Please change my mind : trans

[lurker33]

I've been lurking in the feminist boards for a while now, watching the discussions on trans. I am generally a live and let live kind of person, as long as it's not affecting anyone else adversely. Unfortunately I am coming to the conclusion that transgenderism is not a good thing; mainly because it appears to be reinforcing gender stereotypes. Why can't we have boys that like traditionally girls things and girls that like traditionally boys things?

Recently I was at an event where there were people who were talking about their experiences in a technical, male dominated area. 5 speakers were billed, two of which were women. Oh, well done organisers of said event I thought, for providing a well balanced panel of speakers, including two women who I could hold up as role models to my 8 yo daughter who had attended with me.

On further reading it transpired that one of the women billed was actually a transwoman.

How can I hold up a transwoman as a role model for my daughter, especially one who has transitioned late in life? My daughter won't have the same opportunities that a boy growing up will have, won't have to put up with the casual sexism us women all have to deal with, and quite frankly my daughter has nothing at all in common with this speaker.

It made me quite angry, which surprised me, and it dawned on me that calling transwoman a woman is actually an insult to women. I'll get flamed for this I'm sure but I can see a similarity to blackface where it's insulting for a white person to pretend to be black as white people are opressors of black people. It's insulting for a man to say he is a woman when men are opressors of women.

I do acknowledge the transwoman's struggle to be accepted for who they are, but that struggle has nothing in common with the struggle that women go though every day. Transwomen should be free to live their lives as they see fit but please don't think they have anything in common with women other than being part of the human race.

Transwomen are transwomen and are of the male sex, women are women and are of the female sex. There is nothing wrong with excluding people from a group if they don't have any attributes of that group. If you are insulted by scientific fact then perhaps you need to think again.

I am not sure what I am asking really. My female socialisation means that I feel slightly dirty for having come to this conclusion. If there are any transphilic people out there, I am happy to have my mind changed if you provide me with some coherent arguments as to why I shouldn't feel this way.

How about chatting to Miranda, who is on this thread?

This is where I step away now Eresh when you start throwing insults at me.

Hardly heinous abuse! They're perfectly nice creatures, though they do tend to take over a conversation rather.

Hi OP, you will get a pretty one sided view on here. I suggest you have a chat with a few trans women in RL before resolving that 'transgenderism isn't a good thing'

OP doesn't need to talk to TIM to decide how transgenderism impacts her and her daughter's life. Why would TIM have a clue how this effects women and girls?

@DN4GeekinDerby 28 May at 19:57, brilliant post.

@RatRolyPoly hope your baby is ok.

Baroquehavoc :
OP doesn't need to talk to TIM to decide how transgenderism impacts her anc d her daughter's life. Why would TIM have a clue how this effects women and girls?

Yes, this ^.

Why do we always have men with issues, coming on here to tell women how they should feel and think and behave about matters relating to being women and girls, born and brought up inescapably in a girl's and woman''s cunty body? Who the fuck are they trying to fool?!

Great post and thread- thx for all the wisdom here

Miranda Wow what a link - there needs to be a separate post about autogynephilia, it's roots in porn and how it's easy access via social media has mind tampered some into confusing feeling sexy and aroused with wanting to change into the same sex that one finds arousing

Yes Bowl. So I'm not sure what we are disagreeing about

You denying AGP exists- now you acknowledge it does so that’s good.

What percentage of people under this umbrella are AGP do you reckon? And what percentage are dysphoric?

What do you imagine the difference in motivation to use women’s spaces is between a dysphoric lerson and a person with AGP?

Thanks all for your input.

I am not sure I am any the wiser. I am still struggling to understand how a man can know they are a woman when the only frame of reference they have are 'cultural and social norms' aka stereotypes.

Daim, I don't doubt there are plenty of nice transwomen, however it doesn't address the fact that their insistence on being treated as women and girls puts vulnerable woman and girls at risk. Transwomen are men, and although NAMALT, there are some that are like that, and they are generally bigger and stronger. This is why we have sex segregation in the first place. Yes, transwomen are also vulnerable, but their rights to be safe do not trump those of vulnerable women and girls to be safe.

Other than for validation, what reason would there be for transwomen to use women and girls spaces if there was a third, unisex space to use? Remember the whole idea of safe spaces for woman and girls is segregation by SEX, not gender. Sometimes segregation is the right thing.

This is why we have sex segregation in the first place

That's how I feel. I am sympathetic to transpeople, but it doesn't change the fact that women and girls need and want sex segregation at times.

lurker33
I read this article yesterday. Its from a few years ago & an interview with Helen Highwater, a trans women:

(extracts)
"Yet she has come to reject the idea that she is truly female or that she ever will be. Though “trans women are women” has become a trans rights rallying cry, Highwater writes, it primes trans women for failure, disappointment, and cognitive dissonance. She calls it a “vicious lie.”

“It’s a lie that sets us up to be triggered every time we are called he, or ‘guys’ or somebody dares to suggest that we have male biology,” she writes. “Even a cursory glance from a stranger can cut to our very core. The very foundations of our self-worth are fragile.”

From the perspective of the contemporary trans rights movement, this is close to blasphemy. Most progressives now take it for granted that gender is a matter of identity, not biology, and that refusing to recognize a person’s gender identity is an outrageous offense. Highwater herself long believed that: “I came from a point—and I think most of us do—of really, really low self-worth and deep shame about who and what we are,” she tells me. “And when people started telling me that trans women are women, you’ve always been a woman, you have a woman’s brain in a man’s body and all this kind of stuff—it’s a lifeline. It’s something you can hold on to. It really helps you to come to terms with things and move beyond that shame.” (continues)

"At first, Highwater felt incensed by these radical feminists. But she also wanted to understand them, and so she began to engage with them online. She discovered “people who had a pretty good grasp of gender as an artificial social construct—the expectations of what females are supposed to be, the expectations of what males are supposed to be, and how much of that is socialized,” she says. “What I started to find is that the women I was talking to actually made so much more sense than the trans people I was talking to.” (continues)

Highwater, for one, struggles to reconcile her convictions about gender with her desire not to hurt other trans women. “What I think a lot of trans people hear, if you suggest that trans women aren’t women, is, ‘Stop kidding yourself, you’re just a man, go back to living as a man,’ ” Highwater says. “That’s not what this means. The fact that I hold these views doesn't mean that I think that trans women aren’t valid. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think they don’t have a right to live their lives the way they live their lives.” (continues)

www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/12/gender_critical_trans_women_the_apostates_of_the_trans_rights_movement.html

OP there are signposts to other MN threads covering different aspects of the debate in this link. If anyone can think of some useful historic threads please feel free to add. Hopefully a few more people will be coming onto mumsnet after the Hampstead Heath/Twitter ban escapades and this could be a good introduction. If anyone fancies giving it a bump that would be

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3246322-A-Beginners-Guide-to-the-Transgender-Debate-A-Signpost-to-Useful-Mumsnet-Threads

lurker33

Other than for validation, what reason would there be for transwomen to use women and girls spaces if there was a third, unisex space to use? Remember the whole idea of safe spaces for woman and girls is segregation by SEX, not gender. Sometimes segregation is the right thing.

I think most trans women would opt to use a unisex space if one was available. Especially if they had not fully transitioned.

I went to school with a trans girl. I know she was born male but i could never see her as anything other than a girl, she was simply one of us. She always used the girls toilets at school, played skipping with us, practised doing our hair in French plaits. It's hard to describe but her very essence and soul just felt female.

I know GC feminist opinion is that she was a feminine male but knowing her the way I did I just knew she wasn't a feminine, gay male. She was a girl.

I realise these 'genuine' transsexuals aren't the problem and it's the potential for dodgy TRAs to self ID as women which is a concern. But every time I read on here about trans women trying to access female spaces for validation I think of my friend at school and the other trans women I know now in RL and how genuine they are.

The trans women i know in RL don't want to upset or offend anyone they just want to peacefully go about their lives. If there was no unisex toilet available they would just want to use the ladies without any commotion.

And I think there is a perception on here that a handful of TRAs saying abusive things on Twitter are representative of trans women as a whole. If you are truly honest with yourselves how often do you come across trans people in RL? And how much are they threatening you?

The perceived threats from these TRAs is far bigger than reality IMO.

Thank you, lurker. You've explained it more eloquently than I ever could.

There are wider issues daimbars, such as press freedoms parliamentary process and free speech:

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/why-are-some-mps-trying-to-shut-down-the-transgender-debate/

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3222471-AIBU-to-be-extremely-proud-of-Justine-Roberts-Mumsnet-right-now

R0wan I don't think the level of fear and concern over self ID is proportional to the risk to girls and women. I know this has been discussed to death.

I think there are wider issues. These are less frequently discussed.

"She always used the girls toilets at school, played skipping with us, practised doing our hair in French plaits. It's hard to describe but her very essence and soul just felt female. "

Seriously, this is just sexist bullshit Daim. You friend should be allowed to do these activities like braiding hair and skipping and be allowed to enjoy them. But it doesn't make them a girl. Fuck sake, women have been trying to free ourselves from this regressive bullshit for years and here you are trying to make it some 'essence' of being female. Fuck that shit.

And btw, this is your personal experience here that you are trying to impose on the rest of us.

It's hard to describe but her very essence and soul just felt female.

This is so depressing. Do people really live their lives categorising people into genders? This is how sexism continues.

This is not a logical basis for laws and policies which affect everyone in society.

She always used the girls toilets at school, played skipping with us, practised doing our hair in French plaits. It's hard to describe but her very essence and soul just felt female.

I played with lego, Meccano, chemistry sets, dinosaurs, and wanted a telescope. I hated dolls, I hated pink. I loved maths.

Was I boy? Or can girls just, you know, like what they like?

Can’t you see how awful it is to say annoy likes skipping and plaiting hair so he must be a girl? Why can’t he be a boy? My friends’ boy was wearing an Elsa dress and skipping round with a wand last time we were at theirs. He’s a boy.

All this ‘french plaiting hair means you’re a girl’ is just sexist, sexist sexist.

No daim... as you really should know by now, there is a ‘perception’ that it is the small number of misogynistic, homophobic aggressive activists who are speaking for all trans people and who have gained the ear of law makers and service providers and that what they are lobbying for will undermine sex based protections and rights for transsexuals.

I am including sexuality in sex based protections there BTW.

Assigned you can disagree with me but my experience and opinions are just as valid as yours. I am all for girls playing with Lego and boys playing with dolls but in my RL experience with my friend this was completely different. She was a girl.

I also had a Christian upbringing where I was told it was okay to be gay, just not to have a gay relationship or formalise it by getting married. I think this is why I empathise with trans people, they are 'allowed' to identify as the opposite sex but there is strong resistance to them having this formalised.

Relevant article:
(extract)
"Thus, the association of pink with girls is itself cultural; devoid of culture, pink has no meaning with respect to the preferences of children, or even adults, of either sex. Notably in the stories for young transgender females, many include a rejection of pink, dresses and princesses, the diametric opposite of the stories from transgender males."
mirandayardley.com/en/common-threads-and-narratives-of-transgender-children-and-what-this-means-for-our-lesbian-and-gay-populations/

There are excellent reasons why homosexuals should be allowed to marry and have relationships. Homosexual people were fighting to have homosexuality recognised as equal not to have homosexuality recognised as heterosexual.

Gender identity is not a sexuality.