This is bullshit. Thread #2

[BeyondSpecialSnowflake]

Following on from...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/a2716008-Seriously-MN-this-is-fucking-bullshit?msgid=63181862#63181862

Elsa - I'm with you on the trans specific facilities. I think that's a great solution which ensures a safe space for everyone.

I think all of us are fine with trans specific facilities, or truly unisex self-contained facilities. But it's not about that for TA, as this does nothing to reinforce their identity. Only admission to women's protected spaces will suffice because only that reinforces identity. So they do not campaign for eg unisex toilets, they campaign for admission to women's toilets.

The strapline, 'we just want to pee' is a red herring. As is 'we just want to be safe'. Not about that at all.

Reactiv - slightly ironically, the word often used for men who display stereotypically female behaviours is "cissy"

I'm also in the US, and have had to get used to peeing with bathroom doors with great big gaps round them. It is definitely possible to peer through them (DD and I do to check on each other sometimes), and it would be very easy to satisfy a fetish for watching women on the toilet in them.

Which is why the bit I have trouble with is that legal protection and entitlement starts the moment that someone says "I feel like a woman" or "I feel like a man". I have never identified as male, would never in a million years "pass", but I could right now say that I am a man and go into a men's bathroom and no-one could stop me. That's crazy, right? Especially as tomorrow I could revert back to identifying as a woman and carry on as before.

There absolutely should be trans specific facilities where possible. The problem is that whilst I think that what many people think of as the more traditional trans person - the ones who try to truly live as the other gender and often have undergone significant medical procedures - would readily use these, the loud, shouty, misogynistic, man in a dress types would not as they would view them as othering. That type of trans activist (who often are fully intact males) don't want their own spaces or facilities. They want ours.

Ditto re health service provision.

Yes, educate HCPs about e.g. smear tests for FTT or prostate checks for MTT. Provide services in a sensitive way that ensures respect and privacy for the patient. That can and should be done.

But that's not enough for TA. TA want all health services, illnesses and bodily parts to be redefined and redescribed in order to reinforce their identity. So gynae services cannot be offered sensitively to FTT. No. Gynae services are no longer permitted to be called women's health services, and vaginas etc are no longer permitted to be described as female sex organs.

That is insanity.

Welcome back, Special!

I'm a formerly-quiet on trans threads poster. Several reasons really - I don't feel that I'm as eloquent as many of the other posters on here, and posting 'I agree with X' umpteen times is, quite frankly, dull. I'm rather worried that I would say something that to me is innocuous but would get me banned, and I have an entrenched fear of authority (thanks public school education!) that I find difficult to overcome.

Plus, I do know a trans woman in RL, who I like and respect. I use her preferred pronouns and don't have a problem with that, although I've read George Orwell's essay now and am questioning my unthinking acceptance of this. TBF she has had gender reassignment surgery and is a shy and unassuming person, so why would I unnecessarily upset her? But still.

I think i'm just insulted that we sre expected to accept without doubt or didcussion things that just don't seem rational. If a group of people started lobbying for it to be law and accepted that everyone must accept and say that the earth is flat or their is a god then there would be a huge back lash. I don't see the trans ideology to be any different. I follow some trans folk on twitter and much of it serms cultish and just delusional.

It's not the ones quietly going about their life that we are protesting about smegs

Your friend has had reassignment surgery

It's the ones who want to keep their "female penis" and still demand access to female only areas that we objecting to

Elsa.

I'm curious why, when women are fighting tooth and nail for rapidly closing shelters, that you think we should be fighting for transwomen? Trans activists seem to wield enough power already, he'll they've achieved things quicker than women ever have. It's almost like male privilege helps.

A women's shelters should be for WOMEN only.

Posting to keep this in TIO - have read but nothing to add just now.
Glad you're back, Special.

I think it's getting to a stage where if we say that you can't change sex and men can't be women then that also applies to those who have had bottom surgery or who really pass. I was having a problem with this but having surgery or passing still doesn't make them female. It's this muddying of the waters and making exceptions that led to the situation we are now facing. I do struggle with this stance as yes, it is tough on all TW and i didn't always take this tougher less tolerant view.

Some trans activists don't want trans facilities, they want access to women's facilities. Consider this - after swimming at your local pool you enter the women's change room. Six people follow you in, they look like men, they sound like men, they possess penises. Ask them to leave? No, they're trans and have every right to be there. You only have their word that they're trans of course. So, what to do?

I'm curious why, when women are fighting tooth and nail for rapidly closing shelters, that you think we should be fighting for transwomen?

Simply because it does effect women. Without a safe space for trans people to go the activists will campaign to be allowed into women's spaces. If trans people have a space to go to then the argument that they should be allowed into women's spaces will not hold any weight.

Trans people having their own spaces and us having unisex spaces is a women's issue now, people might not like it, but it is.

We're getting noticed:

www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/view/go-ahead-ban-me-but-ill-never-say-a-man-is-a-woman/18585

I'm delurking just to say I started reading the thread last night, after having virtually no awareness of this issue at all. Thank you to you all for keeping this in an accessible place like MN where it will reach people like me and a wider audience in general. I've now been reading up on it all day today and am still pretty gobsmacked by it all. Happy that I've been paying my subs to the WEP for a while now (please don't tell me this is misguided!)

Sorry postit but subs to the WEP may not be a great idea. They supported Tara Hudson being moved to a women's prison, penis and all, and last time I looked they were firmly on the side of a woman being anyone who identified as one.

I think the pathetic handmaidens who are so Right On are the worst, because I fucking ^know% they'd leave if their husband started identifying as a woman, but are quite happy to tell us bi and lesbian women how we must accept corrective rape.

I read a very upsettng article the other day - by a transwoman who 'forget' to mention this and said transwoman said my grammar isn't great, but blame MNHQ for that one that penises are no different to sex toys in a very creepy, insulting and hurtful way.

Us non straights are scared - even quite a few gay men bully. This was when I was at uni about five-seven years go, so how much worse do you think it is now?

The lesbians and bisexuals I know are closing rank, and fast. They're frightened. Forget their hurt feelings - they're scared

Hell, I have hidden my bisexuality from MN for years, and when I finally did, the post that got me banned was - shock, horror - about being bisexual and the pressure from straight Right On women and creepy men to date (mythical) transwomen.

I went as far as to minimise my own harassment because it's easier than trying to explain bisexuality, lesbians get a tiny, tiny shred of sympathy. Bisexuals? Fuck no. We're brely considered a part of the LBGT community as it is. Funnily eniough, I've never had anything but acceptance and love from lesbians. The G, T and straights of both sexes were more than happy to put a shitload of sexual pressure on me for my choices. If anyone knew I was bi, even when I was living with my partner, I got this pressure. It is very, very common. I was not allowed to be happy. I was consiered an 'option' for transwomen. My own feelings, desires, and,y'know love for my partner did not matter.

The one time I stood up for myself - the one fucking time was after my partner and I had seperated. Someone I knew from classes but not well offered to set me up. With a transwoman. I politely said no.
Well. I won't even tell you how abusive he got. I had to hide in my home.

I'm half venting, half warning. This isn't just online. I don't exactly feel comfortable to talk about this is affecting children in my community, because the ban is no new.

Let's just say there's a reason three women with kids I barely know have asked to be a part of our meet up to work out WTAF to do. In one night

I don't want to intentionally upset or be rude to anybody. I agree with what so many on the Spartacus thread have said, I'm very happy to use someone's chosen pronouns in the context of a friendship or working relationship with someone treating me with equal courtesy and social contract, and have done so without it being a problem in years.

What has been a problem in RL is the entitlement pushed by some transactivist sources that this is not about equality or their absolute entitlement to be treated with the same human respect as everyone else: it's about erasure.

Some random quotes taken from the first few examples of social media captures on the Terfisaslur website:

• Transwomen don't owe feminism: feminism owes transwomen.

• Transwomen to the front or it isn't my feminism.

• Feminism shouldn't be just transinclusive, it should actively centre and elevate transwomen.

• If your feminism doesn't centre transwomen right now you are failing.

• What I'm asking for is the same thing feminism asks of men: that cis feminism makes collective sacrifices to transwomen.

These are the politest and mildest of the first few. There is not room in this way of thinking for co existence, it's a belief that the only socially and morally acceptable thing to do is celebrate handing over women's rights, women's definitions, women's bodies in the cotton ceiling debate, because it's out of date, wrong and better in the brave new world.

This is what I can't agree with and why I won't concede to the Emperor's New Clothes lie. I will use pronouns. I won't agree that biological sex does not exist, can be changed by the power of thought, that I have a lady brain (or a lady kidney), that there is such a thing as a woman's penis or that men give birth. Or that to do so is 'ignorant' or 'violent'. Or that I owe respect and must take responsibility for the feelings and needs of someone who does not see this as a two way social contract.

Incidentally was reading 'Why does he do that' by Lundy Bancroft (again) and thought how many of these techniques are employed by abusive and toxic people. Gaslighting, reframing reality, different entitlement and special treatment, values and expectations for self wholly different to those extended to others, particularly others seen as inferior or as providing something the abuser feels entitled to.....

On the relationships board we're very clear about this stuff, what it is and why it is unaccceptable.

"Without a safe space for trans people to go the activists will campaign to be allowed into women's spaces"

But TW don't want TW spaces, because "that would be othering". They want to be in W spaces, because they crave that validation.

Oh, bollocks! (to my WEP thing) But thanks, Empress, like I said I had no awareness of this until yesterday so I actually didn't know the WEP's line on transgender or who Tara Hudson is. You've all been very articulate and I'm ashamed of my ignorance. There's been some informative and enlightening links and I'm bookmarking all of them.

But TW don't want TW spaces, because "that would be othering". They want to be in W spaces, because they crave that validation.

A minority do. The majority just want as little fuss and attention as possible and a safe space to go. That's really not too much to ask.

But TW don't want TW spaces, because "that would be othering". They want to be in W spaces, because they crave that validation.

I think it would be more accurate to say TRAs don't..."

I'm not sure it is the majority any more, the number of the second group - the non binary pick and choose I'm a woman because I say regardless of biology or lack of actual transition - seem to me to be growing rapidly and eclipsing the others

Women in my community, (my DH has asked me not to but now I'm considering doing it) are wearing bathers under our clothes and purposely taking them off poolside, and leaving in bathers to get dressed in the public toilets, with a few women guarding them at a time. I can't go into too much detail, because I only know because DH is a PO, but he's begged me to go to the pool when transwomen are not there.

the Right On women can get changed in front of transwomen. I'm not going to. I will create my own safe space if I must. Surely no one can claim it's phobic to not get undressed in front of someone after giving them my space to take off their clothes safely?!

Fine, have our spaces. We'll make new ones. You can force your way in, but you cannot force us to undress in front of you. I will not subject my six year old DD to this. I'm taking her out of swim lessons at that particular pool.