Dealing with inflammatory posts re Trans on MN

[womanformallyknownaswoman]

I am concerned to see the message below from MNHQ at the end of the T thread. Regarding posts that I consider "goady", I have a personal policy of not feeding them, not engaging and not rising to the bait. I ignore them. OPs looking for conflict as a way to feed themselves won't get it from me. Firstly, it's exhausting-they are not interested in dialogue, despite what they say, and secondly the best way to deal with them, imo, is to starve them of attention and not rise to the bait. Don't give them what they want i.e. a fight and conflict.

My concern is I predict there will be a lot more new threads and OPs looking for a fight, as the public becomes more aware of the issues and the tide starts to turn against TRAs. They will want to try and get this Place closed down for discussion, and none of us want that to happen.

Personally I have found it empowering to learn how not to engage and to turn it back on them if absolutely necessary, by the use of ridicule and short rebuttals of their nonsense. I am happy to share some techniques if it will help plus learn more from others. There's no point in trying to score points and win all the arguments they make as it's the engagement down their rabbit holes they want - they literally feed off conflict. They're anti-social remember, so any attention is better than none. They want to keep you coming back and arguing, so they can derail, prolong, provoke and generally make life difficult for MNHQ - to force them to take action. The negative attention "turns on" those looking for a fight….so please don't feed them, ignore them and lets keep this place open.

Message for MN:

Hi all

Since this thread is getting near its end, this seems like a good moment to make a really serious point.

We've just made some more deletions on this thread, and we're pretty exasperated tbh - we feel we're running out of ways to say 'please stick within the TGs or risk losing MN as a place to discuss this issue.'

We're really proud of our commitment to free speech, and we put a huge amount of time and resources to enabling this debate to take place - as many of you have pointed out, it's one of the few places left.

To those who haven't yet been able to stop and look at things from our end of the barrel - please understand that you're risking this space for everyone; if you really can't debate civilly with those you disagree with, it might be time to consider that MN is no longer the place for you. We're sorry to have to say this - we don't like it one bit - but tbh nothing else seems to have got through so far: we're at a point of last resort.

Thanks to all those who modify their first instincts and manage to make their points in a calm, considered and civilised manner - even in the face of goadiness. We appreciate it (and so would Michelle.)

Thanks all

MNHQ

I think it would make a huge difference to public opinion if it was more widely known that the majority of male people currently claiming trans status are more likely to be AGP than to be dysphoric gay men who've been feminine their whole lives.

That just sounds confused though, because it implies that dysphoric gay men who have been feminine their whole lives are actually women, but the thing that stops you being a woman is having a fetish.

No, it sounds like most people recognizing that neither are women but one group is far more of a threat to our safety than the other.

Or that neither group are actually women, and that our polite acceptance of calling those with dysphoria women, and enshrinement of that in law, has opened the door to all sorts of other people who don't extend us the same courtesy.

No, it sounds like most people recognizing that neither are women but one group is far more of a threat to our safety than the other.

I agree. It leads into uncomfortable conversations about offending. "Civilians" who aren't involved in these discussions at all can see immediately that rapists don't belong in women's prisons and that safeguarding (DBS procedures, etc) shouldn't be compromised given the history of abuse scandals in this country.

They can only make sense of this issue if they understand that a) dysphoria is not any kind of increased risk factor for offending, b) the presence of any paraphilia, including cross-dressing, is an increased risk factor for offending, c) the trans umbrella population includes both.

The distinction is vitally important if people are to properly understand the implications of self-ID, but it is a very uncomfortable conversation to have.

Certainly, but I think that's a harder point to make with the general public, whereas people with AGP self-IDing into women's spaces is a very easy one that most people have no difficulty grasping the implications of. And useful in getting the issue onto their radar.

Are you aware that any transitioning person after about three months on hormones is either infertile in the case of a trans man or with testosterone blockers a trans woman is chemically castrated.

If they are under the NHS they then need to wait at least two years before gender reassignment surgery. This is where the two year wait comes from to get a gender recognition certificate.

The NHS in line with worldwide best practice is reducing the time living in the gender they will live in for the rest of their life before eligibility for GRS to one year.

The consultation has not happened but my best guess is self-declaration with a one year wait supported by a professional person confirming the person has lived in role to be the most likely outcome of a change to the GRA.

Much of the hysteria has nothing to do with the reality of what happens day to day but rather is based on fears, maybe understandably, wiped up
using theoretical extreme examples.

It really isn’t hard for solutions to be reached that respect the rights of women and trans folk.

As the saying goes “let’s take.”

'Woman' is still a protected characteristic, as it should be.

There is no 'hysteria', there are women refusing to consent to their erasure.

Let's take? Take what? Or was that talk? Since that's what women are trying to do, but keep having their 'irrational fears' rationalised away and that concerns and feelings are hysterical.

I don't see a whole lot of respect towards women in that. It's not in the slightest bit reassuring, in fact quite the opposite. 'Let's Take' is unfortunately a very apt way for how it feels.

Quite the Freudian slip there Sue. Unless I misunderstood you?

the hysteria

Women should be hysterical at what's happening, but unfortunately it's under the radar for most.

Sue, that’s as maybe but it still means that women and girls are left in a situation where they feel that they can’t challenge someone who they feel shouldn’t be in a female safe space and where groups like Swim England are saying that people can use the changing rooms they feel like.

WAWAG?

Let's take

The ability to define the word woman

Your ability to meet and talk

Your ability to discuss how changes to the way you're defined affect women and girls

Your right to object to your daughter sharing overnight accommodation with someone of the opposite sex

It's got the makings of a good campaign slogan...

It made a difference to me, too, when I discovered it and I am trans.

I had never heard of this AGP thing until a year or so ago and struggled to understand it when someone first described it in a post.

How could someone who felt male, fancied women, but loved dressing up and getting sexually aroused as a result actually want to remove the very thing that got them aroused.

As I recall we were told that the effects of transition could easily be a decrease in sex drive and surgery then was quite hit and miss and often went wrong. So I would have thought that anyone with AGP would run a mile from physically transitioning unless they were seeking a cure maybe.

I then read some of the stuff about it and understood a bit better and soon realised that in the various clinics I had attended in the 70s I had probably met a couple of these people.

They used to spend their evenings and weekends in bars and on the town in flamboyant clothes and bragged about it a lot. They had a huge wardrobe and were always telling me about. They did this as recreation I felt and it seemed to me to be a 'relaxation' to them, but afterwards they said they needed to go back to being male for a bit until ready for another fix.

It reminded me of a girl who I made friends with in the psych unit as she was regularly going out on town getting blotto and had a bit of a drugs problem and she went in and out of highs and depressions too.

Neither of the two who were at the clinic transitioned as far as I know. One was persuaded out of it and had some electro therapy. The other changed his mind twice whilst there and that red flag was enough for the doctors.

He wrote to me for a while afterwards and carried on secretly cross dressing and got a girlfriend - after which I hope he stopped, but I have no idea as I stopped answering his letters.

I always just assumed they were transvestites.

Are you aware that any transitioning person after about three months on hormones is either infertile in the case of a trans man or with testosterone blockers a trans woman is chemically castrated

Yes. Assuming we all know this.

But there are a huge number of male people claiming to be women just by self-identification alone.
No hormones.
No surgery.
No changing of presentation whatsoever.

These people from the Goldsmith school of postmodernism don't care about taking hormones or transitioning in the traditional sense at all.

Woman means something.

I always just assumed they were transvestites.

It was the same in the 80s, Jaycee. Nobody would have dreamed of seeing the TSs as the same as the TVs... including the TSs and the TVs themselves! This is what has changed.

Sue, what happens now with proper safeguards is not so much the problem.

It is the hundreds of thousands of people who say they are trans but are currently unwilling to follow the rules to get a GRC.

Suspicion about some of them is inevitable because the major thing that trans people want removing is assessment by psychologists, psychiatrists and endocrinologists on the grounds it is 'not necessary' if you are just socially transitioning.

As you will still need those checks if you are physically transitioning.

So the problem here is not the ones who will go through gatekeeping because of the need to see doctors.

It is the ones who do not want to, because in those cases at best it is just a self expression and a bit of full time cross dressing and at worst they may have some kind of paraphilia that gets undiscovered.

The former should always get a GRC. The latter, in my view, should not without going through the checks and balances for their own sake and the rest of us being asked to legalise their status.

It is really that simple.

@merrymouse

"Genuine question - How relevant is AGP to the discussion anyway?"

I's say hugely relevant when you want to explain that some males fetishize being 'female'. Massively offputting but be careful, arguing about them identifying as lesbians will get some LGBT people upset because they conflate genuine lesbians with trans lesbians!

In another sense I think AGP is not relevant. These people still have rights to all normal protections, to dress as they choose etc.

But like all male people they are not female. I think their inclusion under 'the trans umbrella' does harm to transsexuals but in some ways strengthens our cause as women.

So, Personally I think it is best to be honest, AGP is harmful to women but it is not the only reason that males are not females or that females and males deserve their own spaces for intimate things (changing/toilets), potentially dangerous situations as thrrse are (along with prison/hospital/hostel) and of course refuge and rape crisis and the right to meet to discuss our oppression without males present.

I don't want to undress in front of my father-in-law, brother-in:law, adult nephews, my male boss, male colleagues or male neighbours. None have AGP but I still don't expect to share intimate spaces with males.

Last sentence should read “Let’s Talk”. Predictive text got the better of me

‘Let’s talk’ indeed. There is a lot of talking going on. But not much listening.

So many things keep getting conflated in the discussions. Erasure of women’s or trans people’s identities is just wrong. The feminist struggle for gender equality and equity of gender opportunity for all should be wholly embraced by society. Women and trans folk fight on the same side to achieve that.

A man can put a dress on and walk into a woman’s space today. He would not be covered by the protections of the Equalities Act. What he might wear is not a crime but if he misbehaved there are already laws in place to protect or deter such action occurring.

Self-declaration with suitable checks and balances would make zero difference to the current position described above.

I wholly reject the proposition put forward that a man would self declare as a woman at risk of perjury with two years in jail to dress up to go in a woman’s space.

I wholly support that all women and children should be protected from predatory abusive people.

I wholly reject the proposition put forward that a man would self declare as a woman at risk of perjury with two years in jail to dress up to go in a woman’s space.

But the Labour Party are saying any man can self id as a woman and be on all women’s shortlists.
The don’t even have to declare anything, just say ‘I’m a woman’. It’s not just self id in law but self id in our culture too. Labour is already ‘ahead of the law’.

I wholly reject the proposition put forward that a man would self declare as a woman at risk of perjury with two years in jail to dress up to go in a woman’s space.

But why would he need to self declare? Because you couldn't ask him if he had self declared. He would just be there, taking predatory advantage, with all the males who had self declared.

Regardless of this, what if I, a woman, don't consent to males in my spaces, self declared or not? What if the majority of women, once faced with the realities of self-ID, decide they don't consent either.

What then?

@Sue0001
"Self-declaration with suitable checks and balances would make zero difference to the current position described above."

I don't believe you. I also think there will most likely be no checks and balances. I also think even the idea of self Id has altered how society thinks and maybe even led to Girl Guides not being an organisation for the female sex.

"I wholly reject the proposition put forward that a man would self declare as a woman at risk of perjury with two years in jail to dress up to go in a woman’s space"

I wholly disagree with you and actually it's not totally even the point. Men will not need to 'transition' or even need to self id, thet will just use our spaces of they want to.

So women will be so cowed by this utter bullshit that they will never dare challenge a man in their spaces. They will either put up with it, or use the disability access loos, or simply use public spaces less often.

Sue I assume that you mean 'let's talk'. Funny thing to say on the day when we have been stopped from talking.
I think you mean that women should allow people to talk at them.

I wholly reject the proposition put forward that a man would self declare as a woman at risk of perjury with two years in jail to dress up to go in a woman’s space.

I’ve said it countless times but remember that many men have spent years training and working as teachers, priests, youth workers, radio DJs and Scout leaders just to access vulnerable children and women.

Why wouldn’t they put a dress on at the risk of 2 years in prison? Going to prison doesn’t put them off anything else.