Why DO people 'believe' transwomen are women?

[AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth]

Actually why?

Because the act of 'believing' without evidence or logic is cult like ideology to me.

The repetition of 'transwomen ARE women' on twitter, facebook etc is like a mantra of a cult. Like repeating the rosary or something, and the more that it repeated, the more people double down in their thinking.

I really feel bewildered half the time now.

It feels like a cult

Like a cult or religion, I guess people are free to believe what they want.

But we are not forced to believe other people's religious beliefs; why are we being forced to believe that 'transwomen are women' and 'transmen are men', when there is no objective, material truth in that statement

It's the new Reformation, but logical thinkers, not Catholics, are being hounded out and targetted.

It's mind blowing

So are you genuinely saying that girls are being unreasonable if they do not want to change in front of a male bodied person?

Dunno Bertrand, might put solving them on my to-do list after I've sorted the kids and done the laundry ;)

"but you have to look at whether those 100 girls were being reasonable"

Fuck sake. This pretty much sums up your attitude to women

Anyone got that lovely pic of Lila Perry showing off her lady assets under her skirt?

So are you genuinely saying that girls are being unreasonable if they do not want to change in front of a male bodied person?

Nope, haven't made my mind up on that, just throwing ideas around. Gotta run now though.

Right. So you acknowledge that these are serious problems that need to be addressed, but aren't interested in addressing them. And don't worry, I'm sure it'll all be fine.

I am not prepared to accept that it is ever reasonable to place a girl in a position where she has to make a choice between getting naked in front of a person with a penis when she does not want to expose her body in front of that person and having the right to an education.

That's about as stark an example of the insanity as you can get: Women, strip in full view of this person or we won't allow you to graduate from high school.

Stop it Assigned, there's nothing wrong with my attitude towards women. I'm just having the discussion.

I'm happy to try and discuss them but really they're not mine to address (but I will, I'm a busybody) but right now I have a sports event to participate in!

What I do know is that hundreds of school kids wanted segregated drinking fountains along racial lines back in the day, but they were wrong.

Don't jump on this?! DON'T JUMP ON THIS?! This is so offensive, I don't know where to start.

How dare you conflate racial segregation (oppression of an oppressed group) with sex segregation (protection of an oppressed group).

Nobody will ever address these issues. On Mumsnet there are two responses when the are raised. Either "You're all vile transphobes-I just can't bear to stay on the thread with you" or "Sorry, I'd love to stay and chat but I've got a cake to ice"

There is clearly something wrong with your attitude to women if you think 100 girls don't have a right to not be naked with a male teenager against their will. The same male who was walking about with a stiffy clearly showing under her miniskirt.

don't be silly Lang.

So, you think that it's reasonable to suggest that over 100 girls have no good reason to be uncomfortable sharing a space where they'll be naked with a person with a penis who they've known for years. Whereas Lila is obviously being reasonable in making that demand and in handwaving away their insistence that they're uncomfortable as bigotry?

Thanks for answering the underlying question I had about how much trust you have in women and girls and how much you care about their feelings. It's illuminating.

So, over 100 girls who feel like their boundaries are not being respected versus one person who identifies as trans. Trans person still wins, motivations of girls are suspect.

"The belief that someone can magically transition to the opposite sex is most harmful to children - and that's where my 'fear' comes from.
TA pressure groups have actively targeted education, 'normalising' the taking of drugs by children below he age of consent to stop puberty, misusing suicide statistics, undermining basic safeguarding principles and laying down definitions of transphobia that silence teenagers and adults from expressing legitimate concerns about any of this.
I am fearful that pressure groups who wish to change society for their own ends (nothing wrong with that, that's what all pressure groups do) have been allowed privileged access to schools and are rewriting policies in defiance of existing equality laws that are doing actual harm to vulnerable children.
That scares me - and it should anyone who opposes unregistered medical experimentation on children."

Yes I agree with all this guardianfree but we need to be a bit savvy here. The problem with things like the Lily Madigan row is it takes attention away from issues like this, and allows these groups to present themselves as victims of nasty extremist feminists. These are the issues that should be - and are being - highlighted by the press, but we don't want to give ammunition to those who claim this is just transphobia.

I'm a big fan of what Janice Turner has been doing in the Times on this, but I'm also conscious that trans men do exist and for a small section of society, as society is currently constituted, hormones/surgery make their lives possible. As long as they're a consenting adult and fully understand the implications, I have no problem with that. We do need to press - and keep pressing - the issues concerning children and teens - the problem is that at the moment, allowing these groups to cry 'transphobia' is playing into their hands.

So the message needs to be - we have no problems with consenting adults transitioning, (something I believe wholeheartedly) but under 16s are too young to make permanent choices, and puberty blockers are not entirely harmless, despite being depicted as such. They can delay growth and cause bone loss.

The tired old "not allowing biological males into women's changing rooms is just like racial segregation" argument is a classic instance of DARVO - "deny, attack, reverse victim and offender."

Women - an oppressed group partly in virtue of their smaller size and lesser physical strength - have segregated spaces to protect them. Now members of the less-oppressed, physically stronger class are demanding entry and saying they are the victimised ones if we don't let them in. 100% classic reverse-victim-and-offender tactics.

Funny how there's always a cake to ice when an argument is being lost...

"I'd like to move to an entirely gender neutral society"
Why?

Because I think gender is a social construct that is used to oppress women.

When someone says 'girls can't do maths' that's gender.
When the cervical screening programme assumes women are too silly to be able to make a rational decision about their own bodies, and want to be treated like children, that's gender.
When someone says 'women don't want better paying jobs' that's gender.

And so on. Feminism 101 surely? I can't see the point of being gender criticial if you don't want to get rid of gender.

RatRolyPoly

The racial comparison is sleight of hand.

Black people were oppressed by white people. Women are oppressed by men. You are mixing up the groups.

The correct comparison would be white people appropriating black people, saying they were black and telling black people to centre them in their issues. Compared to men saying they are women and telling women to centre them in women's issues.

Claiming that men who identify as women are being oppressed by women is laughable.

You have to have a reason to oppress a whole body of people. And the means.

There is no gain, which is a necessary component of oppression, in women are oppressing men. Even if they could.

Plus women clearly don't have the means to oppress men, trans or otherwise.

If you are failing to see the power dynamic at work here, based on sex, show me all the transmen, (women identifying as men) who are campaigning to be allowed into men's prisons, locker rooms. Show me all the men who are worried that women identifying as men are going to beat them at sport.

Or show me any transman who has any kind of power at all.

Transmen are famous for giving birth (first man to give birth) or being raped (but I kept telling him I was a man).

Dont get it. I had a colleague who was a trans woman. She was treated as a woman of course. All female team. But she was a trans woman, not a woman. You cant make something that isnt.

What is going to happen to the 'rights' of those with agoraphobia? Shall we clear the streets of crowds to alleviate their genuine condition?

The 50% sexual offences stat needs more detail. The could be only 2 trans offenders in the world, one of whom committed a sexual offence. It means nothing in isolation.

The tenuous comparison with racial segregation overlooks the fact that black had no choice to be white and science could prove it. Society still chose to discriminate. That is not the case with trans. A better analogy would be homophobic discrimination where science still isn't sure but most of society has now chosen to accept. I am afraid, rightly or wrongly, there will be no fast track for societal acceptance of trans gaining access to our children's toilets.

Elsie
16 is still far too young to take hormones imo.
I’m speechless at your racial comment. You’ve definitely been drinking too much of the TRA cool aid. This is just one of the bogus and bigoted argument they make. Along with calling mainstream feminists feminazis or transnazis. It’s they themselves, who are acting like the Nazis, not the other way round.

The 50% sexual offences stat needs more detail. The could be only 2 trans offenders in the world, one of whom committed a sexual offence. It means nothing in isolation.

fairplayforwomen.com/prisons/transgender-prisoners

Worked out that there are approximately 113 TIMs currently in the male estate, half of whom are sex offenders. Plus, there will be more already housed in the female estate.

Subsequent data released by HM prisons (forgive me, no time to search it out for a link) revealed that the Fair Play For Women analysis had slightly UNDERestimated these figures.

Re the changing rooms row - at my school there was a communal shower in the gym changing rooms that was never used. The reason given was the water shortage, but somehow it mysteriously never made it back into use after that because basically teenage girls aren't (or weren't back in the day) keen on getting naked in front of other teenage girls. I'm not particuarly self conscious but if I'm trying on clothes in a shop, I want a separate changing room, I'm not prancing round showing everyone my ageing undies.

Yes of course we can't just allow a male bodied person to walk into a changing room for females, particularly if their agenda is to cause trouble - they should be removed because their agenda is to cause trouble. But what is wrong with educational institutions/gyms having gender neutral separate cubicles? Again it would just defuse the whole row which is being used to distract from far more pressing issues, which I personally think are medical transitioning of under 16's. And teens would like it better I'd imagine.

From what I've seen of the Lila Perry story, this is a human being who's trying to get on with their life. If we immediately characterise all transwomen as transitioning because they want to attack women, that's unfair and unreasonable and untrue, and plays right into accusations of transphobia.

Yes some very unpleasant characters have declared themselves to be transwomen, and some are sex offenders. Not all transwomen are identical though.