To be disappointed Dolly Parton supported biological men using women's toilets?

[Jane3212]

I really liked her music and she seemed like a nice person: her Imagination Library came to my borough recently. I was very sad to hear she'd died.
But was very disappointed to read this. The statements she made about trans people deserving respect, no issue with those.
But minimising the reasonable concerns women have about being forced to let men in their toilets was wrong.
I'm not saying she should have spoken out for GC issues. It might have been best just not to comment.
Parton had connections with drag queens and I wonder if that's the lens she saw transwomen through : not an excuse but might partially explain.

they're policing rigid gender roles and making it harder for all women...

👏👏

You can start here. I mean, I'm sure you'll take issue with it because it's published in the Journal of Gender Studies, but that's not really my issue.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09589236.2025.2468805#abstract

And yes, I agree. Hounding DP for defending trans rights is a bad look.

I am a firm supporter of single sex spaces.

But Dolly Parton was an extraordinary woman who did a great deal of good, especially with her literacy programmes - and the fact that she didn’t agree with my views on this issue does not take away from that.

She is being set up as she absolutely no ability to reply. Why would you link a dead person to a few words you can find online otherwise?

She can no longer debate so let’s tarnish her memory, to make MY point valid and claim she was anti-women.

She didn't say that though

She said they should be treated with the same care and courtesy as everyone else

You are doing to her words what TRAs do to those of JK Rowling

And yet, it's not the "gendercriticals" who think a girl who doesn't like pink and wear dresses is really a boy and needs her breasts chopped off. In fact they are the ones who are vehemently opposed to this.

Because it's a non-issue. The cafe in a park near me has only one unisex toilet, there are always lots of women with children in the park. I've never heard of anything happening. But of course transphobes created this issue that suddenly all trans women will start attacking cis women as soon as they have a shared bathroom

I'm not saying she should have spoken out for GC issues.

Well obviously - as she didn't hold these views.

It might have been best just not to comment.

But she wanted to? Because she believed it was important? I get being disappointed she didn't hold the same view as you, but you seem to think she should have held back on speaking on something because she should have known it was wrong or incorrect, or that she was somehow refraining from sharing the opposing view, which is such a strange framing. She evidently didn't think the same way about these things as you do - you're allowed to be disappointed she had a different view to you, but I don't know why you think it would have been 'best' for her not to comment. What was best for her was clearly to speak on something she thought was important, from the perspective she believed in. It just happens to be a different perspective to yours.

You think GC folk are perpetuating gender stereotypes. That sentence alone shows some astounding ignorance.

FYI I'm GC and a lifelong labour supporter until recently. I can no longer find a political home that doesn't serve male interests before everyone else. Most of us here are the same so right wing allegations are lazy and utterly pointless.

People think that. I do. We're allowed to think that.

Nobody who supports trans rights thinks this. It's a straw man.

Honestly, it doesn't ring a single alarm bell for you that the politicians, religious figures, etc who are most vocally anti-trans, are the same ones who want to remove abortion rights? The ones in the US calling to repeal the 19th amendment and take votes away from women?

"Gender critical" you might be, but there seems to be a stunning lack of critical thought about just about anything else.

Thinking men are women is literally wrong.

She was wrong, and a lovely person at the same time. Which reminds us that even if we don't share the same opinion, we can still be friends.

It's not lazy or ignorant; it's simply factual. Who are the loudest voices against trans rights? The far right. It is a right wing cause. You may hold less conservative views on other topics, but that simply indicates that you are inconsistent, which you are of course allowed to be.

Being a "lifelong labour supporter" until recently doesn't cancel out the fact that your new pet cause is solidly right wing. I can see how it might be frightening to realise that you have fallen into the stereotype of becoming more conservative as you've aged. It happens.

I think this issue has been allowed to divide good people for too long.

I think we do need to have a look at how we use and allocate public spaces but it’s telling how the group of people who actually cause the problems - ie natal/ “cis” men - seem to be excluded from making any compromises or being inconvenienced in any way.

You can think what you like but your logic is deeply flawed. Trans ideology is reliant on gender stereotypes. GC beliefs state anyone, male or female, that presents outside of these stereotypes remains biologically their sex.

Are you saying that no girl/young woman has had their breast removed because they think they are trans or non-binary? Because I know at least three and I'm in deepest rural Scotland, not Brighton or Bristol. Maybe you need to get out more.
The real strawman here is linking opposition to gender ideology to anti-abortion activists. In the UK there is not much overlap and no, we are not funded by the Christian right.

I don't need a lecture thank you. I view you as right wing.

Omg are you in America? American politics is very tribalist, less in UK (fortunately).

In fact, many left-wing women are GC.

Trans men exist too.

Most of us here are the same so right wing allegations are lazy and utterly pointless.

"Most of us here are the same"
That's just completely ridiculous.
How could you possibly know that?!
On the one hand, we have people saying on the FWR forum "we're not the same, we're not a Borg/groupthink" and then there's you saying "most of us here are the same".
No. We're all different people and have different views. Just because you say you're not strongly right wing doesn't mean others automatically aren't.

You are very confused with your understanding of factual and assume a lot about me based on your own prejudices and misconceptions.

Your arrogance here is quite exceptional, unlike your reasoning.

How bizzare op, people can have opinions that don’t align with your own.

Someone should do a survey on this and produce a nice Venn diagram so that we can see just how much overlap there is between those with RW views and those with GC views.

I know very few people who are RW or GC, but in that very small sample they're the same few.

I view you as lacking intelligence by writing off any disagreement as right wing.

No, but Dolly Parton was, and it's her political views we're discussing.

That said, a position doesn't magically transform from being right wing to left wing simply by crossing the Atlantic. If GC/transphobia was actually about defending women's rights, you wouldn't see it being espoused by all these people who are very much against women's rights.