Sending love to trans people on MN and beyond

[cassandre]

This isn't an AIBU. I just wanted to send love to trans people, in the UK especially, and to other members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

This hasn't been the easiest week for trans people, but there are a lot of us out there who accept you for who you are. We have your backs and we believe that eventually, tolerance and compassion will win.💖💖💖

Love from a longtime MNer and trans-inclusive feminist.

You are aware that just because a man hasn’t gained a conviction for sex offences (you do know that only 1% of reported rapes even make it to trial??), it doesn’t mean he definitely not going to rape a vulnerable woman he’s locked in a cell with overnight?

He also knows that if she complains to prison staff she’s likely to be the one punished. Some women have had their release date extended for complaining.

You seem to think you are a nice person but that’s clearly not reflective of your attitudes towards women.

So if a man who identifies as a woman is convicted of raping another man who identifies as a woman, you’d be happy to take the odds that he won’t rape you and be locked in a cell with him?

What if he raped a ‘transman’ (anecdotally the more likely scenario)?

You demonstrate some serious logic flaws and a total lack of understanding of criminals in your desperation to wave away the rights of women to be safe from male rape in prison.

You ask an excellent question. By "journey" I mean years in early adulthood of feeling something was very wrong, but pushing down anything that bobbed to the surface. Then years of feeling ashamed by experimenting in absolute privacy, attempting to discover what being a woman might be, with absolutely no guidelines, and not a single person to talk to. Then the realisation that cross dressing wasn't the answer - I think that must have been crushing. Plucking up the extreme courage to see a GP - that must have taken years. Jumping through hoops to get a referral. Then the hormone therapy, which is no picnic. Starting to show themselves to the outside world as a woman, dealing with the reactions of people they have known for many years as a man. Finally taking the plunge. There was a lot of bravery involved.

I also happen to agree with an awful lot of people that gender fluidity is another reason why Gen-Z are struggling - it has gone wild. I've witnessed freshers in my local city shouting about being gender fluid in their drunkeness - I was genuinely horrified that it was being treated so flippantly. Giving hormone treatment to youngsters frightens me utterly. But that is no reason to punish those who have endured so many tough years to climb into their own skin.

I feel a lot of empathy. I experienced something not entirely dissimilar. I was ill for 25 years before my symptoms finally went away. My entire adulthood up to a few years ago was consumed with it. It was an all-encompassing slog that coloured absolutely every aspect of my life. I was never, ever carefree. My friend's experience, as far as I can tell, was very similar. It is incredibly isolating, but then there is shame too in being so self-focused - it is a complex issue. Her shame was doubled, for obvious reasons.

So that's what I mean by "journey". After all of that, over so many years full of isolation, shame and courage, I don't beliecve I'm being at all dramatic when I say that she doesn't deserve to be treated as a man again. Her struggles should have been over.

Look at your username then look at the hateful way you describe trans women here. It’s not acceptable to describe trans women in this way. Why can there not be a discussion about rights and needs without descending into transphobia

Your friend’s rights as a trans woman are still protected by law.

Yes, MEN and patriarchy are the issue, NOT trans women. It’s a great shame some feminists have taken their eye off the ball and started punching down

Transwomen ARE men/the patriarchy 🙄

Agree. And there’s a hell of a lot of misogyny within the TRA movement and male entitlement than shines through.

If he doesn’t know what a woman is, how does he ‘know’ he’s a woman?

Then years of feeling ashamed by experimenting in absolute privacy, attempting to discover what being a woman might be, with absolutely no guidelines, and not a single person to talk to.

Or are you saying that he worked out his own definition of what a woman is that he fits and now we all have to agree that he’s right?

i have sympathy for your medical condition and your friends’ distress but it doesn’t make him a woman. And we can’t be obliged to accept him as being the ‘same’ as us.

Trans women are men. They’re the men who think they should be allowed unfettered access to female spaces.

attempting to discover what being a woman might be

This is my fundamental problem with this scenario - men can’t find out what it’s like to be a woman. What you mean by this is exploring things that are typically marketed and aimed towards women. That is not being a woman. It’s breaking boundaries of male stereotypes - which I would ALWAYS encourage, it’s good for the world. But womanhood isn’t rewarded on stereotypes or effort. You may think this “brave” bit being given a “woman” status isn’t a bar every award. It can’t happen, and it has implications for actual women who are NEVER considered brave for doing 10x the things these ‘brave men’ do

"You seem to think you are a nice person but that’s clearly not reflective of your attitudes towards women."

Bundle, you have nailed it.

So much of the outpourings of highly emotional posting that we have seen since the judgement have been fully ignoring the fact the impact over the past year on female people. They talk about kindness but the sentiments they post are not kind to women and girls.

Look at what a poster has done directly here over the past pages.

Demonise a woman for answering a question from the interviewer, in a discussion about sex based rights, that referred to a person using the correct sex. Using the established conventions of the English language.

While a male barrister, who should know the laws on sex by deception, that negates the consent of others, bragged about how a sex partner didn't even know that the person they were having sex with was male not female until after that sex had happened. Now, of course, for that to be a crime, it would have to be reported and it obviously was not. But how many men could say such a thing on national TV and for it not to have been picked up and highlighted? Yet, I have not seen anything about it. The barrister came across as proud that it happened. Yet, nothing has registered.

So, we have posters actively judging that the woman using correct and established English language simply stating 'he is a man' is worthy of being demonised while ignoring the fact that if the sex partner reported that sex crime, the CPS would have to find that there was cause for prosecution for a sex crime.

The double standards at play here is so stark, yet, I assume it is being done on the basis of being kind.

Then the same poster though posts a dismissive comment about the chances of a female prisoner sharing a cell with a rapist. The dismissal is not new, we have seen it before with other posters, but to come directly after the demonising of a woman and the highly emotive declaration that a potential sex offender's feelings should have been considered, is stark.

Will it sink in to those reading along though? Is sex by deception, ie. putting the sex partner into the position of having non-consensual sex, considered acceptable because the perpetrator is transgender in reader's minds? So much so, that the vilification of a woman making the statement 'he is a man' on national TV is fully acceptable?

Has it sunk in yet, that if all the Supreme Court has done is stated what the law was and has been since 2010 and yet it has caused this massive outpouring of rhetoric about the harm that has just been done to trans people, that those who supported trans people should not have misinterpreted the law in the first place?

Has it sunk in yet that if the law has not changed, yet had been misinterpreted to cause harm to women as it has, that if supporting women's needs = anti trans, then those extreme demands by some trans people were misogynistic.

We know that for the many trans people who make decisions that respect the needs of others, that nothing will have changed for them. We know they are out there, there are some that speak up, there are many who don't. They point out that nothing has changed and that, because they respect female people's needs, they think this result is a good result. And yet, it is the extreme rights activists that are being elevated here, being lionised.

Will it sink in that there is something really amiss.

Transwomen ARE men

What makes transwomen women?

This is old trope.

The only commonality between all those with gender identities is their philosophical belief. Despite falsely strong statements on this thread about there being anything biologically and measurably different about those declaring they are transgender, there is not. So, it is a philosophical belief about someone's / one's own identity.

What other philosophical belief allows male people to move from the collective group categorised as oppressor to one where they take on the role of the oppressed?

That is very much the patriarchy in action.

I am very sorry to hear about your own journey. It sounds very difficult. I do have a question arising from it though.

Do you think that womanhood then is a reward to be given to those who are not women, but who have suffered enough to be awarded it?

Is that what womanhood is? A group of humans who are either born female or who have suffered greatly enough in their wish to be called women?

Feminist my airse

@Thegreyhound not transphobic at all but I see a distinction between the sweet and gentle transwomen I know and the piss-taking obvious men who have 'used' the ID of being a transwomen to gain some sort of 'advantage' for themselves and by intimidating other women.

I simply can not envisage my young transwoman neighbour using the men's toilets and would advise her to just use the women's toilets and that I doubt anyone would even notice.

Well that's not exactly respectful to the women in those toilets whose consent is not yours or your friends to offer up, is it?

Why are you expecting women to act as shields because of male bad behaviour? Why are you pushing that problem onto women?

Women and men of equal height have brains of equal size. The size of the brain does not correlate with intelligence. What matters is the density of the neural network.

Compare it to a library. It is not the size of the building that matters. What matters is what type of books are in there, how many books are in there, and how well the books are organized.

Please report any transphobia so it can be deleted.

Women having the right to a word to describe ourselves, and the right to single sex spaces where those matters, is not 'punching down'. Woman are actual humans, not support animals for men.

Have a meme

Please don't advise your neighbour to do this.

Just because you don't have a problem with them using the female toilet, I can assure you that female people will notice, maybe not every female person, but some will. And of those who notice, it may distress them to know that a male person is there.

Male transgender people use male toilets all the time so we are told on MN by their friends, family and sometimes, them themselves. What do you see as being the issue for your neighbour using male toilets? Because if they would be unsafe for any reason, surely there needs to be a UK wide campaign to make male toilets safe for all male people?

Or is it just because when you look at your neighbour you see 'feminine' and think this is what it means to be a 'woman', thereby reducing being a woman as fitting regressive stereotypes?

Either way, please do not feel that you have any right to consent on behalf of all female people. Because you don't.

@TheKeatingFive not wishing to push things onto women at all; I'm only going by the transwomen I know and most just wouldn't do well in 'male-only' spaces. And who are so convincingly 'female' that I doubt anyone would notice if they nipped into the female bogs for a pee.

These transwomen aren't the sort of people who want to take up boxing or some similar past time, they're just living their lives in a way that they feel comfortable with and cause no harm to others.

I believe there could be some brain shrinkage from studies I have read. However, a shrunk male brain does not make a female brain, of course. I don't remember there being impairment mentioned with that shrinkage, as you say..