If you think mn is strongly transphobic....

[midgebabe]

I find it very unfair to be accused of transphobia when I am not actually worried about trans people as such. I am worried about how bad men might abuse legislative changes . I am worried about giving bad men more opportunities . About how people might be able to pretend to be trans. I suspect this is a threat to both biological women and trans women.

Can some one tell me why it is OK for my teenage sons to be the victim of a predatory man in a changing room but not my teenage daughters?
Or why it's OK for a vulnerable male 18 year to be in prison with violent offenders but not a vulnerable female?

This is a terrible problem. The law change under consideration will make it worse.

Given that people have trained to be doctors and sports coaches at least partly to gain a supply of victims I don’t see it as especially far fetched a man might just say “I’m a transwoman” - doesn’t take much effort does it ?

Will this be a problem in the future? Transgender is such a well known issue nowadays. Will children who think they are wrongly gendered simply reassign in their teenage years.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=d3M2kd_VmeM

But by this argument, they already have unfettered access to boys. Which we deal with by making predatory behaviour illegal and training our children to be aware of it, report it, develop a bit of streetwise-ness, look out for each other etc.

It's not OK - and it won't get any better by granting predatory males the right to be in female spaces.

Again - why is it women being told they're transphobic for not letting males into the female space, and not these predatory men being called transphobic for being predatory males?!?! It makes no sense, the anger is pointed at people trying to protect themselves, and it should be pointed at the people they're trying to protect themselves from!

Also - no-one's ever said all men are violent, or they are naturally predisposed to it, we know that not all men are predatory, we know men don't have to be predatory - but something in society is making them so - and we have no way to tell the difference. Again, go after these predatory males rather than blaming the people naming the problem.

Kangar00 I suppose it depends on whether you are 100% confident that a child who says "I think I should have been a girl/boy" really is transgender. And what the fall-out from getting it wrong is. Puberty blockers have fairly horrific side-effects (loss of bone density for instance) and cross sex hormones can lead to infertility.

There's an increasing number of young women in their twenties realising that no, they weren't actually trans, they were young women who had dysphoria about their sexed bodies (not uncommon in adolescent girls who suddenly find that their maturing bodies are gaining them all sorts of hyper-sexual attention from male sleazebags that they don't want), or who were lesbians in socially conservative families, or who were trying to escape child sexual abuse. They realise this, unfortunately, once they have deepened voices, body hair, sometimes mastectomies and hysterectomies.

At the moment the "affirmation only, any counselling is tantamount to conversion therapy" recommendations being foisted on psychologists and therapists mean that it is very hard to do the sensible thing, which is to support your child in exploring who they are, while holding off on any irreversible medical changes until they are mature adults who can give informed consent.

I want gender non-conforming children not to be told they are in the wrong body and sterilised, and for women to retain their right to sex segregated sports, prisons and refuges. If this is considered transphobia then so be it.

Debate on mumsnet and the internet generally either boils down to people making the same sensible points over and over again, or people trolling each other then getting irate about it. The latter makes it almost impossible to sift through. If I can’t be arsed with it and I’m someone who essentially agrees with the general view on here how do people expect to change opinions? A Twitter war is not the way to find sense in a complex debate.

I confess that I did not expect the "you women talk too much" accusation from someone who chats on MN.

Will children who think they are wrongly gendered simply reassign in their teenage years.

'Simply' reassign? There is nothing at all simple about this process even for the tiny few children for whom this is the best outcome.

I think its a mix and you cant really say 'We' as though everyone on mumsnet has the same view. There are people talking about about trans issues in every which way on here, and yes there are quite few people who arent just concerned about the impact of trans activism but are actually transphobic and insist on misgendering etc

@PencilsInSpace I suppose I meant it Isn't as confusing. I'm not sure! I'm writing a post rather than my thesis so didn't edit or proofread but happy to accept that 'simply' might not have been the most appropriate word. I just wanted to add another perspective as to how things might look different in 10/20 years time

The vast majority of the time on here, 'misgendering' is not done out of transphobia, it's done for clarity. So much of this debate hinges on language. Law is made out of language. Half the reason we're in this mess is because the current law (GRA and EA) fudges language.

We're talking about changes to the law that will impact everybody, but which will overwhelmingly disadvantage women and girls. We can't afford to fudge it again.

Im not sure it is the vast majority of the time. Ive seen some people arguing that it is fine to call a trans woman a man to her face 'because feminism' like its some kind of stand and not just a really horrible upsetting thing to do to someone.
Ive seen that a few times on here actually.

I think the "Trans Theme Tune" thread is childish and transphobic. On balance more childish than transphobic but certainly not helpful to make your point.

My question remains:
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?

Im not sure it is the vast majority of the time. Ive seen some people arguing that it is fine to call a trans woman a man to her face 'because feminism' like its some kind of stand and not just a really horrible upsetting thing to do to someone.
Ive seen that a few times on here actually.
We have been conditioned to lie to accommodate men's beliefs about themselves all our lives. I stopped doing so about forty years ago, and have no intention of starting again. I have no phobia regarding males and their dominance displays. I am indifferent to them.

I think in 10/20 years time we'll have a lot of detransitioners, mostly female, whose bodies and fertility have been irreversibly damaged. There are already growing numbers of young women detransitioning but research into this is apparently forbidden.

I'm more than a tad pissed off. I referred to L Madigan as a he in another thread and it was deleted. I was not answering to a personal post by LM so was not rude. I have no reason to believe that Madigan is anything other than a male other than his say so. WHY can I not use my language ?

Sadly you cannot be pro-women’s rights without someone screeching at you that you are a terf/transphobic/anti-trans/bigot.

It’s bollocks.

@Hackedoffwoman I think it is because MN is required by law and policy to comply with Madigan's claim that they identify as transgender.

Men used to call Feminists Man Haters and now they call Feminists transphobic man haters. Every generation men tell us that women saying no to men is a hate crime.

Are they though? We on the whole have no idea if Madigan has a GRC or not. I have yet to see any ruling on pronouns, happy to be corrected.

Are you talking about the current thread about Miranda Yardley windchimesabotage? There's some proper serious debate of the kind we desperately need on that thread. It's not a comfortable read, I grant you. It's not transphobic though, it's a thread full of women and transsexuals fearlessly searching for clarity. And not agreeing on everything, which is absolutely fine.

All I know is that the mods said they would delete accurately sexing or misgendering of Madigan.
We speculated on why.

yes and like the men who call all feminists feminazis you are tarring all trans people with the same brush.
Not all feminists believe all heterosexual penetrative sex is rape and hate men.
Not all trans people believe in self ID and want to gain access to womens refuges and prevent women from using the word 'vagina'

Most people are just trying to protect their own rights to exist.

Consistently misgendering trans people to their faces is like saying they have no right to exist and I certainly believe that is transphobic.

I consider myself to be a feminist and I understand some of the concerns and arguments around self ID. That does worry me and some types of trans activism worries me.
But trans people arent trying to exist just to take rights away from women. They arent some evil force of misogynists. To claim that they are, as a lot of people on here seem to do IS trans phobic.