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.

Social structures have developed that negate the effects of biology and allow women a much better life.

Christ - I wish someone had pointed out these social structures before I went and let the effects of biology make me the one who got pregnant twice rather than DP. Then we could have had one each, he could have had the second c-section, not be able to trampoline without an incontinence pad, be left with hands that ache on a cold day etc.

Oh, wait, no, that's biology, not society that caused that, and society can do bugger all about it being the women who have to get pregnant if a couple wants kids.

I do wonder if vested interests are at play, which would be a shame.

Can we stop with the dark hints about how the women of Mumsnet are being radicalised?

You bet I have a vested interest. Self ID jeopardises my rights as a woman.

Ah just spotted our new friend here on another thread talking in more detail on this supposed infiltration, apparently it's right wing misogynists. Because of course it is.

God forbid women should know our own minds without men pulling the strings huh?

I do wonder if vested interests are at play, which would be a shame.

That would be the vested interest of being female in a male centred world.

Yes I really do think the best thing is to leave the rudeness and sarcasm to one side (as difficult as they may be sometimes!) and just put the facts out there. That was we can't be accused of being 'nasty' or 'piling on' or whatever. We don't need to be sarcastic as we have facts on our side.

I know there are places out there that are actually really transphobic and Mumsnet gets a really bad rep because we are women and people don't like women not agreeing with men, but if you are rude then the poster can just leave the thread and claim they were 'hounded off' by the nastiness (and will go back to twitter and tell everyone how awful Mumsnet is) , whereas actually they were hounded off by reasonable intelligent debate

There is much to be gained by identifying with women, rather than identifying as women.... & it is telling how different the voices who do the former...

@Ellenripleysalienbaby

I am a woman. I differ from biological women in that I don't have a womb or ovaries. Sadly this has meant i could never get pregnant and have my own children. But when I meet people, they treat me as female. They use the words she and her.
We're both women because other people agree that we are women.
That's all I personally claim.

You know what? I'm actually over campaigning against the changes to the GRA. I don't care much what the process is for getting a GRC because a) the whole concept is nonsense and b) self identification is law in practice almost everywhere and any organisation that challenges it and tries to provide female only spaces is targeted, bullied, harassed, threatened and sometimes forced out of business.
So fuck the GRA. You can have your meaningless certificates. The blessing of this campaign is that people are starting to think about what gender identity actually means and how nonsensical it is. The more the TRAs harass and threaten women the more people's eyes are opened.
So have your certificate but we will fight back against the erosion of (perfectly legal) female only spaces.

Pages and pages of people firing replies to the OP who hasn't got a hope in hell of keeping up before then giving up.

This has been me. On AIBU. A lone poster talking about AGP. A year or so back.

Almost every other poster was, in turn, disbelieving, condemning, disagreeing, etc. In that very specific way that can sometimes happen on AIBU.

But because I had 100% conviction, I doggedly carried on.

It was very important to me to counter what was being said. And to do so in a way that didn't immediately alienate either the other posters or any lurkers.

I've been on other threads where my conviction, about a different issue entirely, wavered.

It's quite possible to have a debate or a discourse, without it turning into a bunfight. Being a lone voice, unless you're being aggressive, can be hard work. But if you have conviction, I would have thought it was an imperative.

@GoodyMog

Women do know their own minds. But we should be told the truth. And be presented with both sides of the arguments.
Are you one of the people spreading lies everywhere?

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

Start campaigning babes because this is exactly what's happening.

But if you have conviction, I would have thought it was an imperative.

YY. Do it for the lurkers. If your arguments are sound, people will think about them. But so few appear to have the courage to argue their case.

I am a woman. I differ from biological women in that I don't have a womb or ovaries.

Is that because you have, or have had, a penis and testicles?

What is it that makes you a woman?

Sorry, I am not being goady, I just feel this stuff and these distinctions are very important.

We're both women because other people agree that we are women.

Can you define 'woman' without using the word 'woman'? I can.

@Datun

Thank you. It does seem like 100 to 1 against me here. But I think the truth needs to be told. People have been telling lies. The other side of the argument needs to be heard.

Ellenripleysalienbaby

I'm not a well read feminist, at all. But when you do read about the history of women, so many things slot into place it's an illumination of blinding clarity.

When men came back from the war, they wanted their jobs back. Women were doing them. So there was a concerted campaign. All those ads, infomercials, films, etc.

It's fascinating in an uncomfortable way!

Are you one of the people spreading lies everywhere?

What lies? That's very emotive. Whaf about the lies of TRAs? Have you challenged them too?

But when I meet people, they treat me as female
They pretend you are female.
They use the words she and her
Out of courtesy
We're both women because other people agree that we are women
People don't agree you're a woman. They pretend.

Hahaha, are you asking me if I'm a man pretending to be a woman??

People have been changing gender for nearly 70 years. Why has this discussion com up now?

Because this isn't about gender. This is about transgenderism - and that is new.

Stop pretending transgenderism is the same thing as transsexuality. It isn't.

Until very recently there waa a clear distinction between transsexuals (people with dysphoria who want change their bodies and live as the opposite sex) and other people such as transvestites / cross dressers and men who fetishise women and live in women's clothes for sexual thrills etc as well as people who are simply gender non conforming.

Now, they're all under the much wider banner of transgender.

There is a huge rise in transgender teenagers - especially girls.

You mention unwritten rules. Yes, there are unwritten rules and they ARE changing.

Laws effect the unwritten rules society is built on.

In this case, selfID gives out a very strong message that we should accept people are whatever gender they day they are - and that makes a difference.

At the moment we know men have to live as a woman for a considerable period of time before being eligible for a GRC.

You may not have one, but it sounds like you would be eligible for one.

If selfID happens, then we won't be on strong ground to challenge any male people in our safe spaces - as there's no way of knowing of they are genuine or not.

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?

Donna I am a woman, I was diagnosed with gynaecological cancer during IVF. As a consequence, I had a hysterectomy and am unable to have my own children. I take HRT (the R means something specific).

Every woman knows what this means.... that you don't speaks volumes.

I'm not an invader. I'm not anti-trans. But I do not support self ID. Yes, men who want to offend will do it anyway, but I don't want to make it easier for them, and I beleive that women need safe spaces protected.

I am a woman. I differ from biological women in that I don't have a womb or ovaries. Sadly this has meant i could never get pregnant and have my own children. But when I meet people, they treat me as female. They use the words she and her.
We're both women because other people agree that we are women.
That's all I personally claim.

So if you were to look for heart attack signs you would follow the list for women?

Please see my post above.
You're right that the changes to the GRC won't make much difference to women because self identification is already the norm in practice.
It's the whole concept of self identifying 'trans women' in women's spaces that needs to be challenged. And thanks to the TRA campaigning it is being. Thank fuck.