Feeling sad & weary that feminists & trans women are constantly pitted against one another?

[SmiledWithTheRisingSun]

That's it really.

Instinctively I feel very protective of feminism and all that those incredibly brave women before us achieved. Thanks Nanna 💛

I totally support the idea of protecting women only spaces and don't obviously want a bunch of women-hating rapists in female prisons etc

BUT... surely there's a happy medium to be found ladies?!

Surely there must be reasonable people in the trans community who understand the need to protect all that feminism has achieved?

The same way that I'm a white middle aged woman who doesn't feel the need to demand entrance to a black feminist group. I can support their right to exist without being undermined by it.

What to we call these feminist / trans sympathisers? Please enlighten me wise MNERS.

Love from,
A middle aged feminist who wishes you all peace and love X

Transwomen aren't women.

I also find it hard to believe that a male bodied, bearded midwife would insist on her rights at the expense of her patients. So the issue really is with TRA, rather than with transpeople........

Just wanted to thank Perfectly, another long term lurker here - you've compelled me to add my voice to this thread. Over the last year of lurking on here and Gender Critical on reddit I've learnt more about feminism than I had done in the previous twenty years. Your ridiculous straw man arguments and constant avoidance of well thought out, well reasoned eloquent posts that you can't argue with, is the laughing stock. Everyone else thankyou for continuing posting for us lurkers - we are out there, listening and agreeing x

Hi lurkers! Thanks for de-lurking!

Transwomen aren't women.

If I said this in public, in my own name, I could come close to losing my job. This is real, folks.

Let's gloss it a little:

Transwomen with a GRC are legally women. THat's fine. But it may not be after 2018 ...

And then how do we treat the far greater number of trans people who don't undergo any formal processes of gender reassignment, as in legal or medical treatment?

Just to note a recent (July 2017) poll on the proposed GRA reforms by YouGov:

Strongly support 10%
Tend to support 21%
Tend to oppose 20%
Strongly oppose 19%
Don't know 30%

So, perfectly, far from yours being the mainstream position, it is currently representing 31% of the population. 39% of the population currently agrees with the posters hereabouts. 30% are to be persuaded one way or the other.

I personally am of the opinion that most of the "don't knows" and even some of the "tend to supports" would move to being against the changes if the full ramifications were made clearer.

I imagine you think the opposite.

So, let's make the full ramifications clear to as many people as we can! Then government can take note of accurate public opinion on the issue and either drop the proposals (if the dissemination of full and accurate information has the effect I think it will) or move full steam ahead with the willing and informed consent of the general public (if the dissemination of full and accurate information has the effect you think it will).

What say you, perfectly?

That is encouraging lang

Sunshine - I posted on another thread that my employer hosted a ‘woman who identifies as trans’ (pre-op transwoman, born male, ‘transitioned’ 2 years ago in mid thirties) and we were advised that we should be opening meetings with which pronouns we prefer, treating anyone who identified as the opposite sex as such, and essentially deferring to what the trans individual wants at any time, #nodebate. I currently allocate shared bedrooms. If someone identifies as female on the form, I place them with a female room mate. I have several people on my books who I know are transwomen. I have to place them in a female share or risk losing my job for being transphobic (unless I realize in time and can make up some shit about running out of shares). I can only do that IF I know they are transwomen. Most of the time I don’t. So I share your daughters with intact males.

Sorry. I do my best. Obviously any woman who asks to be moved because she is sharing with a man is also faced with accusations of bigotry.

No GRCs. No medical transitioning. People can identify whichever way they like and I will allocate them a matching partner.
When your employer is inviting in transwomen to indoctrinate the staff (transwomen who, incidentally, complained about swimming costumes because in a women’s costume her penis and bollocks would show, which was extremely sexist design) you are in no doubt what would happen if you raised any suggestion about needing to know sex, not gender. Bye bye job. Bye bye mortgage. Hello homelessness.

GuardianLions - I think it is. I genuinely believe a big proportion of the "tend to support" crowd still hasn't thought it through. I could be wrong, of course, and perfectly could be right but I really don't think so.

Whenever single aspects of this - rapists in women's prisons, TIMs being guide leaders, your kid changing names at school with nobody telling you - the polls are always at least 70% and usually close to 90% against. Most recent example being the Top Shop debacle.

I think people want to be "nice" as a matter of principle but whenever practical consequences are put to them, like granny getting a TIM carer to put her on the loo of an evening, they say, "hang on a bloody minute".

Sorry to go back to the bathroom thing, but I have been giving a bit more thought about my dislike of queuing with men to use unisex toilets (even the completely enclosed with sink and sanitary bin inside). Apart from the privacy angle I realise another thing that men do that makes me uncomfortable.

Because men are used to not having to wait to urinate, they feel entitled to not wait.

I can be waiting ages to use a unisex toilet with my kids, then bloke joins the queue (NAMALT obviously). They can have all the huffy, puffy agitated body language of someone behind you in Sainsburys who is just buying a can of beans when you have a weekly shop on the conveyor belt. My female socialisation makes me very aware of this, so I will always turn to that shopper behind me and say "you go ahead".
I find it extremely assuming when blokes do the same in the queue for the toilet- as though me and my kids should step aside, because for him it is a quick act.

There's something so oppressive about being made to feel I (and my kids) should step aside for a man to use the toilet.

[disclaimer - I have had men let me go ahead if I only have one item in the supermarket, and also I have had men and women let me go ahead when I have had a distressed, crying child desperate to use the toilet, but I have NEVER had a woman make me feel less entitled to use the toilet than her, or as though I should let her go ahead of me/my kids]

blackdog that is grim

Sunshine - me too.

It's come to a pretty pass when stating basic biology can make you lose your job.

I wonder if it's possible to get answers to simple questions...

Should a women be forced to share a cell with someone with a penis (regardless of how they identify)?

Should a man who has not physically, socially or medically transitioned be able to access a women's shelter if he says, "I'm a woman"?

Should a small girl told that if she likes ninjas and LEGO she has a 'boy brain' and therefore is a boy by teachers?

Should TIMs in sports have a different level of allowed testosterone than natal women athletes?

Simple questions...

Just saw this on twitter...

Another lurker here

I feel compelled to add my voice due to perfectly posts.

perfectly, because of you and your pro-GRA arguments, I'm learning more and more from these wonderful posters on the feminism board. I have peak transed so hard I might combust.

Im not bigoted, hateful, anti trans etc. I'm pro-women and girls. And as a woman and a mother to a teenage DD (who by the way shares a classroom with a trans boy and a trans girl in an all girls school - I guess they do recognise biology then by keeping the trans boy there, but allow the trans girl to join ) over my dead body is my daughter going to be putting a mans feelings over her safety and dignity.

I gently broached the subject with some colleagues of mine recently (all female) and peak transed them within half an hour of showing them some TRA twitter threads and the speakers corner incident. My lovely manager almost popped when I explained who Danielle Muscato is, the women's refuge etc and not forgetting the cotton ceiling. 'They are not fucking women' she exploded. She never swears

Anyway, thank you to the amazing posters on this board. Keep going. There are many of us here reading and learning.

Oh, and as a Labour voter and party member. Fuck you. Really Fuck you if you continue to treat women like this, in particular Anne. And for insulting us by appointing Lily Madigan as women's officer and allowing him to continue in that role after the shit show of the last few weeks. Realy, really Fuck you for that one 🖕🏼

I would probably have described myself as strongly supportive of the GRA reforms in July 2017, I may even have taken that poll though I can't remember. I'm strongly opposed now.

Blackdog I have had a similar experience. I host foreign teenage students, I specify girls only as I have little girls and fits with the dynamic. Plus their room is next to DDs and DH has strong views that its girls only.

Picked up a pair of students last year only one was a boy in full make up. So I had 2 mixed sex under 16 year olds sharing a room, a furious DH and confused DDs "but he's a boy mum" cue swift kick under the table. We had to suck it up out of politeness but were not happy. DH felt his rules had been ignored and I was concerned I could be liable about breaking the strict no mixed sex sharers rule..

That's insane

Well done Alabama with your peak transing!

I'm testing the waters with almost everyone I know.

Had an interesting conversation with one of our psychology students recently. He and his girlfriend had already done their own research into this and he brought up the no platforming of Germaine Greer, Linda Bellos etc. He told me he had tried to bring up the subject during one of his lectures but was shut down immediately. He was aghast that this was happening in University. If I wasn't driving at the time I would've high fived him when I realised he was gender critical and agrees this new wave of trans ideology is damaging to everyone.

His actual words were 'Germaine Greer no platformed! How the fuck can that happen in 2017?'

Hi alabama
How do you 'test the waters' on this? I'm interested as to how you get a conversation started. I think most people I know have no awareness of this issue at all.
I've only had one conversation with someone other than my husband. A male friend- and he brought it up!
I suppose I'm very wary about bringing it up at work, as I could lose my job, depending what happens in the future.

Hello lurkers! Thank you for standing up to be counted for women. If there is a right side of history, I'm pretty sure you'll be on it.