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[DonnaBe]

Mumsnet has been invaded by a small group of people who are giving out wrong information about the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act.

They claim that women’s spaces are being invaded and women are being silenced. Please read this and make up your own minds!

A gender Self ID law – like the one proposed in the UK - was recently introduced in Ireland. To change your gender on government records, you need to sign a Statutory Declaration in front of a solicitor and declare that you are living in your acquired gender and intend to stay that way. This is a legal document.

Self ID has not caused problems in Ireland. This is the kind of thing that is being proposed in the UK. It's about making a statement under oath about your acquired gender.

It has been claimed that anyone will be able to claim to be the opposite gender whenever they want. Not true. 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

The group behind this campaign are not new. They have been conducting anti-trans campaigns for many years. I don’t think their agenda is women’s welfare so much as expressing their hatred for trans people. The self id proposals have given them an opportunity to attack trans people. Again. They claim they are being silenced, but their views are regularly aired on TV and in the newspapers. And on Mumsnet. They have a right to speak, but I wish they’d tell the truth.

Believe it or not, this all starts with a discussion about marriage. Before 2004, trans people could not marry or stay married because there was no legal way to change the gender on their birth certificates. There was no same sex marriage back then.

The Gender Recognition Act of 2004 introduced the ability to stand in front of a Gender Recognition Panel (cost £140) and get a Gender Recognition Certificate which allowed you to change your birth certificate and get married! This is a bureaucratic arrangement that involves an element of body policing which is not nice.

The proposal now is to replace the GRP / GRC arrangement with a legally binding statutory declaration. Or something like that. That’s all. No whimsical notions like “It’s Friday. I’m a woman today.”

In fact, you can now get married if your transgendered under same sex marriage legislation. So getting a GRC is less relevant. I don’t know if there’s any research on this, but my feeling is most trans people don’t bother getting a GRC anyway.

So this is how things stand today:

There is no law banning men from women’s toilets and changing rooms. There’s only an unwritten rule. The recent Man Friday campaign where women invaded men’s toilets could have the contradictory effect of weakening this rule and end up harming women. The logical conclusion of their campaign is body policing with guards on women’s toilets and women will have to prove their gender before having a pee.

Trans women already use women’s toilets and changing rooms. I do. Nobody notices. I don’t make a song and dance about it. There is no slackening of the law defending women’s spaces because there is no such law. We get on fine without it.

The Gender Recognition Act makes exceptions for things like women’s refuges. These exceptions should be used where appropriate. Already law. Not changing.

You can live in your non-birth gender already. If you pass as that gender well enough, you just do it. You don’t need a law or certificate to do it. Thousands of people live this way and nobody is harmed by it.

But TIM is factually correct, whereas TERF is not

But instead of men being the problem, somehow transwomen have become the problem.

Nope. Still just men.

It's any man who thinks he has found a way to violate women's boundaries.

And it's any man who violates women's boundaries less as an intention, but more as a consequence of their selfishness.

Men not accepting one another is the problem, Donna.

I think you have your head screwed on - none of us here are anti - we want to broaden the argument and not be told by men what being female is. You sound like you understand boundaries - that is our issue too! You are one of us and I'm beginning to like the sound of you.

Welcome to the TerfClub!!!

Take a seat, have a cuppa, now lets TALK about what we DO actually think. Instead of listening to nonsense about what we are supposedly are plotting for the destruction of the entire universe.

The first rule of TerfClub is: you do not talk about TerfClub. The second rule of TerfClub is: you DO NOT talk about TerfClub!

*Gets coat. And heads for the gin.

you hasn't

to women who haven't

No idea what my head was doing there!

Harry knows that OP because they have obviously been reading and keeping up with what is happening in the Trans community.

They are speaking the truth.

The thing is, trans women are always defined as the problem. The real problem is male behaviour (particularly violence and agressive sexual behaviours) in relation to women.

But instead of men being the problem, somehow transwomen have become the problem.

The thing is, feminists are always defined as the problem. The real problem is male behaviour (particularly violence and agressive sexual behaviours) in relation to transwomen.

But instead of men being the problem, somehow feminists have become the problem.

So the people you need to discuss this with is men. They are the ones who are making things difficult for you, not feminists.

No @DonnaBe

There is no misinformation. We’ve asked you again and again to point out anything said on these forums that are lies and you haven’t.

What there is at the moment is a difference of OPINIONS. We think that female is a sex and requires protected status. We think women as a female sex need single SEX spaces. We also think that people with a penis shouldn’t have access to female spaces. Because a certain percentage of people with penises like to use them to attack women. Held up by statistics. How do we identify these people? Well, they have no defining race, religion, sexuality, ability or creed. What they do have is a defining sex- male.

So forgive us for being suspicious of males, especially ones who want to get into our safe spaces.

You know what, fuck it. Let them all in. And the TRAs can explain latter why the murder rate, instances of sexual assaults and assaults on children have soared. Because the underlining narrative of what you are saying is that female bodies and spaces are less important than males bodies and desires.

But instead of men being the problem, somehow transwomen have become the problem

Because if you believe that it’s impossible to change sex, trans women are men.

If a woman can't bear children it's because her reproductive function has been compromised. It's a uniquely female experience.

And just to expand on that, I am a woman who can't have children because of having a disability rather than because I have any issues with my reproductive function.

It means I can't adopt either. Nor can I explore fertility treatment. I can't even have a very hands on relationship with my lovely nieces and nephews because I have fatigue and can't tolerate lots of noise and movement. There a sizeable number of women like me around.

I still get asked on a fairly regular basis 'don't you want children?' I have rather bluntly been dropped by a good number of men early on in relationships because, 'hey, you're lovely but I'm afraid want kids.' I have still been given the message that essentially my worth is diminished as a woman.

I still have lots of other things to offer. But being too unwell to have children still very much shapes my female experience. I am treated as defective by some.

@TinyRick

I don't like either. You cannot reduce a person to a 3 or 4 letter acronym.

The acronym "TIM" is a political statement about a section of the population. It's not a fact, it's a manifesto and a threat. It misdescibes people and categorises them in a way that is disrespctful.

It's like using the "N" word to describe people of colour.

Like I said. I don't like "TERF" either. Especially as the people it describes are not usually radical and not usually feminist.

Here are some 'trans lesbians' who have the right to access women's spaces

And here

donna

‘All the trans people I know suffer from gender dysphoria’

The new proposals are going to take gender dysphoria out of the requirements to get a GRC, in fact t is considered deeply transphobic to suggest that being trans has to do with gender dysphoria at all.

I don’t care if you get surgery and ‘live as a woman’ honestly, I support you wholeheartedly to live the life you want, but it doesn’t make you a biological female. There is a distinction between a woman and a man with gender dysphoria and we need different things. We can’t be lumped together as it means women lose ALL of our sex based protections that we have fought centuries for, women have died for us to have these protections and we won’t take them being removed lying down.

I'm living in a female role. I cannot use male changing rooms.

Why not?

So saying Trans Identified Male is akin to using the N word.

Riiiiight.

Medical research (I'll find a link if I must but we can all Google) indicates gender reassignment greatly improves the mental health of GD sufferers

We are not talking about GD sufferers, we are talking about the fact transvestites, men with fetishes, or any old perv of man, can just identify on any given day that they are a woman.

How would you, decide who's a genuine transwoman and who's not? Because with selfId, who could challenge whether they were genuine or not?

I also want to reach out to with cis women who also cannot have children of their own.

How fucking offensive and insensitive of you.

Don't cis me or any other woman. It's hate speech. Mumsnet has been invaded by a small group of people who are giving out wrong information about the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. Yes. It has. The invading force is made up of male people dictating to women and using lies and hate speech such as cis to do it. You, for example.

How do you know that Harry? All the trans people I know suffered dreadfully from Gender Dysphoria.... depression, anxiety, suicide attempts.

I take it you're not aware of the cotton ceiling? The shutting down of lesbian spaces everywhere? The relentless persecution of lesbians?

Michfest?
Vancouver Women's Library?
Salford working Women's Resource?

Lady penis?
Girl dick?

Lesbians' transphobia by not incuding penis?

Have you googled #girlslikeus and #transgirls ?

I'm hoping Donna is much a victim of misinformation as lots of us have been (me).

Hope Donna takes on board some of the points and reflects. People don't change minds straight away, takes a while for lots of us to see clearly and where this path will lead if not tackled.

Keep thinking/reflecting as well as debating, opinions change slowly.

Medical research (I'll find a link if I must but we can all Google) indicates gender reassignment greatly improves the mental health of GD sufferers

Actually, medical research shows that mental health comorbidities up to and including suicidal ideation, are not, on average, improved by transition. We can, indeed, all Google.

@donnabe because I have spent far too many hours of my life watching and engaging with 21st century trans activism.
I wish trans people were like you. Lots are. But your views are well out of date. In fact the idea that you need to have surgery, hormones or even dysphoria to be trans is considered bigoted and you would be called 'truscum'.

FencingFightingTorture35

@NannyOggsKnickers

The lie is that the proposed changes to the GRA will allow capricious self identification and give legal protection to men invading women's spaces.

This is simply not true.

How we define men and women in an age where gender reassignment is becoming more common is a good subject for debate.

Most of the posts I've read claim, a priori, that trans women are men and thus are unambigously a danger t women. I think that is unfounded.

There's even been posts trying to convince people that the woman who shot people at the You Tube HQ earlier this week was trans. This is a distasteful use of a genuine tragedy to falsely smear another section of the population and was done without thought or sympathy for the victims.

Believe me, if she was trans, Trump would have been tweeting it like mad.