To feel everyone is anti trans?

[Kitjo]

I'm well aware of current US views led by Trump - but are these views generally held/supported in the UK? Of course I understand opinions on NHS gender reassignment funding, as well as controversies over trans women in sport. Needless to say I'm fully aware of concerns over women's safety issues. Are there any sympathisers or supporters out there? What about trans masculine folk who are surely no threat to women's safety or sport? None of these people would choose such a hard life, socially, financially, physically, mentally, emotionally... am I alone in thinking a bit of kindness and compassion towards the trans community might be appreciated for the massive personal struggles they have to face? I am open minded to hearing and understanding your views.

Here, have a gay man disagreeing with you

https://dennisnoelkavanagh.substack.com/p/spare-me-your-bloody-rainbow-lanyards

'The demand for homophobia seems to outstrip supply' is right on the money. Transactivism is homophobic - how can you have same sex attraction if sex is changeable? How can a penis owner be a lesbian?

And stats would suggest that 'the trans community' is indeed full of predators - not because a trans identity means someone is a predator, but because making a sacred caste of people outside of normal safeguarding will attract predators who see the loophole you've created and exploit it. See also, catholic priesthood, scout leaders, children's home staff. Any time you make it easier for a group to access the vulnerable, and make it difficult to criticise that group, you will attract predators into that group.

Also if you've got any evidence of JKR being transphobic, I believe there's still a million £ reward going , so I'd love to have that thanks

I just feel that the trans movement is deeply homophobic. The whole movement makes me deeply uncomfortable when I think about it, what happened to the 80s and 90s ideals of fully accepting ourselves, our bodies?

And before anyone moans about GC women being hypocritical using Botox and fillers, I stopped with Botox about ten years ago when I realised how endless it was.

Its really not the same thing. Gay people weren't advocating for themselves to lop off their penises or breasts, sterilise themselves, sterilise and chemically castrate children. Or enter female only spaces and sports. In fact, trans is homophobic, it is literally 'transing away the gay'.

I have sympathy for any person who genuinely struggles with their mental health in this way and hope they get the appropriate support (which does not include irreversible hormones of surgery on children or young adults).

How the choose to live their lives does not affect mine, they need to cope with their struggles the best way they can, but that does not mean I will agree with or accept biological men in women spaces or sports. I will be respectful to their pronouns as long as they are not outlandishly attention seeking even if I do not agree with them, but I also expect that respect to be reciprocated if I slip up and not to pull me, or others, especially children, up on it with a "gotcha" every time.

I do not consider myself "anti trans".

Yes. try being a single lesbian today. Apps full of "male" lesbians who'll hurl abuse at you if you politely decline to date them - something I have personal experience of.

I also know a couple of younger lesbians who were pressured into sleeping with transwomen with penises by the "community" lest they be labelled bigots. Now utterly traumatised by the experience. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Since becoming aware of it I've thought that trans ideology is inherently homophobic.

And another difference is deciding you're gay as a teenager has no detrimental outcomes if you later decide you're not. Lots of people change their minds about it at various stages of life. No harm done.

Currently, feeling like you want to be or somehow magically ARE the oppposite sex as a child or teen, means you can end up hugely damaging your body and your health for the rest of your life, when that is something you're statistically even more likely to change your mind about. On top of that, the only reason so many young people are deciding that is because they're incorrectly being taught that they can choose whether they're a boy or a girl, and that they can change sex with simple meds and surgery, and they believe that. It's disproportionately affecting gay and GNC kids, autistic kids and traumatised/abused/looked after kids who feel like they don't fit in or are unhappy and are being led to believe "being trans" is the answer to how they feel. That's terrible. It's a clear failure of safeguarding, it's causing harm with no evidence base. It's nothing like being gay and in fact it is harming and sterilising large numbers of kids who would otherwise have just been happy, GNC gay people if they had ben encouraged to understand that was an option.

Not all of us OP!!

Just the anti trans folk tend to be very loud/ bullish on mumsnet

Quick, stop looking at all the reasoned posts of people explaining how they reached their position and what they see the issues are! It's too upsetting, look away! These are not your people! Protect yourself from evidenced based discussions!

Seriously, if you read all of this thread and take the views of these people to heart you will want to end it all ...very quickly.

FFS, what sort of irresponsible rhetoric is this?

Haha that’s not what this is.

So am I. But many people think that's the same as anti-trans, and it isn't.

The reaction on here to support for trans community is phobic, it's dressed up as many things but it's just hate.

Why would you rather believe it's "just hate" than listen to people's clear explanations and valid, evidence-based concerns?

Why would lots of feminists, gay people and people like me who are gender non-conforming – so in other words a bunch of mainly non-conservative, left-wing, generally not very bigoted people – simply "hate" trans people for the sake of it? Do you have an explanation for that?

Isn't it more likely that the demands of trans ideology are causing problems for other oppressed and at-risk groups and that some people are concerned about that and trying to protect women and children? But if they dare to point out that something doesn't make sense or is causing harm, they're attacked and called "anti-trans"?

Ah well you see I can reassure you on that front, there is very close community between trans and gay people.

It is common knowledge that there is an anti-trans 'divide and conquer ' strategy doing the rounds on the internet to try to convey that there is friction, of course probably some people online possibly just parrot themselves naively 🙄 but of course this not the reality, it is the work of bad actors. On the ground where there is a huge amount of support between gay and trans people.

www.splcenter.org/resources/hate-watch/christian-right-tips-fight-transgender-rights-separate-t-lgb/

Can you provide any evidence for this? Because I've seen swathes of completely public tweets saying they'll cut of TERFs heads and shit down their necks, rape them, murder them etc. but have yet to see similar levelled at trans people.

I'm not anti trans frankly I don't care what an adult decides to dress like or do with their body.

What I do not agree with however is things like rape centres being forced down routes so they don't be seen as anti trans. I don't believe in giving children medication at such a young age that has potential life long consequences and I don't believe that violent prisoners should be placed in a women's prison if they still have male body parts because they decide to change their name and wear leggings.

I also don't agree with targeting groups because they are women focused such as postnatal mother and baby groups or referring to breastfeeding as chest feeding.

Yes, those people are unhinged too. But that doesn’t stop JKR being deeply unpleasant and her supporters worse. And indeed the losers here are the people who have been trans for decades. I said it was a very nuanced debate, two wrongs don’t make a right and people on both sides seem to lose all reason whenever the subject comes up that includes many on Mumsnet.

❤️

I don't think it's an issue most people give too much thought to IRL, it's hugely built up in importance online.

100%

'Haha' yes it is. People post well-thought out posts with reasons, where as the Meninists/TRAs posts one or two lines, or saying why transwomen should be able to get away with rape and sexual assault or why somehow a male with penis and testicles is more at risk than a female. No actual argument. And when asked for clarification on something, they never ever ever ever respond. There is no substance or argument on the Meninist/TRA side. Not one. Not one single one. And you know it.

The problem is, although both sides have bad actors, both sides are not equally bad, and you fail to acknowledge that the trans activist side is way more violent, unhinged and downright dangerous than the "TERF" side. Why might that be?

You know, I really don't think the majority of people are anti-trans. By which I mean I think most people really are happy to let other adults lead the life they want, and that they support laws and institutions treating trans people with exactly the same respect as anyone else.

There are, though, some things that I believe the majority of people object to or disagree with, which the trans community and allies might regard as anti-trans.

Firstly, most people don't agree with statements that 'trans women/men are women/men'. To be clear, they agree they should be treated as such if they wish, but not that they actually are those things.

The words 'woman' and 'man' have existing meanings and the majority have spent their lives using those words according to those meanings. You can see this is true when you look at dictionaries which record the use of language. It's annoying to many that a small group of people has decided on behalf of everyone else that those meanings now do not apply. I personally think it was a huge mistake of the trans community to make agreeing with these statements a test for transphobia. Most people, if they are honest, don't agree with them.

By the way, I don't think this means its right to insist on calling call a trans woman a man. That's simply rude and probably does suggest you are transphobic.

Secondly, many women, in particular, see their biology as a very important element in their identity as a woman. A patriarchal world has reacted to them, often in hostile or unwelcome ways, because of their biology. It has judged them for being pretty or not. For having boobs, or not. It has threatened their safety because they can be the object of sexual desire from men, and it has spurned them when they are not. It has paid them less because they have the potential to bear children, and has locked them into drudgery when they do. Women have suffered these things not because they identify as women, but because their biology makes them women, so it pisses them off to be told their biology doesn't matter.

Finally, the majority see trans women in competitive sport - above a very junior, non-competitive level at least - as being unfair. They see this as so obvious that it barely needs further explanation, and reject excuses for it as gaslighting.