Embarrassed to ask but...

[ALurkerNoMoreForNow]

So I consider myself a proud feminist, but since recently returning to Mumsnet have found lots of talk about Trans / Peak Trans and I feel I'm arriving late to this particular party.

I genuinely hadn't realised this was such a hot topic, and please don't shout me down, but I would like clarity...

Is the issue only about people who haven't had a physical op (i.e. still have a penis)?

I'm reading these threads with interest, they have already generated some lively discussions in my house.

Cooroo

... just living their lives in a certain way.

I'd be very interested to know how this is manifested in their real day to day life.

Datun - I don't actually know! One step removed. Will ask DD next time we chat (she's away au uni).

Just briefly, for me there are three issues:

1. Women's spaces and women's voices being erased.
2. This is simply the new gay conversion therapy; it's all about making yourself conform to a gender norm, rather than, like the movement for gay and lesbian rights has been, accepting difference and diversity.
3. Children being medicalised and making decisions about gender that will have left long term detrimental effects on their health, mental health, and sexual function, before they really have any idea what it means.

I am sick of pretending anymore, so this is my reasoning to anyone who asks. Have nevertheless lost a few friends already over what a bigot I supposedly am

Genuine transsexual people probably number in the hundreds. TRAs are in the thousands.
Gemuine transsexuals want to go under the radar. Transactivists want to shit all over the radar as much as they can because misogyny is at their core. They really, really do not like women. Hence all the rape threats and 'suck my lady dick, bitch' bollocks.

This this this.

Unfortunately with how the narrative is at the moment, it is pretty difficult to distinguish between 'genuine' and not genuine. And the 'genuine' people seem to be keeping out of the whole thing, which I cannot blame them for really, but in doing so they are lumped in with the crazies who believe in 'lady sticks' and think that lesbians are transphobic for being attracted to females instead of people with penises.

So many people do not even know this crazyness is going on. If this was all publicized properly, I expect the huge majority of 'trans allies' would reach peak-trans tbh. Just so many are unwilling to look into the matter deeper as they wish to be 'inclusive' which is a nice thought but in this case, it really doesn't work. To be 'inclusive' means shitting all over the rights/safety of female people. And some either do not see this, or do not care that it will harm females in the long run. Sad state of affairs really.

Then she went off on a nice rant about how half the boys at school think 'women are much more privileged than men these days'

This view seems to be depressingly common these days. Only yesterday I had an argument with a guy I know (he is seriously sexist but refuses to admit it)...he was going on about the pay gap and such and said its womens own fault as they chose to have kids then chose to stay off work and make their husband work just so they can spend all of his money and do nothing (!) and basically the argument ended when he came out with the following corker...

'Straight white men are the most discriminated against of everyone in the UK'

Jesus christ...I just burst out laughing and actually couldn't continue...but even if I had he would have argued his case as he genuinely does seem to think he is right, rather than just trolling. Such a victim complex. Mind he was also over the moon when Ched Evans was released and the girl he raped was a 'bitch, ruining his life just because she was a slut and didn't want to admit it'

I wish i could avoid this person but they seem present in my life way too often. I have tried ignoring his views totally but then I see others listening to him and worry they might agree so I feel I have to intervene, just incase he brainwashes someone else to be such a hateful bigot

WankingMonkey I had similar on another thread. I (unsuccessfully) asked another poster to give more details on a statement she made - "As an intersexed transwoman I know said on the London stage last week, "I truly believe there is a war on women, and before I thought this was a woman's world."".

I asked why this transwoman thought it was a woman's world. I mean, how do you perceive (from the male perspective) that this is a woman's world? What did they see (or rather, thought they saw) pre-trans that I just don't? And what was it that brought them up short when they were perceived as women post-trans? I'd really like to know the answers to this, because IMO, this misperception of the reality of being a woman could be important. Perhaps, for some potential transteens, if they had a more accurate view of womanhood, they wouldn't want to trans. Rejecting manhood, or at least the inaccurate stereotype of manhood - and then embracing an equally inaccurate and downright damaging stereotype of womanhood - it's going to lead to such unhappiness.

Do they really think it's all young women sitting around in each other's bedrooms doing hair and nails and discussing clothes? Having doors opened for them and drinks bought for them? I know some shit TV programmes would have you believe that, but really? To make such a huge change to your life and body with such superficial and inaccurate information of what you want to be? It's heartbreaking. And yes, it is a lie spread by the mysoginist MRA-types .

The problem for me is that there is no definition of transgender. Its all feelings, there's no blood test or scans to confirm someone is transgender. Its like proving that someone is religious.

I also question the motives behind why some claim to be tg, and whether its safe for those men to be given access to women's spaces.

The statistics behind trans issues bother me, too. I don't understand how such a small group of people have such an influence on the media and law makers. I think the vulnerability of trans is overestimate and the negative affects on women ignored.

I don't like what is going on at schools when a boy decides he's tg. Again girls feelings and safety are ignored.

I don't like that girls who don't quite fit in or maybe are lesbians, trans and nobody asks why. When young women trans, the long term effects are quite damaging, but nobody seems bothered.

I'm not going to even start on the tg 4 year olds.

To me, it seems to be a movements that benefits men, but damages women (including transmen), girls and children.

That's it Bob.

It's all such a contradiction. The biggest, most defining factor in a transwoman's life is her transition. It's everything. It's their defining factor. And yet it is the one massive experience that no woman on earth will ever have.

No woman will ever look at her penis and wish it was a vagina. A woman, any woman, will have many, many experiences, but none of them that. And I realise transmen through something similar, but nonetheless it is the opposite to that which transwomen go through. And, in fact I don't think it is similar. The number of transmen who have surgery is minuscule.

"I follow lots of feminists on various social media but it has only been since returning to MN that this issue has been highlighted."

The feminists you follow are failing you mightily.

I've been wondering since I saw Laurie Penny Tweet something like "is there a word I can use to refer to people who have uteruses?" earlier how these people would define "women" now, given we're seemingly not allowed to say it's biological. Presumably they'd say it's a feeling which is bizarre and pretty backward to me. It irks me to see feminists essentially agreeing there's such a thing as a "female brain" and a "male brain" etc. Also no-one seems to want to stop calling men "men" or ask "how can we refer to people with penises?" as someone who responded to her pointed out.

What's happening at schools and at such a young age is hugely worrying, children seem to be being told that if they don't fit the stereotype of a girl/boy they could be "trans", not just a boy who likes dolls or a girl who likes rugby (of which plenty exist of both, I know these stereotypes are ridiculous but just as an example).

sillage agreed though I do sympathise. So many feminists on social media are ready to shout "transphobia" at anyone who steps out of line and sadly as I've posted before so many younger feminists seem to have gone down this route - I can't debate this with the majority I know unfortunately.

and encouraged to go down the route of hormones and surgery which may not actually be appropriate for them,

I agree. It is butchery and mutilation.

If this was all publicized properly, I expect the huge majority of 'trans allies' would reach peak-trans tbh.

I am not so sure.

If it had been said from the start that the end game is that all males will have access to all women's spaces by virtue of self-identification, then yes, people would have woken up.

But this is like the frog in boiling water theory.

The trans allies have already spouted a lot of completely irrational nonsense in defense of what they thought was just about transsexual males who had surgery to remove their penis being allowed to use the women's toilets.

I fear they are too invested in this, now, to see reality for what it is.

ALurker I wonder of you would be interested in this another poster put on one of the other threads.
notthenewsinbriefs.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/the-bias-of-the-bbc/

KindDogsTail

That article about the BBC makes for some very depressing reading. However after Chimamanda Adichie and Jenni Murray sticking their heads above the parapet, I wonder if the tide may be turning.