Excellent article on the problem of transphobia

[crispbuttyfan]

www.huckmagazine.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/mumsnet-transphobia-online/

"Regardless of intention, it seems to me that Mumsnet has allowed transphobia to become associated with their brand through their inaction. These boards have now become nothing short of echo chambers, spaces in which anti-trans rhetoric is continually employed with little objection."

The evidence is apparent throughout the feminism board.
Where lies are spread with abandon and the truth is slandered as 'gaslighting'.

"I guess a question I'd have is if this becomes reality and phenotypically trans people are completely transitioned even
with functional reproductive systems would you recognize them as who they truley are I. E their transitioned to sex, then? Genuinely curious."

Even given the whole body transplant/implanted in newly grown body of desired sex (I've read my Heinlein, we all know about 'Slipstick' Libby), you'd still have a brain that developing within a male body to adulthood (and was then transplanted into a female body). That sort of Sci-fi body transplant scenario still makes them a trans person (who now happens to inhabit a female body), which is not the same as someone who has only ever inhabited a female body and was raised and developed within a female body. Whilst being genetically female and all that..........

But you lack ambition! If you could do all that sci-fi shit, why not be a galactic class warship, or join your brain with a computer whilst you're at it. Just swapping sex, just current trans with extra knobs on (or not, pun intended!). Still doesn't make you genotypically or developmentally female, or give you the experience of being raised as a female.......everything else is just increasingly complicated cosmetic or transplant surgery. Okay, if we had something like the Culture, and you could have someone who had changed sex/bodies etc more times than they or anyone else could count, who had both birthed and fathered babies, then perhaps -- except there you could argue that rather than actually changing sex, you had progressed beyond humans having fixed bodies at all. Does a female brain transplanted into a sexless star cruiser remain female? (Hello Anne McCaffrey! ).

I don't know why amongst all this, you seem to be the one believing in innate unalterable 'brain' sex/gender????????????

Bloody hell! I can spell sesquipedalian but not Bowl, it seems

Alas I’m pregnant lang but believe me I’m saving them up ...for now though I face this sad debacle sober as a judge

I have however just whipped up a delightful Scandinavian almond cake which I will be partaking of a slice of just as soon as dh and I get a minute to sit down.

Fellow Iain Banks fan here curious

I’ve found my people it seems.

we all know about 'Slipstick' Libby Don't forget Fear No Evil If you can unravel the s/he isms in that one then McCaffrey's Brawn and Brain seems quite simplistic

(Oh! Does my sci fi ism show?)

Yay! There's more of us than I thought

for now though I face this sad debacle sober as a judge

Bloody hell, woman, in that case you're at least a modern day Boudicca!

Have you read Richard Morgan (altered carbon) as well? He has some quite interesting things to say on the subject (I think the first book got the Netflix treatment recently?) stomach churningly gory and violent in parts so beware but the guy is quite clearly of a feminist bent - violence against women is dealt with unflinchingly. The final book is incredibly damning of patriarchal religion and the concept of being able to be decanted into any body is dealt with well.

Eon by Greg Bear also another classic that deals with bodily alterations well. Oh and Ursula le guin- the left hand of darkness.

Good sci fi reflects the present I think more than the future.

sharpens historically inaccurate chariot wheel knives

Greg Bear? Oh yes!

Robert Silverberg's Thorns and most things by C J Cherryh, all that artificial life (AZIs) and Caliban and a whole host of other stuff!

I have a marked preference for pulp sci fi, the older the better, so Richard Morgan has escaped me (he's the same age as me, wikipedia informs me )

Oh I’m very much an ‘astounding’ era fan

DH bought me the books so I had to zip through them. Bit too violent for me but an interesting concept.

I only have time to cover one point as I am off to the allotment in ten mins - but are you saying that a man's skull shrinks, hips move position and size, hands shrink, they get shorter and their blood changes when they transition?

No, young transitioner never formed these phenotypic traits to begin with.

I'll finish by quoting the OP
These boards have now become nothing short of echo chambers, spaces in which anti-trans rhetoric is continually employed with little objection."

To an extent it's true, I didn't want to believe it, but it is. Any kind of genuine questioning, reasonable answer or opposing viewpoint isn't considered with any sort of civility, it's just shot down and mocked harshly. I can post example after example, and I have, but it's excused away then explained how it's not really hurtful...

Here I am trying to say Mumsnet isn't transphobic and a lot of us recognise trans women and trans men as what they transition too; that they're welcomed by myself and many women and the response? Derision, bullying, transphobic rhetoric, being given the 3rd degree. It's no wonder most mums don't get involved in this, when this is the kind of response you get just for saying I disagree with you and I think transwomen are women. You'll never hear the end of it until you believe what people like you want us to believe. literally nothing can be said at this point that will change the fact that this has been a hostile echo chamber only supporting what the article said, which is sad because I disagreed with it. You changed my mind, consider that when you write whatever fanciful things you wish to write about me to try to forget and regress into what you already believed.

p.s. Sisters don't be silenced by these people if you have trans friends speak up for them otherwise these people will claim they speak for you.

p.p.s. For the people that genuinely were interested in talking and gave me things to think about too, thank you.

signing off

Good flounce.

But honestly, I'm saddened that you take criticism of your explanations of your own subject so badly, rather than being interested in learning more and becoming more articulate about it.

Being better at explaining things is not transphobic.

Once more, good luck with the (presumed) baby.

It's so disappointing that posters like @Mumtobe25 never stick around to answer questions. Really reasonable questions that simply follow from the points they made, and asked without being bullying or harsh. Disagreement is not bullying. Pointing out the inadequacies in your argument is not bullying. But hey ho.

It's so disappointing that posters like @Mumtobe25 never stick around to answer questions

She did stick around for long enough to markedly improve her ability to write an intelligible post though which will benefit her and her readers.

FWR is a hostile environment for charlatans, this is true. It seems to me that people must know this before they come in the door to try their skills at obfuscation, persuasion, dominance, and deceit.

Really reasonable questions that simply follow from the points they made, and asked without being bullying or harsh.

I've been asking for an explanation for months now...how this transformation actually works. Because there is never an explanation just a repetition of the mantra. Almost like there isn't one.

So the OP clearly agrees with the anti-feminist piece (and indeed with MRA's) that feminist women are really just man-haters, and that women shouldn't be trusted to a space of our own without that space being controlled by male authority. Thankfully, the vast majority of Mumsnetters haven't internalised misogyny so completely disagree with that.

I wholeheartedly agree with this part though:
"Regardless of intention, it seems to me that Mumsnet has become one of the very few spaces not gagging women in relation to a subject that has the potential to have a great deal of impact on women's rights and allowed free speech to become associated with their brand. These boards have now become nothing short of a place of refuge for women who wish to question the proposed changes to legislation, who do not believe that biology can be usurped by the imagination and assert their request for a place at the table to debate such a fundamental shift in the definition of "woman". Spaces in which intelligent and open debate continues despite attempts to intimidate MN towers via advertisers and reporting with the intention of silencing debate and women's voices".(see footnote)

Footnote - today I am mostly identifying as a woman who rewrites sections of articles .

It's true, we breed. Everyone's DDs & DSs are going to have to deal with our failures, or hand them on.

Anyone else got a wee crush on babel?

mum, don't be such a rotten sport. Intellectually speaking, unfortunately you've brought a knife to a gun fight. And just to be absolutely clear as you seem quite intent on believing that we are violent stalkers: this is a metaphor, where the biologists here have the imaginary guns of their intellects, and you have an imaginary small fruit knife to bring to the battle of the wits.

I still don't know what sesqui-whatsit means, and I'm quite cross because I identify as adorably pompous.

I think Crispybutt has made it quite clear that they share the current MRA and transgender advocate's position that women's rights are anti men's rights and anti transgender rights.

I'm sorry I didn't read the whole thread but I find this whole talk about hips and skull sizes incredibly reductive of what the female experience means. It makes me really sad that young women (and I'm still pretty young myself) would agree to such misogynistic discourses to the point they can't even mention their own biology by fear of offending others. The burden of dealing with periods, with fertility and infertility, pcos, endometriosis, being pregnant or trying to be (or not to be), the pain of giving birth, postnatal depression, knowing that in other countries you might have been aborted for your lack of penis on the screen, or you might have been through FGM, knowing that statistically there is a good chance you would be raped or assaulted at some point in your life...This is core to my understanding of being female (not that I would identify as one, I just am). It is like that woman on facebook who got kicked out of a group for arguing that bleeding is NOT a small aspect of having periods. It is the constant dismissal of the lived female experience, of our struggles, the belittling of our bodies and what they achieve, womanhood being reduced to a 'pink' brain. I can only assume these women must have very little experience or must have lived very sheltered lives, but I will make damn sure my daughters grow up knowing that periods, blood, lochia, vagina etc are not taboo/offensive topics.

Mumtobe actually said 'this has been a hostile echo chamber only supporting what the article said, which is sad because I disagreed with it.'

Presumably the next bit then means that she changed her mind and now does agree with it?

Her writing style may be difficult to untangle, but I'd rather not misrepresent her.

Mind you, 'You're bullying me and my friends, and you ARE transphobic, and I was going to to tell my friends you aren't, but you've spoilt it now' is all a bit reminiscent of talking to teenagers.

Good flounce.

Temporary flounce. Betcha.