

Try to read properly.

Your brother exists. Nobody is pretending otherwise. He has the right to be happy just as much as anyone else.

What he can’t do is be female. He also can’t force others to think he’s female, or refer to him as female.

You seem to be struggling to understand what people are saying. I’m starting to
think that denying reality runs in your family.

Please don’t use the safety aspect as an example as it’s a load of rubbish. Transgender women are no more a threat to biological women than biological men. I hate that argument. “Oh but trans women will attack me in a changing room!” Biological men have been attacking, raping and murdering biological women for millennia. I’ll never understand why we choose to focus on trans women being predators instead of improving education in schools to teach young boys to respect women from a young age. If a man wants to attack a woman, he won’t bother dressing up as a woman and approaching one in a changing room - he’ll join the met police and force a woman into his car and then murder her, he’ll approach her on a beach in broad daylight and rape her in the ocean (all real cases). Men don’t need disguises to hurt women, they’ll do it and keep doing it and keep getting away with it. Your anger is focused on the wrong thing.

Please explain how this is transphobic, I'm asking with genuine curiosity and willingness to listen

So if someone said “I respect everyone, but why must we lie and pretend that people are gay. Men have sex with women and women have sex with men, because of biology and reproduction. Because GAMETES!! Why do you think we have different genitals? Being gay is an ideology; it’s a lifestyle choice. Really we should call them “gay identifying straight people”. (And btw it’s destroying the fabric of society- won’t someone think of the women and children…)

what would you think about that?

Would you suspect them of being homophobic?

Theres your clue.

Looking forward to your “genuine curiosity and willingness to listen”…

No one is denying anyone’s right to exist. This is just childish nonsense designed to guilt trip and stifle discussion.

Your family member can identity as they wish and should be able to live free of harassment and discrimination. However what they cannot do is force me to go along with their belief that they are the opposite sex, compel my speech, or enter spaces intended for the sole use of the opposite sex, which are for the privacy, dignity and safety of members of that sex. It is exactly like religion. I can respect my Muslim colleagues rights to celebrate Ramadan and must not be offensive in calling it a lot of rubbish for example, but there is nothing that compels me to believe in Allah and the prophet Mohammed, pretend to them that I do, or not eat for a month in their presence. It’s their belief, not mine. Same as the belief in gender ideology.

It is a very real concern. If you say that any person, even someone with a penis, can access women’s spaces then you allow that for everybody, including predatory men who will take advantage. But it’s not just about safety. It’s also about dignity and privacy. Women should have to right to certain spaces without the presence of a man, even if they know that a man does not intend to harm them.

So if someone said “I respect everyone, but why must we lie and pretend that people are gay. Men have sex with women and women have sex with men, because of biology and reproduction. Because GAMETES!! Why do you think we have different genitals? Being gay is an ideology; it’s a lifestyle choice. Really we should call them “gay identifying straight people”. (And btw it’s destroying the fabric of society- won’t someone think of the women and children…)

what would you think about that?

I'd think they were saying something ridiculous.
And if someone said that as an attempted analogy to the issues around sex and gender is think they had either spectacularly misunderstood or they were being disingenuous.

I’m glad it’s being discussed here. I’m learning so much. This affects everyone so why should it be hidden in the back on MN. It’s even being raised at park run. If affects all of us. Let’s keep talking about it rather than whispering in the back room.

I am here for this. This is exactly what we need.

Biological fact has gradually been replaced with an ideology and lots of people have said where's the harm. Now people are seeing the problems and when they speak out they get accused of being transphobic rather than using facts.

People can live as they please but this push for all of us to join in with their fantasy is wrong.

Or would you let them gaslight you with some “oh but I fully respect gay people, and their right to live in dignity and free from discrimination” bullshit.

The gay analogy is a red herring. Gay rights do not conflict with the rights of any other group. The demands of trans activists DOES directly threaten women’s sex-based rights.

Please don’t use the safety aspect as an example as it’s a load of rubbish. Transgender women are no more a threat to biological women than biological men.

Yes indeed. But as the statistics show, no less. Because they are and remain biological men. Most may be harmless, some won't be. The ones most likely to be harmless will be those who respect women's rights and don't try to colonise female spaces.

That's why the 'safety aspect' isn't rubbish.

It's not transwomen we want to exclude from female spaces, it's simply males. There's no reason for anything to be segregated by 'gender', there's just a few areas where it's important to do so by sex.

I’m not saying I agree with open access to biological women only spaces, I’m just highlighting the fact that I often see the old “but a trans woman will attack me” argument referred to all the time, and I think it’s directing attention away from bigger, more obvious and realistic issues. Like the hundreds of thousands of women murdered and raped and kidnapped by men every year. It just feels like yet another thing to detract away from a larger issue.

Just a word of advice OP, if your thread get moved because there is a group of adults who lack impulse control and cannot scroll past a thread they are not interested in, ask MNHQ to move it back to AIBU.

Those supposed adults who report threads they don’t like to carefully curate their MN feed too often get threads move from AIBU to suit them. Not the OP.

@Crispsandcola but it isn't progressive or kind to promote the idea that only women can wear this or only men can do that. Gender ideology is regressive because it says if you go against stupid stereotypes forced on you 'from birth' you must be the opposite sex in the wrong body. Instead of saying oh you're a boy who likes to wear dresses, no problem.

Oh here we go with the 'YoU dOn'T wAnT tHeM tO eXiSt!!' transperbole. They EXIST! As human beings. That doesn't they get to compel and gaslight women to call a male a woman, or to enter womens sacred safe single sex spaces! They can 'ExIsT' without trample on women and girls boundaries and human rights! They can 'eXiSt' in their correct sex facilities. Gender is misogynistic and man-made social construct. ONLY sex matters!

When someone tells us they are gay, we believe them, as we can’t have any evidence to the contrary. Only that person knows their own thoughts and desires. They know who they are attracted to and they can let the rest of the world know (if they choose to) by telling us or by demonstrating through their behaviour that they are attracted to people of the same sex.

When a male person tells us they are female, or a female person tells us they are male, we know this is not true as we can see with our own eyes (and evidence from our other senses) what sex they are (in 99% of cases). We can choose to go along with that pretence if we want to. But we don’t have to, and not to do so is not hateful. I can believe that someone is not the sex they are telling me they are without wishing them any harm.

YANBU and the feminist gender ideology board is full of women who agree, but for some reason its been ushered into a separate corner as if believing in biological fact is somehow now a niche belief. 🙄

More people are waking up and we need this to be discussed in the mainstream as the rights of 55.5% of the population are under threat. Keep talking.

It’s not rubbish. Attacks on women happen more often in mixed sex spaces, so if you’re allowing men in women’s single sex spaces and therefore making them all mix sex, it’s very relevant. Look at the woman who was raped by a man on an NHS ward, and was told it didn’t happen because there were only women on the ward, ignoring the fact that one of those women was actually a man.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

Biological men are quite a high risk to women though? So if transwomen pose no more higher risk, they must be too?

Why focus on dangerous trans women? Because there is a growing list of men larping as women who rape and abuse. I can pop a huge number of links of these predators who want access to women's safe spaces. Isla Bryson being fairly well known, but there are lots of them.

So basically to keep women safe, keep all men out, the ones that think they are women and the ones that don't.

Why shouldn't women be kept safe?
Why don't women matter?
Why put men first?

Attacks on women absolutely do not happen more often in unisex places, what a load of rubbish. 3 women are killed a day by their male partners. I’m not saying I agree with the idea of mixed sex places, I’m just saying that it’s wrong to focus solely on women who have been attacked by trans women when those attacks are few and far between compared to the daily rapes and murders by men in plain view.

This.

We need to keep talking about it and show what has happened when the concerns are pushed aside.

It needs light so people can see what has been happening.