Trans unpeak moment

[Sunflowersforever]

Have really been tuned into the whole self-Id issue and subsequent discussions through mumsnet, and appalled at the encroachment into women spaces and the silencing of women's voices. Was so glad to have read Hadley Freeman's article and how she summed up concerns in such an articulate way that reflected my views.

Ok. Here is the unpeak trans bit.

On HFs twitter feed, someone posted about selfid saying. "It means swearing a statutory declaration that you are living as a woman (and there are legal consequences if you lie), changing your name and documents, telling friends, colleagues, family".

Is that correct? If it is, I didn't know that and it changes the whole 'any man can enter a woman's space unchallenged' argument a bit as surely documented proof can be produced if challenged?

Someone else also said Ireland had adopted this law with no consequences? Really?

Anyone aware if any of this is true?

@DonnaBe Hello! It would be great to have a trans woman offer a view on how changing to Self ID would benefit them practically. As you say, you don’t have a GRC and can go about your day to day life with no one being bothered, so I would love to hear what changing the regulations would do to help. Genuinely.

Currently I only see downsides for women in chdnging the legal definition of ‘woman’. I am however fully on board with trans rights are human rights, so would be interested to know why a statutory declaration is better all round than the current system.

We haven’t been infiltrated. We’re just worried and no one has yet offered compelling reasons for a change in the law, in my opinion.

@DonnaBe I am not new (or an infiltrator) to mumnset. Been here about 8 years.

I am worried about 'domestic' abuse centres and rape crisis centres. Although I have not (thank God) been rapped or 'domestically' abused. I want then to be single sex spaces.

I am worried girls won't have a single sex organisation called Girl Guides. Even though my daughter no longer goes and I never went.

I'm mostly worried about gaslighting which tells me males are females and if I don't agree I'm a bigot.

I could go on.

But as I have answered your question, can you answer one for me, please?

Why are you not attempting to get a GRC if you are presenting as a woman but we're born male?

Thanks.

Hi, you aren't allowed to ask to see a Gender Recognition Certificate.

Nobody wants to risk breaking the law, so they just have to accept the man's word for it.

So yes it's as simple as rocking up and saying you're a woman. Challenging such a person could be illegal.

They argue that whimsical self id is imminent and that bearded blokes will have a legal right to use women's loos and changing rooms.

And yet you're happily going around using women's spaces without a GRC. What makes you different from the bearded blokes?

And from the other thread you started:

Nobody is proposing that big blokes with beards can say “I am a woman today” and have legal protection to use women’s loos. If they were, I would be campaigning against it. That is absolutely not what is being proposed.

And yet you say here:

I am a trans woman, without a Gender Recognition Certificate, On Friday, I went shopping, tried on a dress in Hobbs and used the Ladies loos. I chatted with a shop assistant. Nobody noticed or minded. No women were harmed. The sky hasn't fallen. There isn't actually a law against what I did.

Which is it? Men can already use the Ladies loos or they can't? Or only if they are beardless?

A pile of misinfomation is being spread by a misogynist far right group about proposed changes to legislation.

The trans community has lost touch with reality.

It has isolated itself so much, out of need or out of paranoia, that it can not hold a conversation with anyone else without seeing it as an attack on their identity itself.

All criticism to proposed changes to the law is seen as an attack on this identity and therefore transphobic as a result. It makes not if this criticism comes from other trans people who are more integrated into normal society and don't surround themselves with those who laud their bravery. It matters not if it comes from women who are concerned about left wing concerns surrounding integrity of rights and democracy. It makes not if about issues which might well lead to a massive right wing backlash.

To survive it must have an enemy, which ot has decided is the right wing. Therefore the logic is that anyone who criticises is transphobic and part of this right wing.

This siege mentality which can not cope with having a normal conversation and using normal language only highlights just how much of a cult that TRAs live in. The denial is the same as cult members. They see anything that disagrees with them as something which wants to destroy them all and take away all their existing rights. The suicide thing fits so very neatly into all this.

This isn't healthy.

Nothing that is said by women which is perfectly reasonable or sensible or fair will ever be considered in that way because of this. And instead politicians pander to the cult and legitimise its unsustainable paranoia.

If you think mumsnet is a hive of right wing extremism, then wait until this is taken over by right right extremists. Its starting to happen and it won't be pretty.

You'll blame the feminists for it of course. But its a mess of the cult leaders making.

To clarify, I'm a left leaning, pretty average labour voting woman (not cis woman, just plain old woman) who has not been influenced by any right wing ideology. I'm looking for debate and discussion around this issue as more and more I'm realising women's rights are getting pushed aside by/for men.

I'm an ordinary woman and I'm really really concerned now. I'm speaking more and more to my friends about it, who are also concerned. Something is changing among women. We want more information, more consultation, and less male voices telling us what or who we are.

This 'cis' thing is an example. Imagine me telling my 81 year old mum she isn't a woman anymore but a cis woman, or my daughter?

Get a grip.

Haven't reached 'trans unpeak ' moment myself, though I don't agree with everything that is expressed on these forums on this matter. The threads on the youtube shooter were nasty, simply because they were spreading unfounded rumours and gossip about an ongoing crime investigation and should have been closed down on those grounds.

In order for a group to bond, it has to have a common enemy. The enemy is Women. It's very noticeable on twitter that men can be insulting and obnoxious towards trans women, but they don't get the vile abuse that's directed towards women who just want a polite discussion.

I chatted with a shop assistant. Nobody noticed or minded.

No, nobody was rude.

If you think mumsnet is a hive of right wing extremism, then wait until this is taken over by right right extremists. Its starting to happen and it won't be pretty.

Yep. I mean, this particular plopper is as hilarious as they are delusional. But it isn't funny, really. The levels of paranoid isolation are going to leave these people completely unprepared for when the far right actually do get going on them. I said this yesterday, but UKIP forums and websites are beginning to sit up and take notice of all this. UKIP needs a new cause celebre now that Brexit is happening. It wouldn't surprise me if this was it.

And we feminists will be collateral damage because the far right is no more a friend to us.

Yes people/women might have wanted to be polite.
They also might have felt really uncomfortable but have been afraid of the personal social or legal or professional consequences for themselves if they ‘make a fuss’ or actually complain to management about having male bodied people in a space that is expected to be only for women because women need to do intimate or private things in that space.

How on earth can anyone know that "nobody noticed or minded"?
I suspect they did notice and if they minded they'd have been too worried to object.

bearded blokes

...as if only men with beards are dangerous to women

How on earth can anyone know that "nobody noticed or minded"?
I suspect they did notice and if they minded they'd have been too worried to object.

This is a recurring issue with many TIM who come onto Mumsnet. They claim to "live as women" for years, but don't understand that the majority of women would avoid making a fuss under these circumstances, and interpret this as women not noticing or minding their presence.

Lost art, yes to that. 'We've been using your toilets for years and you never knew'

We knew

100% of the people who have sexually assaulted me did not have beards.

Or at least they didn't at the time. Some of them may actually have been bearded people who identified as beardless? Or maybe they were beard fluid?

They were all male though. HTH

How would you know if they’d noticed? Day to day, I come across a transwoman* serving in the local ladies shoe department, another who delivers parcels, and one at a sports club. I’ve never gone up to any of them and said, ‘So, I see you’re trans, then?’

*I know one of them pretransition; for the other two, the name badge suggests female but the stubble, height, Adam’s apple etc are male.

This is a recurring issue with many TIM who come onto Mumsnet. They claim to "live as women" for years, but don't understand that the majority of women would avoid making a fuss under these circumstances, and interpret this as women not noticing or minding their presence.

Honestly? I think most of them have spent most of their time in their bedrooms ensconced in various echo chamber corners of the internet. They're all so paranoid (as RedToothBrush points out) that they obsessively monitor even the most micro of reactions to themselves. If they'd ever been out in public, they would be under no illusion that women did not look and know who they were looking at.

It's sad in a way - but since my rights are at stake, I'm not sympathetic.

@DonnaBe welcome to Mumsnet. Fantastic that you are saying you will join us in opposing self-id if it means that any bearded bloke can rock up to the ladies loo.

Nobody is taking away any women's rights.

Unfortunately, that's where you're wrong. The government proposal on self-id also includes recommendations to abolish sex-based exemptions on employment and sport. So at a minimum, women are losing competitive sports and women's refuges, rape crisis and all other single-sex employers lose the right to refuse male-born people as employees.

It does help to actually read the Government response to the Trans Equality Inquiry report, like Hadley Freeman clearly did.

As you can see from the report, it goes far beyond merely adopting self-id. And contrary to your assertion the proposal does not allow for a legal distinction to be made between a bearded bloke saying "I'm a woman" and a post-op transsexual.

Nobody is taking a way women's spaces.

Unfortunately that is wrong, again. This process has been going on in the US far longer than here and many women's spaces have been lost already. Straight women like me have been unaware, because the first spaces to disappear have been created by and for lesbian women. Their spaces were targeted to force the inclusion of transwomen. Here is an article from 2013 exploring this in detail.

And to answer your question, I have a very long list of rights women are losing with the current proposal, but before I clutter this space - are you actually interested in hearing about them or was this merely a drive by?

@CharlieParley

Against my better judgement I will respond, though I accept it will make little difference to your mindset.

Theres a lot of claims you made, some I know to be OTT and wrong.
The whole point of hrt for trans women is to get the Testosterone into normal female ranges, not below an arbitary figure, but to be the same.

You only cited one claim, your link is to a study using spironolactone, the weakest and most useless testosterone suppressor, which is not a true anti-androgen but a heart tablet/diuretic that has a side effect of decreasing testosterone in some people, and successfully effective in the minority of trans women.

So, as I said unless the hrt is not achieving it's aim to suppress testosterone to female levels, as in the study you cited, trans women will have equivalent testosterone as a natal female, however in trans women it is a steady controlled level of testosterone, in a female it can cycle up and down.

In the spirit of discussion I would be very interested to see your source for the claim that it takes 15 years for a trans woman to lose any benefits of testosterone, that seems a highly suspect claim to be honest.

There are some interesting talking points in this video..

When you make claims like longer reach etc as a benefit trans women have, like other claims in your post, this doesnt make any sense.
Unless you can prove every trans women is taller than every cis women. I know a trans woman who is 5,6 and a cis women that is 6,2.
Its a bit silly to claim that trans women has a reach advantage over the cis woman.

As I have said throughout this thread, it is not as cut and dried as some people are trying to make out, nor am I trying to stifle discussion, but dishonest hyperbole doesnt really make for a good discussion.

@crispbuttyfan in the same spirit of civil discussion, would you please stop referring to women as "cis women"? I don't think any natal woman on this thread accepts the notion of it, so to continue using it would be disrespectful and rude. Just "women" is fine, thank you.

It has been mentioned, but ignored.

Women are socialised to be polite and not make a fuss. Inside, we’re often freaking out and blindsided at the stunts men pull.

I’m autistic and can spot someone pretending from a mile away. I hate to encounter people in costumes or presenting in some fake way. I can only cope with truth and openness. Anyone else just makes me panic. I’ll still be polite and none confrontational though as that’s how I’ve been socialised.

Calling women ‘cis’ is as offensive as calling us bitches like we’re canines or something.

Is genital altering surgery done on the NHS?