What percentage of feminists are on board with GRA

[Childrenofthestones]

Genuine question and I am not trying to be a goady fucker.
I have no data to back this up but from my observations the majority of the left and outside of these boards and awful lot of feminists too are fine with transgender rights and GRA.
Mumsnet was the only place I went to read feminist forums. I was surprised when I read other stuff in the media.
What proportion of self declaring feminists in the UK do you think are of the general mindset here, as opposed to the mindset of the Labour party the Guardian and from what I've seen an awful lot of young feminists on University campuses?

Wildly off topic, but

"people born with vaginas", "women who were assigned female at birth"

Don't you think it would be good to be able to name ourselves in less clucky terms?

it would be good maybe, but in this day and age would discount the experience of many people who do not identify their gender with their biology. You cant turn back time sadly. This is a thing that society is going through and we have to somehow deal with it in a way that is good for everyone.... we arent going to be able to do that by sticking our fingers in our ears and going 'la la la la'

it would be good maybe, but in this day and age would discount the experience of many people who do not identify their gender with their biology

The terms you used are offensive to me and a huge number of other women.

The onus is on people who do not identify their gender with their biology to find terms for themselves that do not erase other groups and colonise their rights.

justabunchofbunting
many people who do not identify their gender with their biology
What do you mean by 'gender' and why is it important?

The onus is on people who do not identify their gender with their biology to find terms for themselves that do not erase other groups and colonise their rights.

This.

We 2 really good words for "people born with vaginas" - women and girls.

I'm not touching 'women who were assigned female at birth'. FFS.

happy to give them "ladies" "fillies" "birds" "chicks" - quite like to keep wench though

yeah

they can have

cunt
squaw
bitch
slut
bimbo
cock tease
MILF
gold digger

i'll keep hag and crone though. planning to become one in about 25 years time.

I think that gender law needs reforming, and I am comfortable with a form of gender self-ID being enshrined in law. I find gender sexist, but I acknowledge it’s an important part of many people’s identity. I guess I view it like I would a conservative religion.

I think, however, that protections on the basis of sex need looking at as a matter of urgency, and there needs to be a clear legal distinction of when a space/service is for a gender, and when it is for a sex.

I think it would be wonderful if gender were irrelevant to people's identity. I'd much rather people identified as birdwatchers or white chocolate eaters or whatever. It would be more meaningful to me.

precisely ALittleBitOfButter

gender - the things you like to do, the things you like to wear, how you like to behave.

that's just another word for your personality. Why the fuck would we use that in place of someone's sex when taking things like safeguarding into account? Particularly as they're incredibly nebulous. For 99% of the population their sex is easily apparent, and taken across the population as a whole gives useful indicators about needs and behaviour.

Sporadic what is the purpose of enshrining gender in law rather than sex? Where there is a need for sex segregation, a person's sense of their gender is not relevant. Where there is no need for sex segregation, gender is also irrelevant. So why does the law need to be involved in relation to a person's gender identity?

I would say that gender is someone's own business. I'm 99% sure I don't have one, but what has that got to do with anything?

most of the time your sex is your own business too. It should only be taken into account on very rare occasions such as

• when providing intimate care
• prisons
• sleeping arrangements for young people

what is the purpose of enshrining gender in law rather than sex? Where there is a need for sex segregation, a person's sense of their gender is not relevant. Where there is no need for sex segregation, gender is also irrelevant. So why does the law need to be involved in relation to a person's gender identity?

Perfectly put.

Answer: no need.

Hm, perhaps I could’ve phrased that better.

I don’t have a gender; it is not important to me.

However, I would like the law to protect people’s ability to hold beliefs that differ from mine. That includes believing they have a gender, or believing in a deity, or believing that all money and goods should be distributed equally, etc. I think it should be protected as any other belief is - and all other beliefs are held on a self-ID basis.

However, I want a clear distinction in law between sex and gender - not the muddy mess we have at the moment. They are two quite different things!

To suppport sporadic, I think that there are discriminations against people based on gender ...how they present themselves compared to societal expectations...so as with any other discrimination, there should be protection.

But sex and gender ( if you posses it ) are different.

However, I would like the law to protect people’s ability to hold beliefs that differ from mine.

Not sure at all about the law protecting belief. People believe all sorts of things.

how they present themselves compared to societal expectations

Protecting people for presentation deviating from social expectations. I can imagine that general principle catching on.

the problem with self ID is that it allows people to change their legal sex to one which is not their actual sex, purely on their say so. There is no way you can stop a man who is not, in any meaningful sense, transgender, from declaring that he feels that he is female and then becoming "legally female" despite having not undergone any actual transition.
Gender and sex are not the same thing. Human beings cannot change sex. I do not believe it should be a human right to falsify your birth certificate in all but the most exceptional circumstances.

Ime most people outside the twittersphere answer these sorts of questions wrt transsexuals. Even when you carefully explain self-id they go on imagining a transsexual because they find the self-id concept so outlandish and irresponsible that they actually refuse to believe that mainstream politicians are genuinely advocating for it.

I think in the younger generations most people are OK with transgenderism in general, the GRA and 'transwomen are women'. I'm in that generation and this is where i was until recently.

Mostly because they haven't thought about it too much.

Partly because in our generation there is a drive to be as progressive and inclusive as possible, which is a good thing but misguided in this case.

And majorly because it only recently started to become a real problem.

The odd post-transition transwoman identifying as female and playing on a womans team really isn't a big deal a lot of the time. In a small community people tend to know eachother, transpeople get a certain notoriety, and it's is possible to be pretty sure that that transwoman is safe to share female spaces with so most people are comfortable with that.

However the Trans Rights Movement has gained so much ground in such a short time that most people (feminists, trans people, and the general public) mistakenly believes that that's still where the conversation and situation is at. Considering how hard and publicly women and minorities have had to fight for the smallest gains it's truly shocking how quickly and silently these vast changes have been brought in.

So when TRAs tell them that TERFS are against trans rights, they think we're still talking about Passing Paula being allowed to come and hang out in the ladies loos at the pub. They don't realise we're talking about Creepy Carl having the LEGAL RIGHT to declare that his dick is female and every one who disagrees is committing a hate crime.

Also, transgenderism is based on sexism, which is still fundamental to the way our society works and the way our whole thought processes are structured. Even if you don't AGREE that dolls are for girls and trucks are for boys, you still KNOW that idea and you have known it since before you could talk. So it's been very easy for Trans Rights to slip in to those same sexist slots while pretending it's about protecting poor disadvantaged people.

TO answer your question, based on my personal friend circle it's about 0% of feminists (and just regular women) over the age of 45 who are ok with the GRA.

It's about 85% of LGBTQ groups who are supportive of it, even if they otherwise agree that male violence is a problem and men pretending to be women shouldn't be in womens spaces, it seems to me they're sort of in the habit of defending and including people who claim to be excluded and disadvantaged.

It's about 50% of the general public under 45 years old accept it. Many of them are swayed with 5 minutes of discussion just showing the harm that is already happening due to it.

No-one I have spoken to so far realises how broad the definition of transgender is, and that most transgender people do not have 'bottom' surgery.