Are you inadvertently being transphobic? Find out here

[AskBasil]

A lot of Twitter transactivists think Mumsnet is transphobic. Every time women ask for a definition of transphobic, they get blocked, so you may be confused as to whether you're transphobic or not. So I thought I'd be helpful and give you a few examples of what you must not believe, if you don't want to be a transphobe.

If you believe any of the following, you are transphobic:

• Female mammals gestate their young in their wombs. This includes human mammals.

• Only females menstruate.

• A penis is a male organ

• A vagina is a female organ

• You can find out whether your baby will be a girl or a boy by going for a scan

• The duchess of Cambridge has given birth to a baby boy.

• Gay men have male bodies and want to sleep with other men with male bodies

• Lesbians have female bodies and want to sleep with people with female bodies

• A woman is an adult human female. A female in this context, means of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes

• A man is an adult human male. Male in this context means of or denoting the sex that produces gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.

These are just some of the basic things you need to stop believing if you want to ensure you don't engage in wrongthink. I hope this is helpful and will guide you in ensuring that you learn to think correctly and stop being a terrible bigot.

That made me laugh Truscum please do it again in the ladies changing room

Truscum
Thanks for being here and giving us your side of things.

I meant 'perspective' - side sounds rude. Apologies.

Under Birds Eye ha ha love it. I am so fed up with the paranoid tra lens complaining that everything under the sun which doesnt centre them is transphobic.

Well, having read some of this thread. I've learned I must be transphobic. Who knew?!

I'll have to let DS trans-man friend know the bad news next time they come round for tea 🙄

Does deliberate transphobia make sense?

I am trying to think of an analogy with homophobia..

So I am imagining someone who feels really cool, at ease and comfortable with gay men and lesbian women, hanging out, chilling, etc.

Then they choose to be 'deliberately' homophobic.

So how would that work? Would they regularly strap a tens machine on and set it on high, while they watch episodes of OITNB and Drag Race until the association with discomfort becomes so strong they start to feel dread and fear at the very thought of homosexuality?

Is that how you deliberately become phobic?

trans women face challenges natal women will not, and natal women face issues that transwomen will not.

Absolutely there are some differences. But surely the question is how big are those differences? When, where and why do they matter? By how much do they matter and to whom?

If you're in a toilet with separate cubicles why does it matter?
If you're physically vulnerable to men because your hormone/ muscle biology makes you vulnerable why does the chromosomal difference matter?
If you have a vagina, surgically constructed or otherwise you are still vulnerable to rape, in a way that a man isn't so why does the difference matter?
If you have a prostate then you may need to get checked for prostate cancer, so yes then it matters.

Does that really not sound reasonable?

Ah thank you

ReluctantCamper it’s the exasperation starting to show through!

Ooh you're off down the rabbit hole Permission. Not joining you tonight.

Ooh you're off down the rabbit hole Permission. Not joining you tonight.

That's a bit rich when you want the whole world down a rabbit hole.

That's a bit rich when you want the whole world down a rabbit hole.

These TRA are so damaging for those who are non-binary who just want to quietly get on with their lives.

Exactly this.

The other day I had to go to my local sexual health clinic.

When I had to fill out my details I was asked my gender and given four options. At no time was I asked what my birth sex was.

So when someone goes in saying they think they have an STD or to get contraception is the HCP transphobic is they ask what junk you have?

If you're in a toilet with separate cubicles why does it matter?
If you're physically vulnerable to men because your hormone/ muscle biology makes you vulnerable why does the chromosomal difference matter?
If you have a vagina, surgically constructed or otherwise you are still vulnerable to rape, in a way that a man isn't so why does the difference matter?
If you have a prostate then you may need to get checked for prostate cancer, so yes then it matters.

Ok well toilets. It’s not a transitioned trans woman that’s the issue. It’s the fact that self ID would let any man enter and no woman or girl could challenge that. So safety/safeguarding there. Note that men are the threat.

Women are more vulnerable - hormone treatment doesn’t diminish Male strength much but again, the threat isn’t from the transwoman transitioning and taking hormones, it’s from men self ID big into the space. That makes transwomen vulnerable too.

Rape - again the issue is men. It’s not a trans woman with a reconstructed vagina women are wary of, its men self id ing into the space and us being unable to question or challenge.

The common thread here is that a transwoman who has transitioned is no threat. The threat comes from the consequences of self ID, which allows any man, with fully functioning Male biology into any female space, without right of challenge. Thevthreat to safeguarding of children is similar - it’s not the transitioned transwoman, it’s the self IDd man. And the ‘no need to disclose’ And guides sharing tents with the opposite sex.

There are so many consequences.

at May the wine open

and Under Bird's Eye

and Blessed be the fruit-shoot

Cannot stop chortling at those and I haven't even had any wine. The wine's not gone and opened.

I'be been giggling about those for the last hour

Mumsnet is Mighty

If you want to be watertight, just say Trans Women are Women.
If someone asks what a woman is, repeat it.
If someone asks what the “trans” denotes, repeat it.
If someone says- hey, it’s fine to wear a dress whilst sporting a peen, tell them they’re obsessed by genitals so they feel like a rotton perv.
If someone says- but I don’t identify with the gender I was assigned, because it’s the shit one and pays me less and got me raped, then tell them not to attempt to derail the conversation about mens’ oppression.

Maybe to be sure we’re not going to Transphobe Jail we should just punctuate our sentences with TWAW.

• What’s for tea transwomen are women?
• Birds eye fish fingers and fruit shoots transwomen are women.
• How long til it’s ready transwomen are women?

Etc twaw

Lying in my Trans Tables Are Beds laughing

I think roast dinners may be transphobic, well chicken ones anyway.
Because of the breast.

Men can have babies too.
It should be Mansnet.
And soon will be.

But then you're excluding the TIM parents so that's transphobic too...

This is complicated. I think Bird's Eye had the right idea.

Potato potato potato.

Im worried many on AIBU don't realise how transphobic they are. Should this thread be restarted there?

Truscum you made me genuinely laugh out loud at the mirror comment.

Wandering past the Tampax aisle without adopting a withering look and a tut.

Rabbit holes - Transphobic.
Mother Nature - a transphobic bitch

Die in a fire - not transphobic

Captain Birdseye - last seen crying into a plate of fishcakes. (Has since announced via twitter they are enby.)

Wandering past the Tampax aisle without adopting a withering look and a tut.

That's incredibly passive, and all good cis allies owe it to themselves to activate on behalf of others who would find a discussion like this triggering, hurtful and exclusive.

Unless you have staged a protest outside any store with a feminine hygiene aisle and started an online petition to spread the word about how transphobic it all is, I'm afraid you're failing and are probably transphobic as you do so