AIBU to think that MNers are excessively hateful towards trans people?

[Wordsmithery]

I accept that there are huge areas to be addressed when it comes to trans/non-trans rights: toilets and changing rooms, sporting events, prison accommodation, to name but a few. Government has a lot of work to do, listening to people's genuine concerns and drafting laws that protect everyone. And of course biological men masquerading as trans to prey on women are scum.
However, reading some of the many MN threads on trans people, it feels like there is a terrifying level of vitriol at the right of trans people to even exist. I emphasise, this is not about toilets/safe spaces etc. It's about Will's right to identify as Jill, or vice versa. Why does it really matter so much to us - are we scared of people being different? Are MNers failing to speak out because they're terrified of being shot down in flames? How is it hurting any of us if someone chooses to identify as their non-birth gender (beyond the caveats in my first paragraph)? What is the opinion of MNers with children or siblings or best friends who announce they are trans ?
Asking because I'm alarmed by the lack of trans allies (or even trans tolerators) on this forum. And I'm even more alarmed that there may be a reassuring number of trans allies on here but we never hear from them because they know what response they'll get.
No hate please. We seem to have enough of that already.

I accept that there are huge areas to be addressed when it comes to trans/non-trans rights

Your wording here is interesting. You say people are Trans or Non Trans. You have reduced biological women to non-trans women, almost as if Trans was the starting point. Do you see how utterly ridiculous that is?

A mere 0.5% of people identify as Trans, meaning that 95.5% of people do not. And yet, don't that 0.5% make a lot of noise? Can you think of any other tiny minority group that gets so much attention? Any other minority group that get's mentioned on the radio and TV every day? I can't. Why is that? And more notably, it is always Trans women (men) who shout the loudest. You never get any aggro from Trans men (women). Funny that.

I have never seen a Trans woman that would "pass" for a woman, and even if you found one, you can bet your bottom dollar that their male aggression and male entitlement, would give them away.

Totally agree. I also think a lot of the anti trans stuff is AI generated, some funded by the American evangelical Christian right that our GC sisters are so fond of.

Really? I recommend you look at this.

https://terfisaslur.com/

That’s funny because all of GC people I know are long time lefties. The far right Christian smear is so ridiculous it’s funny. From a leftie Buddhist x

We’re here: the thing is that these crazy posts people are using as ‘proof’ of hate from trans people are most probably largely trolls who are loving the schism now between trans and (some) feminist communities. The far right / anarchists (esp Russia) love to fuel these fires - real people trans are otherwise have much more nuanced beliefs. But the anger online is pushing everyone to more extremes because we imagine these huge groups of people who all think this.
I get why terfs feel as they do: germaine Greer has been saying a lot of this for years and years. But at the end of the day 1) you cannot tell someone how to feel and invalidate what they are and want to be and 2) we have been polarised probably on purpose by manipulative online bullshit.
i don’t know what it’s like to be trans but I accept what someone tells me about themselves. And I think we would all be stronger together.

@BedlingtonWillow
Precisely.
I have never seen women ( on Mumsnet or anywhere else) using the kind of vile , obscene and threatening hate speak towards trans people, that specifically transwomen ( aka men) use towards women.
If such language was directed at any other protected group, action would be taken. But it seems that trans women can say what the hell they like.
It reeks of male entitlement , and proves more than any other argument that anybody can make, just how very male they are , whatever they wear and whatever surgery they do or don't have.

I was pondering this subject recently, primarily why the mistrust of the trans movement.

I would call it 'The Emperor's New Clothes' syndrome.

If you take out the issue of male violence perpetuated against women and just look at this issue on a basic biological level, I think the reason society struggles with trans people is that at the heart of it is essentially a fundamental untruth that just isn't real. On a subconscious level this creates discomfort in our brains because we constantly have to twist reality and what we see with our eyes into a false narrative to fit a social construct.

On a basic level, we are still animals that operate on instinct and subconscious thoughts that run like computer programs in the back of our brains. Thousands of years of evolution cannot be deprogrammed to automatically accept this as a truth when we know with our instincts that it isn't. The way we process the world shapes our personal survival and ability to thrive.

The majority of trans people are living very tough lives often steeped in trauma and mental health challenges. The majority will be discriminated against and marginalised throughout their lives. The majority will never be seen by society as successful in terms of achievements, wealth or family, therefore we subconsciously regard them as outliers. The omega of the tribe. Therefore, not someone to subsciously ascribe social status or power to, not someone to breed with or align with. Our instincts are to marginalise.

This isn't about what does it mean to be kind or evolved as a society because generally those are aspirations that are defined by the civilisation of the time and rise and fall as those societies do.

This is more about a basic human instinct for what is real and what is not real. Social pressure can influence that for a while but eventually, as the little boy in the story shouted out 'the Emperor's got no clothes on!'.

Will can be Jill. Will can be Jill all 'she' likes. But Jill needs to stay out of the toilets my 7 yo actual biological female is using!

@RetiringRita There are 200 TW serving sentences for violence and rape. All have claimed transition between being charged and sentencing.

This is really not true.

Katie Dolatowski was already presenting as a woman (girl? he was only around 17 at the time of his first offence) before sexually assaulting girls in a women's toilet (and later he was in the news supporting the GRR bill, which would have allowed him to get a GRC despite his sexual offences - just had to change his gas bill, basically). He has been in women's prisons and men's prisons, and attacked men in the men's prisons - just who is the vulnerable one here?

Andrew Miller/Amy George had been presenting as a woman for years before kidnapping and assaulting a girl in the Scottish borders, while dressed as a woman. He was charged under his male name, with speculation that he did this so he could go back to "Amy George" after release, which is a hell of a long time off.

Scarlett Blake had been presenting as a woman for years before blending a cat and murdering a stranger (a male stranger, this time).

I'm sure there are others if anyone wants to add to the list.

I haven’t met one person who doesn’t think trans people should have their own spaces. Why should it be a women’s problem to solve though? Why don’t trans women argue for their own spaces then if they don’t feel comfortable in the males? Third spaces have been suggested numerous times but have been rejected by trans women. Why is that do you think?

Trans people currently have the same (or is it extra?) rights as everyone else.

I don’t believe in souls, a spectrum of the ways our brains work, influenced by environment and genetics.

I wonder if you would like to expand on that a bit.

I will tell you my take on it to start. My take is that we are essentially mammals, and as mammals we conform to the things that make us mammals, that is that we are a binary species, male and female, and it takes gametes from both to produce young, which are ( a few odd Australian species notwithstanding) grown in the body of the female, and on live birth feed from her body. This is how our species has evolved and survived. There are exceptions, as there always are because genetics is often a bit random, but even with those exceptions, the genes we carry, inherited from our parents, and the chromosomes in those genes, along with the physical characteristics we have as a species, categorically define us as either male or female and we cannot change that physical definition, it is in every cell of out bodies.

We are however, like most mammals , a social species, and as such we developed over thousands of millenia patterns of social behaviour which for the most part involved the stronger and faster of the species ( in humans as in many other species, this is the male ) taking on certain roles within society, and the female, with the added burden of carrying and nurturing the next generation, taking on other social roles. Over time these gendered roles came to define what we saw as male and female behaviours, and for good or bad , were often seen as expected and normal responses to our sex. It has taken a long time for humans to accept , and some still don’t, that gendered roles are not fixed, as our physical characteristics are, and that both women and men can undertake social roles that fall outside what were seen as gender specific until relatively recently.

So I see sex as specific, you are either a woman or a man, but how you choose to behave within that definition is non specific. You can take on any role in society, it doesn’t depend on your genetic sex. So to me the concept of someone having both a sex and a gender role is out of synch with how we live our lives today. I am a woman, and how I choose to live and behave is my choice within my physical limitations. I do not feel the need to conform to what I see as out dated ideas about how women should dress, speak or behave. Though if other women choose to do so then that is their prerogative.

I find the current insistence on gender identification being the starting point for behaviour, attitude and expectations very puzzling, and frankly retrograde. Why invent complicated ways to live your life when all you need to do is understand that you are a human woman or a human man, from then on the choice is yours as long as you respect other peoples boundaries . You don’t need a gender identity since you already have a sex.

I have 0 issues with people not conforming to gender stereotypes. I truly don't care if women cut their hair and wear suits. I don't care if men wear dresses and want to put make up on. I want to live in a world where you can look and act the way you want without judgement.

I just have a problem with biological men being able to access spaces where women are vulnerable, such as changing rooms and bathrooms.

I also don't believe you can change sex. Man and woman simply refer to your sex characteristics. Gender is a social construct. Do what you want, but don't pretend it changes your sex.

Ah, the old any trans person who does anything wrong isn’t genuine argument. Nope. You can’t just disown members of your community when it’s inconvenient for you. Plus, many of us know transpeople who are like that.

Are you actually joking? You realise that the sane normal silent majority, including men, are GC? Or are at least in charge of their faculties to know human beings can’t change sex? So even if they’re being ‘kind’, they’re still pandering to a delusion.

🤣🤣 one for the bingo card.

Far right, evangelical Christian’s, have you even met a trans person, they just want to pee. It’s filling up.

Exactly. As has been said by other posters, it’s not the space per se it’s the women in the space that are important

That’s why a large number of TW don’t want a third space, tjey want women’s spaces

TW like Miranda yardley and fionne orlander tried to campaign for third spaces and were turned on by the trans community for doing so

Wow so trans people are all the above, what a horrific thing to say.

MN does not speak for all, the few that monopolise and pile on every thread going don’t speak for MN.

Yes, I definitely hold the position that humans can't change sex because far right, American, AI content told me that.

I mean, seriously 🤯

On a basic level, we are still animals that operate on instinct and subconscious thoughts that run like computer programs in the back of our brains. Thousands of years of evolution cannot be deprogrammed to automatically accept this as a truth when we know with our instincts that it isn't. The way we process the world shapes our personal survival and ability to thrive

I really agree with this. I think women are more observant, as we encounter more risk. There have been a few times on holiday, where me and DH have encountered a trans woman, and honestly, it takes me about 2 seconds to know that I'm looking at a man, even if they look quite feminine. DH rarely notices, but then he is 6 ft 3, and built like a brick shit house, so he's not sub consciously scanning for threat, in the way that women are.

Vitriol

Of course not, but some are just like some people in any group are, and the movement undeniably is. Look up the cotton ceiling, look at all the men trying to remove women’s hard fought rights under the name of trans.

I didn’t actually say nothing about the retention of single sex spaces. I was replying to the OP who was talking about a general hatred towards trans people even existing. I don’t need a lecture on feminism but go off it makes you feel better. The patriarchy is likely wetting itself with joy at successfully directing a wealth of self proclaimed “feminists” anger, hatred & fear towards a tiny, vulnerable majority instead of towards where it actually needs to be.

You clearly haven't paid any attention at all, whatsoever, @Stressedoutmama58 . It is us feminists who have for YEARS advocated for transwomen to have their own space. For YEARS!! Trans said no, as it 'others' them, it's female only spaces for them or nothing. You have not paid attention at all. We've bent over backwards advocating third spaces. THEY won't compromise.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the gay movement, you are being disingenuous. Gay people didn't seek to insert gay males in female spaces.
Gay people didn't seek to have gay males playing on female sports teams thus risking female lives.
Gay males didn't seek to encourage the sterilisation and castration of gay children, nor for gay girls to have their breasts amputated.

Please stop conflating the two, gay rights has nothing even remotely to do with trans male overreach.