Questions from a liberal feminist to the rad fems

[daimbars]

Questions from a liberal feminist to radical feminists.

Inspired by this thread:
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3244342-Has-anyone-else-just-discovered-that-they-are-a-RadFem

I have a few questions for the rad fems. I do get the concerns with self ID and the discussions around that.

The questions I have are for those who have posted comments such as:

You can’t argue with biological fact / trans women are men / being trans is a mental illness

My questions are:

Are you saying the current Gender Recognition Act should be repealed?

If so, are you suggesting withdrawing hormones from those who have already transitioned?

Do you think a fully transitioned trans woman with a GRC to ‘prove’ she is a woman (eg Nadia from Big Brother) should use the men’s loos and be in a male prison / care home / hostel?

Do you think TRAs who say things on Twitter like ‘suck my ladydick’ and 'enjoy your erasure' are representative of transgender people as a whole?

Do you feel transgender people threaten your safety and well-being as a woman? If so what personal experiences (not what you have read on Mumsnet / Twitter / Reddit) have made you reach this conclusion?

Do you think current exceptions in the Equality Act (eg it is legal to exclude trans women from competitive spots and certain job roles such as rape crisis counselling) are sufficient to protect women? https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-discrimination

If your male child repeatedly told you they were female from the age of three, wore dresses, played with girls etc and were very distressed at the thought of male puberty, how would you help them?

My answers are no, no, no, no, no, yes. The last question I would struggle with the most but I would try to support my child to live the life they need to live as best I could. I guess this makes me a lib fem.

I don't think Parliament are gender radicals. I think they cynically thought this would win them easy identity politics cred. I hope they might have a rethink about that.

I think as this is actually starting to turn quite abusive I'll leave it for now.

[12th rule of misogyny: women's ability to recognise...etc etc etc]

I'm not an organisation. Those rules you quote are in regards to discrimination against trans people by employers or organisations. I am a private person.

I find TW=W grossly offensive and as a woman who has experienced a lot of crap including sexual, physical and verbal assault carried out by men also deeply upsetting. Men are not women. Transwomen do not magically lose their strength when they take hormones or shrink in size or shake off their muscles or lose lung volume and so on.

Plus and this is the absolute crucial point, the vast, overwhelming majority of transwomen in the UK are fully functioning, completely undadulterated males (non-op, non-med). They are in the literal sense of the word men in women's clothing. Telling me that I have to concede the word woman to them is an abusive misogynist attack on all women and girls.

Women stating facts is "quite abusive".

Indeed!

If Stonewall says cross dressing men with beards are transgender who then should be able to use the women’s changing rooms in swimming pools (due to Stonewall et al gaslighting...sorry I mean “educating” the establishment about the Equality Act) then women cannot identity whether the man in front of them is bravely expanding the bandwidth of womanhood or a threat to run away from.

We are weaker, slower and generally more likely to freeze than take flight. It’s important that we identify a threat early and/or completely avoid it (hence single sex provisions). Stonewall’s umbrella tactics disable our safety measures.

They are actively undermining our safety.

From an earlier article about trans woman Alex Stewart (mentioned previously)
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/outrage-transgender-prisoner-living-woman-12022675

"The women inmates have had to accept that Stewart is being allowed to live as a woman, despite not having had surgery.

That means she is in the showers at the same time as other inmates, which some have found quite awkard.

She has the right to determine her own gender."

Supermatch

Abusive to say you haven’t bothered to avail yourself of the facts in the debate you are engaged in?

Or to say you don’t understand and don’t appear to have read the Equality Act?

I agree Elltoro. It completely goes against everything we do to keep ourselves safe, like the advice in the Gift of Fear. We shouldn't be expected to ignore our instincts.

That means she is in the showers at the same time as other inmates, which some have found quite awkard.

every time I read this I get the rage. How to minimise a form of sexual abuse.

Me too... and much as it may annoy some, I am going to continue repeating it, given that the women in prison can't.

After calling us alt right because we want to protect women's rights, and getting personally quite nasty with some of us, you have the nerve to pretend it is all a misunderstanding and you didn't know what was being done by Stonewall and other misogynist groups?

Are you effing kidding me.

I think as this is actually starting to turn quite abusive I'll leave it for now.

Remember when you literally described me as "bile"? Pot, kettle, etc.

DARVO
Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.

Absolutely. I'd say "abusive" is saying people must be drunk just because you don't like their posts. And that was a direct PA to Angry.

Supermatch has gone after me multiple times. Because I'm a grownup with a spine I mostly just shrug it off, but from an objective perspective is it a bit abusive? Most definitely.

If you advance search their name you will see it is Swiss cheese because of the abusive nature of their posts. Calling Feminists alt right (white supremacist neo Nazis) with all that entails was to me the ultimate insult.

Even though SMG ignored my comment, I think it is relevant within this context.

I would anticipate that the prison service would have more information available to them (by way of pre-sentence reports, risk assessments, time and resources etc) than a women's refuge.

Just using my insomnia to catch up with the last 24 hours of this thread and although it’s derailed somewhat there is some really interesting discussion here and well argued points so just wanted to say thank you, wimmin!

SMG I cant see where anyone has been abusive towards you, called you out on your behaviour towards other posters, yes, citing recognised forms of misogyny in relation to some of your posts, yes, but not abuse towards you. If you think someone has posted abuse please report it to MNHQ.

This thread is interesting. I would agree that the GRA is mostly not fit for purpose and not well thought out.

But I’d never ‘deny someone’s existence’ which is just a phrase used for emotional blackmail purposes really.

Saying that men, who have not undergone surgery or full transition in any way and don’t intend to either, shouldn’t be sharing spaces with vulnerable women and girls is NOT hate speech. It is NOT denying someone exists. Only that shared spaces are problematic and there needs to be a different solution for the safety and comfort of ALL involved.

The hyperbole around all this is ridiculous. Be your fabulous self in any way you want but don’t expect to get your own way all the time about everything. That’s just fucking childish.

@Supermatch

I was recently in some Stonewall training at work. The advice, from a senior Stonewall officer, given verbally at some length, was that service providers should allow everyone to use the facilities they chose. If anyone objected (the example given was a girl in school objecting to sharing the toilets with a trans girl) then alternative facilities should be provided for the complainer, not the trans person.

This actually contradicts the EA as it is now. I don’t think you can argue that Stonewall want to keep ANY single-sex spaces at all.

If the definition of transgender is a man who is really a woman (or vv) then I can say with all certainty that there is no such thing as transgender.

If the definition of transgender is a person of one sex who wishes to adopt the cultural stereotypes associated with the opposite sex, and possibly to make hormonal and surgical changes then of course such people exist. It does not make them the opposite sex however.

Even then it is not crystal clear as I am a woman but do and wear typically masculine things. But I am not transgender,

This is part of the problem. There is no hard and fast definition of transgender.

It is claimed the definition is a person whose gender assigned at birth does not match their internal sense of gender identity. There is so much wrong with this as a concept that it is difficult to know where to begin.

Gender is not assigned at birth. There is no evidence that we have an internal gender identity.

Until we get a proper, reasoned definition this will go round in circles.

Great posts from charlie and susan

I'd say "abusive" is saying people must be drunk just because you don't like their posts. And that was a direct PA to Angry.

I concur.

New tactic: go after posters who have expressed frustration at modding policies; try to get them to say something that will get them modded; hope that they then get pissed off enough to leave FWR. War of attrition. Ignore and don't fall for it.