What on earth is going to happen to women?

[Tinseltower]

I’m actually really worried. In the past couple of weeks I’ve seen Theresa May’s speech on how being transgender is not an illness, on how they will be given equal rights including access to vinerable women’s spaces. I’ve seen labour following suit, criticising Margaret Thatchers speech about homosexuality and likening it to the transgender movement, saying they won’t get it wrong. It’s not the same at all! What is going to happen to women in all this? It seems their rights will be pushed to one side and I’m actually rather worried. Can enough of us stand up to be heard?

Another one willing to help!

labourlist.org/2017/08/owen-jones-to-team-up-with-momentum-in-push-to-unseat-tories/

Owen Jones is joining forces with pro-Corbyn campaigning group Momentum in a push to seize the seats of several current and former Tory cabinet ministers.

The new Unseat campaign will target Boris Johnson, Amber Rudd, Justine Greening and Phillip Davies, all of whom saw their majorities slashed in the general election. Another MP, Stephen Crabb, who has been linked to an organisation which claims that homosexuality and bisexuality can be “cured”, will also face Momentum’s efforts on the doorstep.

Men are naturally stronger than women in some way, so in those fields women will always be met with challenge from the overinflated neanderthal male ego. It's just nature and some things can't be changed, it's how we deal with them.

Under the new self id law you wouldn't be able to say any of this.

It is a transphobic comment.

It's transphobic because

a) you are making a distinction between men and women based on biology and not how a person feels - that's reductive.

Because, under the new law, a man isn't a person with greater strength in any area, a penis and testicles, etc, that will just be the body style that that particular person was born into.

And

b) you are asserting that 'we' will have to deal with 'them' which, not only distinguishes by biology, but denies your cis-privilege - which means that you are ignoring the privilege you have as a person whose internal gender aligns with your body style. E.g. you are a woman in a female style body rather than suffering as a woman born in a male style body.

For clarification:

There will be 2 body styles -

'male' - with eg penis, testicles, testosterone, greater physical strength, who are in charge and have poor impulse control around the 'female' body styled people.

and

'female' - with womb, ovaries, mentrual cycles, breastfeeding needs, less physical strength, who are predisposed to caring responsibilities and domestic chores who will acquiesce to the male body styled people.

Whereas women/girls:

Are sexy; like pink; like glitter; have long hair; wear make up; wear dresses; drink pretty drinks; play with dolls; paint their nails; bake cakes; flutter their eyelashes; enjoy being viewed sexually by men; simper and look to be rescued... (eg stereotypically female characteristics)

And men/boys:

Don't like pink; like blue; have short hair; don't wear make up; don't grow or paint their nails; drink lager/beer; climb trees; play rugby... (eg stereotypically male characteristics).

If a person displays 'woman/girl' characteristics, they are a woman/girl regardless of the body style they inhabit.

If a person displays man/boy characteristics, they are a man/boy regardless of their body style.

If they display characteristics from both categories in different contexts then they will be gender fluid (neither a boy/man nor a woman/girl).

This might sound like utter nonsense to you but that is the new status quo that the TRAs are campaigning for. Women are already losing their jobs/positions for questioning this or asking for clarification about how it will work in specific contexts. Organisations such as Mermaids are already issuing guidance materials for schools based on this model and, I believe, already being bought in to deliver training for staff based upon this model.

Focus on that last bit about Mermaids.... it is probably going to be the reason my DSis leaves teaching! The 'story telling; and gender education sessions Mermaids are already providing to our youngest children is unquestionable, unassailable and very, very scary!

Hm all very twisted and strange here. I will address the original question and rewire my answer accordingly to become more pleasing.
'What on earth is going to happen to women?' We will lose all rights that have been gained over the past century and return to being slaves to men in all aspects. In summary, the inferior sex who are no longer allowed to become Vice Chancellors or successful business women.

I know you think you are being really right on, but there will be no women on boards, apart from the ones who are men as they once ticked a box that said they identified as women, so they HAVE a gender balance of 50% so no problem.

There will be no funding for girls sports or activities, as the boys identifying as girls, need to be centred as they are subject to 'so much more abuse than girls' and they need the support, so the girls just will not get the funding. And yet, on paper, the support looks as if it is going to girls.

There will be no women who will call up women's charities, for support, as there will be a man called Hilary answering the phone, and offering support solely to women will be transphobic. These charities are already changing their policies, right now. Before the change to the law is even in place. Weird how it is the only law that people are willing to implement before it is even put before parliament, don't you think?

Everyone: 'Women - you are as evil as men, see - loads of you are rapists'.
Women: 'Those are men, not women'
Everyone: 'Bigots and transphobes, transwomen are women, don't be stupid. Why are you defending rapists now?
Women: Huh?

I mean, do you honestly think that the likes of Greer, Bindel, Bellos, and all other women screaming out that this is wrong, have just simultaneously turned into bigots overnight?

You will have to try harder.

Most folk in the UK are sensible and here in Scotland transexuals are still an exotic breed who I don't think are going to take over the world any time soon

But, for the umpeenth time, this isn't about transsexuals. There are a number of transsexuals (mtf and ftm) who post on here saying the same things. I'm not scared of transsexuals.

However, I am very concerned about the predatory males who will use this law to enter women's spaces unchallenged. And it will be unchallenged because they will have as much right to be there as anyone with a 'female' style body if they say they are a man. A lack of a dress and the presence of a beard will be irrelevant.

And they won't even have to say they are a woman because no one will challenge them because no one will quite be sure whether they are allowed to or not because they know the law has changed but they're not quite sure of the specifics and the last thing they want to do is be arrested for a hate crime against a transwoman and lose their job. So they'll say nothing and turn a blind eye...

Sorry

*say they are a woman

RavenBrow

Okay, well how do you think we should stop what is happening right now.

How do we keep rapists away from women in prison? How do we stop the likes of Lauren Jeska stabbing her coach in the neck because she refused to provide testosterone samples?

How do we stop Travis Alabanza, who identifies as a 15-year-old girl on nights out, making Topshop change their changing room policy so he can change the teens?

How do we stop 19-year-old male Lily Madigan representing women, as women's officer?

What's your actual strategy?

Or does it just involve heads and sand?

I always find a picture paints a thousand words.

These are not women.

a - this is not inclusivity
b - this is 'well it doesn't affect me'
c - this is what men who are pretending to be women are after - some easy catches.

a - we all get there eventually, but by the time some do, it will be too late
b - sex and gender and sexual orientation are all completely unrelated to each other
c - not a woman.

Most folk in the UK are sensible and here in Scotland transexuals are still an exotic breed who I don't think are going to take over the world any time soon

Anybody who has ever worked in, volunteered in, studied or researched male pattern abusive behaviour understands that the reason we have safe guarding and gate keeping is that the places we don't are magnets for abusive males - whether they wear a dress or not. We also know that abusive males will go to any lengths (training as a priest, doctor, youth worker, etc) to access victims.

Self-ID drops safe guarding and gate keeping and ergo, all women's services will be a magnet for abusive males.

a - what most people think of 'trans women'
b - man crowd funding for their transport after their gigs, because travelling home is only unsafe for 'trans women' aka men.
c - yes dude, feminism is for women. The actual ones with vaginas. Who knew eh?

The fight is already lost. The answer to every grievance in living memory has been more laws, more regulation, a bigger and more powerful state. What happens when you empower the state to this extent and then find that it turns against you? We're about to find out. When you invite the state into every facet of your existence you grant it the power to fuck you over. We still haven't learned this or understood it properly, I'm fact threads on pretty much any other issue are still full to the brim with demands for bigger government, more laws, more power structures with the ability to ruin you in a heartbeat. All of those things are apparently wonderful when we anticipate that they'll be used against our perceived enemies.

I say that the fight is already lost because I don't think we have learned anything. We will lose this one and we'll lose more in the future until we learn that the state doesn't give a flying fuck about it's citizens, at least until such time as the condition of the citizenry begins to threaten state power. We won't learn though. We'll continue with the delusion that things will be much better if we could only get such a person into parliament. If only we could pass more laws and hand over more control to the government.

This is the inevitable conclusion of authoritarianism and never ending empowerment of the state. We demanded this. We insisted upon it, in fact we continue to insist upon it. We've spent years building these power structures and TRAs have made light work of infiltrating them. We should never have built them at all.

I have a mental health issue, so my take on it is a bit mad at times In my darkest moments I think this Trans self ID movement has been orchestrated by Satan himself in preparation for the anti Christ. I think we have already lost and dark times are ahead. Meanwhile society is sleep walking into this and it's going to be a disaster.

When I'm a bit more rational I just think we need to fight as hard as we can and raise awareness so even if it goes tits up, I can say to my future grandchildren, I tried.

As a metaphor, I don't think your Darkest Moments interpretation is all that far from the truth.

It's all a bit 'resistance is futile' if you ask me. The Borg Trans Collective is fast assimilating.

Thanks! so I do make some sense.

Somerford that sounds good but I'm not sure what it really means.

Without laws for women we wouldn't have the vote, rape in marriage wouldn't be illegal, rape would be defined in a very different way in law.... Women wouldn't be allowed to work in many industries / after they were married, and wouldn't be allowed to own property or have any rights over their own children. That wouldn't be any good, would it?

The people who are better off without laws are the ones who are at the top and don't need protecting and that isn't women & children.

Sorry to crash your thread, but I have been away, then snowed in, and have a lot of catching up to do. Would it be possible for some of you to give this thread a visit?www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3185398-Biological-SEX-MATTERS-How-many-mumsnetters-say-aye-to-this-campaign

Sorry to rehash old ground but I found the posts about sea lions really difficult to read. It actually made me feel physically unconformable. It felt like bullying. I don't know why, I just feel I had to say that. It made me really sad and quite shocked really. Sorry, I don't know why I'm writing this.

It does feel like bullying, Sanderz and it is. But not in the direction you think.

Asking question after question without listening to the answer; derailing and diverting the conversation; not answering questions you are asked in order to facilitate a debate and generally refusing to engage in a meaningful manner is an attempt to bully people who are saying something you don't want said into silence.

I'm with Golden on this Sanderz. I'm so bloody sick of every thread on feminism being derailed by the usual suspects. At best it's tiresome, at worst the derailing is an attempt to intimidate feminists so we shut up and go away, it's draining and scary. This is Not just on Mumsnet but everywhere, even my own Facebook page.

I no longer comment on feminist videos on YouTube either because I have had so much abuse even death threats and my account has had attempted hacks. Comparing someone to a sea lion is minor, sea lions are cute anyway - yes I know that's not the point of the meme- so I find it hard to take seriously.

One term of abuse that has now been adopted by main stream media is feminazi, even piers Morgan used the phrase n day time tv. This shows a real shift in my opinion. Plus all the silly bitches on YouTube with their enlightening videos, why I'm not a feminist, why I hate feminism etc and the MRAs turn up to praise them and comment on the size of their tits.

But I'm derailing this thread now! Same theme though.

Was that a familiar poster then? Sorry, I didn't realise. How can you tell the difference? I can understand why someone would ask a lot of questions though, people put a lot of points across in quick succession on here. It must be eye-rolling if it happens all the time though, that's true. I don't know why name calling is needed though when nobody has to reply to any particular poster.

It's the tactics that are familiar not the user names. When I came into the feminism boards here over a year ago I just took everyone at face value and answered questions nicely as well as I could, but week in week out when it's the same thing you start to run out of patience, so I understand now why the old timers on here get a bit snappy.

The most frustrating thing that happens is when someone bounces in and shouts transphobic! Bigots! Etc because they never ever stick around for the questions or back up what they are saying. They never ever answer the questions or make sensible points.

I think that's why pp were suspicious of this poster, they would not reply to any questions or debate the points raised. I'm still very new to this though, like you, so someone else can probably explain this more clearly.