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

We did not create and we are not maintaining the cultural allocation of status based on bits. We are pointing it out because we object to it.

This. A hundred times this.

I want to be treated as a full and equal human being . Not woman, not man, just a person in my own right. But society keeps telling me I shouldn't be treated as a person because of my bits. Not because of what I wear, how I "present", what my interests are, what I do for a living, what I do in my spare time, who I have sex with. Just because of my bits - i.e. genitals.

And I need to be able to name that situation for what it is - sex discrimination - not have it obfusticated and rendered invisible by a bunch of blokes who dearly wish they had been born women (and my sincere condolences on that, it must be a hard furrow in life to hoe) or who believe they are women (which I consider delusional, but hey, so long as that doesn't impinge on my space and my rights, knock yourselves out, it's a free country - I only get antsy when it does infringe on my rights).

Feelings are just feelings. We should respect each others' feelings as far as we can without giving away our own rights or harming our own wellbeing. This is manners though and should never be legislated upon.

So freedom of religious expression, no legislation for that? Sexual orientation, it's just a feeling; there's no materiality to it after all. "Feelings" are really quite central to humanity so of course they will be present within law.

WE HAD COMPROMISE

We had a perfectly workable 'honour system' for things like toilets and changing rooms plus useable sex based exceptions for things like refuges and prisons. We had that for years and it worked until transactivists fucked it up. What was extended as a courtesy to the tiny number of transwomen with gender dysphoria is now demanded as a right by any man who says so.

So go and talk about compromise and tolerance to the transactivists because 'transwomen are women, I'm right and you are wrong' is their starting point and unlike us, they will enforce their view with rape threats, death threats, doxxing, destruction of people's careers and businesses and actual physical violence.

Then come back and tell us how it went.

Believing in a flat earth does not make it true no more does agreeing with you mean you are correct in your bliefs.

I could say the same to you.

You're missing the point on religious discrimination, totally and utterly, Rat

It's all about saying "you have the freedom to practice your religion, that's fine", not about having the right to say "and you can impose your religion on others."

Letting people dress how they want, call themselves what they want, without fear of discrimination, harassment or violence - that's religious freedom, and tolerance of trans people. And I fully support that.

However what TRAs want is biological males in female spaces - prisons, shelters, rape crisis centres, women's sports. Punishing "misgendering" with fines (Canada, New York State). That's like a priest demanding the right to be given a platform to preach the gospel in a meeting of the humanist society. That's not freedom, that's reintroducing laws against blasphemy and heresy. That's like demanding people recite the catechism or be shunned or threatened with punishment. The total opposite of tolerance, in fact.

Hey, pencils, I'm not arguing with you about that! I'm taking the word of everybody on here that TRAs are over-zealous and abusive arseholes who only care about themselves. But I don't agree that the right way to fight it is to insist that "transwomen are men" and that any decisions made should be on the basis that, whilst some may be harmless, they are universally deluded. Or lying.

Rat

Not sure how you can still not see it, I pointed out very clearly where your contradiction in your own argument lies.

You are so one-sided that you fail to see the logical conclusions of your arguments. Won't repeat myself but already in the very next post where you now also claim to think your thoughts through, you proclaim that: "I certainly don't think "transwomen are men, I'm right, you're wrong" is the starting point of tolerance."

If you had thought about the implications of this you would have realized that I can now just reply to you: "I certainly don't think "transwomen are women, I'm right, you're wrong" is the starting point of tolerance." And the fact of the matter is, the status quo is that female humans are women. Not men wanting to be women. And yet the latter are the ones shouting "trans women are women" and wanting everyone to agree with them or be killed (and yes, an awful lot of TRAs wish pain and even death on those that do not accept "TW are women", whereas I am yet to see any woman wish death in return), but you attack those women (and men) saying "transwomen are transwomen".

So again, you accuse gender critical feminists of being intolerant and try to force them to be tolerant (no matter how much you are denying it, that is what you're doing, your words say otherwise) while at the same time not applying the same standard to TRAs.

Not to mention that on a purely factual basis, women are right and trans women are wrong. Even if one accepts gender as self-identifying, gender and sex are not the same thing, and there are clear differences with regards to sex between women and trans women. Biological differences that cannot be operated away.

ps "I'm only looking for comprises that refect tolerances; allowing them to live within their reality" sorry but that is exactly the problem. You feel so sorry for them that you are willing to trample over others just so they can live in their reality. And that is dangerous. Not to mention, just because it is their apparent reality, doesn't mean we should bend over backwards to affirm it. Especially with children.

Not a good analogy.

Religious discrimination law protects people from discrimination on the basis of the religion they have.

So for example I cannot, quite rightly, fire Mary because she’s a Christian or refuse to hire Ahmed because he’s a Muslim.

However if Ahmed then verbally abuses Sarah and attacks her because she’s doing something he finds offensive under his religion he is breaking the law. The right to religious freedom doesn’t allow those with religion to remove or transgress on others rights.

A better analogy might be the mayor of Vienna telling he local female populace to not go out in the evenings and dress modestly so as not to inflame the religious males who molested them on NYE. That’s removing the rights of one group to prevent a meaningless offence to another.

Rat, hi. You said earlier that gender is in the mind. Do you believe trans people feel as though they are in the wrong body (the old-style transsexuals) or just 'in the wrong gender'? If the latter, how exactly does that work?

It is always complex when there are two sets of competing 'rights', especially when both sides of the debate only see one set of them.

To some extents, there is no way out using pure logic and legislation has to be based on feelings to some extent. This has always been the case.

To me, it is clear that 6'3 Brenda (ex Bob), with all his bits and full complement of testosterone, who is in a 'lesbian' relationship with a woman should have zero access to female spaces.

Equally, female sport should be reserved for those born as females with XX chromosomes. Tough for transgender and even intersex, but no tougher than for the rest of us not blessed with the genes to be a professional sportsman or woman.

In addition, it seems that there are also female safe spaces where transsexuals should just accept are there for born females only (shelters, rape crisis centres etc).

On the other hand, it would seem churlish to deny the use of female changing rooms and bathrooms to someone who no longer has a penis and has very little circulating testosterone. There is no real reason that changing rooms need to be single sex, except maybe at certain times of the day when it is very quiet, and many countries have unisex changing rooms and bathrooms already.

I think that there should be some test before a transgender person is granted these rights. I don't think self declaration is sufficient. This is a case where women's rights should trump transgender rights, otherwise it just opens the field up to pisstakers.

I think it is a shame that there seem so many high profile MtoF transgender people who love to trumpet their new found womanhood and tell women how to 'be a woman'. There are plenty of very low profile transgender people who just want to lead as normal and quiet life as possible in their assumed gender. I think most of us knew at least one of these generally quite sad people before the current 'craze'.

Rat argues very cogently, if only people would read what she is actually writing and stop arguing against straw men.

@RatRolyPoly "Hi Italiangreyhound, for the most part we agree!" Great.

"This seems to me to be the problem; if your sex, your innate gender and the social expectations of you all align you probably wouldn't notice anything at all! If you don't subscribe to gender expectations, you probably notice that, but if your sex and gender align you probably won't have cause to remark upon your innate gender."

I'd be gobsmacked if posters on Mumsnet feminism boards were likely to say their "sex and gender align"!

Feelings are not legislated for no.

Religious expression is protected because it's tangible. We can see if someone is wearing a turban or hijab or a crucifix. If someone has religious dietary restrictions or keeps a day of the week holy that has material reality. Religious and other belief is also protected but crucially, we don't have to agree with the beliefs of others even if that hurts their feelings. We just have to not discriminate against people with beliefs different to our own.

Sexual orientation is absolutely not just a feeling FFS! Of course there's materiality to it! LGB people actually date, have sex with, marry, set up home and start families with people of the same sex and they face discrimination at every stage. Dismissing sexual orientation as 'feelings' is the sort of dangerous nonsense that ends with telling lesbians to work on their prejudices until they can accept dick. Nevertheless it is still legal to be opposed to gay marriage or gay couples adopting or to believe that being gay is against god's plan and that gay sex is a sin. Just as long as you don't discriminate against LGB people.

The only time feelings come into it is if the expression of your feelings constitutes harrassment.

And the fact of the matter is, the status quo is that female humans are women. Not men wanting to be women

So again, you accuse gender critical feminists of being intolerant and try to force them to be tolerant (no matter how much you are denying it, that is what you're doing, your words say otherwise) while at the same time not applying the same standard to TRAs.

The ONLY reason I'm not saying that to the TRAs is that I'm not talking to them. I assure you I would hold them to exactly the same standards

Not to mention that on a purely factual basis, women are right and trans women are wrong.

This remains debatable, and even if you've made up your mind that doesn't mean there's a consensus.

Not to mention, just because it is their apparent reality, doesn't mean we should bend over backwards to affirm it. Especially with children.

I don't feel sorry for them, and I agree about children. But I hardly think that accepting the still debated possibility that gender may be an innate thing as well as a social construct is hardly bending over backwards.

Oh come on pencils, if you want to look at it like that then there's plenty of materiality to trans; they bloody live like they're trans, don't they!

So you think it's better to not speak the truth, because others don't like to hear it? And you gloss over the fact that it is only said by us in response to the "TW are women" mantra.

It is not debatable. Biology is reality.

Allowing them into women's spaces just because they want it, is in fact bending over backwards for them.

And the fact of the matter is, the status quo is that female humans are women. Not men wanting to be women

Fuck it, forgot to reply to this. The status quo is that. But not for everyone. Some people don't think they're "men wanting to be women". That's rather the point.

RatRolyPoly

If you are still thinking that there is an internal sense that some people have as to whether they are male or female, but other people don't, or don't realise it, because they align, maybe read about some detransitioning stories.

You might change your mind to considering it less of a reality and more of a disorder, compounded by society's expectations.

You might also wonder why detransitioners are abused and vilified and research into detransitioning is prevented.

It's a serious issue. Consequences to transitioning can be severe.

It should be treated, but not accommodated as reality in any way.

guideonragingstars.tumblr.com/post/149877706175/female-detransition-and-reidentification-survey

www.transgendertrend.com/detransition/

Rat argues very cogently, if only people would read what she is actually writing and stop arguing against straw men.

No. Rat has everything the wrong way around.

Religious freedom and not being discriminated against for your faith is what trans people have NOW.

Everyone else forced to abide by a religious catechism is what transactivists are arguing for and would turn the UK into a theocracy - like Iran.

they bloody live like they're trans, don't they!

Yes. They don't live like they're women.

Larry your post of 19.14 is pretty much the law as it stands at the moment, and your endorsement of it makes you a raging TERF just like the rest of us

Also it's very much not the position rat is advocating. I've seen her on a number of threads now. A lengthy one on women in sport for example. 15 stone, 6'3" transwoman in the front row of the scrum in women's rugby - I think she'd be fine with that.

Just fyi I believe I have a soul or spirit (I'm Christian) but I don't believe my spirit has a gender.

On the contrary, larrygrylls . Every argument Rat has put forward for days is either specious or self contradictory.
I do not know if she is dishonest or thinks we are stupid but I have no more patience for it.