Are you saying the current Gender Recognition Act should be repealed?
I'm a radical feminist - I don't believe that gender is anything but social stereotypes and prejudices based on bullshit sex-roles. I believe that your body and biological sex is immutable. I believe that man or woman are just nouns, they should have no value judgement attached to them. Women AND men are only limited by the social construct of gender, and enshrining it in law is antithesis to what I believe. I am not a bio-essentialist. That said, the current law doesn't exist in that world, and I am not a lawyer or politician. I believe that enshrining gender stereotypes in law is wrong, but I know that this is a minority view. I am, however, entitled to it.
If so, are you suggesting withdrawing hormones from those who have already transitioned?
Yeah totally, I'm going to break into people's blood and suck all the hormones out of them, then stand by with my pointy black hat and cackle as they suffer. Don't be fucking stupid. Do I think that it should be harder to get hormones? Yes. But that comes into that I don't think that there is anything WRONG with being a man or a woman and have a man or woman's body and that we shouldn't be mutilating people for the same reason we don't tell people with eating disorders they ARE fat and disgusting. I do think that children should not be given hormones for non-medical reasons and think we should fight this idea that puberty should be a lovely, empowering experience where you blossom into a mature adult and are validated by it, and if you're not, you're going through the "wrong" puberty. Puberty was hell because my body was changing in ways that were often painful and uncomfortable - but also because society treated me like meat for having large breasts.
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?
I think that women fought long and hard to get public toilets and to now say that its wrong for them to have them is ignorant of history and denialism of the real, visceral problem of male violence.
I work in prisons, and trans offenders should be housed in line with their sex in vulnerable people wings. The women's estate has enough problems without acting as a pressure valve for the male estate and moving dangerous male-bodied criminals into the women's estate moves the risk onto vulnerable women. Women should not be set on fire to keep transwomen warm, especially when those transwomen are Ian Huntley.
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?
Where is the backlash against them? If you look at the replies on these kind of posts the people pushing back are exclusively radfems. If the trans community is so aghast they should clean their own house.
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?
I am a lesbian, and when I came out a few years ago, one of the first things I read online was that I had to accept trans women and their lady penises as female and put them inside my body or I'm a bigot and "literally" killing them. This has only got louder over time. Dating as a lesbian in a large city is terrifying enough with the risk of getting gay-bashed without also risking turning up to a tinder date and finding a male person sitting opposite you and wondering if you reject them whether shit will go down.
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? www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-discrimination
I think that women's rights are so new, and they're always under attack. I think its easy to forget that women have only recently been able to participate in many sports, let alone been able to actually work as a professional sportswoman and make a living wage. That the ONLY thing that has increased the proportion of women in parliament is labour's all women shortlist and EVEN WITH THAT, its under 25%. I think that we are STILL punished financially for having children, that we aren't promoted enough, that we are raped and murdered because of our sex but it's not considered a hate crime. That there has never been a day without rape. That when women and girls do better at something it is devalued and considered oppressive to men. I think that these things are shocking and a national disgrace. I think we need to overhaul the whole fucking world and radical feminism is the only ideology that advocates this.
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?
Wearing dresses isn't female, having female friends doesn't make you a girl, playing with girly toys isn't female. Puberty itself is scary. I would work hard to help my child in any way possible, but I wouldn't LIE to them that they were a girl. I'm a radical feminist - I want my child to grow up as an empathetic, caring person who doesn't feel constrained by the gender box society puts them in. The solution isn't to construct more boxes, or make the boxes sturdier. It's to tear the boxes down.