T

[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.

It may be that Donna has been receiving news and information from a specific number of TRAs... if so then I'm not at all surprised that the belief that they and 'trans people are fighting for their lives' is deeply held...

"I don't see trans women forcing themselves on lesbians in your pictures. "

Just checking, you weren't expecting to see photos of rapes happening were you??

They even had a meeting in the House of Commons about it. But trans people were banned from attending

That's absolute shit - there were several trans people there.

It's not a conspiracy. It doesn't hurt women. It probably saves the govt some money because it doesn't have to pay a Gender Recognition Panel.

It demedicalises it. It creates a basis for males to claim to be women without gender dysphoria. Don't you understand that? It undermines women's rights to sex segregated spaces and undermines the whole sex category of women. It should be a tiny of minority of men that get one. There needs to be gatekeeping. What basis is there for males to claim to be women without a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria?

This thread reminds me of that song 'There's a hole in my bucket' (no pun intended)

Do women need female only sex segregated spaces?
Yes
Why?
To keep them safe
Safe from who?
Men
Who wants to identify as women to access female sex segregated spaces?
Men
Should we let them?
Yes
Do women need female only sex segregated spaces?
Yes

and round and round it goes...

Women do not exist to take care of men. Society has changed, we have better things to do.
Why not ask men to have a cubicle in men's toilet that trans people can use? Why not ask men to change? Why are we the ones being expected to change?

You are welcome to attend any Women's Place meeting just as you could have attended the Westminster meeting.

@UpstartCrow

absolutely true. It was 'women only' and since the organisers define me as a man, I was barred.

Which is fine. But I understand the meeting was about trans women.

No female MPs would sponsor it. The MP they got was a notorious anti-LGBT MAN.

You can't get away with such blatant lies about those meetings here....
Because there are people here who were there!!

Transwomen are, and have been along to many events such as these.

Why lie if you are in such a strong debating position??

Or have you swallowed wholesale the anti feminist propoganda Kool Aid??

Cos a 30 second google would have told you the truth.

I agree self id has snuck its way in before the change in the law anyway, we tried to complain about that. We got thrown out the Labour Party.

Today 08:19 yetanothertranswoman

As it is, people are changing gender, but being treated as though they've changed sex

Some of us have had HRT and surgery. If I wanted to 'change gender', I could have done that without all that stuff. My bodies' chromosomes are still XY but I have done a hell of a lot to get my body as closely aligned mentally with what I need it to be

And here's the other poster I mentioned

Today 09:26 Cliques

I infiltrated mumsnet back in 2005, I've been plotting ever since, using my advanced psychic skills

Back then I was married to my rapist. Do you know who told me to leave? This lot. I wasn’t being raped because of my gender identity, that was my sex. My gender identity was the bit that had taught me that it was my job to make the relationship work, and that being a single mother was a monstrous thing to be

Do you know the suicide rates for new mothers? I bet you don’t

I have never been gender-conforming (autistic - but of course I wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood because of gender-bias, despite ticking all the boxes), but I learnt to be afraid of men early

When I sought rape counselling I needed a woman. When I talk about being a woman, I am talking about my biology and the way I was raised. Being trans has its own issues, they are not my issues. We are equal but different

I will respect your pronouns out of politeness, but my PTSD does not. It reacts to transwomen in the same way as it reacts to men

I deserve safety and respect and my feelings matter too. My autism hates lying. I don’t understand why being a trans woman is so awful that you have to claim my sex instead of being a lovely transgender person. You are not women, you are transwomen. That’s fine. Third spaces for you to change in, all the human rights you want

But you cannot take sex segregated spaces without taking them from me. I will leave. I will be excluded. I matter too. Why do you not care?

OP your post is more than a little insulting. In fact it is downright disrespectful. You are aware that women can read and make decisions for yourself aren't you? We are not little women at home who only care about cleaning and cooking, we are educated, professional, experienced (in so many fields), intelligent people. Don't talk down to us. You have wilfully misinterpreted women's concerns in the OP, shone a light from your own perspective only and dismissed us.

I am very sorry - truly I am - that you have been attacked and ridiculed in your life nobody deserves that. Some people are horrible. It is at this point I have to say me too - I have been ridiculed and attacked (many small aggressive attacks about looks, size, demeanour - not being ladylike enough, being frigid, prudish, slutty, having an opinion) and 2 serious sexual incidents and one rape. I doubt very much my experiences are exactly like yours, yours happened because you are trans mine because I am female and that's part of the point isn't it?

You speak like women haven't experienced all this which is ludicrous because women get it constantly at a low level and at a high one (see number of women killed per week).

And on the subject of me too.

But until the last few months I've never been the victim of a concerted well organised and infulential smear campaig before.

Us too.

and

Trans people are fighting for their lives.

I can only assume that is metaphorically as women's lives are at greater risk in general. We are only fighting to retain our dignity, privacy and hard won rights. There has never, ever been an oppressed group before who has claimed their rights trump another groups ... until now.

Still I have to commend you for sticking around and talking, I respect that and once again I do not think you have deserved ridicule and attacks in your life, kindness and tolerance should be the default but unfortunately they rarely are. I don't think you should be at risk of violence or be dismissed (even though you did it to us in your opening post). I do think you should have rights (though not at the expense of the rights of others) and in no way whatsoever is anyone here looking for trans erasure (I'm sick of reading THAT bit of emotive nonsensical propaganda on the internet) that is just ridiculous.

I'm sad this issue is so polarising I have been far left to liberal all my life and I have never come across an issue in women's politics which has been as confusing, frustrating and well ... frightening as this in my life before.

But the lie is still being shouted out that it allows men to declare themselves women whenever they want. It doesn't.

''Scotland Yard police officer becomes Britain's first gender-fluid bobby with two ID cards in the names of Abi and Callum''
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/23/fluid-gender-policeman/

When he is 'Abi', this police officer can search women.

Stop making women do your work, do your own and ask us to be allies. Ask for your own spaces and services and we'll support you.

Yep.this.

‘No female MPs would sponsor it.’

Of course they wouldn’t, have you seen what happens to female mps who are gender critical? You seem to be mistaking silence with consent.

Fighting for your lives is a big claim.

Tranwomen who are sex workers in South America face a disproportional amount of violence, as do all sex workers.

In this country, transitioning actually improves your chances of not being murdered.

Women are told to fear men, we're told to watch our drink, not to walk home alone, to park near the entrance etc.

But now you also want us to ignore male bodies in female spaces, you want us to say we don't have a problem with men getting id marked 'female', even though that's an outright lie.

Can you imagine the dissonance that creates? Men are dangerous, unless they're in a room where we're all getting changed? How does that work? How is it that we're supposed to believe that the random bloke in the carpark (probably parking his car) is a danger, but the random bloke in the ladies showers is just fine - even though only one of them has actually done any boundary crossing, and it's not the bloke putting his shopping in the boot

I've just been through this thread and am, as usual, heartened by the articulate, well researched and thoughtful opinions voiced by gender critical mumsnetters.
I am also, as usual, annoyed by the OPs lack of serious engagement with any of the questions posed. Maybe they didn't understand them, maybe they couldn't properly express their views, maybe they know that there isn't a good response to be made; but it's very difficult to move towards meaningful understanding when the debate quickly dissolves into
OP 'you're a transphobe'
Other Poster 'No I'm not - could you clarify your position please'
OP 'yeah, you are a transphobe'
OP 'I'm fighting for my life!!!'

‘Which is fine. But I understand the meeting was about trans women.‘

It was about women actually.

@Terfmore

Sadly this has meant i could never get pregnant and have my own children.
Me neither. I have a womb and ovaries but I also have blocked tubes. Some of us on Mumsnet aren’t mothers. We are here because it is one of the few tiny corners of the internet that is female friendly.

But when I meet people, they treat me as female. They use the words she and her.
If I met you or any other transwoman then I would refer to her as her and she. At no point would I ever refer to the fact that she was trans no more than I would refer to someone being bald/fat/thin/disabled. This doesn’t mean that the person isn’t bald/fat/thin/disabled it just means that I haven’t felt the need to mention it.

Every time you meet someone they know you are trans. Even if they refer to you as her or she. They notice. They just don’t mention it.

"absolutely true. It was 'women only' and since the organisers define me as a man, I was barred."

I think we might have got to the crux of this particular lie.

It wasn't women only, it was - as someone has already pointed out to you - overcrowded, so women were prioritised and men were asked to consider giving up their tickets.

If you were "barred" then either you were trying to obtain a ticket once it was full, or possibly you were one of those agitating to have it cancelled which I'd say is pretty reasonable.

I will reference James Kirkup again...
" It’s because those women have been – quite successfully and even skilfully – demonised and stigmatised, put beyond the pale of civilised debate as those who question orthodoxy often are. They’ve been given a name, a name that means they’re bad people, people who should not speak and should not be heard. That name is “Terf,” which once meant “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist” but now appears to stand in its own right as a term of abuse and dismissal alongside the other short, harsh words often used to question the worth and virtue of women"

"Would I get out alive?"

Oh go on, find us some examples of feminists attacking transwomen.

Good luck.

We can definitely find some examples of the opposite.

And the HoC meeting did ban trans women. There was horror that a Pink News journalist managed to attend.

Was the Pink News person a TIM?