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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Matthew d'Ancona in the Guardian - 3rd spaces as the solution

286 replies

rowdywoman1 · 03/04/2018 08:19

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/01/transgender-equality-women-only-carriages-caledonian-sleeper

This seems to me to be a thoughtful and reasonable article. Apart from his irritating use of 'cis' he talks about the need "to build toilets that accommodate trans visitors without making cis women feel uncomfortable." and that in rape crisis centres, trans women seeking work will have to accept that their aspirations are trumped by the rights of the horribly violated. Sorry, but there it is"

It was good to read an article which genuinely tries to navigate a way forward and move the conversation on. And slightly unbelievable to see a second constructive article in the paper that has acquired such a reputation for dismissing women as transphobes and bigots. I wonder whether he'll get the same reaction that Hadley Freeman did?

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 03/04/2018 17:23

And I wish you happiness in your third space.

No thanks, the third space needs to be for the 1%, not the vast majority. That's called common sense.

Ereshkigal · 03/04/2018 17:24

Will it last?

She'll flounce to a different thread, so no.

rowdywoman1 · 03/04/2018 17:32

Some questions are unanswerable. Just as Matthew d'Ancona recognises (along with most women and I suspect a majority of men) that most traumatised women who have been raped will prefer to speak to another woman, transactivists have nowhere to go other than to threaten (transphobia!) and gaslight.
Bloody hell, we've a generation of teenagers (girls and boys) struggling with sexual harassment and consent and we now have self absorbed narcissistic adults going into schools dismantling all the safeguarding and assertiveness work that's ever happened and telling them that one person's demands trump all children's reservations, their instincts, their wishes and their right to consent all funded by the fools in the DfE & the NHS .

OP posts:
LangCleg · 03/04/2018 17:38

Bloody hell, we've a generation of teenagers (girls and boys) struggling with sexual harassment and consent and we now have self absorbed narcissistic adults going into schools dismantling all the safeguarding and assertiveness work that's ever happened and telling them that one person's demands trump all children's reservations, their instincts, their wishes and their right to consent all funded by the fools in the DfE & the NHS .

IKR? Decades upon decades of knowledge, most of which was gained in the wake of dealing with crisis and scandal, binned. And all our institutions, supposed to know better, are folding like cheap tents. Why must we wait for the next scandal before we say er, no - we know not to do this.

bd67th · 03/04/2018 17:39

@stillscreaming Actually, NI has its own jurisdiction and, being on the mainland, there's nothing I can do to persuade Stormont to change. What I and others did achieve for NI women was lobbying Westminster MPs to vote 'aye' to NHS England to pay for NI women's terminations, so my abortion funding money only has to pay for flights and accommodation.

You call me a feminist with scare quotes, well, I ask who has done more for women? The woman who chips in month after month to pay for Irish women to have abortions, or the woman who trolls forums telling worried women that they are bigots?

spoonless · 03/04/2018 17:51

In reality a lot of us long ago came to the conclusion that current transactivism is an organised effort by sexual predators to invade women's spaces and gain access to potential victims. I think it's quite a steep hill to climb to persuade people like D'Ancona and even Hadley Freeman that that is the case.

Just so we're clear, transgenderism is a poorly understood and scantily objectively substantiated phenomenon so it doesn't exist and psychiatrists who believe in it cannot be trusted, but autogynephilia-masquerading-as-transgenderism, which is a poorly understood and extremely scantily objectively substantiated phenomenon, does exist and psychiatrists who believe in it must be trustworthy ?

Yes?

Right?

Ereshkigal · 03/04/2018 17:53

Spoonless. Transvestic fetishism is listed as a paraphilia in the DSM5. We know what cross dressers are. We know gender dysphoria exists as a psychological condition. I'm not sure what your point is.

bd67th · 03/04/2018 17:54

Third spaces: I've seen single-occupant self-contained loos, and in some cases they've been designated for a single sex despite being single-occupant! An immediate way to make more loos available to all would be to pass a law to require that all single-occupant loos be unisex. It's a matter of changing signs and ordering some sanitary bins. All new buildings could be required to have some single-occupant loos designed in, with a minimum quota based on number of people in the building on top of the existing quota for cubicle-farm loos. More loos is always good.

Ereshkigal · 03/04/2018 17:55

"Transgenderism" is the whole lot, cross dressers and all, btw. Check out Stonewall for a definition.

TheDukesOfHazzard · 03/04/2018 17:55

?

I don't think anyone believes that trans people don't exist.

Clearly they do - we have "old school" trans-sexuals posting on these boards, through to people like whatsit gender neutral topshop guy in the papers.

None of these people are imaginary. The trans umbrella is v v big now - anyone who self IDs as trans is trans, and certainly the idea that you have to be mentally ill to be trans is both hideously outdated and, I would suggest, insulting to the trans community, many of whom state very clearly that being trans is not a mental health problem.

Stillscreaming · 03/04/2018 17:56

I've come back to thin because it's interesting a DM you don't seem to be foaming at the mouth.

I'm also Irish and I think you've been more than a little disingenuous in your comments on this thread stillscreaming. The population in Ireland is much smaller than the U.K., the trans population therefore is much smaller (see the numbers applying for a GRC) and in general we don't have a significant number of transgender individuals with a high profile, many of whom, it would seem, aim to appear frequently in the media solely in order to make inflammatory statements with the aim of denying women the right to speak/discuss issues that directly affect them, as would seem to be the case in the U.K.

(For full disclosure, I spend half my time in London and half in Ireland).

Ireland doesn't have the trans women you describe but neither does the UK. What the UK does have is a very loud Twitter argument going on between numerous anonymous individuals. Great amounts of bile are spilled on a regular basis but we don't know between whom. There is one group who tweet inflammatory things at trans people and another group, who may or may not be trans, who tweet back equally inflammatory things. For every 'chest feeder', there is a 'real women have breast' and for every 'kill all TERFS' there is a 'trains should be crucified'. There is a lot of sound and fury but I'm not sure what it signifies or who it's coming from. It's as likely to be 4chan as anyone else.

No one is shy about importing American hate either, bloggers who shouldn't be allowed a crayon, never mind access to the Internet and right wing religious fundamentalists are both putting the 'mental' into the argument.

I've gone looking for the TRAs and I can't find a group bigger than MN fem chat and they seem to be, about as spread out in their ideologies as the MN folks. Some are frothing with anger and some, less so. Either way, neither group could possibly account for the amount of tweeting that takes place.

I'm more concerned about crime statistics, prison segregation, womens refuges, sports participation, scholarships, political participation and the ability of women to meet as a group to discuss issues concerning our female biology without accusations of transphobia. I also find the discourse around the supposed 'cotton ceiling' disturbing and homophobic but I accept I'm not directly affected by that.

Most of that stuff, I'd ask you to do your own research around. With the normal proviso about being careful about your sources. Many things are repeated on MN that aren't fact. Some things have a grain of truth in them but still aren't actually truthful. I'm sure you can see for yourself that you have a small group of women, who've had a lot of press coverage and a fair bit of media attention, who are claiming to be censored. They also claim to be interested in debate but show very little interest in chatting with women with different views. There are a lot of contradictions about.

The cotton ceiling thing is disturbing and homophobic, I and many of the lesbians I know are really pissed of that the only time we get mentioned by this subset of 'feminists' is to use us as a battering ram for trans people, it feels really homophobic to us.

TheDukesOfHazzard · 03/04/2018 18:00

"I've come back to thin because it's interesting a DM you don't seem to be foaming at the mouth. "

? - ??

Can you retype more slowly please I genuinely have no idea what that means. Who or what is DM? thin?

TheDukesOfHazzard · 03/04/2018 18:01

"trains should be crucified"

  1. Citation
  2. Trains? lol
TheDukesOfHazzard · 03/04/2018 18:04

"The cotton ceiling thing is disturbing and homophobic, I and many of the lesbians I know are really pissed of that the only time we get mentioned by this subset of 'feminists' is to use us as a battering ram for trans people, it feels really homophobic to us."

Why do you assume that the women / feminists who talk about cotton ceiling are not, in the main, lesbians?

Most lesbian feminists I know are really fucking angry about the rapey subtext of what some of the TRAs come out with.

LangCleg · 03/04/2018 18:04

trains should be crucified

Prove it. And for lawd's sake, please learn to spell.

I've gone looking for the TRAs and I can't find a group bigger than MN fem chat

Didn't look very hard then, did you? Did all our institutions advertising their new, TRA-approved policies pass you by?

Flounce didn't last long, did it?

TheDukesOfHazzard · 03/04/2018 18:04

You are saying that feminists saying that cotton ceiling is awful is homophobic, is that right?

spoonless · 03/04/2018 18:05

@Ereshkigal. My mistake. Please substitute "transsexuality" for "transgenderism".

2 things:
Everything under the sun can be experienced as a paraphilia, and the DSM tells you more about the minds of psychiatrists than it does about their patients. So I'd say you're picking and choosing.

TheDukesOfHazzard · 03/04/2018 18:06

"I'm more concerned about crime statistics, prison segregation, womens refuges, sports participation, scholarships, political participation and the ability of women to meet as a group to discuss issues concerning our female biology without accusations of transphobia. I also find the discourse around the supposed 'cotton ceiling' disturbing and homophobic but I accept I'm not directly affected by that.

Most of that stuff, I'd ask you to do your own research around."

  • Or, simply read the newspapers and look at the statistics, is not tricky.
Ereshkigal · 03/04/2018 18:06

You don't think cross dressing is a thing?

ThatEscalatedQuickly · 03/04/2018 18:06

Ireland doesn't have the trans women you describe but neither does the UK.

Yes it does, they are discussed here in a regular basis. Plenty of people out there on both sides of the issue who are public in terms of their names and opinions. I've no doubt there's plenty of anons but equally there are those willing to put their money where their mouth is so to speak.

Most of that stuff, I'd ask you to do your own research around. With the normal proviso about being careful about your sources

I have and I am, although it was Mumsnet that first caused me to become aware of the issues. I'd appreciate a more detailed reasoning for why I shouldn't be concerned about these issues, given that it seems apparent that including transgender individuals in the crime statistics for the gender they identify causes some anomalies to result and changes to the usual crime patterns and profiles for e.g.

I don't think these women are claiming to be censored, they actually are. I've been following events in the U.K. and what else would you call lobbying for events to be cancelled/people to be no platformed/accusations of transphobia against those willing to raise concerns? I myself would be considered a transphobe for the paragraph in which I outlined my areas of concern but I think those are issues worthy of discussion and debate. That apparently is allowed however as it is 'violence' to even raise such concerns.

ThatEscalatedQuickly · 03/04/2018 18:07

*isnt

Ereshkigal · 03/04/2018 18:08

As pointed out by more than one poster, no one is denying the existence of gender (sex) dysphoria.

TheDukesOfHazzard · 03/04/2018 18:08

So, pretty minimal research required Grin

lol @ the idea that this is all made up!?

hackmum · 03/04/2018 18:14

spoonless: "Just so we're clear, transgenderism is a poorly understood and scantily objectively substantiated phenomenon so it doesn't exist and psychiatrists who believe in it cannot be trusted, but autogynephilia-masquerading-as-transgenderism, which is a poorly understood and extremely scantily objectively substantiated phenomenon, does exist and psychiatrists who believe in it must be trustworthy ?"

That's not what I said, and not what I believe. I think there are a small minority of people who genuinely believe that they are "really" the opposite sex. I have every sympathy for them.

I think the current wave of transactivism isn't about those people, though. You can see that from the amount of hatred they spout against women, and from things like the insistence that lesbians should be happy to have sex with them, which isn't rational, and which can only come from a pretty deeprooted misogyny.

ThatEscalatedQuickly · 03/04/2018 18:19

The cotton ceiling thing is disturbing and homophobic, I and many of the lesbians I know are really pissed of that the only time we get mentioned by this subset of 'feminists' is to use us as a battering ram for trans people, it feels really homophobic to us.

I can't really parse this. Are you saying that you agree the cotton ceiling concept is homophobic, or that you have a bigger issue with those pushing back against it (primarily those affected by it i.e. lesbians) than you do with the concept itself?