could someone clarify something for me on TG issues please?

[lucydogz]

But can anyone clarify something for me?
I've been following these threads with growing concern, but would be grateful if someone could give me their thoughts.
I sometimes thank that discussion on these threads comes from different standpoints which aren't being articulated but are really fundamental.
1 - fully transitioned TWs should be recognised as women, and treated as such.
2 - they should not be recognised as women - TG should be a separate category.
I think that Self ID is a separate, and really important issue.
I'm of course not trying to say how people should post, and I'm very grateful for those who do, but wonder if we do really have a concensus.
Does anyone know where A Woman's Place stand on this?

1 is probably what many posters would have considered reasonable...

2 is the current thinking having been attacked for questioning the idea that gender = sex and can that sex can be changed, be a choice!

Yes self ID is separate - though it is a useful obfuscation for anyone wanting to stop a woman's voice being heard.

A Woman's Place:

fairplayforwomen.com/womans-place-uk/

www.socfem.net/2017/09/a-womans-place-campaign-launched

I don't think we have consensus, but I don't now how many posters who say a trans woman is a woman are, themselves, women. Though I do know a couple of posters who say that transwomen are men are, themselves, trans women!

A Woman's Place is taking a considered view. They want to keep the criteria for a GRC as it is and they want to strengthen the exemptions so that women can have a voice when they need one.

If a man has a GRC, legally he is considered a woman. It doesn't have to involve surgery.

Some people believe a man who has gone to the lengths of having surgery should be accepted as a token woman.

Some people don't.

The problem with this is the longer it goes on, the more obvious it becomes that surgery, or no surgery, there is a big problem.

There is not a consensus over these details.

I think the consensus is that you can't change sex, men are not literally women, and women should have sex segregation if they want it.

But there are different viewpoints as to the details.

There is no consensus. Mumsnet is not a political party with a manifesto.

In this way MN reflects the real world.

On MN we are all entitled to hold our own views and to air them without attacking others.

In this way MN does not reflect the real world.

No consensus and I suspect that as the TRAs get more bonkers and political parties / businesses / sports get keener to give away anything that women have to TW, many views on this will harden.

I used to feel that having a GRA was OK
The I thought surgery OK
Now I am of the view that trans is a separate category and no man should be accepted to be of the category "woman"

There should be a fight for trans rights (which rights?) which is separate to women's rights and rights of LGB. Women and LGB would support them I believe.

This impingement and taking of things that LGB and women have fought so hard to carve out is unforgivable.

Hi can’t only speak for myself but my own feelings on this are...

1. I think this is where we were, and describes the ‘honour system’ we have been middling along with for years. I felt this was adequate.

I know I’m not actually a woman despite surgery, you know I’m not actually a woman, but we coexisted quite peacefully and out of kindness and courtesy some people would use pronouns etc. Respect and boundaries were important (I personally use/used unisex changing rooms and would use the women’s toilet when I was with women friends but would read the situation, in some cases it wouldn’t be appropriate etc.)

1. This is where I am now. The old honour system is no longer workable as it’s no longer about respect and women kindly accommodating a rare someone with a mental disorder. It’s now about men (cross dressers, AGP’s etc.) demanding acces to women’s positions and spaces, either for sexual thrills or power over them. The word ‘trans’ has been taken over by this larger vocal group, and the word ‘transwoman’ used as part of a mantra to beat women over the head with.

With what is currently happening in women’s sport, politics etc. it feels of upmost importance that I stand up and declare clearly what I am and what I am not.

I am not a woman, I remain a gay biological male who has gender dysphoria and has had extensive surgery in order to change my hated body.

And I couldn’t be more against the current thinking that unless women believe a delusion (that the men demanding they believe probably don’t themselves) it is a thought crime. That unless they ignore irrefutable biological truth they are somehow evil and wrong to want to protect their own rights.

I get the impression WPUK are being pragmatic.

I've seen both 1 and 2 expressed here.

The law as it currently stands doesn't in fact endorse position 1 fully, which is what the exemptions are explicit. Leaving us with the situation that a TW is a W except where actual women need same sex protections etc.

The law that is being proposed moves us to position 1 for any man, and potentially removes the exemptions too.

My position is that it was a mistake to attempt to create the legal fiction in the first place. That creating an exception to the rule risks demolishing the rule, and that the potential harm was not foreseen.

I can't easily think of a situation where the law should recognise a TIM as a woman that couldn't just as easily be described as a situation where sex is irrelevant anyway.

Or to put it another way - any time designating the sexes becomes relevant, it also becomes important to categorise all people according to their accurate sex and not their gender belief.

I also worry about the precedent we set legally when we enable a falsehood to be enshrined in law and penalise those who refuse to accept the falsehood. I think that has implications that reach much further than sex.

"the potential harm was not foreseen."

yes - but feminists have been forseeing it and warning and flaggin issues for years

just no-one listens to them

Nobody ever listens to feminists, do they?!

I'm pretty much where Truscum is. The current movement is a threat to women's rights, to everything we know about child protection, to free speech, and also - irony of ironies - to people with catastrophic dysphoria.

Perhaps we should revert to the original descriptors:

Transvestite: a person, typically a man, who derives pleasure from dressing in clothes primarily associated with the opposite sex.

Transsexual: a person who emotionally and psychologically feels that they belong to the opposite sex.

All this fabricated language and linguistic gymnastics helps no-one

DNAnotGRA

Yes, and neither of whom are actually women.

Indeed - that being my point

We certainly need an alternative solution now.

The makeshift "let's pretend" has reached it's use by date now.
Even for transexuals, this accommodation of pretending that they are not their actual sex came with caveats and could only ever have been a temporary solution.

Pretending a lie is true might help an individual, but the state, the law and the public should never endorse it.

Agree with Truscum

I also think that what the current disastrous situation tells us is that compassionate fudges are too dangerous and easy to exploit.

Truscum

clear brave words - I so agree - thank you

Truscum thank you. I hate being perceived as on the side of the bigots, so posts like your really help. You've out that very clearly and it makes perfect sense. Some great posts on this thread.

No consensus, but time to turn the issue back to the male community for their answers as to how they accomdate all males safely.

I think people have been playing along nicely with turning a he to a she and now the repercussions of this falsehood are biting us on the bum.

Handbrake turn time. It was wrong to define men who felt female as now being female.

There are so many knots in this now that it needs unpicking and back to basics before moving forward.

Do you genuinely feel you are speaking with a female when speaking with a man that has transitioned fully with penis removed?

I don't. I have only met vulnerable males that have gone through that complete process that certainly bring out one's protective instincts. (The self ID bandwagon are politically obsessive in my view and muddy the waters.)

Fully trans men should be protected as part of the male spectrum of how they wish to identify. They haven't become a woman.

@Truscum Now that we've come to this point where the honourary system clearly no long works, I was wondering what your preferred solution would be?

I favour repealing the legal fiction of the GRA and, through discussion, identify a defined group that needs protection from discrimination under the Equality Act. For example, gender non-conformity or gender-free expression within the sex classes.

I'm well aware that this would mean a loss of your current legal rights, but if you see yourself as a man, would this really make a difference?

Do you think people with gender dysphoria would find it acceptable to be able to change their name, present how they like, have any surgery as agreed between them and doctors, have anti-discrimination laws in place BUT keep their sex?

thank you all for taking the time to answer. Without wanting to sound glib, MN is such an education.

Freedom and safety for men that have transitioned in every male environment, whether that is private areas within male toilets or added unisex toilets in addition to male and female separate environments.

If they want to live as a woman then law should protect and recognise that right, but not that they have become the opposite sex.

it is not being a bigot to stand up to all the men saying they are as much women as we are.

People shout bigot to shut down argument, look how well it's working.

I think lots of women are on the receiving end of being told what to think on this: that fully transitioned is now a woman. We see a vulnerable male and don't want to hurt his feelings and tip toe around.

Time to really dig bit deeper and work out how we got here and face uncomfortable truths. Doesn't make us feel a 'nice person' saying this about the sweet fully transitioned males we have all met, but abusive males are now beating us with our 'niceness'.

I hover somewhere between 1 and 2.
I am happy to treat fully transitioned TW as women in most aspects of life, and will always try to use female pronouns to describe them. Ditto trans men. However, I do not consider that not doing this should be tantamount to a hate crime. I do not think that misgendering is "literal violence".

I might not believe in pink brain/ blue brain stuff, but I have no interest in telling others how they should feel inside. It only becomes an issue for me when they start imposing their beliefs about gender vs sex on other people. If they consider themself to be a woman on the inside - fine. That shouldn't give them the right to be recognised as a woman by the rest of society and the law however.

I think the numbers of people who do fully transition/ really commit to "living as a woman" are tiny (and only a small part of the trans umbrella). As such I do not really consider them a problem, but nor do I think it is necessary to rewrite the dictionaries and medical textbooks for the sake of being "inclusive" to this minority.

I do think that sometimes it is appropriate for TW to be sent to a women's prison, but on a case by case basis that takes account of the nature of their crime and what stage of transition they are at amongst other things. I do not think it should be automatic. I think that birth sex should be recorded for crime and medical stats.

The issue of people who have undergone some form of gate keeping in order to be legally recognised as the other sex bothers me far, far less than the issues around self id, which is the issue I prefer to focus on.

I feel conflicted about the idea of GRCs being reserved for those who have had bottom surgery. At a surface level I agree with this and it makes sense to me to share female spaces with trans people who no longer have penises and not with those who still do. However, aside from the pragmatics relating to implementing such an approach, I am concerned that it might lead people with dysphoria to have bottom surgery that they might otherwise not have. I think the goal should be to help people with dysphoria feel at peace having had as little medical intervention as possible.

There is a world of difference between those who go around swinging their lady dicks in people's faces and those that can manage to tolerate the sexed bodies they are born with without having to undergo radical treatment.

What I do feel more clear about is that we need to:
(i) decouple sex and gender, including when it comes to policy writing and the law
(ii) make sure that gender is never used to segregate/ organise society
(iii) limit segregation by sex to as few instances as possible (to prevent sexism) but allow it where it is important to promote equality of opportunity, safety and well being.

Yep I agree with the he she thing. It can be worked out within a social context and if requested out of politeness - shouldn't be a crime.

Truscum: I'm very new to this debate, having wished people would just get along and stop creating divisions. We are now at a stage where people can 'be' who they want and marry who they want (more progress to be made, but better in lots of ways).

None of us can afford to have our head in the sand anymore and I am taking my hat off to you for speaking out against the tidal wave. The issue is being hijacked by narcissists that love the sound of their own voices. They bestow their empathy on their chosen victim' whilst kicking in doors of any polite, civil and tolerant society. It is all about them and their ego.

You sound like someone that cares about society and the world we leave future generations.

Also, I think there is quite plainly a difference between shouting "HE'S A FUCKING MAN!" (or worse) at a transwoman walking down the street minding her own business and someone using the wrong pronoun in a conversation. The former is hateful, and the latter really isnt. There will be people out there who want to beat transwomen up for no other reason than that they don't conform, and that's horrible. I doubt those violent people are feminists. Asserting that "women are adult females" is not bigoted, and trying to put It in the same category as actual transphobic abuse and violence distacts from and diminishes real transphobia.

(I can see how misgendering within a conversation may be very hurtful, even if by accident and consider it twattish to do so in a passive aggressive way, but it is not the same as intimidating, abusive language).

I favour repealing the legal fiction of the GRA and, through discussion, identify a defined group that needs protection from discrimination under the Equality Act. For example, gender non-conformity or gender-free expression within the sex classes

I do actually agree that this is probably the only way forward now.