Emma Healy ex-Mumsnet employee address's transphobia on feminist boards.

[crispbuttyfan]

What do we think of this?

"Firstly, labelling what goes on on MN as 'discussion' completely misrepresents what is going on. Whilst, yes, I wouldn't argue that there isn't ~some~ 'civil' discussion, the vast majority descends into scaremongering and hate speech."

"There were many staff members, me included, who raised concerns about what was being said on site - but it was never taken on board. Any criticism has been dismissed as a smear attempt by 'trans activists' rather than actually thinking about what was being said"

Post edited by MNHQ

No rat again that’s whataboutery. Muslims or terrorists have no bearing on TRA threats to women. If you’re talking about irrational fears that are common let’s take spiders - replace ‘black people’ with spiders in that last post.
Now it sounds a bit ridiculous- the only reason to use Muslims or black people in the ‘what aboit’ Bit is because both those issues are genuine ‘isms.’ And people don’t like being ‘ismd’ and will happily start to tell you all the reasons why they aren’t racist or islamophobic for fear of being labelled such. They wouldn't do that with spiders, they’d just ask you what the heck you were on about and then continue to press their point that was never answered which was is it OK to house male bodies sex offenders with female prisoners and if so why?

@RatRolyPoly Yes :)

Muslims or terrorists have no bearing on TRA threats to women.

But I didn't see her post as replying to one about TRA threats to women, I saw it as replying to a chain where she said she thought some of the fears expressed here were overblown, someone else implied they were reasonable fears because they were all real things happening somewhere, so Gasping replied that that doesn't make a fear rational; using black people (or Muslims in my post) as a comparison

Have I misremembered? Because that's not whataboutery by my understanding.

Yarnswift I'm genuinely asking in good faith, but is yours just a hobby interest in forms of argument?

No I’m paid six figures to deal with highly unreasonable egomaniacs. It’s great fun. Works well with toddlers too.

If anyone would like to answer whether they find it acceptable to house Male bodied sex offenders with female prisoners I’d be really interested to hear the answers

Phew, glad to hear it Gasping.

Ok now we’ve established that black people (oh the irony) and Muslims are human, perhaps we could talk about the Male rapists housed in women’s prisons?

Or you could derail again? You asked for a rational fear. Men. Sex offenders. Female prison estate. That’s a pretty rational fear. Isn’t it?

No worries yarn! I hope I didn't seem rude asking, I just wanted to be able to adjust my tone with some context :)

No you don’t seem rude, you seem very in sync with gasping. You two obviously share ...similar thoughts.

Anyway, sorry to nag on about it but shall we have an opinion on female prisoners sharing facilities with Male sex offenders? It’d be nice to get an answer within a thousand posts or so. A rational fear was asked for and a rational fear has been presented to you. What’s your opinion on this?

I don't mind taking about make rapists in female prisons! I am broadly happy with the situation as it stands whereby prisoners are housed in the prison of their chosen gender regardless of GRC status, but that every single prisoner is risk assessed on an individual basis and ultimately housed where the authorities deem necessary to ensure the safety of others as far as possible.

I don't always think they make the right decision (who does?), but roughly speaking that's my stance.

Or you could derail again?

It wasn't a derail; I'll tell you why.

We have now established that it wasnt whataboutery.

There are a couple of magic buzzwords thrown around here sometimes that are like silver bullets for shooting down an argument without engaging with it. Whataboutery is one, DARVO is another. Any lurkers watching may see one of those words trotted out, perhaps not fully understand it, assume it is a reasonable objection and consider the first point debunked. But as we can see these labels are not always applied appropriately, and often shut down a logical point of debate unfairly.

We have now established that it wasnt whataboutery.

No we haven’t. You just said it wasn’t :) assertion isn’t establishment.

Are you confident that each prisoner is assessed and housed fairly? Because I’m not. All female prisoners are vulnerable. There are not enough places in the female estate to Make sure that all trans prisoners (half of trans prisoner are sex offenders by the way) are housed in a manner that ensures the female prisoners safety. That means that women who already have a shockingly high incidence of sexual abuse against them are forced to share facilities like showers with men. That is not OK in my book.
There has already been one sexual assault because of this. In Ireland, prisoners are housed in estate of their birth sex, which to me seems a fairer way of doing things.

Self ID opens up many scenarios like this - if we are to protect the safety of trans people AND the safety of women and girls we cannot just rush blindly into self ID. These questions need answering. How will it work in real life? What are the dangers? Can we not do this in a way that is NOT a zero sum game but which protects trans rights while not stripping rights from other vulnerable groups? How will this affect women from faith communities whose ability to exist in the public sphere is already limited? How will it work in hospitals? In medical settings? How do we prevent abuse of Children in the name of early transitioning? How do we square this with medical ethics which currently forbid irreversible methods on children? How does this affect already too narrow gender stereotypes? How do we prevent conflicts of interest with pressure groups like mermaids training the police (which seems tobhave led to one arrest already) and the NHS when it goes directly against NICE guidelines?
Those are all real word scenario based questions and all rational. If you want to call them fears then you can. They need to be carefully looked at. Consulted on. Debated.
And that’s before we get into the more esoteric but still important arguments about language and the nature of reality and the denial of scientific fact.

So yes, there are many rational fears.

but that every single prisoner is risk assessed on an individual basis and ultimately housed where the authorities deem necessary to ensure the safety of others as far as possible.

You clearly have a lot more faith in the prison service than I do.

How far do you think these unwanted advances went on multiple vulnerable women before the prison service intervened. How many more didn't complain because they didn't want to be called transphobes, bigots etc.?

Please note this person was segregated rather than being moved back to a male prison so they will still have to be searched, observed showering etc by female prison guards who themselves have a right to dignity

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4856268/Transgender-rapist-moved-women-jail-segregated.html

Are you confident that each prisoner is assessed and housed fairly? Because I’m not

Well look, people aren't perfect, but if the way we do things at the minute was wholesale failing (rather than just the odd occurrence here and there) we'd see far more evidence of that IMO. Obviously the mistakes, such as they are, are serious and we need to learn from those, but I don't see evidence that the current system is dangerously failing women across the board.

Totally accept your opinion about Ireland of course.

Self ID opens up many scenarios like this - if we are to protect the safety of trans people AND the safety of women and girls we cannot just rush blindly into self ID

I don't follow why self-ID is relevant to the prison situation really. What I'm describing is the case in prisons right now. People are housed in the estate of their self-identified gender already; there is no requirement for a GRC.

So if the GRC becomes available through simple self-identification... nothing will change.

Sorry, x-post Miri!

You clearly have a lot more faith in the prison service than I do.

Yes, perhaps I do. Although I'd be surprised to learn that I was an optimist after all this time!

I do appreciate your example and the practical difficulties, but I don't think there's a single system we have that doesn't fail some people some of the time. So perhaps actually I just have lower expectations!

That's not to say failure is okay, that those who are failed don't matter or were a fair price to pay or whatever, it's just the reality of large-scale policy enacted by necessarily flawed human beings.

The point at which action is taken should not be ‘when enough women have been raped’.

A GRC should be mandatory imo. That would separate out the genuinely dysphoric from the predatory/AGP. Prisoners should NOT be able to self ID into female estate. Half of trans prisoners are in for sex offenses. They (trans prisoners) also have a right to safety - all prisoners do regardless of their crimes- at the same time, the safety, dignity and privacy of female prisoners is compromised by a single trans sex offender in their space. They shower together - even if no one is so much as touched, that’s still an affront to their dignity. These are vulnerable women. A disproportionate number are survivors of sexual abuse. It’s unacceptable to me that they are sharing intimate space with men, at all.

I find this troubling. Very few women are in the clink for serious offenses. Most are in after shit lives have led to petty crime, drugs etc. Then they have to deal with this.

To me a better option would be separation within Male estate. Of course trans prisoners need to be safe, and if they are at risk from the male population they need to be protected - but NOT by moving to female estate.

The point at which action is taken should not be ‘when enough women have been raped’

No, precisely, and I was at pains to express that that is not what I'm saying. I'm simply saying that to guage failure of a system you have to account for a basic level of human error.

I'm prepared to change my stance and say a GRC should be required, but only if I see evidence that the way things are right now (which doesn't require a GRC) isn't working for women.

Of course I'll be looking for more than just the odd outlier incident, but also I'm aware I have a degree of bias towards liberalism so in my own mind I'll try and account for that. Obviously I am in no means an authority here, just explaining the process by which I've come to my position and what would convince me to abandon it. I completely respect the alternative perspective.

Rat (evening)
Why do you think we have certain facilities separated by sex now? (or have had until very recently)

Let me try again.

Comparing trans campaigners to paedophiles or serial killers from horror movies seems excessive and inflammatory to me and these posts are still up all over the place.

It doesn't mean that I think you all endorse these views but it does mean that I won't agree with you if you declare that there isn't any transphobia here or transphobia gets deleted.

not asking you to agree that there's no transphobia here GaspingShark.

How about those examples of threats of violence by TRAs against gender critical feminists that I mentioned earlier? Had a think about those? Agree that it happens and is abhorrent?

Yes.

still think my unease around attending a womens place meeting is excessive? should I take my baby to the Oxford meeting? TRAs don't mean us any harm so that should be fine right?

On the original post, I dispute the phrase "the vast majority descends into scaremongering and hate speech".

I would agree there is sometimes some scaremongering. I don't agree it is the "vast majority", more like a small minority.

From what I've seen, there is very little, if any, hate speech and anything that could be reasonably interpreted in that way is deleted.

As discussed up thread, if referring to humans as male and female based on their biological sex is considered hate speech, then there isn't a great deal we can do about that.

Given the wilful conflation of sex and gender by TRAs by being pro female sex, we automatically get painted as anti-trans. If we can't agree a common language, we won't be able to discuss the effects on all the people affected.

If TRAs tell me I am transphobic for excluding transwomen from my definition of women, because they are of the opposite sex, I don't accept that.

I don't wish any ill on anyone (except perhaps Trump, Putin, and Kim Jong-il), I just think there should be separation by sex where to be inclusive is potentially harmful. We have separation by sex for a reason. Why change it if it risks harm to those of my sex?

I'm saying it has no impact on the legitimacy of trans rights.

We've always been accused of scaremongering.

When we said "rapists will be sent to women's prisons" we were told we were being ridiculous.

And yet lo, it has come to pass.

Trans rights are the rights of men to be treated as women by women. Men are responsible for 98% of all sexual crimes, almost all against women.

Threats of violence by TRAs against women can easily be seen as part of male pattern violence against women. As a result, women are absolutely entitled to say "you know what, I don't want these men who think they are women in my space". If their behaviour was more typical of women (women do not feel threatened by other women in the normal course of things), the situation might be different but it is not.

GaspingShark... I think, both having read the comment and listened to the live meeting in Bristol that Posie Parker is making a link between how a damaging ideology may spread.
Her views are a matter of public record.
The mis-reported view that 'transgender people are parasites' was also discussed at the Bristol meeting.
Have you watched it?