Jeremy Corbyn speaks about trans rights

[MacaroonMama]

Haven't posted on this board before but I do read it often - sorry if I get the link wrong.

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/19/let-trans-people-self-identify-gender-corbyn-urges-may

So do we need to remind Jeremy Corbyn that while supporting all minorities is important, it should NOT be bought at the price of women's rights being eroded and women's funding being cut and women's spaces being invaded?

A while back, I wrote to my MP about that private members' bill changing 'sex' to 'gender' as a protected characteristic, but he didn't reply (third time! useless!) - what is happening with that?

I am going to write again to my MP and maybe Corbyn too.

What do people think? I don't dislike Corbyn at all, And I honestly do wonder if it is a bit of trans rights being much more fashionable than women's rights!

(Please note I do not want to offend anyone, I just am worried about the rights of women and girls in our society today.)

I am massively fucked off about this too. I have three girls who deserve to be able to get changed in a penis-free environment and succeed in sports against other XX chromosomes - who are likely to be comparable weights, muscle mass etc. Self-identification is great in theory, if male and female biology was equal, rape didn't exist and male pattern violence wasn't a thing.

I have read with interest the issues around "men menstruate too" this week and I have grave concerns that much of the gender non-binary appeal is a rejection of, frankly, irritating and uncomfortable aspects of being female once puberty hits. I do not want my children to feel that because they like playing tractors or hate having periods or fancy people of the same sex, there is a pathology to that. It's normal ffs. It's being so bloody regressive while masquerading as "right on".

Equality for all... except women.

PolarBearGoingSomewhere

Thankfully my children are past that stage, but I so get the fear.

What girl does not go through a gawky stage where she hates every part of her body, and yet is still objectified?

Can readily see girls thinking, hang on I can just identify as a boy!

Goes online, finds find the tribe, starts the brainwashing.

It's horrendous. It's terrifying. And it's so fucking regressive.

This is a form that was issued by a UK gender clinic. It's very telling. It's also quite reassuring. But only in that they at least recognise these reasons.

The prison authorities warned the government that people would exploit this law, but no one thought much of it at the time (except feminists).

Can I just say that this came about initially about 10 years ago. I was a male screw in a female nick and I fought tooth and nail, along with a few other officers, not to accept male to female transgender on my wing. To my knowledge, to this day no transgender people have gone onto that wing (vulnerable prisoners).

I think they were glad when I fucked off to a male jail!

One person tweeted that one of the rights they need/want is the right to be legally addressed by the pronoun they choose....can I have the legal right to insist I'm not labelled as 'cis'?

One person tweeted that one of the rights they need/want is the right to be legally addressed by the pronoun they choose....can I have the legal right to insist I'm not labelled as 'cis'?

I think that's one you're not allowed to object to. If you do you are cis scum and it's probably "actual violence".

Can readily see girls thinking, hang on I can just identify as a boy!

I suspect this is what's bringing about the girls at one girls' school which has recently allowed pupils to "identify as boys" and be referred to as "he" doing so.

This whole issue enrages me although Corbyn espousing this viewpoint doesn't surprise me - for some reason I already thought of him as being someone who did. I've never thought of him as being someone who's particularly bothered about women and think he'd not be too concerned about the erosion of women's rights this is bringing about; I'd hope many Labour MPs and members might be more concerned though. It's so concerning.

Paris Lee, unsurprisingly, is right behind Corbyn on this. I can just see him polishing his halo.

mobile.twitter.com/parislees?lang=en

Argh, DH just referred to "Daily Mail-type moral panic" when I tried to discuss this with him. How to convey that a 6'2" well built man may not understand my 5'1" petite build's desire for female-only spaces and level playing field for sports?!

He is achingly liberal and has a man crush on Jeremy Corbyn though.

I asked him just to read things with a more critical eye and, while celebrating the advances of one marginalised group, to consider the costs to another.

I'm furious too. I raised these concerns on Jeremy corbynns Facebook page. I wasn't abusive. My Facebook account is now disabled.

That's awful, Rogue. The kind of hateful things that people are allowed to say and the horrible videos they are allowed to post on Facebook... but you can't challenge self-determining gender -or sex really.

Corbyns not a man who copes well with being challenged, I've noticed. Especially by women. The rictus of fear and rage that takes over his face whenever Laura Kuensberg gets into him is very telling.

RogueBiscuit

You're kidding!!! Did they give a reason?

All the Facebook sites that question transactivists that I'm on are regularly deleted. They start up under another name.

This censorship of women's objections is frightening.

Argh, DH just referred to "Daily Mail-type moral panic" when I tried to discuss this with him. How to convey that a 6'2" well built man may not understand my 5'1" petite build's desire for female-only spaces and level playing field for sports?!

I use the tipsy gay male rugby team example - (NATGMRTALT) - a 6' plus, well built, post-winning game drinks team of men can be easily imagined, as can the antics they would be getting up to. Explaining that to a 5' tall woman the whole world is a bit like that (obviously not all the time.. some of the time it's like the district line tube on a hot summers day - sweaty and full of armpits at face level)

Oh, plus of course for sport, suggesting that if they do that, they should probably eliminate the weight classes for sports too - Mike Tyson vs. Prince Naseem Hamed would be a totally fair fight right? (my knowledge of boxers is very out of date...)

RogueBiscuit

I've just had a look at Corbyn's Facebook page. There are a fair number of gender critical comments on there. The usual arguments coming back about intersex, why do you care, transwomen are women, you're not a proper feminist, etc.

But people are definitely are definitely holding their own.

I thought the tide was beginning to turn until Corbyn made this announcement.

There are definitely more people who are critical now than there were a couple of years ago, though.

Maybe this will force the issue. And the conclusions that have been reached here, will just have to be played out again in public.

On the rare occasion I have seen this being publicly discussed on mainstrain media, issues like autogynephilia, the abuse if you question the ideology and the censorship of women aren't often mentioned. The discussion seems to remain family around the concept of trans and the abstract idea of it all, not the reality.

Few people could fail to object to the vitriol that women are subjected to. But it rarely gets a chance to be aired.

People think it's harmless. They don't understand this new wave of transactivists.

Someone on that page said this isn't about transvestites this is about trans-people. Well transvestites are transgender. This absolutely include them.

TBH the dh going on about daily mail sounds like a bit of a sneery superior bell end. Give me a DM reader over that type any day.

Datun I thought the exact opposite, that there is such an avalanche of pro trans comments that it's impossible to fight against. It's soul destroying, I feel physically ill seeing it. And bitterly disappointed in Jeremy Corbyn.

MagicalRealist

The first comment I read was that they were disappointed to see so many transphobic comments. So I'm assuming they have deleted some.

I completely agree that many of the comments are disheartening. But there is more dissent than there would have been this time last year.

Many mainstream media articles online disable the comments section. There is no other reason than to quash opposing views.

I totally understand that horrible feeling you get when you read them. But don't lose heart.

I believe this is a process. And on the feminist boards on mumsnet we have gone through it and come out the other side. We just have to let the rest of the world catch up.

My fear on this subject is views of young people (who are engaged in this kind of thing). Though I can only speak for what I've seen, it appears to me a worrying number (including a worrying number of young feminists) have opinions along the lines of Corbyn's. It's frustrating to me as I feel many don't even allow themselves to question it if that makes sense; it's the "non bigoted" view so to think otherwise or even debate it is "transphobic". The other worry with this is that others who see it for what it is, or did do, remain silent or decide they must have been wrong (and need to check their cis privilege) due to lack of debate and very vocal/aggressive voices on social media shouting about "TERFs".

Pink News have been totally trans-jacked. See the addendum to yesterday's article -

"• This article was amended on 19 July 2017 to include the information that the reception was hosted by Pink News."

No doubt, then, as to where the push is coming from.

nolove

Maybe try a different tack. One's choice of words can sometimes make a difference.

So a transwoman might say I am a woman inside, this is my identity and it is valid and why wouldn't you respect it? Which might sound reasonable to some.

Except it's exactly the same as claiming women have a lady brain.

But I should imagine there are quite a few people who could accept the first way of describing it, but not the second.

The same way that people think the very mention of the word 'patriarchy' equals rabid feminazi, but will then, completely illogically, agree that we live in a 'chauvinist' world.

The very same people who despair of the blue aisle and pink aisle in Toys "R" Us, will then agree that a transwoman saying because they 'feel' like a woman, they must be one.

Come at your argument from the point of view of lady brain, the pinkification of girls and the underpinning of stereotypes which say because a man feels womanly and wears a dress it it automatically means he's a woman.

I would also like to see any political leader, pundit, speaker, etc, who agrees that transwomen are women then go on to agree that, in which case, lesbians need to include them in their dating pool.

I can't imagine anyone who wants to hold onto their job agreeing to such a thing.

And at the first hint of the dissent, they will get lambasted by the trans community. All it takes is that one question.

Do you agree that lesbians should sleep with women with penises?

It's the catch 22 of all questions.

Tiny ray of sunshine: one of the MPs who was on the Women and Equalities Committee before the election, Gavin Shuker, reponded positively on twitter to Helen Lewis' piece.

(He has, naturally, been attacked for it, but not a fraction as much as if he'd been an icky cis woman.)

You'd think so, Datun, but in the current climate Owen Jones can cry homophobia when women ask him if, as a gay man, he'd be really into going down on a trans man who has a vagina. "But I'm a gay man!11111!!! Homophobia!!!!"

Because you can tell lesbians who they should share their bodies with and it's not an issue, but god forbid you tell a man the same thing.

That's very true Datun and I'd definitely like to try going into it like that. I have a couple of close friends who agree with me/most on here regarding this and another who is willing to discuss it and see these points, who'd previously been staunchly along the TRA line. The way I broached it with her was discomfort at anyone who "identifies as a woman" being allowed in women's spaces. I'd really like to go into this more with others, particularly from the point of view you described - the whole ridiculous and regressive notion of a "lady brain" and the pushing girls towards stereotypical roles it endorses, which all this does. It could be effective if I'm able to as the people I'm thinking of are unsurprisingly completely against all this, going to a girls' school which also completely disproves it.

I really want to go down this route and see how they react. It also worries me as girls from younger years also attend the Feminist Society at my school, where the "committee" are very much not keen on any talk against the "trans women are women" line. I'm not sure I'm articulating this too well as though it obviously doesn't dominate everything, it's difficult to challenge so I tend to just discuss it with my friends who are of the same mindset and gently with a couple of others, including a couple of boys I know who can see the issues once explained.

This must be about Labour needing the youth vote.