My education re terf v tra on MN

[WitchBitchHarpyTerfThatsMe]

Long term self-identified feminist for many years but struggled to get my head around the terf v tra issues for a long time, largely due to the inaccessible language/jargon of the debate. Also my essential 'live and let live' attitude.

Anyhow I finally got my shit together recently following the Hyde Park assault, gritted my teeth and forced myself to come on here, read, follow links/stats etc and had a brain melting intensive educational experience. My eyes have been opened and I'm truly grateful and in awe of the patient and informed posters on here. Thank you, all of you.

Although I did come on to the feminist boards before I didn't see as much activity as I have for the last few months. So, my questions . .

Is there a lot more traffic on these boards of late?

Is MN allowing more open debate on these issues than previously?

I have been lurking on these threads for a while now. Not posted before because there a many posters more eloquent than me. It's been a real eye opener, when I first saw the trans threads I used to do a bit of an eyeroll, like others have said I'm a live and let live type of a person but the more I read into it here and on other forums and blogs it really is very scary.
I don't know who stands to benefit from there radical changes. I can't see how it would help a genuinely gender dismorphic person and it's really scary how young homosexual people seem to be targeted. I wonder where it all comes from it's almost like an illuminati, omnipresent type of thing and so blisteringly mysoginistic. I can't help feeling like this is coming from a group of people who are thinking 'Right we've given them the vote, maternity rights and more rights within marriage. How do we get them back in their box? 💡'
When I look a Twitter for example it's hard to tell the difference between the TRAs and the MRAs

Anyway sorry for the rambling, I did say others put it much better than me.
I have found the Feminist board really helpful and enlightening, I didn't really see myself as a feminist until reading some of the thread on here and then the scales fell from my eyes. I really like that there is a space for women to share, debate and learn without being shouted down or belittled.

Another one here who’s views changed after lurking here for a while, then eventually feeling able to join in the discussion.
It’s been a great experience for me, like remembering who I am. I was obsessed with equality/women’s rights from the point I learnt about suffragettes in school, but somehow lost my way for a while ie completely neglected that part of my life. The resurgence in my interest in feminism does coincide roughly with the birth of my own dd, so it maybe would have happened anyway, but certainly mumsnet and this board in particular have been hugely influential
I’m nowhere near as knowledgable or eloquent as many people on here and am grateful to be learning to think again!
It’s funny to think I originally found mumsnet in my quest for help breastfeeding, then later dealing with miscarriage and subsequent conception/pregnancy issues. Then baby stuff, weaning, toddlers, school stuff. It’s been a progression through many of the challenges women can face, and the help has come from the knowledge and experience of other women.
So I should really say thank you to mumsnet too!

Another lurker, still getting up to speed and been waking in the middle of the night slightly angry at everything I've picked up so far. Also used to be "inclusive" and live and let live until very recently (last month!).

MN has been key for me in understanding that transsexual and transgender aren't the same.

I can honestly say, in real life, everyone I've talked to about this thought that they were the same thing, had no idea about the legislation and thought that the odd media report of a trans person asking to use a different changing room was a case of a transexual who had full medical treatment.

I didn't know MN had that number of users but I am going to keep posting. I still honestly think some people aren't outraged because they don't understand what's happening.

that whole article about rape crisis centres in the Guardian today - I have no idea whether the writer has medically changed or not!! Ridiculous.

ferntwist you made me think I was going nuts. I always loved Meghan Murphy and remember thinking she was the best one contributor of Feminist Current by a clear mile. I followed your links and saw all this stuff about her being the founder and editor, and it being launched in July 2012. It messed with my head.

I thought I was having false memories because that didn't tally up -
but I just googled and saw her article 'Freedom = bad knees and push up bras' from May 2010, so I am not losing my mind!

I hope she was brought back by popular demand, ousted all those feckers, took it over and did a relaunch in 2012! Good for Meghan Murphy ... still have to do a bit of an archive search though, to check I am right about her being booted out around the time of the rise of the TRAs...

I'm a long term lurker, joined years ago but browse almost every day. Occasionally something moves me to post and this is one of those times.

I never read the Feminism board before about a year ago. I suppose I thought it would be a bit extreme. I've absolutely been educated though! I am Spartacus and trans women are NOT women! AND leave our children the fuck alone!

I think this thread is important for women like me to de-lurk and let all the brave, intelligent, elequant people, who have patiently explained things time after time, providing facts, evidence and reasoned debate, know that their efforts have paid off and are genuinely appreciated.

You are making a difference! You are reaching people!

I have spoken about these issues with my brother and my 20 year old son. Two more people who are now educated and while (as do I) wish any human being a good life, free to dress and express themselves however they want without discrimination etc, absolutely oppose the tra ideology around women's spaces and services.

Just thank you!

So far, because of being on here, I have peak transed my Mum, dh and one sister. I've mostly been on fb groups more recently but it started here.

My sister was the hardest to convince as she is bi and was worried i was becoming homophobic. I pointed out that if she ever wanted to have a baby she would need sperm from a natal man and an egg from a natal woman and she couldn't get the egg from the transwoman or sperm from a transman no matter how they identify. It's so obvious as to be insulting but people are so caught up trying to do the right thing and not be "transphobic" (too close to homophobic) that they are not really engaging properly with the debate. It's good to see it here.

Guardian,
Maybe you're thinking of this: rabble.ca/babble/feminism/meghan-murphy-quits-rabble

Also pretty sure that she's the founder of Feminist Current so I don't think she's ever been booted off.
Love her too.

And would also like to add that I appreciate those posters who are in the trenches on this. Especially out there in the rest of MN.

Mostly lurker but occasional poster. Really appreciate a space to be gc and also to be educated! Impossible to be gc at work and with left liberal friends and family.
I would like to be able to show my support via twitter email facebook etc as suggested on these threads but need to make anon accounts but havent a clue how to do this. I have phone tablet and pc all with same two email accounts. Not tech literate and would really appreciate an idiots guide how to set up anon/fake name accounts. Can anyone help please thanks?

Ditto..

Lovely to experience a critical togetherness. .

Which is much lacking in other areas of society nowadays...

I think there are a few additional elements in this awful mess. One is the likes of Donald Trump's blatant hatred of transpeople (and one or two others who are both anti-trans and persistently hostile to women/minorities/feminists/progressives) which is going to make some people, particularly those with non-arsehole trans mates, still want to support rights for transpeople (the right to healthcare, facilities, safety, freedom from discrimination etc.)
The other is the whole fake news/twitterbots stuff. I'm fairly sure that a percentage of the worst online nastiness (from both sides) is coming from people with no vested interest in the discussion but a love of stirring the pot or MRAs, particularly 'alt-right' MRAs, who see it as both advancing their vile agenda and being another way to bait 'liberals' and 'snowflakes'.

I tend to try to stay out of a lot of it on other social media, because like PP, I have quite a lot of trans friends - and I also have some friends who have lost other trans friends to suicide. I'm not wild about openly entering into such a poisonous debate which risks hurting people I like and support - and who do get bullied, and do feel victimised, and who do not do other people any harm.

And I have a teenage DS who is gender non-conforming and who has previously mentioned 'wanting to be a girl' - and who is also waiting for referral to CAHMS for a DX of ADS (almost certainly Aspergers) - and I worry about him. I do not think he is transsexual. I'm frightened that peer pressure might persuade him he is. I don't want him to feel unhappy, alienated or afraid, whatever he may be.

ReanimatedSGB

I'm frightened that peer pressure might persuade him he is. I don't want him to feel unhappy, alienated or afraid, whatever he may be.

Have you taken a look at transgendertrend? It’s run by Stephanie Davis Arai.

She gets hundreds of emails each week from concerned parents whose children are either trans, or questioning. She set the site up to support parents in that situation.

She is incredibly calm, gentle and kind. She’s not one-sided. She is all about the kids. And how best to support them whilst trying to, as you say, steer them way from peer pressure that you may not agree with.

You sound measured and sensible, which I am sure is by far the best way to be.

Mumsnet had moved my thinking from unthinking live and let live lefty stance to a much more critical stance about women are losing and why. I have been talking to DH who is somewhat taken aback but is thinking more about the issues. I am a little bolder in my thinking and had never thought to question any of this prior to mumsnet.

mumisnotmyname same story here.

My DH was initially very closed to debate, told me I was a TERF, transwomen were women. It came to a head when I asked him to define "woman". He said."a female adult." So what's female? "Oh I don't want to argue." Since he was called out on that he does.seem to have started to see that TRA don't really have a leg to stand on, and understands that I will wholeheartedly support a third space, but specifically rape crisis centres, prisons and women's sport must be left alone.

We discussed Ireland, which he used as evidence the amended GRA could be rolled out with no bad consequences. Could a FtM self identify his way out of pregnancy over there? Are there still prejudices against homosexuals? It was interesting for us both.

I have also discussed my friend who is in her late twenties and refused a sterilisation on the NHS. I pointed out the irony that she can't choose to become infertile after several children but a 13 year old potentially could with hormone treatment (see Jazz Jennings)

I feel like I am getting somewhere. I feel like this is important. I will continue to do my little bit to try and change the tide.

Thank you Mumsnet for your part in this

I am so grateful to the wonderful women on this board, who have taught me so much. I have always been a feminist, but have not been actively involved in feminist protest since my student days. Beingrippedoff, I know exactly what you mean when you said it's 'like remembering who I am'. That's just how I feel!

I joined MN earlier on this year precisely because of this board, which I found whilst googling a trans issue. I lurked for a few months before I plucked up the courage to post, whilst I absorbed all the stuff that I simply hadn't heard of before (eg 'I punch terfs', cotton ceiling, the dangers of Lupron, Danielle Muscato, Stefonknee Wolscht, the GRA proposals, men already competing in women's sports etc).

Up until a couple of years ago, I didn't pay much attention to anything 'transgender'. Like so many of us, I just thought it meant someone who had had a 'sex change', as we used to call it. The few articles/programmes that I'd seen showed genuinely dysphoric, feminine gay men, having full surgery and striving to present convincingly as a woman to quietly get on with their lives. I never had a problem with that whatsoever. Live and let live.

I had also not equated 'transgender' with what used to be called 'transvestite' (which is now AGP?). I had known a few part-time cross-dressers, all heterosexual men, who did it in private. No problem there, either. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, when men in blouses and makeup were part of mainstream pop culture (and am still partial to a bit of guyliner!).

Caitlyn Jenner was really what did it for me. That Vanity Fair cover screamed 'I'm doing this for sexual thrills'. No problem with that (so far, so harmless) but then she made a very vocal point of using women's toilets - one of the places where you certainly don't want to meet a big, strong, fully intact man with a sexual fetish and a strong sense of entitlement! Then - Woman of the Year. WTAF? Then 'the hardest part of being a woman is figuring out what to wear', said the rich white man .

And people were going along with this and I couldn't (still can't) fathom out why. Then Germaine Greer was no-platformed. Germaine actual Greer! Peter Tatchell accused of transphobia! Then Jenni Murray - I think this was the point when I found Mumsnet and this board, which was a relief to know that I wasn't alone, but a shock to see how much more there was that I didn't know about!

I feel that I'm still getting up to speed on this. Like a previous poster said, I want to do more to make my voice heard, and support the women who are speaking out, but given the violence of the TRAs, I am concerned about anonymity and safety. I've never done Twitter - is this the best way? I'm not overly tech literate, so would also appreciate an idiot's guide!