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.

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.

Don't be silly. Manfriday is doing the opposite of harming women. SwimEngland had absolutely ridiculous 'selfID" guidance published, and due to manfriday participants inconveniencing MEN rather than it being women on the receiving end, the guidance is now up for consultation instead of just forced on people. I guess staff didn't think much of the idea of 'reeducating' men and noone cared when it was just women in harms way, but even slightly inconveniencing men gets it changed almost immediately, funny that.

As for the 'anti trans group' nonsense..it was the bahvious or transactivists that turned my mind on this. Unless, transactivists are the anti-trans group you speak of? Which would make sense, given they give not a crap about actual transsexual people and only about themselves and getting their lady penises into lesbians.

*As for the 'anti trans group' nonsense..it was the behavior of transactivists that turned my mind on this.

Even

spoonless
Hashtag nodebate works both ways.
What on earth do you mean by this? We want a debate, the TRAs want #nodebate.

Anyone else think it’s odd that all these mansplaining threads from new users are popping up all of a sudden? Perhaps because the petition is nearing 10,000 signatures and they’re getting worried that people in power might start listening to us.

@TheGoldenBough

Do you mean donna in your post?

I'd just like to thank Donna for advertising this thread and Mumsnet on Twitter.

It's very kind of Donna to give credence to women's concerns by sharing the many excellent points raised by numerous posters.

You could be onto something NannyOgg

No invasion necessary to help me know sexism when I see it op.

Thank fuck we have these lovely laws and enlightened society which mean women no longer suffer because of our biology. Excuse me whilst I piss myself laughing (quite literally post-childbirth).

DonnaBe, I have only skimmed the first few pages of this long thread as I am out for the rest of the day. So I will read the rest tomorrow and post then, if you are still around.

But please if you think as a transsexual woman, as you do seem to be, that your view that self ID is not a problem and signing a declaration is an improvement on what we have now. Then read around some threads on here and reconsider.

It really is no such thing. Not for you and most definitely not for women because it massively increases both the numbers and the range of physical, psychological and frankly mental states of those who could identify and would thus potentially 'become' women.

I am a trans woman of a similar age to you (born in the 50s) who went through all this long ago. You will know the biological realities as much as I do.

We cannot change them much as we might like. We adapt our bodies as best we can because that is what we need to do to be able to live as normal a life as possible and to quietly get on with a life that has been interrupted.

That is what being a trans woman should be about, living respectfully and peacefully with others. With give and take on BOTH sides.

Not trying to change the universe by redefining what is male or female or inventing angry words that only confuse and blur reality.

The GRA exists to grant reasonable acceptance within society of legal gender.

The birth certificate change is largely cosmetic for day to day purposes. It does NOT change the original one.

The GRA also has perfectly reasonable exceptions written in to protect spaces of same sex vulnerability such as smear tests and refuges. These should not be removed as they are there for valid reasons. They need considering in conjunction with the Equality Act to clarify them so they are not open to argument or abuse by either side.

In exchange for society - and women in particular who are most effected by these changes to law and status - then accommodating us it is perfectly fair that trans people should we willing to reciprocate that trust.

We have to offer some demonstration of sincerity, permanence, successful transition with mental health intact and that there is a genuine and pressing necessity - a survival necessity - to change our status officially.

We cannot just expect others to accept because we say so.

It is not just about us. It effects others around us. And however rare it might be that someone would abuse it, seeing doctors, being psychologically assessed, eliminating other treatable psychiatric conditions that might manifest as wanting to 'change sex' and persistence of insistence and then coming through the traumatic period of transition intact and mentally stable ARE things that it is reasonable to protect by gate keeping.

You cannot do most of that just by making a declaration. It requires proper assessment, monitoring by professionals and a period of reflection to be sure this is working out as you had expected.

If you want something that effects large numbers of other people and causes legitimate grounds for concern you should be willing to fight for that something and prove you deserve such acceptance.

By all means disagree and I will reply tomorrow when free.

But this is NOT just about us. There is a bigger picture here and we need to stop thinking of it as them versus us.

It is in reality all of us who are genuinely transsexual and for whom this step is a necessity versus those who might abuse anything we have accidentally caused to make life easier to do.

NannyOgg It's convenient timing isn't it?

No @Datun, I’m shocked that someone who's "really been tuned into the whole self-Id issue and subsequent discussions through mumsnet" could be unaware of that information. She's been paying attention yet she's only heard one side of the argument. That sounds like propaganda to me.

I like MN because it carried on when other forum based social sites went into decline. Its light moderation, which just requires people to be civil and within the law isn't really replicated elsewhere.

Facebook leaves you too vulnerable to stalking and harassment in personal life. Twitter is too limited with its character limit for debating. MN predates Reddit which has had problems with doxing, 4chan invasions and harassment.

MN because its predominately female based, has had its problems (notably when it got hacked), but considering its size that's quite interesting in its own right.

MN allows debate to be freer because those problems are not as prevalent. Its simply not part of the culture. Sure it can be robust and challenging at times, but for the most part its ok. There have been things in the past where people have got around guidelines by personal attacking in a particular way so they could deny doing it, but MNHQ did wise up to it.

Its not perfect, but I do think if you can hold an argument, then you can reasonable make a point, even if there are lots of posters who disagree with you. If you do so well enough, IME eventually people do come and agree with you.

It does encourage critical thought because of this. Which I do think is why it remains so popular.

Its not just because you are talking to women and having a female POV which is the dominant (which is unique). Its the depth of thought and thinking that the site encourages.

I would love a proper conversation with a TRAs on this. One where they can not just run off if it gets a bit difficult, and one that is adjudicated by a third party. This is what I think politicians should be facilitating. But are doing the opposite of trying to stop that. Attempts to try and start a public debate have been attacked for being 'right wing' because they have predominately been in the right wing media.

Ironically, it was the treatment of Jennifer James who is more left than most who sparked that off.

It is fundamental in a democracy for debate to be held. Even if it is to ultimately decide the opposite. Resentment occurs in the absence of that.

I would DEARLY like a politician to come to MN and talk on the subject. Sadly I don't think any have got the guts. Certainly not until after the start of May.

@Jayceedove Thank you. A truly outstanding post with a perfect line of reasoning.

I'm sorry. Not propaganda. Just solipsism.

Just solipsism

From the OED:

Solipsism: the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist

Basing definitions and legal categories on a claimed sense of self (while denying the material reality of the sexed body) is pretty solipsistic wouldn't you agree?

Spoonless. Are you seriously basing your entire argument on the fact that one poster didn't look at the other side of the issue? 12 million users and you have evidence of one poster who didn't do any research. So you assume none of us have?

Oh im goad you said that auntybadger

I thought i was missing stuff

Another one here who likes jayceedoves posts

Spoonless. Are you seriously basing your entire argument on the fact that one poster didn't look at the other side of the issue? 12 million users and you have evidence of one poster who didn't do any research. So you assume none of us have?

No, of course not, but nor is she likely to be the only one. Additionally, it was an unknown unknown, i.e. she didn't know that she didn't know it. So therefore I don't know how many of the rest of you are confident that you know all about it when in fact you're in a bubble.

Great post jayceedoves

Given the OP seems to have declared their intentions by posting on Twitter, I did wonder where to post this, but decided to go ahead.

One of the most frustrating elements of this "debate" for me is the notion that GC women have been radicalised by outside forces. The underlying narrative being that we could not possibly have individually come to share many of the same concerns.

I deliberately choose the word "many" because we are not the Borg. There are some aspects about Self ID and the current enforcement (or lack thereof) of the EA/GRA that concern some women more than others.

For my own part I didn't so much "peak trans" as start a long slow amble towards being GC.

Go back 5 years and I could have been described as an ally.

So what changed?

In a nutshell, the increasing hostility of the TRA's and their determination to broker no discussion and their redefinition of language to obscure the issues.

Broadening the definition of Trans from people suffering from dysphoria to cover cross dressers/AGP's/gender tourists etc under the guise of inclusivity represented a massive issue for me.

As a woman I found it increasingly difficult to support a movement that was so broad and covered the "interests" of quite frankly very diverse individuals (some of whom had some very disturbing notions based on sexual fetishes).

How is it possible to be a Trans ally when it's nigh on impossible to define whose rights you are defending? I understand why many GD Trans Women are re-claiming the word Transexual to differentiate themselves.

The other obvious linguistic hijack is the word women. The damage that has been done to Transexual women by broadening the definition of Trans, is exactly what's happening now to the definition of Womanhood.

It's not progressive to say trans women are women. It's a hugely regressive step that's deliberately designed to obfuscate what's at stake.

Women cannot defend rights that cannot be defined.

I personally don't think Self Id is particularly problematic for genuinely GD trans women. The concern for me is that it is absolutely open to abuse and that you can't reasonably base legislation on a "feeling" and I can't think of any other circumstance where this would even be tabled.

The pressure from TRA's is already putting the current legal protection women are entitled to under attack.

The argument of saying "self id wont make a difference" is disingenuous. It adds further credence to the notion that "anyone" can be a woman. That biology is not relevant.

Giving further ground on this issue, when current laws are widely misunderstood and their worth being eroded is very dangerous.

I've steadily kept climbing the mountain over the years and if anything I actually believe the EA needs strengthening to protect women's rights and not dilution.

I still admire and respect the Trans Women I've worked and socialised with. I'm not transphobic.

I'm simply someone who through the actions of the TRA's came to the conclusion that sex and gender cannot be conflated and that the notion that all people who sit under the (now huge) trans umbrella are benign regarding their intentions towards women is simply untrue.

God yes I did mean Donna. Had Debbie in my head! Sorry!!

OP did actually agree with others on at least one point (the bit about the changing room person in somebody's anecdote obviously being a 'chancer' and how that shouldn't be allowed to happen, although I don't think she acknowledged the potential implications of that) so I was really disappointed when the discussion on her side ended there because for a moment it looked like we might all get somewhere.

I know. I thought the same. Some of what she was saying, and have no reason to disbelieve that, very much aligned with what we say on here.

I think that, actually, the problem was that she was experiencing a cognitive dissonance between what she'd been led to believe she'd find here and what she found and pretty much malfunctioned.

Because she's linked to a thread that was overwhelmingly welcoming, albeit confident and self assured, claiming she was abused.

Well said, Jaycee.

Fuck I've just read 25 pages of this, just to find out why Donna can't use the men's bathroom.

And no bloody reply.

I bet I could use the men's bathroom and the only reaction would be
I think you're in the wrong room