Can we have a general Trans thread?

[Brugmansia]

Sorry for another trans thread and I feel this is a bit of an imposition given I don't post really.

Anyway reading FWR over the past few months has re-radicalised me. I've been reading lots here and wider.

Anyway just now been watching TV and there's been some stuff that's given me the rage but didn't seem to fit in existing threads or it's own thread.

Anyway thing that gave me the rage.
On BBC3 program on transgemder teen's the doctor just said "creating a vagina". Are doctors redefining vagina as pocket rather than a passage? Makes me want to screem.

Also Sarah Ditum being no platformed.

I think cultural appropriation is a really good analogy. Cait (and others but Cait is a prime example) cherry-picks the aspects of 'womanhood' that are fun or interesting or a turn-on. Whilst still going to the golf club as a man and not understanding why women can't just use their 'power'. It's offensive and women aren't supposed to be offended. Ironically, mainly because we're supposed to be soft and accepting and accommodating and kind. Again.

The only thing that makes me a woman is my biology. Like PAQ, if you were to describe my characteristics and job, people would probably assume I was male, but I am clearly a woman biologically.

And in terms of "possessiveness" when Rachel Dolzeal (sp) was revealed to be ethnically white, nobody said the black community should be cool with it or that trans racial is a thing. When you look at what most TW say about "feeling like a woman" it tends to be about performing femininity- when you reduce "being a woman" to "wanting to wear dresses and have long hair" I think that's pretty offensive.

Yy to those last two.

1. Cultural appropriation is not okay.

2. Everyone was very bothered by R Dozel (i have no idea how it is sp.), why is one okay and the other not? Race is a hell of a lot more fluid than sex!!

Sorry that should be...

Yy to those last three posts!!

why is one okay and the other not?

I have thought about this and came to the conclusion it's due to medical backing.

those units are often populated by sex offenders who are predatory and trans women are at increased risk

Of the three "transwomen prisoners" recently in the news (and I'd dispute that one of those could be under the trans umbrella at all), all three had been convicted of very violent crimes. One was so dangerous they could not be left alone with their own lawyers.

Of previous transwomen prisoners, also convicted of violent crime (eg Paris Green, convicted of kicking a man do death over a bag of chips), they have been the predator not the prey, when moved to women's prison. Paris had to be moved after having sex (and who can say whether consensual or not, in that prison environment) with women prisoners.

Transwomen commit crime at the same rate as men. There is no reason to assume that those transwomen who do commit crime would automatically be prey, rather than predator, in a prison context.

When the Rachel Dolezal thing hit the headlines, I though of this case of a Brazilian man having plenty of plastic surgery to look Korean:

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5447600

Laughing, I also must admit I can't understand why you don't understand where the people on this thread are coming from. I think they've all articulated it perfectly clearly. But I guess if you're determined to see it as "possessiveness" you will. As PP have said, it's cultural appropriation, plain and simple. Every other oppressed group is allowed to be "possessive" about things peculiar to them as a class, except women. Men were born into privilege. They do not have to deal with the prejudice women face for being women. It's quite likely they never will. Prejudice against trans people is a different type of prejudice, for different reasons. Can you really not get that? Really?

Damn straight I feel possessive over being a biological woman laughing

Why shouldn't we?

Cultural appropriation is exactly what it is

I think cultural appropriation is a really good analogy. Cait (and others but Cait is a prime example) cherry-picks the aspects of 'womanhood' that are fun or interesting or a turn-on.

Yes - but it is a lot more insidious than cultural appropriation.

White people with dreadlocks don't demand that they be included in things that are meant exclusively for black people, or to be counted as oppressed group for quotas, etc.

People like Cait are more like Rachel Dolezal ...

venus Men were born into privilege. They do not have to deal with the prejudice women face for being women.

I was told yesterday that trans"women" don't grow up with male priveledge because they aren't men, they're women.

• meant to add, the comment a couple of pages ago about "collective mania" was spot on. It's so weird... why are a tiny percentage of delusional people able to ... hypnotise (?) everyone else? What the hell is going on? Why are usually critical-thinking people becoming sheep over this?

why are a tiny percentage of delusional people able to ... hypnotise (?) everyone else?

Either they have thought-controlling rays from outer space (very unlikely) or the transcult promotes the goals of a number of more numberous and powerful lobbies.

Genderism has been there before the transcult. The trans-myth provides a handy explanation for why there are so many people that don't fit into sexist stereotypes (They are just born in the wrong body!!111) and therefore strengthens patriarchy.

Countries that stone homosexuals to death allow "gender reassignment" surgery.

And a lot of men hate women and wish there was a way to undermine feminist achievements like women's quotas in government, safe spaces for women, etc.

The transcult provides such a way.

I think there was an unintentional part played here too. Medicine and equality laws, each separate and impacting the other.

I find the Rachel Dolezal comparison fascinating. She self-identified as Black. The black community said fuck off and stop taking the piss (I paraphrase). I haven't seen angsty petitions calling for Rachel to be accepted as Black. Yet the female community has to accept someone like Caitlyn Jenner who still uses her male name to access privileged spaces.

I think there was an unintentional part played here too. Medicine and equality laws, each separate and impacting the other.

Actually, the whole transcult is against everything medicine stands for. They give testosterone to young girls - no one has any idea what that might cause in the long run. Or, more precisely, some effects are known and they aren't pretty. For example it causes problems in the uterus, so that getting the uterus removed is recommended. Which sets up young girls for a lifetime of dependance on doctors.

I don't know about the UK; but in Germany, they usually don't even sterilise 35 year old women who are childless because they "might change their minds".

But if someone is trans ... then suddenly it is not a problem anymore!

It is crazy.

I literally do not get it. I got badly burned by a group of women I respect enormously tearing into me for asking them to explain.

Can we have a self-help group sort of thread for people who lost friends over this whole trans thing?

I am lucky in that my best friends agree with me on the topic, but the local feminist community is of the "you are a hateful bigot if you dare to question anyone's claim of being a woman" sort.

the local feminist community is of the "you are a hateful bigot if you dare to question anyone's claim of being a woman

Same here.

I am glad to have found mumsnet. Seems like it is the only sane place left.

Maybe it is because most of the local group are university students who neither have ever given birth, been in prison, or otherwise forced to share rooming with other women, so they think it is not a big deal?

I can not imagine they would actually want to share public showers with "women" who wave around their dicks.

Maybe they have a very idealized picture of transwomen in their minds, and refuse to acknowledge that any man could claim to be "trans" to get access to women's spaces.

vestalVirgin mumsnet is definitely not the only place where this can be discussed.
In answer to why this movement has become so succesfull, I think that's partly because of the connection to the LGBT movement. It's presented as a total package and as people become more tolerant and accepting (rightly) they don't want to reject a part of it. Unfortunately, standing up against transactivism can put you in the same camp as someone like Michelle Duggar.
I think people just aren't really aware. Most people think of a transwoman as the classic image, a very feminine male who has been bullied and is mentally tortured and just wants to relieve their emotional pain. They're not aware of the autogynephiles or people like Stephonknee, or the violent sex offenders who seek gender reassignment in prison.

Are Mumsnetters aware of the Facebook discussion group 'Discussing gender critical and gender identity'? You can share your pain there... www.facebook.com/groups/genderdiscusssion/

why do people think that its beyond the pale that some perv would pretend to be trans to get in women's space to take advantage

Wishful thinking? An enormous amount of it.

That reminds me of that scene in in the last Hobbit movie, where a man disguises as woman in an attempt to get away with a bag full of money.

(And there are lots of other movies where a man disguises as a woman for a variety for reasons - often it is even the main plot)

People clearly don't consider this too unrealistic - at least I haven't read that complaint anywhere.
Yet we are to believe that those same men who would disguise as women for financial reasons would never do so to be able to perv on vulnerable women? (And that is not even taking into consideration that a dress and a wig are not required to pull off the trans-disguise. Words are enough.)

Women should be aware that they are in a better position of protecting their ideal, totally passing as female, mentally tortured, meek and gentle transwoman friend if they retain the right to throw any males out of the women's locker room.

By giving men access women's spaces, we might end up with scenario where a man walks into the ladies' restroom, accidentally rapes a post-operation transwoman instead of an actual woman, then realizes he raped a male and beats him up in a homophobic rage.

The only one who profits is the rapist.