To ask if anyone else on MN is not anti-trans?

[Lilieee]

I'm not interested in someone 'debunking the trans agenda' or how no one on here is like that, all I'm interested in is if any pro-trans Mumsnetters could pop up so I don't feel alone

Oooo well this has opened a can of worms. So to summarise: trans women must use the toilets associated with their biological sex, regardless of how they look. Trans men, however, cannot- unless they look like women?

testosterone is such a powerful masculiniser
interesting. I thought the GC mantra was that it’s not possible to change sex? Are you hinting at a reality more complex than that perhaps?

I really struggle with the nuances of this. I have trans friends, both mtf and ftm and support them wholeheartedly every single day.

However I have also been on the receiving end of an SA by a man who was only a "transwoman" when it suited him to access women only spaces in order to be a predator. I understand clearly this was one bad person, not indicative of a whole subset of people, however when you've been in a position where such abuse has taken place because no one would stand up and say otherwise despite it being clearly a lie. Because that would be 'denying their truth' and 'anti-trans' it worries me, that small minority that abuse the system and the good nature of others in order to be a predator, and as with the Man/Bear debate, you can never tell on face value alone who is a predator and who is just a normal person trying to live their life.

I had never considered the impact of vulnerable woman in these situations before 😥 i would like everyone to be happy and safe whoever they are

There are many women who would be willing to make concessions for a trans woman who has had bottom surgery and been on hormones for years.

The trouble is that the trans community have an all or nothing approach. Either we accept every bloke who just puts on a dress and says he’s a woman or else we’re transphobic.

And I’m specifically referencing the male nurse who is claiming a trans identity and insisting on sharing the female changing room. He’s had no surgery and isn’t taking hormones because he’s currently trying to get his wife pregnant. So heterosexual, no hormones, no surgery, and forcing women to undress with him. Literally has done nothing other than put a dress on and say he’s a woman. The nurses have said that he approaches them in the changing room dressed only in his pants while asking them repeatedly when they’re going to undress…..but NHS bosses have scolded the female nurses and told them to be more inclusive….

The “most marginalised and discriminated against group” my fucking arse. Males with a trans identity get to do whatever the hell they want. Men forcing women to concede to their demands. Plus ca change.

I'm not anti-trans and no one I know in real life is apart from a few people who are bigoted in many other ways. The idea on Mumsnet that men would transition and live as women just to gain access to abuse women is ridiculous.

I don't believe someone feeling "uncomfortable" having a transwoman in their female hospital ward is a reason to make a transwoman stay on a male ward where they are likely to be much more uncomfortable and at risk. Ditto for prisons and other "non optional" spaces.

The only area I can see an argument for not allowing transpeople is in sports, if it can be proven that hormonal or biological differences give them an unfair advantage. I can see why people might be uncomfortable with teenagers medically transitioning, as well. But not why people are so hateful to the idea they might choose to socially transition or transition fully as an adult.

The rhetoric around transgender people today reminds me of how gay people were spoken about in the past. Plenty of the people I know who are anti trans would be shocked to be considered homophobic yet can't see the clear parallels with transgender issues. They will be on the wrong side of history just like the homophobes of the past.

I was pro trans until this aggressive and dangerous movement of pushing the agenda onto vulnerable people. Research shows that many 'trans' kids are in fact, mentally unwell, neuro a-typical, or victims of sexual trauma, and instead of being protected and supported, they are medically experimented on, mutilated and sterilised at the nearest opportunity. No, I don't support that, its horrifying and I hope history looks back on this time and thinks how did this ever happen?

Cloned
Why does the discomfort of a ward full of women matter less to you than the discomfort of one transwoman?
A male is significantly more dangerous to a female than a male is to another male

Who gets to decide/define what constitutes "anti trans"?

Trans people and the people who love them. And it’s not something they “decide”, it’s something they recognise when people say and do things that insults/ degrades their core being and completely undermines their ability to live out their authentic lives in dignity, freedom and peace.

As it stands, women have been sexually assaulted by male bodied people with trans identities in spaces that were supposed to be single sex.

Prisons, hospital wards, toilets - assaults by trans identifying men ie/trans women have occurred in all those places.

I’m not aware of any trans woman who has been sexually assaulted when placed with other male bodied individuals.

The issue is that by trying to be kind and inclusive what you’re actually doing is putting women at physical risk. Apparently being kind only extends to those with male bodies.

Thats not being anti trans. Of course trans individuals deserve to be safe but women are not a shield against male violence. One extra woman raped or assaulted is one woman too many. Another solution needs to be found to protect trans people against the risk that is being alleged that doesn’t involve women relinquishing their safety.

I think there's a spectrum of femininity and masculinity, this is your personality and everyone should be free to be themselves, regardless of their sex, and not confined to stereotypes.

LOL.
Start with the posts just 2 up or 3 down from yours.

I am not anti-trans by any stretch.

I will address anyone as they would wish, and support their choice of name, pronoun, dress, and how they want to live their life.

And I think the issue has (a) been blown out of all proportion, given we are talking about tiny numbers, and (b) requires a more nuanced solution than most folks are willing to debate. All or nothing rarely solves anything.

I do understand folks legitimate concerns about safety, and protecting women’s spaces.

I will say this upfront. I believe folks born male have no place in female sports.

Language around women’s biology and healthcare should not be distorted to spare the feelings of a tiny few, who surely know they do, or do not have a cervix.

Many trans folk present very convincingly as feminine women.
Some not so much.
Most trans women are totally harmless and just want to live their lives, with respect, in line with the wider population.
A small minority are potentially dangerous, in line with the wider population.

And no, it’s not women’s responsibility to give up their single-sex spaces in order to solve where trans women go to the loo, or get changed, or access healthcare, or indeed go to prison.

HOWEVER it IS society’s issue to solve where trans women do these things.

No one could surely think it’s acceptable, or safe, for feminine trans women to have to use a men’s public toilet, or changing room. Men’s loos are dangerous places for these folk.

And it can’t be beyond us to find a practical solution, to what is for the most part a practical problem.

It would involve extra or neutral loos and changing rooms and hospital beds and money. And protection for women who want female-only healthcare professionals.

Can we learn examples from other countries, to see what works.

Some European bathrooms have shared hand-washing facilities for women and men, with adjacent but separate toilet areas. And some restrooms make no distinctions for gender at all.

We are in the end talking about practical things.

Surely we can find a practical solution.

I'm pro-trans. I find some of the posts on this site about trans issues so shocking, with little to no awareness that trans people themselves have huge issues with suffering from discrimination and sexual assault. From reading Mumsnet you'd think that virtually every trans woman is a predator.

People can dress up/act/call themselves whatever they want but I don’t want men in my spaces. If that makes me ‘anti trans’ I couldn’t give a shit.

HamBagelNoCheese · Today 03:03

So a transwoman, who has had gender reassignment surgery, has no testes or penis, hasn't gone to "extreme lengths"?

Most ‘transwomen’ still appear male to the casual observer and contrary to the claims of some TRAs, nobody is conducting genital inspections, so a person who appears male should go in with the other males. I’m really not sure why how he sees himself is relevant to the conversation. Is there or isn’t there such a thing as objective reality? He sees himself one way and everyone else sees the objective reality, but we must all defer to the incorrect perception? In what other situation would this happen?

If he actually appears female to the casual observer, then while I think he should still use the male toilets, the truth is that as long as he isn’t known to be male and isn’t getting up to no good in the toilets, no-one will be alarmed by his presence in female toilets.

What about from a legal perspective? Both people in my example have all legal documents (passport, birth certificate etc.) in the gender of which they identify.

The legislation and policy decisions that allowed people to obtain documents that state falsehoods came about due to a desire to be kind to a very small number of people who were described as suffering terrible anguish over the mismatch between their actual sex and their self-perception of their sex. It was an admirable desire but it was a mistake that is causing a lot of problems to women.

The impact on women was poorly considered and the only safeguard, that people would be scrutinised by two psychiatrists before being allowed to get a gender recognition certificate, is about to be removed by the new Labour government. This safeguard was meant to ensure that only a very small number of people got legal recognition. It’s all in the records of the parliamentary debates held at the time.

Over the years, transsexual became an old-fashioned term. The new term, transgender incorporates the much larger numbers of transvestites, who were known to be sexually motivated and really not suitable to be lumped in with women. Unfortunately for women, there has been a lot of quiet campaigning by TRAs with those in government and policymakers elsewhere to get these rights. The impact on women wasn’t considered and by the time a lot of women’s rights organisations realised what was happening, rights had been granted that shouldn’t have been, at least not without open discussion with women.

Your incorrect use of pronouns is also offensive. You don't get to decide how someone identifies themselves. Basic respect doesn't cost anything.

Reality is offensive, I guess. I don’t get to decide how someone identifies themself. I don’t and have never tried to do so. But you can’t expect me to lie or pretend to believe something I don’t believe because someone else is mistaken or deluded or engaging in some deep role play.

Do you believe in objective reality or not? Changing sex is impossible. The best people can hope for is to make others believe that they are a different sex with cosmetic treatments. I use ‘he’ and ‘she’ to refer to the objective reality of their sex. How they identify is not my business.

If they were present I would avoid using any pronouns at all, for the sake of politeness, but in their absence I’m not going to engage in all that language deceit. We need clear language so people reading can understand the issues. TRAs use ambiguity to confuse people and gain declarations of support from people who don’t know whether male or female people are being referenced due to the deliberately obfuscatory language.

Funny how it's always about an "obsession with toilets" and not about the balding dude who's currently trying to sue his way into a German all-female gym, having first generously offered to don swimming trunks to use the open-plan showers together with the 20 percent Muslima members.

And yes, I advisedly use correct-sex 3rd person pronouns about this individual because we can't dictate other people's perception of the world and also because people like this use a polite "she" as a gotcha that they leverage to push their way into spaces that plainly don't belong to them.

I have to say, although many people are joining this thread who clearly arent trans allies, I appreciate that some of the points being raised by those who have issues with trans people are a lot more nuanced than is generally allowed for in the majority of threads which are hijacked almost immediately by the GC fundamentalists,

You are not alone.

I’m very much a trans ally, and see the majority of the GC agenda/talking points as incredibly harmful not only to trans and non-binary people, but all women and men.

I'm non binary, my partner is transmasculine. I am emphatically pro trans. I've never threatened or attacked anyone, no matter how transphobic they were, but I've been on the receiving end of both on several occasions. The same goes for just about every other trans person I know, tenfold for the trans women. Funny that...

Men have never needed to pretend to be women or to gain access to women's spaces in order to harm women and girls. It's very easy for them to do whatever they want to more or less any woman or girl they want and get away with it. Getting away with it is the typical outcome; not even being questioned is the typical outcome. Men are the real threat, and they always have been. Transgender women have fuck all to do with it.

harmful not only to trans and non-binary people, but all women and men

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Exactly. This is about women’s safety and dignity.

I have trans friends.
They’re nice, decent people. They have good jobs, families, relationships, regular lives.
I’m proud to call them my friends.
I’m pro trans people.

Hi, @Lilieee

The only sustained abuse I’ve ever received on MN was on an anti trans thread. Most of the writing was of the same old same old low level variety that, although brutal, was far from wounding.

When reductionistic arguments don’t work, they tell you to piss off, then to fuck off. And that’s an OP on AIBU.

I had wandered onto the thread because I sympathised with the initial problem. But it was just a call to prayers for members of a sect, as others later told me.

And that sect does not care about the problems of the trans community. When the gloves come off, many of these posters write in very disparaging and insulting ways about transpeople. It didn’t matter one jot that trans youth are overwhelmingly victims of sexual crime: we can’t risk letting a pervert near our daughters!

As it happens, I share the latter concern but am more worried about the former one. I explained how we manage changing rooms in my home country to mitigate both of them. Radio silence to this and every other suggestion that could not be dismissed with insults.

I should acknowledge here that some had been victims of crime or had DDs who were victims of crime from either transwomen or men posing as transwomen. Yes, that’s brutally scarring and sympathetic. Yes, I hope these criminals got punished. No, your experience isn’t to be prioritised over other sexual crimes because of the trans or faux trans element.

So there is a large group on MN who aren’t interested in even partial agreement with their views. And the record shows that those views include some very cruel ones, subordinating transpeople to second class status.

You do realize that many on here see transwomen as men and therefore as the threat you yourself speak of?