Need some help to argue with pro self Id stance.

[Lovelyusername]

Can someone write up just a couple of paragraphs, that are simple fact and not goady to reply to unthinking accidental pro men can self Id as women.

Along the line of yes, I support transwomen and transmen.
However a biological man cannot be a woman, even if they want to be, it’s sad for them but it’s not possible.
This is leading to the erasure of biological women as a cohort and stopping important conversations around gender and self Id.

See I can’t do it! Can’t write for toffee!

Plus the primogeniture clause
Plus can we think of a ‘phobe’ Term to throw back at the ‘no debate’ people?

I am not transphobic, I am gender critical. Why the hurry to change the law?
To shout transphobe and TERF is to be biologyphobic.

If you are talking about self-ID, I think it’s best to stick to that, rather than getting into a debate about whether transwomen are women.
(You can side-step it with a statement like “We can all agree that transwomen with a GRC are legally women” because they are, which leaves unspoken the fact that they are not women in any other sense.)

You could call the no-debaters “debatephobic” perhaps!

This isn't "factual" as such but I've resorted to
"Look, I'm just not religious. I respect that other people have their beliefs and I'll be respectful of that, and polite, but I don't appreciate people trying to convert me.
I also draw the line when a belief system that clashes with my own gets to the point where I am threatened, called names, indulted or intimidated to say what I think. That's not on.
I will never believe it is possible to change sex"

Not sure if it's relevant to your debate but honestly I find trying to Talk Actual Real Facts leads to being insulted by nodebaters

Fear of talking about female biology is gynaephobic. Male biology is Androphobic.
All biology? Factophobic?

As Patodp says, you will probably get insulted whatever you put, so don’t imagine you can come up with some combination of words that will make the scales fall from their eyes. That Koolaid is strong stuff!

I was called a TERF and a Nazi last night despite starting a facebook post with “Transwomen with a GRC are legally women and no one can argue with that..”

I stuck to the issues around self-ID. I didn’t misgender anyone or mention AGP or say transwomen have dicks or call them men. I just explained, politely, why many women and transwomen are concerned about self-ID. Despite my extremely calm and measured arguments, I’m still a Nazi and a TERF, apparently.

The nodebaters really are quite incredible! But they are doing our work for us in exposing their hate-filled irrational mindset, so bring it on!

'Men need to work on abolishing racism and sexual violence, before they start dictating to people at risk how they manage that risk'.

Lovelyusername

You explained yourself excellently!

Sometimes, the best you can hope for is that the distinct lack of actual argument from the other side, reveals the lack of credibility to lurkers.

And yes, getting involved in a conversation about why transwomen aren't women will just end up increasing your alcohol intake.

Stick to self ID. And that, as an administrative exercise only, it will allow people who are not trans, any predator, chancer, paedophile, rapist, to identify their way to their victims.

Point out that predators go to extraordinary lengths to access their victims. Drilling holes in walls, secreting cameras, becoming a scout leader, grooming children for years.

And that with self id, the crimes of voyeurism and peeping Tom will simply cease to exist.

Ultimately you can ask whether they believe sex segregation should be abolished. Because that is what it means.

If they say yes. You can point out that when women did not have public facilities of their own, they simply did not participate in public life.

I'm sure some people fail to grasp this in a non-abstract way.

In their head, they are mixing quite happily with the opposite sex.

But in real life, that doesn't happen.

Because the men who are quite happy to discomfort women, are the very men you don't want in there. They are the very men who will make a point.

Look what happened to Hampstead women's swimming pond. There is a woman's, a men's and a mixed pond. But the fuss that the transwoman kicked up was because they couldn't access the woman's. Despite having a mixed.

I'm watching tans activists online try to make the issue confusing, complicated and difficult. It isnt.
Dont let them frame the debate the way they want top and stick to the facts.

''If women wanted to have mixed sex spaces and services they would already exist.
Trans people can make their own gender inclusive spaces and services. People who feel comfortable with that can use them. That way is fair on everyone.

Why wont they do that?''

I stuck to the issues around self-ID. I didn’t misgender anyone or mention AGP or say transwomen have dicks or call them men. I just explained, politely, why many women and transwomen are concerned about self-ID. Despite my extremely calm and measured arguments, I’m still a Nazi and a TERF, apparently.

That's part of the reason I never use the term "transwoman". You will get called a TERF anyway. You won't convince those people. It's much clearer what's going on to others when you don't pander to the idea that they are in any way women.

“We can all agree that transwomen with a GRC are legally women”

I would not concede that much. Once you've done that, you're basically left arguing a corner for what technicalities men should have to go through before they can 'become women'.

You'll have a much stronger argument if you do not bend to the manipulative TRA framing and just Tell Everyone Real Facts instead.

Try:

Men can never be women, because being a woman isn't a 'feeling', it's a material reality.

A woman is an adult human female, a man is an adult human male. Sex is an objective reality, 'gender' is sex-role stereotypes. We should not be creating laws around sex-role stereotypes or subjective feelings in people's heads.

The very existence of 'sex' as a legal category depends on that category having an objective meaning. Self-ID of legal sex makes sex meaningless under the law, which means all sex-based protections are rendered useless. If any man can declare himself a 'woman' with no medical transition or diagnosis needed, then any man can enter women's change rooms, transfer to a women's prison, play women's sports, etc. Lawmakers need to consider the impact on the whole of society of this change, not just the feelings of individual trans-identified people.

Suggest that an analogy would be if we allowed everyone to 'self declare' their age: all our laws which depend on age as a coherent category would be rendered useless (age of consent, pension age etc). Would people be happy with that? Does that sound like good law? Why do it then for sex? There is no benefit to women or society by rendering sex a subjective 'identity' which can only be determined by the individual. It's bad law.

It's possible to support trans-identified people's right to live free from discrimination, without supporting gender identity ideology, which is sexist and incoherent, and unworkable in law and policy.

Instead of being defensive, try going on the offensive and asking trans cheerleaders:

Define 'woman' please. If you're so sure that male people can be women, what is a woman? How can a 'girl' entity exist in the body of a male child? How are you defining 'girl'? Should a male child have his puberty arrested and his gonads shrivelled by cross-sex hormones on the basis of the unevidenced belief that he has a 'girl' entity inside him? Because that is what is currently happening to children diagnosed as 'trans'.

Link to 4th wave now article as a source:

4thwavenow.com/2017/01/26/shriveled-raisins-the-bitter-harvest-of-affirmative-care/

Note that there are NO objective diagnostic criteria for declaring a child 'trans', and that transgender activists have mounted vicious campaigns against doctors who have urged caution in medically intervening in children's developing bodies. Say that adult transgender activists campaign for ever more extreme interventions in the bodies of children while refusing such treatment for themselves. Point out that most trans-identified men keep their penises and have little to no dysphoria about their male bodies - hence the reason they are pushing for self-ID.

Ask why trans activists are campaigning to demedicalise trans identity for adults, while at the same time promoting extreme medical interventions for children, including drugs that stunt their bone and brain growth and leave them sterile. Say that anyone cheerleading for 'transitioning' children should consider whether an ideology which promotes sterilising children who don't conform to sex-role stereotypes is really a progressive one.

Don't let people guilt trip or sidetrack you by wielding fake suicide stats or murder rates. Stick to your arguments about the unworkability of self ID and the sexism and incoherence at the heart of trans ideology, and if people get emotional and aggressive (which they likely will), ask them to define terms. Say, I feel like we are using different definitions of the same words here and it means the argument isn't productive. What do you mean when you say:

Woman
Man
Sex
Gender
Gender identity

Can you define any of these in a non-circular way? For instance, it's no good saying that gender identity refers to one's internal sense of oneself as a man or a woman, if you can't actually define what a man or a woman is.

Well, this turned into a long post, but I guess it needed to be to cover all the main arguments/talking points

Finally, if you find arguing too nerve-wracking, just link to sources discussing trans ideology in a critical way, so interested lurkers can learn more. Eg, 4th wave now or this excellent article by Helen Saxby:

notthenewsinbriefs.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/when-womens-rights-are-notadebate/

Another excellent trans-critical 101 by Charlie Rae:

thefifthcolumnnews.com/2017/08/are-there-good-reasons-to-oppose-transgenderism/

Or any Mumsnet thread which you feel discusses the issue in a constructive way

Excellent post Donkey

Donkey, I absolutely agree with pretty much everything that you say but the reality is that transwomen with a GRC are legally women. You may not like it - I don’t like it! - but that’s the way it is. I am not conceding anything to state this. It’s just a fact. We should fight to change the law but it seems pointless to deny its existence.

The OP was asking about arguments against self-ID, so it’s safest to sidestep arguments about whether “Transwomen are women” and stick to the very obvious problems of self-ID.

If we can get people to see that self-ID is problematic, they may then start to think more deeply about the whole trans agenda and realize it’s not the harmless live-and-let-live issue we all thought it was a few years ago. The JJ fundraiser is only about the issue of self-ID, for example. I think it’s a useful way to ease people in the bigger debate.

Moth, I'm not denying that that is the law as it stands, I just don't think it's wise to lead with it as an argument against self-ID. It is a defensive stance that opens one up to derails about the ins and outs of the GRC process, and it mollifies no one on the pro trans side. Even if you concede on 99 per cent of the TRA agenda, they'll still call you a TERF and a bigot for daring to question the 1 per cent.

What I'm saying is don't be defensive, don't argue within the rigged framework established by TRAs, go on the offensive and argue cogently for the need to prioritise the objective reality of sex over subjective 'gender identity'.

Also put them on the back foot by bringing up the illogic and sexism inherent in 'gender identity' ideology and the unethical sterilisation of children. Force the pro-trans people defend the agenda they are pushing, instead giving them free rein to paint everyone else as bigots. Most people who are unthinkingly pro trans don't really understand what they are supporting. Educate them (and lurkers). Almost everyone is horrified to learn what is being done to children in the name of 'gender identity'.

I understand what you’re saying. I think we are coming from the same place, just with different ideas about tactics. If I’m involved in a debate about self-ID, I would stick to self-ID and not try to extend the argument to include everything. I think that’s a pragmatic approach. That is not to discredit any of the points you’ve raised.

If we can get people to see that self-ID is problematic, they may then start to think more deeply about the whole trans agenda and realize it’s not the harmless live-and-let-live issue we all thought it was a few years ago

I agree. Self-ID is the main and most urgent issue here, and also the easiest to attack. But we should do so within a logical framework that does not concede that men can 'become' women. Another way to approach this is to point out to people that 'transgender' does not mean 'transsexual'. Transsexual means a person who has had surgery and hormones to alter their body, most men identifying as 'transgender' have done no such thing. Most people just assume that trans means transsexual, and that's why they don't grasp the dangers of self ID. We can point this out without conceding that surgery makes a man into a woman. This is also a way of bringing up the fact that most trans-identified men keep their penises. Another salient fact that the public is mostly in the dark about.

A short sharp paragraph that is hard to argue with: sex segregation for the purposes of privacy or sports or public accommodations should be based on the reality of the sexed body, not 'feelings'. Otherwise you might as well not have sex segregation at all. Accommodations can be and are made for transsexuals, but self-ID completely disregards the reality of the sexed body.

If someone argues that TW have 'female' bodies (and they probably will), that is a good opportunity to point out that most trans-identified men do not significantly alter their male bodies - hence the reason they are pushing for self-ID in the first place.

It's really really not a good idea to concede that trans identified males are ever women. It's a stupid law, yes and we can't do anything about that at the moment. But without making the situation crystal clear you will find it hard to argue why we shouldn't have self ID. You're forced to defend a position people will see as narrow minded. People will not see that poor women trapped in men's bodies should be denied their rights on a slippery slope issue. You have to clarify that trans identified males mostly have no surgery and are indistinguishable from any other man who just says he's a woman to get into women's spaces. And in fact there is no differentiation by trans orgs. "Transgender" includes many fetishistic cross dressers.

The JJ fundraiser is only about the issue of self-ID, for example.

That's because they have had legal advice that that point could be won under existing law. There is also provision made within the law to exclude trans identified males even when they have GRCs from some situations. Because it is recognised that they are not in fact biological women aka female.

Oh, everything about trans stuff is just completely exhausting and I’m starting to wish I’d kept my thoughts to myself...

I am only talking about my personal tactics. I am not defending the law! I am not comfortable to start on about cocks and ovaries the second someone mentions support for self-ID. I - personally - think I will have more success if I take a gentle approach, as part of a longer term strategy to win people over. If diving straight in and unpacking the whole charade works for you, great! Go for it. I am just saying what works for me. The OP sounded nervous, so I thought my approach might work for her. Maybe she’s actually more confident that she sounded and is happy to discuss genitals. If so, great. Whatever works.

However a biological man cannot be a woman, even if they want to be, it’s sad for them but it’s not possible.
This is leading to the erasure of biological women as a cohort and stopping important conversations around gender and self Id.

What she wrote in the OP was fine. I disagreed with your advice to her, that's all. You're obviously free to use whichever tactics you like. It's not personal. I personally think the approach you suggested is unwise and I gave several reasons why, as did others. I wasn't saying it just to be awkward.

Oh, everything about trans stuff is just completely exhausting

Well, I think we can all agree on that much

But seriously, it is exhausting and often scary and I salute you and all women who put themselves out there to argue against the TRA line. It's ridiculous that we are in a situation where it's become risky to say that reproductive biology exists and is socially meaningful, but these are strange political times we are living in. Keep going, everyone, take sanity breaks if necessary

This is my question:
Can you mandate belief?
Can you codify into law the idea that some people can mind over matter themselves out of material reality and into the opposite sex, and must be treated accordingly?
It is like transubstantiation. A belief that no one actually believes.
Will you allow people to drug and mutilate children based on this belief that no one believes?

Thank you all! It is all interesting and all helpful to the debate. It helps clarify people’s feelings.

Personally I am happy that a transwomen can be a woman, if they have have a GRC and surgery. The people I have met in such a circumstance are much happier now, and interestingly dress in a a much more low way than the usual transgender woman. For me that is OK. Cut off the penis and you can come in.

It’s taken me about 9 months of thinking about the issue to get to clarity. A man in a dress is not a woman. A person on the street asking if they support trans rights will say ‘yes’. Education is required here, and the transactivitists have very skilfully almost removed the ability to discuss the above. So basically you have to say ‘a self id’d woman could be a man in a dress with a penis’. Are you ok with that person in your changing room, refuge, prison, gym women only session, medical ward, and with the fact you won’t be able to point out they are a man.