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Are you saying the current Gender Recognition Act should be repealed?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

Although I suppose there's a chance it could be me who's mistaken; do you have any examples?

Lol

Seriously though, can't be arsed, if anyone else wants to pick up the baton feel free.

don't need single sex corridors that the toilets lead off, we don't need to know someone's born sex all the time so we can fear them - it's too far. It does women no good to suggest that that is what we need in Britain today.

Rat, I think you (and super match) are being very calm and reasoned!
Different opinions are said they are wanted but then when given you are accused of being a sealion(!) disengenuous, sometimes a man, friend with tras or a tra and now an arsehole!
And about the lack of empathy- calling a trans person ‘a man in a dress’ shows an extraordinary lack of empathy.

I assure you, I dismiss the concerns of both men and women at least equally

That’s why it’s so important for people to fight for more services for Male bodied people and lgbt+ services.

Male services and trans services. Lesbians are in with the other women.

And anyone throwing DARVO around would do well to consider who's views hold the majority of the power on this site.

Why do you keep saying this like it is some sort of threat?

@FarFrom

Rat, I think you (and super match)

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Ereshkigal the suggestion was that there were women on this thread who's concerns I had dismissed; I have reread all of my posts and not once have I done that. I haven't done that in any of the quotes you have posted either; i rather wonder in what capacity you're posting them?

Oh, ta FarFrom. I won't say I always enjoy the debate, but I very much believe we need to have it.

I'm on the app, so cant refer to the questions, but I have been a radical feminist since I was a teenager, simply because I believe that women can never achieve liberation or even equality in a society built for and revolving around the rights of men.

This is separate to the fact that I am gender critical and believe sex dysphoria to be a distressing mental illness, not evidence of a "gendered soul". Gender is one of the methods used to keep society revolving around men and transition is used to purge the unworthy from the ruling class.

Both of which are different to my belief that vulnerable women should be protected, they shouldn't have to ask for female only spaces or health care practitioners. This should be provided as standard, if you are vulnerable even questioning the provision provided would be too much.

My sister was given a male social worker, she had no idea what she said, or agreed with because she was so focused on not upsetting him that she wasn't thinking straight. Thankfully, he noticed and arranged for her to enter a women only programme and transferred her case, but my sister's history should have meant that a man never came near her in the first place.

Why can't we, just for once, put ourselves first and say "This is ours, we fought for it, paid for it and some of us died for it. Fuck off and get your own space"

Although I'm honestly unsuprised that society is coming at this issue from a "what about the poor menz?" persepective, it comes back to the first point. Society is designed around men, if they want something, women must fall over themselves to facilitate that.

So for me it's a question I really wish we'd all stop asking to be honest because it just makes everybody angry and I'm not even sure it matters to the practical result.

And if the interviewer feels they need to know, perhaps for the sake of their other employees, then undoubtedly they've run that past the "proportionate means to a legitimate end" clause of the EA, and can ask. Because otherwise I'm pretty sure it's illegal under discrimination law, isn't it?

Rat, I think you (and super match) are being very calm and reasoned!

Lol all the people who agree with me are right

i rather wonder in what capacity you're posting them?

? What is that supposed to mean?

You obviously have a very different idea of what constitutes "dismissing women's concerns" than other people on this thread and others then.

Again, your selection of quotes is frankly bizarre Ereshkigal. If those are examples of women on the thread presenting their concerns and me handwaving them away, well I can't even...

You literally said you dismiss people's concerns.

Anyway, I'm off. Definitely off this time.

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when..!"

"You need to stop asking this question. Why can't we just go along with the idea that TIMs are women? What does it matter to you? You've still got your EA exemptions!"

But yeah, like AAK who is more sensible than me I'm going to let you balance that ball on your nose and stop distracting you now. It might help with the hangover.

Hormone treatment and surgery have nothing to do with the GRA. I thought you'd have realised this after pages of people unanimously saying 'no, don't be stupid' in response to your second question. Yet you come out with:

If it was illegal to change sex do you think a person's gender dysphoria would blow over and they would learn to be happy in their own skin?

Or do you think there would be a lot of dodgy surgery and illegal hormone trading on the black market?

• which suggests that either you have no clue what you are talking about or you are being extremely disingenuous.

Less than 5000 GRCs have been issued since the GRA was enacted. The vast majority of trans people, even those who have had hormones and surgery, don't bother getting a GRC because it's obsolete.

You can get a GRC without any hormones or surgery. You need two medical reports, at least one of which confirms you have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. You don't necessarily have to have treatment.

By the way there is already dodgy surgery going on and illegal hormone trading, for example where someone does not meet the age or clinical criteria for NHS treatment they may seek surgery abroad or buy hormones over the internet.

I believe trans people need to be campaigning for their own safe spaces.

Some people have been at the suggestion that we have had an 'honour system' but that is exactly what we have had for toilets and changing rooms for a very long time. We actually have no clue how many of the male people using women's toilets are trans and how many are cross-dressing wanky men or just doing it for a laugh, and we have no way of checking. So until very recently yes, there has been an honour system in these specific contexts where we will politely turn a blind eye up to the point where a male person's behaviour (including how they choose to present) causes us alarm. The understanding has been that at that point, we can raise the alarm and challenge their presence.

I don't know if that is still possible. Travis Alabanza managed to get topshop to allow him access to female changing rooms even though he doesn't ID as a woman.

In more formal contexts (anywhere requiring ID) specific rules and guidance have been developed, often differentiating between those with a GRC and those without. One thing that is often posted is the notion that prisons treat people on a 'case by case basis' and this is not strictly true.

Prison instructions for trans prisoners can be downloaded here - scroll down to '17/2016 The Care and Management of Transgender Offenders'.

The prison service go by legal sex, first and foremost. They're not allowed to ask to see a GRC but they can ask for a birth certificate (the sole remaining thing a GRC is good for). If a prisoner has a female birth cert (original or obtained via a GRC) they will be housed in the female estate unless they present an exceptional risk, in which case they may be moved to a men's prison, purely because this is where the facilities are. They will still be housed separately from men and will be accommodated in line with PSI for female prisoners. TW prisoners with a GRC are treated as female in all circumstances.

There is case law directly referenced in the prison rules linked above that says that even if a tw is in prison for attempted rape, if they have a grc and hence a bc that says 'female', they must be sent to a women's prison. The bar is very low as we have seen in various cases that have made mainstream media.

Only for trans prisoners without a GRC - i.e. those who are legally male - are decisions made on a case by case basis. And the Transgender Case Board are no fools, which is why all those self ID trans sex offenders are still treated as male prisoners in the male estate.

Changing the GRA to a self-ID process would allow all of them to be treated as female. The vast majority would have to be moved to the female estate, with only the few exceptionally dangerous ones remaining in the male estate, but housed there as female prisoners.

Don't have any strong feelings about the rest of the questions, but this one really annoys me:

"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?"

To take the last point first, I remember as a (feminine) girl being absolutely terrified at the thought of puberty, binding my breasts etc. I hit puberty young and just wasn't ready to be an adult. Indeed, feeling scared of puberty and the reality of being an adult sexual being (either male or female) is entirely normal and something many/most people experience. It says absolutely nothing about gender identity let alone biological sex. (Needless to say, within a few years, I was perfectly happy to be an adult female, breasts and all.) Any caring parent would comfort a child who was scared of puberty, and put their feelings in context by explaining how normal their views are at that age, and how confusing and scary puberty is for everyone. They would not dream of casting irrevocable judgement on their gender or biological sex based on this very common feeling. Let alone actually consider medicalising it.

As to your child "wearing dresses" and "repeatedly telling you they were female from the age of three", I remember my dd insisting her nana was really male at the age of three, because she had short hair! The reality is that small children are trying to make sense of the world at that age, and do tend to leap to over-simplify the world eg categorising 'people with short hair' as male, or 'people who wear dresses' as female. Any responsible adult in that situation would explain to a small child that people are not defined by what they wear, and that men and women can wear whatever they like. Oh, and that his nana was not 'a boy' because she had short hair.

The idea of telling a child that they have to define themselves and everyone else according to their clothes preferences is just shocking to me. What kind of dreadful parent sends a message to their child that they can't choose to wear what the hell they like and that boys/girls have to fit into narrow categories that abide by patriarchally-approved dress codes? What do these parents do when they come across David Bowie and the New Romantics? Does their head explode? Do they think Duran Duran were all women, then, because they wore some fetching make up? Is David Beckham really a woman as he chose to wear a sarong? This sounds like something that would have been regarded as hopelessly old-fashioned and ultra-conservative and sexist 40 years ago. How have we managed to go back to a world where people like you can imply that gender-segregated clothing is normal or desirable? And more than that, how can you have the brass neck to imply that that is a FEMINIST position??!!

OP - do you think that women who wear trousers are really all men inside??!

What point were you trying to make with this question??!

I am both angry and baffled.

Your stance hurts both men and women. Feminists have spent decades fighting these limitations on how men and women may dress and behave. Boys aren't cissies if they cry or wear pink and women don't have to dress like 'ladies' and be sweet and meek all the time.

My question to you now - if you genuinely think that if a boy likes wearing pink or flowers or a skirt, or (shock horror!) "plays with girls", that this implies he is less of a boy, let alone actually a girl, how can you dare to call yourself any kind of feminist at all?

What is your real agenda here?

TL:DR - agreeing with gender stereotypes is NOT a feminist position.

If you want to limit people to fitting into prescribed gender stereotypes, there is no remote way you are a feminist.

So don't pretend you write as any kind of feminist, OP.

Apologies if points made umpteen times, haven't RTWT.

I don't care if it's already been said, your post was bloody marvelous @xxyzz

I would really like if the people advocating hormones and surgery would stay away from GNC children. Let them grow up and figure things out for themselves as adults, once the higher brain functions are fully online and they've had a chance to gain some life experience.