Why are more women not worried about impact of transactivism?

[Scrambledogg]

It is largely thanks to MN that I have been made aware of the gender identification bill and the potential impact of it.

I have been reading more and trying to be better informed.

In some of articles I have read I have noticed the category of 'woman' divided into women and ciswomen. I find it very unsettling that I would be defined as the latter, as opposed to just as a woman.

When I raise this issue with my friends, they are largely unconcerned.

Why are not more women worried right now?

The wider public do not understand this issue or the impact of the proposed legislative changes. When the penny drops, people quickly understand the risks and are very concerned.

Hardly anyone knows the underlying ideology, and goals of trans ideology.
They only see it as a tiny minority of vulnerable confused gay people who need looking after.
It's sometimes hard to get past that barrier, but once it's dropped, it's gone forever.

Years of teaching the public to think that "transwomen" means gay men who have had what they call sex reassignment surgery, I suppose.
Most people do not realize that 80% of men who identify as women prefer to keep their sex organs intact.

We need badass women to stand and not be shaken by the threats, bullying, assaults and accusations from trans activists. We need to get the message out there that this is not a harmless live-and-let-live movement.

Janice Turner is incredible The Times complaints office must have balls of steel.
Mumsnet Towers get their fair share of threats to close them down.

The fact that the most vocal opponents to trans dogma, who haven't simply caved, are still going shows that the threats really haven't got legs to stand on.

It's why the WEP are such an upsetting let down. The caved. We need people with backbone.

They are happy not knowing. They have a life to get on with, they go into denial to survive, or grief. Once you accept what's going on you want to take action.

So many misguided posts on this short thread already! It's not a gay issue, it's a trans issue--for goodness sake. Do some bloody research before you post something as if you know it all! Sick of reading posts on MN by people who know diddly squit!

Because (if they are anything like me) they first looked at the trans agenda and thought that's a lot of people getting wound up about perfectly nice 'trans next door' people. There's no set way to be a woman, but transexuals surely just want to live their lives.
They don't realise that there are different types of trans:

1. there's the old school trans next door types who are thr nice people who have their surgery, transition and just want to get on with life in their assumed sex. (Regardless of my personal views on gender i have zero issue with these type of trans people at all. It sounds like a long process and takes dedication. Nobody is going to do that just for fun. I'm gender critical but you know what as a transwoman I'll embrace you as a woman as long as you acknowlesge basic biology, which most old school trans do).
2. Radical TRA lobby trans. These are the people who think if you perform out of your sex stereotype then ARE trans and being trand mean you ARE as much a woman/man as biological women/men even if you have zero biological or medical transition. And kids should be put on puberty blockers if a boy dresses up as a princess in fancy dress (don't know wjat they'll suggest for the kids dressing up in a Gruffalo onesie!!) Oh and that if a man wakes up and self IDs as a woman he should be able to play in women's sport because he's too mediocre to compete against men. And he should have access to women's spaces. And he shouls be allowed on fenale shortlist.

When people are saying things like 'it's just a bloke in a dress', initially it makes the feminists sound like dickheads because your average person thinks that's a dickish way to talk about group 1 who have really struggled and faced their own battles. The reality is thst for group 2 trans, that's EXACTLY what is going on.

Once people see the difference between group 1 and group 2 and see the impact it is having on women, peak trans starts occuring.

I couldn't agree more with you all.
I simply don't understand how anyone, let alone a woman, can seriously assert that "Transwomen are 100% women" then go around parroting it like it's not the total opposite of reality.

I tried to raise the 'TiMs in sport' issue with a right-on friend. He insisted checks would be made to stop unfair competition. I could feel the discomfort and disapproval leaking off him, so I didn't push it.

It kind of is a gay issue, salmon. Lesbian spaces are being taken over by heterosexual males who feel that they are lesbians, and gender non-conforming children, who may previously have grown up to be happily gay or lesbian are now being told that they're actually the opposite sex.

The undercurrent of unacknowledged homophobia makes it a gay issue.

As to why more women aren't aware of it, there are lots of reasons. At the moment, one of the main reasons is that the debate is being silenced. Sometimes with threats of violence. People are afraid to speak out, because it's at very least socially risky. And as PPs have said, the way that the issue has been framed makes people think that being gender critical is like being homophobic or racist, and who wants to be like that?

Trans people are constantly appropriating the language of Gay Rights Activism.
The man in the article directly compared T rights to LGB rights.

It is a gay issue. They are piggy backed by the T.
LGBT

Because #nodebate has been a successful tool to bully and silence all opposition.
Therefore people don't realise that children are at risk from the online grooming.
Therefore people aren't told that transing children equates to 10 year olds being given drugs that will effectively change their bodies and effectively sterilise many of them
Because trans has been equated with gay so it seems bigoted to criticise this vulnerable group.
Because our politicians are silent and few have the courage to stand up for the rights of children and women to safety, dignity and privacy,

Nope, there are many of the group 1 “old school TS” who are a driving force in pushing the aggressive bullying trans dogma. Unfortunately if you are going to try and assert that a woman is an adult human female then that excludes the quiet, head down minding your own business old school TS too.

It'll stop being a gay issue when people wake up and see being trans is nothing to do with being gay.

Right now it is all deliberately conflated so people who would naturally support gay people automatically support trans ideology without knowing anything about it.

*totally different to. Not, nothing to do with.

I think and hope that Mr nasty Corbyn gets bitten by this, he is already losing female voters. I can see the court cases about ‘women’ being denied things they are a load of trouble makers.

And for my sport everyone competes equally and we wear the same clothes so no problems there!

Because we are made to feel we are bigoted by speaking out. I shared something on FB once and was surprised by the hostility I faced. I felt like I'd shared a Britain first post.

Given that transwhactivists are enormously homophobic, and more particularly lesbophobic, this is a gay issue so it's potentially not us who know diddly squat.

Basically, the reason why a lot of women support this bullshit is because women tend to be socialised to be nice and supportive. And most of the women I know who have been branded TERF or TERD as the young Madigan would have it are nice and supportive of the trans people in their lives. Lying to people or validation their delusional beliefs about themselves is neither nice, nor supportive.

There is also a level of perceived protection for women if they stand with the trans women and their male supporters, almost a Peter Pettigrew phenomenon if you will.

Unfortunately the minute those women put a foot out of line, they are rounded on and attacked themselves. At that point, they either reach peak trans, or capitulate and NEVER do it again with a side order of doubling down on their misogynistic abuse of other women.

There's a whole PhD waiting to be written about this, it's a shame no one would ever fund it.

I've seen this said here before, but for me, it was a case of actively giving myself permission to think critically about this issue. It felt deviant to even start down that road. But when I did the glasses immediately fell off.

I think that a lot of women are self censoring. They bracket transactivism with LGB.

I think there are lots of reasons:-
Its been mixed up with gay and lesbian rights and most people are very supportive of gay and lesbian rights.
They have positioned themselves along side BAME women and a lot of people are supportive of hearing BAME voices.
they presume trans people take hormones and have surgery and can well understand that a 'man' with boobs and a neo vagina is better placed to use the women's changing rooms than the mens
they know a trans person who has transitioned and they are just a normal person who doesn't pose any threat to anyone
they aren't really into sport and haven't really thought about it much. They get muddled up with the intersex position on sport as a lot of press tries to conflate the two.

They don't really understand biology that well.
They believe the gender divide (pink for girls, girl are caring etc) so it makes perfect sense to them that someone can feel like the opposite gender
they think its a small issue. There really aren't that many trans people about so there are bigger things to think about.

I think Maisy has summed up the situation for me as well. Ie. Those who have had the op (due to gender dysmorphia/being born in the 'wrong body), and the No 2 'self- identify' type.

If it wasn't for mn, I wouldn't be aware of the issues.

Recently, at work, we got talking about the use of Mrs/Ms/mx and I mentioned the cis term. No one had heard of this.

I was a teen during the 80s. I don't remember anyone has being openly gay in my school. Even at uni it was fairly uncommon. Subsequently, friends have Come-out, but at a later age. I think on the recent Child of our Time, they said the average age for coming out was 16, but for their parent, was 26+ (may have remembered that wrong). I think what I'm trying to say is that for many people, they have just caught up with the LGB movement, with some No. 1 transsexuals thrown in for good measure, but the new Trans debate is beyond them. They are just not aware of it happening, or don't really understand it.

Or are just getting on with their lives, and don't really have the time or inclination to engage with this debate, or even realise it may affect them.

I heard a spontaneous group discussion on this in a classroom on an adult vocational course recently - people totally convinced that trans women are "born in the wrong body" and universally have or want to have full surgical and hormone treatment to get rid of male primary and secondary sex characteristics and "become" female. Absolute denial that any of them want to keep their working penises.

As the bewilderness says it's about believing trans women are post op transexuals.

Also, they don't realise that changes to the law will affect every single woman and girl in the country. Although the number of trans people is tiny.

Right now it is all deliberately conflated so people who would naturally support gay people automatically support trans ideology without knowing anything about it.

Yes - this used to be me. I was always pro gay rights because that was a stance that made sense to me, but I could never get my head around the "born in the wrong body" thing. I'm a natural critical thinker and was drawn to the sciences from an early age so the idea of it simply didn't fit in my reality. But the dogma seemed to be that if you're ok with gay you have to be ok with trans. So I was. Until DD was born and I joined Mumsnet...and found that I was right first time.