Spartacus believes in biology.

[HairyBallTheorem]

Transwomen are biologically male. They are born biologically male and they remain biologically male.

I accept that it must be very hard to suffer from gender dysphoria. I wish transwomen well. I support their right not to be discriminated against in housing, employment and in life in general.

But biology matters. It is biology which means that women in Ireland and across South America and in many other parts of the world are the ones who get pregnant and are then forced to give birth against their will by political systems that deny them the right to abortion. It is biology which enables people in cultures which practice FGM to recognise which babies are female and thus decide which ones' genitals need slicing off with rusty razor blades. It is biology which dictates which foetuses are aborted simply for being female, which infants are allowed to die simply for being female. It is biology which means we are, on average, smaller and less physically strong than men and thus at higher risk of domestic violence up to and including murder (2 a week in this country, into the hundreds in Russia which has recently legalised domestic violence).

I am not prepared to lie about biology. Facts matter. The intersection of facts and political beliefs matters.

This is a hill on which I'm prepared to be banned from Mumsnet.

we should at least have the decency to call them a female gendered insult like 'stupid cow' or 'hysterical bitch'. If they want to be considered women they can get fucking used to it like the rest of us

Well i'm not going to be roped into anyone's elaborate twisted schemes for validation.

I won't use misogynist insults for anyone.

I suspect that some trans activists would find those sorts of insults arousing.

Exactly - sissification.

I think it's difficult when someone like IW or PL goes on national TV talking about being a transwoman (by definition, male) and we are not supposed to mention that they are males if their maleness is deemed relevant to the point (e.g. when the vicar on CBB pointed out that IW is not used to not being listened to and said "welcome to being a woman").

Transwomen are male and transmen are female, obviously, as only males can be transwomen and only females can be transwomen.

Personally I don't use any pronouns when talking about IW, LM, PL etc. and have found that surprisingly easy and would refer to them as "male-born" when talking about them as individuals, rather than male if that feels too close to calling them "men" for MN.

When referring to a particular individual, talking about being "female-born" or "male-born" - and how that affects people's behaviour or attitudes in current society - should be ok and enable people to make their points and analysis...?

only females can be transmen obviously

I was joking

I am a biologist.
I am a scientist.
I am most definitely Spartacus (again).

Justine, if we are not allowed to refer to adults born male as men, can we just refer to them as males?

We need to know which term may be use to discuss biological sex, because if there are no terms we are allowed to use to discuss this then we are being silenced, even if the topic itself isn't banned.

So please, what term can be used to describe the biological sex of a transwoman that is acceptable on this site?

Talking about whether people pass or ridiculing their outfits bothers me a lot tbh. I don’t see it much on MN but plenty of FB groups post pictures of men in dresses for laughs. Surely the point should be they can wear a dress and it’s not ridiculous and they’re still men.

I was joking
I know - but the picture in my mind when you said it was StefonKnee [throw up emoji required] - too close to the bone

What surprises me is the assumption that those who exhibit aggressive behaviours towards women as a group and individually, including physical assault, verbal & emotional abuse plus hostile standover and speakover tactics (common in male violence), are sheep who feel "hurt", rather than Grandma in Red Riding Hood who is/are crying wolf by pretending they are laid low by bullying whilst falsely accusing others (MN) of victimising them. The boot is rather on the other foot, so to speak.

These are classic, dominating tactics of high conflict people, in that whatever is said to them, if it disagrees with their opinions, it will be rubbished by them. They are unwilling to meet in the middle. They are impossible to discuss or mediate anything with as they have to dominate - you're either with them or against them, in their disordered thinking. Every disagreement of opinion is taken as offence and whilst on the one hand they're just plain silly, their aggressiveness isn't. The elephant in the room is that it is extremely provoking and very harmful to many women (causes PTSD) to be the receiving end of unrelenting targeting and bullying, using DARVO, and expected to take the dominator's version as read. At least that's been the situation on here and out there, up until very, very recently. By definition, this is bullying, in whatever context. Any woman who has been in intimate partner or family violence knows these tactics.

These dominator types, are everywhere and more vastly prevalent in the male population. By deduction, they must exist in the trans identified population as well. There are some who insist they speak on behalf of all the Transgender movement, although we are told on here they don't. These entitled-crowned peeps, have demonstrated a remarkable lack of feeling, empathy and conscience in their attitudes towards the women here on MN and elsewhere, whilst aggressively de-platforming and smearing our sensible, legitimate, safeguarding and free speech concerns.

Their behaviours and tactics have to be called out, if not by the name of the individual, as we're not in a court of law, then at least for what they are and the harm they cause - like the wolf in the fairy tale, one of the known predator species, with an untoward intent, looking for a feed, in disguise under a nightie.

I hope you’re not expecting me to “cry uncle”.

I am female
I am a women
I am Spartacus
I have peaked!

Surely the point should be they can wear a dress and it’s not ridiculous and they’re still men.

Agreed, but the weird agp selfies you get (wearing a dress completely wrong for their shape adopting a weird pose they get from anime) on twitter do look ridiculous.

David Bowie & Boy George don't look daft - so some blokes can pull it off.

I am Spartacus

Ways to deal with high conflict people

Yet most of our natural responses to HCPs often backfire and make things worse. Many people under concerted attack may have already discovered this.

As frustrating as they are, HCPs tend to have predictable patterns of behaviour that you can recognise once you learn the warning signs. This means that you can learn effective ways of dealing with them when you recognise their patterns of behaviour. One important point is to never tell the person you think he or she is a high conflict person, or similar. It will make your life much worse if you do. Just keep that judgment to yourself and adjust your strategies for dealing with the person. Once you recognise, or even just suspect, that you are dealing with a high conflict person, there is a four-step method developed by the High Conflict Institute in California that is generally effective at calming their behaviour and focusing them on solving problems. This is the CARS Method and it stands for:

■ Connecting with empathy, attention and respect;
■ Analysing options or choices;
■ Responding to misinformation; and
■ Setting limits on inappropriate behaviour.

The method isn't complicated, but it's often the opposite of what you feel like doing when you are faced with a high conflict person. So practice helps. What is so amazing is that the HCP problem is similar around the world and that this method generally works with all types of people. It even works with those who aren't high conflict people, so you don't have to worry about identifying them

www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dealing-with-high-conflict-people-20120812-242hl.html

Agreed, but the weird agp selfies you get (wearing a dress completely wrong for their shape adopting a weird pose they get from anime) on twitter do look ridiculous

As do most pictures of teenage girls doing duckface-loo-selfies. I figure it’s best to roll eyes and not say a thing. Works even better with AGP types as they don’t get any validation too.

Not the same situation but an example of male privilege: when I was assaulted last year, I had photos and an audiable witness. The male who assaulted me had nothing to back up his self defence mitigation .
He walked away from his police interview with no further action.
I even asked the Police why they were taking a males statement over a females.

Male privilege is very much still around.

I'm late as usual, but I'm still Spartacus and I love hills.

Agreed, but the weird agp selfies you get (wearing a dress completely wrong for their shape adopting a weird pose they get from anime) on twitter do look ridiculous.

Yes. Men performing a caricature of sexually objectified femininity not only look ridiculous, they often look creepy, because we can all intuit the sexual motive behind this, and it is not hatred to notice this. Further they make a mockery of the sexism that is forced on women and girls, and women have the right to be offended by this.

Men appropriating women's (and girls', ugh) objectification for their own sexual gratification is not the same thing as men wearing dresses or make up for fun or theatrical effect, a la Boy George or David Bowie. Lots of men look cool in a dress. It's the attempt to look like a submissive sexual feminised object that sets off women's gut instincts of offence, alarm etc.

It's the attempt to look like a submissive sexual feminised object that sets off women's gut instincts of offence, alarm etc.

Exactly.
You see this incomprehensible pose that no woman naturally adopts and at first you feel confused, as though they have made a mistake and just don't know how to pose in a flattering way... and then the creepy realisation crawls across your skin - they do know what they are setting out to achieve, and they feel satisfied they have achieved it - they want to look like knock-kneed, passive, empty-headed, wide-eyes cartoon porn representations of women - from a world of male imagination and fantasy, which has nothing - zero- to do with real women... and yet they think this makes them entitled to use women's spaces and refuges... really creepy.

I am still Spartacus, and a biologist.
Super impressed with Justine and the MNHQ crew over the past few days

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/04/if-mumsnet-can-stand-up-for-free-speech-why-cant-mps/
A must read!

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_13?sprefix=i+am+spartacu&crid=EYSHLELT4VI6&k=i+am+spartacus+t+shirt&tag=mumsnetforum-21

Think we should all sport these this summer.

Still Spartacus here. Come at me bruv as the yoof would say. Although I guess they'd get accused of mis-gendering with bruv, even though my teenager says it to me, so ill change it to come at me guys? oops, no, how about Come at me fam? That's another one the local teens use across the board. Someone better tell them about guys though.

Flomper, how about "folk", the TRAs love that one

Fantastic Spectator article!

Thanks James Kirkup, thanks Justine, and thanks R0wantrees for the link.

I hadn't seen that James Kirkup piece. Superb!