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

Before you go for good perfectly could I just thank you for your contributions to this debate. I can't remember a thread that has encouraged so many people to delurk and say that this thread has helped them in the development of their gender critical views.

You're like a one-person peak trans machine perfectly. Keep it up, it's great.

They are all straw men put up to attack trans people. No one denies there are bad people out there but these examples don't represent the trans community or are they used towards figuring out a workable solution for the vast majority of woman and trans people

The thing that brought me here was actually horror at the way that professionals who I come into contact with, and who are TRAs, agree that young people and children who identify as trans or of the opposite gender (sex) should unequivocably be given blockers and hormones, upon request, rather than proper assessments and counselling. This is not to say that blockers and hormones should not be available to those who have been assessed and for whom it is considered that this is appropriate. But this isn't what the TRA movement wants. It terrifies me. I like children and young people and want them to receive the best care possible; not that which is ideologically motivated. How is this hate?

Ha, I see AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth is similarly grateful.

Seriously, catching up this morning has made my head hurt, the refusal to actually answer even the most basic of questions is quite astonishing and then to cheer and clap themselves for a job well done?!?

Are there any examples of FtM trans trying to access places that are 'men' only? I wonder if that's what's needed for people to actually sit up and pay attention.

Thanks for all the insults! Any lurker who sees my posts will know I have been rational, respectful, reasonable and considered throughout. And thanks to the lurkers who pipe up with 'me too!' as playground bullies kick the last remaining bit of life out of me.
This place is a dangerous place for women. Luckily I am quite robust, I can see why others can't hack it.

"This place is a dangerous place for women"

Aye it's lethal

Debbie6666 did you read Blanchefleur's post? Did you understand it? I find it frustrating when posters like Blanchefleur take the time to explain the radfem position in clear detail and the trans allies completely fail to acknowledge or address those points.

No one denies there are bad people out there but these examples don't represent the trans community

No, radfems fully know and acknowledge that not all trans people are like this. Blanche explicitly stated this, but you ignored her.

They are put up to make the argument that trans women are not to be trusted and should be othered.
No, the examples are out there to show that self-identification laws could be exploited by others who are not necessarily trans. As Blanche said.

they used towards figuring out a workable solution for the vast majority of woman and trans people.
Like most radfems, this is absolutely what I want- a workable solution. To reach this, we first need to acknowledge the potential problems so we can work out how to avoid them.

Personally, I fully support campaigning for more single-occupancy, secure, unisex facilities (thinking about toilets, changing rooms, showers, hospital wards).
I fully support campaigning for more appropriate facilities specifically directed at trans people and their needs (thinking of refuges, prisons, awards, shortlists, sports).
I fully support campaigning for greater acceptance of people who don't confirm to gender norms and stereotypes - feminism has been campaigning for this for decades after all. Let's make it ok for boys and men to wear dresses and make up if they want to. Let's allow all children to choose between skirts and trousers at school. Let's campaign against the disgusting homophobic attitudes that mean makes are afraid to be seen in public in a dress and heels. Let's make it ok for women to be butch. Let's make it ok for everyone to fancy and shag whoever the help they want to, and recognise that it's ok to only want sex with someone who has a vagina, or someone who has a penis.

If the TRAs can get on board with this, then I would be very pleased to fight alongside them.

But I also want a name for the class of people that are born with vaginas and perceived as having the potential to become pregnant.
I want an acknowledgement that the needs of that group are not the same as the needs of people born with a penis. An acknowledgement that we are treated differently from birth because of our biology.

Dangerous? Hyperbole much?

Thanks for all the insults! Any lurker who sees my posts will know I have been rational, respectful, reasonable and considered throughout. And thanks to the lurkers who pipe up with 'me too!' as playground bullies kick the last remaining bit of life out of me.
This place is a dangerous place for women. Luckily I am quite robust, I can see why others can't hack it

Are you trying to goad us into actually insulting you? We haven't, so far. But this is just ridiculous. You haven't been "rational, respectful, reasonable and considered" at all. You've consistently fired grapeshot, refused to listen and engage and thrown insults. You have also encouraged the few (two?) lurkers who pipe up in favour of you. Stop playing the martyr, please.

It's ok to disagree with people on the Internet . It's not dangerous.

They are all straw men put up to attack trans people.

No they are not! They are true stories about predatory men.

They are not attacking trans people. Whether the perpetrators were trans or not is not the point.

The point is that SOME men pose a danger to women and actively want to access women-only areas. We are concerned that this is being made easier for them. Surely this is really simple to understand?

The straw manning is being done by YOU when you claim that this means that we are attacking trans people. We are not, we really are not.

these examples don't represent the trans community

We never said they did. Our issue is with predatory men, no matter how they identify.

They are put up to make the argument that trans women are not to be trusted and should be othered.

We have told you time and time again that this is not what we are saying. Yet time and time again, you choose to ignore it.

What do you gain by pretending that we are anti-trans?

Debbie I think you're misunderstanding the term 'straw man'. It means an intentionally false argument given for people to engage with to detract from the real position. So in the conversation:

"Self ID is a bad idea because any predatory male could appropriate and misuse it - here are examples,"

"You're saying all trans people are predatory males!"

The straw man is the reply, not the statement. It intentionally misreads and avoids the opening statement and makes an accusation for people to rush to discuss how no, they didn't mean that at all and you misread the statement.

To call the first statement a straw man you would have to be able to prove that:

• There are no predatory men UK who behave sexually and inappropriately towards women and girls - this does not happen.

• There is no evidence anywhere that any man has ever taken advantage of the legal situation to support trans people for their own agenda.

Disagreement with you is not hate. Debating your position and giving you alternative facts is not hate. Essentially you're saying that anyone who doesn't just unconditionally agree with your position is hating you. That's a very emotionally fragile position: interpreting disagreement and discussion as attack. I'm sorry that disagreement feels that way to you, but it's not the job of other people to manage themselves and the reality of the situation to keep it in a way you are comfortable with. There are some uncomfortable facts to be faced here.

perfectly wrote - "Let's not let fear, ignorance and hate beat common sense."

Here is an article about how and why politicians use common sense as a tactic to deflect scrutiny away from their simplistic and harmful policies:

www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-common-sense/535872/

I think some of these common sense tactics are being used by some transactivists who are trying to promote their political ideology of transgenderism.

MrsCastle Brilliant post.

To me YetAnotherSpartacus it's just a toys-out-of-the-pram fit that the thread didn't provide the examples of "hatred" and "transphobia" that some were hoping for.

How disappointing to go trawling for "hate" and only get reasoned discussion in response.

"I just have faith that a transgender practitioner would show the same level of professionalism, respect and sensitivity as any other practitioner"

See, how can you say that in one breath, and then when I point out examples of predatory men, who, for whatever reason, are asking for access to females, tell me it’s vile?

How can you constantly say there’s not a problem and then when people show you the problem decide they are inciting hate?

When feminists first started to engage with transactists over this they pointed out that they retain male pattern criminality. At the time, it was based on a Swedish study.

journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885

Feminists were told that it simply wasn’t true.

Then anecdotes started to arise.

Data was collected and a video was made called This Never Happens.

Feminists were told, in no uncertain terms, that those people are not really trans. (Which doesn’t really alter the argument, but anyway).

They were told, like perfectly keeps saying, that was giving transwomen a bad name.

So, a new video was made. This time every single person it identified as trans, specifically. Some spoke on behalf of trans people as an official representative. And it was documented. In order to, yet again, refute the arguments. Feminists were forced to do this as a reaction to wholesale denial.

(It’s now a public Facebook page, that anyone can view, called this never happens. It gets updated regularly.)

However, I t’s kind of old news now. Because too many statistics are backing it up. Which speak for themselves. It’s not about trans people because they are trans. It’s about predatory men, whether they are are trans or not It’s like saying rapists give men a bad name.

Because of the way people are being silenced and pushed into a certain direction, it’s very uncomfortable for people to read about the cohort of trans-people who are sexually motivated.

But, like a previous poster said, you have the sexually motivated cohort of trans people, who are obviously quite distinct from those who just want to get on with their lives. And you have the cohort of predatory men who may, or may not identify as trans. (Identifying as trans could easily just be a means of gaining access.).

I don’t enjoy collecting data about predatory men. Or reading websites, articles, studies. Cross referencing and applying anything new I learn.

The only damn reason any woman does this because people keep saying it doesn’t matter. So we have to show that it does matter and why. And why it’s not just theory.

Unfortunately, not only does it open your eyes, it’s exceptionally depressing.

Originally, I would check things out and see what feminists said. And would often find myself thinking, ooh, that’s a bit harsh.

But, as things changed and evolved and more and more became clear, and came to light, I realised it’s not harsh. It’s a depressingly and loweringly, rational reaction. Based on time, information and experience.

And the more people like perfectly say it doesn’t matter, the more I will do it until the government listens.

No apologies.

So it's okay that a woman on here expressing mainstream views feels like she is being attacked? Because we all know feminism don't care about how a person feels, it's about whether that person has XX chromosomes. Oh wait...

Oh dear, perfectly. You've been spending too much time in the TRA bubble.

Discussion and debate isn't attacking and hate.

I have peaked to the point that I know identify as a meringue.

The articles posted are straw men because they represent an outlying case that no one can meaningfully defend, but they do not represent the hundreds of thousands of trans people who go about their life without even being noticed.

They are straw men because they do not represent any argument against self ID, Lets not forget we have not even started the consultation and GRA self ID is not in force, yet these things happened. Its a false equivalence to say they will happen more with GRA self ID, Self ID was not a defence for their actions. But this is verging into the debate on Self ID not the MN debating dynamics which is what this thread is about.

I spent Friday full time "debating" and yet it is still not enough for some on here and accuse of flaking and scatter arguments, I walked away because i had real life things that had to be done. Every post was met by 10 new ones, i couldn't read them all fast enough. If i responded to one post there were 10 more by the time I resounded to the second of the first 10. The vast majority were hostile and its impossible to maintain a line of discussion in those conditions.

now

Go ahead and show us the posts that attack you, Perfectly. Report them to MNHQ. (Although personally if I were you I'd want to let any attacking posts stand so that everyone could see how nasty feminists are). I'm genuinely interested to see which posts make you feel uncomfortable.

The articles posted are straw men because they represent an outlying case that no one can meaningfully defend, but they do not represent the hundreds of thousands of trans people who go about their life without even being noticed. They are straw men because they do not represent any argument against self ID,

I think you just contradicted yourself? The whole issue I have with self ID is that it will allow NON TRANS ABUSIVE PISS TAKERS to use it to access victims. Basically appropriating and abusing the identity of those hundreds of thousands of trans people going about their lives unseen. I'm really not ok with that. And you're clearly not ok with that, because you distinguish between the two groups very clearly. So do I. The issue is that self ID doesn't.

The articles demonstrate that those pisstakers WILL exploit the trans protections and that self ID WILL let them. That really isn't an outlying case that no one can defend, that is real actual hard fact with a lot of evidence behind it.

"Thanks for all the insults! Any lurker who sees my posts will know I have been rational, respectful, reasonable and considered throughout. And thanks to the lurkers who pipe up with 'me too!' as playground bullies kick the last remaining bit of life out of me.
This place is a dangerous place for women. Luckily I am quite robust, I can see why others can't hack it."

I think you have been too. Can I ask you to show where you have been insulted, bullied or kicked? Because I genuinely can't see where you have been.

So it's okay that a woman on here expressing mainstream views feels like she is being attacked?

Subjective feelings do not create reality. Objective facts create reality.

No one here has been attacked. Disagreeing with you is not violent, it is not unkind, it is not attacking you. No one has been abusive, no one has 'shouted'. If you are emotionally fragile to the point that you perceive it as attack then you have my sympathy and I'll be glad to support and encourage you to get help with that. But you cannot ask that people don't speak facts that upset you or don't reply to your statements and points of view with their own points of view because they disagree with yours.