Can you all just lay off trans people

[cjferg]

There is a difference between sex and gender. Some people's align, other people's don't. Some people are biologically female, and their gender doesn't match that and vies versa. Some people don't have a gender. Why do you care so much?

One of my best friends in school was biologically a female. When he 'came out' to me as trans and explained how he had never felt comfortable in his body all I thought (and anyone who knew him) was that I wasn't surprised and that it made a lot of sense and we all got on with our lives. This was about age 17 and he said he had known this since he was a kid (not saying that any kid who says they want to should be able to willy nilly block their hormones, etc, btw)
It wasn't just about 'presenting as a male'. He was actually a male in a female body.
Yes, when he started presenting as male he felt a lot better. I remember he didn't want to go to our prom because of all the dressing up, etc. until we suggested he wear a tux, and it was amazing to see him so comfortable.
But still he hated having tits and having to wear a binder (can be done safely if you get a proper binder and don't just use bandages or w/e so don't even start)
It wasn't enough to just stuff the front of the trousers.
I repeat, he was a man trapped in a woman's body. Not just a cross dressing woman, not just in an experimental phase.

I have another friend who is biologically a female but they don't have a gender. They are known as 'they' not 'he'or 'she' and knowing them you would in no way think that they are either male or female, again not just about looking a certain way.

I also see a lot of people on here ranting about trans people and they literally only care about transwomen. Genuinely, what has happend to you that you feel so threatened at the thought of someone with a penis being the same gender as you?

Stop ranting about how men are going to use it as an excuse to perv on your kid in a changing room. I'd bet quite a lot that more women will perv on your kid in a changing room than men pretending to be trans will.

Gender is evolving all the time there are no definitive rules to being a man or a woman.

For every thing that you think being a woman is, there will be a woman who disagrees with you.
You say that being a woman means having a uterus - does that make people who've had theirs removed for medical reasons not women?

If being a woman means the ability to have babies then does that mean infertile women aren't women?

If you think being a man is the ability to grow facial hair does that mean that men who can't aren't men?

I read about a woman who had poly cystic ovaries and had a luxurious, thick beard and moustache as a result. Does that mean she is a man or less of a woman? Or should she have continued to try and shave and wax it off and be ashamed of it rather than accept herself the way she was and rock the beard?

Seriously, we've come a long way from being a woman meaning you're your husband's property and having to squirt out babies and clean your whole life. Why are you so determined to go backwards?

Stop using the teeny possibility of a man pretending to be trans to invade women's spaces as a vehicle for your hatred and open your mind enough to at least try and understand the issue, because it might be your kid. It might be your dad. It might be your bff 4eva. If that were the case would you ostracise them from your life and declare them a fraud, or have a little empathy and try and support them through something potentially life changing.

drops mic

They can get protection as people who identify as male/female (without being man/woman. Doesn't mean that they are deemed to be women and treated as such.

Head hurts again. I do feel like I'm in wonderland

@sallyarmy1

Well I have a more feminine outlook.
Please explain what a feminine outlook is?

I dress like a woman, talk like a woman, think and feel like a woman.
So do I, because I am a woman.

Far too many feminists emulating men and masculinity out there.
I work in IT and like motor sports, does this mean I'm emulating a man? I also prefer pints of beer over half pints, am I emulating masculinity?

I have done very well as a woman, it has helped that my man is a real man and we both respect each other's roles.
So have I, but please explain what, in your opinion, a 'real man' is; mine has a penis, testicles, an Adam's apple and is balding and is not imaginary. As for respecting each other's roles, he makes a nicer curry than I do, but I cook a better roast dinner. We both share the housework and the gardening. I do the fiddly things that require patience, he does things that require more strength. Try it, you might like it.

How do YOU relate to feminists? Genuine curiosity.....
I'm not sure my sister would call herself a feminist, but both of us think that men and women are equal but different.

Thanks battle and upstart

How is this not blaringly fucking obvious to lawmakers?

Well I have a more feminine outlook. I dress like a woman, talk like a woman, think and feel like a woman.

How do "women" dress?

How do "women" talk?

How do "women" think?

How do "women" feel?

I have done very well as a woman, it has helped that my man is a real man.....

And what is a "real man"? As opposed to fake/pretend/failed.... What ?

As for how I "relate" to feminists - I subscribe to the dictionary definition, rather then how others may present themselves with that label. I am an advocate for women's rights on the grounds of equality of the sexes.

Do you experience gender as an internal mental reality, Rat?

Well I can tell you I didn't feel any different the day I turned 18, the day I became an "adult female human". And I know I didn't feel like a woman for a while after that. But I feel like a woman now; perhaps I was just slow out of the gates :D

On an aside I read an interesting thread by Jack Monroe the other day asking what it meant to be a woman; you know, what does it mean to you to be a woman. Clearly this whole trans thing was already an issue because it was page after page of people banging on about their vaginas. It immediately struck me as odd and completely un-self-aware. Page after page of people actively denying any personal, internal EXPERIENCE of their womanhood that wasn't either the reality of their bodies or their treatment by other people.

Page after page of people actively denying any personal, internal EXPERIENCE of their womanhood that wasn't either the reality of their bodies or their treatment by other people.
Probably because the oppression of a lifetime based on our sex overshadows all else.

Hi, I haven't just done a runner as some people seem to think from me being offline for a day (sorry I was working).

I'm not particularly interested in arguing with engaging in slagging matches on the internet so am disregarding 90% of what's on here, I have however read/scanned the comments here (there are 14 pages I can't read them all) and there is some interesting stuff there that I am very happy to take away and think about. Thanks, for the links/stuff to read.

At least towards the end of the 14 pages there is less laughing at me/calling me an idiot more discussion (does this always happen? I usually close the tab after the first five pages of bitching) which is good to read. I'm always happy to be proven wrong.

Just to clarify, I get that lots of women have suffered horrendously at the hands of men and need to have safe, non threatening spaces. I apologise for sounding like I don't agree with that because I absolutely do. Also I'm sorry for the women are more likely to perv than men pretending to be trans comment, I was angry and it came off wrong. It just seems to me that the amounts of both these people (women pervs and men pretending to be trans in woman's changing rooms pervs) are so tiny, and surely shouldn't be the basis of any argument as to whether trans people should be allowed into woman's changing rooms. Again if you have statistics or whatever disproving this please provide them.

I think that trans issues, like many others, are a bit too complex to be able fix with a few laws (what many of you are saying, I know) and the government, as usual, should be doing a lot more research. I guess they are trying to shut the loud activists up which is the best easy route as far as they are concerned. I suppose that, like many of you have pointed out, this is because women's opinions historically have been ignored.

There are a lot of Catch 22 problems such as transwomen not being able to use women's bathrooms because they may not pass amazingly well and not being able to use the men's because they are wearing a dress (and the other way round of course), that need to be taken into consideration too, not just the proclamations of activists. I feel like they are a bit ignored.

Sorry I know I'm getting a bit long again, but there is much to think about!

"I have no idea whether this is true but the fact that, for most of us, our sexes and genders line up, is not evidence to refute it, any more than those of us with arms can tell amputees that there is no feeling to having an arm"

Your entire argument rests upon a false premise.
You can no more impose an imaginary gender upon others than you can impose an imaginary third arm on them.

My sex has nothing to line up with.
My brain knows I have ovaries because 1. Cognitive theoretical knowledge 2. Irrefutable Evidence and 3. Physical experience

I know it/can evidence it/have experienced it.

Don't confuse knowledge/evidence/experience with desire and delusion.

The earth is not flat.
We do not need to pretend there is credibility to the idea that it is.
We can, and should be able to categorically say 'you are wrong' to a flat earther.
Not suggest that maybe there might be merit, we can't know for sure, none of us have been in space ourselves, blah blah blah

On an aside I read an interesting thread by Jack Monroe the other day asking what it meant to be a woman; you know, what does it mean to you to be a woman. Clearly this whole trans thing was already an issue because it was page after page of people banging on about their vaginas. It immediately struck me as odd and completely un-self-aware. Page after page of people actively denying any personal, internal EXPERIENCE of their womanhood that wasn't either the reality of their bodies or their treatment by other people.

Because biology is actually all that does define you as a woman. And how others treat you based on biology.

There is, for most people, absolutely no 'internal sense of womanhood'

Women know they are women because they have a female body. Not because of some soul or something.

Page after page of people actively denying any personal, internal EXPERIENCE of their womanhood that wasn't either the reality of their bodies or their treatment by other people.

Well of course. What else is there? Aside from these things it's all just human experience, not specific to being a woman. Why do you assume all those women just lack self-awareness. Why don't you believe them when they say they don't experience this?

When you say you feel like a woman, what do you mean by that? Can you describe it?

Oh sally you are silly

Btw, I love that ribbon in your hair.

People 'banging on about their vaginas'. WTF?

Women are raped *because^ they have vaginas. As does the existence of FMG.

What 'internal experience' does a woman have that is not 'either the reality of their bodies or their treatment by other people'?

Jack Monroe started a thread on here last year asking that question 'What is a woman'. It was, as ever for Mumsnet Feminists, a robust, intellectual debate. In the end, she stopped being a transman and said she was female. I believe she may have changed back. TBH, what's in her head is all hers but she clearly hasn't found any peace

How are you justify saying that you want a 'tolerant society' when you completely disregard the concerns, rights, safety and dignity of women?

I completely disregard them? Completely? Unless you're going to tell me that merely saying I think it's perfectly possible to be a "woman" in a male body is to completely disregard our rights I'm afraid I have to disagree. And in fact if that IS what you're going to say I'll have to point out that's quite the leap

The two must not be pitted against each other as mutually exclusive in my opinion, that's a really dangerous way to go.

Page after page of people actively denying any personal, internal EXPERIENCE of their womanhood that wasn't either the reality of their bodies or their treatment by other people

(women pervs and men pretending to be trans in woman's changing rooms pervs)

See for most of us, our issue is with 'self-ID' so its not even a case of men pretending to be transwomen tbh. With self-ID, any male can say he is a woman. Literally any male. No surgery, no hormones, no even changing clothes or anything. So, perverts can explit this in huge ways.

Not many people have issues with genuine transsexual people using the areas of their choice, and things have cracked on nicely up until recently with this. Its when transactivists are actively fighting to have the laws and such (and even the meaning of 'woman) to be any male person who simply says they are a woman, is a woman.

Hell, its transphobic these days to describe a trans person as someone who has sex dysphoria, as dysphoria is not a requirement of being trans, so the transactivists say

Again if you have statistics or whatever disproving this please provide them.

Well. Also sex offenders are vastly reporsented among transwomen prisoners. Much mroeso than male people actually. There was a breakdown of this that I am sure someone will have to hand.

And it was claimed that this was biased and untrue when it came out given it was on a site called 'fairplay4women), but the MOJ confirmed that it was actually correct soon after this.

I dont have time to search right now but I am sure someone has them to hand (I should maybe bookmark all these links)

Yup, Tallulah, that quote is about right.

I have experience of being me. No idea how that experience compares to other people, be they male or female. I know I am a woman because that's just a biological fact. I know how people treat me because they recognise that I am a woman then project their own prejudices onto me because of that recognition. But that's about it. No womanly soul in here, in fact no soul of any sort.

What is a really dangerous way to go is having a protected characteristic of 'sex' and then emptying it of all meaning. This is what happens if you say it's possible to be a woman in a male body. Every sex based protection in the equality act becomes meaningless.

It just seems to me that the amounts of both these people (women pervs and men pretending to be trans in woman's changing rooms pervs) are so tiny, and surely shouldn't be the basis of any argument as to whether trans people should be allowed into woman's changing rooms.
Male predators are a tiny amount, you say? A cursory glance at a newspaper will disabuse you of this notion. Listening to what women say about their experiences could disabuse you of this notion. I have no idea what to say to a person who appears to be either oblivious to what is going on around them or simply lying.

Thats not to say that all transsexual women are perverts btw (I would say probably not many are, with actual transsexual people). Just that..with the current definition of 'trans' including fetishists, it makes perfect sense

Transsexual people need to distance themselves from this 'transgender' umbrella. They are nothing alike and this is causing this kickback

It's interesting you focus on one word Rat.

A man might feel 'he is a "woman" in a male body' but it is demonstrably true that he is not, in fact one.

The consequences of legislating for such a belief are dangerous for women, as has been discussed at length

But you do disregard these consequences, do you not you or are you advocating some other position other than, 'we must believe transpeople's claims as Gospel and do whatever they demand'?

So yes, if that is the case, then yes, 'completely'

Male predators are a tiny amount, you say? A cursory glance at a newspaper will disabuse you of this notion

Male predators who pretend to be trans in order to get into places like women's changing rooms definitely aren"t the regular subject of newspaper reports.