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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.

There are huge changes in society happening that are detrimental to the safety of women and girls and selfID is very much a part of that.

Like this story for example.

A woman wrote in to a Canadian newspaper after this concerning incident in a changing room (Canada has already embraced Self-ID).

I am a senior woman. Recently, a “man” claiming to be transgender, who had not yet begun physical treatments, was permitted by our local Y to use the women’s locker room. There are no secure change rooms. The person they allowed in was not courteous and stared at me while I struggled out of a wet bathing suit. He was naked, had an erection and playfully asked ‘do you come here often?’ I understand that gender is no longer judged solely by genitalia, but does a brief contact with the duty manager mean that men not yet committed to gender reassignment are free to disrobe anywhere they choose?

Until very recently the answer would have been that the swimming pool should have enforced single sex rules so this person would not be allowed in the changing room in the first place.

But things are changing. The woman's general concerns about intact men accessing woman's changing rooms were totally dismissed. Instead the answer emphasised transgender people's rights to be wherever they want

The answer included Transgender women, regardless of their status regarding surgical intervention, have the absolute right to use the women’s change room. This can be a difficult matter, primarily for the trans woman involved... It’s easy to sympathize with those who are surprised to see male genitalia in a woman’s change room, but considering some of the stuff hanging loose in change rooms, it’s peanuts.

The writer urged the women to report this person - but no different to if a woman behaved in a threatening manner saying your concern is not about genitalia but about behaviour.

This is massive gaslighting of women - we know men are a threat to us. Telling us to treat them all as individuals and not recognise the threat to women and girls is putting us all in very real danger.

The response the woman got simply would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

The move to SelfID is very much part of this change.

BuggerBugger

I can completely understand you wavering. Many women have done just that.

It's probably useful to point out that a lot of the women here have been talking about this, been absolutely mired in it, for several years.

If you talk about it on social media, such as Twitter, it does make you very cynical and hardened.

Transgenderism is one thing. But the reaction to women who disagree is quite another.

Many women have been threatened, doxxed, bullied, even hit, for their viewpoints.

I don't think, for single second that this is representative of transsexuals. I do, however, think that transsexuals are now a minority.

You will see, on almost all the threads, a regular distinction being made.

But, at the end of the day, to resist this onslaught does that mean that the very ideology is now challenged. Every step of the way.

To get an idea of the violent reaction that women are having to withstand, take a look at this link.

Don't be put off by the title. It's an important record.

fairplayforwomen.com/misogyny_hate_silencing/

The tone of a lot of the debate though turns me off and makes me head towards a liberalish standpoint.

Bugger the political wing of the transactivist movement has already achieved the following (just a few examples of many):

*Getting the Guides to drop safeguarding procedures that could result in teen pregnancies on camping trips.

*Getting Women's Aid to consult on allowing male-bodied people to work in domestic violence refuges where many women (and their children) may have PTSD related to the male body

*Allowing male rapists to be accommodated in women's prisons.

If you think that this is a liberalish position, you are mistaken. It is a an anti-woman position associated with the far right - and no amount of TRAs shouting Nazi at feminists changes this. And if you find that women failing to obey female socialisation and pointing these things out in blunt terms drives you towards this liberalish position, I'm not sure there's much left to say. Levels of politeness are not the issue here.

OK Donna, let's put it another way.

Say I was really religious and you were an atheist and we had totally different belief systems. I was in a car accident and I survived. I truly believed that my survival was the will of God and started telling everyone that the only reason that I was alive was because of God's love, God is great and he saved me.

You probably wouldn't say to me 'that's ridiculous, you are alive because the way that the car happened to crash meant you did not sustain injuries incompatible with life'. You might say 'ah yes, that's lovely, he was looking after you that day' and watch on as I continued to go to church. Or just not say anything at all and allow me just get on with my life, even though you don't believe in any way that God really did save me, you just don't want to be rude.

However, if I then started insisting that you categorically believe that God saved my life that day, forcing you to go to church, forcing you to repeat the mantra 'God is great and saved Ellen's life that day', forcing you to pray. Well then you might start having something to say. In fact you might just blurt out with oh for fucks sake Ellen, of course God didn't save you that day, everyone knows it, no one actually believes that you were 'saved by God' they just don't want to be rude to you.

Do you see where I am going here?

A stat dec would be BETTER because you'd have to legally declare you intend to stay in your new gender.
But what does that mean? How do you police 'gender'? Without a definition of what a 'gender' is, how can anyone prove that they are 'staying in their new gender'? How could any legal action be taken against someone who failed to stay in their new gender?

Donna, do you truly believe that the people involved with SexMatters are "not interested in women's welfare" "far right" and "misogynists" as you've commented elsewhere before dropping into Mumsnet?
Because if you do believe this, then you're either a victim of propaganda or a distributor of propaganda.... and yes, its very important to identify and refute lies!

You talk about an invasion spreading lies which made me wonder when I first started noticing there was something amiss with changes to the treatment of women's rights.

It was this thread on the changed IOC ruling : www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2555455-To-think-that-this-is-the-end-of-womens-athletics

So that was January 2016 and it shows the remarkable difference that many posters just couldn't believe it was happening. In fact one poster said that the OP was BU "unless you genuinely think that in 50 years time every female sport will be dominated by a 6' 10" born man with a pair of fake breasts. Maybe I am naïve or have a little more faith, but clearly this will not happen."

Which is interesting because just two years later we get Laurel Hubbard, Hannah Mouncey, and Andraya Yearwood who are all competing as women without undergoing SRS, who have obviously male musculature and skeletal structure but it's all ok because they've grown their hair...

@DonnaBe You are wasting your time. We've seen time and time again that these 'women' don't know how to debate and presenting actual facts does nothing to moderate their views. Conversely the more facts and logic you can cite, the deeper into their emotional and self righteous beliefs.

'we are capable of thinking of ourselves' 'well that's not what I've been told about Ireland' Is a great example. They aren't well read, but rely on eachother's false information which they repeat back so many times that no one is sure if its true but they believe it beyond any other discussion

It's grossly ignorant but their view that trans women aren't women, I think, comes from a place of insecurity. I doubt very much that any of the extremists have met or know any trans people, its fear of the unknown. They can't tell you why they're afraid aside from hypothetical situations which may be affected, their belief that sports is unfairly weighted or compromised. They think that a trans woman having status as a woman is offensive because 'they don't know what we've been through' which is about as closed minded and ignorant as you can get.

Their are so many issues which affect women at the moment, and demonising trans people is not helpful

It's grossly ignorant but their view that trans women aren't women, I think, comes from a place of insecurity.

Actually, in my case it comes from being a biologist.

It's grossly ignorant but their view that trans women aren't women, I think, comes from a place of insecurity.

OK, on what objective basis are transwomen women then? I'm all ears, seriously.

It's grossly ignorant but their view that trans women aren't women, I think, comes from a place of insecurity

Yea that biology is a right ignorant bitch

Do you want laws based on facts; or subjective opinion?
You need to answer this question.
Why should a birth certificate be changed?

I am all for using preferred pronouns but I think it is dangerous to base laws around a belief system.

Would you agree to laws being made to allow the treatment of cancer with a non evidence based medicine? Would you like laws to be along religious belief systems?

I wouldn’t personally.

A sensible balance needs to be made between the opinions of some people versus objective facts.

the sky hasn't fallen
Nice use of hyperbole there. The sky hasn't fallen but there has been lots of harmful consequences to women and children of de facto self id. Some of them have been discussed on this thread. But you don't seem to have acknowledged any of them - why is that?

They think that a trans woman having status as a woman is offensive because 'they don't know what we've been through' which is about as closed minded and ignorant as you can get.

Interesting. Transwomen only have to read to understand how women are subjugated. It's not a secret.

I don't know why you would think that reading about female oppression makes a woman ignorant and close minded, though.

Is knowledge of male violence something that results in ignorance?

Of course not. It results in risk assessment. Personal, permanent and relentless.

What an odd post.

It's grossly ignorant but their view that trans women aren't women, I think, comes from a place of insecurity.

It comes from my view as a feminist that what makes me a woman is my biology, not some internal sense of woman-ness.

Transwomen aren’t lesser than me. They’re just different. It is not bigoted to know and to say this.

I love that you did 'women' when referring to actual 'women'.

Brilliant.

Do you know about irony in TRA world because sometimes it looks like maybe not...

It's grossly ignorant but their view that trans women aren't women, I think, comes from a place of insecurity. I doubt very much that any of the extremists have met or know any trans people, its fear of the unknown. They can't tell you why they're afraid aside from hypothetical situations which may be affected, their belief that sports is unfairly weighted or compromised. They think that a trans woman having status as a woman is offensive because 'they don't know what we've been through' which is about as closed minded and ignorant as you can get

Actually it's from reading Trans forums/blogs/articles, their own words, that brought me to my conclusions a couple of years back.

Take it up with the rampant sexist, misogynistic, fetishtic males who push that they are really women.

Anyone who actually truly believes transwoman are women are a bit thick really imo.

It's grossly ignorant but their view that trans women aren't women, I think, comes from a place of insecurity.

It's grossly ignorant but their view that trans identified males are women, I think, comes from a place of misogyny and male privilege.

They aren't well read, but rely on eachother's false information which they repeat back so many times that no one is sure if its true but they believe it beyond any other discussion

Thank you, but I have a degree from Oxford and am sitting in a room surrounded by books. I've read a bit of them, too.

And the trans women that regularly post on here are what ? Ignorant ? Insecure?

Anyway, back to @DonnaBe.

The thrust of your posts is all about lies.

Do you think you could attempt to demonstrate just ONE lie.

Not a vague accusation of collective scaremongering.

Just one lie.

Let's go from there.

Let's debate.

Why do the needs of one child trump the needs of the other 29 only in certain circumstances? When it is about the transgender child their needs seem to take priority, but when my disabled child needs extra support it is suddenly all about the rights of the other 29 children and changes for the disabled are oh so unreasonable.

We've seen time and time again that these 'women' don't know how to debate and presenting actual facts does nothing to moderate their views. Conversely the more facts and logic you can cite, the deeper into their emotional and self righteous beliefs

This made me hoot with laughter.

Wimmin, ye are all too emotional. We menz have the real facts. Flexes muscles.

belijin

Why they quotations around the word women when referring to gender critical women?
Does it come from insecurity?

I really don’t get this idea that acknowledging biology could be bad for women. It’s not the fact we can have children that reduces us to brood mares, it’s the gender constructs that have been inflicted on us. We can deny biology all we like but there will always be people who are impregnated and people who are impregnate.
The people who are impregnated will always need laws to protect them because they are physically vulnerable during this time and also more vulnerable to discrimination at work as people might not hire them in case they get impregnated (this is why it’s actually irrelevant if you ever do or can have kids, just that you are of the class of people who can).
We NEED laws that reflect this to protect women.

Everything beyond that is personality.

It is the Easter holidays after all.